By: John Mathews

How about starting a business blog and making money from it. Business blogs cater to the specific niche of business it targets. For example if you are financial wizard and have knowledge of investing in shares, why not start a blog about investing in shares? And if you are fond of books why not write book reviews and make some money out of it. Here’s how you go ahead.

Get a blog first

You will need a blog to start in the first place. Blogger and WordPress are two blog service providers who would give you a blog for free. There’s an easy signup process that can give you a brand new blog within minutes. All you have to do is give your email address, enter a password, choose a display name, and do word verification in Blogger to get a blog. Blogger is quite popular and has interfaces for language blogging also.

On WordPress the process of getting a blog is similar. Enter a username, password, email address, and accept the terms and conditions to begin blogging on WordPress. WordPress also gives you the option of creating just an identity without opting for a blog.

Focus on the theme of your business

Focus on the theme of the business you will be writing about on your blog. If it is books you are writing about, write all you know about them, review books by your favorite authors, and interview them if possible.

If it is about the stock market, write about the companies that ar doing well and are worth investing. Copy and paste the company’s share movements (there’s no ban on copying charts, as far as we know). Make your analysis in-depth and incisive and your readers would love it.

Similarly, if your blog is about technology, subscribe to the RSS of all popular technology blogs and sites and embed them on your blog. Your readers would love to visit your blog again if you have a variety of information related to the theme of the blog.

How to make money

Now the vital question: How do I make money from my business blog. Have patience, this is not a get rich overnight business. Making money from business blogs takes time and hard work, so proceed slowly one step at a time.

www.google.com/adsense

You can join Google adsense advertising program which is simple enough to implement. Go to the above link and create an account if you don’t have one already. Go to the Adsense Setup section and choose between Adsense for Content and Adsense for Referrals. In Adsense for Content you can generate the code for the ads you would like to feature on your blog. This can be copied and pasted on your blog. In Adsense for Referrals also you can generate code which you can copy and paste on the blog.

Monitor the adsense program closely and see which keywords are working for your blog. This you can do by checking how many dollars are accumulating in your account by clicking on the Account tab.

www.g2bux.ccom

G2bux has a free blogging interface that rewards you for posting blogs on them. The rewards are in G2points, which when accumulated can be exchanged for cash. What is really exciting about this program is the fact that you can slowly accumulate points by contributing a few blogs a day and steadily building up your points. You can even Digg your blogposts and submit it to Stumble Upon – two review sites.

www.Linkshare.com

Linkshare is an advertising program in which you as a publisher can publish advertisements of several advertisers such as Western Union, Ebay, Amazon, etc. It works on the basis of click through from your blog to their pages that feature the product/service that is being sold. You have to first apply for participating in an advertising program, consent of which is with the advertiser. Linkshare has functionality to apply to multiple advertising programs and once you are approved as a publisher of the ads of a particular company, you can go ahead and feature their advertisements on your blog.

Business blogging is the sure way to grow your income through blogging. Many people are making a living out of it, so can you.

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John P Matthew is a business writer, blogger and web content writer. He finds working on online media challenging and has contributed his writing to various online forums. He is one of the founding members of two writing-related message boards Caferati and Shakespeare and Company. At present he is with g2bux.com. To get more details, please visit www.g2bux.com/ . Please feel free to write feedback on this article. John P Matthew can be contacted at webmaster@g2bux.com

By: Lee Coppin

With the news full of problems being experienced by social networking sites are we seeing the beginning of the end for Blogs and Social networking. My Space have just closed 29,000 profiles of know child offenders and Facebook’s owner is in court fighting to stop a rival closing him down.

Can it be that the bubble is about burst and we are all about to see the fallout of closer regulation on line relating to the freedom of content and speech for our online world?

The massive growth of blogging and social networking has been possible due to the ability of users to practise freedom of speech at the speed of typing. In a flash we can update our blogs and profiles online with little or no thought.

