HEIKALINE

How to Customize Your YouTube Homepage

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 22:51:00 +0000

You probably don't give much thought to what appears on the YouTube homepage every time you visit. You should, however, especially if you have a YouTube account. Let's take a look at some of the settings you can--and possibly should--change.

To get started, head to YouTube and sign into your account (if you're not already signed in). Near the top of the page, click Add/Remove Modules. (If you don't see that option, find your username in the upper-right corner, click it, and then choose Account. Finally, click Customize Homepage.)

As you can see, YouTube offers about dozen "modules" you can add to or remove from your homepage. Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, but there are few worth discussing.

First, I strongly recommend turning off Recent Activity, which shows your friends and subscriptions just about everything you've done on YouTube lately. I think what I watch or "favorite" on YouTube is my business, thank you. (Imagine my embarrassment if friends learned I like piano-playing cats!)

Second, if you upload a lot of videos and want to know how they're trending, enable Insight Map and Insight Chart. When you return to your homepage, you'll see various statistics and data on how (and where) your videos are being viewed.

Third, after clicking Save Changes and returning to your homepage, click the Edit link atop any module that has one and you'll be able to make changes to how many videos are displayed and in what layout.

Finally, if you want to change the order in which modules appear on your homepage, just click their corresponding up/down arrows. For example, if you want the aforementioned Insight Map to reside at the very top, click its up arrow repeatedly until it lands there.

YouTube offers a lot more homepage customization than most people think. Experiment a bit and you'll be able to configure your own page exactly how you like it.

HOW TO SET UP CUSTOM CHANNELS IN ADSENSE

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 01:28:00 +0000

Graphic Element Attribution CC 3.0 by Christopher Bettig

I actually didn’t know what the value of Custom Channels were for at least my whole first year of blogging. Then by just casual reading about blogging, I discovered that it could be a way to increase my Page RPM.

SO WHAT ARE CUSTOM CHANNELS ANYWAY?

Custom Channels are the way that you tell Adsense what your site is about. Adsense has only a few ways of determining what your site is about, and what kind of ads to serve on your site.

First, Adsense relies on browser activity. This has nothing to do with your site. Adsense knows the browser habits of your visitors, and serves them up ads that target their interests. Have you ever searched for a hotel, and then went to an unrelated site and found hotel ads everywhere? That is user targeted ads.

Second, Adsense (since it is also Google), knows what is on your pages. Google crawls your pages and picks up keywords. This is a way that they can serve ads related to your niche.

Third, Adsense gives you a way, in Custom Channels, to tell them what you are about. Custom Channels does not control Adsense. Adsense still relies on keywords. The upgrade with Custom Channels is that actual advertisers can bid to be on your site (or niche sites like yours) because they have put in bids to have their ads shown on sites like yours.

So, for Custom Channels, you are fishing to match up with advertisers. They fill out all their keyword and targeting criteria on Adwords. They can be as general or as specific as they want to be. So you are hoping that their specific criteria will match up with your Custom Channels.

Just to be clear, Custom Channels will only help you, not hurt you. By being specific, you will not miss out on ads. You will only get more ad opportunities by putting your fishing pole in the new targeting pond.

SETTING UP CUSTOM CHANNELS

Open up Adsense and go to My Ads. In the left hand column, click on Custom Channels. Then click on the button that says “+New Custom Channel”. Here is the box that pops up:

Give your Custom Channel a name. I like to mirror the name of the ad size, but I have also gotten more specific since I have more than one website that I monetize, so I set up Custom Channels to target for each website.
Second, pick the first ad size you use on your site. You will want to set up a new Channel for each ad so that you can specifically target it.
Check the Targeting checkbox so that the bottom options will show.
In the “Ads Appear On” box, you will want to be specific on what pages your ads show on. You might have them showing on all pages, like a Header or Footer. In that case, just type “Every Page”. But I have some specific ad placements in my sidebar that only show on certain pages, so I might type “Homepage” if I only show it on the Homepage, or “Blog Pages” if I limit that ad to only show on Blog pages.
It is pretty important to input the Ad location, because this is one of the top targeting principles advertisers will use. They may want to be “Above the Fold”, so they will target your “Top” locations.
Description – This is where you can get specific about your site. Use short sentences. Don’t forget to mention what your niche is and who your target audience is. Also mention if you are an expert in any one area that people come to your blog for.

Okay, Save that and you have a Custom Channel.

You are not done yet!

Now you have to go back to your Ad Units and add the Custom Channels.

You probably have ad units set up for all your ad sizes and have been using them for awhile on your site without Custom Channels. Good news is that you can add Custom Channels to each ad unit without having to repaste all your code. Your ad tags do not change so nothing has to change on your website.

ADDING CUSTOM CHANNELS TO YOUR EXISTING ADS

Go to “My Ads” to see the list of Ads you have set up and running on your site. Click each one and choose a Custom Channel for each and Save. It opens up the original interface that opens when you set up a new tag. But this time, instead of passing over the “BLANK” Custom Channels box…now you have Custom Channels set up to choose from!

After you update each ad, you are done. It is one of those things that you change, and have to wait awhile for result, and if you are still in the small income stage, you may not notice whether it made a difference or not. Even if you don’t notice, it is just one of those “good things to do”. But don’t do it before you do something NECESSARY!!!

Mobile Advertising Checklist: Better CTR & Conversion Rates

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 04:48:00 +0000

Mobile Advertising Checklist: Better CTR & Conversion Rates

Moving to a mobile-first marketing focus is helping search experts to build proper bids in Google’s Money Machine, AdWords. Learn how to operate very targeted mobile marketing campaigns by evaluating your ad copy, landing pages and CTR.

In the last five years, mobile marketing and in-app advertising have been successful the forms of digital advertising that are recording the fastest growth and advancements in technology. Today most businesses have embraced the mobile revolution and are investing more in advertising on mobile devices. This places a higher priority of how to build your own mobile marketing strategy around search intent and mobile ad relevance. Our Mobile Advertising Checklist can help.

AI, Machine Learning, Relevancy, and Transparency Shape Mobile Advertising Trends

Mobile advertising relies on qualities of Ad stability and click through rate (CTR) predictability. Ad testing and innovation by digital marketers who embrace necessary changes quickly tackle low-performance issues. Paid mobile marketing managers who innovatively and incrementally approach their mobile campaigns can to de-risk mobile projects and learn quickly how to obtain a successfully targeted mobile campaign. This article will help you gain better returns for your mobile advertising spend and avoid common mistakes when setting up new advertising campaigns.

Entrepreneurs in the mobile space need to always anticipate and spot upcoming video advertising opportunities and mobile marketing trends that will impact their business advertising and be ready. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are being leveraged to enhance the customer experience of mobile apps as well as for mobile marketing automation services, and improving mobile conversion rates. Machine Learning is helping companies increase conversions and predict buying behavior. The goal is to build one-to-one relationships with every one of your mobile users and offer relevant messages. An efficiently launched and finely-tweaked mobile marketing campaign can become the big bang in impacting SERPs, traffic, user engagement, and mobile conversions. Along with voice search, AI, and machine learning, every SEO professional is paying more attention to users across devices in 2018.

Always respect Google as your marketing partner when using their platform. Remember that the company is dedicated to matching content to search intent and is only charging you per click. Your responsibility is to make the most out of this mobile marketing opportunity. It is up to you to ensure that you are showing the best Ad at the right time to the right audience. Google cares about clicks so it rewards efforts that produce Ad clicks. And Ad clicks, in turn, need to sustain a sufficient level of purchases.

Plan Before Executing a Mobile Display Ad Campaign

Delivering ads to target mobile audiences comes down to effectively meeting revenue goals.

The validation of your mobile display Ad Campaign strategy is money. At the end of the day, because businesses are paying for this, it must be profitable for continuous mobile marketing investments. Google tools available to help you choose your keywords can be used in tandem with other tools. The individual marketer who knows how to interpret user data can also be able to better match semantically related search query terms.

” As the size of data collections to be searched grows, it is no longer enough to correctly return query results that match query terms entered by a user.” – Google

Earned search engine marketing uses search engines to reach target audiences, while paid search can benefit a company with the goal of extending revenue gained by SEO. If a user is on their mobile phone that has a limited connection, mobile ad delivery can be both efficient and display your ads on Google Search, Google Maps and Mobile Shopping Carousels, as well as a host of other platforms.

Your Revenue-Producing Mobile Marketing Checklist

Mobile Ad Revenue is Exploding; here is how you can get in on it!

* Ensure your Website and Apps are Mobile-ready

The days are past when only a desktop version suffices; your websites and mobile applications must work seamlessly across every mobile device. To enhance your website for mobile marketing means responsive design and excellent load time, which are best achieved with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Getting under three second load times will boost bottom lines. Based on Google’s mobile page speed research reveals that as page load times take even one second to seven seconds longer, the bounce rate gradually increases by 113%.

Neither users nor Google tolerates non-optimized, poorly navigable pages much: hard to click buttons and tabs, disproportionate or fuzzy images that do not scale to the page, and unreadable content that requires finger zooming can ding your site.

With smartphone users growing exponentially year-after-year, ensuring that your sites and apps mobile-friendly is fundamental. Otherwise, you’ll likely see a loss of considerable chunk traffic, clicks, and customers.

* Understand Searcher Intent:

Search engine marketing, whether through organic SEO or paid methods is strategically simple. If you are a home remodeler in a small town, and someone searches for “home remodeler” and includes the name of the town, then there is a high chance your site can meet what the intent of the search that was performed. Getting in front of the right buyer at the exact time they have a requirement is smart marketing. Commonly, commercial terms are highly competitive across both paid and organic search. For most businesses, there are multiple opportunities for brand-building and targeting relevant customers higher in the marketing funnel. To improve your mobile reach means developing a better understanding of the intent behind search keywords and getting your mobile content in front of viewers fast.

* Mobile Ad Impressions:

You need a sufficient number of Ad impressions to trust your data test results. The impression numbers let you test more variations at once. If low, only do two Ad variations. In this case, we typically kill the ad test and go with the control if there is no clear winner.

* Optimize for Ad Clicks and Conversions

AdWords marketers have a goal of getting that search to result in the form of a lead with the strong potential for a conversion. It is about the searchers intent and providing the user with what they are looking for before being aggressive in pursuing ways to convert. The mobile buyer’s emotions and preferences for transparency and immediacy tell you what is important and digital marketers can take advantage of it. Mobile advertisers depend on seeing and expressing the value of a strong and well-structured Ad foundation when creating new Google AdWords and Bing Ads mobile campaigns.

* Keywords:

Since you are paying per click, it is important that you know how your keywords are performing and their value. Review stats found in the data that your marketing produces to come with the CTR you need. A quality score will make your AdWords campaign profitable. The keyword, Ad, and landing pages are closely related. Each one’s role is unique and a great AdWords manager understands what each one does and how it relies on the other. Relevancy is key. For example, If you offer a 20% discount within your Ad Copy on a buyer’s next car repair order, make sure you show that on the landing page where the user will arrive.

To find the actionable keywords to target that might be found at the bottom of the sales funnel. The search begins often with a head keyword and then continues with a more specific landing page that can convert people. The story begins with a keyword, the landing page answers buyer questions, address concerns, and gives a clear path to purchase. By running your landing pages up against something else, you can make tweaks that lead to the very best landing page per paid search campaign.

Know which of the historical keyword queries to prioritize. It takes time to know who your audience is, where your audience is, and the language they use when searching. Once you have the knowledge of hyper-targeted search keywords it becomes the foundation of your mobile Ad campaign.

