Why do you still use Adsense?

Today I asked myself why I am still using Adsense to monetize my blogs and my websites with. After all I’m not the biggest Google fan out there and to be honest my space could probably be used more efficiently. But as I was thinking of reasons I shouldn’t be using Adsense something funny occurred to me. I want to use Adsense.

Why the hell would I want to do that?

First of all I’m lazy. I don’t want to spend hours researching and optimizing my sites to attract advertisers. I’d prefer to spend that time on content. Or sleeping. It is so easy to just throw a block or two of Adsense code up and let it generate revenue. That’s right, it still generates revenue. How much? Not enough, but not only am I lazy I’m also aware that just like hard work paying off being lazy pays off in its own way.

Beyond being lazy I’m also busy. Too busy for properly monetizing my sites? Apparently so. But here’s the bottom line - I use Adsense because it works for me. Because while I’m not getting rich I’m getting enough to pay for hosting each month plus a little extra. Which when you consider my hosting bill is $7.95 per months isn’t all that impressive. Would I like to make more? Of course I would. Would I consider dropping Adsense from my sites? At this point, no.

Is there any advantage to using Adsense?

For sites like mine that get less than 150 visitors a day each on average I’d have to say there is no monetary advantage except the fact that it makes me work even harder to try and get the sites ranking higher and higher for the keyword searches on the various search engines. I do know this as I work to rank the sites higher and I manage to do so my Adsense revenue increases. Magic? Hardly, just good old fashioned math. The more people see an ad the more likely they are to click on it. Simple as that.

As my sites gain readership however I will begin to notice an advantage to using Adsense which will be reflected in the numbers.

Should I use Adsense?

Only you can answer that question. Before you decide for or against using it you should take a good look at what your goals are in terms of monetization. Adsense isn’t a quick road to riches by any means and if you expect it to be you’ll just be wasting your time. There are several things you should think about when it comes to deciding if Adsense is right for you.

How well optimized are your sites for search engines?

The vast majority of people who click on Adsense ads come from search engines. Specifically from Google. If you have a very well optimized site that ranks high for your keywords you’ll do much better using Adsense than if you don’t. For example my site about snakes tends to rank within the first 1-15 results per article on Google. My click through rate is great (over 2.75% when I checked a little bit ago). At least it’s great compared to this site. On the other hand I get about 25-30 visitors a day there while well over 100 stop by here (despite not updating in what seems like months). That’s the power of keyword optimization when it comes to Adsense.

Is your website designed to maximize clicks?

Just throwing a few ads up isn’t going to get you clicks. They need to be presented in a certain way. If you’ve never taken a moment to look at Google’s Heatmap you should. One thing that has struck me is the fact that it doesn’t ever seem to change. Why not? Because it works. Google knows it works, and other Adsense publishers know it works. It makes money and that’s what Google is in business to do.

But it goes further than setting up your websites heatmap to emulate Google’s recommendations. You can have everything laid out perfectly, but if you don’t have good content you’ll get ads that don’t fit it. For example I’ve seen Adsense throw out ads about off shore oil drilling in an article I wrote on another blog about computers. I was at a loss for how that was happening until I read the article through a few times. I talked a lot about “drilling down to get to the problem”, “sometimes the cause of the issues are right below the surface”, “when you do this or that it’s like a geyser of power is released”… You get the idea. Adsense was doing its job and targeting perfectly for what I gave it. Now if Adsense was that far off track of what I was trying to accomplish I can only image how bad a search engine would have been thrown for a loop.

Do you ask people for clicks?

We all know it is against the rules to ask people to click on your ad spots whether Adsense or another, but you can encourage it without overtly asking. How? Write good content that is relevant to what the person reading the article wants to find. How do you do that? Good Great search engine optimization. How do you go about doing that? Write good content. What is good content? Content that gives the reader what they are looking for. How do you give the reader what they are looking for? Proper search engine optimi… Is it just me, or is this starting sound familiar? Do you understand?

If you want people to click on your ads give them reason to do so. Present good content and Adsense will 99.9999% of the time present good ads which will lead people to click. The very act of creating good content is the act of asking for clicks. Don’t create good content and see how many clicks you get. Produce good content and see how many clicks you get. Try it out and see if I lie!

Are you willing to use up valuable real estate for Adsense?

Sounds kind of odd, but will you willingly give your website real estate to Adsense when someone else might come in and perform better either at a flat rate or on a per click basis? Because that’s what you have to do during the duration while adsense is being shown on your site. I know for a fact that some potential advertisers won’t touch you with a 10 foot pole if you have adsense on your sites. So not only are you losing out on the space where Adsense appears, but also where it doesn’t in some cases.

