Hitting $100/mth in AdSense: 7 Things I’ve Learned

Today is a milestone day for me, and it’ll surprise some people. AdSense gave me a nice treat for Hallowe’en – but it doesn’t make up for the trick of my pagerank dropping on several sites I spent good money buying and/or building. At any rate, I finally cracked $100 in Adsense earnings in a single month, for the first time since I started using the ad network around April 2005. That’s a very long time, and has allowed me to reflect upon it. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Focus. Stick to building one site at a time and reach a modest amount of success before starting another site.

2. Build traffic. You need a lot of traffic to monetize through AdSense, especially in competitive niches and obscure niches.
3. Fine tune. Don’t run AdSense on sites that are giving you low ad CTR (Clickthrough Rate). Try it out, but if after a couple of months the CTR is low, stop using it until you determine why.
4. Refine. Make sure to blend ads into your blog/ site theme. Don’t hide your ads but don’t make them stick out like a sore thumb in terms of colors and borders.
5. Refine some more. Try the rectangular and square AdSense formats. These apparently have higher CTR, though I didn’t keep track of any AdSense channels to prove it.
6. Improve quality. Write quality content that you can promote with social media, and keep it up or you’ll lose readership. This will give you the traffic you absolutely need to monetize CPC advertising. If you have older posts you’re embarrassed to have, don’t delete them. Instead, when you can’t think of what to write, browse your archives and see if you can write a better version of a bad post.
7. Choose the right niche. Consider that some niches simply don’t monetize well with any sort of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. One such is the “how to blog” niche. You’re better off running appropriate affiliate offers. It helps considerably if you some how introduce discussions of gadgets or software no matter what your niche. Any niche that has higher priced items tends to also have higher CPC (Cost per Click) ads.

But I don’t consider this by any means a success. That $100+ isn’t for a single site, it’s for about 50 sites. What’s more, it includes sites that I’m partnered on, and have paid bloggers – who will eventually share in the revenues.

My problogging goal is to build up to at least US$3000/mth in ad revenue by making sure less of my sites suck. I get paid in US dollars, and the Canadian dollar’s current exchange rate is cost me several hundred dollars per month. The film school I want to enter in 2009 costs Cdn$5,000/term [updated] and lasts for six terms over two years. Because I refuse to ever get in debt again, I have to come up with my own cash. And since I only work online at present, freelancing, consulting and ad revenue are my only income sources.

My approach will be to continue the way I’ve be going: maintain freelance revenue and increase ad revenue by putting more effort into my own sites. It’ll be quite some time, if ever, before I earn money making movies.

What are your pro blogging goals, and how do you plan to use your earnings? Will you use them to support a career change or some other dream that you have?

How To Blog a New Niche: 5 Steps.

So you’ve been reading up on Performancing and other places and want to get blogging on something you have a passion about but don’t consider yourself an expert on. “Write what you know,” you’ve heard. So what do you do? Well, while I have my passions, I’m a generalist and a freelancer. Here’s how I start blogging in a niche that’s new to me, and build up my knowlege.

1. Scope out the niche. Suss out some good blogs in your desired niche and add them to your feed reader. If there’s a lot of hybrid blogs – in terms of topics – build a custom Yahoo Pipe to aggregate and filter multiple feeds, then add the result to your feed reader.

2. Set up my own blog. WordPress is my platform of choice (even though Performancing is a Drupal blog, in case you are wondering.) The number of free themes and plugins far outranks any other choice, afaik. If you want to, you can tweak free themes and plugins – or ask a friend. If you want to use WordPress as more of a CMS (Content Management System) to build a generalized site (with or without a blog), you can do that with relative ease later.
3. Start small. Start by writing and posting 5-10 short (20-50 word) summaries per day around current topics, using a techmeme-type of site, or a popurls-type – if available. The summaries link to authority blogs. I include a bit of personal commentary, to develop my voice in the niche. You don’t always know what you feel about something until you write it down.
4. Build your site’s authority. In newer posts, deep-link back to at least two relevant archived posts. This is critical to start as early as possible, and forces you to be creative. Don’t just use the name of your archived article’s title in the hyperlink’s anchor text; use keywords, get creative. (See anything here at Perf written by Ryan, Ahmed, myself and many others and scan for deep links and take note of what text is used.)
5. Start to focus. Slowly expand your commentary and conclusions – thnks to more confidence from doing more research. The average per-post word count increases. Gradually over time, you can start writing “authority” posts, asyou learn more about the niche.