* Headlines:

Make your headlines clear, relevant, and rich with promises. If someone is going to click on it, it should reward their choice. Make the time they spend arriving at your desktop or mobile landing page meaningful. Google has recently divided Ad headlines into two parts. They can be used to relate to the search while avoiding the use of superlatives. Stronger buyer sensitivity to ad experience and more sophisticated targeting begin with an enticing title.

Google Product Data permeates many areas, including titles and descriptions. Google Express has retail ratings that influence how your mobile ads show up and how often.

* Display URLs:

You can reach your ideal customers while they’re on the go with ads on mobile devices; for image ads, your campaign must have opted into the Display Network. Display URLs test how to best use the 80 characters.

* You’ll Pay more if you Skimp on Technical Mobile SEO:

While there are plenty of landing pages factors that are binary, meaning either good or bad, having your code technically correct on your landing pages is critical. Google makes it simple to locate issues such as if your JavaScript doesn’t load right, images need caching, and whether or not the keyword (or search query) is reflected with the landing page’s content. If a landing page is only built to convert, you may nofollowthe ones that aren’t engaging users and tend to generate duplicate content issues. Canonical links can also relieve duplicate content that otherwise wastes your site’s crawl budget. We lean on nofollow tags more on web pages that an Ad points to over-relying on the canonical tag.

* Craft Mobile-focused Ad Copy:

Include not only keywords, CTAs, and specific details of your products and services, but also add phrases like “purchase easily on your smartphone,” “order on mobile,” “mobile user’s special,” etc. Use the natural language of your buyers that invites the purchase. Then optimize your AdWords campaign by using mobile ad extensions. Specifically, leverage sitelinks, call extensions, click-to-call ads, and local extensions (such as location, affiliate location).

* Optimize Mobile Spend and Bid Strategies:

If you favor automated bid strategies, try out Google’s Smart Bidding tool. Should you choose to go the manual route, bid your ads to top-performing search results and make sure to test and optimize them to target your mobile marketing goals. This will help keep your campaign with your spend limits.

* Use Micro-moments to the Fullest:

According to Google’s user behavior study, the typical buyer’s micro-moments are heavily sourced from mobile. Ninety-six percent of customers with intent to buy reach for their smartphones when wanting to find something online or entertain themselves. Here is where your mobile paid advertising spend needs to nab their click.

Consumers’ shopping micro-moments are different in each retail category. Learn the exact moments that your ideal customer shops for products like your and then adjust your PPC bid during those time frames.

Think with Google** also states that, “at the beginning of the shopping journey—before consumers have started thinking about specific products or brands—they rely on their mobile devices to provide inspiration and to help fine-tune their design sensibility. Fifty-seven percent of searches in I-need-some-ideas moments occur on mobile, up 35% year over year”.

* Strive for a High-Quality Score:

Generally, having a “7” AdWords quality score is considered good, but we shoot for higher. Load time on mobile landing pages is a critical aspect of SEO and one way that organic search and paid search benefit from close integration. Sufficient mobile SEO budget is needed to understand mobile buyer preferences, different audience targeting options, ad impressions and click ratios. In the long run, if clicks don’t convert, your paid mobile advertising will have little value.

* Know the Value of a Sale:

If the value of a sale if $1000, and you are able to obtain 100% of the needed searches organically to fill your order quota, then you don’t need to rely on PPC. If the value of one visitor is higher than the CPC, than it is definitely worth investing in. Great pay for click campaigns make more sense at lower cost if your organic search results already have solid user engagement. Site visitor engagement remains as solid proof to Google that your website’s landing pages have something going right.

* Combine Metrics:

When evaluating the AdWords accounts that you manage, consider that an Ad with 30 clicks has enough data so that you can be confident of making a solid decision. “Visitors” and “Conversions” are close metrics to look at. An inevitable mobile advertising shift is happening to be more contextualized and create consumer-friendly ads because interstitial ads only alienate mobile consumers rather than boost relationships or deliver real return on investment. Read all your key metrics and tweak to honor what they want. Remember how small a mobile screen is and maximize your mobile advertising on them.

* Mobile Local Ad Optimization:

Analyze your past and current user data more from the AdWords Settings Tab and implement the right Bid Adjustments that reflect mobile user preferences. If you are targeting all US, adding the United States as a whole and not the individual states will force you to perform an additional step and cross-reference your Dimensions/Analytics Geo reports and end up doing the same thing.

Local Ads rely much on location details for effectiveness. Google always takes about the proximity factor and how much it matters for capturing search intent. Geographically specific mobile Ads for specific brick and mortar stores mean that reaching your local audience is your priority. It is the atomic unit that builds out your local Ad. You may gain ancillary eyeballs if local content is not clear. Use local business schema on your landing pages to indicate the area served as well as use industry niche markup.

When people search using the “nearby” or “near me” on Google.com or Google Maps (for example, “dentist near me”), they may see local search ads that feature your business locations. Add your business logo on Google Maps, which naturally increases the visibility and accessibility of your website in mobile search.

Mobile Marketing Trends Change just as fast as Mobile Technology

Mobile marketing winners are typically those who possess the ability to follow trends fast by adopting a tactic before others in your market do. And at the same time, never ignore the timeless marketing basics that move the needle. Every aspect of digital marketing is, by definition, an area where you should follow your audience. Do two businesses are exactly alike. You will need to read and understand your data smartly as well as keep up with the fast pace of mobile marketing trend changes that that are rapidly advancing due to improved mobile technology..

Asif Khan talks about the integration of QR codes, using facial recognition, leveraging AR capabilities in Location Marketing. QR stands for ‘Quick Response’ and was originally invented in Japan for tracking components in factories. Today they provide a way of effectively adding web-based content for integrated campaigns to use with a digital offer and drive engagement with your business brand, ultimately leading to interactions on a website through a mobile experience.

Mobile Rich Image Ads: According to Moz, “Across the board, what we’ve seen is that paid searches on average, in all of Google, gets between 2% and 3% of all clicks, of all searches result in a paid click. Organic, it’s something between about 47% and 57% of all searches result in an organic click”. The article title How Google AdWords (PPC) Does and Doesn’t Affect Organic Results by Rand Fishkin goes on to talk about his research on mobile rich image ads vs desktop and how that influences CTR. In the end, “if you bid in certain cases, you may find that you will actually change the click-through rate curve for the entire SERP and change that click-through rate opportunity for the keyword.

* Video Ads:

Google AdWords is about text Ads and display Ads, while Video Ads are sourced from the Google’s own YouTube platform. It is best to let them complement each other. Whether you prefer starting with one or the other, using them in conjunction will produce even better results. US ad buyers in search of the best return on investment (ROI) are using the Google platform first, and Facebook second; both make Video Ad Marketing easy.

eMarketer predicts that one in four individuals of the global population will use a mobile device to watch video monthly, which will be an 11.9 percent increase from last year.

Additionally, reports that “64% of live streamers have engaged with ads”, adding video content for mobile viewers will align better with their media consumption preferences.

“52% of those viewers prefer free, ad-supported live streaming over a subscription or à la carte services”, according to Marketing Drive’s take on the June 2018 IBA’s Live Video Streaming Report.

* Use Mobile Apps and Implement MobileApplication Schema:

Create a schema markup strategy that can be leveraged in AdWords. Structured data in the format of schema markup can have multiple uses, both for earned and paid search. With the increasing percentage of smartphones usage, many companies now have mobile applications and can then create advanced AdWords strategies to personalize user experiences. Add schema MobileApplication markup on your sites. More websites are using dedicated landing pages for their mobile applications. Mobile marketing success means more than trendiness and novel headline to deliver what a growing number of connected consumers want. New research from Google indicates that consumers are searching for what’s important to them through mobile devices. In this way, they are clearly expressing what they want. We need to hear those messages. These user cues lay the foundation for app marketers to find people who will love their app experience.

* Be Transparent:

Mobile buyers are hyper-transparency sensitive. They want to know what is happening with data collected about them and are more empowered than ever. The GDPR’s reach to US markets has caused a growing realization among advertising professionals that better online transparency may mean more web traffic and sales. “Fake news” scandals and Facebook’s misuse of user’s trust has surfaced the value of trustworthiness in all forms of media advertising. Use factual content and prove your trustworthiness with FactClaim Schema.

Transparency is key across the e-commerce buyer’s journey, say from a product selection on a mobile device to if checkout and shipping is finalized on a desktop; the only surprises that your customers encounter should be pleasant. Make sure that you inform site visitors of your cookie policy and offer detailed product descriptions and high-quality product images to make it easy for your customers to feel confident in their purchasing decisions. Site policies should be easy to find in content of this page, perhaps under “details see our site”.

Mobile ad networks encounter the challenges of user transparency. Struggling advertisers who now request a user’s GAID (phone ID) may be missing a significant segment of mobile web traffic, knowing that in-app traffic currently makes up a small portion of the overall mobile traffic.

“You should also be transparent when it comes to fees and policies. The most common reason for shopping cart abandonment is that extra costs are too high. Too often these costs aren’t listed until the final step of the checkout process, which can cause customers to leave the site before completing their purchase. In fact, 23% of abandoned carts stem from customers being unable to see or calculate total order cost up-front.” – Digital Commerce 360*

* Use Multi-variant Testing:

Decipher which ad bombs and if Ad Variation A has the better impression rate and CTR amounts over Ad Variation B. Know when an Ad, that even if it has a high CTR, is not a winner in terms of cost balance to sales. Google Analytics let you evaluate two ideas and then see clicks versus conversions to find the best Ad copy variations. Multi-variant testing lets you come up with the best Ad headline. AdWords managers gain confidence by seeing over time how performance relates to Ad tests. It is easier than ever to know how your ads perform across devices.

* Mobile Ad Photos: Great imagery helps site visitors connect with your brand and message. Use images that engage buyer’s emotions and help them connect to your ads’ intent once they connect with your business. Keep current with image guidelines for specific forms of advertising. Image ads and App promotion ads need a well-chosen image to immediately connect with the viewer. Both Google and Bing continue to test images in search text ads. Adhering to Ad image best practices will improve your Click-Through-Rate and user engagement.

* Ad Timing and Quality: Marketers are paying more attention to the “timing” of their mobile ad. That’s because mobile users are typically more on-the-go and they prefer that their search is not disrupted with what they were currently doing. That means that timing seems is more critical followed by relevance and a quality ad. Continual messages accomplish less than one that is high-quality and served up at the right time.

If you irritate your mobile audience, they can quickly resort to ad blocking. The “less is more” approach can produce successful mobile marketing results. Marketers that place more thought on being empathetic with user preferences and shift their perspective from being intrusive and interruptive to being more human will find a better following.

Have a Better Mobile Landing Page Than Everyone Else:

This is the page that will be producing revenue for your business, so build in adequate time for testing and for teaks that lead to improvements. The perfect landing page produces traffic that is only achieved by testing properly. Let users show you what your ideal landing page is and should be. Multiple surveys and tests so far prove that fast-loading retail AMP landing pages don’t keep someone waiting after the click and out-perform others.

Keep it direct to the search and minimal above the fold.
To encourage the viewer to scroll down, engage the user and entice them to want to learn more.
Don’t risk boring the reader with too many technical specifications. Know what you are selling. For example, you are selling a FitBit, you are not selling the technology behind it. Buyers care about benefits first and features second versus how a product is made.
Make them one page in length. Avoid clutter.
Typically, they should not be accessible from another page on the website, making measurements easier.
Be tightly themed to searcher intent.
Express content that assures the reader of quality and relevancy.
Let the reader be in charge. Focus less on company history. They can search and learn that.