Why do you still use Adsense?

Posted in Making Money | 2 Comments »

Earning a living on Craig’s List

I’ve done some experimenting lately with Craig’s List. Most of you are no doubt very familiar with using Craig’s List to unload (or find) a variety of unwanted items, pets, and services. What most people don’t realize is that a guy or gal can actually earn a decent living from Craig’s List. But, it’s not easy by any stretch of the imagination and many people who try will fail.

What does it take to earn a living using Craig’s List?

In a word, perseverance. I know, you were probably expecting some great insight or revelation, but truly it is that simple. It just takes perseverance to earn a living with Craig’s List. Now unless you’re stupid you’re probably wondering how is that different that any other method of earning a living. Well, it’s not and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t need to learn something entirely new you simply need to adjust your thinking!

First things first

Before you do anything else you should familiarize yourself with Craig’s List. It is a very simple website yet can quickly overwhelm you if you aren’t prepared for it. Probably the first thing you should do is go to the localized version of the site that is dedicated to your area. It’s a huge waste of time if you aren’t targeting the right areas. As you can see by the picture over to the right the main page has been divided up into sections to help you better find your way into a local area.

Once you’ve found the name of your city, state, or country click on it and it will take you to either a subdomain dedicated to your area or another page where you can drill down further to a more localized area. If need be keep narrowing it down until you are right in your local area. If you living in or around a larger city this won’t be hard to do, but if you live in the middle of nowhere you’ll need some extra effort.

Your next step is to figure out what category you will most likely have success in. For the most part they should be fairly self-explanatory with just a little bit of reading. Once you’ve figured out your category spend a few hours browsing through the ads in your area over the past few weeks. Give a few of them calls or send emails. You will quickly learn there are two types of people who advertise on services and sales on Craig’s List. Honest folks who are just trying to make a living and scoundrels. You don’t need a lot of insight to figure them out. The reason for calling these people is simply to learn a little bit about your competition. Would you hire them? If not chances are not many other people will either. Lesson 1: Don’t be like one of these people that others don’t want to hire. It will quickly ruin any chances you have of earning a living on Craig’s list.

Setting up an account

You don’t have to set up an account in order to advertise, but it makes it much easier. In order to get one set up look in the upper left side of the page and you’ll see a link that says “My Account”, click on it and you’ll be taken to a login page. Directly under the login you’ll see a link that says “Don’t have an account? Click here to sign up.” On the final page you’ll be asked for your email address and then to confirm the captcha code. After you click the “Create Account” button you’ll get an activation email. Click the link in it, create a password and you’re on your way!

Creating your ad

There are two schools of thought when it comes to advertising on Craig’s List. The first one subscribes to the thought that it should retain a classified ad, small community feel. The other view is that your ad should be as high class and as professional as possible. Let’s take a look at both kinds of ads and compare them.

Comparison point	Professional	Classified
Cost to produce	A few dollars to several hundred.	Free, except for the time it takes
Time to produce	A few days to a few weeks for a very well done ad	A few minutes to a few hours
Reactions from customers	More inclined to pay higher prices	Expect you to work well below market value

There are a lot more points we could use for comparison, such as cost vs return, but I just wanted to give you an idea of some things to look at. The next step is to actually create your ad. It can be a daunting task when you first start, but with a little effort and organization it isn’t actually too bad. Remember earlier I suggested you should read some ads on the site? Assuming that you did hopefully you’ve come up with some ideas for your own ads. Of course you can always hire a professional ad company, but in my experience it is just as well to take a little extra time to make your own. Especially when you consider cost.

The first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with how to write good ad copy, because no matter where the ad appears or who reads it if it isn’t good you’ve already lost the battle. Your next step is to actually figure out what you want your ad to say and who you would like to say it to. This is the part where you really need to figure out who exactly you are targeting with your ad

If you aren’t using one already I recommend finding some image editing software. If like most of us you’re not keen on paying hundreds of dollars for software you’ll hardly ever use I suggest looking into paint.net or the Gimp. Both work well and both are free. It really comes down to a matter of choice.

Placing your ads

The next step is figuring out where and when to place your ads. The where shouldn’t be too hard (in the local area, in the proper category), but the when can take a little bit of experimentation. I’ve found the absolute worst time for any ads on Craig’s List is early in the morning, before about 8am and late at night after around 9pm. Best time seems to be sometime between 11am and 2pm. Which makes sense if you think about it. It is the middle of the workday, people have likely finished up a good part of their duties and are just there because they have to be. Surfing Craig’s List seems to be a fairly popular pasttime for a lot of people during that part of the day. Of course you’ll need to experiment on your own when it comes time to placing the ad, but that’s jus what I’ve found to work best.

