Three Types Of Websites That Can Make You A Fortune

[Joel Comm]

Three Types Of Websites That Can Make You A Fortune
by Joel Comm

One of the best things about making money on AdSense is that anyone can do it - and with just about any type of website. You don't have to own a mini-Amazon or build a budding Ebay to make big stacks of cash on the Internet; you just have to have a site that attracts users.

AdSense For Owners Of Commercial Sites
A lot of people who have built a website specifically to make money worry about putting ads on their sites. They're concerned that people might be put off buying if their browsing is interrupted by intrusive ads.

That's absolutely right. If your ads are intrusive, then you are going to annoy your users. But if you've used all the strategies I recommend in my book Google AdSense Secrets to blend your ads into the site, then not only will you keep your users sweet, you'll also increase the number of your click-throughs.

Not everyone who reaches your site will buy. In fact, most won't. You've paid for those users; shouldn't you profit from them? Put AdSense ads on the right pages and in the right way and you'll make even more money from your site. And that's the point, right?

AdSense For Owners Of Information Sites
Information sites are probably the most obvious places to put AdSense. If you've created a site that's designed to teach other people about your favorite topic - whether it's video games, mahjong or raising guppies - then AdSense is ideal for bringing your site money. Again, you'll still need to be smart about the way you use those ads (just put them on the site any old how and you'll barely make enough money to pay for the server.) Do it properly and use all the proven AdSense revenue-generating techniques and you'll be able to turn your hobby into cash.

AdSense For Owners Of Blogs
Blogs are intended to simply let people know what their writers think - and do no more than that. But a lot of bloggers have recently discovered that with the help of AdSense, their blogs can quickly become cash cows! Because they're updated regularly, Google loves blogs and because they have regular visitors so do advertisers.

The techniques used to get blog readers to click on ads are a bit special but once you've read up and know what you're doing, you should be able to turn your writing into a very nice income indeed.

[gregbd]

Hi Joel:

Your ebook and experimenting has helped me a lot and I reasonably happy with the conversion rate and have doubled my average click rate by targeting higher paying keywords but the average amount paid per click is still lower than I would like.

Obviously, my focus needs to be on increasing traffic but where do I find the reading material Adsense for Blogs you make reference to in this post?

[gjansen]

Hi Gregbd,

One simple way of adding Adsense revenue to your blog is to simply edit the template and insert your adsense code. In other words, serve adds inside your blog.

For example, on Blogger.com most of the templates have a nice navigation bar on the right hand side. By adding the adsense code for a wide skyscraper into the template in the proper position, you can have Google ads at the top right hand corner of your blog.

The other option, which I have not used at all yet, is to incorporate Adsense in the RSS feed of your blog.

This article may also help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1059

Glen.

[gregbd]

I have added adsense ads to my template.

I thought there was something specific that Joel was referring to.

What I have fond is that indepth articles with details relating to solving specific problems in line with the keywords I am optimizing for tend to dilute click throughs.

I have found that content that is less specific, keyword focused yet still helpful, seem to attract better click through ratios.

[Adcents]

Joel's right, Google does love Blogger, but there are some more 'secrets' that you need to be aware of that I'd like to share from 6 months worth of experience.

I like sharing secrets - I hope some of them help you!

Specifically to Blogger (but the general points are the same for all Blogs I guess):-

1. Update your Blog 3-4 times a week - people get hooked and keep coming back for their "daily fix" of information/news/thoughts. Google and MSN in particular keep coming back. 60% of my traffic comes from people searching for specific key words and they click right through to a specific article.

*Side Point - Make sure that you have a bold "Back to Home" or "Home" link at the end of all your posts to help your visitors reach your main Blog page - because often they will have entered your Blog on an Archive page. You will need to manipulate your Blogger template's colour scheme to do this.

2. Use all of Joel's blending techniques on your pages! Experiment - experiment then - experiment some more. They really do work! I've gone from $2 a day to $45-72 a day using these techniques.

3. Use the "title" of your Blog to maximum effect. This is the full title that you call your Blog in Blogger. It's critical to do this. After a few days/weeks when your Blog has been crawled and people search Google or Yahoo or MSN for keywords that are contained within your posts - the search results will obviously reveal your Blogs name - but the full string of characters.

You can use this to your advantage. For example: do any Google search for "Dr. ITIL" (my site www.dritil.com ) and you will see that the title can actually draw more visitors to come take a look...

4. I've found that embedding smaller Ads at the end of Posts is not that effective, but still worthwhile. The best results have come from the smaller Adlinks appearing on the top right of the site. People love learning more about their topic and will use this when they have finished reading your daily post.

5. Change things around a bit. Once you build up a loyal following - something a little different (colour change, new layout) for Adsense seems to drive more clicks - as long as it's not too frequently.