Components of a High-Converting Mobile Landing Page:

Content that shows why they should trust your business
Benefits of the product or services (speeds up internal work flows, healthiest diet)
Unique selling point (USP)
Clear customer service examples of how purchases are managed if something goes wrong (no fear monger tone)
Features that display/talk about solutions
Trust elements (company guarantee, user testimonials, volume of sold of orders, security seals)
Complete a strong story in natural language
Make your offer clear and provide compelling call to action “get your own now”
Easy customer journey and shopping cart flow throughout

The purpose of the ad is to gain a relevant click. You don’t need a click from someone who is seeking something else and immediately leaves your site. A/B tests need to be equal to produce trusted data for making bid and Ad copy changes. Be on top of this and stop tests before running the risk of breaking down your overall click-through rate (CTR). Your goal behind your AdWords spend is to win the highest CRT for the search. Gaining it means that your Ad is shown more often and at less cost to you.

Agile Processes Produce the Best AdWords Mobile Marketing Results

Give yourself and your marketing team an agile process from the get-go. Make sure everyone has a focus on users. It is the most effective tactic for achieving short-term marketing success. Whether planning a new AdWords campaign or introducing a new digital application for health care or making it easier to manage content creation, user-centered projects prove up strong every time for real and tangible benefits. Seeing things from the user’s perspective offers a huge political value for every business. Focusing on users also serves as a way to navigate through bureaucracy and force divergent interests to agree and partner toward a common goal.

For example, know if a local competitor is running a new promotion. Half of all home furnishing mobile researchers say that retail promotions and discounts affected their purchase decision, and we find that is reflective of mobile shoppers in general.

Use Google Mobile Ads SDK for Native Ads in Android, iOS Application

Mobile native advertising is a popular type of paid media where showing mobile ads follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed. Native ads are paid-for spots that attract and gain a relevant and targeted audience with the intent to drive profitable customer action by personalizing or enhancing the consumer behavior. This makes them more apt to stand out in search for a competitive edge, to be viewed and clicked by users.

Mobile native ad formats aim to benefit both buyers and sellers through an integrated plan to execute and evaluate mobile native ad campaigns. To accommodate new mobile device user preferences, as of March 14, 2018, Google’s native express ad format is discontinued; marketers using paid mobile advertising are directed to now use the Google Mobile Ads SDK.

Mobile Apps are popular because of the many ways a marketer can customize them. Native advertising can be modified for best display on any screen. App design makes it easy to creatively display Ads to appear like an inherent part of the app. It yields a higher CTR and a more positive user experience.

GDPR Changes Google AdWords Conversion Tracking

By default, paid marketers only get tracking for:

Number of clicks
Number of impressions

You don’t automatically see the number of conversions. Google AdWords provides accountable marketing results, which is a killer aspect of mobile marketing. Search clicks, on their own, do not provide you with an indicator of a real lead coming through. You have to modify your columns to actually see conversions in AdWords new interface. Google leaves getting conversion tracking results up to AdWords Campaign Managers who must have the skills to know how to do this to gain conversion tracking results. It is quite a rich “ah-ha” moment to see these conversion results.

See what converts on mobile is harder to find in the new AdWords interface. It is under the wrench and “conversions”. It used to be one conversion tag on your “thank you” page, now Google wants it across your site, too. Now you need a global tag across your site. Conversion Linker, as well as other recent Google updates, are the result of Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) being added to the Safari browser, which many find confusing as there is yet little documentation. Once you have the global tag on, you will need to update your tracking code to an event. No worries about your remarketing tracking code, it is inbuilt with the new global tag.

Google’s AdWords interface has now been updated with this message: “The global site tag adds visitors to your basic remarketing lists and sets new cookies on your domain, which will store information about the ad click that brought a user to your website. You must install this tag on every page of your site.”

ITP and AdWords data were formerly tracked using third-party cookies. The purging of third-party cookies becomes more of an issue under the GDPR, and could prevent companies in the United States “from tracking the source of AdWords conversions that occur in Safari. This would break AdWords click attribution on almost half of all mobile searches”, according to Jeff Sauers, owner of PPC Course.

“Google’s solution to ITP is to push all the AdWords ad click data that used to get tracked via a third-party cookie into a first party cookie. This is the same way Google Analytics tracks conversion data. Tracking via first-party cookies falls into compliance with ITP.” – Jeff Sauer

Cross-device conversions should be included; these are conversions that are tabulated whenever a user interacts with an ad on one device, and later converts on a different device or browser. This metric shows how your ads influence conversions that happen across multiple devices and browsers, such as someone whose first interaction is on mobile and later completes the purchase on desktop.

Google sent emails that offer the following information:

To help ensure conversions are reported accurately in your AdWords account, we’ll be making three changes, consistent with Apple’s recommendations for ad attribution:

1. If you have auto-tagging enabled and a Google Analytics tag on your website, we’ll begin to set a new Google Analytics cookie on that site’s domain, which will store information about the ad click that brought a user to your site. If you have linked your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts, the AdWords conversion tracking tag will be able to use that click information.

2. AdWords will continue to report conversions for users who have recently interacted with Google services and domains.

3. AdWords will also use statistical modeling to estimate website conversions that could not be measured from Safari, and include them in your AdWords reporting

“The idea is that relevance can help to create a better user experience when it comes to delivering ads to target audiences, especially for the mobile environment that now dominates everything we do in business and life.” – Steve Olenski on Forbes***

“I think paid is a solid investment so long as you can prove a good ROI. My frustration comes when folks refuse to invest in organic because it takes a long time to show a similar return. Give it time, energy, and creativity, and organic can vastly outperform paid (but you have to be willing to stick with it, learn, iterate, and improve).” – Rand Fishkin

The Future of Mobile Marketing

AdWords is changing, and more and more it lets digital marketers align with the shopping habits of mobile users. Apps and mobile native advertising is on the increase. Some former AdWords optimization practices and options don’t even apply anymore. Ten years ago advertisers weren’t forced to push mobile advertising to the same extent. Now, as mobile users surpass the level of desktop users, it is time to adjust and keep measuring cross-device user actions.

A mobile marketing approach may well take longer, but shaping a mobile-first advertising foundation saves businesses time and money in the future and your campaigns can experience a better set up for success. Mobile advertisers increasingly seek more granularities in targeting capabilities to reach consumers on mobile devices. To be sure, your ideal customers are there, too.

Mobile Advertising Checklist Conclusion

Every little bit of improvement contributes to your success and makes your site more mobile- accessible and user-friendly – Search Bots and Voice Assistants notice! All forms of web traffic are paid for in one way or the other, if you pay for the click from the search result, or if you pay for SEO services, time costs money. In our experience, mobile marketing optimization around every user experience is where most businesses need to focus in 2018.

We have to stop limiting ourselves to desktop or mobile optimization. We cannot afford to assume that everyone will stop and build iOS apps. That also is not the single sole experience. We have to see anyone who consumes content on all devices and in any situation. Hill Web Marketing believes that businesses are best served when walls come down between the paid side and the organic side.

Over 2/3 of the people who get through the average customer journey still abandon a purchase. Andrey Lipattsev, Partner Development Manager at Google, says “We make it hard!” In the mobile-first world, if your sites are not convenient for mobile users, your business will undoubtedly lose a needed chunk of your market share to more mobile-ready competitors. Mobile marketing is one of today’s big deals and by all accounts will become an even more important aspect in the near future.

Check back soon; we will have a handy Mobile Advertising Checklist PDF downloadable version available.

Obtaining the best mobile advertising ROI requires timing and testing. Hill Web Marketing can help you create relevance and emotional connections to take the relationship between the mobile user and your brand to the next level. Start with aMobile Site Audit

* https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2018/04/19/5-ways-online-retailers-can-improve-their-conversion-rates/

** https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/how-home-furnishing-brands-can-turn-browsers-buyers/

*** https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2017/01/17/when-it-comes-to-mobile-advertising-relevancy-is-not-the-only-key-to-success/

Oracle and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license and we provide creative commons attribution 3.0 were it applies.

3 Reasons For Running Image Only Ads With Google Adsense

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 08:15:00 +0000

I want to share with you an amazing revelation I had just the other day with Google Adsense that has 100% changed my approach to maximizing my earnings with Adsense.

As you already know, sites that are running Google Adsense are a dime a dozen. It’s hard to go anywhere on the web these days and not see Google Adsense ads running. From sites as big as NYTimes and Mashable, to blogs as small as my tablet pc blog, Adsense ads are the prime choice of content producers for earning revenue.

But have you ever wondered, like I have, what are the best ways to capitalize on the Adsense ads you are currently running? I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent optimizing my Google Adsense campaigns – testing, analyzing, then switch things up, then analyzing data so more. I mean, if there were an award for the most time testing Google Adsense theory, then I would be first prize winner!

My Miraculous Google Adsense Revelation

Just the other day, something happened to me that opened my eyes in a HUGE way when it comes to Google Adsense. I mean, I’ve been earning revenue with Google Adsense since 2005 and I’ve never realized this thing that hit me like a ton of bricks, just the other day.

What my eyes were opened to really, for me anyway, answered a long standing question I’ve always asked myself about Google Adsense strategy. And that is: should I use image and text ads, or just image ads, or just text ads?

If you are anything like me, then you’ve probably asked yourself that question a million times and tested things out ten million times. But just the other day, what I discovered has completely answered my question once and for. Or maybe until someone convinces me otherwise – but for now, this is pretty definitive.

So in line with my title: 3 Reasons For Image Only Ads with Google Adsense,let me start with #1.

1) Image ads have a substantially higher chance of being clicked

This is actually easy to see by looking at a text image ad. Here’s an image of 728 x 90 (square) Google Adsense text ad:

This is very identifiable image ad that I’m sure you’ve seen a million times while browsing through your favorite blogs and news sites. But what I want to point out about the Adsense text ad is what I call dead space within the ad itself.

What is dead space?

Dead space is something that is only found in Google Adsense text ads, and it’s the space between the linked (or clickable) title and the URL (which is also clickable. The deadspace is simply the text that falls in between the title and URL.

Next time you’re looking at a Google Adsense text ad, go ahead and try to click the text in between the title and URL, you’ll notice you can’t. And this is the dead space where you could potentially be losing out on valuable clicks.

Compare the text ads with an image ad, and you’ll see that image ads 100% remove the dead space, and as such, dramatically improves your chances of your ad being clicked. The logic here is simple – the more pixels on your screen that are occupied by a “clickable” portion of your ad, the higher your chances are of your ad being clicked.

So with image ads, you’ll instantly increase your chances of generating more clicks because your clickable ad space increases by quite a lot.

2) Smaller Competitive Market Space

I have, from time to time, had a member of Google Adsense contact me to talk about my overall ad strategy with my blog. And everytime, the Adsense rep states that running both text and image ads helps you increase your chances of making more money. They (being Adsense) believes that by running text and image ads, you have more marketers available to compete for your clicks which in turn, increases the profitability of each ad that runs.

From my experience, I actually see the opposite at work. When I run both Adsense text and image ads, the total revenue earned decreases. And I believe it’s because when you run text and image ads, your marketplace of available ads increases dramatically which allows Google’s system to a lower value on each ad impression.

But when you run image ads only, you are decreasing your market supply. With a smaller competitive market now bidding on your market space, it would make sense to me that the amount an advertiser is willing to spend would increase for your site – not decrease.

This leads me to reason #3 as to why I’m a strong proponent to image only Adsense ads.

Higher eCPM

When you run image only ads there is now a much smaller pool of advertisers who ads available to run on your site. Which tells me that the remaining advertisers who are available to compete with your ad space would be willing to spend more for each impression. To me, it’s a simple law of supply and demand. When the supply is high, the price demand per unit is low. When supply is low, the price demand per unit is high.

In the world of Google Adsense, this “supply and demand” equation is represented in the eCPM – ” or the “effective cost per thousand impressions.”

