If you are using Adsense on your site then you must update your privacy policy by April 8, 2009. This update is in relation to the new changes enacted on Adsense in March of 2009. The new changes effect how Google collects information on your surfing habits using third party advertising vendors who leave cookies on your browsers - notably the Doubleclick DART Cookie.
The basic changes to Adsense revolve around the addition of Interest Based Advertising as opposed to the previous Placement Targeted Advertising. You can visit Google for a description of what Interest Based Advertising entails.
Your updated Privacy Policy should inform your users about the use of third party cookies on your sites and provide them with information regarding their opt out options should they wish to not have cookies placed on their browsers. See Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising
As an Adsense publisher you also have the option not to use Internet Based Advertising and may Opt out by following the instructions posted in Google Adsense Help. I do not recommend that you opt out but the choice is yours. These changes should help increase your CTR and CPC in the long run as you will become less susceptable to being smart priced. (ie. Conversions should increase as users are presented more advertisements based on their interests)
It is still too early to give any conclusive feedback on how successful Internet Based Ads are but early results seem to be positive. Unfortunately March was a bit rocky for publishers as all the new changes to Adsense caused a number of glitches - several days saw CTR under-reported which Google admitted was an error on their part as they were not showing relevant ads. They maintained that it was only for a few hours but it lasted several days. You may have also experienced higher than normal pageviews for a few days.
Personally I have seen and am still experiencing strange CPC highs and lows as recently as yesterday. I'm not too concerned as I think it will take a little while to iron out all the bugs and caution everyone to just wait things out for the month of April before making any major changes to your Adsense sites. (ie. Don't concern yourself with smart price tweaking for the time being)
If anyone has seen definitive results either good or bad regarding Internet Based Ads please feel free to leave a comment.
FYI - I am on holidays with the kids at the moment (spring break here) so have been neglecting my comments but should be back to work next monday.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Site Build It - Lessons Learned
Site Build It Aftermath
One of the more humourous (international spelling) things I see online are people that use link baiting. And the people who think others are link baiting. Link baiting is simply writing contentious posts and titles designed to attract attention. A useless endeavor for making money as the visitors don't click ads or buy things. Link baiting attracts social traffic. The only good that can be said for it is that they may leave you gobs of comments full of rich keywords to feed the Google bot. Keywords that will bring you targeted long tail traffic in future.
Lissie was accused of link baiting with her recent posts concerning SBI or Site Build It. She wasn't, she was simply using a tried and true technique known as Keyword Targeting her post in order to rank well in the search engines. The point was to obtain targeted search visitors who do click ads and buy things. She wrote a second follow up post in order to link to the first post. The reason? That is how you can obtain double indexing in Google. (You have to use the exact same keywords anchored in both posts though) I wrote a post about Site Build It as well and have now linked to it and will link that post to this one.
If you use keyword targeting and people link to you then they are likely to use your post title in the anchored link pointing at you. If that happens then you will rank better for that keyword.
How did Lissie make out? (click images to enlarge)
- and that's how you make money with Adsense. Let the people flogging a program pay you to flog it for them. They do all the work - you collect the money. When one batch of affiliates have lost enough money using PPC another batch will replace them. You will still be making money with a program like SBI long after the current crop of users have quit blogging on SBI. Just be sure to target a program like Lissie did - it has been around a long time and probably will be for some time to come. To find the right programs just look for fanatical cheerleaders, and lots of fake review sites. Simply post a contrary review and the fanatics will get your post noticed. Once noticed many people who have been scammed or are simply not happy with the program in question will link to you. Google will also give your post a nice position even without the links. See Justin's SEO blog for a technical explanation of why this is so.
Lissie's post is done, ranked and she will never have to do another thing and the search traffic will show up every day and make her money should she add Adsense to the post. (assuming there is search traffic for the term - if not use the post to send authority for a term that does get search traffic - ie. Site Build IT, Site Build It Review etc) Ideally you want to rank number 1 for all the terms. I have discussed how this is done previously.
Oh... and how well does social traffic convert?
Some of the folks on Digital Point Forum seemed to think my Niche Blogging with Hot Topics post was designed as link bait. Let's see why I don't bother with forums or chase social traffic.
This past week my 5th highest source of traffic came from a thread in Digital point.
Source: Google Analytics
And let's see how well my traffic sources converted into Adsense Earnings.
Source: Google Analytics
Some of you may think $12 bucks is worth spending your time chasing 1100 social visitors but it will take a lot of work to keep that traffic coming daily. Do what Lissie did and you won't have to chase anything - Google will send them to you.
So? Does SEO work?
Lesson completed. (insert smilie dude)
Cheers
Griz
Related Posts
Site Build It Review Update
Honest Reviews Online
Site Build it - Don't Buy It
This is not a fake review with a sales pitch for Site Build It - I am simply telling you not to buy it.
Lissie wrote an article entitled Site Build It Scam Review. If you read her post and I encourage all my readers to do so you will see a prime example of how many online systems work. Develop a canned project, target beginners looking to make money online, set up a sweet affiliate program to entice people to sell your product and then send out your core cheerleaders to attack and bash anyone who so much as criticizes your product. Read her post and see if you would like to be associated with the cheerleaders pimping this product.
In my experience every time I see a swarm of cheerleaders like Site Build It has, you are looking at a program that makes money by selling the program and not by using it. MLM is notorious for using this method. Is Site Build It MLM? I have no idea - doesn't matter. What matters is that the only reason you get cheerleaders to swarm en masse is to protect their source of money - ie selling "the program" - not "using it" to make money online.
If the program developed successful internet marketers then no one would give a damn if someone like Lissie writes a negative review about the program. They would know it works and are making money using it. If others dissent so what - their loss. You wouldn't care because it worked for you. On the other hand if your only means of income is selling "the program" to unwitting noobs then you can bet you will be out in full force defending "the Program". If people start reading negative opinions then your source of income is gone.
I make money doing what I do and could give a rats ass if someone doesn't agree with me, or like me or bashes me and I would never ask my readers to defend me or my system. In fact I wish you would all stop mentioning me on the noob forums like Digital Point and Warrior. Please.
If you do a search for Site Build It on Google all you see is fake affiliate reviews simply gushing over how wonderful it is. Such bullshit. There isn't a real review on it which simply tells me that real internet marketers have nothing to do with it (I wouldn't use it) - just noobs doing the noob affiliate review trick that is as old as the hills. Is that what Site build it teaches?
Thanks to Lissie's post a number of cheerleaders left their URL's. It took less than 10 minutes to review their sites and guess what? They don't know SEO, they don't make money, they don't know how to find profitable niches and they don't know how to monetize. They just have the usual generic sites like all the other millions online, neither good or bad. Nothing worth spending $300 to learn. You can learn far more reading my blogs for free. I could outrank every one of the niches I looked at in a heart beat using a free blogger blog.
I have a favor to ask all my readers who have a site - please write your own review about Site Build It. You will save future beginners from wasting their money. The serp's are full of affiliate reviews pimping this product and could use a few real reviews so that people have a better idea of what this product is really about.
Our good friend Vic has surfaced long enough to post Site Build It Noobs are Funny on Blogger Unleashed.
Steve spreads the message on his blog Is Site Build It a Scam?
Video Presentation Is Site Build It a Scam?: No It's Just Bullsh*t - by Allyn Hane (This Video is excellent and not just the content - you have to see Allyn - some serious talent)
I am sick of scum bag cheerleaders trying to bully people online especially as they are doing it simply to make money by sucking noobs into programs they don't need.
Read Justin's post if you are interested in understanding the SEO aspect of all this.
Related Posts - These are real reviews and not affiliates of SBI.
Site Build It Scam? by Jeremy
How Not to Make Money with Site Build It - by Terry Didcott
Dr Ken Evoy SiteSell.com Scam? - by April
Site Build It is a Waste of Money - by Splork (My friend Splork has wasted more money on more crap than anyone I know. If you are a beginner then listen to him - he has been there - done that!)
Site Build It Review for Beginners - by Medic
Site Build It Scam? - by Wayne
Site Build It Scam Controversy - by Archie
Site Build It Scam Review - by Ad Tracker. (Quite humorous)
Site Build It Scam Trolls - by Fiar (Excellent commentary that covers the real point of this exercise)
Make Money Online for Free - Not with Site Build It - by Denise
Is Site Build It a Scam? by Christy
Site Build it Review or SBI Review or Whatever by Vic (lol - for your entertainment pleasure folks!)
What Constitutes a Scam? - by Bruce
How to Earn Cash Online with Site Build it - by Frank Carr (A considered opinion by one of the fairest reviewers online - well worth the read if you are considering Site Build it.)
Site Build It: The Scam - by Nick
Can I Make Fast Money with SBI? - by Matt
The Blog War - by Costa
Site Build It Action Guide - by Andy
The Soap Opera of SBI Scam Review - by Simonne
Fake Scam Product Reviews - by Tracey Edwards
How to Avoid Site Build It Scam - by Jeff Lopes
Site Build It Websites without the $300 - by Hijinks
Ken Evoy Defends Site Build It - by Dennis Jr.
Review of Site Build It - The Bashing - By Nick
SBI - The Evoy Empire - by Vic W
Is SBI Site Build It a Scam? - by Derrick
Site Build It Review - Positive or Negative? - by Neena
Is Site Build It a Scam? - SBI Review - by Zania
Site Build It is Unlikely to Make you Much Money - by Lorecee
Site Build It Vs Steve Pavlina: Which is the Scarier Cult - by Personal Development for Dummies (Funny and quite perceptive)
The Great Site Build It Scam - by Max Wolfe
Site Build It - Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Lin Burress
Site Build It Scam - The SBI Cult VS Lis - by Xel
Fake Site Build It Affiliate Reviews - by Carla
When 'Site Build It' Zombies Attack - by RT Cunningham
Site Build It is Not Worth It - by Damien
SEO for Small Business - Buyer Beware - by Larry G
Lissie's Site Build It Scam Review - by Cliff Edge Consulting
Site Build It Scam - by Scooter
WTF Is it with Site Flipping - by Bill The Blog Entrepreneur
Site Build It Review: Is SBI a Scam - by Ditto
Don't Buy Site Build It! - by Niche Writer
Site Build It Scam: No Need for SEO Web Design by Norman Sheppard Web Design
Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Janetra Antigua Web Solutions
Site Build It Scam Review - By Adam
Site Build It SEO Video from Vic - By Online Stock Trading
Site Build It Review - by Bastilar
Make Money Online The Real Deal - by Lissie
The Site Build It Controversy - Carla
Site Build It - No Naysayers Allowed - by Chanya
What is the Site Build It! Stink About - by Elliot
Site Build It? Forget It! - by Thai
How to Make Money Online for Beginners for Free - by The Chetty Bear
"Site Build It" - by BK
Site Build It Scam Reviews - Reviews Collection - by Joe
Watching the Fireworks - When MMO Implodes - by MJ
Are Site Build It Reviews a Scam? - by Michael Erickson
Site Build It Blog Reviews - by Online Stock Trading
Site Build It Review Site - by Grey Brother
A Negative Review of Site Build It! - by Toban
5 Things that won't Make Beginners Money Online - by Jordan Pierreza
The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Law of Attraction - by KuleKat (Kat adeptly discusses the Western world's penchant for self help, Steve Pavlina and SBI)
Get Your Green on
How to Pinch a Penny
Billiga Bilforsakringar
Lissie wrote an article entitled Site Build It Scam Review. If you read her post and I encourage all my readers to do so you will see a prime example of how many online systems work. Develop a canned project, target beginners looking to make money online, set up a sweet affiliate program to entice people to sell your product and then send out your core cheerleaders to attack and bash anyone who so much as criticizes your product. Read her post and see if you would like to be associated with the cheerleaders pimping this product.
