Warning from Entrecard

I had been away from blogging for quite some time. I just noticed that my last post here was more than 100 days ago. My last post was published on July 30, 2009. I was attending a part-time course for about two months and had very little time to look into anything else. My plate was full with my full time work, part time course and family. So, I was not surprised when I received a warning from Entrecard.

Entrecard warned me to update my blog to avoid deletion. So, this update is in a way prompted by them. But, with the current work load, I am not sure I will be updating my blog regularly. I am also going on a long holiday in December and won't be back until Christmas.

Entrecard needs lot of effort and it looks like I am not up to it at this stage. I do not want to lose my Entrecard account before consuming all my hard earned points there. So, probably, I will be sending my points lavishly on advertising. Then, most likely, I will leave my Entrecard account to die unless something changes drastically over the next couple of months.

Here is the warning from Entrecard, for those of you who might be interested:

Your account 'Widgets for Blogger' on entrecard.com has been warned. The administrator provided the following message:

Please update your blog to avoid deletion from the Entrecard system. Thank you

Please contact support@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this warning.

PLEASE NOTE: You are expected to resolve this issue promptly. Failure to do so will result in the removal of your Entrecard account.

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Type of Traffic Determines Adsense Success

In my earlier post, while replying to Sandy’s comments, I told you that I don’t use Adsense in this blog. In spite of me supporting Google’s Adsense regularly in my posts, why I don’t use it here? I thought I should explain to clarify the doubts that might have cropped up in you.

I have three main reasons for not using Adsense on this blog:

(1) I primarily get traffic from social networking sites

(2) This blog deals with topics with other bloggers as the target audience. The topics generally revolve around blogging tips and make money online.

(3) The poor performing Adsense ads on this blog affected the performance of Adsense ads on my other blogs

How does type of traffic affect Adsense income?
The traffic to any blog generally falls under two major categories, traffic from social networks and traffic from search engines. Likewise, blogs can also be classified into blogs with primarily social traffic and blogs with primarily search engine traffic.

Please take note that Google Adsense does not perform well on blogs with traffic primarily from social networks. This might be one major reason why bloggers like John Chow, Darren Rowse and the likes have not been using Adsense on their blogs. Even though you get huge traffic through social networks, it is not going to convert into clicks. Even if it does, it is not going to produce good returns for you.

Blogging Niche
If you see advertisements related to blogging from Google on your Adsense block, it means you are not doing well as far as Google is concerned. So, the scenario gets worse if your blog itself is on blogging niche. It might look like you are getting targeted ads. Of course, I am blogging about blogs and I should expect ads related to blogging, right? But, Google will still pay you very minimal rates per click. So, it is a proven fact that blogging niche does not perform well with Google Adsense.

One poor performing blog affects the entire network
If you have many blogs under your Adsense account, then you need to watch the performance of each of your blogs closely. Google has a peculiar way of degrading blogs, called “Smart Pricing”. If one of your blog performs badly, then all your blogs will be slapped a kind of penalty and the returns from well performing blogs will start to dwindle. So, if you notice a blog with poor performance, immediately remove the Adsense ads from that blog. This will help in getting good returns from your other blogs. It is a good idea to regularly test all your Adsense blogs for smart pricing.

Conclusion
So, the above reasons summarize my decision not to use Adsense on this particular blog. But, I have other blogs where I still use Adsense and they perform particularly well. Hope that clarifies my support for Google Adsense and still not using it here in this blog. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Do I follow what I say?

I just wanted to address a comment from Sandy regarding the content of my earlier post titled "Keep it Simple for Adsense Success". Please read Sandy’s comment before we go further:

Sandy’s Comment on “Keep it Simple for Adsense Success”

"You don't see to practice what you preach...in that you say keep it simple and don't distract readers with subscriptions; but right in your post you say if you want more information to subscribe?