6. This is a real goody!!

Use Overture to find high paying keywords within the subject matter of your choice. So long as it can be considered "related" to your site - then you should not bore or lose your loyal visitors. For example my site's about IT Service Management (ITIL) and appeals to a niche audience (well, about 1 million professionals worldwide and growing). ITIL keywords are appearing at the $1.30 bid range - but a sub topic of ITIL, say Configuration Management is $6 - $7 dollars. So I'm posting a positive mixture of general ITIL posts and specialist Configuration Posts to eanr more revenue.

7. Final Tip

When you first post a new article - it will take a day or so for your Ads to become highly contextual. (In my experience). So, in the example above - this means that Ads with the words Configuration Management in - won't appear for a little while - so there's a delayed effect here. All the more important to realise that you will earn more again by re-posting (by manually changing the publish date of your article in Blogger) your article after a few weeks. I use this re-cycling technique sparingly and always in conjunction with new material - to avoid visitor boredom.

Hope some of these prove useful to you! :)

[pamz]

Adcents ,

Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[gregbd]

Hi Adcents,

I am doing all those except #4, I do have adlinks on the Top right ( well almost) but will now try at the Top right...

I have not tried recycling #7 but tried adding additional posts along the same theme.

As to #6, I have found higher paying keywords... written to maximize those. But I see such a Yo-Yo effect... I noticed on your home page you have just one post... has that made a difference?

BTW: Anyone know what font and size Google uses in their ads? Adlinks and Tall Banners?

[Adcents]

As to #6, I have found higher paying keywords... written to maximize those. But I see such a Yo-Yo effect... I noticed on your home page you have just one post... has that made a difference?

It depends really... sometimes it seems to make people view the archives a bit more other times people view less which means less clicking opportunity time. I must admit I'm still trialling different approaches to try to maximise the duration of each visitors stay.

Anyone else got any views on this ? :rolleyes:

[articles411]

Hi,

I have had some success with my adsense and blogger account. I recently started a new article directory, (see sig) and I have a blog on blogger which highlights a featured article of the day.

I am frustrated, because I have been wanting to wrap the content of the article with my comments, but I want the adsense, (either at the beginning or the end of the article) to pick up on the articles content not on my comments.

I have had this up about a week, at http://articles411.blogspot.com and it seems that it is focusing mainly on seo techniques and not reading the article content.

I am thinking maybe I should post the adsense right in the middle of the article, but don't want to have to do it manually everytime I put up an article.

Also, does it make a difference whether you host your blogger on their site or on your own. I host with h4p and can't seem to get it right in getting it ftp ed to my hosting account.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Joel, I am a big fan of all your free information, I am a single work at home mom who has self taught myself everything to get to the point where I am with my sites. My home site has a pr of 3 since march, and it is only in extensive research, tweaking and playing around, and experimenting with my blog that has got me to this point.

Thanks for giving us this opportunity to communicate with you like this at your forum.

Kindest regards,

Laurie Meade,


If you want to see how well posting articles works, just do a search at google under my name,

Then a search within search for free content or free to republish articles and you will see how powerful free article content can be.

[Adcents]

Laurie,

I can't help with the in-article placement piece you mention (beyond my technical capability - sorry) but I do believe that it DOES make a difference where you host your Blog.

Think about it...

Google let's you set up a Blog for free with Blogger (unlimited spce etc) so there are some massively powerful servers out there - their spider/crawler/robots (whatever the correct term is!) are bound to be prioritised at least to regularly crawl their own networked servers with some ferrocity.

From feedback I've received from fellow Bloggers - that seems to hold true - anyone else got any other thoughts ??

Laurie - without sounding patronising - it's fantastic to hear that you're self tought - keep up the great work!

Good Luck! :)

[articles411]

Thank you, it is not patronizing at all. I am very proud of the fact that I have learned all that I have.

I have considered writing an ebook detailing just how far I have come, the mistakes I have made (for others to overcome) and how I have learned most of it for free, or by joint venturing with other maketers.

There is a lot of junk out there, yet there is much valuable stuff to be found. Their are simple ways to get many of the ebooks, and information you need.

I can honestly say besides hosting fees I don't spend more than $50 per month on anything related to my web. I spend more just trying to keep ink in my printer and my computer up to date. :o)

As for pr. My first site which I was unable to renew, (for many reasons I won't go into here) has a pr of 4 that is still benefiting from my articles out there, I can't afford to buy it back right now or I would have another article directory up there. If someone with more money than time wants to partner with me on this, send me a private pm.I will send you the details.

Both http://lauriemeade.com and my blogspot main site were pr 3 the last time I checked. I messed around with the template on lauriemeade.blogspot.com and I am afraid that messed up my rating.

