Adsense Arbitrage – Why?

Adsense arbitrage has the internet marketing community talking and thinking again. It is not a new concept and has been around for a while. It even got a ‘black hat’ connotation to it, or so many would believe.

The truth however is that adsense arbitrage is not 'black hat' or illegal in any way whatsoever. The bad connotations came about by internet marketers misusing the system for only their advantage, and not the advantage the system was intended for.

By placing adsense ads on your web site the intention is to promote other people's products and services through the ads. They click on the advertising and the owner of the product gets a lead or a sale. In return you get paid for the click from your site.

This scenario is a win-win situation, the product owner gets what he wants and you get what you want.

If this is ‘all so pretty’ what went wrong?

Human greed is possibly the best answer. From this win-win situation the owner of the advertising was cut from the equation and the click became much more important than the result from the click. Do remember it is not Google who pays you for the click, it is the advertiser and therefore the advertiser and not Google is your client.

Have you been looking after your clients?

So what happened next? Every other person put up sites, as many as they possibly could, deceived the search engines into believing that this page is related to a keyword search. No second thought was given to content, and there were no alternatives for the visitor other than to click on an adsense ad. The result was totally non targeted traffic for the advertisers. If you were paying for that ad would you have been satisfied?

Didn’t think so…

This is exactly what happened. In every good book on using adwords advertising one of the first warnings is not to advertise on the content network. So with all the serious advertisers making use of adwords gone only a trickle of cash is left to spend between all the millions of adsense sites.

Then of course came along the Google slap, and bang the sites created solely for clicks took a big nosedive. Bad for the guys who were running these sites but good for the advertisers and marketers prepared to think of their clients.

Google also introduced the ability to differentiate between search PPC and content PPC pricing. What do you think the advertisers are doing? Quite right, the value of a search click and that of a content click is hugely different, but what it has achieved is that advertisers are now returning to content search as a method of promoting their products and services.

This hails the return of adsense arbitrage as a ‘white hat’ business model. With a more balanced system in place it will again be a win-win situation. This is the time to get back into the game of adsense arbitrage if you are looking for a profitable online business. It is important though that you should have the right business model in place to ensure success.

The days of just uploading a thousand pages are over, but if you do it right just six pages will make you more in a day than those thousand would do in a month.

About the Author:
Karl Stadler
Discover how to set up your adsense arbitrage business for continued success by following a proven business model and the correct methods to use to insure profitability. Visit http://www.yourenterprize.com/adsense/adsense-arbitrage.html
Article Submitted On: January 03, 2007
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

The Pros And Cons Of Using Google Adsense For Extra Income!

I have been using the Google Adsense Program to generate extra income online for some time now. I have gained a lot of experience from using the program. I feel it’s become necessary to share the pros and cons of the program with those that may be considering using it in this article. But first, I need to explain a bit what the program is.

What is Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products. These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser’s website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.

In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.

The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly if you earning reaches $100.00. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows them to monitor the earnings they actually get from a certain ad.

Now that you understand what Google Adsense is, here are the pros:

1. They are great for webmasters creating content websites. It used to be these webmasters worried about how to cover the expenses of running their websites. With Google Adsense, these worries became a thing of the past. All they have to do now is write their content and add adsense to it and make money.

2. Google Adsense makes the internet better for the users. Webmasters can now concentrate on publishing quality content. Quality content makes the internet better for the users.

3. Once a webmaster creates quality content, it can generate income for years to come. All the webmaster has to do is update the content from time to time and the income will keep coming in.

4. If a webmaster has the time, the webmaster can publish multiple websites. You can use one Google Adsense account on multiple websites. You don’t have to go through the hassle of applying for another account with Google.

Below are the cons of the Google Adsense program:

1. The Adsense account can be closed by Google at any time. There are horror stories of webmasters waking up and seeing their account closed. They all of a sudden lose their source of income.

Usually, one of the reasons that makes Google close an account is click fraud. The problem is that the click fraud my not be committed by the webmaster.

2. The Google Adsense program does not provide residual income. So, you can’t continue to reap the reward of your hard work over and over as you do with residual income programs.

3. Most content websites depend on search engines for traffic. When the search engines shuffle their ranking algorithms, the traffic may drop. This drop will result in less traffic and income.

4. Creating content can be hard work. You’ll need to keep adding content to keep your website interesting. Without this, you visitors may dry up, which will decrease your income.

There you have it! You now know the pros and cons of the Google Adsense program. It’s up to you to decide if you want to use it to earn extra income.

