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Be An EatonWeb Category Editor and make $100/month

EatonWeb is doing things the old fashioned way.

We’re looking for category editors of our blog directory and we’re willing to pay $100/month for the service.

Here are the requirements:

1. You should be familiar with the top 10-25 blogs in your category
2. You should be able to write 100 word reviews of each blog that gets submitted in your category
3. You should be interested in helping to make “a blog directory that matters” – not one that passes link juice;-)

Each editor will be required to submit 5 new blog submissions per month in exchange for $100. Submissions will be filtered by the EatonWeb editor for both quality writing and quality blog selection.

So let’s get started. To apply for a position, just PrivateMessage me via Performancing along with the category that you are interested in editing.

Optimizing for Search Users vs Optimizing for Search Engines

While reading Stoney deGeyeter’s article – 10 Useless SEO Worries (his booboo on PageRank apart, I agree with the fellow on everything else) – I couldn’t help but notice this gem:

Is it smart to work on getting your site ranked on MSN, Yahoo, and Ask? Sure, absolutely. But never at the expense of your Google rankings. Never. While different algorithms are employed, they all tend to run off the same basic premise: a good site will rank well, regardless of the algorithm used to evaluate it.

Don’t think that you need to optimize a page for each search engine. It doesn’t work that way. Just do good optimization and all engines will rate you accordingly.

Stoney’s argument is rock-solid and financially sound, even though the thought of being partial to Google amounts to Google-worshipping and therefore leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some people.

Rebecca from SEOmoz talks about ‘whether you should optimize your site for each individual search engine or not’ (Rebecca says no, of course she’s right…). I’ll this a bit further and say that you should:

Optimize for search users, not search engines.

As Stoney and Rebecca say, it’s important to adhere to basic SEO principles that will allow your website to be picked up and index by search engines. And of course, you need to understand how search engines rank websites, because without that knowledge you’ll interpret fluctuations in your search rankings as magic. Good if you’re interested in delusions, but not helpful in marketing your business.

Beyond the understanding bit though, it’s not about optimizing for specific search engines, it’s about optimizing for search users.

So…What Do Search Users Want?

In the absence of hard research at hand’s reach, I’ll posit a good-enough answer:

Search users want search engines to read their minds and automatically serve up what they need, even if the searcher himself doesn’t know exactly what that is.

Search engines perform this task – clumsily but with increasing adeptness – by using a variety of methods: personalised search, trust and authority (T & A), vertical search, geotargeting, etc (insert fancy term for time and date based SERPs customisation). It pays to understand each of these methods but what if you could understand this as part of a simpler, more unified theory of reaching your customers?

Think of search users as a subset of your potential customer base. There are multiple methods of reaching your target audience – offline marketing, viral emails, search, newletters, social media, online video – with all these options, it’s a safe bet that if you’re only focusing on search, you’re missing out on a significant portion of your potential audience (and thus moolah-spinning opportunities). If search can be classified as just one part of your marketing, we can easily use a more unified and simpler theory of marketing that will help us increase search referrals while improving our chances of … say … bringing in traffic from offline media as well.

Believe it or not, wondering about what search users want is exactly the trap you shouldn’t be getting stuck in. The more efficient way of doing this to think about your audience at large, what they want and figure out the best way to deliver that. At the same time, it’s important to figure out how to reach as much of your target audience as possible – and search users are just a subset of that audience.

If you can figure out what your audience wants, you already have a good idea of what search users in your niche want. Then it’s down to a) structuring that information properly on your website and b) promoting the hell out of it. If you can get people (i.e. your target audience) talking about your website online (where talking means discussing in blogs, forums, etc), and if you can keep that conversation going AND growing, your work is pretty much done.

To quantify this in real terms, let’s take a seo blog. You pay good money to hire a writer to write about the latest seo tactics (with a twist – no self-respecting seo blogger goes in the industry without a hook / angle anymore) and let’s also suppose that you succeed in getting many blogs talking about your site. Conversation equals links (and note that these links are from sites within your niche). Eventually, the conversation reaches a tipping point, where everyone seems to be talking about you, from top to bottom, helping you to reach a big, big part of your audience.

How do you think your search rankings are going to look at this point (assuming you’re doing this in a less competitive niche than SEO, I’d say quite good)? Is this a result of optimizing for a particular search engine, or even optimizing for search users? Yes and no. Yes because the strategies you’ve used cover both search engines and search users.