I’ve used this approach for a number of niches and found that, eventually, I get to a point where I know enough about a topic that I can hire myself out or do guest blogging. But of course, this applies if you are simply building your own blog(s).

The key thing to remember is that if you wait until you’re already expert on something before you blog, you’ve lost a lot of authority building time. This is a relatively safe way to build your knowledge, without pretending to be an expert. Yet you also slowly build your authority via your blog/ website. It works for me.

What do you when you want to blog in a niche you are not an expert on?

The First 3 Months of Blogging is Hard!

By the way, this is my first article here at Performancing. I came here looking for a more interactive place for talking about blogging. My usual hangouts are ProBlogger and Warrior Forum. I’ve been in the game for a few years now.

What I’m really trying to say is: Wazzup!

The first 3 months of growing a blog is difficult. I’d like to share with you what I did differently on my 3-month-old guitar blog ATOMIC Guitarist that’s already surpassing my old blogs. With 3 years of frustration and failure comes wisdom.

Here are 5 ways I’ve gotten through the first 3 months of my new blog.

1. Unconventional Use of AWEBER

This time around I immediately started using AWEBER opt-in e-mail service to grow my e-mail lists. But I did it for the sake of blogging. My list doesn’t see many broadcasts about buying affiliate products or my own products. I’ve been using AWEBER to drive my list back to my content pages, which provides growing traffic on a daily basis. I’ve also found that more guests opt-in to my e-mail list than subscribe to my RSS feed.

2. Networking

What makes the first few months of blogging so hard for me is the lack of comments and interaction. So what I did was find a list of other guitar bloggers with quality material, I put them on my blog roll, and made friends with them. I interact on their fronts sometimes more than they do mine. With my blog being of quality (according to my pals), and with the use of my blog roll, they’ve also added me to theirs. Besides having the ability to be social, this tactic had a lot to do with the instant PR4 I received the other day with Google’s update.

(Some of my best pals include Guitar Noize, and Stratoblogster, IG Blog, and the Mad Stratter.)

3. Predicting Searches

Most of my search engine traffic has come from predicting what guitarists will be searching for in a few weeks/months/seasonally, a piece of advice Darren Rowse personally gave me. I tell you. It works. When the buzz about Radiohead circled the net, I saw gobs of traffic pouring in every minute.

4. Correctly Using StumbleUpon

Although StumbleUpon doesn’t send the best quality traffic, SU has eased my hardships in my first few months of blogging at ATOMIC Guitarist. SU traffic doesn’t convert into dollars with your blog’s advertising, but I saw some serious opt-in numbers to my e-mail list. What you have to remember about StumbleUpon is that you can’t submit a page for the same site within something like 48 hours apart. So I Stumble the pages I like on my friends’ blogs around the same time every other day.

5. Make a Post at Least Once Every Night

For ATOMIC, I developed a strategy I didn’t use prior. I actually set my time on my blog to 4 hours earlier than my timezone, so when I post at 8pm, it publishes an entry marked as the next day. I do this so that anyone who regularly visits my blog the next day will read something “up-to-date.” I don’t know exactly how big of an effect it has, but it seems more professional.

