Optimizing Adsense

If you're a blogger, I'm pretty sure you know something about Google Adsense. If not, then as one of the quotes I read recently said "you must be living under a rock!" Hehe. Google Adsense is the most widely used and popular advertising method on the planet. It's Google's cash cow. Advertisers pay Google to publish ads on those sites that are adsense members. Google gets majority of the profit, bloggers get the scraps. It's a like it or leave it thing. But if you're already a member, you might as well take advantage and get some dollars here and there. You pretty much don't have control of which ads will appear because Google automatically determines and publishes an ad related to your blogs topic. If for example you don't like a particular ad, the most you can do is manage by excluding the URL of the ad from appearing on your site. You can do that in your Google adsense account.

How bloggers get paid by displaying Adsense?

It's pretty simple. When any of our visitors, click on the Google ads we publish, we get some money. Usually just a small percentage of what Google is actually paid. Depending on the amount of visitor traffic your blog gets, there would be a greater chance those ads will be clicked be someone resulting in more earning for you.

Is it easy to earn using adsense?

Yes and No. Yes if you have very high traffic. This is because the higher traffic you get, the more probability that more of your blog's visitors will be clicking on one of your ads. Especially, if your blog's topic is a high-paying adwords keyword (* explained later). No if your blog fits the exact opposite of what I just mentioned. I'll give you example later of highly paying keywords that I've heard can earn you at most &28 per click.

What are the do's and don't in using adsense?

Major no-no when you use adsense is clicking your own ad. Or having someone clicking the ads for you. It's what they call click fraud. Google has some weird high-tech way of determining if you made those clicks yourself or if you had somebody click it for you. Let me share an example, when I was working with my previous company my desk-mate one day came in fuming mad because he said he just received an email from Google that he has been banned and forfeited the $200 dollars he earned for running Google's ads in his website forum because Google found out the clicks made on his ads were fraudulent. He swears he didn't click the ads himself but since he is running a forum, he couldn't really tell who did the fraudulent clicks. He says it may be from someone who got pissed because he banned him from the forum but there no way and no use of finding out now.

There's a lot of Google ads tips out there. A great Google adsense guru is Joel Comm of joelcomm.com. He has some great video tutorials that can be found on Youtube on how to get started in blogging and his Google expertise. I'll give some that I picked up on the net and some taught to me by my friends later. But first let me discuss to you how to position your ads.

Positioning the ads in the "heat zone"

In your blog, there's an area SEO experts call the heat zone. Statistically, that area was found to be the most likely blog visitors will focus their eyes on. Since this area is where they frequently focus their eyes on, it is more likely that it will be the area where they will be interested in something. If they become interested in something, it is almost for sure that they will click on whatever is there on that area. If you are the type of blogger who would want to maximize the earning potential of your blog, what you need to do is position those ads in the "heat zone" so that it will be more likely that your visitors will be interested and click on the ads. Had enough of the suspense? What to know what this "heat zone" looks like? hehe. Okay. They heat zone is shaped like a capital letter F. So what does this mean? It means if you want to earn maximize your adsense earnings, you need to position those ads on your blog shaped like an F. For example, One big leaderboard ad on the top of your homepage either above or below your banner. Second, one 160x600 vertical banner ad on your left most side-bar. And lastly, one ad in between you posts or if you know how to, you can integrate a Google ad within your post. When you do this, the pattern should be like shaped like this:
FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="
Ofcourse, you will need to decide if this is right and if this works for you. This is just based on statistical data but everyone is entitled to decide if they want to monetize or not to monetize and just focus on blogging. If you do want, to monetize make sure you monitor the performance of your ad. Try a little experimenting on the positions of your ads and see what works best for you eventually. This advice is not only limited on Google adsense. You can apply the F heat zone to anything who want people to notice more. If you want them to notice your widgets bucks ads you can also do that. The plain simple rule is: place your most important stuff on this F heat zone because it will get noticed first and more often than the other areas of your blog.

Here's rest of the tips I promised:

1. In Google adsense, it takes 2 clicks from a visitor to earn you some considerable money. For you to actually earn, whoever clicks your Google ads will have to be interested and clicks on something on the page he was taken to. If this is done, it should be a considerable amount of maybe $0.50 above depending on the cost per click of that add.

2. Here's a list of high-paying keywords or ads that will pay big bucks to click on. I've even seen some bloggers purely blog about these stuff purely for monetary reasons. Most common words combined with these terms also pays well. What this means for bloggers is if their blog topic is about these things, they stand to earn better because these keywords are paid by advertisers for a high-cost which means higher pay for publisher bloggers.

mesothelioma
insurance
mortgages

3. Blend the colors of your Google ads with the color of the background where it is going to be placed. It would look more natural to your visitors. If the ad is blended, there would be a better possibility that a visitor will click the ads. If you wonder how it should look like, take a look at my ads.