About the Author:
Copywrite © Kenneth Echie. Kenneth updates the latest extra income ideas at www.extra-income-ideas.com. Subscribe to his informative ezine by sending blank e-mail to: bye925 AT getresponse.com. Other websites: www.franchise-opportunity-directory.com. www.african-safari-vacation.net. www.diet-plan-directory.com.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

A Website Model That Makes Money

I would like to share with you one simple stratergy in creating income with your own website. This is just one method out of simply millions that you could create for yourself. Remember the internet provides no limits. This is one example that does work for me, and may give you an insight into exactly a website model, that you may like to put into action for yourself. Affiliate marketing and/or sales of any kind on the internet, requires a real commitment, as I am sure you do already realize. The internet is really one of the greatest training grounds in the world for sales. You can try and fail many times, until you find that system and approach that will work for you. But the commitment that you show in meeting this challenge, will be a lesson that you will always remember. Success is always achieved in no matter what you do, through simple hard work. There is no easy path to success, but when you achieve the success you are after, there is no greater feeling. So lets begin. In this example my website, which for the purposes of this article i will call '????'. I will give you the exact profit breakdowns.

With this website I treat all my affiliate products as purely residual income, much like adsense. Adsense itself generates for me, on this website, on average around $2 per day. I also use various other companies affiliate products, which generate around $200 per month. Also within the website, I sell e-book informational products, which I own the full resale rights for, which generate around $700 per month. And here lies the answer to making money online, no matter what you sell. The products, that generate the most income, are the ones that you will own yourself. Certainly I should be making more from the affiliate info products that I sell. But I lose commissions through simple affiliate url tampering. Commissions that are stolen or lost are a real pain. You can try every method in the book to protect your affiliate codes. But after all the hard work is done, you still lose that valuable income. The people who sell the original affiliate product know this, which is mostly why a high percentage of the sales price is offered to an affiliate to begin with. Because they realize that a very high ratio of sales made on their products will give them the total profit back. The reasons why people change affiliate product codes etc, could run into pages. Lets just say it is inevitable. This is the reason why I treat all my affiliate based products as purely residual income.

But as you can see in this example clearly where the highest return on investment lies. And that is in the products that you actually own. You can purchase resale rights for info products easily, and it involves not much money at all, most products are available for under $50. Or if you have the time and patience to search the internet. You can find amazing e-books that have free resell rights and the information they contain is really valuable. You will find these types of treasures occasionally, and the lights will start flashing in your eyes when you do. The information that you have just discovered is of value and that is a real key to success. This is why I, at this point, strongly emphasize the importance of this one principle. Only sell products that you feel strongly about and you know that will be of great value to the person who may purchase it. That includes products you have bought the resale rights for, or a free product, you have discovered with resale rights.

If you sell strong products with real informational value consistently you will always succeed. Your customers will return, quite simply because they know where the value of the information they seek is the greatest. And that is at your website. Always remember to put yourself into your visitors shoes. Ask yourself the question? Would you buy the products you are selling? Answer this question with a Yes. And you will be really on the start too online success.

About the author:
Michael J. Keenan (CEO - SitePromotionNow) Worked in affiliate sales and website construction for over 5 years. email: mickyk703@hotmail.com website: http://www.sitepromotionnow.org
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How to Improve Adword Click Through Rates by Chris Carpenter

There are some simple steps that you can take to improve the click-thru rate of your Google Adwords campaigns, whether you are promoting your own products or someone else’s as an affiliate.

The main thing to remember is to focus on the words that you use in your ad. When you set up your campaign, use the keyword you are bidding on in the first line of the ad. You only have two lines and a small number of characters in your ad so you want to get the most out of your words. Linking the ad itself with the keywords you are using will help increase your clicks. Your ad will stand out among all of the others that haven’t got the keyword on the first line. In fact, you can use the same generic ad for all of your keyword groups within a campaign but make a change to the title for each keyword. This technique will increase your click-thru rate considerably.

In the second line of the ad, tell the potential clicker what they are going to see when they click on you ad. Give them a bit more detail about the product or service they are going to see. Remember that customers are motivated by “What in it for me?” Tell them why they should click on your ad as opposed to all of the other ads on the page.

Another technique you can use to improve your click through rate is to play around with the formatting of the destination URL. For example, instead of www.widget.com try that address as widget.com or Widget.com. You can also try capitalizing the first letter of each word in the URL that will make the text slightly bigger and cause your ad to stand out more. You can also change the capitalization in some of the words in the ads. Try capitalizing the first letter of every word. Little changes like these can make huge differences in your click through rate. Play around with the formatting and track your results. You’ll be surprised at the improvement in your click through rate.

