Google is making some big news today as they have announced that they will be retiring their AdSense referrals program at the end of August and will be substituting it for the Doubleclick Performics Affiliate Network. The Google Affiliate Network works in a similar fashion to the AdSense Referrals program in that, it enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser defined actions, instead of clicks or impressions. Also, if you have less than three AdSense content units on a page, you can replace the referral ad units with the standard AdSense for content ad units.

Since the current program will be retiring at the end of August, Google is recommending you take the following steps:

• Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space.

• Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information.

What does this news mean to you? How have the regular AdSense referral blocks performed on your blog?

FeedBurner, who was purchased by Google back on May 23rd, 2007 for a whopping $100 million dollars announced on May 30th that starting this week, they will be rolling out AdSense feeds for a small group of publishers. This small publishing group will act as beta testers as FeedBurner plans a full launch of the service.
According to FeedBurner,

publishers already in the FeedBurner Ad Network will continue to see premium CPM ads directly sold onto their content, but with the added bonus of contextually targeted ads that will fill up the remainder of their inventory. That means you get the best of both worlds: a dedicated Google sales force that knows how and why to sell onto your content, with the added revenue that full back-fill coverage provides. And with AdSense, you'll know that your back-filled ads are using the strongest contextual ad engine, ensuring the most relevant and profitable ads are delivered to your subscribers. And yes, ads are also sold via Google's AdWords program.

For those of you who are not yet placing ads in your feeds but would like to do so, be sure to read the requirements to join the AdSense program.

If you would like to use AdSense for your feeds, you'll first need to sign up for AdSense if you haven't already. Then, set up your AdSense channels for placement targeting. This will allow advertisers to target your syndicated content specifically. According to FeedBurner, you will be able to remain in control of the campaigns that are targeted at your feed by using the Ad Review Center.

Considering there are over 934,797 publishers who have created 1,657,885 feeds with 229,542 of those being podcast and videocast feeds, there are quite a few people in the mix who are in line to make money through AdSense within their Feed.

I'm thanking my lucky stars right now that this is a feature they have provided to their end users which is a much better solution than to slap ads on every single Feed that has been created through their service. If you are looking to monetize your RSS feed, definitely keep an eye out on FeedBurner.

• Do you use categories?
• Do you use tags?
• Do you offer a full text search?

Are you satisfied having three different search result pages inside your blog?

Let's say we have a blog with 300+ articles, 1,000 tags, about 50 categories and some archive pages. And maybe you are linking to your internal full text search results via search links too. All those internal links are good for SEO.

But are three different search result pages a good approach to offer a valuable site search?

I say 'No' because your site and archive pages are transparent but not all (!) pages are mirrored in the results. Only specific parts of your site show up when doing a tag/category/full text search. I am not even talking about the valuable content inside the comments (like here on performancing.com) which normally is not indexed internally at all.

Let's introduce the web 1.0 'fuzzy search' box...

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Chris, along with many other bloggers, are strongly against AdSense. To be fair to Google (and staying away from some silly reasons to hate AdSense), it's not so much AdSense that's a problem rather than the way you need to use it to get maximum revenue from it.

If you, like Chris, do not want to turn your blog into an ad clicking machine, then you've probably explored alternatives to Google AdSense. At this point, 2 things happen to 99% of the people looking for alternatives to AdSense:

One, they find out that the alternatives don't pay as much in their niche.

Two, they realise that the alternatives are not as easy to implement - whether because of more work required on your part (affiliate / own products) or because of ad network requirements (minimum monthly pageviews, etc).

While Google AdSense has been a good friend to me on Soccerlens, In the last few months I've made a move away from it. Here's what I've learned so far:

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Why am I so against Adsense? There are a few reasons, I risk getting into a rant if I list them all!

My main reason for disliking Adsense is that it changes people. There are strong publishers who resist the siren call, but in most cases there are two outcomes with Adsense monetization:

1. Defeat - The publisher feels a failure because of the measly Adsense payment, if they even get any at all
2. Submission - The publisher changes their whole approach to serve the needs of the Adsense block rather than their readers

Often in a last ditch attempt the blogger or webmaster will go from (1) to (2).