* Bonus Tips for Getting through the First 3 Months of Blogging

• While other blogs are crashing after just one month of frustration, keep yours pumping. We’re all going through the same thing. I doubt Techcrunch took the net by storm its first few months. Then again, maybe it did. Point is: very few take off that early.
• Set small goals. For instance, vow to double your traffic to your blog every month for the first 3 months. You can do this by focusing on SEO.
• Hey, every post doesn’t have to be a novel. From my experience, readers who hang around your blog every day like informative content, but they also want blurbs and they want to get to know you.
• Don’t take too much advice. Just focus and simplify your blogging strategy with goals in mind. For example, 1) post every day (often with a focus on SEO), 2) comment on others’ blogs every day, 3) work on getting your link out there, 4) build your lists, 5) know that everyone has a hard time the first 3 months.
• If you hate your blog, change your niche to something you can talk about every day. Don’t blog just for bucks. But blog for bucks so you can continue blogging.
• If you’re just starting out, think of your first few months of blogging as blogging college.
• If someone tells you blogging for profit is easy, laugh out loud until your stomach hurts.

Again, this is just one dude’s thoughts on blogging for the first 3 months. Hope it’ll be helpful for someone out there.

Good luck soldier.

Halloween Challenge: $100 to the best Performancing profile

I didn’t realize how cool Performancing profile pages could be until I saw this one from Markus.

Right now he’s winning the competition. Can you beat him?

I’m offering $100 to the person who creates the coolest looking, most original Performancing profile page. It’s Halloween, so why not dress up your profile?

The contest ends a week from today (November 7th).

Facebook: Building a nice profile page

The better title is: Building a nice Facebook profile page from your existing content with F8 applications. But that’s too long for a catchy title

Yesterday evening I logged into my Facebook account and stared at my Facebook profile page. It was pretty boring and I decided to tweak it. But the content should come from existing pages and services.

Use the Facebook F8 applications

First question was which services to use to pull nice content into my profile page. I can offer some valuable sources:

• My delicio.us feed
• My Flickr photos
• My StumbleUpon mini-blog – I created a new account a while ago esp. for that purpose.
• My Sankt-Georg.Info feed
• My last.fm content

Remember: My aim is not to use Facebook all the time or to engage too much into all this networking. My very first aim is to create an attractive profile page! The rest may come later (or not).

Luckily I could find some working F8 applications for all my sources to pull that content nicely into my Facebook profile. The research was done on the Facebook applications page. Looking for ‘Flickr’, ‘RSS’, ‘LastFM’ and ‘StumbleUpon’ got me the Facebook F8 applications I needed.

The result can be seen here: Markus Merz on Facebook. I think it is pretty content rich, looks nice, promotes some of my existing content and is a good base for my future work on Facebook (if needed). If somebody asks for my Facebook address I can happily hand over that page as my Facebook business card and show off my web 2.0 competence. What do you think?

Additionally I did:

Strip down that mini-feed

I deleted all the mini feed events which I think are not useful for my visitors. Of course I also defined all applications not to be too verbose in the future.

Create a group on Facebook

And fill in some content mostly links to existing pages or services. Too bad that F8 applications can’t be used for groups (as far as I know): Hamburg St. Georg

What useful tips do you have for a Facebook profile page? Hints and examples welcome!

I.e.: I will add my p.com blog via RSS

Who Are Your Blogging Heroes?

Like most of you, I got into blogging and Internet entrepeneurship because I was inspired.

I was inspired by ideas, by success, by the promise of working for myself and making a lot of money. But most of all, I was inspired by people.

I thought it would be cool to come up with a list of blogging/Internet professional heroes.

So how about we each list 3+ people who inspired us to be doing what we are doing now.

Here are the three people who have inspired me the most (not all of these people blog, but that’s ok, right;-) :

1. Brett Tabke (for showing me the recipe)
2. Jeremy Schoemaker (for showing me the potential)
3. David Krug (for giving me the leverage and the ideas)

So who’s inspired you?

SEO: Reciprocal links are NOT dead

I just received the Search Engine Facts newsletter in my mail which comes with a very nice guest article from Stoney deGeyter (Pole Position Marketing). I have no idea what polepositionmarketing.com is good for but the guest article is a nice call for ongoing action in the link love section of SEO.