Use split testing on your ads by running two ads against each other. Google will split your traffic between the two ads and then you see which one has the better click-thru rate. Keep the one that works better, and edit the other ad with a new headline or capitalization variation. To start split testing, use the “Create New Ad” function in your Campaign Manager. Use the same keywords in your first d but try using different verbs.

When you begin split testing, make tiny changes in formatting or verbs. You will be surprised by the increase in click-thru rate that results from those tiny changes. Keep trying different variations.

However, even if you make all of the suggested changes and the click-thru rating doesn’t improve don’t despair. If you come to a point where nothing will improve the effectiveness of your ad, then you’ve hit upon a market that won’t be successful as an Adwords campaign. It happens and the key to success is to keep persisting with other campaigns. If you have 20 campaigns you are trying out, sometimes only 5 may work. That’s the nature of the business. It takes persistence and a degree of stubbornness to succeed.

About the Author:
Why are some people getting rich working from home on the internet? Chris Carpenter will show you why. To learn ways to make money on the Internet and learn more about Chris Carpenter: Click Here: http://affiliatejackpot.com/pr.htm
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

The No-Work, Money-Making Website

While growing up on the farm in North Carolina, I loved gardening. There was something magical about planting a dollar's worth of seeds, watching them germinate, and then feeding the family for a entire season with my efforts.

The only part I didn't enjoy was the weeding and cultivating. That was the WORK! So I was thrilled when I discovered "The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book." That book taught me how to get all of those great vegetables with no weeding, very little cultivating, and little watering. It really did teach you how to garden with literally no work.

Twenty year later, I discovered just as fertile a garden on the Internet. With practically no investment other than my time, I could put up a website, nurture it, build traffic to it, and in time, harvest lots of sales from it.

Just like with the vegetable garden, there was a lot of maintenance required if you wanted a good harvest.

The site needed to be constantly updated so that the search engines "learned" that they should visit this "fresh" site often.

The site needed to have lots of keyword rich webpages so that it would rank high for relevant keywords, and attract organic search engine traffic. Since I was taught that "content is king" that meant the more content-rich, tightly-focused webpages you had, the better. The content-rich pages meant you could make sales, get new subscribers, and even earn pay-per-click revenue from programs such as Google AdSense.

The only problem with the above model is... it's a lot of WORK.

Then I discovered, "The No-work, Money-making Website. It wasn't completely no work, but it was probably 1/10th the work that I had been doing.

The no-work website encompasses building a content-rich website using automated tools. These tools allow you to gather relevant content (articles, RSS feeds, etc.) from all over the Internet and then instantly generate hundreds ... even thousands of content rich webpages in minutes.

The no-work website encompasses using other tools to automatically update your site, so that each time the search engine spiders visit, they notice new content. Noticing new content on each visit, the search engine spiders make a note to visit more often.

Now here's where this gets really powerful...

As these search engine spiders visit more often, they don't just crawl your current no-work, money-making site. They also follow links to other sites you want to get indexed. So now you can put up your no-work site, teach the search engines to come back often, and then go on to build other sites knowing that getting them indexed is as simple as linking to them from your old sites. It really is that easy :-)

By now you're probably asking what are some of these magic tools I use to build these amazing, no-work sites that literally takes on a life of their own.

Here's are just a few of the tools I personally use:

1) Blogs. Blogs hosted on Blogger.com get noticed very quickly by Google because Google owns Blogger.com By pinging blog directories (and Yahoo using your "My Yahoo" page) lots of other sites take notice of your blog. They visit your blog and follow links to other target sites.

2) I'm a charter member of Content Desk. Content Desk has a tool that allows me to query databases containing tens of thousands of articles (based upon keywords). I can automatically sort the list of articles that is returned based upon keyword density, or a number of other criteria. Then, I can have the software itself create webpages for me using a template I've designed using the template tool built right into Content Desk.

Content Desk is probably my favorite tool because I can, quite literally, add hundreds of article pages to my sites in minutes. My templates also include ads for a "pet" product and/or Google AdSense. I can add content-rich, relevant, very nice-looking pages to my sites in minute, and then move on to the next project, knowing that these pages WILL make me money.

Content Desk limited its charter membership to a total of only 400 members, and that quickly sold out. However, since it's a monthly membership, not all members renew and there are probably some openings. To check on openings, simply visit:
http://WillieCrawford.com/content-desk.html

After arriving at the site, click on the "Charter Membership" link in the upper left menu bar. This will tell you if there are any current openings.

3) RSS Feeds. By incorporating RSS feeds into your webpages, you can set them up so that the content is constantly updated. This gives your visitors something fresh to read each time they visit. This gives the search engines fresh content each time that they visit ... and trains them to visit often.