I am a blog author and as such I am concerned that there will be a slow creep of offical regulations and rules which determine the content and its tone. Bad press is just the catalyst the control freaks need to get their teeth in to the Blogosphere.

We all have a moral and social responsibility to manage or little bits of internet real estate in an acceptable way. Too often I see people online who forget that it is the World Wide Web and post stuff that they would not be happy for there mom to see.

I am not sure where all this will end but are we about to see another dot com crash and the fall incomes from online businesses through our own greed and miss management of the power of the internet.

These small events can become major issues online in a matter of hours. This can result in the world we live in looking very different over night. It is up to us bloggers to show we can be trusted.

I doubt my small voice will be heard over the top of all the others who are shouting in the blogosphere. All I can hope for is the big boys and girls out there set the right example and promote professional blogging and shun those who abuse the power.

This just could be a flash in the pan but that was said about blogs and social networking in the past and look at what they have become. Lets not give the powers that be an excuse to meddle in the blogosphere.

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Lee Coppin publishes the Make Money Blogging 101 blog Carnival full of great posts and tips for bloggers Get you copy of the amazingBlog Profits Blueprint Free Know!
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By: Lance Brown

In addition to writing articles and participating in forums it seems I have stumbled on to this fun new way of generating back links to your site. I don’t know who came up with this or who started this game but it seems to me the possiblities are endless. I thought I should write an article about it.
The game is called “blog tagging.” Here is how you play the game:

You find 5 blogs of similar interest or content as yours and then post a comment to them saying ” you have been tagged ” with a link back to your site. Getting response shouldn’t be hard as people like games if there is something in it for them. At your site you have an explanation something along these lines:

Blog Tagging. What’s It All About?

Ok. Maria did this tagging thing with me. She doesn’t know either who started the game, but it’s a fun and creative way to get links back to your blog. If you get tagged, expect to write a post giving your reasons for blogging, include a link back to the person who tagged you, then tag 5 other bloggers. Personally I blog to get readers to my site and to build friendships. I hope you respond to this tag game.

You’ll notice above I mentioned the person who introduced me to the game. Mentioning their name adds a nice personal touch. You must hyperlink this person’s blog in the text of your explanation. This is easily done in the back office of your blog where you edit your posts. When you write the post you will need to click on compose and then highlight the words you want to hyperlink. In this case it is the name Maria I highlight. Another box will come up where you put in their blog link to their site. Presto! You have followed the rules and finished your explanation of the game.

If you do the math on this you will have a least 25 links to your site for every 5 people you tag. Imagine what would happen if you tagged 2 or 3 people a week for a year. That’s right. Hundreds of back links to your site which the search engines will pick up on where people will be able to find your site.

It occurs to me one can change the topic of the game too. Instead of it being why you blog it could be ” lessons you have learned on the internet ” or ” favorite hobbies ” or ” celebrities I don’t like ” or…well you get my drift. Whatever gets people to respond to your tag. You are limited only by your imagination here.

As anything else you will have to spend a little time checking out other blogs and finding people with similar blog topics as yours. I don’t need to mention blog traffic exchanges but just in case you don’t know about them blogsoldiers is a good place to start. There are many others though. Spend some time with Blogger or WordPress reading other blogs. It’s all about community isn’t it?

I did a little research on the internet to see if anyone had written an article about this game. I couldn’t find much. It may be absolutely new and fresh. Or it may be I am behind the times and this has been around for awhile. I do expect people will see the benefit of this game and run with it. We’ll probably start to see a rash of blog tagging topics. You may want to start your own tag game now. You can use me and my blog as the person who referred you if you want. Much appreciated if you do. I think it is best to keep the game simple and easy to duplicate. Happy blog tagging. I invite your comments and opinions on this topic.

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Great help with your home business ezmakedollars.blogspot.com Free article writing teleseminars www.myarticleexpert.com

By: Eddie

Now blogging has become so popular that tens of thousands of people are using it to generate decent money by creating quality blogs(posts) and blending Adsense Ads in the content.

