Thursday, December 28, 2006

Naturally Speaking I might not type in the Future

As a professional blogger, I type a great deal.  I type thousands of words a day.  I have years of training as an ergonomics trainer and instructor working in data entry facillities.  This means I know how to avoid and prevent injury while I continue to type everyday.

Next week, I will commence trying an old tool in a new version that I  hope might spare me some of that work.  Its Dragon Naturally Speaking and its basically a speech-to-text or voice transcription program that allows a user to speak naturally and convert their words directly into typed text.

I've used the program in the past off and on over the years and it never seemed like it was an entirely practical solution.  But these days it seems to have taken a turn in evolution that might make it much more functional for me as a blogger.  I am hoping to begin typing most of my blog work by speaking it into my computer, saving my fingers and hands and wrists.  I will keep you posted on my efforts in this area and will let you know how it pans out and if the software is truly up to the challenge!

 

Friday, December 22, 2006

Meet the Adsense Team

Now as most of you know and realize.  I do not work for Google nor am I on the Adsense Team.  I have just been sharing information about my journey learning how to market and earn money through multiple online platforms.

I would like to introduce you to the Google sponsored Adsense site

At Google Adsense  of course they are using a blogspot address!

Here's their recent holiday card showing the team (linked to their site for this card)

Their site is a great resource for lots of information about everything Adsense, especially when you are looking for the official version.  (Sure would like one of those Google t-shirts!  ;)

On those occassions when you are looking for a different perspective, something else un-Google related or talk about multiple aspects of trends and things that Google just can't talk about publicly for lots of good reasons, then please come back by and check us out, or hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss anything and can screen the headlines for those stories that are most important and relevant to you!

 

Happy Holidays!

From The Adsense For Idiot's Team!

 

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Installments generate more Adsense Impressions

Here's a handy little monetization tip that every large news site already knows.

If your reader gets to the bottom of a page, clicks the next page or page 2, 3 or 4 button, the new html page they land on will be a new impression and one more opportunity to earn revenue from the advertising on those pages.

You can benefit from this concept as well.  We will be covering some demos of how to create this functionality in your blogger blog (if you are running word press, you've got it easy as its a built in function already, but this presumes you are on a hosted account as the free accounts will not let you earn money at all.  They will delete your account!)

In the meantime take a look at the articles you write.  If the article is over 2-400 words, you might consider whether you would have been better off providing the article in multiple parts or with multiple pages to generate more impressions and more revenue!

Balancing Act

Of course the more pages and parts you build the harder you will have to work to insure that your writing is enticing enough for your reader to follow you to the next page!

Softduit Partners Working On Surfing Exchange Solution for Bloggers

I was speaking with the chief development and design officer at Softduit Partners today over lunch.  She indicated that the design team at Softduit was fielding some new tools that could solve the problem that many bloggers encounter when they attempt to promote their site through various surf exchanges such as Blog Explosion or BlogMad or BlogSoldiers or any of the others.

We have discussed the problem here in the past, but the basic issue is that Google may send a nasty email/letter to any Google Adsense Account holders that run a blog or website through one of these exchanges as these exchanges engage and condone the practice of selling credits.  These credits can be converted into an impression indirectly and this is what Google does not like.

Softduit is working on a solution that would enable bloggers to keep their blogs and Adsense accounts in tact and run their blog promotion campaigns in a completely above board and acceptable fashion for Adsense and for the exchanges themselves.  Softduit is building a solution service package that will enable bloggers to get the full benefit from these exchanges without having to fear for their Adsense accounts nor re-code their blog templates every time they want to list or de-list from an exchange!

In summary its a solution that can enable bloggers to get serious about blog promotion and push their blogs whole heartedly and continue to focus on optimizing their blogs for content and monetization purposes separately.  We'll have previews of this service and soon, and hope to hear back from some of our readers and early beta testers soon after the beginning of the year.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Is Your Blog Phone Friendly?

Have you set your blog up so that it will run on a mobile phone platform?

This can be achieved in a number of ways from recoding the CSS on the site to setting up a mobile mirror site and many other options.

This can be a lucrative option for users as Google has been slowly expanding its Search and Adsense options to run on a mobile platform.