In my experience every time I see a swarm of cheerleaders like Site Build It has, you are looking at a program that makes money by selling the program and not by using it. MLM is notorious for using this method. Is Site Build It MLM? I have no idea - doesn't matter. What matters is that the only reason you get cheerleaders to swarm en masse is to protect their source of money - ie selling "the program" - not "using it" to make money online.
If the program developed successful internet marketers then no one would give a damn if someone like Lissie writes a negative review about the program. They would know it works and are making money using it. If others dissent so what - their loss. You wouldn't care because it worked for you. On the other hand if your only means of income is selling "the program" to unwitting noobs then you can bet you will be out in full force defending "the Program". If people start reading negative opinions then your source of income is gone.
I make money doing what I do and could give a rats ass if someone doesn't agree with me, or like me or bashes me and I would never ask my readers to defend me or my system. In fact I wish you would all stop mentioning me on the noob forums like Digital Point and Warrior. Please.
If you do a search for Site Build It on Google all you see is fake affiliate reviews simply gushing over how wonderful it is. Such bullshit. There isn't a real review on it which simply tells me that real internet marketers have nothing to do with it (I wouldn't use it) - just noobs doing the noob affiliate review trick that is as old as the hills. Is that what Site build it teaches?
Thanks to Lissie's post a number of cheerleaders left their URL's. It took less than 10 minutes to review their sites and guess what? They don't know SEO, they don't make money, they don't know how to find profitable niches and they don't know how to monetize. They just have the usual generic sites like all the other millions online, neither good or bad. Nothing worth spending $300 to learn. You can learn far more reading my blogs for free. I could outrank every one of the niches I looked at in a heart beat using a free blogger blog.
I have a favor to ask all my readers who have a site - please write your own review about Site Build It. You will save future beginners from wasting their money. The serp's are full of affiliate reviews pimping this product and could use a few real reviews so that people have a better idea of what this product is really about.
Our good friend Vic has surfaced long enough to post Site Build It Noobs are Funny on Blogger Unleashed.
Steve spreads the message on his blog Is Site Build It a Scam?
Video Presentation Is Site Build It a Scam?: No It's Just Bullsh*t - by Allyn Hane (This Video is excellent and not just the content - you have to see Allyn - some serious talent)
I am sick of scum bag cheerleaders trying to bully people online especially as they are doing it simply to make money by sucking noobs into programs they don't need.
Read Justin's post if you are interested in understanding the SEO aspect of all this.
Related Posts - These are real reviews and not affiliates of SBI.
Site Build It Scam? by Jeremy
How Not to Make Money with Site Build It - by Terry Didcott
Dr Ken Evoy SiteSell.com Scam? - by April
Site Build It is a Waste of Money - by Splork (My friend Splork has wasted more money on more crap than anyone I know. If you are a beginner then listen to him - he has been there - done that!)
Site Build It Review for Beginners - by Medic
Site Build It Scam? - by Wayne
Site Build It Scam Controversy - by Archie
Site Build It Scam Review - by Ad Tracker. (Quite humorous)
Site Build It Scam Trolls - by Fiar (Excellent commentary that covers the real point of this exercise)
Make Money Online for Free - Not with Site Build It - by Denise
Is Site Build It a Scam? by Christy
Site Build it Review or SBI Review or Whatever by Vic (lol - for your entertainment pleasure folks!)
What Constitutes a Scam? - by Bruce
How to Earn Cash Online with Site Build it - by Frank Carr (A considered opinion by one of the fairest reviewers online - well worth the read if you are considering Site Build it.)
Site Build It: The Scam - by Nick
Can I Make Fast Money with SBI? - by Matt
The Blog War - by Costa
Site Build It Action Guide - by Andy
The Soap Opera of SBI Scam Review - by Simonne
Fake Scam Product Reviews - by Tracey Edwards
How to Avoid Site Build It Scam - by Jeff Lopes
Site Build It Websites without the $300 - by Hijinks
Ken Evoy Defends Site Build It - by Dennis Jr.
Review of Site Build It - The Bashing - By Nick
SBI - The Evoy Empire - by Vic W
Is SBI Site Build It a Scam? - by Derrick
Site Build It Review - Positive or Negative? - by Neena
Is Site Build It a Scam? - SBI Review - by Zania
Site Build It is Unlikely to Make you Much Money - by Lorecee
Site Build It Vs Steve Pavlina: Which is the Scarier Cult - by Personal Development for Dummies (Funny and quite perceptive)
The Great Site Build It Scam - by Max Wolfe
Site Build It - Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Lin Burress
Site Build It Scam - The SBI Cult VS Lis - by Xel
Fake Site Build It Affiliate Reviews - by Carla
When 'Site Build It' Zombies Attack - by RT Cunningham
Site Build It is Not Worth It - by Damien
SEO for Small Business - Buyer Beware - by Larry G
Lissie's Site Build It Scam Review - by Cliff Edge Consulting
Site Build It Scam - by Scooter
WTF Is it with Site Flipping - by Bill The Blog Entrepreneur
Site Build It Review: Is SBI a Scam - by Ditto
Don't Buy Site Build It! - by Niche Writer
Site Build It Scam: No Need for SEO Web Design by Norman Sheppard Web Design
Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Janetra Antigua Web Solutions
Site Build It Scam Review - By Adam
Site Build It SEO Video from Vic - By Online Stock Trading
Site Build It Review - by Bastilar
Make Money Online The Real Deal - by Lissie
The Site Build It Controversy - Carla
Site Build It - No Naysayers Allowed - by Chanya
What is the Site Build It! Stink About - by Elliot
Site Build It? Forget It! - by Thai
How to Make Money Online for Beginners for Free - by The Chetty Bear
"Site Build It" - by BK
Site Build It Scam Reviews - Reviews Collection - by Joe
Watching the Fireworks - When MMO Implodes - by MJ
Are Site Build It Reviews a Scam? - by Michael Erickson
Site Build It Blog Reviews - by Online Stock Trading
Site Build It Review Site - by Grey Brother
A Negative Review of Site Build It! - by Toban
5 Things that won't Make Beginners Money Online - by Jordan Pierreza
The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Law of Attraction - by KuleKat (Kat adeptly discusses the Western world's penchant for self help, Steve Pavlina and SBI)
Get Your Green on
How to Pinch a Penny
Billiga Bilforsakringar
1.5 Million Visitors in 8 Days - Niche Marketing
Make Money Niche Blogging with Hot Topics
The early bird gets the worm when there is no competition.
1,512,246 visitors in 8 days.
Click images to enlarge
Translates to $9,268.05 in earnings.
I told you how last post... it's money season folks.
Most of you ignored me. Hot topics are not glamorous - they are not long term - and they won't make you famous.
But I don't really care... they make money.
Sorry I haven't had time to get to the comments... been a tad busy.
Cheers,
Griz
(before you all ask - there were 3 celebrity centered events this past week and I'll say no more)
Update:
For two days I have been getting a constant stream of "experts" from Digital Point filling my inbox with troll crap - the usual "nobody will tell you how to make money online for free", "he must be selling something", "it's a fake" and so on. It is ironic that DP and Warrior are full of people flogging crap and noobs looking for answers and yet when someone mentions that you can learn everything you need to make money online for free just by reading a blog the trolls come out in force. It says a lot about the mentality online and why people don't succeed - a smart cookie might wonder how a PR0 free Blogger blog ranks on top of the make money online niche and do a little reading. The losers will never figure it out but it doesn't stop them from voicing their noob opinions.
For your entertainment folks... Digital Point Drivel
March 18 - Update. There is a new post on the Adsense blog for those who have been waiting - the feed update won't go out until the morning.
The early bird gets the worm when there is no competition.
1,512,246 visitors in 8 days.
Click images to enlarge
Translates to $9,268.05 in earnings.
I told you how last post... it's money season folks.
Most of you ignored me. Hot topics are not glamorous - they are not long term - and they won't make you famous.
But I don't really care... they make money.
Sorry I haven't had time to get to the comments... been a tad busy.
Cheers,
Griz
(before you all ask - there were 3 celebrity centered events this past week and I'll say no more)
Update:
For two days I have been getting a constant stream of "experts" from Digital Point filling my inbox with troll crap - the usual "nobody will tell you how to make money online for free", "he must be selling something", "it's a fake" and so on. It is ironic that DP and Warrior are full of people flogging crap and noobs looking for answers and yet when someone mentions that you can learn everything you need to make money online for free just by reading a blog the trolls come out in force. It says a lot about the mentality online and why people don't succeed - a smart cookie might wonder how a PR0 free Blogger blog ranks on top of the make money online niche and do a little reading. The losers will never figure it out but it doesn't stop them from voicing their noob opinions.
For your entertainment folks... Digital Point Drivel
March 18 - Update. There is a new post on the Adsense blog for those who have been waiting - the feed update won't go out until the morning.
Today.com Pays You for Usless Traffic
As many of you know I signed up for a free sub-domain on Today.com. In my short time on the site I have used the domain's juice to rank a number of keywords in decent position in the serp's. Next up - "How to make money with Adsense". This wasn't hard thanks to my friends who graciously supplied me with anchored backlinks. Thanks guys and I'm repaying my debts using the SEO and Adsense page. If you have sent me a link and I have missed you please let me know. (If there is a keyword you would rather have me use then let me know that as well.)
Lissie from How to Make Passive Income Online alerted me to the fact that the blogger's on Today.com were a bit green - and she was correct. If you have been following my advice for any lenght of time - say a week - then you are already an expert compared to the folks plodding about on Today.com. This isn't to demean them - they are truly nice people but they are completely new to the ways and means of internet marketing or even just blogging in general. Moreover the moderators are just as green. Even more astonishing is the fact that the powers that be behind the domain don't seem to have a great deal of knowledge either. And this brings me to the topic at hand.