If you have small or no money to host a personal website, blogging is a good way to start. You can create good blogs through http://blogger.com and put your Adsense Ads in these blogs. It is free and most of all Google has added some features (Inline Ads) so that you can benefit from them.

When creating blogs make sure you write posts on your own containing relevant keywords so that your Ads can be targeted well.

You can select different look n feel or (themes) for your blog and customize it for putting Ads.

Inline Ads

Google has come up with a nice extension for bloggers to put inline ads in the posts. A maximum of three Ads are allowed to be inserted between the posts. These inline Ads can be configured easily through the Template Editor, including the size and colors of the Ads.

Picking correct format of Adsense Ads for your web pages can make a big difference in your earnings. Placement and blending with the content of web pages is the important factor in getting users response. Some popular Ad formats are 160×600. It is one of the most popular Ad format. Other popular formats are 125×125, 468×60, 336×280, 234×60.

The web page layout is important in placing Ads correctly on the page. Putting Adsense Ads between the content and blending them evenly with the content gives best results.

Placing Square Ads between the articles or at the end of articles is the best position to get more click-through Rate (CTR). To get the best results you can try different placement combinations and analyze the CTR. You can check each combination for one week and later on keep the best placement combination.

You can apply some techniques and can significantly increase your Adsense payouts.

PSA’s and Alternate Ads

Use Alternate URL Ads instead of PSA’s (Public Service Ads) while creating your Ads. It will increase your earning opportunity in case Ads are not available on server. Publishers often don’t consider this option and loose their important revenue generating opportunities.

Completely blend your Ads between the content of web page, it will significantly increase your CTR (Click-thru-Rate). Your Ads should appear as the content itself and then you can see the difference.

It is generally observed that the Ads placed at the bottom of the page have very low CTR. It is advisable to populate your Ads around or in between your main content because the visitor is going to read your main content.

Create custom palettes for specific web pages and position on web page and associate them with appropriate channels. This will help you in analyzing your Ads performance data and accordingly you can optimize and tweak your Ads placement and positioning.

Create new and quality content for your web site regularly to keep the visitors coming back. If your content is stagnant the visitors will not return back because each visitor come back in hope to find some new useful information from your site.

Adsense serves targeted ads on your web site that is relevant to the content of the web pages.

Normally if the relevant Ads are not available Adsense displays PSA (Public Service Ads) in place of the regular targeted Ads.

There are 3 options available in case the relevant Adsense Ads are not available.

* PSA’s : These ads don’t generate any revenue for you and are in public service. For example flood relief or Vaccination program’s ads.
* Alternate Ads : If you are opting for PSA then you are loosing your revenue. You can specify any alternate ad URL in this option so in case the Adsense for Content Ads are not available, the ads from the URL mentioned by you will show up automatically.
* Fill space with Solid Color : This option asks for the hexadecimal code of the color that can be used to fill the blank space in case the ad is not available. Generally people choose the same color as the background color of the web page.

It is advised to use the 2nd option, as it doesn’t stop your revenue generating opportunity.

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Visit adsense-primer.blogspot.com for informative resources to maximize your Adsense payouts.

By: Akhil Shahani

Now that you have decided to write a blog for your business, what is the next step for you? How do you go about creating that blog? We’ve put together a list of 5 tips to help you on your way:

1. Know your audience – Who are the people that you are targeting? As with any strategy for a good business, it is critical that you identify your niche audience. Answering this question will help you write a blog that will keep the readers interested.

2. Locate your blog – Choose a good site where you want to blog. There are different blog sites available on the internet, some of which are free and allow you to start blogging immediately. If you want to register your own domain name and run your blog on your own server, you will need to install server side blog software. Many web hosts offer an automatic installer that will get your site up and running quickly. Once you have selected the site where you want your blog located, register yourself to create an account. Create a unique title for your blog and provide a brief description that will let others know what it is all about.