Reciprocal links are (still) not dead

Reciprocal links are not dead. Weren’t dead before. Aren’t dead now. I know it and you know it. But for just a second let’s pretend otherwise.

A while back there was quite a bit of scare mongering going around the SEO industry about how reciprocal links were dead. I had a potential client once tell me that so-and-so-big-name-in-the-SEO-industry told them that reciprocal links were dead. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it here again.

There is nothing wrong with reciprocal links. It’s all about how you use/implement them that matters. No, reciprocal links are not dead and now I have the proof.

Last year I decided to run my own test so I could refute what I already knew to be true. Yeah, I know who cares about reciprocal links now, right? (…)

Source / Read the rest of the article here: Reciprocal links are (still) not dead

Just read the whole thing and go on to link back to people you like and make sure that the linked sites offer quality to your readers.

My good old three golden rules

Basically the onpage SEO is what it always was:

1. See every single permalink article in a blog as ONE single website which has to build up link love and reputation for a very narrow subject. My tip: Use internal keyword linking if you don’t do it yet. Every single keyword will result in an internal keyword search result page (with excerpts!) pointing back to the main article.
2. Don’t have too many links on every page (the typical sidebar) linking everywhere. Make your internal links for the article (keywords, categories) show up first followed by the article body containing valuable external links.
3. Show link love and receive link love but make sure that the landing page content fits to the ONE single page or article.

Side Kicks (building external links)

And I still love my article 10 Tips for More Blog Traffic which is one of the best ways to create external backlinks with a high authority yourself.

The important comment backlink

Never forget when commenting on another blog that it is always worth the extra seconds to post a fitting backlink and not only a link to your homepage!

5 Things 2 Years of Problogging Taught Me

It gets pointed out to me a fair bit that I seem to be all over the blogosphere. The fact is that I write for probably 1/4 the number of blogs that I worked on last year. I’m focusing on fewer high PR blogs. Or was until Big Daddy G smacked some of them with PageRank penalties. Now, the focus is writing for quality blogs.

To say I’m not worried would be lying. If sites are affected in earnings abilities due to the penalties, will that mean fewer freelance blogging gigs – my primary income source? However, I stopped considering blogging as a career on its own, so that’s a few less knots in my stomach. I’ve learned a few things in the past 2+ years:

1. Blogging is like a game of golf. You could have skills in various facets of blogging, but if everything isn’t just right and synchronized, your blog will not be a giant success. Which is not to say that modest success is bad.
2. Problogging is not a career for everyone. This is a conclusion from the last point: most bloggers will not make enough to sustain the work on their own blogs, no matter how hard they try not to suck.
3. Try blogging for hire. The blogger for hire route will probably make the average good blogger more money than their own blog(s). I emphasize “good”. If you’re good, disciplined, and timely, freelancing is the way to go – especially if you’re finding less success on your own blog(s).
4. Apply discipline: quality, not quantity. Don’t start more blogs until the first few have reached the minimum level of success you want for them. Seriously. It’s tough because as a generalist, I tend to be interested in a lot of topics. I sneeze and I’ve just registered another handful of domains. But for most bloggers, $50/mth revenue from one blog is much better than $1/mth from fifty blogs. If you can’t make one work, you can’t make fifty work. Most people do not succeed with too many blogs. Focus on 1-4 blogs maximum, build them up, then hire out. Then expand if you feel the urge.
5. Blog as a means, not as an endpoint. In line with the above realizations, blogging does not have to be a singular activity. It can be a full-time career, but I’m no longer expecting it. If it happens, it happens. I’ll stay positive.

While many people are praising the fact that they can blog from home, after 2+ years of doing so, I’m actually missing the social aspects of working somewhere, with other people. Does this mean I’m giving up blogging? By no means. What I am doing now is using it as an effective supplement/ platform for earning money in other ways. In fact, today I spoke to someone from the Toronto Film School, which I’m hoping to enroll in for Jan 2009. I’m also going to go back to my photography, film reviewing, and scriptwriting. Blogging will not only move me towards those goals, it’ll sustain me for some time to come.