Today.com encourages people to use social networks to attract traffic. The screenshot below is from the forum and one of the "Administrators" actively encourages people to use Entrecard.
Click image to enlarge
For those of you who don't know - Entrecard is easily the most useless traffic producer online. It consists of wasting an hour or two or your day loading 300 URL's in your browser and then clicking on them in order to visit 300 websites. You never actually look at the websites you visit - you just open it in a tab and by the time it loads you are already 4 tabs away loading another url. By the time you have loaded all the sites you simply close the browser window and wait for 300 other entrecard users to load your url in their browser - none of whom bother to read your posts either. When it is all done you pat yourself on the back because you had 300 unique visitors to your site. None stayed more than 2 seconds but what the heck it makes you feel like you are popular. Oh and gee - look at that - Alexa gives you a ranking.
Most of you learned long ago that you sure don't make any money from entrecard users. This also applies to the stumblers and diggers and redditers and sphinners and twitterers etc. Useless traffic that sucks your bandwidth and leaves without so much as a comment. Traffic that you waste hours trying to garner. One huge time sink if you are trying to make money.
However - and this is the point of this post - a lot of my readers still spend their days courting social traffic. You do it because your site isn't really set up to make money - you still hold onto the fact that maybe you will get famous because of your writing. Maybe targeting the search engines is a bit too much work. Maybe you will get around to doing what Griz says... one day but for now you're just gonna go with what you started with. If that is the case then Today.com is for you.
Why?
Because they will pay you for all that useless traffic. $2 for every 1000 useless unique visitors. It ain't much but I bet it is better than what most of you make right now with your social blogs.
Now some of you are thinking that getting 1000 visitors a day is hard - even useless visitors. Nope - not really. (I can't believe I am going to tell my readers how to get social traffic - lol)
Target Celebrities, Gossip, Tech/Gadgets/Gaming, Politics, humour and hot stories (ie - American Idol is back again)
Use images - lots of properly alt tagged images.
Post photos - tag em', keyword the photo with a short blurb
Post ten times a day - 10 posts per page.
Use Linkvana, Backlink Solutions, RT's ConnectContent, and buy anchored backlinks for all the targeted keywords.
Use my niche support page - it is free.
Use all the social sites to stumble, digg etc but if you use the link networks mentioned Google images will send you a ton of visitors all by itself.
Because you are using a free sub domain you need not worry about G. Just don't link it to any of your real sites.
This is the kind of stuff I did plenty of in the old days and I still have a couple of tropical fish sites that receive in excess of 10,000 visitors a day each - most from Google images. The sites make me nothing - the odd ebook sale but if I was getting $2 for every 1000 visitors I would build more.
If Today.com wants to pay for traffic then give them traffic. You can also set up affiliate links provided by Today.com and if approved by them they will also pay you $1 a post as long as you don't do self promotion posts.
The best thing about this is that you don't need to write much content. Just small keyword optimized blurbs about the photos. This is exactly how I used to use Technorati to drive thousands of people to my hot topic sites before Technorati canned the "what's hot" page. I posted photos with scandalous post titles and short keyword optimized blurbs. Social traffic loves crap and will bounce all over the net looking for it.
Here is the most visited site on Today.com http://whybenormal.today.com/ - 7000 daily visitors. Take a look at it. How much work do you think it takes to do that? (I mean no offense to the owner - good on her I say) $300 a month for posting humorous photos. Nice.
Unfortunately Today.com doesn't accept people worldwide. They don't publicize what countries are acceptable but it appears that N. America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia (Tiawan, Japan) are ok. I'll update this post if people leave comments regarding their own country - pass or fail. If any of my readers that specialize in sneaky tactics have some ideas on circumnavigating the home IP blocking then feel free to leave your ideas below.
If any of you sign up or have an account already send me an email with "Today member" in the subject and I will let you know of another way to drive traffic - a very simple system. I won't respond back until I have everyone included so be patient. Let me know your today.com url in the email.
Today won't make you rich but I suspect a lot of you wouldn't mind a few extra bucks in your pocket given the current recession. Those of you who want to work a little harder can probably make some decent money using the affiliate ads provided if you target your sites to the right traffic.
I know a lot of you aren't making anything with your social sites - you may as well do the same thing you are doing now on a site that will pay you for the visitors.
Note: To all my "I'M In" participants. I haven't forgot you. Just ironing out a few things and will send you all an email shortly. Frank and RT - haven't heard from you but would like to...
Lissie from How to Make Passive Income Online alerted me to the fact that the blogger's on Today.com were a bit green - and she was correct. If you have been following my advice for any lenght of time - say a week - then you are already an expert compared to the folks plodding about on Today.com. This isn't to demean them - they are truly nice people but they are completely new to the ways and means of internet marketing or even just blogging in general. Moreover the moderators are just as green. Even more astonishing is the fact that the powers that be behind the domain don't seem to have a great deal of knowledge either. And this brings me to the topic at hand.
Today.com encourages people to use social networks to attract traffic. The screenshot below is from the forum and one of the "Administrators" actively encourages people to use Entrecard.
Click image to enlarge
For those of you who don't know - Entrecard is easily the most useless traffic producer online. It consists of wasting an hour or two or your day loading 300 URL's in your browser and then clicking on them in order to visit 300 websites. You never actually look at the websites you visit - you just open it in a tab and by the time it loads you are already 4 tabs away loading another url. By the time you have loaded all the sites you simply close the browser window and wait for 300 other entrecard users to load your url in their browser - none of whom bother to read your posts either. When it is all done you pat yourself on the back because you had 300 unique visitors to your site. None stayed more than 2 seconds but what the heck it makes you feel like you are popular. Oh and gee - look at that - Alexa gives you a ranking.
Most of you learned long ago that you sure don't make any money from entrecard users. This also applies to the stumblers and diggers and redditers and sphinners and twitterers etc. Useless traffic that sucks your bandwidth and leaves without so much as a comment. Traffic that you waste hours trying to garner. One huge time sink if you are trying to make money.
However - and this is the point of this post - a lot of my readers still spend their days courting social traffic. You do it because your site isn't really set up to make money - you still hold onto the fact that maybe you will get famous because of your writing. Maybe targeting the search engines is a bit too much work. Maybe you will get around to doing what Griz says... one day but for now you're just gonna go with what you started with. If that is the case then Today.com is for you.
Why?
Because they will pay you for all that useless traffic. $2 for every 1000 useless unique visitors. It ain't much but I bet it is better than what most of you make right now with your social blogs.
Now some of you are thinking that getting 1000 visitors a day is hard - even useless visitors. Nope - not really. (I can't believe I am going to tell my readers how to get social traffic - lol)
Target Celebrities, Gossip, Tech/Gadgets/Gaming, Politics, humour and hot stories (ie - American Idol is back again)
Use images - lots of properly alt tagged images.
Post photos - tag em', keyword the photo with a short blurb
Post ten times a day - 10 posts per page.
Use Linkvana, Backlink Solutions, RT's ConnectContent, and buy anchored backlinks for all the targeted keywords.
Use my niche support page - it is free.
Use all the social sites to stumble, digg etc but if you use the link networks mentioned Google images will send you a ton of visitors all by itself.
Because you are using a free sub domain you need not worry about G. Just don't link it to any of your real sites.
This is the kind of stuff I did plenty of in the old days and I still have a couple of tropical fish sites that receive in excess of 10,000 visitors a day each - most from Google images. The sites make me nothing - the odd ebook sale but if I was getting $2 for every 1000 visitors I would build more.
If Today.com wants to pay for traffic then give them traffic. You can also set up affiliate links provided by Today.com and if approved by them they will also pay you $1 a post as long as you don't do self promotion posts.
The best thing about this is that you don't need to write much content. Just small keyword optimized blurbs about the photos. This is exactly how I used to use Technorati to drive thousands of people to my hot topic sites before Technorati canned the "what's hot" page. I posted photos with scandalous post titles and short keyword optimized blurbs. Social traffic loves crap and will bounce all over the net looking for it.
Here is the most visited site on Today.com http://whybenormal.today.com/ - 7000 daily visitors. Take a look at it. How much work do you think it takes to do that? (I mean no offense to the owner - good on her I say) $300 a month for posting humorous photos. Nice.
Unfortunately Today.com doesn't accept people worldwide. They don't publicize what countries are acceptable but it appears that N. America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia (Tiawan, Japan) are ok. I'll update this post if people leave comments regarding their own country - pass or fail. If any of my readers that specialize in sneaky tactics have some ideas on circumnavigating the home IP blocking then feel free to leave your ideas below.
If any of you sign up or have an account already send me an email with "Today member" in the subject and I will let you know of another way to drive traffic - a very simple system. I won't respond back until I have everyone included so be patient. Let me know your today.com url in the email.
Today won't make you rich but I suspect a lot of you wouldn't mind a few extra bucks in your pocket given the current recession. Those of you who want to work a little harder can probably make some decent money using the affiliate ads provided if you target your sites to the right traffic.
I know a lot of you aren't making anything with your social sites - you may as well do the same thing you are doing now on a site that will pay you for the visitors.
Note: To all my "I'M In" participants. I haven't forgot you. Just ironing out a few things and will send you all an email shortly. Frank and RT - haven't heard from you but would like to...
Make Money with Adsense - February Income Report
Hi Folks. As you have all noticed I have not posted in a few weeks as I have been concentrating on my new Adsense for Beginners blog. Actually - the previous post was simply a funnel to send traffic to the new site. Over the past couple of months my social traffic has increased considerably on this site and I am attempting to send the beginners elsewhere in order to reduce my social traffic/search traffic ratio on this site. I have said this often - if you want to make optimal returns with Adsense then you need to increase your search traffic (targeted) and reduce the amount of social traffic (un-targeted) that are clicking your ads. This will drastically improve your CPC and CTR.
A secondary concern I have is the amount of questions I get regarding Adsense. I thought it best to start over from scratch so that beginners can find all their answers in one place and not have to try and navigate this site for them - an impossible task and the result is that new comers tend to ask the same questions over and over on every post. Hopefully the new site will be easier to navigate and it contains current info - this site has a lot of info but much of it is out of date spanning the last two years. There have been a lot of changes in two years and I am far to lazy to go back and update old posts. It will be much easier in future to just point people to the new blog rather than answer the same questions over and over on this blog.
That's the official story - now the unofficial story.
I have talked a lot about dominating niches. Many of you have taken that to mean build a site, optimize your posts and then work your targeted anchored backlinks until you rank number 1 on the serp's for your term or keyword. If you have been following this path then you are doing things correctly and will see results. However - this isn't how you dominate a niche - you are simply dominating a keyword or phrase.