Content Desk incorporates a feature that works very similar to regular RSS feeds EXCEPT that it doesn't send your website traffic away. With a normal RSS feed, the content automatically added to your site contains links inviting your visitors to click away. It allows you to automatically update your pages, but it also siphons off traffic. Content Desk does this in a way that automatically updates your site without sending your visitors away.

4) Traffic On Steroids. This is another system for automatically updating/changing content on your site. Traffic On Steroids actually takes a core database of articles/content that you set up and then rotates it in your target webpages. The net effect is that each time a visitor (or search engine) visits a page, the page is different. This is very effective at training the search engines to come back often... and increasing your pages' ranking. Incorporate Google AdSense into these pages and you have another hands-off money magnet.

You can also incorporate a product data-feed into your page using Secret Money Generator and have pages that are constantly updates AND have a catalog of products built in that all pay you an affiliate commission. Secret Money Generator is at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/money-secret.html

You can check out Traffic On Steroids at
http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.html

I've just shared with you a few of the dozens of tools I use to create nearly-hands-off websites. I do still look at some of them from time to time to see if I can make them perform better. However, you could LITERALLY never touch many of your sites created with these tools for years... and you'd still have a nice revenue stream from them.

It’s all about working smarter, not harder. It's all about using technology to leverage your time.

Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford

About the author:
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily implemented systems. An example of such a system that you can study and utilize is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/TheSystem.html
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Doing Google Adsense the Right Way

Building a Successful Adsense Website
Getting Rich With Adsense

Everybody wants to know the secret to earning lots of income off the net. The secret is adsense. With adsense, you don't have to deal with all the typical business problems such as staff, customer service and conflict resolution. So how do you do it?

Well, it's all common sense. If you can develop a fairly simple online website, then you possess the capability to reap profits from Google Adsense. All you have to do is just apply some simple toolss to your website creation process to completely maximize your earning potential with Google Adsense.

These simple tools are:

1. Ad design and placement
2. Determining niche markets
3. Maintaining high volume<>

I will now discuss each one of those concepts briefly.

Ad design and placement - The best place to position your ads is and will always be the TOP of your page! In addition, modify the ads so that their colors blend well with your website colors. A standard ad uses a blue title with black text and URL. Also, I personally don't recommend placing borders around your ads. You want the ads to look as normal on the page as everything else.

Determining niche markets - There are certain keywords that can actually produce up to $45 to $55 per click. The problem is that the market for these keywords is small and the competition in advertising is intense. The best markets to work within are those with the least competition. I recommend using a $.50-$1.50 per click keyword and filling your site with lots of content.

Maintaining high volume - The bigger your site, the more pages that you will have indexed within all the search engines out there. The alternative to this is building a lot of sites with few pages. Either way, you want to look towards having 20,000+ pages if you want to make some real profit. The key here is to make sure you get all your sites indexed with search engines like google and yahoo. Essentially, the people making the big bucks typically have lots of web sites. Oftentimes, they utilize specialized software to create their sites. Creating many sites manually is very time-consuming. I recommend Website Article Wizard. It is great at producing high quality websites filled with useful content.

Traffic - You can have a thousand sites. If none of them are generating traffic, you won't make a dime. No visitors means zero people clicking on your ads. So not only do you have to build a site, but you have to market it and get it on other websites, like Ezine!

Following the above steps will help you slowly build an income with Google Adsense. Yes, it is time-consuming. However, there are a variety of tools available to help you significantly speed up the process. But, if you must, build it manually! Everything takes hard work.

About the Author:
Vivek Saxena
If you would like more info, feel free to visit www.googlemogul.com
Article Submitted On: December 13, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Google Adsense Page Positioning

Correct positioning of your Google adsense ads can make or break your success with the Google adsense program. Why is this true? Some studies suggest that eye positioning on website gravitate to particular sections of web pages. And if you don’t have the necessary ads in these positions you will not get the clicks.

I talked to countless people that have great traffic, some with 300 to 1000 new visitors a day that say that they only make approx. at max $10 to $20 dollars a month on the adsense program. What a shame. But when I look at their websites the ads are either buried in wording that no one usually pays attention to or the ads are located in positions that just don’t call any attention to their presence.

So were the best locations for you Google adsense ads. Well, I have found the number one best place for the ads are near or in proximity to your main menu. Why near your main menu. Because you know that visitors eyes will and always look for the menu structure of your website. So the common places for placement should be to the top right, the very top under your menu, or the top left. These are the most common locations for you main menu.