Please read Google adsense terms and conditions page and program policies to get complete detailed information about using Google adsense.

Cashcrate

Cashcrate is my favorite site and the one that I've recieved the most checks from. I've been doing it for about a year now and honestly have never had a problem with it. First of all it's free to sign up and it's been around for years. Cashcrate offers many types of offers that you can complete for money. There is an entire section of absolutely free offers. This means you fill out surveys and get paid. Simple as that.



Their referral system is great too. When you sign up a person you earn 20% of your level 1 referrals. If you can collect quite a few referrals, that can turn into some excellent income from others doing work! Cashcrate not only pays you 20% of your level one referrals, but they implement a 2 level referral system. That means anyone who signs up under your referrals, you will also earn 10% of their earnings. When a referral gets to the $10 minimum you get an automatic $3 bonus! Not only can you earn all that money, once you have 50 active referrals your earnings increase. This is why Cashcrate is one of the best GPT sites. Your earning potential is unlimited.



When you hit the $10 minimum, your money will then be mailed to you on the 20th of the month following your cash out. This means if you earn $100 in August, you will be receiving your money around the 20th September. Your checks are automatically mailed to you and you have nothing to do but EARN!

There is also an excellent help forum on Cashcrate and people are there to answer any and all questions. You also have the ability to send messages to them or your referrals. There is unlimited help for you and unlimited earning potential.

Online Content Monetization: Tools and Services To Make Money With Your Blog Content

  1. ClipSyndicate

    clipsyndicate_logo.gif

    ClipSyndicate enables broadcasters and other video content producers to insert advertisements in their videos. ClipSyndicate syndicates video clips to thousands of vertical web sites looking for specific content of interest for their end-users. As a result, broadcasters can further monetize their clips, web publishers have a new source for fresh, relevant content, and advertisers have access to a highly targeted audience.

    http://www.clipsyndicate.com


  2. Google AdSense for Feeds
    adsenseforfeeds_logo.gif
    Google AdSense for feeds is a program that enables publishers to place relevant ads in the feeds they syndicate. Google technology understands the nuances of language, and places ads that are closely matched (or "targeted") to the content next to which they appear. If you are a current AdSense publisher and your feed has more than 100 active subscribers, you may qualify for participation in AdSense for feeds. Free sign up.
    http://services.google.com/ads_inquiry/aff


  3. TrendyFriendy
    trendy_friendy_logo.gif
    TrendyFriendy is an online web-community, which has been created for people who want to open a blog and find new friends. As an additional feature the community provides a possibility to earn money with Google AdSense. If you want to earn money, keep in mind that the rating depends on posts written exactly by you, which have been rated by other users. Your rating directly defines your participation in ad rotation on whole site. For participating in ad rotation an obligatory condition is having an own Google AdSense account. Free sign up.
    http://www.trendyfriendy.com


  4. HubPages
    hubpages_logo.gif
    HubPages is a online space to share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with others. Set up an account and create your Hubs (your own web articles); you will then share the rewards when visitors click on your Hubs' ads. That is because Hubpages lets you link affiliate IDs from eBay, Amazon and Google (with more partners in the works), so that your Hub can display ads and products like any professional web site or magazine. Free sign up.
    http://hubpages.com


  5. AdsBlackList
    adsblacklist_logo.gif
    AdsBlackList is a service that enables you to maximize your AdSense revenue. It provides you with list of most commonly filtered websites whose webmasters use AdWords to attract visitors for low price click, so that they can convert it to high price click on their own MFA (Made for AdSense) or Low Cost per Click site. If you want to stop these type of actions going on through your sites, all you need to do is to paste a list generated by AdsBlackList to your AdSense Setup in the Competitive Ad Filter list. Your revenue should substantially increase. Free sign up.
    http://www.adsblacklist.com


  6. Bloglinkr
    bloglinkr_logo.gif
    Bloglinkr is a service that allows publishers to display relevant ads on their sites and all of the advertisers on Bloglinkr are other blogs. You select the categories that you want your readers to see, and your readers will see links to blogs in the categories you've selected. You'll get paid for each click. Additionally, you'll get paid also when people click ads on blogs that you've referred to Bloglinkr. Sign up to receive a free invitation to join the program.
    http://beta.bloglinkr.com