The next step is to dominate ALL the keywords and phrases associated with your niche. This will greatly increase your overall volume of targeted traffic. If you have followed my system - long winded posts using lots of long tails then you will have noticed that you can start driving traffic to your sites in short order. When starting a new site the traffic may not find you using your main keywords but they will find you for all the long tails. Ranking well for your long tails will help you rank for your main keywords if you choose your long tails properly. I have re-demonstrated this technique and urge you to read the following post if you are still not clear on how to choose and use keywords effectively in your posts and in your backlinks. Keywords and How to use them for Backlinks and for Post Content
There is still one step left in dominating a Niche. The final phase is to use your authority on your main site to support several other sites and vice-versa. There are 10 spots on page 1 of the serp's for every keyword. You don't have to stop at just one.
I have four sites now (that you know of) working their way up the MMO niche. You know about them because I am demonstrating what I do. I don't recommend you do the same - keep yours anonymous. You can build any number of legit sites anonymously and use them to support each other. Can you build a network without fallout from G or your competition? I don't know - I don't advertise them elsewhere. This blog as usual pushes the bounds of what you can or can not do. My sites are legit and shouldn't run afoul however my content tends to discuss things that may get me into trouble at some point.
February Adsense Income For Make Money Online for Beginners
A slight dip from January's numbers - 3 less days accounts for approximately $300 but this still leaves a drop of about $500 compared to last month. Not a concern as February is back on par with earnings posted throughout the fall. November and December had dropped enough to make me wonder if the economy was beginning to affect earnings. The January/February earnings have alleviated those fears. Perhaps Adsense is recession proof - time will tell.
Click Image to Enlarge
On a side note and something my Canadian readers have benefited from - the drop in the value of the Canadian Dollar has actually helped me earn more money. Last months income of $4k USD converted into an extra $1000 in Canadian currency. Very Nice...
Helping Others
I have benefited greatly from the help given to me by my friends. Your friends can be your greatest asset and one of the things that I have been attempting to do is build a community of people who will help each other out. While this has greatly benefited me I would like to take a more active role in helping others get immediate results. Several of you have reached a point in the serp's where you could use an extra push to get to the top of your niche. I will say no more in public but ask all of you who would like a little hand to contact me directly with the subject line "I'm In".
I know who my long time readers are and this is available only to you. I don't like excluding anyone but if I am not familiar with you I ask you to be patient and get yourself known in the community before asking to be included. For now I want to do a trial run with my regulars. The basic jist is I am going to ask you all to do something for someone else and ask others to do something for you. What we do won't be publicized. Nuff' said.
A secondary concern I have is the amount of questions I get regarding Adsense. I thought it best to start over from scratch so that beginners can find all their answers in one place and not have to try and navigate this site for them - an impossible task and the result is that new comers tend to ask the same questions over and over on every post. Hopefully the new site will be easier to navigate and it contains current info - this site has a lot of info but much of it is out of date spanning the last two years. There have been a lot of changes in two years and I am far to lazy to go back and update old posts. It will be much easier in future to just point people to the new blog rather than answer the same questions over and over on this blog.
That's the official story - now the unofficial story.
I have talked a lot about dominating niches. Many of you have taken that to mean build a site, optimize your posts and then work your targeted anchored backlinks until you rank number 1 on the serp's for your term or keyword. If you have been following this path then you are doing things correctly and will see results. However - this isn't how you dominate a niche - you are simply dominating a keyword or phrase.
The next step is to dominate ALL the keywords and phrases associated with your niche. This will greatly increase your overall volume of targeted traffic. If you have followed my system - long winded posts using lots of long tails then you will have noticed that you can start driving traffic to your sites in short order. When starting a new site the traffic may not find you using your main keywords but they will find you for all the long tails. Ranking well for your long tails will help you rank for your main keywords if you choose your long tails properly. I have re-demonstrated this technique and urge you to read the following post if you are still not clear on how to choose and use keywords effectively in your posts and in your backlinks. Keywords and How to use them for Backlinks and for Post Content
There is still one step left in dominating a Niche. The final phase is to use your authority on your main site to support several other sites and vice-versa. There are 10 spots on page 1 of the serp's for every keyword. You don't have to stop at just one.
I have four sites now (that you know of) working their way up the MMO niche. You know about them because I am demonstrating what I do. I don't recommend you do the same - keep yours anonymous. You can build any number of legit sites anonymously and use them to support each other. Can you build a network without fallout from G or your competition? I don't know - I don't advertise them elsewhere. This blog as usual pushes the bounds of what you can or can not do. My sites are legit and shouldn't run afoul however my content tends to discuss things that may get me into trouble at some point.
February Adsense Income For Make Money Online for Beginners
A slight dip from January's numbers - 3 less days accounts for approximately $300 but this still leaves a drop of about $500 compared to last month. Not a concern as February is back on par with earnings posted throughout the fall. November and December had dropped enough to make me wonder if the economy was beginning to affect earnings. The January/February earnings have alleviated those fears. Perhaps Adsense is recession proof - time will tell.
Click Image to Enlarge
On a side note and something my Canadian readers have benefited from - the drop in the value of the Canadian Dollar has actually helped me earn more money. Last months income of $4k USD converted into an extra $1000 in Canadian currency. Very Nice...
Helping Others
I have benefited greatly from the help given to me by my friends. Your friends can be your greatest asset and one of the things that I have been attempting to do is build a community of people who will help each other out. While this has greatly benefited me I would like to take a more active role in helping others get immediate results. Several of you have reached a point in the serp's where you could use an extra push to get to the top of your niche. I will say no more in public but ask all of you who would like a little hand to contact me directly with the subject line "I'm In".
I know who my long time readers are and this is available only to you. I don't like excluding anyone but if I am not familiar with you I ask you to be patient and get yourself known in the community before asking to be included. For now I want to do a trial run with my regulars. The basic jist is I am going to ask you all to do something for someone else and ask others to do something for you. What we do won't be publicized. Nuff' said.
Introducing Adsense for Beginners
Hey folks. I have started a new site dedicated to explaining the fine art of making money online using Adsense. You can find the new blog here; Make Money with Adsense
Due to the overwhelming amount of emails I get requesting help with or needing answers pertaining to Adsense I have decided to start from scratch and lay out the framework for my Adsense system on a site of its own. The posts are targeted to those who have no knowledge whatsoever about this business so keep that in mind if you have been a long time reader. You will have read much of it before - at least the initial posts which cover the basics. While discussing what I do I will also be demonstrating my techniques using the new site as an example of how to tweak it, SEO it and rank it in the serp's. In future I hope to send the new readers to the site for all the info they will need to earn a living with Adsense. This should reduce my emails and solve the problem of finding all the pertinent info on this blog - yes - my navigation here sucks and even I can't find what I'm looking for most of the time. Sorry about that.
The site is built as a sub-domain on Today.com and I am using it in order to demonstrate to my experienced readers my process of building a network. Like always I run the risk of showing to much but the "farm" questions that my last post aroused has led me to realize that many of you need help in establishing your own networks. This site will give you a good idea of how I go about it.
You don't always need to start a new self hosted blog. You don't really need to spend money - there are many free platforms that you can use and the more you use the better. The idea is to spread your sites out across as many C Class IP's as you can. Some sites will be anonymous or use fictitious names. Others will be flagships proudly using your name. A network consists of a variety of blogs, websites, one page sales pages or whatever you can think of. The point is to create a network that you have access to and can control the juice on. It's easy finding backlinks if you have hundreds of sites to choose from...
In any event I won't be discussing "farming" here. I am in the process of helping a "friend" set up a site dedicated to this topic though - I shall let you all know when it is ready.
Until then - go to the new site and leave a couple of hundred comments just to see if we can break Today.com's comment program... lol.
Due to the overwhelming amount of emails I get requesting help with or needing answers pertaining to Adsense I have decided to start from scratch and lay out the framework for my Adsense system on a site of its own. The posts are targeted to those who have no knowledge whatsoever about this business so keep that in mind if you have been a long time reader. You will have read much of it before - at least the initial posts which cover the basics. While discussing what I do I will also be demonstrating my techniques using the new site as an example of how to tweak it, SEO it and rank it in the serp's. In future I hope to send the new readers to the site for all the info they will need to earn a living with Adsense. This should reduce my emails and solve the problem of finding all the pertinent info on this blog - yes - my navigation here sucks and even I can't find what I'm looking for most of the time. Sorry about that.
The site is built as a sub-domain on Today.com and I am using it in order to demonstrate to my experienced readers my process of building a network. Like always I run the risk of showing to much but the "farm" questions that my last post aroused has led me to realize that many of you need help in establishing your own networks. This site will give you a good idea of how I go about it.
You don't always need to start a new self hosted blog. You don't really need to spend money - there are many free platforms that you can use and the more you use the better. The idea is to spread your sites out across as many C Class IP's as you can. Some sites will be anonymous or use fictitious names. Others will be flagships proudly using your name. A network consists of a variety of blogs, websites, one page sales pages or whatever you can think of. The point is to create a network that you have access to and can control the juice on. It's easy finding backlinks if you have hundreds of sites to choose from...
In any event I won't be discussing "farming" here. I am in the process of helping a "friend" set up a site dedicated to this topic though - I shall let you all know when it is ready.
Until then - go to the new site and leave a couple of hundred comments just to see if we can break Today.com's comment program... lol.
SEO Software and Link Building
Hi folks. A little bit of everything in this post as I want to tie up a few loose ends and ramble a bit. The basic gist of this post will pertain to SEO - more specifically I want to show you exactly what it is I do in order to take some of the mystery out of SEO.
I want to start off by referring you to a comment left on a post I made in December.
The post was How I Find a Money Making Niche Dec 5, 2008
The comment was by Jez and you can read it below.
Hi Griz,
Problem I have with this post is that 95% of the backlinks to this sites are from blogs / social sites links.... many are from bloggers you know / are friends with.
What I would like to see is a post on link building for a "non bloggy" topic would be very useful... for example... say you had a niche site about "reactolite spectacles"... how would you approach link building on a site like that?
Jez
I have had a number of emails similar in nature. Since this keeps cropping up I think it needs to be discussed.
Yes - it's true. I get a lot of links simply because I am ranked highly in the serp's. I have lots of friends - they do link to me. What Jez and others don't realize is that I didn't develop all my friends until I was found on the search engines. I didn't (and still don't) use social networks to make friends. I had to get my site ranked well in the first place and I didn't have any help back then. The fact that this blog benefits from friends helping me now doesn't mean that this was always the case. If you think I don't really know how to build links and rank well without the help of my friends you are sorely mistaken and doing yourself a dis-service if you don't heed my advice.
Jez you wondered if I could rank well for a non-bloggy niche like "reactolite spectacles".