For some reason on both that site and my new article blog, I can't seem to get my tower on the left side to show. Its in the template but it is not showing when I view my blog. I messed with it for a few hours yesterday.

I agree that hosting on blogger, was a wise step. You know they are going to spider your links eventually and probably often. My question was though, I have several categores of blogs, and wondered if it might be good to host a few of them at my own site.

I learned much of what I know from reviewing and promoting other peoples products.

I was very excited when I got my first Clickbank affiliate check, even more so when I got one from CJ. It won't be long before I will see my first Google check and I am going to make a copy of it and frame it. :o)

Sorry to ramble on, thanks again,
Kindest regards,

Laurie
PS The writers of the script I use for my article directory are offering it for free. Check out the link at the bottom of the page. We are still working out bugs, so please don't let that stop you or deter you from posting. Let me know if you need help. Send me a pm though, my was site was just criticized publicly in another forum this morning. :o(

[kah22]

Laurie,

I do believe that it DOES make a difference where you host your Blog.

Think about it...

Google let's you set up a Blog for free with Blogger (unlimited spce etc) so there are some massively powerful servers out there - their spider/crawler/robots (whatever the correct term is!) are bound to be prioritised at least to regularly crawl their own networked servers with some ferrocity.

My associate and I are both thinking of creating a blog to carry adsense, at present we are doing some homework.

What are the options?

I see Blogger around quite a bit and I suppose if it is Google they have plenty of brain and money to throw at the venture.

When you say that Google lets you set up a bolg for free does that mean totally free? No monthly fee, no hosting fee etc?

What other blog companies (if that is the correct term) are there and which would readers recommend and why?

Before taking the plunge I'd like to know the most effective/profitable way to blog, any recommended sites/resources that a first time blogger should read would be appreciated.
Kevin

[JamLoceng]

When you say that Google lets you set up a bolg for free does that mean totally free? No monthly fee, no hosting fee etc?
Kevin

Hi,
My blog is on Blogspot (Blogger.com). They have a free service and paid service. For a free blog, for light weight blogging, their service is more than enough. For their free service, you can get pretty nice javascripts,flash,poll and much more inserted into their template.

They just made Adsense publisher easier to insert their code with their new feature. (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=964) . Do you know that Adsense team also blog in Blospot? Here is their blog (http://adsense.blogspot.com).

For a "pro-looking" blog, better use their paid service. A friend of mine use TypePad or you can use WordPress.

[kah22]

Many thanks - that seems to answer my question

ps like your layout

Kevin

[JamLoceng]

Many thanks - that seems to answer my question

ps like your layout

Kevin

no problem and thx for the complement. you can get blogspot to work with your own domain. if you are more into bussiness side blogging, better use their paid service.

[tctan]

Kevin

When I first start with bologging around a year ago, I went with Blogger since it's the one with the lowest learning curve. However, after I learned more about WordPress, nowaday, all my new blogs are using WP. WP is normally come with preinstall with most hosting service. So what you need to do is just buy a domain and pay a small fees for a hosting service, then your Blog will be up. Just be warned, you may need to spend more time to learn about WP as compare to Blogger, but WP is having more features and more plug in for your blog. So the time is worth it.

Just my 2cents

[Flashni]

Laurie

Blogger is always hosted at Blogger itself. You can make it 'appear' to be on your host but why bother? As long as your links go back and forth, it will be crawled by the spiders.

BTW, try changing your URL colour in your adsense to 7799BB so that it blends more into your site.

Also, why do you pay $25 per month to host with Host 4 Profit? You can get more for $4 per month at reliable hosts but you don't end up getting someone a $10 per month affiliate cheque. You can still get into the warrior forum without an account.

WordPress seems the more popular choice amongst the pros as every host with Cpanel has it inbuilt. Go to the Fantastico section, make a couple of clicks and, bingo, it's up. It's even easier than Blogger.

JON

[mdcom]

Hi Adcents,
.....

BTW: Anyone know what font and size Google uses in their ads? Adlinks and Tall Banners?

Wouldn't wrapping the Adsense javascript block of code in "style" tags via CSS allow you to present the ads to fit in with the font and size on the rest of your webpage -- or they will simply show up as the font you have chosen for the rest of the content surrounding the Javascript.

Was this the reason for the question?

Roseanne

[mdcom]

My associate and I are both thinking of creating a blog to carry adsense, at present we are doing some homework.

What are the options?

Before taking the plunge I'd like to know the most effective/profitable way to blog, any recommended sites/resources that a first time blogger should read would be appreciated.
Kevin


Kevin,

Michael Bergman has just released a Free How To Blogging Guide (download available via the last post on the Marketing Defined Blog -- URL in signature to this Post) on his experience's' with setting up a Blog -- which leans heavily towards using Wordpress. It is an excellent reference for setting up your first Blog.