  7. nbbc
    nbbc_logo.gif
    nbbc is a marketplace connecting businesses that have video content to businesses that want video content, and enables all parties to profit from the exchange. Content owners place content on the nbbc platform and video is paired with advertisements. Web publishers access content and pick what they are interested in: whenever end users view content, the advertising revenue is shared between video producers and publishers. Free sign up.
    http://www.nbbc.com


  8. Grooveshark
    grooveshark_logo.gif
    Grooveshark is an online service that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music. Grooveshark is a web-based application for sharing music within a community of music lovers. Grooveshark distributes DRM-free MP3s across a mostly p2p network. Grooveshark is currently in private beta and you need to apply for an invitation. Free sign up.
    http://grooveshark.com


  9. Coinlogic
    coinlogic_logo.gif
    Coinlogic provides bloggers, artists, musicians, authors, programmers, and anyone else with a web presence the ability to easily generate revenue from original content. Currently, this micro-commerce service is in private beta and you will need to leave your email address to receive an official invitation to join the program. Free sign up.
    http://www.coinlogic.com


  10. Quantcast
    quantcast_logo.gif
    Quantcast is an open internet ratings service for advertisement. Advertisers can find reports on the audiences of millions of web sites. Publishers can ensure their sites are represented accurately by tagging them for direct measurement. Once you sign up, enter your domain name and paste your personalized JavaScript tag into each of your site's pages. Quantcast will start measuring your traffic immediately, and you'll see new traffic statistics in your profile. The service is free.
    http://www.quantcast.com
This mini-guide has been originally written by Robin Good and Livia Iacolare and first published on MasterNewMedia as:
Content Monetization: How To Make Money With Your Blog Content

Tags: Online Marketing, Content Delivery And Distribution, content aggregation, online advertising, AdSense, advertising, ads, video, Google, content, monetization, making, money, with, blogs

Create PayPal Donate link instead of a Button


After our earlier post on How to add PayPal donate button to your blog, We were asked if there is a way to generate a PayPal Donate Link instead of a button. Here's how you can generate a text link.


If you don't have a paypal account yet, you can get a free account



After you have your login ID/password, Login to your account. Then click the
"merchant services" tab.



scroll down and on the right sidebar, find the box labelled key features, click on the link named "Donations"



After clicking on that link, you will taken to "Create paypal payment button" page, just make sure that donations is selected in the "Accept Payments for" dropdown box. You can type a name/id for this button



Down below you can customize your paypal button by selecting options like using smaller button, displaying credit card logos, changing language, currency, contribution amount or use your own graphic as a button.


Step 2 & 3 are optional and requires a business account, so leave them for now. and click on create button.



On the next page you get the code for your website/blog, just copy the entire code from the textbox and paste it to your blog or website.




The next page generates two code boxes, the first one is for the button and the second one is text link for email and sites, copy the entire code from the second textbox and paste it into your template of your website or blog, where you want it to appear. You can choose to display your own anchor text and wrap the code around it. eg: Remembering 9/11 Victims



XML blogger users read the post on How to add HTML or JavaScript into blogger

Instant Rating for your Blog Posts

Give readers of your blog ability to express their opinion on your blog content by leaving instant rating. Add the Outbrain Rating Widget to get immediate feedback. The Outbrain Rating Widget is free for bloggers and is very simple to add to your all popular blogging platforms, as Blogger, TypePad, WordPress (hosted), Drupal, or others. After widget installation a simple, but up-to-the-point 5-star rating will be added to the bottom of every post you publish.

Widget does not consume much resources, requires no registration, and very intuitive - visitors can hover the mouse over the five stars and click any of them to rate your current blog post.


Outrbrain Blog Rating

Get the Widget here: http://www.outbrain.com/get/ratings

Avoid becoming a victim of Credit Card Fraud


Credit Card fraud is on the rise, As part of our "Internet Safety" tips series, we are suggesting certain steps that can help you avoid being a victim of Credit Card fraud.



The first step to prevent your credit card from being misused is to not let your card fall into the hands of fraudsters. There are many tutorials/how-to's on the internet on credit card fraud that suggest..



"..be on the lookout for houses where the houseowners are on a vacation and have their house locked down but left their mailbox unprotected where the banks will send them their credit card."



This seems to be the most popular method of getting hold of other's credit card. So, take the hint! NEVER leave your mailbox unprotected, take steps to ensure the privacy of your mailbox.



According to this article in BBC..



..A fraudulent card transaction takes place every eight seconds and cloning is the biggest type of credit card fraud.