Here you go... Reactolite Spectacles
And you can find it ranked number 1 with double indexing in Google.
Click all images to enlarge
As for my link building approach - it only needed a handful of links. None of the links are from friends.
I'm not a one trick pony like John Chow. This blog is successful and makes a lot of money for me but it is not all I do. I created 20 new sites in December just like the reactolite blog - 16 of which are now ranked number 1 for their main keyword. Only 1 is showing any promise as far as having decent traffic. The rest will probably end up on the farm - just like the Blinkweb by Brad Callen blog. This doesn't mean I wasted my time - the farm is quite useful. One of the 4 links I needed to rank the Reactolite site came from the Blinkweb blog.
This is how I find niches - I simply throw up enough sites, get them ranked and see which ones get traffic. Those that don't become useful later on for linking to yet more sites. Over and over. Throw enough crap against the wall and sooner or later something is going to stick.
Folks you don't have to go after the big niches all the time. Learn to get non competitive sites on top of the serp's. If they pan out great - if they don't then use them for linking. Get a stable of a hundred of these simple blogs and you will find that you can chase down the more competitive niches.
Btw - as you can see it doesn't take long (a month) to get a number 1 ranked site and it doesn't take a lot of links if the niche (keyword) has no competition. In fact I have shown you how to rank number 1 in a day when targeting short term hot topics like Asia'h Epperson. Maybe some of you need to put away the "insurance" blog for a bit and hone your skills ranking for "ants scratching their asses".
Simplify things and find out what it takes to rank on top of the serp's for easy niches. Build your confidence and your network at the same time. Baby steps. I guarantee that in a year from now you will be able to get that "insurance" blog on page 1.
Speaking of "a year from now". If you are going to make real money online then get realistic. I started this blog in Dec 2006. I picked a very competitive niche. I didn't expect to earn a dime until I cracked the first page in G. I didn't think I would get there any time soon. I was patient and took my time knowing that a year or two down the road it would be worth it. It's been two years since I started this blog and yup - it was worth waiting for...
For your inspiration. My January income for this free ugly blogger blog...
Adsense income = $3999.36
Project Payday Commissions = $1922.80
Assorted Affiliate Commissions Paypal = $427.39
Assorted Affiliate Commissions Clickbank = $365.91
Advertising Revenue = $225.00
January Total Revenue = $6940.46
Expenses = $0.00
Net Income = $6940.46 usd
Yes - 7k using a blogger blog. Would you stick it out for a year or two for that kind of income?
Total January income for all sites/all networks = $37,213.76 (primarily Adsense and Leads)
Total Expenses all networks = $1029.00
The bulk of my income comes from Blogger sites and all of it is earned by using SEO to rank well in the serp's. The A-list and their readers have never heard of me but I have 37,000 reasons why I don't really care. My system makes money and all it takes is - yup - backlinks. I will beat that horse until everyone of you learn that backlinks and Google are all you need to make money online.
And where do you get those backlinks? Link networks, article marketing, your own farm, friends, social sites (I don't but you can) and our own free resource that keeps growing every week - the niche support page on my Make Money Online with Griz blog.
SEO Software
My last post touched off a discussion regarding SEO Elite. (see the comments - set aside an hour to get through them all. lol) Paul mentioned that he preferred Aaron Wall's Free SEO Toolbar over SEO Elite. (I am not including links as this is not a sales pitch) I mentioned that if there were free tools that could provide the same data as SEO Elite then I would recommend people use them instead. I have yet to check out the SEO Toolbar but Paul assures me it does the same thing as SEO Elite and Fiar was kind enough to send me a sample of the SEO Toolbar rank checker this morning. (Thanks Fiar) I use SEO Elite for a number of things but it is the rank checker that is central to my success online. From what Fiar showed me it appears that SEO Toolbar does provide a useful rank checker and therefor I will suggest you all take advantage of the toolbar sight unseen on my part.
I will continue using SEO Elite as it is paid for and I am accustomed to using it. I bought SEO Elite ages ago when there was nothing comparable. Since then a multitude of free SEO software tools have made their way onto the scene and from the sounds of things SEO Elite has become redundant. If you can find free tools that produce the info you need then there is no need to buy any program just because it has a few bells and whistles that the free tools don't. (I'm leaving SEO Elite in the sidebar just because it makes me a few bucks a month off of search visitors who don't read my posts - anyone who doesn't read my blog is fair game in my books.) If you are a reader of mine - ask me in the comments before you buy anything you see on this site - I'll tell you whether I really endorse it.
The Rank Checker
My comments in the last post brought a flood of emails from readers wanting to know what the big deal was regarding the rank checker. The big deal is that it's what I use to mount a backlink campaign. It tells me where my keywords rank, how fast they rise in the serp's, which keywords need more backlinks and when to add them, how my competition is doing, what keywords they are competing for and which ones they aren't and a whole host of other things relevant to ranking well in the serp's. In short the rank checker is my NASA control center for my linking.
The screenshot below is just a section of the hundreds of keywords and sites I have loaded into SEO Elite's Rank Checker.
You will see instantly how well a site ranks for the keywords and what direction it is moving in (higher or lower in the serp's). It allows me to see if the competition really does know SEO. Below you will see Gary Conn's name. A few months ago he didn't rank worth crap in the serp's (meaning he was all BS before). He has been reading Vic's site and mine (not that he will admit it but I see him lurking) and now he is ranking for the MMO keywords. He is competition. Problogger on the other hand doesn't appear to have a clue about SEO and is really just a social blogger (a really good one) and isn't competition. Jonathan Ledger has a 3 way link program that he sells. Does it work? Nope. How do I know? I've tracked all his keywords and he doesn't rank for anything. His 3 way links program can't be very good if the owner of the program isn't ranked for squat. The rank checker is a great tool for checking out just how well different affiliate products work. If someone claims they are an expert at something and don't rank for their area of expertise they are full of crap. In short I use this tool for spying, for planning my strategies and then for implementing my links. It gives me the feedback I need to dominate the serp's. If you don't think it's important then go back and review my income again. Dominating the serp's IS my income.
Most of you know by now that I don't post often. There are many reasons for this. One is that I make more money not posting - notice the Adsense revenue dropped off over the last two weeks of January? Go through my posts in January and see when I posted. I explained why in one of those January posts. Another reason is simply because I don't have to. The reactolite blog only required 2 posts to rank number 1. What I'm trying to say is this - content is necessary only to the extent that you need something relevant on your sites (targeted keywords). This takes 10% of my time. I spend the other 90% of my time getting links. Posting is a waste of my time unless I need to add keywords to a site or trigger different Adsense ads. Otherwise leave it alone and work on the links. The links are what make you money - not the content. This is true for what I do at least.
I don't think I can simplify my system any more than this. Yes there is lots to learn when it comes to tweaking sites to optimize your income but that is something you can all learn once you have the traffic. Put all that aside and get the traffic first. Create keyword optimized sites - get keyword optimized backlinks. This will bring you traffic. If the traffic doesn't pan out - stick it in the farm and create more. And more. And more. Build your own network and as you grow you will start to dominate the niches that do have traffic. Too many of you are starting out looking for the 1 great niche or doing the MMO thing. This is fine for the long term and you can keep plugging away but maybe you should work on some reactolite type sites just to see some immediate results.
Okay - this is long enough. I want to talk about Google and its move towards social metrics in the next post. Fiar and Gary have both questioned me on this issue and I want to explore it further.
Until then here are a couple of blog posts that made me chuckle this week.
see Splork's Crap is Still King
and VicW's Make Money Blogging
Making Money with Affiliate Marketing
Let me start by apologizing ahead of time for being a manipulative bastard. I've just finished a set of tests on this blog and now I want to explain a few things to you about the world of Internet marketing. Some of this you will have heard before but even you seasoned readers should read on.
I just convinced several hundred people to download a firefox add-on that apparently doesn't work and only Paul from Internet Marketing Product Reviews dared mention that Brad Callen's products tend to be crap. After having a few PPC friends check their own ads with the PPC Web Spy tool - we found out that it didn't bring up their keywords. In fact it looks like the tool simply digs out the relevant keywords and CPC much like keyword elite does from the same source - Google. It doesn't appear to show the advertisers individual keywords or bids after all. If any of you use PPC then please check your own ads and let me know if the tool is working.
Why do so many people trust the word of others (yes even me) and never bother to check things out for themselves?
This is the X factor.
Do you know who really succeeds online? The people who think for themselves, the people who take everything with a grain of salt and verify things on their own. The people who know how to separate the bullshit from legitimate information.
I shouldn't have to tell you folks to verify the things I say. You should be doing it on your own. Now I realize many of you wouldn't call bullshit on me in the comments out of friendship or respect but no one did it quietly in an email either. I can list on one hand people who have taken me to task in the past - Fiar from Political Humor, Gary from Everything Everywhere, Frank at How to Earn Money Online and a few others. I love these guys and can tell you they will be successful. They sniff out the bullshit and think for themselves. (I don't want too many links but Terry, Trent, RT, Splork all belong in this category as well). Considering the amount of readers I have the list is small. I'm not trying to insult anyone or show a lack of respect - I truly value all the friends I've made with this blog but I am trying to point out one of the biggest factors when in comes to being successful online or elsewhere.
Think for yourself.
Why do the A-List have such large fan bases? Because the majority of people trying to make money online don't think or verify anything. They just follow along doing whatever the so-called expert tells them to do. They are a gold mine for anyone who wants to manipulate them. I can just imagine how much money I would have made if I had told everyone that PPC Web Spy was a great affiliate product and buy the upgrade!
I joke all the time about how I am just setting my readers up in order to scam you all big time one of these days. The scary thing is I probably could. (I won't but I'll keep threatening)
Now there is a point to this other than being a jerk. A recurring theme in my emails is "Please talk more about internet marketing". The emails aren't asking for advice on selling "Oil Filters" - the people all have MMO blogs of one kind or another and they want in on the whole "selling IM products to Bloggers and IMer's" niche. Now instead of me telling you how broke you will be following that path I set up this little experiment to show you results instead. I'm not pulling the PPC Web Spy banner down just yet. My readers have had a crack at it and now I will see what kind of response I get from my search traffic.
Here are some stats.
9156 visitors have seen the banner.
218 people downloaded it with my link. No idea how many may have downloaded it without the link.
No one paid for an upgrade. (Thankfully)
So you want to sell to internet marketers huh?
I only got a 4.2% conversion for a "free" download. And not a single sale.
Remember I have a lot of targeted traffic, I'm seen (I think) as reasonably honest and this is all I could pull off.
How well do you think you are going to do selling to other Internet marketers?