So what lessons has blogging taught you so for, in terms of your career? Do you use blogging in a supplemntary way for another career, or do you want to simply blog?

Should You Take That Blogging Job?

You’ve decided to become a freelance blogger. You’ve been scouring the web for blogging jobs. You’ve found a gig that sparks your interest, but should you take it?

What’s the payment arrangement?

Many blogging gigs (especially for networks) offer a monthly rate plus page view bonuses. Others pay per post. Some pay in shares of ad revenue. Revenue-only pay can be zero if the blog gets little traffic. Even a low monthly rate + traffic bonus can be too little if it becomes your job to find the traffic.

Will you have to network?

If you’re getting traffic bonuses, sometimes a low monthly rate is worth it. How much traffic does the blog already get? If it’s your job to network to get the traffic, make sure to account for that time when making your decision.

How much work will the writing take?

Will you have to do research, or can you easily write on the topic? Is there a word count requirement, or can you write short posts?

Are you trying to establish yourself as a niche blogger?

If the low-pay gig could lead to higher paying jobs within your niche, taking the job might be worth it.

Will you enjoy it?

Blogging jobs generally require coming up with your own ideas for content on a daily basis. You’ll burn out fast if you don’t enjoy the topic.

Are there other perks?

Some blogging jobs will allow you a good amount of room for self-promotion. Others won’t even give you a byline. Some offer free products to review, others free samples. If the offered perks are of benefit to you, it might be worth it to take the gig even if the pay isn’t great.

What kind of commitment are you making?

If you’re going to have to sign a contract, make sure you know what you’re getting into. If the arrangement doesn’t work out, can you quit in a month or are you locked in for a year? Does blogging six times a week mean you can write all six posts in one day and “drip” them to appear throughout the week, or do you actually have to log in six days a week and post something new? Get the details ironed out before you commit.

Deciding whether or not to take a blogging job can be difficult even for an experienced freelance blogger. The choice will ultimately depend on your own personal and professional goals.

Blog Posts or Articles

I have a pet peeve regarding some individuals and networks advertising for bloggers. Many of them are jumping on the blogging bandwagon without actually knowing what blogging entails. They know blogs are popular and profitable and want in, but have no clue about blogging. In fact, many places want articles and not blog posts. Trust me, there’s a difference.

Article

Articles are well researched paragraphs of information following a specific format and word count. They’re static pieces of content in which the author cites sources and speak with a particular tone and voice.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are less structured. Posts can be one line or several paragraphs. They can be expert interviews or opinion pieces. A post can consist of a photograph, a video or useful content such as this. Blogs are supposed to encourage community and posts should elicit conversation among your readers.

Finding a Happy Medium

One of my former clients has a magazine publishing background and wanted her blogs to run the same way. She didn’t want me to use “I’s” and insisted on each post meeting a certain word count. Another client found my blogging to be too conversational and turned off the commenting feature because it was too “distracting”. Speaking of distracting, a current client sent an email around to all of his bloggers because he felt images were unnecessary and rather we didn’t use them.

In these situations I do my best to work with the client, but also offer a few suggestions as to why it might be beneficial to encourage a more open-minded approach to blogging. Some clients are willing to compromise, but the ones that don’t “get” it tend to have a “my way or the highway” type of attitude.

Adequate Compensation

If your client wants you to write an article as opposed to a blog post, be sure you’re adequately compensated, especially if you’re expected to do a lot of heavy research or interview experts. $3 a post isn’t going to cut it for a heavily researched 500 worder. I understand why blogging pays less than traditional writing, but if it’s traditional writing you want, you’ll have to open your wallet a little wider.

I’m not saying you should pay for a couple of lines a day either, but if you’re looking to hire bloggers it’s a good idea to take some time out to learn a little bit about blogging and what it entails.