Adsense Terms That You Should Know
If you are adding Adsense to your blog or website, it is imperative to get a firm grasp on some of the unique terminology associated with the Adsense program.
Here is a list of important terms, their common abbreviations and meanings:
Terms of Service (TOS). All participants in the Adsense program are required to abide by Google’s Terms of Service. This is basically the “rule book” for Adsense. Anyone who fails to conduct themselves according to the TOS may be banned from participation and/or have their account suspended. You should read the TOS carefully.
Publisher. That’s you. Anyone operating a site displaying Adsense ads is considered a publisher. Read more
One Of The Most Overlooked Keys To Adsense Success
One of the most profitable revenue streams for a blog is Google’s Adsense program. Here’s how it works:
You agree to display contextual advertising served up from Google on your site. In exchange, Google will pay you for every visitor who clicks on the ads. Your blog becomes the online equivalent of a billboard and you are paid for getting cars to drive down your street to see it.
There are a few factors to optimizing Adsense profits.
One factor is getting traffic to your site. In order to get paid, you need to get clicks. In order to get clicks, you need to get visitors. Thus, many bloggers pay a great deal of attention to developing multiple traffic streams.
Another factor is choosing a profitable topic that attracts many advertisers. Some topics have more advertisers than others. So, it’s imperative that you choose a topic in a market that offers many products and services. Read more
Alternative Ways To Making Money With Your Blogs
Many bloggers rely on Google’s popular contextual advertising program, Adsense, for their revenue. Although, Adsense has been the driving force behind the increased level of interest in using blogs as a revenue generating tool, it may not meet the specific needs of some bloggers.
If you have a blog that produces a nice stream of traffic and are looking for alternatives to Adsense, you may want to consider some of the following options:
Adgenta (http://www.adgenta.com/)
Adgenta is a keyword-based advertising program that allows publishers to insert ads into their blog. Every time an ad is clicked, the blogger is paid a flat rate of 15 cents. While Adsense determines which ads to display based on its own assessment of your page’s content, Adgenta allows you to choose which keywords you would like it to use in choosing advertisements.
This can be a great solution for boggers who have pages that fail to serve up relevant Adsense ads or for those who tend to get only very low paying ads.
Adgenta’s interface is simple and sign up is free. The ads are inserted into your site using simple HTML blocks and the ads are actually linked graphics, unlike the more complicated script used by Adsense.
Yahoo Publisher Network (YSN) (http://publisher.yahoo.com/)
YPN is Yahoo’s version of Adsense and preliminary reports indicate that it may be a profitable solution for bloogers who are unable to use Adsense. The Yahoo system is very similar to Adsense. So, Adsense publishers should be able to utilize the program easily.
Although still in its infancy, the program is backed by a major player, which lends it a greater degree of long-term reliability. Unfortunately, the YPN project is still in beta and you must apply for or receive an invitation to participate.
Ad Networks
Instead of relying on a pay-per-click model, you may want to sell advertising space on your blogs. You can sell directly to advertisers or through the use of an ad brokerage.
If you have a blog that receives a significant number of well-targeted visitors, selling advertising space can be a great alternative to the Adsense model.
Other Options To Consider
- Chikita mini-malls (Chitika.com)
- Text link programs (Adbrite.com)
- MSN ContentAds (coming soon)
As you can see, even if Adsense doesn’t work for your blog or you cannot use Adsense, there are other options available. Adsense may be the biggest game in town but it certainly is not the only one.
Why You Should Not Use Free Blogging Services
Many bloggers use a free blogging service to support for their first entry into the field. This makes a great deal of sense. Free providers offer very easy to use and relatively powerful platforms. Additionally, avoiding a cash outlay reduces the risk involved to a bare minimum.
Free blog providers can be a great way to introduce yourself to blogging and to learn a little bit about the process. However, they are a poor choice if you’re hoping to generate significant blogging profits. There are simply too many pitfalls associated with their use.
1. Advertising revenue
Firstly, many free blogs hamstring your ability to utilize one of the most effective ways of generating a profit via blogging, Adsense. Some free blog providers offer the free blog and server space in exchange for the right to display their own Adsense ads.
The terms of service directly prohibit you from displaying any additional contextual advertising. This is how the free services generate their revenue and the prohibition makes perfect sense. However, it takes the most powerful revenue stream away from you.
2. Control
Second, whenever you use a free service, you lack control over your site. This is not simply a matter of advertising or content restrictions. The lack of control is far more serious.
Blogger.com, for instance, is known to regularly freeze and/or delete blogs outright for unexplained reasons. Those blogs simply disappear and a great deal of work vanishes with them. Other lesser-known services may be undercapitalized or lack profitability and may simply go under – taking the blogs right down the drain with them.
3. Credibility
Third, there is the issue of credibility. Whether it’s right or wrong, surfers tend to bestow a greater degree of credibility to (and are thus more likely to visit) sites that have their own URLs. A blog that is an obvious sub domain at a free host can make potential visitors and customers wary of a blog’s legitimacy and can have a negative impact on profitability.
4. Flexibility
Finally, there is the matter of flexibility. Some free blog services limit your options in terms of appearance and may use platforms that lack some features that can really aid in profitability.
For instance, the blogs at Blogger.com lack the categories found in their WordPress counterparts. Other free services may offer only a few templates that can only be tweaked ever so slightly. In order to perform optimally, you should be able to make any and all desired changes to your blog.
You can find a variety of powerful blogging platforms that won’t cost you a dime. The competitive fields of hosting and domain registration make owning your own chunk of cyberspace surprisingly affordable.
So, using a free blogging service as a means to launch part of your online business simply does not make sense. The minimal capital required to own and control your own site is a definite bargain when you consider the pitfalls associated with the alternative.
The Key To Publishing A Profitable Blog
Blogs may have originated as a means of online journal writing and community building but this model won’t accomplish much for the affiliate marketer or Adsense publisher. Unless you are an amazingly interesting person with some tremendous writing talents, your personal blog will get lost in the chorus of voices that crowd the world of blogs.
To make blogging profitable, you must select a good topic to focus on.
Topic selection is the key to blogging success. You must choose a topic in which you can be competitive.
Ideally, you should find a blogging niche that is underserved yet has a high level of interest. This will allow you to attract a great deal of visitors more easily which will translate to higher profits.
Here are three tips to help you choose a profitable topic:
1. Find a topic in which you have a personal interest.
This is especially important if you plan on writing your own content. Successful blogs require regular updates and it can become difficult to regularly produce quality information if you have zero interest in the topic. If you choose to hire a writer to produce your blog posts, then this is a far less important factor.
2. Find a topic in which interest is relatively high.
You may be able to rule the search engines on the topic of 17th century wooden paperweights but there are so few, if any, people with an interest in the subject. So, that number one ranking in Google will not produce the kind of traffic stream you will need to turn a healthy profit.
It may be more difficult to enter a highly competitive marketplace but the potential rewards are far greater too. The key to topic selection, however, is not just writing a blog on a hot topic. It is finding a field from which a healthy number of visitors can be culled.
3. Find a market that is underserved.
Basically, you are looking for a strong disparity in the number of interested parties and the amount of readily available information. If you can find a topic in which many people are interested but is not well-covered online, you are sitting on a potential blogging gold mine.
It is perfectly acceptable to build a wonderful blog and to expend the effort to compete in a more crowded area but this does require much more work. Finding an underserved niche and filling a hole in the marketplace is a much easier way to produce blogging revenue.
Choosing a topic for your blog can be a challenging process. However, this first step is probably the most critical. The choice of a topic not only establishes the nature of the blog, it also determines its potential for success.