Here’s an image of what I’m talking about in regards to eCPM:

Find a way to increase your eCPM, and you’ll in turn increase your earning potential. Your earnings per click will increase because of your increased eCPM. Basically, eCPM is a value indicator that drives the amount your earn per ad impression.

Image only ads will contribute to a higher eCPM because, as I’ve stated already, image ads increase your total “clickable” ad space per page, and will lean the supply and demand side of the ad inventory in your favor.

Like I said, if you talk to the folks at Adsense, they will more than likely tell you the exact opposite is true. That by running both image ads and text ads you will in turn increase your earning potential because you’ll have more advertisers competing for your ad spot.

3) Higher CPC Bids for Image Ads

With image ads, you’ll typically find that advertisers are willing to pay more per click than with a regular text ad. This is true in a lot of cases because advertisers place more value on an image ad than a text ad. Think about, with a text ad in a 728 x 90 banner ad (see banner image above), the available advertising space in the banner will have not only your text ad, but the text ads of your direct competitors. And even if the other ads aren’t direct competitors, they are still competing for the click.

But if you run a 728 x 90 image only ad, your business now occupies the entire pixel space of the banner ad. Let me put a text ad and a banner ad together so you can see what I’m talking about:

728 x 90 text ad

728 x 90 image ad

In the text ad above, notice how there are actually four advertisers presented in the 728 x 90 ad space. But in the image ad, it’s only one advertiser that’s occupying the entire ad space.

Because image ads occupy 100% of the available ad space, you’ll typically find advertisers will to spend a little bit more per click than with a text ad.

And if an advertiser is spending more money per click on an image ad, then if you are running image only ads, you’ll be the recipient of the higher bidding.

So what about your experience?

Looking at your experiences with Google Adsense, do you find that (or would you agree) that image only ads are more valuable than running text and image ads?

If not, then what is your experience in split testing the two different strategies?

باليه الجليد

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 15:40:00 +0000

How to make money fast: 8 best ways to make money in 2018

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 23:40:00 +0000

I’ve taught thousands of students how to make money fast (all with different talents & levels of experience) and I can show you how to do the same.

Hi, I’m New York Times best-selling author Ramit Sethi, and I’m going to show you how to make more money fast, legitimately, and with immediate results.

This is easily one of my most popular articles. That’s why I’ve updated this article to include the very best tips on how to make money for 2018.

For the next six minutes, I’ll teach you how to earn more money after one conversation with your boss, how to lower every single one of your bills, and how to start making money with a side hustle THIS WEEK.

Then we’ll get into how to optimize your career and job – the easiest way to make the most money FOREVER.

Quiz: What is your earning potential? Choose the answer you agree with the most

If I work hard, I can always earn more money

I am not in full control of how much money I make

View Results

We’re going to focus on Big Wins. That means clear, actionable advice that you can start implementing today.

That means we’re not going to tell you to:

Take online surveys for literally tens of dollars
Sell your plasma/hair for quick cash
Cut out lattes or skip lunch to save money

These are what I call Big Wins — the types of strategies that will show you how to earn money while setting you up for long-term success. But long-term does not mean “delayed.” There are easy ways to make quick money. But you need to think big.

That’s why we’ll tackle this in two, equally important sections.

Section 1: How to make money THIS WEEK. Non-scammy ways you can make more money fast to get your head above water within seven days. Note: All of these have LONG-LASTING effects.

Section 2: How to make money FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Long-term systems to dramatically increase the money you make in your LIFETIME. My students have gone from starting freelance gigs on the side all the way to six-figure businesses. They’ve also tripled their salary in a matter of months.

This is a long post with a lot of information. Follow the instructions below and we’ll show you where you should focus your efforts:Find your Big Wins

Section 1: How to make money THIS WEEK

Money tip #1: Negotiate your salary

I LOVE salary negotiations!

With just a five-minute conversation you can make thousands more and, what’s better, the gains add up year after year.

This is a proven way to earn more money through a single conversation. It’s essentially quick money that — unlike taking surveys or selling your body to medical studies — gives you a LOT of money over many years.

Check this chart demonstrating the effects of ONE $5,000 raise:

Learning how to make more money via salary negotiations is simple — though it’s going to take a little bit of work on your part:

Step one: Find out! Use sites like PayScale.com, Salary.com, or Glassdoor.com and get the salary range for your job and location.

Step two: Give the heads up. Let your boss know you’re preparing to discuss salary with him or her. I cover how to do that in the 14-minute video below.

How to negotiate your salary

Step three: Use the Briefcase Technique. Before even stepping foot into the room, use my tried and true Briefcase Technique. This is something my students have used THOUSANDS of times for IMMEDIATE gains in salary.

The Briefcase Technique

Now, two big roadblocks might arise.

First, if you’re not good at your job, there’s no amount of negotiating that will help.

That’s why I love salary negotiations. Not only is it a good incentive for you to work harder and become a Top Performer, but you also stand to gain a lot of money from the hard work.

FACT: Doing a good job at work 10x’s your chances of making more money.

But if you’re going through your job just HOPING you’re doing a good job, you’ll be forgotten when it comes times for raises — and you won’t earn more.

Just like great companies get inside the heads of their customers, Top Performers figure out EXACTLY what their bosses want and optimize their strengths accordingly.

Tie everything you do to whatever goal is important to your boss and remind them often. This is how people become indispensable.

See my interview with Michael Williams for more:

Second, your company might tell you that they simply don’t have enough money to give you a raise. Get around that stonewall using the systems I outline in the video below.

Ask Ramit: How can I negotiate salary when they tell me they can’t pay more?

Once you have all of your prep ready, you’re good to go. But if you’re a weirdo overachiever like me, you can also check out my complete guide with scripts,

Negotiating your salary takes a bit of upfront work, but just ONE conversation can be worth thousands. It’s one of the easiest ways to make money.

The best way to make money fast is not to reinvent the wheel and to leverage the sources of income you already have. So the next time someone tells you to get more money by cutting back on lattes or by picking up loose change, grab them by the shoulders, and shake them for me.

Be sure to remind them that you’d have to skip out on 1,370 lattes in order to save $5,000 (or they can just get a one-time raise).

Money tip #2: Negotiate your bills

The awesome thing about negotiations is you can do it with practically every service you pay for. That includes the fixed costs you pay each month.

Things like:

Credit card rates and fees
Gym fee
Cable fee
Cell phone fee
Car insurance

With a quick phone call you can get these costs lowered, putting more money directly in your pocket.

Because the dirty secret is that most of these companies rely on thousands of people to zombie walk through their payment process. That’s why your cable company seems to jack up rates every year. They know you’ll likely just shrug, throw it away, and carry on with your day.

NOT TODAY!

Save $1,000 with 5 phone calls

By calling these companies and asking one simple question, you open the door for more money in your pocket. Just remember two magic phrases:

“Times are tough.”
“Is there anything you can do for me?”

Example conversation:

You: Hi, I was looking at my plan and it’s getting pretty expensive. Could you tell me what other plans you have that would save me money?

Them: Blah blah same plans as on the website blah blah

You: What about any plans not listed on the website?

Them No, what we have is listed on the website. Plus, you’re on a contract and have an early cancellation fee of $XXX.

You: Well, I understand that, but I’d be saving $XXX even with that cancellation fee. Look, you know times are tough so I’m thinking of switching to [COMPETITOR COMPANY]. Unless there are any other plans you have…? No? Ok, can you switch me to your cancellation department, please?

The key is to be nice. Be cordial and ask them what better plans they have to offer you. Nothing’s going to get you shot down quicker than getting angry and screaming, “HOW DARE YOU SCREW ME OVER WITH THESE PRICES. I WON’T STAND FOR IT. GIVE ME LESS FEES … uh please?”

If you mess up or things don’t go as planned, don’t worry. Hang up and call back. You can always play around with a few phone calls and see what works best.

When you get to the customer-retention department, restart the sequence. This is when you pull out your competitive intel on the other services being offered.

If Verizon is offering something for $10 less, tell them that. That’s $120 savings / year right there. But you can do more.

You: Listen, you know times are tough and I need to get a better deal to stick with you guys. You know and I know that your customer acquisition cost is hundreds of dollars. It just makes sense to keep me as a customer, so what can you do to offer me this plan for less money?

Notice that you didn’t say, “Can you give me a cheaper plan?” because yes/no questions always get a “no” answer when speaking to wireless customer service reps (or anybody whose job it is to get you off the phone and out of their hair as soon as possible).

Instead, ask leading questions. You also invoked the customer-acquisition cost, which is meaningful to retention reps. Finally, it really helps if you’re a valued customer who’s stuck around for a long time and actually deserves to be treated well.

This list is just the first eight ways to make more money.Download my free Ultimate Guide to Making Money to get more options for increasing your income.

Money tip #3: Find your first freelance client

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There is a limit to how much you can save, but there is no limit to how much you can earn.

Finding a new job or changing careers takes time (we’ll get to that). But in the next few days you can set up your first side hustle and make money fast.

The best part: Freelancing is a skill. That means you can get BETTER at it with time.

And once you get your first paying client, it’ll be easier to get more clients and make more money.

First thing: So many other websites will tell you to troll for freelance gigs on places like Elance or Mechanical Turk. These places work if you want to compete with people all over the world in a race to do the most work for less. No thanks.

Look at what you’ve already got. 95% of jobs can translate into some sort of side gig. Ask yourself:

What do I enjoy?
What do I do with my free time?
What do people ask me to do because I’m so good at it?

People are very bad at identifying their own skills. They’ll say things like, “I dunno … I guess I’m good at writing and communication, and, like, general organizational skills…” AMAZING!! HERE’S A $4,000/MONTH RETAINER!!! (Sorry, won’t happen.)

Repeat this over and over: People pay for solutions, not your skills.

For example, I was on a webcast where I was suggesting ways for people to earn money on the side, and I mentioned that I hate cooking, am not good at it, and would love it if someone cooked for me.

I got an email later that night from someone who said, “Ramit, I can help. I can teach you everything you need to know over one weekend, and you’ll know 3-5 great dishes to cook.” I appreciated the offer, but wrote back, “Thanks for the offer! But you don’t understand. I don’t want to learn — I want someone to do it for me.”

Again: People have problems. And they want solutions.

They don’t care what you’re “interested” in. Are they too busy to organize their closet? Do they need someone to help them redesign their website? Maybe they want someone to teach their kid how to play flute.

Start off by assessing the skills you use every day at home or at work.

Typically, you can break these down into two areas:

Skills. These are things you have expertise and knowledge in (e.g., languages, coding, copywriting).
Passions. These are things you love to do in your free time (e.g., playing musical instruments, volunteering to take care of animals, genealogy work).

Take some time right now to write down 10 – 20 ideas of different skills and talents you have.

After you’re done, let’s take a look at an example of this in action. Maybe your list looks like:

Do a little PHP coding
Organize systems
Automate complex processes
Project manage
Create technical documents that can be understood by lay audiences
Lead a team

Now ask yourself: Which of these skills can solve a specific problem? Brainstorm those out. Don’t censor yourself — put everything down.

I could do some PHP coding, but I’m not the best.
I could help businesses automate and streamline their income-generating processes. Vague, but okay.
I could manage projects and lead teams towards deadlines / organizing. This is super vague, any 22-year-old college grad would say he could do the same, and it doesn’t take advantage of my specific skills. Skip this.
I could be a technical writer and help companies demystify their technical-support documents. I could even rewrite the technical portions of their websites to make them more comprehensible to normal people, especially companies in the consumer energy field. Very promising, especially since I follow a few of these companies online.

Each of these individually is a potentially viable freelance trade – can you pick one and do it? The answer should be YES/NO to each. Put “YES” if even remotely feasible.

PHP coding: YES
Automate systems: NO (too vague for me to know where to start)
Project manage: NO (too vague)
Technical writer: YES

Excellent. Now you have a list of skills that might potentially be profitable.