Keep on top of things

So you’ve finally placed your ad and now you’re ready to have a nice cold beer, kick back, relax and wait for the calls to come in? Unless you’re advertising “erotic services” give that idea up! Now is the time to keep on top of things. About 15 minutes after you place your ad it will very likely be pushed out of sight and out of mind. Just like anything else, keeping your name at the forefront will give you a great amount of leverage when it comes to your ads. It is a violation of Craig’s List rules to post the same thing more than once in a 48 hour period. Unfortunately no one pays any attention to that rule and if you want to be competitive you can’t either.

There are two ways to get around the posting limitations. The first is to simply change what your ad copy says and post the new ad, and deleting the old one. I don’t recall what percentage of the ad needs to be changed but I find if I change around 40% of it the spam check system seems to let it go through. The other way, if you use an image is simply to repost the image link. As long as you don’t use text outside of the image you won’t need to worry about being blocked.

Since Craig’s List is community moderated it helps to stay on their good graces. For the most part short of illegal, or spam postings no one will bother you. To avoid being labeled a spammer be sure to always delete your old ad once the new one is live on the site. Also try not to publish the same thing more than 5 or 6 times in a day to the same area. People will start to remember who you are.

How much money can I make?

I’ve found it really depends on what you are advertising. For example when I advertise computer repair I might get 2 or 3 jobs a week from Craig’s List. On the other hand when I advertise menial labor work I usually have 30 to 50 hours of work within a day of posting the ad. I’ve come to the conclusion that certain ads are expected, while others aren’t on the site. After all what kind of a professional computer tech would ever stoop so low as to post on Craig’s List? At least that seems to be what many people think.

Regardless you’ll only make money using Craig’s List if you treat it like a real business. That means being honest, doing the work you promise, showing up on time, following up, and all that other good stuff. I personally know of lots of people who make a few hundred extra dollars a week with it, and then there are 5 people I know of who make livings this way. The earning potential is huge it is just a matter of you being able to work the system.

A few things to keep in mind

When you start using Craig’s List to advertise there are a few things you should always be wary of.

• People go to Craig’s List looking for a deal. In other words they are frugal cheap and will always go for cheapest, and most convient. Whatever you normally charge your customers consider cutting it at least in half, if not three quarters for Craig’s List customers.
• Try out various ads and times of day to see what combination works best for you.
• It will take some time. Most people adversise for a few days before they get any return from it. Stick to it.
• Be careful! Craig’s List seems to attract some weird people looking for “services”. If you’re a lady keep this in mind because the service some of them are expecting might be more than you are expecting to provide.

Good luck with your money making efforts on Craig’s List!

Posted in Making Money | 6 Comments »

Who wants to buy a blog? (and the elections)

Before I launch into my diatribe about the US election just wanted to let everyone know I am considering selling this blog. No, I don’t expect to get rich from it so the asking price if I do sell it will be normal for what it is. Somehow I’ve managed to get myself a Page Rank of 5 and a pretty loyal following. I’m still mulling over the idea of selling it to someone who has more time and passion to either continue as it is (except bigger and better) or just start from scratch. If anyone is interested let me know and we can discuss it. As I said I’m not 100% certain of everything yet, but thought I’d lay it out on the table for readers before I advertise it to the world. That will come in the next few days.

As for the election. Someone please, please, please tell me where one party ends and the other begins? Why do we even call them republican and democrats? Why not just call them “thieves, liars, murderers, adulterers, and shameless pigs”? It would be a great deal more accurate than trying to define them by their ideological separations. Problem is there are none between the three front runners.

More than that are we really deciding between a republican and a democrat or are we deciding between Clinton and Obama? Speaking of Obama someone please tell me where he stands on an issue. Any issue. Because I’ve been listening and reading what he has to say and aside from speaking well he’s got no position on anything.

How about “Hill”? Is she a vicious woman or what? “Hell hath no wrath…” Yeah it’s heresy but it is almost fitting to Clinton. I wonder if she gets it from Bill? It seems “Americas first black president” isn’t in such good graces with the black vote. Which leads me to ask what exactly is “the black vote”? What happened to the American vote? Now we have black, spanish, and gay votes but the rest of us are just “the voters”. As if those groups somehow deserve recognition above and beyond the rest of us common voters.

How about McCain? Please don’t tell me that boob is going to get into the Whitehouse. I’m almost certain he won’t, but then I ask myself why is he even still in the race. Are “we the people” really that stupid that we can’t see him for what he really is? Everyone gave Kerry hell for flip-flopping on his opinions during his campaign, but McCain has made a career out of flip-flopping in the Congress. But now we’re giving him serious consideration for the Presidency? Are you serious?