What do I mean by "submission"? Well have you noticed the hoops you have to jump through to get good Adsense earnings are mostly not reader-friendly?

• Cloaking ads so they look like navigation
• Blending colors and fonts so they don't look like ads
• Tuning content so better, higher earning ads display
• Tweaking presentation to increase click-throughs
• Attracting a higher percentage of first time visitors who are more likely to click
• Using misleading headlines to generate search traffic that leaves via ads
• etc etc

By all means make money with Adsense, just please do not get caught into the trap of subjigating your strategy to it or feeling like you are a failure if your blog does not earn the big bucks.

Personally, I go for loyal audience over adsense clicks any day :)

For new writers or bloggers, if you want to make money, but don't want to spend a lot of money; google adsense is the way to go.

What is google adsense you ask? Well google adsense is a free program that you can join where google will place ads on your website. Why would you want ads on your website? Because when someone comes along and clicks on any ad, you get paid. Sure it does take a lot to make decent money, but the more traffic = $$$$$. So your whole goal is to bring traffic to your website.

I have only been using google adsense for a week, and already I have made almost $5.00. I know that seems like small change, but I have also only had my website up for a week, so that's pretty good. The more content you have, the more ads you can have on your site, the more your site is indexed...and voila! Money will begin to role in. Plus what's great is there is no cost to you. And it's fully automated. The only thing you have to do, once you set it up, is just get as much content to your site as you can. Build your pages up.

One thing google does not like, is you having a whole website based on telling people to click on your ads. You can do an informative article, like this one, but you can't straight out ask people to click on your ads. Basically the more traffic you bring to your website, the more chances you have that people will actually click on your ads.

What's great about adsense is that google will give you ads that relate to your content on your site, so if your site is on dogs, your ads will be on dogs too. Or if your site deals with money, celebrities, news, shoes, fashion, etc...so will your ads. Also you can add a search bar powered by google, and any time someone uses it to search the web...bling! Bling!

I recommend google adsense to any website, most websites out there use it now so it won't take credibility away from your site, plus it generates extra revenue that perhaps you hadn't counted on.

It seems that the more I learn about blogging, the more I realize that I have a lot to learn. While I really enjoy my blogs, I worry about learning how to do it right. Naturally, it is an ever evolving process. Even experienced bloggers are constantly learning new things to improve their blog. However, having a great blog that can also earn a bit of money seems to be more technical that just writing great content. There are several things that I need to work on.

SEO
I think this is something that I don't pay as much attention to as I should. I write SEO articles for a living, so I do know how to do it. However, having my own blogs allows me a bit of freedom to write according to my train of thought. Which is a nice break from "work", but does not really optimize my blogs.

Tags
Ok, I admit it. I really don't get the tags. I am not sure how to determine them so this is something I need to do some reading on. I usually just choose the main points of my posts. I guess these would relate to keywords. This would probably explain why I don't really get how to determine my tags--if I am not using keywords specifically in my blogs it is hard to use them as tags!

AdSense
Another overwhelming aspect of blogging. Sure, it is easy to cut and paste a code into a blog. I am always amazed to see a string of gibberish miraculously turn into an actual ad. I guess I am easy to amuse.

Making sure they are placed to work their best is another matter entirely. I am also unsure if I understand the "rules". I thought that there could only be three per page (or blog?) and yet many place ads between posts. Doesn't this automatically mean more than three per page if you post with any regularity? Oh, my head hurts.

I am sure that the more I read the sooner it all will "click" for me. Patience plays a big role in the success of any blog. It is also very close to the top of my list of qualities that I need to work on. In the meantime, I'll just keep on keepin' on.

I am always happy for a bit of feedback. My blogs are very new still so I always appreciate the opportunity to learn and improve.

http://easingchronicpain.blogspot.com/

http://apostcardfromparadise.blogspot.com/

http://skinnymoose.com/fishparadise/

Raj's article entitled Hitting $100/mth in AdSense: 7 Things I've Learned prompted me to write this article with the slightly more provocative title.