I'm not doing well with adsense, but everything I read say join join join, subscribe etc. Get your name in directories, get links out there. You post is the first I've seen that says do adsense and nothing else, so I wonder about it. Just really not sure what to make of it."

Why Sandy is frustrated?
I appreciate Sandy for being straight to the point. I can understand her frustration and I felt that her doubts should be cleared. I could have answered this as part of the comments, but I felt the answer should reach most of my readers who may have similar questions.

Why bloggers contradict?
You cannot learn the intricacies of blogging without reading other blogs or learning from the experience of established bloggers. But, the difficulty is you get contradicting suggestions/ advise from different bloggers. What should I do? One blogger tells me that Stumbleupon is the best for blog traffic. Another guy tells me that Google is the best source of traffic. Where do I stand then? Do I follow blogger A or blogger B? As it always happens in real world, you have to filter good information and weed away the bad information. Most importantly, you have to choose the right information that applies to your blogging goals.

Reply to Sandy
1. Sandy, when I said "don’t distract readers" I meant only for blogs that use Adsense ads. If you take a close look at this blog, I don’t use Adsense on this blog. So, the rules I have listed in the earlier post does not apply to this blog. If you are using Adsense on your blog, keep the distraction minimal. I do this on my blogs which use Adsense. The idea is to get the attention of the reader on the Adsense ads, rather than splitting his attention between an Entrecard ad, ten Adgitize ads, four CMF ads and a row of Project Wonderful ads. What is the probability of someone clicking on your Adsense ad?

2. Regarding joining blog directories or getting links, it is fine. The amount of incoming links from quality sites with keyword-anchored text is very important for you to move up in the search engine rankings. Getting links is certainly very important. I did not say “do nothing else”. But, while you spend time on off-site optimization you should also concentrate on your on-site optimization. Your primary goal should be to get search engine traffic.

I am just trying to share my experience with my readers and fellow bloggers. I have made mistakes and learned from them. Blogging is trial and error. If you are not going to try something, you are not going to learn. I always try many things. If it works, fine. If not, along the way, I may fine-tune my strategies.

Conclusion
Sandy, by the way, I would like to add much more on your comment. But, I have little time to add further. I will come back with further content on this in my next post. Feel free to shoot further questions that you may have.

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Keep it Simple for Adsense Success

The success of Adsense relies on the simplicity of your blog. If you want to make money with Adsense, then keep it simple. I will get down to the details below.

Bad Placement of Google Adsense
I visit lot of blogs that have too many advertisements distracting the reader's attention. I can understand their eagerness in maximizing the available space. But, Adsense is not about maximizing your advertising space. You need to use the space intelligently and place the advertisements strategically. I will show you an example which I feel is not the right way of using Adsense. (Note: This is an example and if it resembles any existing blog, it is by coincidence and not intentional.)



Look at how the 125 by 125 advertisements are distracting the attention away from Adsense ads. If you are good at probability, work out what is the probability of someone clicking on the Adsense ad.

All Adsense or No Adsense
Let me tell you something. If you are using Adsense on a blog, do not put any other advertisement on this blog. If you want to put other advertisements on your blog, then do not use Adsense. As simple as that. You may ask why. Google does not prevent us from displaying other advertisements. True. But, from my experience, you cannot make money with Adsense if you concentrate on other advertisements too. You are splitting your visitors between your different ad networks. This means that your CTR is pretty low as far as Google is concerned and it will reduce your earnings.

The problem here is getting the attention of the reader to your advertisement and getting him/ her to click. Just think about it. Do you want your reader to click on an Adsense ad that brings you $1 or even 25 cents per click or you want him to leave the site clicking on a Project Wonderful ad that fetches you 0.01$ per day?. I am not trying to compare advertising networks nor I am concluding which is more profitable for the blogger. The idea is whichever you choose to go, you should do the right thing.

Good Placement of Adsense
I will you show a good display of Adsense ads in the following example.