One of the biggest problems with this whole online biz is assumptions. People assume a site with 5000 visitors a day must make a killing selling things. People see someone with 50,000 feed readers and assume they get 50,000 visitors a day - not. Do you really think Darren Rowse makes a killing everyday selling the crap in his banners? No. He makes money selling ads to others who put up the banners and they make nothing from his traffic. The assumptions stem from the fact that no one who has a large traffic base is willing to tell people just how few affiliate sales are made in the IM niche. Rowse won't admit it or he wouldn't get advertisers willing to pay big bucks to put their ads on his site.
One of the reasons for me adding that banner is to gauge my own CTR when it comes to selling advertising space on top of my blog. I have run a few different banners just to see what an advertiser might expect. The results are woeful. In fact after this episode I don't think I will offer the ad spot. My Adsense revenue takes a beating (a loss of about 30% ctr every time I've added a banner). This means charging an advertiser at least $50 a day for the ad. Unfortunately the advertiser won't get their money's worth and that bugs me. I know others would just sell the spot and don't care about the results but I don't want my name dragged through the mud for ripping people off.
You have all heard the saying that there is no money in selling to other bloggers. With the exception of the developers and their handful of super-affiliates this is true. Even then the return is small. Callen may make a few grand from his latest venture but he won't retire on it. In a month he will be flogging something else. He has too to keep a steady income coming in.
But Griz - you're in the MMO niche so there must be money in it... right. Yup - using Adsense there is. Selling products? Nope. ( Yes alright - with my targeted search traffic I could probably sleaze out a living scamming beginners but would you want to do that?)
Think on this. If I put through 9000 people in two days on my shoe site how many affiliate sales (or leads) do you think I would have compared to the IM crowd? Actually it's not as high as you think but still a world away from IM. On average my conversions are in the 8-12% range and sometimes a lot higher when a hot seller comes along. Strangely enough I still tend to do better with Adsense than affiliate sales. The thing is, civilians buy and click. IMer's don't and while you are tired of hearing this I thought some hard numbers might get the point across. If I can't make a good buck selling crap to bloggers do you really think you will with a fraction of the traffic?
I'm sorry if I sound harsh and that I have avoided answering all the emails asking for help in this area. The fact is I don't want to encourage any of you to follow the IM path. I'm not hogging it for myself. It just isn't a profitable business model and especially for beginners. Learn SEO and get non - IM niches to the top of the serp's first. Once there you can experiment and flog whatever you like but at least you will have traffic to flog it too. And there is always Adsense if nothing else pans out.
Most importantly - learn to question everything and everyone. I don't mean that you should become a cynical bugger - just have a healthy skepticism about what you hear and learn how to verify the claims you come across for yourselves.
I just want to mention this - a congrats of sorts. While I was typing this up Lane left a comment on the PPC Web Spy post.
Here is part of it.
(1) When I click on each of the advertisers, they don't necessarily have the specific keyword that I queried for on their list. For instance, I just typed in the keyword phrase: buy perfume. The top advertisers are clearly looking for people looking to buy perfume, as their ad reads "Buy Perfume at Sephora" However when I click the "View Keywords" button, NONE of their ads listed are about perfime -- they, like several of the other advertisers listed show ads about other things liked shaving cream and acne.
Why don't I see the keyword that I was searching for?
(2) Sort of related to the previous question... Since I don't see the keyword that I am looking for, how can I tell which advertisers are the lower priced one that I would want to eliminate?
Finally someone actually used the tool and realized something fishy is going on with it. Well done Lane. The answer to your questions btw - it's a piece of crap.
Again sorry for misleading everyone with this download - I just had to make a point.
Don't believe everything you read online - check it out yourselves. I don't mind people calling bullshit on me. It means you are thinking things out.
I hope you will all forgive me but I imagine the old feedburner cancellations will start about a minute after posting. I hope not as my intentions were honest.
I will provide the search stats for the banner in a few days.... and then it will be gone.
PPC Web Spy - Brad Callen
Brad Callen's New PPC Web Spy Software - Free
Update: If you found this post while searching for a Review of PPC Web Spy then read this post and then read part 2 before you act - PPC Web Spy Review Part 2
Since my Adsense is shot to hell this week anyway I may as well do another post - yes my faithful readers - 3 posts in a week! Your feedreaders must be overheating!
Full disclosure - I could make money from this "Free" product but it is unlikely and I will get to that in a moment.
You will notice the new banner ad on top of the page. If you click it you will be taken to the PPC Web Spy landing page. Type in your bonafides and you will indeed get a free copy of Brad's latest software.
What is it?
The landing page explains it all quite clearly but basically it's a tool for finding the keywords that Google Adwords users are targeting. This will be very helpful for all you PPC marketers. I don't do PPC anymore but it turns out that this little tool, inadvertently, is also a handy addition for those of us who make money with Adsense. And the tool is free so why not use it?
Essentially it highjacks your browser (you must use firefox btw - and you should be using firefox anyway!) by adding a little widget to the bottom of the browser that you can toggle on and off.
If the widget is off you see Google search results like always. If the toggle is turned on then you see search results that look like this;
Click all images to enlarge
If you click the "Keyword" Button located beneath each Adwords advertiser you will get a list of keywords like this;
By now I shouldn't have to explain to all you Adsense people how useful this is. Imagine how helpful in targeting high paying keywords?
The software also shows you who the Noob Adword users are as indicated in the next screenshot.
You will see this whenever you click the "Keyword" Button and the Advertiser doesn't have a track history. In other words don't target his/her keywords as they don't know what they are doing. Target the professionals as they will lead you to the keywords that pay.
You can also tweak your competitive ad filters in your Adsense account to eliminate all the low bidding advertisers from showing up on your content ads. (Note - I just gave you an important tip! lol)
Now what is the catch to this clever little program?
Well the software really is free and for us Adsense users and PPC users the "Catch" is not important as you can get the software for nothing. The catch, as usual is the sales spiel which will try and entice you to pay for the premium package. The premium package is nothing more than a new version of a Branded Giveaway - in this case you brand the PPC Web Spy Free giveaway software with embedded affiliate links which will then earn you money every time one of the people who downloaded your free branded copy of the software buys something. Or that's the premise but it's not likely to work so I wouldn't go hog wild paying for the premium package.
Here is the scheme.
If you pay for the upgrade and giveaway branded copies this is what happens.
When the person who downloaded the copy through you uses it they will benefit from the "Keyword" info as outlined already but in using the product they will also add 2 new serp listings to the number 1 and 2 positions in the serp's for whatever keyword they are researching. These listings will be for affiliate products and if the person clicks on them and buys then you will get the commission. Watch the video on the sales page for a complete understanding of how it works. (You can see the Video without paying anything.)
The problem with this gimmick is that anyone you get to download the free software is likely to be another marketer and/or blogger and they will see the same video and know the serp listings contain your links. And being true IM'ers they will dutifully never buy a product with your link in it. If this software could be added to the millions of browsers used by internet civilians like teenagers then yes this could make someone a lot of money. That's not going to happen though - the only people who will have it installed will be other bloggers. I don't recommend upgrading to the premium package unless you enjoy trying to sell affiliate crap to other affiliate marketers.
I do recommend you download the free software though and add it to your Adsense Keyword Tools folder. The program will be dynamite for targeting keywords. The bonus - a lot of you can stop sending me emails asking how to find "good" keywords to target. This tool is pretty useful and I don't say that about many programs online.
If you want it you can download it free from the Banner on top of the page.
Don't buy the upgrade - just my opinion.
Update: If you found this post while searching for a Review of PPC Web Spy then read this post and then read part 2 before you act - PPC Web Spy Review Part 2
Since my Adsense is shot to hell this week anyway I may as well do another post - yes my faithful readers - 3 posts in a week! Your feedreaders must be overheating!
Full disclosure - I could make money from this "Free" product but it is unlikely and I will get to that in a moment.
You will notice the new banner ad on top of the page. If you click it you will be taken to the PPC Web Spy landing page. Type in your bonafides and you will indeed get a free copy of Brad's latest software.
What is it?
The landing page explains it all quite clearly but basically it's a tool for finding the keywords that Google Adwords users are targeting. This will be very helpful for all you PPC marketers. I don't do PPC anymore but it turns out that this little tool, inadvertently, is also a handy addition for those of us who make money with Adsense. And the tool is free so why not use it?
Essentially it highjacks your browser (you must use firefox btw - and you should be using firefox anyway!) by adding a little widget to the bottom of the browser that you can toggle on and off.
If the widget is off you see Google search results like always. If the toggle is turned on then you see search results that look like this;
Click all images to enlarge
If you click the "Keyword" Button located beneath each Adwords advertiser you will get a list of keywords like this;
By now I shouldn't have to explain to all you Adsense people how useful this is. Imagine how helpful in targeting high paying keywords?
The software also shows you who the Noob Adword users are as indicated in the next screenshot.
You will see this whenever you click the "Keyword" Button and the Advertiser doesn't have a track history. In other words don't target his/her keywords as they don't know what they are doing. Target the professionals as they will lead you to the keywords that pay.
You can also tweak your competitive ad filters in your Adsense account to eliminate all the low bidding advertisers from showing up on your content ads. (Note - I just gave you an important tip! lol)
Now what is the catch to this clever little program?
Well the software really is free and for us Adsense users and PPC users the "Catch" is not important as you can get the software for nothing. The catch, as usual is the sales spiel which will try and entice you to pay for the premium package. The premium package is nothing more than a new version of a Branded Giveaway - in this case you brand the PPC Web Spy Free giveaway software with embedded affiliate links which will then earn you money every time one of the people who downloaded your free branded copy of the software buys something. Or that's the premise but it's not likely to work so I wouldn't go hog wild paying for the premium package.
Here is the scheme.
If you pay for the upgrade and giveaway branded copies this is what happens.
When the person who downloaded the copy through you uses it they will benefit from the "Keyword" info as outlined already but in using the product they will also add 2 new serp listings to the number 1 and 2 positions in the serp's for whatever keyword they are researching. These listings will be for affiliate products and if the person clicks on them and buys then you will get the commission. Watch the video on the sales page for a complete understanding of how it works. (You can see the Video without paying anything.)
The problem with this gimmick is that anyone you get to download the free software is likely to be another marketer and/or blogger and they will see the same video and know the serp listings contain your links. And being true IM'ers they will dutifully never buy a product with your link in it. If this software could be added to the millions of browsers used by internet civilians like teenagers then yes this could make someone a lot of money. That's not going to happen though - the only people who will have it installed will be other bloggers. I don't recommend upgrading to the premium package unless you enjoy trying to sell affiliate crap to other affiliate marketers.
I do recommend you download the free software though and add it to your Adsense Keyword Tools folder. The program will be dynamite for targeting keywords. The bonus - a lot of you can stop sending me emails asking how to find "good" keywords to target. This tool is pretty useful and I don't say that about many programs online.