Wordpress is really not such a huge learning curve and I thoroughly recommend you give them a shot for your first Blog. Any decent webhost allows an instant installation of Wordpress. The plug ins and choices you have for Wordpress far outweigh the simplistic Blogger -- I wish someone had given me this advice when I started, it would have saved the awful bother of having to move to Wordpress from Blogger (which I am currently undertaking).

If you do elect to use Blogger, hosting on your own domain is highly recommended for maximum SEO points and for easy access and redesign. Only as a last resort should Blogger's paid service be used. You lose nothing with Google, but gain in fact if you host on your own domain.

A Blog is a truly awesome marketing tool -- for example, I can now refer to a new article or product on my Blog and have it indexed and at a top10 ranking at Google within 48 hours.

Careful keyphrase selection and use in the headings and start/finish of the body of each Post pays big dividends in the way of top10 rankings -- and is also naturally required to increase Adsense income (this is where Joel's book is a great investment).

Hope this input helps you make the right choices ..

Roseanne van Langenberg

[mdcom]

Hi Laurie,

Here are the exact settings you need to use FTP and transfer from Blogger to your own domain and from personal experience as far as SEO is concerned you are far better off hosting on your own domain.

First make a folder on your own domain entitled "blog" - then log in to Blogger's dashboard and makes these changes in the Settings/Publishing tab:

Change from hosting at Blogspot to FTP.

FTP Server: www.yourdomain.com (no http required)

Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/
The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://.

FTP Path: public_html/blog/
This path must already exist on your server (which explains why you start off making the "blog" directory and please use the trailing slash after the name of your directory as shown in the example)

Blog Filename: index.html
Example: index.html
Warning: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.

FTP Username: Your Domain Provider's username (in your case -- Host4Profit username)

FTP Password: Your Domain's Password (I elect to leave this blank and prefer to type it in manually each time I post -- just in case someone manages to get a hold off your Blogger password, they are unable to access your domain)
Username & Password are optional. If you leave them blank, you will be asked to enter them when you publish your blog.

Notify Weblogs.com: Yes (Naturally you want to notify Weblogs that you have updated each time you Post)
Weblogs.com is a blog update notification service that many individuals and services use to track blog changes.

Press SAVE SETTINGS and you are done (you are now able to manually change your blog templates, keep a track of your web statistics without using an outside client and do a host of other tweaks, simply and easily from your own domain)

Make the move Laurie, your search engine rankings will only be the better for it. PM me if you need any further help.

Cheers
Roseanne

[articles411]

Hi all who have responded here,

I have just read and filed some of the great tips here.

To answer a few questions, someone asked why I still host with h4p.
I started with them, and David has been very good to me. He has helped me when I tried to install scripts myself and ran into problems. He has always been right there quick with an email to answer and fix things no matter how silly or dumb they may have been on my part. He has been very reasonable in the fees charged to install scripts that I wanted, with billing that didn't occur the next monthly cycle. These are all reasons I stay there.

But the main one, is The WEBCPanel they use is THE one I learned on, and am most comfortable with.

I have tried other hosts over the years, and I keep coming back. I can add extra domains for only 5 bucks.

I do wish they would add the Fantisco Panel, but I also, am very satisfied with the ongoing service, great uptime, and overall support they have given me.

I just installed WordPress on my new site last week at http://articles411.com/wp
I am looking to learn more about how to take the best advantage of this software.

I had put WP on my other site last march and had problems with it, and even though I never hardly ever posted to it, it brought much traffic to my site. I am planning to go and fix it in the next week or so.

I have downloaded the ebook on blogging mentioned above and will be studying it. It is doing things just like that, how I have learned everything.

One question, in the above details for putting it on my site, if you want to more than one blog on the same site, can you just name them in folders like, blog, bog2, blog3, or will that mess things up?

I intent to attempt the instructions above this evening.

I do know the value of having it on your own site for SEO purposes.

I would like to integrate the adsense on my article better, but am still learning all the ins and outs of modifying php, most of my knowledge is with straight html.

I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't get the tower of adsense on the left side showing up on two of my blogs on blogger.

I have inserted all my adsense code in template by hand, and I am wondering if there integration process as interfered with my handcoding. I made all my changes in templates about the same time they were implementing their updates.

I should have more control of that on my site as well.

I eventually want to implement my own templates, but still have some learning to do on that aspect.

Thanks again for all the responses.

I would love to read Joel's book, however, I don't have the funds in my budget for that at the current time. Being a single mom of three, I have to budget what I use for online stuff to the barest minimum.
My biggest challenge is putting my affiliate earnings back into the business and not the personal finances budget. :)