Cloning (also popularly known as 'skimming') can happen in seconds. So, Whenever using your credit card on malls, resturants and hotels etc., request that the the card is swiped in front of you, Don't let your card out of your sight and pick up all receipts. To pick up more tips, you should also read this article on BBC on How credit cards get cloned



Extra care needs to be taken if you use Credit Card to buy on the Internet. Sure, It's so convenient to use the credit card to buy online, but remember that there are other ways to pay for your purchases for eg. "Cash on delivery" for instance. Use your card on well known and reputed sites, also make sure that the site is using SSL.



You are adviced not to use your card on public cafe's, computers with public access as they could be running malicious programs(called keyloggers) to steal your personal information.



The last tip is to use paypal for online purchases, PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay and get paid online, Pay without revealing your credit card or bank information. Now many people like you, use paypal instead of using credit cards.




MyBlogLog Widget for Blogger






The MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget by MyBlogLog.com ( now owned by Yahoo! ) is not just popular on Blogger blogs, but its a favorite amongst other bloggers too. Recently the widget has been given a cosmetic change to make it look graphically appealing. I guess it does look good. The colors of the widget are also customizable.



The widget will help you create an online community of admirers and fans of your blog. The more people join your community, the more likely you are to attract traffic to your blog.



The address of your community on MyBlogLog will be like http://mybloglog.com/buzz/community/_________ ( you can have a keyword of your choice in the blank space)




It's easy to add a blog or site to your MyBlogLog profile. First, you need to get a Yahoo! Id. Most people already have it and if you don't you can always get a free account from http://www.yahoo.com




On your profile page, click Add Blog/Site I Author.

You will be taken to a page on which you can add the details of your blog or website. Fill out the details and your blog will be added(the screenshot of your site will be added automatically).



Once your site is added to your profile, the next step is to create the widget for your blog. Your blog should be listed under "My Sites and Services", It will also have a link labelled "Widget" beside your blog. Clicking the "Widget" link will take you to the page where you can customize the color of your widget



The textbox labelled "Your Code", generates the widget code that you need to copy to your blog template(preferrably on your sidebar). XML blogger users read the post on How to add HTML or JavaScript into blogger



Here's a live demo of the MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget on BlogThings Labs and Why not join our community, Right Now?

Piwik - Open Source Competitor to Google Analytics

Piwik (previously known as "phpmyvisits") aims to be an open source alternative and direct competitor to the famous statistics from Google Analytics. As both programs are free for its members, the main fight for the users will be on the level of the usability, user interface, and set of features available.

Piwik provides detailed reports on the web site visitors, enhanced statistics per pages popularity, overview of search engine keywords, languages used, traffic origins, and much more. If in US it is just starting its way to the consumers, in Japan it is already well-known to the bloggers and website owners.

What makes Piwik different:

* Open APIs

* Plugins Architecture. New features can be added and unneeded stats can be dropped. In its basic format, there are four different categories - dashboard, visitors, actions, and referrers. Each section includes multiple analytical widgets that can be added and removed easily. Outcomes can be presented as bar graphs, pie charts, or plain text.

* Data abstraction layer

* Customizable dashboard.

* Innovative customizable User Interface. You can drag and drop the widgets you want to display and create the reports you want.

Note, that Piwik should be installed on your webserver, while all the data is stored in your own database.

Give it a try: http://piwik.org/

451Press.com - Paid Blogging Opportunities

451Press.com is one of the largest blog networks. They are always looking for writers to contribute to their growing network of blogs which cover a wide range of subjects and topics. If you're passionate about a topic, you may think about writing for 451press's blogs.

Requirement
  • Knowledgeable and passionate on the topic you write.
  • Strong writing skill with unique voice.
  • Creative
  • Reliable
How much you can earn
As a blogger of 451press.com, you task is to write unique content for the blog you are handling. 451press will take care of promotion and generating advertising revenue for your blog. They will provide the support you need to succeed. You'll get paid 40% on all the advertising revenue generated by your blog.

To know more about 451press's blogging opportunities or apply as a 451press's writer, please click here.

source: http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/2007/08/451presscom-paid-blogging-opportunities.html

Make Extra Money With A Blog Without Spending A Dime

Blog or weblog is simply a website with frequent updates on a particular subject or topic. You can write a comment, review,
suggestion or tip on a subject on your blog. You can also provide educational resources and advice if you are an expert at something.
For instance, If your blog is about sport cars. You can post the latest annoucements from sport cars manufacturers such as BMW, Ferrari
and so on, discuss about the latest models of sport cars and the best components used for producing sport cars.

Blogger.com allows anyone to create a free blog (free domain name and hosting) without any technical knowledge. Creating a blog with
Blogger.com is easy and you can have you blog published within an hours.