Optional: Combine skills together to make a more compelling, more niche offer.

You can often charge more and help clients more by packaging offers. In this case, it’s not very relevant, since technical writing and PHP coding are pretty different. But one of the people who helps on IWT pitched me to do video editing + marketing. Perfect fit. I hired him.

Next step: How can you prove to people that you’re knowledgeable enough for them to pay you?

The first thing I do when evaluating someone is look at their portfolio and past clients. At least half of potential hires don’t have this section. Easy solution! I move on to someone who does.

For our systems engineer, can he point to a PHP project he did on the side?
What about a sample of technical writing where he turned something very complicated into something totally palatable?

Last step: Start finding clients. With your offering in place it’s time to find potential clients. Sure you could randomly print business cards or set up a blog. But before doing ANY of that you need to make sure you have something people want.

– Identify your clients. Who are they? What are their hopes and dreams? How old are they? What do they do? Are they married? How big is their company?

– Reach out directly. Lots of people set up a Twitter account and wait for the world to come to them. DON’T DO THAT. Once you’ve identified your potential client, email them directly. Example email:

Hi hk,

My name is Ramit Sethi and I’m a recent Stanford grad. I’ve been reading your blog for two years (I loved the post about using virtual assistants and got BOTH of my brothers to start using one), and it’s really helped me be more efficient with my work.

It occurred to me that you’re probably interested in growing your blog. I might be able to help. I’ve done video editing (http://www.fakesamplesite.com) and PowerPoint design (http://www.anotherfakesite.com). Imagine doing a great video on using virtual assistants, then distributing it through your newsletter. I could do one for you in about 2 days if you’re interested.

How about chatting later this week? My # is XXX-XXX-XXXX or I can give you a call at your convenience.

Thanks,

-Ramit

This email script has generated thousands of dollars for my students and can help you connect deeply with your potential clients and begin a relationship that can lead to your first paying client.

Want more? I have an entire course on how to earn your first $1,000 on the side.

Money tip #4: Negotiate your rent

I’d bet that rent is your biggest expense. Save $100 on your rent and that adds up to $1,200 a year with ONE conversation. Or you could collect 24,000 cans and recycle them. Your choice!

Of course, you can’t just say, “I want to take $200 per month off my rent!” You have to be ready to offer something in return.

What does your landlord really want? Money, of course. But dig deeper and you’ll find there’s a lot more you can offer. The goal is to give them something you don’t care about in exchange for something you do.

Here are a few things many landlords will happily lower rents for:

Prepay months in advance
Sign an extended lease
Offer to extend the termination notice from 30 days to 60 or 90 days
Offer to give up your parking space if you don’t have a car (the landlord could charge another tenant for an extra space)
Promise not to smoke in the apartment (this will save the landlord money when you move out)
Promise not to keep cats even if they’re allowed (another cleaning expense for the landlord)
Make a deal for referrals if they have low occupancy

If you know what you want and you know what they want, the chances of succeeding in your negotiation increase significantly.

Hi hk,

I hope you’re enjoying the start of summer in the Bay. Since our 1 year lease is almost up, I’d like to chat about re-signing.

As you know, I love the apartment. I’ve gotten to know the neighbors and feel truly at home in the neighborhood. I hope to be able to stay here for a while yet.

I’ve been looking at rental prices around the area, and would like to talk with you about adjusting the rent to match what I’m seeing around town.

I’d also be more than happy to help out around the property — taking out the trash and recycling, clearing and cleaning the backyard, or any other duties that might need some attention. I love living here and hope that the relationship with you and the property is just beginning.

I can chat on the phone any time you’re free today or this weekend.

Talk to you soon,

Susan

Section 2: Make more money FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

If you also want to think about long-term wins, check out myFree Guide on Personal Finance.

Negotiating your salary, bills, and picking up some side work are all quicker wins. But while your motivation is high, you can also begin some larger efforts with a few of my favorite systems. Especially for most of us, where our job is a huge portion of our income. Some approaches to make the most of your career:

Money tip #5: Change your job

Should you change jobs? Change industries? How do you know whether to stay put or to take a risky move that will result in more money? By using the Bezos Regret Minimization Framework.

Ask yourself: Which will you regret more 20 years from now: Staying in your current situation or trying something new and failing?

And remember: the more responsibility you have, the more money you can command.

Money tip #6: Invest to earn seven figures over your life

A common chorus I hear from older people is how much they wish they got started investing earlier in their lives. That’s because investing is the most important factor determining your future financial success.

This isn’t just me saying that either. In fact, there’s more than 100 years of evidence in the stock market testifying to that.

For example:

Imagine you’re 25 years old and you decide to invest $500/month in a low-cost, diversified index fund. If you do that until you’re 60, how much money do you think you’d have (assuming a 5% return)?

Take a look:

$1,116,612.89.

That’s right. You’d be a millionaire after only investing a few thousand dollars per year.

NOTE: I’m not talking about trading individual stocks, wearing a power suit with shoulder pads, and making “deals.”

Hollywood ≠ reality.

The type of investing I’m talking about is in low-cost, diversified index funds over decades.

Smart investors value consistency over anything else. Not the “hottest” stock. Or fad investments.

But this all begs the question: What should YOU invest in?

Two things:

A 401k through your employerA 401k is an investment plan offered by companies. The good ones will offer an employer match.

These investment accounts use your pre-tax income in order to invest for you. That means the money you put in will compound and grow until you can take it out at the age of 59 ½. You’ll be taxed on the money you withdraw then.

So take advantage of your employer’s 401k plan by putting at least enough money to collect the employer match into it. This basically means that for every dollar you contribute, your company will match that (pre-tax!).

This ensures you’re taking full advantage of what is essentially free money from your employer. That match is POWERFUL and can double your money over the course of your working life:

As of 2018, you can contribute up to $18,500 / year. If you can do that, be sure to give me a call because drinks are on you tonight.

Roth IRAMuch like your 401k, you’re going to want to contribute as much as you can to this account. Unlike a 401k, though, you contribute after-tax income to this account.

The amount you are allowed to contribute goes up occasionally. As of 2018, you can contribute up to $5,500 each year.

I suggest putting money into an index fund such as the S&P 500 as well as an international index fund as well.

For more information on both of these accounts, be sure to check out my article on retirement accounts.

Note: If $500/month sounds like a lot, read all the ways you can free up that money with just a few phone calls.

Money tip #7: Start an online business

There’s no question that if you really want to make more money, starting an online business is one of the best ways to do it. It’s also a great way to find freedom and self-worth.

In another article, I explain how to find online business ideas, set some ground rules for starting an online business, dig into your options, and finally present the best business to start.

Learn the ins and outs about starting an online business here.

How to start an online business.

Money tip #8: Meet successful people who hang out with other successful people

Opportunities come through people. Ryan Holiday became the director of marketing at American Apparel … when he was only 21. How’d he do it? Not by RANDOM TACTICS but by taking a systematic approach to meeting people he admired and offering to help. Not by forcing awkward interactions, but by adding value.

Networking doesn’t have to be a scuzzy, inauthentic thing where you hand out a bunch of business cards. Instead try what I call “Natural Networking” by starting off with “informational interviews.”

First, an informational interview is an opportunity to meet someone you’re curious about and learn from them. Maybe you’re curious what a front-end programmer really does. Maybe you want to know what the culture at Google is like. That’s what an informational interview allows you to do.

Start by brainstorming 10 people you’d like to meet.
Find something in common with them. It can be you went to the same university, have common contacts, anything that separates you from the rando weirdo emails they get.
Send them an email. A script you can use is below:

To: hk 1965

From: Samantha

Subject: Michigan State grad — would love to chat about your work at Deloitte

Hi hk,

My name is Samantha Kerritt. I’m a ’04 grad from Michigan State (I know you were a few years before me) and I came across your name on our alumni site. [TELL THEM HOW YOU CAME ACROSS THEIR NAME SO YOU DON’T SEEM LIKE A CREEP.]

I’d love to get your career advice for 15-20 minutes. I’m currently working at Acme Tech Company, but many of my friends work in consulting and each time they tell me how much they love their job, I get more interested. [THE FIRST SENTENCE SAYS WHAT SHE WANTS. MOST PEOPLE ARE FLATTERED THAT PEOPLE WANT/VALUE THEIR ADVICE.]

Most of them have told me that if I’m interested in consulting, I have to talk to someone at Deloitte. Do you think I could pick your brain on your job and what motivated you to choose Deloitte? I’d especially love to know how you made your choices after graduating from Michigan State. [THE PHRASE “PICK YOUR BRAIN” IS ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO ASK FOR ADVICE AND FLATTER, AND “MICHIGAN STATE” REINFORCES SHARED BOND.]

I can meet you for coffee or at your office … or wherever it’s convenient. I can work around you! [THE BUSY PERSON IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU. TREAT THEM ACCORDINGLY.]

Would it be possible for us to meet? [A BUSY PERSON CAN SIMPLY REPLY TO THIS WITH A “YES” — PERFECT. NOTE THAT I DIDN’T ASK FOR THE TIME/LOCATION AS THAT’S TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN THE FIRST EMAIL.]

Thanks,

-Samantha

The single best way to earn money

Most people will focus on the little things. Not you — if you do the above you will be ahead of 95% of your peers. Everything above is a repeatable SYSTEM and not a one-and-done tactic.

With that in mind, I put together a special bonus for you.

In this 11-minute video, I’ll show you how you can create the perfect system to automatically take care of your money every month.

This is the single best way to earn money, save money, and invest money into your Rich Life.

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How to get 130,000 people to read your blog in 1 week (and how I did it)

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 23:21:00 +0000

Learn the strategy I've used to get traffic to my website from extremely high-traffic blogs like Lifehacker and sites like the Wall Street Journal.

When I started blogging in 2004, I took a good look around at other websites, calmly chewed a cookie in my dorm room, and then vomited. There were only about 12 big personal-finance blogs back then, and yet even in 2004, I noticed the trend of new bloggers complaining about why they couldn’t get covered by the Big Blogs.

Today, I’m going to share two strategies I’ve used to get traffic to my websites from extremely high-traffic blogs like Lifehacker and sites like the Wall Street Journal.

This advice is useful for getting thousands of new readers to your blog, customers to your new startup, or to get your dream freelance job. And you can start using it tomorrow morning.

So, back to the question: Why do some bloggers get the lion’s share of attention, while others toil endlessly to write posts that virtually nobody will ever read?

On a recent forum where both new and experienced bloggers share tips for getting traffic, SEO, etc, most of the discussions were debating minutiae about meaningless changes they could make to their blog to get more readers. “What SEO plugin should I use?” one asked. “Does anyone think I should change my blog’s name???” another wondered. After 20 minutes of reading, I had to close the window because I was getting so frustrated.

Look, here’s a simple chart of what matters for getting traffic for your site.

Basically, there are only two ways that really matter to get traffic to your website without spending a fortune in advertising:

Writing really good content – what I call “remarkable content” – and then telling the right people about it.
Writing amazing “guest posts” – articles for other relevant blogs with more traffic than you.

Use the Remarkable Content Strategy to Get Traffic to your Blog

You’ve seen awesome writing on the web, right? Work that creates reputations and builds businesses.

Maybe you read people like Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Brian Clark, or one of the other big-name bloggers who regularly produce high-caliber material you can’t get enough of.

Their amazing content turned them into respected experts, helped them build a loyal fan base, and opened up huge opportunities in their business and personal lives. And it all started with great content.

The real question is: Can you do the same?

There is a proven system for creating remarkable content. A system that helps you churn out amazing articles, blog posts, and emails – anytime you want.