Look at how the 468x60 Adsense ad is neatly arranged on top of the post and a 160x600 ad runs all along the height of the post. If a reader gets bored with the content of the post, the first thing he/ she will do is to click on the Adsense ad. There is nothing distracting the reader from not doing so. The picture below shows how the ending of the post can help you.



Look how nicely a big rectangle ad is placed at the end of the post. If the reader completes reading the post and still unable to get the information he/ she wants, they are most likely to click on the ad below.

Ideal Layout for Adsense blogs
In all my Adsense blogs, I like to have a 468x60 ad at the top of the post, a 160x600 ad running along the right side of the post and a 336x280 or 300x250 ad at the bottom of the post. This type of placement has worked wonders for me. This has increased the Click Through Rate. I won't confirm that this is the best combination, you may have to try it out yourself and find the ideal combination for your blog. But, generally, this is a good combination.

Conclusion: Keep it Simple
To conclude, keep your blog as simple as possible to make money with Adsense. Minimize the number of outgoing links; do not use any other advertisements other than Adsense; do not cramp your blog with information that distracts the reader like your blog statistics or page rank or subscribe button.

Finally, will I get good earnings from the click after doing all these? I don't know. That's a completely different topic. This post has concentrated mainly on improving your click-through rate and not on your earnings. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Make Money with Today.com

Today.com is a blogging platform that makes writing and maintaining a blog easy. It pays you for blogging, without restricting you. When you sign up, you are given a VIP Blogger status that allows you to earn money based on the page impressions your blog generates. Here is my trial blog on Today.com, Cricket and India; take a look if you are interested.

Who should write for Today.com?
Today.com is suitable for bloggers who are unable to make significant money with their normal blog, be it on Blogger, Wordpress or self-hosted. Today.com pays you $2.00 per one thousand page impressions. Compare this with your Adsense earnings. If you struggle to reach $2.00 eCPM, then Today.com is worth a try. All you have to do is concentrate on your blogging and promotion of your blog. The advertisement part is taken care of by Today.com.

How to generate traffic to your blog?
I personally prefer search engine traffic. I find that Today.com blogs are generally doing well on search engines, similar to Blogger blogs. So, you have to get enough backlinks for your primary keyword and while blogging target your primary keyword and secondary keywords. Look at the picture below. This is a screenshot from my trial blog.


As you can see, I am not trying any blog promotion other than getting traffic from search engines like, Google and Yahoo. All I did is to create a blog, get some keyword-anchored backlinks and wrote content targeting my keywords. I am not getting tons of traffic, but I am having enough to keep the blog going. If you take a close look, I did get some traffic from Entrecard and Stumbleupon. But, I have removed Entrecard widget since, as I do not have enough time to drop cards. What I want is traffic without any effort, or simply to put, I want Search Engine Traffic.

Can I use Entrecard?
Of course, you can use it. But, ensure that you disable paid advertisements in your advert settings of Entrecard. So, if you are a dropaholic with 300 drops a day, then probably you could easily get thousand of unique visits to your blog. Today.com has no restriction, so far, on where the traffic comes from. You can get traffic from Entrecard, Digg, Stumbleupon or any social networks. It does not matter.

Important Points

• Spend time before deciding on your topic. It is better to have a topic that is less competitive, but have significant amount of search traffic.


• Once you decided your topic, choose your URL. Ensure that your primary keyword is included in the URL. This is very important as you cannot change your URL once you have committed.


• Post few articles and start looking for backlinks. Backlinks helps to quickly get indexed by Google.


• Keep posting regularly with your primary/ secondary keywords until search engine traffic starts to flow in.


• Now, you can slow down your posting frequency and post only when you are free. Search engines will take care of sending regular traffic to you.

How to sign up?
You can sign up by clicking here. This is an affiliate link and I thank you for signing up through me. Today.com pays $5.00 for every successful referral, if the referral goes on to post at least 30 individual posts on 30 individual days.

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