Glowleaf

Yes, I know. Adsense sucks. Adsense is for newbies. Adsense makes pennies. You can’t be a baller with Adsense.

All that is true.

But, an advanced affiliate must use every single tool in his arsenal, and honestly, it is dumb to neglect Adsense. You should never rely on a single method of monetizing your sites, and you should definitely not rely on Adsense alone to make money.

You should be multidimensional when monetizing your sites. Find all the tools online that can make revenue, try them all, master them all, and apply them to the appropriate circumstances. Sometimes, a site works well with paid links, like Text-link-ads. Or maybe the classic banner space. Affiliate links for the products you review. Whatever.

This post is not to discuss alternate monetizing methods, but to use a proven set-it-and-forget-it method. Many people (even me) have turned away from Adsense due to their ridiculous terms, the bans, the crappy payouts. But it is still a monetizing tool that fits the vast majority of sites.

I am not telling you to slap Adsense on every site you own, quite the contrary. Use it only on your sites that don’t perform well with other methods (no-one buys your links, or never converting banners etc). Every affiliate has some “dead weight” sites in his arsenal, that get little traffic and they wield no revenue by other means.

Anyway, here is an example of how I used Adsense. The site is Greek but you don’t need to read anything, this is just a screenshot to show you the layout.

This is a Thesis theme, 2 column setting. The sidebar on the right is thin, just enough to fit in the useful stuff. Under the image rotator on the top right, I put up an Adsense ad, which is the only monetization method used on the site. Yes, a single ad, no more. It is placed near the picture, but under a “sponsor” text to be TOS compliant. It is clearly above the fold.

This example is not a money site, so I did not want to create the classic adsense minefield. But here is what I noticed:

Having a single ad in a good ctr place has benefits. This setup has very good click through rates, averaging 2% but with spikes of even 5%. Also, the average cost per click is maxed out. Since there is only adspace for one ad, only the top bidding advertiser gets shown. By truncating all the low-bidding ads I got a great performance from this set-up.

I am not saying that this method rocks, or that it will increase revenue. I am just sharing what I stumbled on, and I suggest you try it out. Or at least, take this post as an excuse to try out things out of the norm.

Popularity: 2% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: adsense, ctr

There are a ton of scripts and plugins to rewrite links, and hide affiliate links. Most “how to make money gurus” say that you absolutely need to hide the affiliate links in order to profit.

I say that is wrong.

There is a good reason for that. Lets see what happens:

1. You hide the affiliate link.
2. Your reader does not instantly realise that he got through your referral link.
3. If he signs up, you get credit.
4. You end up with more signups.

Now, lets see what happens when you don’t hide your affiliate links:

1. You show the technique, and link to the offer/service with your affiliate link in plain sight.
2. Your reader sees it is a referral, but voluntarily clicks on it.
3. He signs up at the service, uses it following your instructions, and sees that the technique works.
4. The reader is satisfied, and his trust in you is increased.
5. The next time you refer him to something, he will jump on the wagon with no hesitation.
6. You end up with more signups.

I prefer the second scenario. There are downsides of course. You will get a ton of emails saying “I signed up under you, now tell me this and that and the next”. Some will make legitimate questions, which you should answer. Others will paraphrase the demand “gimme your credit card info”, and thus you can ignore them.

The point here is simple:

If you don’t suggest shitty products, your readers will be more than happy to sign up under your link.

This is a fact, and I know it by experience. I have used every single one of the products or services that I have referred, and I have gained a degree of return from every one of them.

How do you like that for a make-money-blogging secret?

Popularity: 1% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: affiliate links, make money online blogging

Using social media is a one-way street in today’s internet. What used to be a passing fad 2 years ago is now a serious marketing platform.

It depends on your site/product/service of course, but social media can push serious traffic towards you.

Facebook.

By hitting the 300 million milestone, Facebook is now a huge platform. Have you ever dreamt as a marketer “what if I could reach out a whole country? That would be awesome.”

Well, now you can. Facebook has the biggest userbase in the world. What used to be a fad, is now a must. The smart thing that facebook did was the notifications. A friend of yours signs up on Facebook? You get notified, because it parsed his email list. Someone added you as a friend? You get emailed. Someone tagged you on a photograph? The same. Someone replied on that comment on a photograph? Spam, spam spam. And the funny thing is, that it is never treated as spam. Facebook just lets you know that other people are doing stuff on your account. And since those people are your friends, you never get offended if they keep spamming you with sheep and mafia guns. Facebook is just the messenger.