I spent dozens of hours documenting everything I know to a free guide to creating remarkable content. It’s already got hundreds of thousands of new visitors to my website, and it sends more traffic every day.

Use the Guest Post Strategy to Borrow Traffic from Bigger Websites

Besides writing really good content, the easiest way to get traffic to your blog is to write something interesting for another blogger who has more traffic than you.

It’s funny — when you point this out to many new bloggers by saying, “Hey, why don’t you write up something really good and send it to a bigger blogger as a guest post?” — many of them quickly make up a bunch of excuses. “Well, uh… I am really busy this weekend” or “I’m in the middle of this really interesting post on how HSBC interest rates changed!” Yes, okay.

But it’s not just as simple as deciding to write a guest post. When it comes to high-traffic bloggers, there are very specific ways to approach them so they’ll accept your pitch.

Before we get to the tactics…

Who could apply this strategy? 3 examples

Like I said, this works for bloggers and many other areas of business:

You’re a new blogger who wants more traffic: If you’re a blogger and you’re looking to grow traffic, put yourself in the mind of bloggers with large readerships: They’re busy, they have huge egos, and they need to constantly post new, interesting stuff to satisfy their readers’ voracious appetites for content. Could you write one piece of excellent content for them?As an example, here were the results of Nora Dunn’s travel post earlier this week, which drove nearly 100,000 pageviews in 72 hours. I’ve already invited her to have a regular guest spot on I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
You want to break into the fashion industry: Or let’s say you read fashion magazines and really want to break into the industry. The magazine needs fresh perspectives, especially things that haven’t been done (think Money Diaries for a magazine, for example). How could you help them?
You just started a new company and need customers: How about if you’re starting a business on Christmas ornaments, and you aren’t sure how to get traffic to your website. The first thing I would do is record some interesting videos for other Christmas sites and give them away for free.

How to get hundreds of thousands of new visitors using the Guest Post strategy

I’ve written up a detailed post with the tactics for writing successful guest posts for high-traffic bloggers. It takes effort to create these articles, but when you do it, you can get hundreds of thousands of new readers and many thousands of new customers for your business.

How to Estimate GDPR Impact on Your Google AdSense Earnings

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 03:31:00 +0000

Now that 25th May is so close, every publisher who has left the whole GDPR-compliance thing completely untouched is asking one question: What do I lose by not complying?

Most Google AdSense users are expecting some revenue drop. Google itself is warning publishers about it. If you are still debating whether it's worth your time and effort to invest in compliance, it's time to get into specifics.

Consider these questions:

How many visitors did your site get from EU in the past month?
How many of those visitors saw personalized ads?

But more importantly, how much revenue will you lose if you can't serve personalized ads to EU users anymore?

Go to Performance Reports
From Report Type drop-down menu, select ' Targeting Types '
Filter by Countries (select all EU member nations)
Define a date range that works for you. We have last 30 days in the report below.

Here's how it should pan out:

Zero-in on the table below the line graph / pie chart. This table shows you the estimated earnings from EU nations for each ad targeting type (ie, personalized, contextual, placement, RON, etc.).

Post-GDPR, you absolutely cannot show personalized ads to European visitors if you don't have their explicit consent , not without incurring a temporary or lifetime ban from Google Display Network. However, every other type of ad targeting is alright.

The way forward should be clear now. Here's what to do if you:

Need Personalized Ads in EU

If the estimated earnings from personalized ads are too high to just let slide, start working immediately on obtaining EU-users' consent. An IAB certified consent vendor (CMP) may be your best bet in the time left. However, Google may not support every IAB-certified CMP, so it's best to double check this with your account representative.

Alternatively, you can use the tools Google has made available for consent collection:

Apply to Funding Choices program to handle consent. Caveat: Limits ad tech partners to 12, including Google. ( Help page link with application form)
Create your own consent notices and make changes in AdSense tags. This is so the ad tags can pause and fire requests based on user's choice of personalization. (Help Center link for code and implementation)

Related reading: google adsense hacks to drive more

Can Do Without Personalized Ads in EU:

If personalized ads served to EU audience makes a very small part of your overall earnings, asking for consent may not be worth the hassle. You can simply switch to serving Contextual (non-personalized) ads to all EEA visitors.

Sign in to AdSense
Click Allow & block ads > Content > All my sites > EU user consent .
On the screen, select Non-Personalized Ads

Note that these settings can be applied now, but will take effect on May 25th. Publishers working on consent notices of their own should also note that making changes in GPT passback tags may keep some non-personalized ads from serving until that date.

That's it. Get busy respecting EU user rights, and let's compare notes after the 25th

20 Useful Apps and Tools for AdSense Publishers

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 03:22:00 +0000

Google AdSense provides a simple and functional console to publishers for managing ads and viewing revenue data—but what if you could access this data even more conveniently on the move whenever you liked?

This collection of mobile, desktop, and web apps will help you stay on top of your AdSesne account activity and make you a more efficient AdSense user.

iPhone and Android apps

Google Adsense for iPhone and Android : The official app from Google provides an easy way to view key AdSense account data, directly from your mobile device. It displays an account overview, as well as access to detailed performance reports on all key metrics.Available reports include top ad units, channels, sites, countries, and more.

[iPhone apps]

QuickAdSense: Quickly allows you to check your AdSense account by displaying key information such as Revenue, Pageviews, Clicks, Page CTR, CPC, Page RPM and Daily Revenue Average. The pro version of the app comes with even more advanced reporting including Platform, Ad format, Ad unit, Ad Unit Size, Targeting Type, URL channel, Custom Channel, Bid Type and Buyer network.

AdSense Point: A beautifully designed app that allows you to view real-time information anytime anywhere. Features include real-time reporting, gorgeous themes, and reports including Revenue and Monthly Clicks, Pageviews, CPC, CTR, and RPM. Revenue is shown in the same currency selected in Google's Web Interface.

[Android apps]

AdSense Course: If you're new to AdSense, this app will help you understand all the basics of the platform. Some of the things you will learn in this course include how to monetize your site with AdSense, how to improve earnings, and how to make sure your account isn't terminated—basic, but helpful information for the new publisher.

Earnings Monitor: This app may be the best choice for you if you use more networks than just AdSense to monetize your website—it supports up to 20 networks including Amazon Affiliate, Criteo, Adcash, PropellerAds, and more. The app uses military-level encryption to secure all your data that is saved on the mobile device. You can also cloud import/export multiple configurations on any mobile device using your account.

Mac and Windows apps

[Apps for Mac]

Google AdSense dashboard widget: The Google AdSense widget will help you become a more informed AdSense user. You will get setup advice, policy QnA, optimization tips & tricks, and troubleshooting help. You'll also be able to view the AdSense blog along with the AdSense calendar from within the widget.

MacAdSense: MacAdSense shows your earnings, clicks, eCPM values for the current month, and the extrapolated earnings for the whole month (by using a very simple rule-of-three method) on your dashboard. All values are updated every 20 minutes.

[Apps for Windows]

AdSense Pro: AdSense Pro is a fast way to access your AdSense account reports and earnings using a touch enabled interface. AdSense Pro also provides complex reports and charting for Channels, Products, Ad Unit, Size, Format, Bid Type, Buyer Network, Details, etc. AdSense Pro uses live tiles to display account data. Every available report can be exported in CSV Excel compatible format.

AdSense Console: Adsense Console is a dashboard tool that shows your Google AdSense account's income, CTR, CPC, RPM, and clicks for today, yesterday, this month and last month. It also supports Windows Live Tile to deliver this information.

Web apps & tools

Google Keyword Planner: The one-stop shop for anyone who needs to do keyword research, Keyword Planner helps you search related keywords, get search volume data and trends, and get click and cost performance data. Armed with this knowledge, you would be able to better tell which keywords you should focus on in your SEO strategy.

AdSense Calculator: Know how much you will be earning by using this calculator by Small SEO Tools. You can also simulate values and have a look at results for research.

Google AdSense Sandbox: Want to see the ads AdSense will serve on your website before setting it up? You can with this preview tool. Type in your URL (or keywords), select a country and hit Enter to see the latest contextual and geo-targeted Google ads.

SpyFu: Know what your competitors are up to with this AdSense research tool. Just enter a domain name and SpyFu will show you how many keywords a particular website is ranking on, their estimated monthly organic clicks, how many keywords they're buying in AdSense, and much more.

PageSpeed Insights: Page load speeds can make or break your user experience and force your users to abandon your website. Use this free tool by Google to identify and resolve speed bottlenecks that prevent your site from loading fast.

Chrome & Firefox extensions

Google Publisher Toolbar: View data on your AdSense ads and accounts, and block unsuitable ads on your site. The Google Publisher Toolbar adds an overlay to each of your Google ads, which provides some basic information about the ad, including its size, display URL and the advertiser name.

AdSense Active View Monitor: A utility for Google Adsense publishers to monitor when a request for AdSense Active View occurs on their website. That way, it is possible to optimise web page layout to ensure the best performance for their ad units, in particular, the Active View Viewable metric.

AdSense Checker: Displays your Google Adsense earning in a status bar within the browser. Features include auto updating statistics, local currency support, copy to clipboard function, and a shortcut to Google Adsense and Google Analytics.

7 Google AdSense Hacks to Drive More Revenue

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 03:07:00 +0000

The posts above should give you all the info you need to effectively set up and run an AdSense account. But, every once in a while, campaigns seem to plateau in earnings.Don't fret! Here are 7 additional tips you can use to further optimize your account:

1. Use Asynchronous Ad Codes

Good user experience invariably leads to higher CTRs and page speed is one of the most important metrics of UX. Google has made it possible for publishers to cut down their page load times by using an asynchronous AdSense tag .

Tip: You can do this on the My ads tab in your AdSense account.

2. Optimize Ad Sizes for Mobile

Mobile screens are smaller and therefore a desktop ad layout simply won't cut it for mobile devices. What you should do is set specify special ad sizes for mobile and optimize your layout (we'll talk about more on this in detail later).

Set up some A/B tests to figure out which units work better—then use those.

3. Geo-Target Your Paid Audience

All incoming traffic is good news for a publisher. In the case of paid traffic, however, users from some countries are more valuable than others ⎯ this is your target.

Head over to your dashboard and check which countries visit your website the most. Next, refer to this list by WordStream on the Countries with the Highest CPCs .

Check your list to confirm if you have these countries in your audience, then proceed to bring in more traffic from these countrie

Tip: You can check this in Performance Reports > Countries in your AdSense account.

4. Periodically Block/Unblock Categories

Let's get into more specific AdSense hacks—opinion is divided here so you might want to experiment and keep a close eye on results. It's true that there are categories that have high CPCs while others have high CTRs, but combining all categories isn't ideal, as it increases your competition in the long run.

As a default, all the “safe” categories were pre-selected by Google for your campaign. The first step on blocking unwanted categories is by simply selecting the categories with a lot of impressions but lower revenue yield.

However, this should only be temporary; make sure to recheck these categories periodically as you may want to unblock them during a certain time, such as when you need an increase in fill rate, etc..

Competition for ad placements will be lower, but this will positively affect the quality of ads and advertisers coming your way. Thus, indirectly influencing your Ad RPM positively.

5. Set Up and Optimize Custom Channels

Another one of many overlooked AdSense hacks is using Custom Channels found in your dashboard. It's a reporting tool that lets you know what works and what doesn't ⎯ but it's also a great way of organizing your inventory and presenting it to advertisers.

To summarize, custom channels can help you serve the right ads to the right people, thereby increasing revenue for yourself and conversions for the advertiser. In the long run, it becomes a cycle that continues to churn out money from your website.

6. Beating Invalid Traffic and Smart Pricing

Last year, Google introduced a line item in our dashboards named Invalid Traffic—AdSense for Content. To put it simply, these are invalid clicks on your ads as Google sees it.