If you want it you can download it free from the Banner on top of the page.
Don't buy the upgrade - just my opinion.
Blogger Public Service Ads Fix
If you are using Blogger and run Adsense then you may have awoken this morning to find all your Ads are showing Public Service Ads (PSA's).
First off don't panic!
Second stop sending me emails! Lol.
There is an easy fix.
Why this happened is unclear but appears to be connected to several recent and ongoing changes within Adsense and Blogger.
If you are showing PSA ads then you are using the Channels feature available when setting up your ads in Google Adsense. This method requires you to set up your ads in Adsense and then transfer the code supplied over to a html/javascript Gadget in Blogger.
Simply remove all those html/javascript Gadgets (just the ones using your Adsense code) and replace them with the "Adsense" Gadgets provided in Blogger. This means opening an "Adsense" Gadget, selecting the ad format you want and then place it in the appropriate location. These ads don't require you to use Adsense setup.
The PSA ads will be gone but you will not be able to track your ad blocks as you did using the code supplied by Adsense setup.
First off don't panic!
Second stop sending me emails! Lol.
There is an easy fix.
Why this happened is unclear but appears to be connected to several recent and ongoing changes within Adsense and Blogger.
If you are showing PSA ads then you are using the Channels feature available when setting up your ads in Google Adsense. This method requires you to set up your ads in Adsense and then transfer the code supplied over to a html/javascript Gadget in Blogger.
Simply remove all those html/javascript Gadgets (just the ones using your Adsense code) and replace them with the "Adsense" Gadgets provided in Blogger. This means opening an "Adsense" Gadget, selecting the ad format you want and then place it in the appropriate location. These ads don't require you to use Adsense setup.
The PSA ads will be gone but you will not be able to track your ad blocks as you did using the code supplied by Adsense setup.
How to Game Alexa
Dear Alexa.com,
Your website ranking algorithm is so flawed as to be virtually useless as a barometer of online traffic. It is so poor that it is in fact misleading and should require you to add a disclaimer along the lines of "our traffic estimates are accurate to plus or minus 100%" - 100% of the time.
In layman's terms your traffic rankings are broke.
I suppose the odd beginner may take your stats seriously but the majority of experienced Internet marketers have come to realize that your algorithm is in need of serious adjustment. Anyone with more than a handful of sites online has seen the absurdity of your rankings.
To whit...
The following two sites have roughly the same amount of traffic. The first site averages 87 visitors a day. You deem that good enough for an Alexa rank of 250,000 give or take. The second site averages 102 visitors a day and you rank it 2,577,000 give or take. It appears that because the first site (with less traffic) averages 19 returning visitors daily this is enough to rank 2,250,000 spots higher than the second site (that has more visitors) but only averages 2 returning visitors a day.
Click all images to enlarge.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 250,000 give or take.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 2,577,000 give or take.
What else could effect the vast difference in rankings...
The first site has a bounce rate of 54%.
16% of visitors stay longer than an hour.
92% of traffic is from referrals.
8% of traffic is from search (mostly Google).
The site does get social network traffic (Stumbleupon, Digg etc).
The second site has a bounce rate of (strangely enough) 54%.
No visitor stays longer than 5 minutes.
55% of traffic is from referrals.
45% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
But let's not stop there.
The site below has an Alexa rank of 1,169,000 give or take. It averages 252 Unique visitors a day. Only 8 returning visitors...
This site has a bounce rate of 60%.
Very few visitors stay longer than 5 minutes.
21% of traffic is from referrals.
79% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
I find this interesting because you are ranking a site with 252 Uniques a day 1,169,000 ish while ranking a site with 87 Uniques a day at 250,000 ish. Better yet the site with 252 Uniques a day just barely ranks better than the site below which is ranked 1,177,000 ish.
Yup... a site with just 18 Uniques a day ranks just marginally behind a site with 252 uniques.
This site has a bounce rate of 85%.
13% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
2% of traffic is from referrals.
98% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
Oh yes I know - you mention that your stats are more "accurate" for sites with greater amounts of traffic - sites that make your top 100,000. Hmmmm...
You may find this interesting.
The site below is ranked 70,000 ish and only averages 289 Uniques a day. It has 30 more Uniques per day than the 1,169,000 ish ranked site. Wow.
But let's see...
It has an average of 80 returning visitors a day as opposed to 8 visits a day to the 1,169,000 ranked site.
and...
This site has a bounce rate of 57%.
22% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (11% longer than an hour)
87% of traffic is from referrals.
13% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively large amount of social network traffic in relation to it's low overall traffic.
And how about a site that really does get a moderate amount of traffic?
The site below is ranked 170,000 ish.
It averages 2500 Uniques daily and has an average of 357 returning visitors a day - more returnees than the other sites listed have in total traffic. Scratch my assumption that returning visitors is the key to gaming you. It should rank in the top 10,000 if that was the case.
So why isn't this site in the top 100k at a minimum? It has vastly more daily traffic than all the other sites combined.
This site has a bounce rate of 66%.
12% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
14% of traffic is from referrals.
86% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively low amount of social network traffic in relation to it's moderate overall traffic.
I could go on and ask why another site of mine averages 5500 Uniques a day and only ranks 132,000 ish. Or why my best site, in spite of 10,000 plus Uniques a day manages to top out on your scale at a whopping 204,000 ish?
I could ask but I don't really need to.
Every site I own that get's the majority of it's traffic from the search engines ranks quite poorly.
Any site that receives the majority of it's traffic from referrals and social networks ranks inordinately high - far higher than its traffic warrants.
Moreover any site that draws predominantly social network traffic ranks absurdly high.
The other noticeable factor is that sites that garner more page views per visitor rank higher than those that don't - regardless of overall traffic.
I am not a social blogger but I'm hoping that many of my readers (when I post this on my MMO blog) who do receive social traffic will be kind enough to provide their stats in my comments (keeping their sites anonymous of course) in order to pin down just what social traffic is required to game your stats. We know you love Digg, Stumbleupon and Twitter traffic but it will be interesting to see if a pattern emerges highlighting the easiest way to game you.
Why should we game you?
Because you are a joke and it might be a good thing to warn unwary advertisers that believe your stats have some credibility.
The best way to discredit you is by gaming you.
Btw... you might want to add another disclaimer to your site stating that your stats completely ignore the single largest source of traffic online - the search engines - and as a result your sample is based solely on sites that engage in social networking. Ultimately your stats are simply a measure of which sites get the most traffic from Digg etc and are not even remotely accurate in terms of the overall total traffic online.
Your website ranking algorithm is so flawed as to be virtually useless as a barometer of online traffic. It is so poor that it is in fact misleading and should require you to add a disclaimer along the lines of "our traffic estimates are accurate to plus or minus 100%" - 100% of the time.
In layman's terms your traffic rankings are broke.
I suppose the odd beginner may take your stats seriously but the majority of experienced Internet marketers have come to realize that your algorithm is in need of serious adjustment. Anyone with more than a handful of sites online has seen the absurdity of your rankings.
To whit...
The following two sites have roughly the same amount of traffic. The first site averages 87 visitors a day. You deem that good enough for an Alexa rank of 250,000 give or take. The second site averages 102 visitors a day and you rank it 2,577,000 give or take. It appears that because the first site (with less traffic) averages 19 returning visitors daily this is enough to rank 2,250,000 spots higher than the second site (that has more visitors) but only averages 2 returning visitors a day.
Click all images to enlarge.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 250,000 give or take.
This site above has an Alexa ranking of 2,577,000 give or take.
What else could effect the vast difference in rankings...
The first site has a bounce rate of 54%.
16% of visitors stay longer than an hour.
92% of traffic is from referrals.
8% of traffic is from search (mostly Google).
The site does get social network traffic (Stumbleupon, Digg etc).
The second site has a bounce rate of (strangely enough) 54%.
No visitor stays longer than 5 minutes.
55% of traffic is from referrals.
45% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
But let's not stop there.
The site below has an Alexa rank of 1,169,000 give or take. It averages 252 Unique visitors a day. Only 8 returning visitors...
This site has a bounce rate of 60%.
Very few visitors stay longer than 5 minutes.
21% of traffic is from referrals.
79% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
I find this interesting because you are ranking a site with 252 Uniques a day 1,169,000 ish while ranking a site with 87 Uniques a day at 250,000 ish. Better yet the site with 252 Uniques a day just barely ranks better than the site below which is ranked 1,177,000 ish.
Yup... a site with just 18 Uniques a day ranks just marginally behind a site with 252 uniques.
This site has a bounce rate of 85%.
13% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
2% of traffic is from referrals.
98% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
No social network traffic.
Oh yes I know - you mention that your stats are more "accurate" for sites with greater amounts of traffic - sites that make your top 100,000. Hmmmm...
You may find this interesting.
The site below is ranked 70,000 ish and only averages 289 Uniques a day. It has 30 more Uniques per day than the 1,169,000 ish ranked site. Wow.
But let's see...
It has an average of 80 returning visitors a day as opposed to 8 visits a day to the 1,169,000 ranked site.
and...
This site has a bounce rate of 57%.
22% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (11% longer than an hour)
87% of traffic is from referrals.
13% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively large amount of social network traffic in relation to it's low overall traffic.
And how about a site that really does get a moderate amount of traffic?
The site below is ranked 170,000 ish.
It averages 2500 Uniques daily and has an average of 357 returning visitors a day - more returnees than the other sites listed have in total traffic. Scratch my assumption that returning visitors is the key to gaming you. It should rank in the top 10,000 if that was the case.
So why isn't this site in the top 100k at a minimum? It has vastly more daily traffic than all the other sites combined.
This site has a bounce rate of 66%.
12% of visitors stay longer than 5 minutes. (3% longer than an hour)
14% of traffic is from referrals.
86% of traffic is search (mostly Google).
It has a relatively low amount of social network traffic in relation to it's moderate overall traffic.
I could go on and ask why another site of mine averages 5500 Uniques a day and only ranks 132,000 ish. Or why my best site, in spite of 10,000 plus Uniques a day manages to top out on your scale at a whopping 204,000 ish?
I could ask but I don't really need to.
Every site I own that get's the majority of it's traffic from the search engines ranks quite poorly.
Any site that receives the majority of it's traffic from referrals and social networks ranks inordinately high - far higher than its traffic warrants.
Moreover any site that draws predominantly social network traffic ranks absurdly high.
The other noticeable factor is that sites that garner more page views per visitor rank higher than those that don't - regardless of overall traffic.
I am not a social blogger but I'm hoping that many of my readers (when I post this on my MMO blog) who do receive social traffic will be kind enough to provide their stats in my comments (keeping their sites anonymous of course) in order to pin down just what social traffic is required to game your stats. We know you love Digg, Stumbleupon and Twitter traffic but it will be interesting to see if a pattern emerges highlighting the easiest way to game you.