My first goal was to make $100/month. Then $10/day. Then $20/day. Then $50/day.

Then $100. That was the last goal I reached. Now I'm closing in on four figures in AdSense alone (well, not that close, but close enough;-) ...

1. Pick the Right Niche: I can't overstate this. Traffic=Money. Your niche should be capable of driving a lot of traffic.
2. Bait Like Hell: SERPS drive traffic and bait drives the SERPS.
3. Be A Freak of Nature: Get up at 3am, start working and don't stop until 10pm. If you don't have enough to do, then either you're not in the right niche, you're lazy, or you need to educate yourself on how to...
4. Build Your Footprint: Interact, interact, interact. With people and social media systems. Comment. Vote. You know the drill. Just don't stop.
5. Target Powerful Eyeballs: You know your niche and you know the important people in your niche. Make sure they know you. And don't stop there. Make sure Fox News knows about you too.
6. Link-Out Like A Loose Lemon: Just keep linking to other sites in your niche. They might or might not link back to you, but they can't ignore you...12 months later...
7. 12 Months Baby, 12 Months: Work like a horse for 12 months. If you make it, you can start to relax...cuz everyone's coming to you now.

Bonus: Make a friend every day.

Those are the 7 things I've learned. Pick the right niche and put all your energy into it for 12 months. There are other important factors like outsourcing to free you up to do what you do best...but at the end of the day, it's focused, freak of nature exertions of energy in the right direction that win the day....

...at least that's how it's worked for me.

100,000 more potential eyeballs for AdSense. Google is investing in this project, no?

This article will show you how to place AdSense code (or any other ads) between posts on your WordPress blog's main page - the same approach can be used to place ad blocks in your archive pages (including category and author archives).

I'm going to explain the conceptual part first (yes, I just like to hear myself talk) and give code examples later - if you want to skip to the code, just scroll down.

How-To - Basic Concepts

The basic concept (so you can port it to a blogging platform other than WordPress) is that you want to place ads after X number of posts on the main page.

Let's say that you want to put ad blocks after the 1st post and the 3rd post - so you would then find a way to dynamically count the number of posts that are being shown and set it so that after the 1st post and the 3rd post.

In WordPress the main process used to show posts to visitors is called 'The Loop' (read this and this for more info). In programming terms it's a while () loop that continues to show posts one by one until it meets a condition that tells it to stop (such as a WP setting that limits the blog to show the latest 15 posts on the main page) or if there are no more posts.

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We all know the power of AdSense , the incomes it could bring and so on. But how many people really succeed in earning a living out of AdSense? a few, that's the answer . Understanding and knowing AdSense's limitations will help you cover any possible knowledge gaps you might have .

This guide is going to cover the 3 most important topics about AdSense including : choosing the right topic for AdSense , ad design , ad placement .

Before getting started I know that there has been a debate on how AdSense interacts with bloggers and if is the right choice . Now , from my point of view this depends on several factors : the audience you are writing to , the range of topics you are blogging about ( the wider the range , the harder it is for AdSense to know what ads to serve ) and last but not least ad positioning and design ( this could actually make the difference between great and horrible AdSense performance ).

The answer to the all above statements you will find through this guide , so , let us get started.

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As funny as it seems, one of my poorly performing sites was getting a click-through rate of less than 1% so I asked myself "ok, what's not working right on this site."

Clearly, the font size was too small. So I upped the font size from size 10 to 14 and whamo, my CTR is hovering between 2-3% - still not great, but much better than before.

Sure the difference could be related to content, or something else, but the only noticeable change I've made is to font size. And the CTR spike happened almost immediately.

My recommendation: if you have a poor CTR, ask yourself what's distracting your readers from taking the ads seriously. In my case, it was a simple matter of helping them not have to squint at the content!

Amazon's aStore is one of the newest affiliates tool provided by Amazon and one of the most successful if we take into consideration profits and the enhancements that are periodically added. Astore is (in their description):

Associates can configure an aStore in Associates Central by navigating through a forms-driven set up process. The store can be built and configured within minutes and Associates only need to copy a line of html code into their web pages. All data will be served from Amazon Web Services and therefore will always be up to date. Once set up, it does not require any maintenance from the Associate.