Invalid click activity includes any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. Invalid activity covers intentionally fraudulent traffic as well as accidental clicks.
Invalid activity includes, but is not limited to:
Clicks or impressions generated by publishers clicking their own live ads
Repeated ad clicks or impressions generated by one or more users
Publishers encouraging clicks on their ads (examples may include: any language encouraging users to click on ads, ad implementations that may cause a high volume of accidental clicks, etc.)
Automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software.

Of course, we know that you're not clicking your own ads! AdSense competition is tough, though; there may be some competitors creating this negative traffic on your site. Google suggests these steps for preventing invalid activity .

On the other hand, Smart Pricing has set the balance between advertisers and publishers for more than a decade now. Smart Pricing assures advertisers that their money isn't wasted on useless traffic. For publishers, this assures that the opportunity to get advertisers will not be threatened.

Why combine these seemingly irrelevant topics? It's because their solutions are similar in a way that it has to be treated the same. Here are some tips to take advantage of Smart Pricing and lessen losses from Invalid Traffic:

Build your content! Thin content with many ads on the page is a big turn off for Google, not to mention users, Deliver unique content that will help reel in users, both new and returning. This will help increase valid traffic. Smart Pricing depends on the quality of traffic you send to the advertisers. If you create content that is relevant to the ad unit you are showing, users will be more likely to click the ad without you telling them to do so.
Social is good, but Search is better. There were some reports claiming that social traffic causes spikes in invalid traffic. It's good to get your audience from social media, but Google knows that there are ways to hack social traffic. The best solution is to optimize your site and strive to get highly targeted traffic that is related to the ad categories you display on your site.
Hello, it's you. Google is open for any refutes. If you think you've been wrongly accused of invalid traffic, contact them here .

7. Ad Layout Optimization

Ad layout optimization involves a lot more than just switching your ad positions. One way to optimize layouts is to run A/B tests using the Experiments feature—but as the number of ad units you test increases, this is not very scalable.

This is why we created AdPushup , our algorithms help you optimize your ad layout with minimal intervention from you. But that's not all it does, it also helps you integrate your ads seamlessly into web pages so that user experience is improved, not compromised.

Go for the Users, then the Gold

Run-of-the-mill article websites are history, the focus now is on creating platforms where ads complement content to assist every user during their customer journey.

As publishers, we are called to commit ourselves to serving the best content for our users.Prioritizing user experience over revenue is how Google wants us to drive our AdSense campaigns—and they're probably right.

How to Add Sitemap Widget In Blogspot Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 00:23:00 +0000

Let's Start Step-1 ( Adding CSS )

Before Editing we recommend you to make a backup of your template, so that anything goes wrong you still have your blog design safe.

The First thing you need to do is to login into your Blogger account and go to >> Templates >> Edit HTML and search for the ending ]]></b:skin> tag and just above it paste the following code.


/* ######## Navigation Menu Css by sorabloggingtips.com ######################### */
.mapasite {
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    background-color: #F8F8F8
}
.mapasite.active .mapa {
    display: block
}
.mapasite .mapa {
    display: none
}
.mapasite h2 {
    background-color: #EEE;
    color: #000;
    font-size: 15px;
    padding: 10px 20px;
    border-radius: 2px;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    cursor: pointer;
    font-weight: 700
}
.mapasite h2 .botao {
    font-size: 18px;
    line-height: 1.2em
}
.botao .fa-minus-circle {
    color: #f30
}
.mapapost {
    overflow: hidden;
    margin-bottom: 20px;
    height: 70px;
    background-color: #FFF
}
.mapa {
    padding: 40px
}
.map-thumb {
    background-color: #F0F0F0;
    padding: 10px;
    display: block;
    width: 65px;
    height: 50px;
    float: left
}
.map-img {
    width: 65px;
    height: 50px;
    overflow: hidden;
    border-radius: 2px
}
.map-thumb a {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    display: block;
    transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -webkit-transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -moz-transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -o-transition: all .3s ease-out!important
}
.map-thumb a:hover {
    -webkit-transform: scale(1.1) rotate(-1.5deg)!important;
    -moz-transform: scale(1.1) rotate(-1.5deg)!important;
    transform: scale(1.1) rotate(-1.5deg)!important;
    transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -webkit-transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -moz-transition: all .3s ease-out!important;
    -o-transition: all .3s ease-out!important
}
.mapapost .wrp-titulo {
    padding-top: 10px;
    font-weight: 700;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 1.3em;
    padding-left: 25px;
    padding-right: 10px;
    display: block;
    overflow: hidden;
    margin-bottom: 5px
}
.mapapost .wrp-titulo a {
    
}
.mapapost .wrp-titulo a:hover {
    color: #f30;
    text-decoration: underline
}
.map-meta {
    display: block;
    float: left;
    overflow: hidden;
    padding-left: 25px;
}
.mapasite h2 .botao {
    float: right
}

Step-2 ( Adding HTML Script )

Now this is the most essential part of the tutorial and you have to do it very carefully. In the template, search for the </body> tag and just above it paste the following HTML Coding.


 <script type='text/javascript'> 
            //<![CDATA[
var text_month = [, "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sept", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"];
var no_image_url = "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eAeO-DYJDws/Vkqtj4HFBFI/AAAAAAAAB0o/Q5OLsyONXM0/s1600-r/nth.png";

           var static_page_text = $.trim($('.static_page .post-body').text());
if (static_page_text === "[sitemap]") {
    var postbody = $('.static_page .post-body');
    $.ajax({
        url: "/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script",
        type: 'get',
        dataType: "jsonp",
        success: function(dataZ) {
            var blogLabels = [];
            for (var t = 0; t < dataZ.feed.category.length; t++) {
                blogLabels.push(dataZ.feed.category[t].term)
            }
            var blogLabels = blogLabels.join('/');
            postbody.html('<div class="siteLabel"></div>');
            $('.static_page .post-body .siteLabel').text(blogLabels);
            var splabel = $(".siteLabel").text().split("/");
            var splabels = "";
            for (get = 0; get < splabel.length; ++get) {
                splabels += "<span>" + splabel[get] + "</span>"
            }
            $(".siteLabel").html(splabels);
            $('.siteLabel span').each(function() {
                var mapLabel = $(this);
                var mapLabel_text = $(this).text();
                $.ajax({
                    url: "/feeds/posts/default/-/" + mapLabel_text + "?alt=json-in-script",
                    type: 'get',
                    dataType: "jsonp",
                    success: function(data) {
                        var posturl = "";
                        var htmlcode = '<div class="mapa">';
                        for (var i = 0; i < data.feed.entry.length; i++) {
                            for (var j = 0; j < data.feed.entry[i].link.length; j++) {
                                if (data.feed.entry[i].link[j].rel == "alternate") {
                                    posturl = data.feed.entry[i].link[j].href;
                                    break
                                }
                            }
                            var posttitle = data.feed.entry[i].title.$t;
                            var author = data.feed.entry[i].author[0].name.$t;
                            var get_date = data.feed.entry[i].published.$t,
                                year = get_date.substring(0, 4),
                                month = get_date.substring(5, 7),
                                day = get_date.substring(8, 10),
                                date = text_month[parseInt(month, 10)] + ' ' + day + ', ' + year;
                            var tag = data.feed.entry[i].category[0].term;
                            var content = data.feed.entry[i].content.$t;
                            var $content = $('<div>').html(content);
                            var src2 = data.feed.entry[i].media$thumbnail.url;
                            htmlcode += '<div class="mapapost"><div class="map-thumb"><div class="map-img"><a href="' + posturl + '" style="background:url(' + src2 + ') no-repeat center center;background-size: cover"/></div></div><h3 class="wrp-titulo"><a href="' + posturl + '">' + posttitle + '</a></h3><div class="map-meta"><span class="p-author">' + author + '</span><span class="p-date">' + date + '</span></div></div>'
                        }
                        htmlcode += '</div>';
                        mapLabel.replaceWith('<div class="mapasite"><h2>' + mapLabel_text + '<span class="botao"><i class="fa fa-plus-circle"></i></span></h2>' + htmlcode + '</div>');
                        $(document).on('click', '.mapasite h2', function() {
                            $(this).parent('.mapasite').addClass('active');
                            $(this).find('.botao .fa').removeClass('fa-plus-circle').addClass('fa-minus-circle');
                        });
                        $(document).on('click', '.mapasite.active h2', function() {
                            $(this).parent('.mapasite').removeClass('active');
                            $(this).find('.botao .fa').addClass('fa-plus-circle').removeClass('fa-minus-circle');
                        });
                    }
                });
            });
        }
    });
}
            //]]>
</script>

Now Save your template and go to pages to add sitemap.

Note :- the widget works on jquery so you have to install jquery plugin if you haven't installed it yet..

Step-3 ( Adding Sitemap In Pages ) - Most Important !!

Now this is the most essential part of the tutorial and you have to do it very carefully.Go to your blogger dashboard > Pages > Add New Page.
On the new page content after adding the page title and hiding the comments using options, add the following code in the page content area.

[sitemap]

For better understanding check the highlighted area in the below image.

Now click publish button and check the published page to see the newly added sitemap widget. ;)

Conclusion

Congrats !! You have made it. now you have learned that How to Add Sitemap Widget In Blogspot Blogs. Visit your blog and check the awesome widget live in action, hope you liked this tutorial, if you enjoyed then please share it with your friends, we are working hard to develop more such awesome widgets please stay tuned with Us. Goodbye !! (Goodbye in English!! hahaha).

Create & add custom robots.txt file in Blogger – Crawl & index

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 21:27:00 +0000

Create & add custom robots.txt file in Blogger – Crawl & index

Have you ever heard the name robots.txt or have you added your own custom robots.txt file in your Blogger blog. Here we will discuss about what robots.txt is and how to create and add custom robots.txt file in Blogger. All that deals with crawling and indexing of your blog which covers your blog SEO, so take note on this article.

In Blogger you have a section called search preferences that covers your blogs Meta tags, errors /redirection & crawling and indexing. There you can manage your blogs view with search engines also to maintain a healthy blog you need to customize your blogs search preferences effectively. A few posts back we made an article on how to use Blogger custom redirects. In case if you had a broken links in your blog or if you changed your blog post URL then you can make use of Blogger custom redirects. Here let’s see about robots.txt and the use of adding custom robots.txt file in Blogger.

What is robots.txt?

Search engine like Google sends spiders or crawlers whatever it may be a kind of program that travels all around the web. When these crawlers or web spiders reach your site they first go through your robots.txt file to check any robots exclusion protocol that is before crawling and indexing your pages.

Robots.txt is a normal text file which is available on all websites that is used by a webmaster to advice these crawlers about accessing several pages on a website. The pages that are restricted in your robots.txt file will won’t be crawled and indexed in search results. However all those page are viewable publicly to normal humans.

Each Blogger blog will have a robots.txt file that comes by default and it looks something like the one below. You can check your blogs robots.txt file by adding /robots.txt next to your domain name. (http://yoursite.blogspot.com/robots.txt)

1User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
2Disallow: 
3
4User-agent: *
5Disallow: /search
6Allow: /
7
8Sitemap: <a class="vglnk" href="http://yoursite.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=UPDATED" rel="nofollow"><span>http</span><span>://</span><span>yoursite</span><span>.</span><span>blogspot</span><span>.</span><span>com</span><span>/</span><span>feeds</span><span>/</span><span>posts</span><span>/</span><span>default</span><span>?</span><span>orderby</span><span>=</span><span>UPDATED</span></a>

So what are these?

As you can see above the default robots.txt file has few things like user-agent, media partners-Google, user-agent:*, disallow and site map. If you are not aware about these, then here is the explanation.