Providing a Google Search box on your blog can make you real AdCents if you have readers that view your site from their phones.  On mobile systems it can be very tedious to click over to a page for Google Search, but if the box is built into your web page, you are much more likely to have a visitor use your Google Search box for expediency than you would be on a regular computer generate web page, where they are likely to have a Google search box built into their browser's toolbar.

Don't Steal Content!

In the blogosphere it is all to easy for a person to rapidly copy and paste content from one location to the next.

Some people do not realize this is bad for them for several reasons.

  1. Google will un-index you if they find that you are running duplicate content and this can torpedo your attempts to earn money from your blog.
  2. Some of that content may be copyrighted and you may be breaking the law. 
  3. Many people have ignored number 2 as there was a perception that its too hard for companies to police the internet, that day is ending.  A number of new technologies and services such as a new service from Attributor Corp in Redwood City, CA, are allowing billions of sites to be indexed each week so that content can be cross indexed to identify duplicate content.  Then they can fight back.
  4. Understand the difference between syndication / sharing and stealing.  Syndication occurs when a company provides a feed.  this sometimes includes an option to provide that feed on additional sites offering up a promotional option for vieweres to come visit the original site based on a feed or partial article that they read somewhere else.  Other services like YouTube and many content services share content with thousands of people, sometimes even selling that access so that it can be republished and provided to niche audiences.  Stealing can work in technical practice like syndication or sharing, but the difference is that the person using the information does not have legal authority to do so.

Friday, December 15, 2006

When Great Gadget Tools Move Online

Sponsored Article

Epocrates recently took their long standing Epocrates hand held tool and move it online for doctors and medical workers to access prescription information and tables on the go.  After recently reading a new press release from Epocrates I have learned that our favorite sponsor is now expanding out their online services tools to provide drug and formulary reference guides replete with additional medical practice tools and patient education materials.

Now when a patient is prescribed Zyprexa for example, clinicians can go online, view images of the pill, showing it to patients to reduce the potential for errors and even print out medical information about the pill like what to do if the patient misses a dosage or what they should or shouldn't eat with the medication.

BlogExplosion sells credits - ergo Impressions beware Adsense users!

This week it came to my attention through the PayPerPost user forum that BlogExplosion does indeed sell credits to its members.

This means by inference that running a blog through Blog Explosion when that blog has Adsense ads running on it, would be a breach of the Google Adsense Terms of Service.

I have mentioned several time that running a blog on a blog exchange is an excellent way to promote it.  Knowing what I know about BlogExplosion does not change my mind.

You MUST remove the Adsense code from your blog before you run it on an exchange.

I run several of mine on exchanges for 1 week out of the month with no Google Adsense ads on them.  I take them off the exchange and put the Adsense back in to the blog.

This gets me more readers and keeps my Adsense account safe!

Hopefully someday Google will find a way to block clicks from the exchanges without having to shut down accounts.  The exchanges do perform a useful service for bloggers and should be used with care.  But they should definitely be used.

To get signed up or to use over 13 different exchanges check out our site at Softduit Partners.  Blog Surfing Exchanges

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Blog Partners Wanted!

Are you looking to promote your own blog more?

Are you looking to share some great information about earning money by blogging?

Adsense for Idiots is looking for a couple blog partners to join in at our site here and contribute some useful information to our readers.

If you think you might be interested, leave a comment on this article with a hyperlink to an existing blog or website(s) .  The link can be to specific articles on the topic.

We are looking to cover these specific topics:

  • Earning Money with Adsense
  • Earning Money Blogging
  • Earning Money Writing
  • Blog Monetization
  • Podcast Monetization
  • Blog Promotion

All content submitted should be unique and written by you!

All post submissions will need to be at least 100 words in length, and ideally should cover individual topics.  We're not looking for dissertations or white papers, yet!

You can participate on the blog, daily, weekly or monthly or sporadically under any of those time frames (weekly for 2 weeks, daily for 4 days, and monthly the next 2 months). 

If you have some other collaborative ideas, we're always open to suggestions!

Low Tech Blog Backup - Feedburner

There is a very low tech way that you can back up your blog articles painlessly.

All you need to do is setup a feed on feedburner (which is a great idea for many reasons relating ot promotion of your blog).

Once you have a feedburner account you can use their email subscription tools to provide some code in your template that will allow your readers to subscribe to your blog via email.

Then you only need to subscribe to your own blog.