Recently (and very quietly in fact) they have launched 2 new features:

1. First is a small one, and is a feature that allows you to optionally add to the navigational menu an "About Us" page. Even though is not specified it allows basic HTML formatting to the text (inserting links for example). Basically I see no purpose to that, and perhaps what you could do with that is to provide descriptions to your categories and insert links to some products.

2. The great thing is the addition of "Astore Widgets". Those are JavaScript ads based on your aStore products that can be embedded in other sites. Right now they come in 8 formats and are as customizable as Google's Adsense for example. What do you need to know is the fact that the ads will provide products from your aStore's homepage. If no homepage is set, than the ads will be generic Amazon Ads not related to your store. What is great about the widgets is that on most cases, discounted products are presented and that is made very clear, by that increasing the chance of creating a buy.

Best practice with Astore Widgets:

Even though Astore is great and has a pretty good conversion rate (might depend on your niche though) is not as efficient as Adsense. Because of that, I suggest you not to waste your space with the widgets, but to use it as an alternative to Adsense’s Public Ads.

In order to do that, prepare a blank page that:

1. Has the background of your Adsense Ads (as you might know by know, in general try to blend the ads in your page background)
2. Create a centered aligned div where you will place the Astore widget.
3. Upload the created page to a server and provide the link to that page when you generate your Adsense code.
4. Due to the constraint that you can display on the widgets only products from the aStore's Homepage, make sure that you vary its content until you find the most attractive one.

An alternative to this is to use Openads, and to attach to a zone both Adsense and Astore Widgets.

By doing this you'll have the following benefits:

1. You increase your revenue chances by removing those pesky Adsense public ads.
2. You decrease banner blindness by varying the content.

This new enhancement comes as a big hit to small companies like Blogger Kit that provided similar features through revenue sharing with the users.

Example of implementation of Astore & Astore Widgets:

Metal & Rock Videos has an attached Astore that sells metal and rock music related products (CDs, DVDs, Accessories). Astore widgets are added to all the Adsense areas. For example you can look here and if is not visible just browse through more obscure bands and you'll have the chance to see them in action.

Topics not allowed on BlogPostsForSale.com: Gambling, Sex and Spamming .

And anything illegal of course

Here's a PR 8 page: http://www.corante.com/loom/. That page has been dead since June 9. 2006 when the author started writing for a different company, on a new domain.

According to Google, this outdated, non-updated page is more important than The Drudge Report which has a PR 7.

We all know that PageRank is easy to manipulate and a poor reflection of a site's value. We also know that Google has moved on from PageRank to include things like TrustRank, traffic data, etc.

Despite it's low-resolution, ease of manipulation, and inaccurate indication of a site's worth, PageRank continues to capture people's imagination. It drives the economy of Text Link Ads.

Admittedly, I buy and sell PageRank. Less so now then when I first got into the game. But I've always used discretion and have tried to hedge my bets towards sites that are poised for growth, rather than those that are in the process of decline.

In other words, for the savvy text link ad buyer, market pressure actually encourages investment in quality, growing sites, as opposed to sites with artificial PR injection or sites on the decline. That's a virtue of the TLA market in my opinion. The savvy buyers go after legit, growing sites.

Which brings me to another point. There's very little market pressure from AdSense to make quality websites. Not all quality sites translate into high AdSense earnings (many spammy sites make lots of AdSense revenue). On the other hand, any site that is growing and making progress has a product to sell in the TLA market.

But alas, I digress from the main point of this post: we really need a solid, diversified metric to measure a balance between site strength and site momentum. PageRank measures brute link strength. Alexa gives us a rough indication of a site's growth over time, but it's an easily manipulated, one-dimensional metric.

Wouldn't it be great to have a single metric that gave us a realistic picture of the health of any given website? Not just brute link strength(PageRank), and not just an indication of relative traffic (Alexa), but a measure of a site's overall presence, growth and significance *at this moment*?