First you need to know about User agent which is a software agent or client software that will act on behalf of you.

Mediapartners-Google – Media partner Google is the user agent for Google adsense that is used to server better relevant ads on your site based on your content. So if you disallow this they you will won’t able to see any ads on your blocked pages.

User-agent:* – So you all know what user-agent is, so what is user-agent:*. The user-agent that is marked with (*) asterisk is applicable to all crawlers and robots that can be Bing robots, affiliate crawlers or any client software it can be.

Disallow: By adding disallow you are telling robots not to crawl and index the pages. So below the user-agent:* you can see Disallow: /search which means you are disallowing your blogs search results by default. You are disallowing crawlers in to the directory /search that comes next after your domain name. That is a search page like http://yoursite.blogspot.com/search/label/yourlabel will not be crawled and never be indexed.

Allow – Allow: / simply refers to or you are specifically allowing search engines to crawl those pages.

Sitemap: Sitemap helps to crawl and index all your accessible pages and so in default robots.txt you can see that your blog specifically allowing crawlers in to sitemaps. You can learn . There is an issue with default Blogger sitemap, so learn how to create sitemap in Blogger and notify search engines.

What pages should I disallow in Blogger?

This question is little tricky and we cannot predict what pages to allow and what to disallow in your Blog. You can disallow pages like privacy policy, Terms & conditions, cloaked affiliate links, labels as well as search results and it depends all upon you. Since you get some reasonable traffic from search results it is not recommended that you disallow the labels page, privacy policy page and TOS page.

How to disallow pages in Blogger using robots.txt

You can disallow search engines to crawl and index particular pages or posts in Blogger using your robots.txt file.

We don’t have the reason to block search engines on any particular posts and if you wish so then just add Disallow: /year/month/your-post-url.html in your robots.txt file. That is copy your post URL next to your domain name and add it in your robots.txt file.

Same what you will need to do for disallowing any particular pages. Copy the page URL next to your domain name and add it like this Disallow: /p/your-page.html in your robots.txt file.

The best and recommended robots.txt file for Blogger

Only use custom robots.txt file if you are 100% sure on what you are doing. Improper use of custom robots.txt can harm your site rankings. So for best results it is recommended that you use default robots.txt in Blogger which works good. But change the default sitemap in your robots.txt and add your custom sitemap for Blogger.

How to create and add custom robots.txt file in Blogger

In wordpress we have to create a robots.txt file in notepad and upload it to the web root directory. But here in Blogger you can add the robots.txt file easily from your blog dashboard. To add a custom robots.txt just login to your Blogger profile and select your blog. Now head to dashboard >> settings >> search preferences and you can see custom robots.txt in crawling and indexing section. Click edit and enable custom robots.txt content and add your robots.txt file

Once done click save changes. Now to check your robots.txt just add /robots.txt at the end of your blog URL and you can see your custom robots.txt file. After adding your custom robots.txt file you can submit your blog to search engines. Learn how to submit your blog to Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Hope this post clearly explained you about robots.txt and how to create and add custom robots.txt file in Blogger. Please share it and if you have any other doubts on Blogger robots.txt then feel free to comment below
.

Make Sidebar widget Fixed in Blogger While Scrolling Page

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:50:00 +0000

Blogger is a great platform, though it is a little behind in the plugins department.How to Make Sidebar widget Fixed in Blogger While Scrolling Page

Here we are talking about to make sidebar widget fixed in blogger while scrolling the page.

It looks quite cool if a user scrolls a page and a sticky widget in the sidebar goes down till the post ending.

It’s quite obvious, it can have a higher click through rate(CTR) as well. Because it can grab the attention of the reader entirely.

If you have something important to show to the readers, you can display in the blogger sidebar widgets.

Saying important it could be any kind of updates which you think your visitor should know.
For Instance – Exclusive Deals, Updates, Popular Posts, Sign Up forms, sticky social bar. I have seen in some blogs even they placed Advertisements as well. Even that is quite sensible.

So here we are going to create a sticky widget with minimum effort and less amount of code as well.

Make sidebar Widget Fixed In Blogger

Let us move forward, and get into action.

#1. Create a Widget/Gadget

Step 1. Login to your Blogger account

Step 2. Navigate towards the Layout and click on it.

Step 3. Now we are supposed to add a widget, so click on Add a Gadget.

Step 4. A pop-up window will appear with a lot of gadgets in option.

Step 5. Find “HTML/JavaScript,” and click the (+) icon shown in the above image.
Now here we are about to add our own code in the box. You can find the code below.

#2. Add code in the HTML/JavaScript box to make a floating sidebar widget

Now copy the below code into that, but don’t save it now

#2. Replace Widget ID HTML/JavaScript box.

Step 1. Go back to the blogger layout, and click on “Edit” of that particular widget, which you want to make sticky in the sidebar.

Step 2. Once you click on edit button you would be able to see a “Widget ID” in the top bar of it. See the below image for better insights.

Step 3. Copy that Widget ID and replace it with the source code.

Step 4. Once the actual widget ID got replaced, Hit the save Button.

Step 5. And also Click on Save Arrangement in the Blogger Layout.

There you go, you are done and your widget will be sticky in the sidebar.

In fact, not only at the sidebar you can make the widget sticky anywhere you would like to, following the same process.

By simply copying the Widget ID and replace the same in the code as well.

Do let us know if you faced any issue creating a sticky widget in the comment section below, we would be happy to help you out in this.

10 Responsive Blogger Templates for Tech Blogs: SEO Friendly

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:40:00 +0000

Several new Tech blogs are created daily, as the searches are very high. Being wise while choosing a theme for your blog is very crucial as it can also make a good and bad impact on the blog.10 Responsive Blogger Templates for Tech Blogs: SEO Friendly

The Main First criteria of a tech blogger templates are, it should be SEO Friendly, Clean Widgets and should load fast enough.

Wondering where you can get some Responsive Blogger Templates free download for your Tech Blogs, we made some search and hard work to suit your blog.

There could we several themes on the web which might be for different kind of blogs like news, travel, education, tech, Templates for tutorials blogs and much more.

Best Responsive Blogger Templates for Tech Blogs

Using the same theme for all kind of blogs is not okay at all. If you are starting a tech blog, these themes are for you.

ChicMag

This is a very good template for tech and news blogs. You can get it for free from the below link or buy a full version of it from Theme Expose to get the full access to customization.

It is fully responsive and you would love the design and your readers too.

Two version are available for this ChicMag (For Tech Blog) and ChicMag Carousel (For Travel or Personal). ChicMag is better for tech blogs.

Check out the Demo, it’s really awesome but make sure you optimize your images before uploading.

Source: gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Ads Ready,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Mega Menu, Tabbed Menu,
Support Youtube thumbnail
Advance Search Engine Optimization,
Auto resize thumbnail image,
Random posts,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Multiple comment system,
Recent Post By Label,
Related posts support,
Auto Author Image,
Subscription Box,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Clean admin Layout

Created By: Theme Expose
Demo Download

Tech Life

This is one more perfect theme for tech blogs, it has a three column layout which can give a good conversion rate. So you can place widgets both the side of the content.

It has a great looking sticky header which is an added advantage to it.

A good responsive theme with an extended width as its a 3 column template. And this one of the best responsive blogger templates is free to download.


Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Ads Ready,
Custom Template Colors(3 colors/full version),
Email Subscription Box,
Sticky Navigation bar,
Featured Post Slider,
Custom contact form,
Multi-Tabbed Widget,
3 Column Theme,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Auto Author Image,
Newsletter Subscription,
Professional admin Layout

Created By: BloggerTheme9
Demo Download

Blogus

It comes with decent and clean looking menu with some featured posts below it. Which is quite important to show the work. Goes very well with the tech blogs which a decent sidebar.

Responsiveness is an added advantage to it. Well designed Subscription and Social Icon at the footer.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Recommended Posts,
Clean Typography,
Breadcrumbs,
Mobile Friendly,
Completely Ads Ready,
Auto resize thumbnail image,
Threaded Comment,
Recent Post,
Related posts,
Multi-Author Box,
Newsletter Subscription,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Professional admin layout

Created By: Theme Expose
Demo Download

Smooth Grid

I love this blogger template, it a grid style home page with an elegant header following with the search bar, Completely responsive on all the devices.

Great looking widgets at the side bar too. Perfect add placement slots had been designed.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Popular Posts,
Clean Typography,
Mobile Friendly,
Completely Ads Ready,
Grid Styled,
Auto resize thumbnail image,
Threaded Comment,
Recent Post, Related posts,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Professional admin layout,
Social Sharing Icons on the post snippet itself.

Created By: TemplateMark
Demo Download

Glorious

Fast loading and great appearance is basically any theme requirement. Glorious loads fast and very SEO Friendly, which has a slider widget at the top and it’s quite cool.

Simple and great looks with a green and white theme, of course, you can change that if you have some knowledge of HTML.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
2 Column,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Ads Ready,
Email Subscription Box,
Sticky Navigation bar,
Featured Post Slider,
Custom contact form,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Auto Author Image,
Newsletter Subscription,
Professional admin Layout

Created By: BloggerTheme9
Demo Download

Tech News

This one goes very well with the news and Tech Blogs. Highly recommended. Featured posts at the top, which is an essential factor for the tech blogs. Social Palette at the sidebar and good Ads Slot.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Ads Ready,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Mega Menu,
Tabbed Menu,
Support Youtube thumbnail,
Advance Search Engine Optimization,
Auto resize thumbnail image,
Random posts,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Multiple comment system,
Recent Post By Label,
Related posts support,
Auto Author Image,
Subscription Box,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Clean admin Layout

Created By: SoraTemplates
Demo Download

My Mag

This is perfectly suitable for any kind of magazine blog. Don’t just go with the name “mag”, it is a perfect fit for tech blogs as well.

It fulfills all the requirement of tech theme should have.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Ads Ready,
Email Subscription Box,
Sticky Navigation bar,
Featured Post Slider,
Custom contact form,
Multi-Tabbed Widget,
3 Column Theme,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Newsletter Subscription,
Professional admin Layout

Created By: BloggerTheme9
Demo Download

Zippo

It comes with a sticky header, featured posts and subscription box as well. Recent post with well-designed thumbnail.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Recommended Posts,
Clean Typography,
Breadcrumbs,
Mobile Friendly,
Completely Ads Ready,
Auto resize thumbnail image,
Threaded Comment,
Recent Post,
Related posts,
Multi-Author Box,
Newsletter Subscription,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Professional admin layout

Created By: BloggerTheme9
Demo Download

Motif

Simple and elegant look with a slider for the Images at the top, Cool subscription box, and a clean layout.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
2 Column,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Ads Ready,
Email Subscription Box,
Sticky Navigation bar,
Featured Post Slider,
Custom contact form,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Auto Author Image,
Newsletter Subscription,
Professional admin Layout

Created By: Lasantha – PremiumBloggerTemplates
Demo Download

Simple Tech

As the name itself says the story, simple tech is a very simple blogger theme and looks great. It has a sticky header, and add slot (468*60) as well. Subscription Box just looks awesome.

Overall it’s a well-designed theme with some decent thumbnails for the post. We can also find social sharing icons and pages menu at the top. Which makes this theme a complete one.

Source:gooyaabitemplates

Some key and highlighted features of it.

Fully Responsive Design,
Fully SEO Optimized,
Mobile Friendly Design,
Ads Ready,
Elegant Email Subscription Box,
Sticky Navigation bar,
2 Column Theme,
Custom Error 404 Page,
Recent Comments,
Threaded Comment,
Professional admin Layout

Created By: SoraTemplates
Demo Download

How to Make Sidebar widget Fixed in Blogger While Scrolling Page

noreply@blogger.com (ashraf abdel fattah heikal) — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:17:00 +0000