3. Choose a template – Most blog sites give you different options for your blog design. Choose one that matches your taste and is in keeping with the theme. Most of them also let you customize it with your own html code, but if that is not your cup of tea, leave it alone – most templates are pretty good. Make sure that the template that you choose reflects the kind of business that you are running – go in for a professional look with corporate colors.

4. Write effectively – Write a blog in such a way that it will be read, time and again. Remember, blogging is all about content. If your content isn’t interesting or relevant to your target audience, there will be no readers for your blog. Keep it brief and adopt a friendly, conversational tone

5. Update regularly – You might think it’s easy to write a blog – well, you’re both right and wrong. Setting one up is simple, but maintaining it on a long term basis is something else altogether. Post messages often and your audience will keep coming back for more. Regular updates to the content on your blog increases your visibility on search engines. Add more information, tips and commentary and invite comments and feedback. Do your best to post at least two or three times a week to keep your visitors interested and coming back for more

To increase the effectiveness of your blog, you could also add on extras:

o Add counters to keep track of visitors to your blog.

o Offer the ability to subscribe to your blog and get posts by e-mail.

o Promote your blog by adding a link to your blog in your email signatures.

o Add advertisements to your blog to earn residual money.

Blogging is here to stay, so go ahead, hop on the bandwagon!

Article Directory: http://www.articlewisdom.com

Hi, I am Akhil Shahani, a serial entrepreneur who wants to help you succeed. Over the years I have run many successful businesses & made many mistakes on the way. I have created www.aykya.com to help you benefit from all I’ve learned on my journey. Please visit us & download our special ‘Freebie of the Month’ as a thank you for your visit.

By: S. Housley

How to Get Ideas for RSS Feeds and Blog Posts

By Sharon Housley

The best blogs and feeds are those that contain unique, fresh, compelling, content. So where do these prolific posters get their ideas? I talked to a handful of bloggers to determine where their inspiration originated for their content.

Not surprisingly, ideas for blog posts or RSS feed items originate or are influenced by other web content. The following are venues for finding your online muse:

1.Google News

Monitor Google News for keywords related to your industry. If you find a story you disagree with or wholeheartedly agree with write about it. Add your thoughts, and editorialize the content. This does not mean you should just repost Google news summaries. The value is not only in the news aggregation, but in the commentary that you provide. Tie news items to specific events, conditions, or the impact of specific news on the industry. Adding a view point or reference to a news article adds genuine value.

2. Web Logs

Look at your websites “long tail”, and examine your web logs. Find phrases that are relevant to your website and write in-depth information about those subjects. This is particularly helpful if the blog or RSS feed is used as a marketing tool for the website. By focusing on obscure or less popular search terms and phrases that are found in your web logs, you will not only find that you provide content of interest to your readers, but you will attract additional web traffic.

3. Collate

Many bloggers have established themselves as “experts” by simply amassing and organizing a large collection of information that relates to a specific field. Use the blog or feed to announce and organize information, new products or services in an unbiased way within a specific industry.

4. Search

Most people assume that there is information on every subject on the Internet, but that is not necessarily the case. If you stumble on an area where there is minimal content, consider it an opportunity. Continue developing content. Chances are if you were searching for the content someone else is as well, develop a blog post or RSS feed for information that find inaccessible.

5. Untouchable Content

Consider tackling all of the content that many other publishers find difficult or uncomfortable. Controversial or content that is difficult to write about is often overlooked, look at challenging content as an opportunity.

6. Monitor Authority Blogs

Watch authority blogs for developing industry news. Comment on any breaking news or editorials that you either agree or disagree with. This may attract the attention of an authority blog and could result in a link to your commentary. Be sure to credit the source of any blog posts that you comment on or quote.

7. Advice

If you are an expert? Consider developing an advice column. Let readers send you questions and post the questions and answers in your blog or RSS feed. This allows your readers to direct your content.

8. Conversations

Many bloggers and publishers discover topic ideas from conversations. Create dialogue with both individuals familiar and unfamiliar with your blog topic, the questions that come up could be good fodder for posts.