Twitter.

Twitter must be the biggest fad of them all. Many have fought it and then fell in love with it. Even I did. In fact, it is so great, that its traffic must be the most valuable of them all. Twitter traffic comments on your posts, subscribes on your RSS and email list, blogs about you, retweets your tweets etc. You might not be able to directly sell something on twitter, but you are bound to get some exposure. And if your promo is worth it, that exposure will convert indirectly.

I think that twitter nailed it with the 140 word limit. People get spammed all day, every day, around the world. Ads, radio, phone calls, SMS, emails, billboards, leaflets, a whole blizzard of little spammy messages are fighting each other for your attention. And researches show that the average attention span of a person has been reduced significantly the last few years. Twitter fits that lifestyle perfectly. The way I see it, it is even better than RSS feeds. I used to go through my subscribed RSS blogs every few days, and had to read to whole posts etc. Now, I just have a twitter account, follow those people who interest me, and receive manageable chunks of info from them every day. It is a mashup of little shouts, and they stay non-intrusive because I chose to receive them!

Myspace.

Don’t neglect Myspace. Yea, its old. Yea, it sucks. But there are a lot of people on it. And the best part is, a lot of stupid people. People to whom you can sell stuff.

Ok then, how can we leverage these 3 social sites easily and effectively?

There is a little piece of software that does all that. It is called tweetdeck, and it rocks. It started out as a more useful GUI for multiple twitter accounts, but the newest version bridges Myspace and Facebook as well. I believe it is a marketer’s wet dream.

Once you set it up, you can manage each of your site’s social exposure on 3 social networks from the same interface. Lets say you have your personal blog, so you make accounts for it at Myspace, Facebook and twitter. You pass everything into tweetdeck, and voila, you can post and manage them from one location. Want to promote your service? 3 more accounts, set them up in Tweetdeck, and you can go back and forth between them all day inside tweetdeck.

Of course, setting up the accounts is an important step. Different social sites need different approaches to succeed in getting lots of victi… cough, sorry, friends.

Honestly, for Myspace I have no idea what to do to make an account popular. Google it, someone will know.

For facebook, I found this useful article on Mashable amongst the enormous pile of crap on that domain.

For twitter, a lot has been said, but it is all bloated bullshit. What you need to know is this: link periodically to interesting stuff in your niche. That is all, honestly. Either do it manually or automate it. An easy way to do this is to fire up tweetdeck (I told you it rocks!) and open a search tab. As a keyword put something in your niche, for example #php or #wordpress or #lol. Spend exactly 40 seconds every day, check that tab on tweetdeck, and retweet something that looks even remotely interesting, you don’t even have to click the bit.ly

Of course it is not as easy as it sounds. Creating a following through social media takes time, and there is no secret recipe for it. What is certain is that it does help your site, and it does help get exposure.

Now, what should you promote? Not everything works when you promote to the social crowd. Think about building/promoting:

• Viral content
• Video
• Interaction/Flash promo
• Polls
• Contests
• Interesting articles

How can you twist the above into sales? Well, that is for you to find out! It is different for every product, but there is always an angle of approach you can take to twist linkbait/socialbait into buying.  Use your imagination, and keep an eye open for what other marketers are doing on the same platforms.

Signup on my mailing list if you want juicier stuff than this.

Popularity: 3% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: facebook, myspace, social media, tweetdeck, twitter

I loved this scene. Ari Gold spews out his bile as usual, but gives excellent advice for entrepreneurs. It is exactly like he says, no one is going to invest if you think you can make something work. You will have to prove it to them that it will work.

Popularity: 3% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: start-ups

My RSS is riddled with blogs, about blogs(!), marketing, making money online, affiliates, travel biz, php, wordpress, design, viral marketing, social media promotion and a bunch of other things.

And from time to time, every blogger feels he needs to write a post, on how to blog. It is like the offline world writers (you know, the guys that make books), if they have a book published, they can write an article on how to publish books.

That is not correct. Not at all. But people believe them.

You see, the problem with the internet is that anyone can write whatever he thinks. And despite what morons believe, not everyone is fit for teaching or writing stuff. Nowadays, every self-proclaimed blogger gets a few thousand morons blindly commenting “OMG AWESOME POST, GIVE US MOAR” on every single post, and he thinks he is a professional.

Ignore what self-proclaimed probloggers tell you about blogging.

Instead, take the entrepreneurial approach to blogging.

Let’s take this piece of garbage for example. Have it open in a tab so you can compare notes. And read it of course.