Huckabee I’ve not seen anything bad about, but I wouldn’t put it past him. I pay more attention to him over the coming days assuming he doesn’t drop out. I didn’t pay him much mind before because I just assumed he wouldn’t be around. Kind of like Ron Paul who hasn’t dropped out but he’s stopped campaigning to focus on his congressional race. Sad thing that, Ron Paul could have been a breath of fresh air. A break from the party lines, but oh well.

So who will I vote for? I’ll ask God for his wisdom when the time comes. None of them impress me

Posted in Blogging, Making Money, News and Politics | 4 Comments »

A new blog

Two days ago I finally had enough content to get pet-snakes.com up and running. It is dedicated to keeping snakes as pets (as if you couldn’t tell by the url…) and general care of other reptiles as well. Instead of leaving the blog posts open to commenting I installed a phpbb 2 forum on this site to facilitate discussion, and feedback. I took this approach as I wanted the main site to be more for disseminating information regarding snakes as opposed to open discussions. Currently there are 9 articles up on the site and 12 more currently in the works. I’ll be posting 2 or 3 a day until they’ve all been posted at which point I will be adding even more content with the help of some other folks. That’s the short story. The long story is how I came to decide on starting that project.

I’ve always been fascinated by snakes since I was about 5 or 6 years old. Throughout my childhood and early teens I had snakes as pets. At the time I really had no idea what I was doing so it was surprising anything made it, and sometimes it didn’t. As I got older I lost interest in snakes and became interested in all the wrong things young men become interested in. Except for one brief stint of taking care of a ball python for about 3 months I was virtually snake free for about 8 years.

Then a few months ago I had a really screwed up dream. I was being chased all over the place by a rat. This was no ordinary rat! This was Mighty Mouse’s big brother! I don’t remember much about the dream but I remember waking up thinking to myself I need a snake!, and at that the seed was planted and I began to absorb all of the information about snakes I could get my hands on. Until I was satisfied I had enough knowledge at which point I started shopping around.

The long and short of it was I got the snake and soon realized that I was beginning to forget half of what I learned. Rather than forget it all I started typing it out on the computer. After I had several potential articles lined out I put in place a plan start a new blog dedicated to snake care. At first I had intended to make it a regular blog with replies, widgets, and all of that stuff. I quickly came to realize that I wanted to monetize the blog because it lends itself well to that because of it’s tight niche focus. I’ve gone with the standard Google Adsense advertising for the moment but as it gains in popularity I will start approaching targeted businesses about partnership opportunities.

This will mark the first time I’ve truly focused on monetizing a site from almost the beginning. In order to draw in more traffic I am going to hold a contest for a free snake up to a $250.00 value. So if you or anyone you know is into snakes keep an eye on pet-snakes.com for details. If not you should still check it out anyhow. Just because you’re my friend…

And yes I know I need a header/logo. If anyone wants to offer me a nice one for under $25.00 I’m willing to talk. Just get in touch with me and we can discuss it.

Posted in Blogging, Making Money | 2 Comments »

Monetize your RSS feed with Bidvertiser

A few minutes ago when I logged into my Bidvertiser and was surprised to see that they are now offering the option to include ads in your RSS feeds. Great idea I thought and quickly signed up. After all more income sources is more income sources, right? Here’s what I figured out so far.

A little hokey, maybe…

You can’t embed the ads into an existing feed publisher such as Feed Burner. By no means am I an expert but that seems like being able to do that would be a given. Especially considering that Bidvertiser doesn’t use content relational advertising.

But all is not lost

The setup took me all of two minutes. In the end I only need to copy and paste a few lines to move my RSS feeds from Feed Burner to Bidvertiser. I’ve not made the change yet, but I’ll give it a try tomorrow. It doesn’t look like I’ll lose anything by moving the feed. Besides I’m not actually moving the feed, more like forwarding it through the Bidvertiser system but it still seems to originate on the blog, move through Feed Burner and then get handed off to Bidvertiser.

Getting started

If you don’t have a Bidvertiser account already signup for one here. Once that’s done log into your publisher account and look for the link that says Public Beta - BidVertiser ads for your RSS/ATOM feeds. Click here to start!. Click the link and go! If you already have an account skip the signup (obviously) and get to work!

Has anyone else tried this out? Any feedback? I’m going to give it a chance since Feed Burner can’t seem to get their act together and monetize their feeds. At least not so it works right.

Posted in Making Money | 6 Comments »