9. Forums/ Newsgroups / Usenet

Forums are great places to find topic ideas. Read topic specific forum posts then editorialize and summarize the posts.

10. Look Outside the Box

Do not constrain your thinking to parameters found online. The best RSS feeds and blogs are targeted, clear, consistent, and unique. It is okay to occasionally step outside your comfort zone to find appealing content.

While breaking news has obvious value, so to does timeless content and “how to” posts. Don’t be afraid to mix it up and provide readers a combination of the two.

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About the Author:

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

by Rob Sullivan

Sometimes website owners begin to wonder if they will ever make money off their product or service. In this article I give you other ideas on how to make money with your website, even if you don’t sell products or services.

My experience with AdSense

As an owner or contributor to many sites, not just search engine related, I’ve come to learn a thing or two about monetizing a site.

The thing is, I don’t mind writing for these sites – it gives me an outlet because my mind is always racing with new article ideas.

On one of my sites is about console gaming: Xbox, Nintendo and so on. It’s not a huge site, but I get some decent visitors. I have a friend who writes for a similar site that deals with portable gaming units like the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.

When we started writing it was for fun and to bring some news to the world. Kind of like a console gaming news aggregator.

So when Google came out with their AdSense product I applied for an account immediately. Since I work in the industry I knew about AdSense long before most people and got an AdSense account within 48 hours of applying for it.

The setup was quite easy. I logged into a web based console and the system helped me pick the types of ads I wanted to display and even helped generate the code to insert into my pages so the ads matched the same font and background color of the site.

All in all it took me about 15 minutes to sign in, generate the code and paste it onto my page template. Now, every page on this site has Google Ads displayed.

And the great part is the ads are related to the content of the pages. For my Nintendo pages, all the ads relate to Nintendo while for the Xbox pages all ads relate to Xbox.

And the best part of this is that for every click on an ad I make a few cents.

Now, I don’t make a lot of money on AdSense, but there are sites out there that do. Weblogs Inc. is a series of blogs all built around themes. A recent interview with the founder showed that the sites are on par to make over $1 million in AdSense revenue this year. That’s right $1 million from AdSense.

So you can see that AdSense could be a way to make money in addition to whatever else you do on your site.

How do you get an AdSense account?

Well the first thing you need to do is apply for an account.

It’s quite simple really, you give some basic information such as the URL of the site that will host the ads, your contact information and so on, and submit your application.

Google responds fairly quickly and generally your site will be accepted if it meets their guidelines and policies. You can find more information on these policies on the AdSense site.

Once you’ve been accepted it is a matter of creating your ad code, of which there are two basic types.

AdSense for Content

AdSense for Content is the most common type of ad displayed. These are the ads you see on sites that are marked with “Ads by Goooogle” either above or below the ads, much like the ads you see on Google’s site.

The display formats vary for these types of ads which you can see on the AdSense site here. As you will see, there are a variety of layouts available, from text ads to banners.

Once you’ve selected the type of ads you want to display on your site, you pick the number of ads, and apply a style.

Pick a style which matches your site. In other words, try and pick one that has the same color background and text as your site. This way they don’t stand out as much.

Finally, copy the code provided by Google (yup they even provide that for you – pretty simple hey?) and paste it on your page where you want it. Google even provides ideas on the best placement of your ads. Check this page out for more information on ad placement.

AdSense for Search

As the name implies, this is a Google search box which you’d place on your site that searches Google and returns Google results. For these searches you can earn money as well.

Google even allows you to customize the search box by changing the colors to match your site and even insert your own logo if you’d like.

Then, when you’ve added this feature to your site, your visitors will be able to search Google or search your site and, as I mentioned, if they select an ad you get a cut of that money. You can even find out what phrases people were searching for.

Tracking your Performance

Once you have the ad code(s) inserted into your site the first ads you will likely see are PSA (Public Service Announcements). This is because Google uses its advanced crawling technology to crawl the pages where the ad code are found and matches ads to the content.

