Google Adsense and making money with a blog
I have been on the fence lately if Adsense is really the way to go for me trying to make money online by blogging. I run around 6 blogs now all with very good traffic with the Blogging Center being the newest of them getting the least traffic at this point. Seems that there are so many other options out there that will pay per impression in addition to per click.
I think the per impression is ideal given that three of my sites are on page one for the keywords I went after so gets a lot of impressions but unfortunately the click rate on my google ads is not that high. I have tried moving around the google ads to make more money but it only helped a little bit. I am thinking now might be a good time to experiment. Maybe make it my 2010 goal to try a few new marketing providers and see if I can’t increase my blogging income a little.
The good news is that while Google used to not allow you to have other ads on the same blog as google, those days are long gone. So I can still leave a google advertisement up while experiment just in case I happen to get a click here and there. I know that many of the top bloggers make a lot of money with google but I think that is a bit of a misconception.
They didn’t always make that money with google. They make that money now that they have a ridiculous amount of traffic and so while their click rate is low it is still enough to bring in big bucks online. So we will see. I will experiment a little and let you know how it goes. A few places I am thinking about trying are:
I will let you know as I go if I see an increase in pay. What are you using?
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Consistency: One of the key factors on how to become a successful blogger
When you read over the top bloggers like ProBlogger or ShoeMoney what you see is a dedication to their blogs. Not random updates but daily updates. More impressively multiple updates within the day and not just garbage content to fill in the void but quality words that add value to their readership.
Now it is easy for them I think since well, they are in fact full time bloggers all they need to do in a work day is post on blogs that would be any of you being surprised I work all day at my job and get paid for it. The thing that is interesting is that they were able to pull off the activity level of blogging many times a day and creating new and interesting material even when they were not full time blogging. There lies the consistency and dedication most bloggers fall short in.
I think we all like the idea of blogging. There is a chance of income. A chance of being bale to quit a “normal” job and work all day by writing a few blog posts. This sounds nice but it just is not an easy task to accomplish especially now it is only getting harder. More people are throwing up more blogs. Search engines are getting smarter and changing how they rank pages. More social network sites popup that require each blogger to learn and get involved with to get traffic to their blog.
The bottom line I think to become a successful blogger one needs to provide quality content on a normal basis that adds value to their readership. I truly believe as long as the content starts with certain keywords in mind BUT written to add value not keyword density, the traffic will come. The key again, is overtime. After years and years of doing that.
Three blog layouts tips to maximize your site
Very few bloggers start out with fully customized blog layouts. Most will use a template and begin to customize it from there. In the customization is where you can really make your blog layouts stand apart from the rest who are also using the same freeware version of the theme. So how do you get started to maximize your site? Here are three tips:
1. Get very familiar with CSS, HTML and your publishing software. Most blog publishing software out there gives easy access to the blogger to update and change the pages that make up the blog. This includes the CSS file, the main index template and the individual posts and pages. You need to get very familiar with your blog layouts to know where things fall, what files need to be updated. Learn if your blog has a header, footer, sidebar and main template.
If you want to add text, an image or widget you need to know where to put it. Learning your blog layouts will help you do this. Don’t be afraid to change the code from the backend. The CSS file will allow you to change colors, fonts, etc to make your standard template look fully customized.
2. Have a plan before you get started. Before you jump in and blog think about your site first. Do you plan to have stagnated content on your blog or do you plan to update regularly, perhaps a combination of the two? Do you plan to have advertisements on your blog and what about any plug-ins? You should be able to define your blog so you know what theme is the best one for you. If you want three columns or two. If you need widgets and Google Adsense ready blog layouts. Have a plan before you begin. If you don’t you will end up completely revamping your blog in a few months when you realize you picked the wrong one.