But what about the color scheme of the Google adsense ads? Yes, color is very important. You have to make the ads looks as seamless as possible. Here is an example on one of my website http://www.pottery-barn-outlet.com. Here I decided to position the ads at the very top right under my main menu. In direct eye contact. Also, remove the borders; just these two changes will increase your adsense proceeds one hundred percent.

By using these tactics I was able to increase my adsense click through rate significantly depending on traffic level and people's interest.

Take my advice and give it try. I believe you will see a change and hopefully make adsense a more pleasurable experience.

About the author:
Kenneth Elliott is the owner of http://www.marketassociate.com website. He helps real people relize their dream of an successful affiliate experience. Discover why so many have found their ideal business with Kenneth Elliott today.
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Stop Wasting Money on SEM: Know Your Customer to Know your User

While it may seem obvious to many of us in the industry (The so-called veterans) it may not be that obvious to all.

That is, no matter what rankings you achieve or how much you are spending on your PPC in a month, you really should only consider one thing: Your customers. 100% of your efforts must revolve around who your customer is.

In this article I give some tips to ensure that your marketing campaign revolves around your customer.

While I was unable to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York this year (I went last year – it was an incredible experience) I was surprised and glad to hear that there was an over -riding theme coming out of the sessions both from the SEM’s presenting as well as the engines.

That theme is user intent.

That means, one must understand what the user – their customer – wants when they visit the search engine and ultimately click on a search engine result whether it is paid or organic.

I started to think about my clients over the years and some of the things they have said when I ask them, “What are you looking for in this campaign?”

Many of the responses include: “I want to be number 1 for [insert keyword here]” or, “I need to lower my PPC costs by [insert value here]” or, “I need to beat my competitor [insert competitors name here].”

What is the most important element missing from these comments (and, I think, from many clients in general)? The focus on the customer.

In the years I’ve been asking the question “what are you looking for in this campaign?” I think I can count on one hand how many people responded to my question above with, “I need to reach my target audience effectively.”

While it is true that many companies are beginning to realize this now, it hasn’t been that way for some time.

I think what is changing in today’s world is that companies are beginning to realize that search is big business. As such, they have marketers interacting with SEM firms and not IT people. It is these marketing people who are asking the right questions or, in many cases, answering them the right way.

Here’s an example: I recently sat in on a call with a client and one of the first things they said was, “We have devised seven unique personas for our site and need to target each one individually.”

”What? You’ve already done the personas? We usually do those.” But you know what? They did an incredible job. After reviewing their persona information, I could put a face to the persona. I knew what that person looked like, and what his or her intent was with the site.

And that is the most important thing to consider in today’s SEM world – you MUST know who your customer is. You MUST understand their intent if you are going to succeed.

For example, if your customers tend to have completed the research stage and are in the buying stage, don’t send them to a PPC landing page with product specs. Instead, send them to a landing page with pricing and shipping information.

Better yet, send them to the pricing/checkout page and give them free shipping! That will undoubtedly help encourage the sale.

Similarly, if you are finding a product specification page ranking highly for a purchase search term, try and find a better page to optimize for that term and de-optimize the product page so that the purchase page will rank higher.

This is where personas are extremely helpful. If you can put a face to your customer, you can determine their intent. And if you can determine their intent you can effectively create your entire marketing campaign around it.

Generally what you will find out, as you become more intimate with that persona, is that you probably don’t need to rank #1 organically for a highly competitive term. You could probably get away with above the fold visibility and still make an impression.

Similarly, you will probably find that the knowledge of your target’s intent can help you optimize your bidding strategies by cutting expensive terms, performing day parting, or whatever else you need to do to ensure that your site is visible to them at just the right time.

What many search engine marketers are learning is that the user’s intent, derived from an accurate persona, is more valuable than anything.

It’s more valuable than a #1 ranking. It’s also more valuable than an expensive PPC term.

In fact, such knowledge will likely impact the terms you use altogether. While you may think that the searcher will use certain terms, in fact you may find that you are way off base.

But, it’s not just search marketers concerned with intent. The search engines are also investing heavily in technology to help them figure out the intent of the searcher and serve the correct results.

For example, I could be searching for “Manhattan” and the search engine has to determine what my intent is. Am I looking for city information? Am I looking to find a hotel or book air travel? Or, do I merely want a drink recipe.

You see, simple terms like this can mean many things, therefore the search engines are trying to use their technology to figure out what the searcher wants.

And many times, when you perform a search and you see a PageRank 3 site outranking a PageRank 6 site, this is why. It is because the search engine has tried to determine that intent and is therefore trying to match the site that best suits that searcher.

But why would a search engine be so concerned about intent? It’s quite simple. Right now most of us have Google set as our home page. But what does it take to switch that to MSN or Yahoo? A couple clicks of the mouse and you’ve just changed search results providers.