Therefore if you check back in 15 or 20 minutes you should see ads that closely match the content of the page on which the ad code is found.

Google also offers you a way to monitor your AdSense account’s performance.

By logging into the AdSense console you can generate tons of different reports showing click through rates, impressions, average returns per click and more.

Further, you can get more advanced as time goes on, by setting up channels and tracking them separately. Google now allows for 200 channels. Which means you can have 200 different ad display types scattered throughout your site.

Lets say, for example, that you want a search box as well as ads, but you have different places you want to place ads on your home page as your internal pages.

By using channels, you can track the clicks separately to see which types of ad positions perform better. This allows you to find the best place on your pages to place ad code to make the most money.

Show me the money!

Payments for AdSense are pretty straight forward. Google will mail you a check or you can sign up for their beta direct deposit program.

If you click on the “My Account” tab you can edit your payment preferences.

Google only pays out monthly on $100 or more. So if you don’t have more than $100 by the end of the month, the total will roll over into the next month and continue to grow until you do have $100 or more by the end of the month.

I remember when I got my first check – I was so excited. I was expecting a check with the Google logo – you know like the logo they have on their home page. Turns out it was a very official looking corporate type check. Too bad – I was going to scan it and save a copy of my first Google check.

Some final thoughts

If you find that your site just doesn’t generate enough clicks in a month to generate at least the $100 minimum, you can use your ad code on other sites which do drive more traffic.

If you know someone who has a high traffic site but isn’t taking advantage of a program like AdSense, I’d recommend contacting them to see if they’d be willing to display ads on their site. Perhaps you can make a deal with him – splitting the ad revenue. Be careful not to distribute your code on too many sites, though, as you could set up flags because your clicks have gone up so quickly in a short time.

One thing some people have been known to do is create content specifically for high paying ads. I read a story once about a guy who built a blog around asbestos removal. He didn’t know anything

That way you can monetize your site (and others) using AdSense in addition to your existing products or services.

About This Author: Rob Sullivan – SEO Specialist and Internet Marketing Consultant. Any reproduction of this article needs to have an html link pointing to http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/

Article Source – http://www.leadarticles.com/

by Sharon Housley

The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort. However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs. Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engine’s clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue. An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.

A Healthy Alternative or Supplement Google’s Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google’s pay-per-click Adword results. This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Google’s spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the website’s content. While the Google’s Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.

The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage. If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral.
Your Ad Here

The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity. A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the website’s color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.

The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don’t fit well into the overall website design.

sample modified to match sites color scheme: http://www.hospital-software.com (scroll to the bottom)

Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors.

sample of poorly targeted ads: http://www.real-estate-supply.com

Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless.

sample of effective Adsense program: http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom) http://www.small-business-software.net (scroll to the bottom)

Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems.as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has not implemented any way to track multiple sites that serve ads; they simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day. Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click. Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.

With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser.

Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain’s ads from being served on the website. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website.

Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs don’t exist that target the sites content.

Give it a Try Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters. Consider supplementing content and see what happens.

About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net/ a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/ , and http://www.small-business-software.net/

by Kamau Austin

There are times Google’s heralded ad affiliate program isn’t in your long term business interest. Oh no I said it!

AdSense isn’t the unstoppable revenue engine for every eBusiness. Before I am taken out and flogged by the eCommerce pundits – please let me explain what I mean in my defense.
Your Ad Here

I make revenues from AdSense at a very high click-through rate. I experience high click-through rates with AdSense without resorting to questionable tactics like tricking site users with photos (the AdSense trick and tip dujour).

So my perspective is from one who has made decent income from AdSense to fund aspects of his business like advertising seminars — and outsourcing to his virtual assistants. Yes, AdSense is a legitimate and significant revenue source. However evaluate AdSense with some type of balance.