This serves many purposes (see above) but it does provide you with an email copy of every single article that you write!

Then you need only to file away those articles in your inbox or somewhere else, and you will always have a copy of your content off line!

Are You Prepared for the GeoCache of GeoTag Traffic?

Our sponsor at Northeast marine Electronics recently provided a release describing their ample catalog of products including fish finders and marine electronics.  They specifically provide some great tools gadgets that include GPS systems and Chartplotters.

It is rapidly becoming more important for our blog and website owners to become familiar with these tools and I encourage you to take a look at them.  More and more the world of the internet is starting to incorporate an overlay of GPS coordinates to better target ads and viewers to websites and to products.  You would be well served by using and understanding the GPS system technology so that you can be skilled in the application of the advertising requirements that are rapidly advancing.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Calling Out to More Writers - Sponsors will Pay You to Write on Your Blog!

I have been writing for a service called PayPerPost for almost 6 months now. 

I started slow when the service began.  I have earned at least $200 a month every month.  I have written more because I am more financially motivated and I have seen my PR go from zero and 1 on respective sites to 3 and 4 (and soon going to 5 on both).

You can earn anywhere from $5-$30 per day with sponsors on one blog and more if you have more than one blog.

I do recommend this service that brings paid posting sponsors to your door and puts money in your PayPal account like clockwork.  These days I get a PayPal payment almost every day and usually several a day!

Plus PPP now has a great affilliate program so you can round up your blogger friends also!  You will find that this is a largely growing and very helpful community of bloggers.  The service is excellent for bloggers and many are starting to advertise and sponsor bloggers of their own with the funds they have earned from PayPerPost.  You can definitely make this business model work for you to create a new stream of revenue.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Be Virally Link Happy!

Here is a little exercise in Viral Marketing to help your website gain some traffic and improve your Page Rank.

I just read a great article over at Make Me a Blogger a newly re-designed website that was ported out of a blogger blog and to its own domain.

The site looks excellent, and I came across a great little article titled "Be Link Happy".

I would highly encourage you to read the article, but here is where you can help your self by helping  . . . .well yourself.  :)

Exercise to build PR

1.  Write a quick 50-100 word article and talk about this article Be Virally Link Happy! that you are reading right now.  Mention the name of the article and the name of the website Adsense for Idiots and then link to both of those names with the actual links.

2.  Then link to the original article and the original web page with the names above.

3.  Then challenge your own readers to repeat this process adding your site to the first bullet point above!

4.  We can then kick off a viral campaign to build links for all of us that read and participate in this exercise!

5.  Drop a comment on the sites that you link to when you write this article and odds are the people that linked to you will come to check out your blog and you'll gain the opportunity to build your Blogging network, you'll pick up some nice traffic and maybe even earn a little more in advertising money!

Keys to success

Its important that as we do this that you write you write your own unique title and that you do not just copy the blog articles that you see.

This exercise will help you build links to your main sites URL and to a deep link in an actual article.  :)  Double benefit.

Defining Click Fraud

Search Marketing Standard ran an article titled Defining Click Fraud.

For anyone that earns money from Adsense or gains advertising from Adwords, wiping out Click fraud is very important.  Click fraud devalues the services of Adsense and Adwords and harms the potential for Publishers to earn money from Adsense.  Similarly, click fraud hurts Adwords advertisers right in the pocket book.

Both sides of the industry are harmed by click fraud.

You can help to define click fraud and help the industry find solutions to prevent it to safeguard your advertising revenue and improve the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.

Two groups have been created to help.

  1. Click Quality Council
  2. JoinTheNetwork

 

Monday, December 04, 2006

Exodus 3000-Paid To Play

I just signed up with a online game serivce Called Exodus 3000.  They pay you to play an online game, kind of like a roll playing game.

Throughout the game you earn Mars Bucks and at the end of the month you can convert the mars bucks into US dollars.

Along the way you can earn mars bucks by Mining or searching ruins or by attacking people and taking their Mars bucks.  You can build alliances, joing communities and network and many other things.

I highly encourage my readers to try the game out.  Its free to join, sign up here at Exodus 3000

While you are there take a look at how the website owners of Exodus 3000 earns money from Adsense!  Now that is smart and not too difficult either.

You have to actually play the game to see how the Adsense earning works.