There are several ways you can make money with a blog:

Become a Google AdSense publisher
You can join Google AdSense program and start earning advertising revenue from your blog. It is not difficult to set up you AdSense
campaign as Blogger.com also provides Adsense tool and guidances to help you start an AdSense campaign. This can be a great source of revenue, though of course the amount of income you can expect from your AdSense ads will depend on the amount of traffic (visitors) to
your blog.

Sell Other People's Stuff
You can promote your affiliate programs by placing the affiliate links and banners on your blog and earn commission whenever someone clicks through an affiliate link or banner to your merchant's website made a purchase.

Sell Your Own Product

Blog can be used to promote and sell your own products too. You can write about your products' features and benefits on the blog.

Drive Visitors to You Blog
To make money you need to drive visitors or traffic to your blog. The more traffic you're getting the higher your earning will be. There are
several free ways of getting traffic to your blog. Here's how ......

1) Introduce your blog to your family and friends.
2) Submit your blog to directories. You can find a list of blog directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'submit blog url'.
3) Write an article or more with a link to your blog and submit them to article directories. You can find a list of article directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directory'.
4) Post messages on community forums with a link to your blog on the signature of each message posted.

There are other ways (free and paid) to increase traffic for your blog. You can find a lot of free information and resources about blog promotion from search engines.

source: http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/2006/08/make-extra-money-with-blog-without.html

BlogIt - New Facebook Application for Bloggers

Six Apart, makers of Movable Type, Typepad and other popular blogging services, has launched a new Facebook application designed to broadcast your posts to several of the most popular external publishing systems at once.

Blog It allows you to compose and post updates within the Facebook interface and have them simultaneously appear on any one of the ten supported services, including Movable Type, TypePad, Pownce, Twitter, Blogger and WordPress.

The idea behind Blog It is to simplify the process of updating all the various sites and services you use, offering a single interface for updating all your sites. It’s a bit like turning Facebook into a fire hose that sprays your thoughts across the web.

FriendFeed is also toying with similar, though much more limited cross-posting features, like the ability to send comments to Twitter. Blog It, however, offers far more complete updating capabilities.

Which isn’t to say that Blog It is feature complete just yet. For now, you’ll miss niceties like a rich text editor or the ability to upload and include pictures in your posts. In the video below, Six Apart’s David Recordon makes it clear that the company is aware of the application's short-comings and promises feature upgrades in the near future.

But while Blog It may be a work in progress, even in limited form, it’s the easiest way I’ve seen to broadcast posts across platforms. It offers the ability to pick and choose which posts go where on a per-post basis so you’re always in control of who sees what. Every time you add a new service to update, Blog It offers the option to automatically post to that service, though you can always uncheck any of the services when you actually post something.

Blog It is a pretty slick Facebook app, perhaps the best I’ve used. And while it still lacks a few features (OAuth support is reportedly in the works, but for now you’ll have to give Blog It all of your passwords) it definitely makes it easier to broadcast your life to multiple locations. It's a nice cure for the fatigue of having to keep up with all of your data streams by logging into each service separately.

Recordan has hinted elsewhere that Six Apart may expand Blog It to work from other platforms — like Plaxo’s Pulse, or perhaps even as standalone AIR application like Twhirl — but for now Blog It is tied to Facebook.

To get an idea of what Blog It looks like in action, check out the video below where Recordon walks you through the process of setting up and using Blog It (and also offers the best OAuth metaphor I’ve heard: “it’s like a valet key for the web”). If you’d like to jump in with both feet, you can go ahead and add Blog It to your Facebook account.

Triggit: Add Content and Monetize your Blog with Ease

Triggit offers an interesting approach to enhance the ways of your site monetization. It is a web based application that matches your site content to multiple ad opportunities, through a meta-ad network, having access to millions of ads from numerous networks and allowing to receive one aggregate earnings check.

The biggest advantage of Triggit is a nice ability to drag and drop fitting ads directly into your site from your web browser. No hassle embedding HTML, PHP or CSS code on you site. This drag and drop feature works through JavaScript. If your publishing platform accepts JavaScript, you are in the game. So far the accepted platforms are Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress. The application works as a simple widget, but you can also manually insert the code snipper if you like the certain ad to
appear on your site.

Triggit is also lets a blogger adding YouTube videos and Flickr images to the page easily and in no time without editing HTML or even launching your blog post editor

The bigger issue with this service is related to the browser limitation. Currently, Triggit only works with Flock and FireFox. This leaves all other browser of the page or blog owners out of the picture.

A little video from DownloadSquade shows how the service works.

site visitor