By now you may have heard about people like Joel Comm’s six figure income with AdSense, or Jason Calacanis of Weblogs being on his way to generating 1 million dollars in AdSense revenue. Google’s Ad revenue sharing affiliate program for publishers certainly seems to be an eSales Nirvana for many webmasters.

But there are obvious and not so obvious times not to use AdSense ads on your sites. Let’s list – examine – and explain them below.

1. On Sales or Mini-sites

This is a no-brainer. If you are trying to sell a particular product that is important to your bottomline, you don’t want AdSense ads distracting your customers from either joining your email list, or hindering your site’s online sales process.

However I do see hybrid sites that are mini-sites or full scale eCommerce sites, with AdSense at the bottom of their pages. This might not be so bad since only 1% – 15% of your site visitors will either buy from you or fill out a form.

The thinking with this approach is you might as well make money from disinterested parties using up your server’s bandwidth.

2. SEO Business Sites

If your livelihood depends on search engine optimization or marketing for a living you might want to think twice about displaying AdSense Ads on your site. I can tell you this from personal experience. I once was on top of MSN for search engine marketing in my local area. I concentrated on my local area because I found people felt more comfortable hiring an eCommerce consultant locally.

One day my site fails totally out of the MSN index. After intense study I noticed that I obviously had a filter on my site from MSN.

I analyzed all the top ranking sites in MSN and noticed the only difference between me and the other top ranking sites was I had Google AdSense ads on my site. Someone at MSN felt that my AdSense ads, and perhaps to a less extent, my book on SEO, was getting a free ride in the MSN search engine database.

In fact I noticed that there were no sites with AdSense ads for at least the first 3 pages. Plus the sites with AdSense were only using 1 ad unit at the bottom of the home page (there were very few of them in the top 5 pages).

I knew it was strange to not have AdSense ads on the top Internet marketing sites. This prompted me to scan other industries where I noticed the same trend.

Many of the leading SEO gurus have sites that have been banned from the top listings by the search engines. It seems the more visible you become, the more of a target your sites are to the search engine auditors.

Some of my sites are still on the top of MSN with AdSense ads but that doesn’t mean they won’t also be targets in the future.

Let’s face the facts. MSN and Yahoo! have competing ad networks to Google’s, and this competitive situation is rife for a potential backlash against SEO sites with AdSense ads.

Many SEOs will point to exceptions to this position. However you have been warned!

Think about it, how long will MSN and Yahoo! sit back and watch SEO driven websites use their search indexes to fund Google? Did you know SEO in MSN and Yahoo(!) — is much easier to obtain.

Therefore optimized sites are creating an ad sales wealth transfer from MSN and Yahoo into the pockets of Google! It won’t be long before Yahoo! and MSN begin to devalue ranking on AdSense sites in their databases — if not outright ban them.

If you are in the search engine business stay search engine neutral, or create multiple sites for different search engines.

3. When AdSense Becomes Your Only Business Model

When you become so myopic in your thinking that you build a business solely on AdSense revenue — think again my friend. Why build a business solely on the largess of Google?

I don’t know if your realize it or not, but the sites making the real big AdSense money usually have a following that doesn’t depend on the search engines. Internet mavens like Chris Pirillo or Joel Comm have been on the Internet a while and have followings for their websites. Therefore they can consistently make six figures with AdSense.

These content powerhouses are an asset to Google and not the other way around. But do you think Google is going to sit back and watch just anybody make big bucks off of their top rankings?

If you do a search on most keywords you will notice many of the top ranking sites are news sites, .gov sites, or .org sites these days. The only exception is in industries where these sites don’t really exist like eCommerce industries (clothing, shopping, etc.).

No doubt in most industries you will notice a conspicuous scarity of AdSense sites in the top rankings. In other words don’t bet your future fortunes on AdSense.

An IPO based on projections of AdSense revenue isn’t in the future for the average eBusiness. Think of Google AdSense as supplemental income. Building a business solely on AdSense revenue isn’t just silly — it’s just plain stupid.