No because you’re not working on optimizing for either per se – you’re just marketing your website using methods that work through a variety of mediums.

If the question comes up, think of optimizing for search users, not search engines. But if you really want to be successful online, focus on your audience and your marketing strategies as a whole.

Also Read: Are Search Engines Evil?

Smacking $100 per day in the AdSense Ass: 7 Things I’ve Learned

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;-) …

Pick the Right Niche: I can’t overstate this. Traffic=Money. Your niche should be capable of driving a lot of traffic.
Bait Like Hell: SERPS drive traffic and bait drives the SERPS.
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…
Build Your Footprint: Interact, interact, interact. With people and social media systems. Comment. Vote. You know the drill. Just don’t stop.
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.
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…
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.

How-To Be A Collaborative Blogger

Reflecting on the whole How-To build a Facebook profile issue and also about my engagement here on p.com I came to the clue that being a friendly guy helps to build your personal network.

Nothing new you say?

I am pretty sure that you read a lot of different sources and I am also pretty sure that you never blog about 95% to 99% of the things you are reading about. I propose that if you share a little bit you will get back something.

Create a list of bloggers and send them found ‘items’ by mail.

It is the same thinking pattern like with the old gatekeeper media but with a back channel. You know that ‘this is something the newspaper should know about’ thing. Do the same for bloggers.

Lets talk about collaboration.

Collaboration is a key factor for your network reputation

A little definition which comes in two flavors:

To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.
To cooperate reasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one’s country.

Source: “Collaboration.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Both definitions are helpful even if the 2nd one sounds negative but you only have to replace “enemy occupation force” with “your niche occupation force” and then you have the old link building scheme 🙂

Are you reading in subject niches about which you don’t blog?

How big would be the effort to send hints and tips to bloggers from whom you know that they are writing about that stuff? You don’t have to blog it 1st and then ask for a backlink. Just a plain simple email with a good subject and a short body is all it needs to gain reputation.

To do

Make a list of bloggers for certain subjects and if you stumble over an interesting item send a short summary and a link to one (!) of these bloggers. It is up to you if you prefer to network with the big guys or if build your reputation in the long tail.

Items can be: Articles, book titles, movies, travel destinations, a photo, a sng, … you name it.

As it is so easy to be too offensive I think a mistake list is important.

Do Not make these five mistakes

Don’t use the subject line ‘Hi’ or ‘This could be interesting for you’. Be collaborative and have a good title which tells the whole story.
Don’t be talkative. Who, when, where, what should be enough.
Don’t mention the 50 websites you have. One specific website is all it needs for a backlink. If you cover related subjects one deep link is better than a homepage.
Don’t make it a press release. Send the tip to one blogger and not to a whole group of people.
Don’t ask! Follow the blog instead. One of the most annoying things are people who send me a sample and ask several times if I will write about it. And don’t even think about a phone call!

My recommended feed reader BlogBridge has the beautiful possibility to memorize one email address for every feed. If I am reading a good article I send a personal two line compliment.
Every other famous blogger has written something about the ‘How-To get my attention’ subject.

Related Links, tips and hints are welcome in the comments.

My Simple Secret to Earning $1000’s Per Month Blogging

My blogs don’t have high PageRank. They don’t get a tremendous amount of traffic. Yet my blogs earn me thousands of dollars every month. How? Affiliate ads. Why?

I know what my readers need.

My blog content is geared toward filling my readers’ needs. So it makes sense to only display ads which also fill a need. For example, my blog geared toward beginning freelance writers exists to give writers tips on how to make money freelancing. As a freelance writer, I know new freelance writers are looking for freelance writing jobs and ways to make money writing, maybe even an occasional book on the topic. So rather than relying on Adsense ads alone, I also incorporated job ads through Indeed’s publisher program, a few books on learning to freelance from Amazon’s affiliate program, plus a few ebooks on writing for magazines and winning writing contests (through an independent affiliate program).

I know what my readers don’t need.

I feel part of my success with affiliate programs is knowing what people don’t want. Sticking with the theme of freelance writers, I know that most freelance writers aren’t looking for a get rich quick scheme. Freelance writers aren’t looking for ebooks on how to make thousands of dollars per day doing data entry. And most aren’t looking for membership or bidding sites that charge them fees to use their services.

I know what my readers can afford to pay.

