Additions to Blogger

Have you seen the latest addition to blogger? Hey this is very cool and can earn you a few bucks! I'm all about making money!! This is what they have to say just in case you don't read their announcements in your dashboard.

AdSense recently introduced a feature called video units, that lets you include relevant YouTube video on your blog, and make money from ads on it. Here’s what they have to say about it:

"We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your blog
with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply
embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to
your blog. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select
content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted
to your blog's content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and
non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your blog, you can also
customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different
player sizes."

AdSense Help has some more information about video units. Once you’ve created the code for a video unit, you can easily add it to your blog’s template using an HTML/JavaScript page element.

4 Ways I Monetize My Blog/Website

* Affiliate Marketing~~This is my top money making source. You don't have to deal with customers, returns, chargebacks, etc. All you really have to do is find quality products that pertain to your blog/website, post a text link or banner, and possibly write some content on the product. LinkShare, ClickBank, and Traffic Payouts are at the top of my list.

* Adsense~~Obviously, Google Adsense is the most popular out there, however, I personally prefer Bidvertiser. They have a lower threshold so you get paid quicker. It's not as user friendly as google but it's not that difficult to figure out either.
I recommend putting adsense as a leaderboard, to the left top side of your page and in your posts. Statistics show that these are more effective than other places.

* AuctionAds~~This is one of my favorites. You get to put in the keywords that you want(pick keywords relevant to your site), pick the kind of ad you want, preview, copy and paste in your site, and walah the ads displayed are ads that are geared towards your site. They have a new feature for ebay sellers. If you are a seller, you can point the ads directly to your items for sale. I find this very handy for my other site A Cowboy's Wife. You can see to the left that I have AuctionAds but they are all items I'm selling right now on ebay.

* Submit your Feed ~~This is great for loyal readers and for people on the fly by. What I mean is, you get a reader that found one of your posts very interesting. He wants to save your site...he has a couple of options. He can bookmark it or he can subscribe to your feed. Even if he bookmarks it, he may find your posts intersting enough to subscribe later on.

There are soooo many ways to monetize your site but these are just a few of my favorites. I hope this helps you in your journey to monetize your blog/website.

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Succeeding with Pay Per Click

This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.

1) Do your keyword homework.

Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.

2) Don't bunch your ad groups.

You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.

3) Drive home your selling point.

What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.

6) Don't lie in your ads.

People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.

7) Your domain name counts.

In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.

8) Utilize negative keywords.

Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.

9) Test, test, and test some more.

The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!

10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.

Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!

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Making Money with Google Adsense

One of the common mistakes people have with regards to Adsense is thinking that you simply just apply, slap the code in your website and you can start earning money from it. FALSE!

As you can see, you hardly earn anything from it. Why? Because your site is not the right fit with Adsense. The truth is that not all sites work well with Adsense -- and your astrology site is not the best for the program

The amount you can earn will depend on the following factors (see #1 -- your site does not fit well with it)

1. Responsiveness of audience to the ads = A travel website that provides information on travel to Spain will attract visitors looking for ways to arrange their travel and spend money on their vacation to Spain. Your site provides the info, but the ads will provide hotels, travel agencies, tourist destinations, car rentals -- ads that are likely to get the attention of the users of your site. This is a site that will most likely do well with Adsense. However, if you are a gaming website where the main purpose of the user is to play games on your site, then Adsense will not perform as well.

2. Ad format = some types of ads do better than others depending on your content and layout. In our case, large rectangles in the middle of the content is the best, while leaderboards do not generate as much as income. Skys are the worst for us. Experiment and measure the results via channels and see which formats work best for you.

3. Ad placement - check Google's heat map as they have tested where the best placements are.

4. Ad colors - sometimes ads blended into the content works wonders, but sometimes ads that contrast your site colors work best

5. Number of ad units on a page = we are allowed maximum of 3 ads + 1 ad links + 1 search box on a page. Maximize the allowed number based on the resulting look of your page (you don't want an overkill of ads). Users going to your page and reading your content may ignore the banner or rectangle at the top of the page, but may click on the ad at the bottom of the article

6. Smartpricing - the big unknown in Adsense. No one knows how this actually works. But it can affect the pricing of the ads on your site. If the advertiser paid for $0.50/click - but your site is smartpriced - then the cost may be discounted lower (e.g. $0.25). So you may try to develop a site based on high paying keywords but if smartpricing gets to you, then you may not get as much per click as what you are expecting from your keywords.

Here is Google's explanation of smart pricing.

Google's smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click based on its effectiveness compared to a search click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results -- such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups -- we reduce the price you pay for that click.

Experiment with the factors above (except smartpricing, which you can't control), and see which combination works best. Remember though that not all sites do well with Adsense - even if you get gazillions of traffic but your visitors are not interested in looking for ways to spend their money, they won't be interested in your ads and won't click.

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Advertising with Bidvertiser

If you have an established blog or website and are ready to monetize it, I suggest you try BidVertiser. Yes, they are

another resource for adsense but also have a great advertising program. It's inexpensive and your site will get seen but tons of people. I have generated a huge amount of traffic since I started advertising. Don't want to invest yet, right now they are giving you $20 in FREE clicks.!! You can't beat a deal like that.

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Google Cash~~The Rich Jerk Way

Ever wonder how The Rich Jerk made his millions??..Google Cash shows you how to pay Google to create and post tiny classified ads on the right-hand side of any Google search result's page -- linked to companies offering a solution (and paying you to act as their online marketing coordinator).
You might be surprised how easy it is to be a rich jerk... one way is to follow a Google Cash system, send $5 to Google... and you're up and running in about 3 hours (or less).

Here's a very simple, basic snapshot of how Felix Kelly used a Google Cash system to pocket over $55,000.00 a month in profit -- ultimately selling his work at home business on ebay for $379,000.00 (in an 8-day auction).

"Can you really be a rich jerk by this weekend? It depends... if you're willing to follow a Google Cash system and make it work every day over the next few weeks, odds are good success is yours just for the asking."
A person looking for a solution to their problems submits a request to a search engine like Google. In the above example, the search is for "tool crib"...

... When you look carefully, most search engines deliver search results in one of at least two ways. The vast majority of listings are displayed at no cost to the web site owner... and in the above example, a search for "tool crib" shows Amazon.com in the first featured listing. But at the very top of the result's page is a "Sponsored Link" ad for Amazon.com again... only this listing was paid and bought by someone like the Rich Jerk.

... Finally, the rich jerk ultimately redirects this Google visitor to a company offering a solution... and the rich jerk gets paid when the visitor spends money.

Important note: please understand that the Google Cash system does take some effort to make it work. However once you get it up and running successfully you really can take lots of days off and still have money coming in. At first it seems almost unreal. But I'm sure you'll get used to it.


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ADSENSE

I use Google adsense....there are many different ones out there, I just feel they provide so many useful tools and you can manage it all from the same dashboard pretty much.