This is what scares the engines the most – that one of their competitors, or a completely new black horse, is going to come along and woo away users with technology that improves relevancy to the user.

So, if you are planning your SEM campaign for 2006, my opinion is go back to the drawing board. First, determine your goals. Then, determine who it is you are trying to reach and why they would want to use your product or service. If you can determine this intent then you can effectively craft an SEM campaign that will be both successful and cost effective.

About the Author:
Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for www.textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is the trusted leader in building long term rankings through safe and effective link building. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

I Earn $250 A Day Through Google Adsense And So Can You

How would you like to increase your monthly website revenue by 25% with only a few hours of work? What if I said that it wouldn’t cost you a dime? It’s hard to believe isn’t it?

I know this claim sounds as though I should be pitching a $200 get-rich-quick scheme in the next couple of paragraphs, but I’m not. The technique I used was free to me, and I’m sharing this information with you free of charge because I’m more excited about this discovery than I can put into words.

What did I do to achieve this jump in revenue? I placed Google Adsense advertising boxes on my website, and in just the first seven days, I generated over $1700 in Adsense revenue. Even better, I didn’t have any decrease in sales from the original source of revenue for these sites – paid memberships to my wholesale information directory.

I’ve known about Adsense for years, but I always thought that it was a system best used by free informational websites needing to generate revenue. My reasoning behind this was that I thought that these ads could possibly bleed traffic from my site and steal potential paying customers. I’m happy to say that I was wrong, and I only wish I would have tested this program earlier to discover how wrong I was.

I am completely surprised by how well these advertisements have paid. I have done some research on ad placement agencies, and I don't think that there is an agency online that could sell ads for me at the rate that AdSense pays per thousand impressions, and I know that if I advertised banner space or text link space on my site that I couldn't sell it at an equivalent cost per thousand impressions. I would tell you the cost per thousand impressions, but it's against their terms to discuss it.

Google AdSense may well be the most lucrative source of income for website owners seeking to sell ad space on their site, and the results are instant. All you need to do is place the code and let your current visitors click on the link ads.

It’s a very simple system that is easy for anyone to implement. All you need is:

1. A website with quality content
2. An existing traffic source, be it 100 visits a day or 100,000+ visits a day.
3. The ability to read the Google Adsense Program Policies
4. Free page real estate, hopefully in a conspicuous place above the fold

It is that simple; however I cannot stress enough that you read the Google Adsense Program Policies. There are certain types of sites, certain types of pages, and certain types of advertising on and through which Adsense will not allow their ads to be associated. It is each advertiser’s responsibility to know their guidelines and avoid breaking any rule that could put their account and an excellent source of revenue in jeopardy.

Finally, let me stress that these ads should be placed in a conspicuous place. Visit the site linked in the “About the Author” section below for examples. No matter how effectively your site is designed, more people will leave a page without reading below the fold than will continue on to the bottom of the page. For that reason, as you’ll see in my site, I place the ads at the top right of my page, in an area where any visitor to my site can find them.

Adsense is an excellent source of revenue for any website owner. Don’t waste time like I did. Place some ads on your site, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.

About the Author:
Kirk A Larson has worked for over 15 years in business as a writer, personnel manager, and most recently for the last 4 years as a successful entrepreneur. To see examples of an effective Google Adsense campaign, visit The Wholesale Suppliers Registry at http://www.wholesale-suppliers.org
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Huge Content Rich Websites for Profit

Here is the bare bone - no hype information and a link to the website I built using these techniques. So I not going to lie to you about how much money you can make or how much I made. Simply put, people are making money with these kinds of sites, I just want a piece of the action. This article assumes you have a basic knowledge of HTML, Google Adsense, and Affiliate Advertising.

We've all heard the phrases "Content is King" and "If content is King, then relevance is Queen!". So I'm going to share with you how to build a site based on these principles for profit! I built a 1000+ page content rich website in about 2 days. Check it out at http://articleupdates.com

Website Building tools:

I used DreamWeaver as my html editor. Any good html editor will work such as Frontpage. Go to download.com and search for "html editor". Coffeecup is a very popular free editor. Basically you need a good editor that will update links site wide automatically. Give you reports on broken links, and do search and replace site wide, file specific, and etc... Also very important is a good table building capability.

For the content I pulled articles from various free content sites. As long as you adhere to the terms of fair use, you will have access to thousands of content rich articles that you can put in your own website.

Get a simple clipart cd with 150,000 royalty free images from Bestbuy for $20.

Then plug in your affiliate codes for google adsense, clickbank, and commission junction.