Many affiliate programs offer truly great, super useful products. But if they’re out of my readers’ budgets, there’s no use in listing their ads on my site. That’s why on my freelance writing blog I post job ads that are free, and why when I post ads for books I go through Amazon (cheaper prices, even used items). If I post an ad for something that’s a little more pricey, I make sure it’s for something REALLY good that’s worth splurging for.

I don’t recommend any affiliate product I wouldn’t use myself.

I’ve learned that the key to affiliate marketing is only partnering with affiliate programs who offer high quality USEFUL products. I can’t stand visiting blogs whose sole purpose is to recommend any junk product just to make a few bucks, and I can’t imagine that others like seeing that kind of thing either. So, my affiliate marketing method is to only post links for products or services I myself have used and found to be helpful. The book and ebook recommendations on my site are all for books I myself have read and felt were worth the money. I promote Indeed’s jobs because I use their search engine regularly to find my own writing jobs. Maybe I’d earn more money promoting any related program, but a) I feel that would be unethical and b) I feel more confident promoting products I can personally recommend.

A blogger’s income doesn’t have to be defined by pay-per-click ads. Although Adsense rakes in a good chunk of change for many bloggers, that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve found that incorporating affiliate ads is a relatively easy way to earn extra money recommending products I’d be recommending anyway. It sure beats joining a “get paid to write a review on your blog” site, at least in my experience.

If you’ve used affiliate ads on your blog, I’d love to hear about your successes (or failures), tips you might have which I’ve no doubt missed, etc.

Community Intelligence: What should we do about the Performancing PageRank Drop?

It seems that with the latest PageRank update Performancing has been nuked down from a 7 to a 4.

The idealists will tell you that this doesn’t matter. That PageRank is obsolete. On certain days, I’m one of those idealists.

But the fact is that Performancing depends, for its success, on perceived authority. And like it or not, the majority of people in this niche still perceive authority based on a single factor – a little green bar.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what the best response to Google’s act of aggression is. So I’m turning to you. I’ve always believed that community intelligence is much greater than individual intelligence. And I think that the best answer for how to proceed will derive from the comment section…so please do be part of the solution;-)

First, let me list the facts:

Performancing, based on principle, has supported the idea of sponsored themes.
Performancing discusses PageRank on its advertising page and offers to sell links. We have sold a very small quantity of links. Perhaps 6-10 over the last 9 months.
Performancing has indeed done a few sponsored posts, but sponsored posts have always been fully disclosed.
Performancing changed its link structure in the previous quarter.
Performancing encourages its authors to use real-life examples and to link-out to their own sites.
The majority of outgoing links on Performancing point to sites that are A) run by Performancing authors and B) are completely relevant to the Performancing niche.
Performancing has had massive success (both in human response and link gain) over the last 6 months as our themes and our pMetrics stats package have been very well received. This points to site growth and momentum.
Performancing’s Alexa growth over the last 6 months is completely natural and consistently strong. This points to site growth and momentum, which you’d hope Google might reflect in PageRank.

So now, what are our options?

Ignore Google and proceed as if PageRank is irrelevant, build great services, launch an ad-network and just brute force our way to being a counterexample to PageRank
Ask someone like Matt Cutts for a advice and a specific action set that will get Performancing back into the good graces of Google.
Add nofollow to all outbound links
Drop all paid and sponsored links of all kind
Go on a massive flame-bait campaign, ripping into Google for it’s abusive use of power and the utter incompetency of its single indicator of site importance;-) This of course would be fun but maybe not effective.

Those are the options as I see them. The problem with 1) is just that Performancing depends on its authority status. the problem with 2) is that I once called Matt Cutts The Link Nazi. The problem with 3) is that most of our outbound links are completely relevant and natural and nofollow is really quite silly. The problem with 4) is that we’d be abandoning our theme sponsorship principle (not to mention that there are plenty of sites receiving links from sponsored themes without penalty). Since we don’t really do a lot of business with paid links, it might be best to drop them all together. The problem with 5) is that Google is known to act like a friendly dictator, forgiving the people with power and resources and loving on those who are willing to get into bed.

So, Performancing community, what is the best course of action for Performancing at this point regarding PageRank?

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:

Focus. Stick to building one site at a time and reach a modest amount of success before starting another site.
Build traffic. You need a lot of traffic to monetize through AdSense, especially in competitive niches and obscure niches.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.)
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?

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Collaboration is a key factor for your network reputation

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