Now, this guy(?) tells people how to successfully launch a blog. The article ranks #1, because as you can see, it has 1k diggs.

Ok. But how authoritative are those opinions and the votes exactly? Let’s not forget, Digg is a crowd, that is why we call it the “Digg crowd”. A crowd is run by “crowd mentality”, meaning if a critical mass of people boo at something, everybody then gets to throw stones. If a critical mass of people cheer at someone, the whole mass is cheering now.

Summary: No, something that got “votes”, does not mean that it is valuable. On the contrary, it only means that it is popular. Popular != valuable. People need to get this deep into their heads.

Lets see his points in successfully launching your blog, one by one:

1. Connect with your readers through an about page and welcome message.

No. Connect with your readers through a well branded logo and a clever slogan that describes you in a sentence.

2. Don’t get seen naked: Never launch a blog with fewer than 5 posts.

No. Launch now. Launch yesterday! Your blog will never be complete and ready. One of the things I enjoy about webdesign is how you can tweak your site while its getting hammered by geeks around the world. Of course it is equally easy to fuck it up completely, but you never learn unless you break stuff.

3. Make sure a link to your RSS feed is available above the fold.

I agree.

4. Make RSS easier still: Add subscribe links to the most popular newsreaders.

5. Offer an email version of your RSS feed.

Yes. Feedburner takes care of those two, set it up, forget it. Nothing more to see here.

6. Put chicklets in your template.

Yes. But don’t overdo it, it is easy to get carried away and put up dozens of social buttons. Think about what your niche is. Sure, stumble upon votes would be nice, but is your site commercial? Then it is certain that no stumbler will ever stumble on your button. Is it a SEO blog? Put up Sphinn, it is all you need (despite them being anal fucking idiots who don’t know how to use their own CMS). You get the idea. Different social sites fancy completely different blogs.

7. Be your own promoter: Seed your best posts.

Yes. For some arcane reason, word is that submitting your own content is a big No-No. That is bullshit. It is much easier for a reader to click a vote up button instead of doing the whole submission, no matter how fast it is. Plus, only you can write catchy yet keyword stuffed anchor text and enticing descriptions.

8. Leave highly valuable comments on other blogs in your niche.

FFS no. If you really are going to comment, be controversial.

9. Reload quickly: Take advantage of your initial launch buzz.

If this is your first launch, NO. You have no idea what you are doing, and rushing content is a mistake. If you are experienced in launching sites, then yes, ride the wave, use the momentum.

10. Include tons of outbound links in your posts.

Yes. The internet is based on links. Dont ever listen to those assholes who tell you to hoard linkjuice and “keep the visitor on your site”. You don’t control the visitor. The visitor can do whatever the fuck he wants. By not linking you are reducing your site’s value. The biggest site in the world (yes, Google) is doing a single thing, sending traffic away.

11. If you have something to give, give it away!

Yes. Freebies always work. Sometimes they work too well.

12. Start real relationships with bloggers in your niche.

No. Don’t sweat it. If you are going to go deep in the niche, you are bound to form relationships anyway. By forcing your way into a gang, you will be seen as an idiot at best, and as a slimy abuser at worst.

13. Submit your blog to blog directories.

Don’t bother.

14. Submit your blog to general web directories such as DMOZ and Aviva.

Don’t bother.

15. Leave your blog’s URL as your signature when you participate in forums.

Yes. If what you say is worthwhile, people will want to check out your blog hungry for more. I do it, other bloggers do it, many people do it. Just do it.

16. Use your URL in your email signature.

Yes and no. It depends. It does work, but it might seem as too much “salesman” behaviour. It depends on your crowd, if it can support it, then do it.

17. Myspace or Facebook members: Put a link in your profile.

Yes.

18. Submit guest posts at other blogs.

Comment on their posts about how intellectually underevolved they are and you will receive the same benefit.

19. Ask friends for feedback on your site.

No. Your friends, unless they happen to be the top bloggers in your niche, don’t know shit about a blog. Never ask for their opinion, you will either get sugarcoated bullshit or opinionated ignorance. The best people to judge your site are your competitors. Never value an opinion from someone with no experience in the matter.

20. Go ‘Real-World’ with other bloggers.

Yes. If you are lucky to live near important people in your biz, by all means go for it. Don’t sweat it, as I said, let it come naturally. Real-world networking has benefits that come close to actual cheating

21. Dress up your comments.

No. And unless you have something useful to say, buzz off.

Popularity: 4% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: blogging