You don't have to be an html expert. Just having some basic programming knowlege is enough. For example, understanding head, body, and building tables. Inserting variables and doing global changes. Any good html editor will help with that. You really need to become an expert at building tables. They are fast loading and can really make an impact on a site. If you are into css, even better!

Key Features for SEO: Keyword Rich and Relevant!

Building with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind. Use these techniques when building your site!

Niche Site: Pick a very specific topic. I chose "Making Money Online with Content Rich Sites" for this example.

Use a simple structure. Index page to "Index of Articles". Then "Index of Articles" to each individual article page. Two levels, easy to manage, easy to spider!

Make your site surfer friendly: No hidden pages, re-directs, pop-ups, spyware, java, or scripts. Just use ".html" files with text links to full text content rich pages which are also easily spidered with useful relevant information for the visitor. Include lots of articles including a few unique pages that you have written yourself.

Now start building your basic template for all the pages on your site. How you build your template will greatly depend on what editor and tools you'll be using. For example: most times you'll do something like Huge Content Rich Websites for Profit. When you go to build your 1000+ page site, the editor will replace the title tag with the appropriate text dynamically.

Title Tag and Description Tags and all other meta tags should be relevant and keyword rich.

Page Title
- Use relevant keywords on each index page to the articles
- Use the article title which will have additional relevant keywords for each article page.

H1 Tags - Keyword rich and relevant ex: "Make Money Online", "Home Based Business"

H2 Tags - Use the article title in the article pages. ex: "10 Ways To Make Money Online"

robot.txt file for spiders - just a simple two line file in your root directory
User-agent: *
Disallow:

Body text - Use content rich articles. Also use high color contrast between the text and the background so the search engine doesn't think your trying to hide anything and penalize you. Plus it's just plain easier to read. Use arial or verdana font.

URLs, File Names, and Directories - use the article title
ex: http://articleupdates.com/i-home-business/five-ways-to-increase-your-affiliate-sales.html

Inbound links: Set up link partners. If you can, have them place the link to your site using a keyword instead of the domain name itself. ex: Make Money Online Click Here.

Outbound links: Do the same for your link partners. Set up links using text that is relevant to their topic which should be relevant to your site but not competing if possible. If you sell computers, link to a company that sells computer desks.

Make same site links with relevant text. ex: "make money at home" will link to a page within your own site.

Make Image alt text use primary keywords. ex: "money online"

Add HTML comment tags that use primary keywords. These are not seen buy the surfer, but can be seen by search engine spiders. No one has proven this helps, but it doesn't hurt!

Now add money making adsense and affiliate links on every page. Put them top center between the article title and article content. Adjust the colors so that is blends in with your web page content.

Google adsense will pick up the page title, h1 and h2 tags to target the ad. When someone clicks on it, you get paid!.

Once you have these basic things set up in your template, you need to use a powerful tool called Article Equalizer. With a little practice, you'll be able to build 1000+ page websites in just a day or two. The link to Article Equalizer is http://hop.clickbank.net/?mark6188/articleeq

Another important thing you can do: Add dynamic RSS content by keyword. I'll follow up on this in my next article.

Sincerely - Robert Rogers

P.S. - If you make a site using the techniques above - I'd love to see it! Put your link at http://deja.us. I check it regularly.

About the author:
Robert Rogers is a writer in the Washington DC area and specializes in money making and money saving ideas. Visit http://articleupdates.com
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Google Adsense Optimization Tips

If you are new to Adsense -- Google's affiliate program were you place their ads on your site and they pay you when your visitors click them -- then you may have wondered about how to maximize your income.

Here are a few tips to help you do that.

Build Sites for People

It's against the terms of service for participation in the Adsense affiliate program to create sites just for getting visitors to click your ads. If Google finds out you've been doing this, they can easily disable your account. Therefore, don't treat your site as if it's a billboard, make sure it has content your visitors have searched for and will find useful.

Provide Relevant Content

When Google realizes you have Adsense on your site, it tries it's best to match ads to the content of your site. If your page doesn't have a specific theme or worst it has words unrelated to what your pages are really about, you'll get back unrelated ads. It's unlikely your visitors will click these ads.

Choose the Right Keywords

Ads that show up on your web pages are determined by many factors, but having the right keywords everywhere, in the url, the title and the body will help Google figure out which ads to display. You may want to do some keyword research if you're not sure that the keywords you have now site wide are able to help Google display relevant ads.

Know Where to Place Ads

Ads can be placed anywhere on your site, but there are locations on a page that people glance at first and there are locations people ignore. For example, most people tend to focus their attention near the upper left corner of a web page. If you want people to see your ads, then you should place them there.