3. Always think about your readers first, not yourself. Too often people use what they think looks cool but never consider the reader experience. They choose black backgrounds and small fonts. Have you ever read a blog like this? It is horrible, I personally hate black backgrounds even with white text it is hard to read and strains my eyes. Think about USEABILITY! Don’t make reading your blog a challenge. Make it fun and easy to navigate. Don’t frustrate your readers. When you do your planning think about navigation. Think about colors and making your blog user friendly. Don’t think about yourself.
Filed under Blogging, Blogging Tips
Is there value in a blog traffic exchange?
There are many tools out there to help increase blog traffic such as blog explosion or blog soldiers. These tools work by creating a blog traffic exchange where you view a blog and in return you earn a credit. These credits are cashed in when someone else joins and views blogs. Each credit counts toward one blog traffic exchange.
In theory this is a great idea to get traffic to your blog but in reality I have found them of little value in my own experience. The reason I say this is that as a blogger I joined a few of them early on to get traffic and people reading my blog but I never really read other blogs I simply waited for the time to go by to earn credits. I am sure the other participants of the blog traffic exchange program was doing the same thing. So what in the end did this get me. It got me a one time increase in my blog traffic but since the reader didn’t really read anything on the blog in the long run it was useless.
Every now and again maybe a reader would come along and actually read the articles, maybe even leave a comment but on a whole I think blog traffic exchange programs add little value to long term success as a blogger. Perhaps when you are a new blogger it is good to get the exposure but don’t spend too much time on it. Spend your time getting backlinks to your blog or writing articles for article directories. These are much more valuable in the long run.
How to start your own SEO business
After blogging for a few years and learning the ropes of how to get a blog ranked high in search engine results you might want to consider spawning off on your own and make money online with your own SEO business. There are just a lot of people out there who want to rank high in search engines but do not have the time to commit or the technical background to be active in their blog marketing. Therefore they turn to SEO experts to help build a blog or website that will do well with search results.
If you have the background to do your own SEO business and feel you have what it takes to earn money online as an SEO expert, here is what you should do to get started.
Tips To Start Your Own SEO Business
1. You need to have a front. Create a blog as the center piece to your SEO business. This should be updated on a regular basis and you should post on a regular basis about tips, techniques and your own experience as an SEO expert. Give potential customers confidence you know what you are talking about. You should also build a services page on your business blog where you can describe your SEO services and the pricing available.
2. Start Local: Contact your local companies of any size, shape and business and offer to help build them a website if they don’t have one. Get in the door and from there market your SEO services.
3. Build a portfolio: Sometimes you need to earn a reputation before you can earn money online with your own SEO business. This means taking on good customers and working on their SEO for free in return you can use them as a reference on your SEO business blog. They might even give you a nice quote you can post on your site when you show the results.
4. Market yourself: Write articles on the topic of SEO and send them out everywhere. This includes guest blogging on SEO blogs, article directories and within specific business publications. Get your name out there and get links back to your SEO business blog so that potential customers can find you.
Three steps to earning a search engine promotion
So you just joined the blogging ranks and now want to earn a search engine promotion. The first rank is easy so no worries but you need to get started. For new bloggers the first rank in search engine optimization is really to get listed and see where the chips fall as far as page rank for their keywords.
Step one is to use the SEO all in one plugin for wordpress and ensure each post has been maximized for SEO. This includes meta keywords and descriptions as well as making sure your article contains your keyword a few times.
Step two to earning a search engine promotion is create a sitemap and robot file. Search engine spiders will use the sitemap and robot file to crawl your blog and index the pages you have. These two files can really make a difference in the speed in which you can have your pages indexed. I would suggest using a sitemap plugin as well which will update the search engines when you post a new blog article so that they can index it.
Step three is to submit your URL to the search engines themselves. I would wait until you have a few articles written on each category you plan to write on so that your site is more filled out and has value to any reader that finds it before submitting your URL. There are many free search engine submission tools out there that will submit your blog to various search engines to save you time in doing it manually.
Good luck soldier on your new journey in blogging. Hope you earn your search engine promotion quickly!
Filed under Blogging, Blogging Tips