About This Author: Kamau Austin is the publisher of over ten websites. See more of his eCommerce and Search Engine Commentary can be found at: http://www.einfonews.com/ and http://www.searchengineplan.com/

Article Source – http://www.leadarticles.com/

by Richard Keir

Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site. And they’ve gone to some work to provide the information you need to optimize your AdSense.

What’s fascinating to me is that apparently not everyone bothers to read their tips. And even some that do, fail to apply it.

That said, you need to be aware that simply using their tips doesn’t guarantee successful ads and decent CTR (Click Through Rate). How many times have you heard this? You have to test. You have to try alternatives and see what really works best for you, on your pages, with your content and your visitors. Test, test, test some more. Track your results, analyze them, try variations. Too many of us don’t test. We hear the mantra, but we don’t do the work.
Your Ad Here

First, let’s see if we can get an idea about location. (The graphic is included in the article on my site or you can take a look at it at the Google link included below) Generally, above the fold, at the top center of your content, below top navigation is the hottest location. Not immediately below which is good but not quite as hot. In a left sidebar, to the immediate left of primary content or below the primary content are also good. Most other locations are generally cooler.

Again, you need to test and you need to consider your users behavior – and their behavior may vary on different pages with different kinds of content. Google suggests that in some cases, such as articles, the best location can be at the end of the article. To quote Google, “It’s almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, What can I do next?” Well targeted relevant ads right there can provide the answer.

Don’t blindly assume that sticking a nice big rectangle in the center above the fold will do it. It may, but depending on your content, it may annoy or inconvenience your users.

Users tend to focus on content, navigation and to a lesser extent graphics. Positioning your ads near these elements will often work well — if those ads are targeted to your visitors needs.

The top three performers among the Google ad formats are the 336X280 large rectangle, the 300X250 inline rectangle and the 160X600 wide skyscraper. Google reports that the wider formats tend to do better than the taller ones. One reason may be that these are, perhaps, easier to read since they have fewer line breaks and require less eye movement. But, you need to use formats that fit your pages well. Once again, you need to test, but redoing your pages to suit a particular ad format may not be a reasonable alternative and you may discover that a different format actually gets better results.

Now we come to color. Conventional wisdom says that colors which tend to blend into your content do better. Some go so far as to suggest that colors which make the ads look like part of the content are best. Personally, I think anybody really believes those ads are anything but ads, but who knows. Google suggests that you may find that colors that standout from your content do better – or maybe the opposite. This is absolutely an area where you need to test alternative color schemes. Going with the conventional wisdom usually works fairly well, but without testing you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Google allows you to have up to three ad units and one link unit on your pages. If you have long pages with lots of text, can only use small ad units or are in a niche with a large ad inventory, multiple units can pay off. Keep in mind that the way ad serving works is that the higher value ads are delivered to the first ad unit block encountered in your code. Always make sure that this first ad unit is displayed in the best location (yeah – test). You want the higher paying ads to be in the prime hot location on your page. Weaker locations can get the lower priced ads. And if none are available, then nothing will display unless you’ve included an alternate ad URL in your Google code. To maximize monetization you should be including alternate ad URLs, especially if you are putting multiple units on a page. The use of an alternate ad URL also eliminates the possibility of being served PSAs (Public Service Announcements). It’s your real estate, maximize your returns.

Nothing here is secret. Except for using the alternate ad URL, all of this information is available from Google’s Optimization Tips page – http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html . You can buy books and courses, visit a dozen forums and, in the end it comes down to what your visitors do on your site. The best you can get is general guidance. This means averaged outcomes over many sites, many types of content. If you are serious about doing whatever you can to really optimize your AdSense returns, there is only one thing to do – test. Whether it’s AdSense, opt-ins, copy, headlines – anything with a measurable outcome that you can track – then the way to improve is to test and keep on testing.

About This Author: Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/ – and you can find more articles at www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles.

Article Source – http://www.leadarticles.com/