Why should we game you?
Because you are a joke and it might be a good thing to warn unwary advertisers that believe your stats have some credibility.
The best way to discredit you is by gaming you.
Btw... you might want to add another disclaimer to your site stating that your stats completely ignore the single largest source of traffic online - the search engines - and as a result your sample is based solely on sites that engage in social networking. Ultimately your stats are simply a measure of which sites get the most traffic from Digg etc and are not even remotely accurate in terms of the overall total traffic online.
Making Money Online Anonymously
A big fat PR0 - yup - the big G finally slapped me good. Why?
Well when all your pages are reduced to the big goose egg it is usually a sign that they perceive you to be selling links. Am I selling links? Nope. But I can see how they might get the idea based on the amount of links I have on my homepage. I could write them and plead my case - I have a lot of friends and all my links are legit but I'm not going to. I have said this for ages - pagerank has nothing to do with serp rankings and perhaps dominating the MMO niche with a big fat PR0 site will get my point across in spades. For those who were concerned my serp rankings haven't changed and the SE traffic is still pouring in.
How this happened is likely the result of some "friend" who reported the site as selling links. You will find that dominating a popular niche is a constant battle with competitors and they will do whatever it takes to unseat you.
Which brings me back to keeping anonymous online. Yes I know this goes against every blogger's deepest desire - to get famous. The thing is I'm not a blogger - I'm an internet marketer and my goal is to make money. You make money by flying under the radar and I want to give you all a prime example of what I mean.
I don't post often. I get a lot of emails asking me to post more. There is a reason for not posting (aside from being lazy)... I make more money not posting.
Huh... wtf you say.
Tis' true... let me show you what I mean.
Some Adsense Secrets
This has taken a long time to decipher and I'm still not convinced that I have it right so don't take this as gospel but...
3000 ad impressions a day seems to be a magic number with Google.
The screenshot below shows my Adsense income for January (for this blog only) - the January 18 (today) total is not final as it shows my earnings early in the day when I took the shot.
After two months of lower than normal earnings (lack of advertiser competition I believe) my January earnings bounced back nicely and until a few days ago were on course for a new high with this blog.
Click image to enlarge
A recurring problem is that weekends see a drop in visitors. Friday night until Sunday evening is always the poorest traffic - sometimes several thousand fewer visitors. When my visitors drop below 3000 ad impressions (according to Adsense stats - not your own stat counter) I notice a drop in my CPC (how much I get paid per click). I am not allowed to divulge all the details but my CPC can drop as much as half. It varies though and it has to do with the traffic I get.
Whenever I post I get a surge of traffic - the surge is un-targeted (my readers) and my CPC drops for several days until readers tail off. As long as my ad impressions stay above the 3000 barrier my CPC doesn't drop more than 10 cents a click. If my ad impressions fall below the 3000 barrier I see a 30 cent drop in earnings per click.
Because I haven't posted since December 27, 2008 my earnings have been great - my traffic has been 80% search engine and 20% social. In other words I make more money when my readers aren't flocking to the site - ie. the less I post the more money I make.
Absurd? Yup. Unfortunately this is the key to making money with Adsense.
So what happened on Friday the 16th? My earnings nosedived without me posting.
Less clicks? Nope. I had more clicks on Friday than on Thursday but earned $50 less.
Less Ad impressions? Yup - I dropped below the magic 3000 for the first time in weeks.
and to top it off I began getting a steady stream of un-targeted traffic from the Warrior forum.
The cumulative effect was a quick drop in earnings.
And since my earnings are already in the crapper I figured today was a good time to post a new entry.
And now you know my secret to when I post. I usually only post when my earnings are down and more un-targeted traffic won't do any more damage.
This is not to say I don't appreciate all of you who read my blog - I surely do. This blog completely baffles me as it actually has readers and I have made a lot of great friends because of it. Friends can do a lot to help you online so I can't say social traffic isn't worthwhile. The conundrum I have is that I make money with Adsense and Social traffic isn't conducive to that. I, of course, want my cake and to eat it too. If nothing else this blog is a great learning tool when it comes to straddling the Internet Marketing/Social Network approach with straight up SEO. I've always known that SEO works - it did 4 years ago and it hasn't really changed today. The thing is I have learned a lot this past two years about Google and Adsense that I wouldn't have known if not for the Social traffic.
The thing that interests me now is how to convert Social visitors into earnings without resorting to the A-list method. (selling crap to your readers and advertising crap to your readers) Perhaps if there was something worthwhile to promote... the thing is... there just isn't.
I get a ton of JV emails - people wanting me to promote stuff - many of the people are legit and well-meaning but they sell crap. Sorry - no offense but if I wouldn't buy it then it's crap. I'd really like to see something worthwhile come along one of these days.
I digress - back to the point. For the thousand or so emails I have about how often should you post. If you are using Adsense - only when there is no reason not too.
If you truly want to make money online - stay anonymous. This greatly lowers the amount of "friends" who want to dethrone you. Yes I know this contradicts everything you've learned from the A-List but that crap concerns blogging and not Adsense.
In my absense...
- I have several thousand emails piled up... oops
- It's winter road season here at the Lodge, just finished building the ice road last night, it's been cold r' n' hell for weeks now - 30-40 below zero, everything that can break has broken; water lines, sewage lines, trucks, boilers etc, all fixed except the water line to my house, wife and kids unhappy about that "little" exception, haven't read a blasted email in weeks - social blogging has some drawbacks and hope everyone understands, Lodge is full and real life has intruded upon my online endeavors once again and probably why I have always liked making money passively with Adsense.
I have lots to yak about but little time at the moment. I will get to it as time permits but I have a water line to look at...
Cheers,
Well when all your pages are reduced to the big goose egg it is usually a sign that they perceive you to be selling links. Am I selling links? Nope. But I can see how they might get the idea based on the amount of links I have on my homepage. I could write them and plead my case - I have a lot of friends and all my links are legit but I'm not going to. I have said this for ages - pagerank has nothing to do with serp rankings and perhaps dominating the MMO niche with a big fat PR0 site will get my point across in spades. For those who were concerned my serp rankings haven't changed and the SE traffic is still pouring in.
How this happened is likely the result of some "friend" who reported the site as selling links. You will find that dominating a popular niche is a constant battle with competitors and they will do whatever it takes to unseat you.
Which brings me back to keeping anonymous online. Yes I know this goes against every blogger's deepest desire - to get famous. The thing is I'm not a blogger - I'm an internet marketer and my goal is to make money. You make money by flying under the radar and I want to give you all a prime example of what I mean.
I don't post often. I get a lot of emails asking me to post more. There is a reason for not posting (aside from being lazy)... I make more money not posting.
Huh... wtf you say.
Tis' true... let me show you what I mean.
Some Adsense Secrets
This has taken a long time to decipher and I'm still not convinced that I have it right so don't take this as gospel but...
3000 ad impressions a day seems to be a magic number with Google.
The screenshot below shows my Adsense income for January (for this blog only) - the January 18 (today) total is not final as it shows my earnings early in the day when I took the shot.
After two months of lower than normal earnings (lack of advertiser competition I believe) my January earnings bounced back nicely and until a few days ago were on course for a new high with this blog.
Click image to enlarge
A recurring problem is that weekends see a drop in visitors. Friday night until Sunday evening is always the poorest traffic - sometimes several thousand fewer visitors. When my visitors drop below 3000 ad impressions (according to Adsense stats - not your own stat counter) I notice a drop in my CPC (how much I get paid per click). I am not allowed to divulge all the details but my CPC can drop as much as half. It varies though and it has to do with the traffic I get.
Whenever I post I get a surge of traffic - the surge is un-targeted (my readers) and my CPC drops for several days until readers tail off. As long as my ad impressions stay above the 3000 barrier my CPC doesn't drop more than 10 cents a click. If my ad impressions fall below the 3000 barrier I see a 30 cent drop in earnings per click.
Because I haven't posted since December 27, 2008 my earnings have been great - my traffic has been 80% search engine and 20% social. In other words I make more money when my readers aren't flocking to the site - ie. the less I post the more money I make.
Absurd? Yup. Unfortunately this is the key to making money with Adsense.
So what happened on Friday the 16th? My earnings nosedived without me posting.
Less clicks? Nope. I had more clicks on Friday than on Thursday but earned $50 less.
Less Ad impressions? Yup - I dropped below the magic 3000 for the first time in weeks.
and to top it off I began getting a steady stream of un-targeted traffic from the Warrior forum.
The cumulative effect was a quick drop in earnings.
And since my earnings are already in the crapper I figured today was a good time to post a new entry.
And now you know my secret to when I post. I usually only post when my earnings are down and more un-targeted traffic won't do any more damage.
This is not to say I don't appreciate all of you who read my blog - I surely do. This blog completely baffles me as it actually has readers and I have made a lot of great friends because of it. Friends can do a lot to help you online so I can't say social traffic isn't worthwhile. The conundrum I have is that I make money with Adsense and Social traffic isn't conducive to that. I, of course, want my cake and to eat it too. If nothing else this blog is a great learning tool when it comes to straddling the Internet Marketing/Social Network approach with straight up SEO. I've always known that SEO works - it did 4 years ago and it hasn't really changed today. The thing is I have learned a lot this past two years about Google and Adsense that I wouldn't have known if not for the Social traffic.
The thing that interests me now is how to convert Social visitors into earnings without resorting to the A-list method. (selling crap to your readers and advertising crap to your readers) Perhaps if there was something worthwhile to promote... the thing is... there just isn't.
I get a ton of JV emails - people wanting me to promote stuff - many of the people are legit and well-meaning but they sell crap. Sorry - no offense but if I wouldn't buy it then it's crap. I'd really like to see something worthwhile come along one of these days.
I digress - back to the point. For the thousand or so emails I have about how often should you post. If you are using Adsense - only when there is no reason not too.
If you truly want to make money online - stay anonymous. This greatly lowers the amount of "friends" who want to dethrone you. Yes I know this contradicts everything you've learned from the A-List but that crap concerns blogging and not Adsense.
In my absense...
- I have several thousand emails piled up... oops
- It's winter road season here at the Lodge, just finished building the ice road last night, it's been cold r' n' hell for weeks now - 30-40 below zero, everything that can break has broken; water lines, sewage lines, trucks, boilers etc, all fixed except the water line to my house, wife and kids unhappy about that "little" exception, haven't read a blasted email in weeks - social blogging has some drawbacks and hope everyone understands, Lodge is full and real life has intruded upon my online endeavors once again and probably why I have always liked making money passively with Adsense.
I have lots to yak about but little time at the moment. I will get to it as time permits but I have a water line to look at...
Cheers,
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