Select the Format

Adsense provides its publishers various ad formats, however for a given situation, some formats are effective while others aren't. For example, if you place the banner style ad in the header section of your page, most likely it will be ignored because people have learned that anything in that section must be an ad especially if it has the infamous 468 x 60 pixel dimensions.

Blend Ads In With Your Site

People ignore ads that look like ads. Adsense ads should not stand out but blend in with your site. You can customize the color scheme for each of the separate elements of the ad to achieve this. For example, try to match the background color of the ad to your site's color and try to match the ad's link color to your site's link color.

Include Ads on All Pages

Put Adsense on every relevant page of content on your site. SSI or server side includes will make this task easier. Work on creating more pages of relevant content for your site so you will have more opportunities to earn Adsense income.

Place Ads on All Sites

You can place Adsense ads on any site that you own. The more sites you have the more places you can have Adsense displaying and earning income. Just remember to create sites for people first and you won't have to worry about Google shutting down your account.

Generate More Traffic

Adsense income is only possible when visitors click your ads. Therefore, whichever means you can use to increase the traffic going to your site will also help give a boost to your Adsense income.

Test and Monitor

You can change many different things on your site, which may help improve your Adsense income. But you'll have to keep track of those changes so you can roll back to your previous settings if a change actually hurt your earnings.

Adsense allows you to set up channels to help you keep track of which ads are being clicked. Third party software can provide you with an even greater depth of data such as the search engines that sent you the visitors, the keywords use in their search and the ads which were displayed to them.

Final Thoughts

Whether you are new or old to Adsense, don't settle for the income you are now making. You can earn more if you take a systematic approach to improving what you do with your websites.

Copyright (c) 2006 by Leroy Chan

About the Author:
Leroy Chan
Discover the amazing Adsense money making formula that built a $240,000 per year home based Internet marketing business from scratch. Visit http://www.InternetMarketingView.com
Article Submitted On: January 04, 2007
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

ppc affiliate programs

Ppc affiliate programs are very common to see on a website.

Ppc affiliate programs are can be very useful providing your website with content & earning free advertising credits. By adding a free search bar to your website, you can generate a lot of free traffic for every search & click done. Here are some ppc affiliate programs pro’s & con’s.

Pro

With most ppc affiliate programs, after you join they will give you a HTML code to place on your website for a fast & easy setup. Once the free search bar is up and running you can start earning credits towards ppc search engine advertising. Think of the savings you don’t have to pay for targeted ppc advertising no more. On most ppc affiliate programs you earn $0.05 per search and $0.10 per click done from the free search bar on your website. Say you earn only $1.00 a day, I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but if your keyword is “web hosting” @ $0.01 per click for top position that’s 100 unique targeted visitors to your website to help you earn more ppc advertising credits & buy your products.

Con

Ppc affiliate programs can be blamed for one of the main reason there so much click fraud on the Internet today.

Pro

Ppc affiliate programs have worked harder then every to put a stop to click fraud by tracing different ip address to make sure all clicks are unique visitors. So the advertiser do not get scammed for there money or earnings.

Pro

Ppc affiliate programs provide your visitors with free content and enabling search capabilities on your website allowing visitors to do research or to help find something there looking for. By using a quality ppc affiliate program you get quality content that keep your visitors coming back daily to find what they need.

As you can see they are more pros then cons when it comes to ppc affiliate programs. If you already have a website and it doesn’t have search capabilities you’re missing out on free advertising & building customer appreciation by providing them with a free service allowing them to get what they want when they want it. Ppc affiliate programs is an easy way to help jump star your online business.

About the Author:
Zac Radford
Paid Results
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Blogging for Dollars

Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are:

1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs
Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served.

2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements)
Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale.

3. ) Product Promotion
Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement.

4.) Banner Ads
While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space.

As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many.

Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley

About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for the NotePage http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com product lines. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.small-business-software.net
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6 Easy Adsense Optimization Tips

Looking for an easy way to monetize your site and start earning money from the traffic you have? Adsense has proven itself to be one of the easiest ways for webmaster to make money. Adsense is truly the most efficient way to making an money from a website as you don't have to do any selling. Adsense deals with all of the money and contacting advertisers which leaves the webmaster time to promote their site. However there are many webmaster struggling to earn any kind of decent money from adsense. While on the other hand their are a fortunate few that are earning a great deal up in the hundred even thousands of dollars a day range. The greatest thing about the internet is that people are willing and open to sharing information and the top adsense earners are often more then willing to share there secrets and tips of what they do.

The webmasters that have been there and done it and are now earning income daily from their websites have a ton of great tips and helpful advice for those just getting started in the field of adsense and contextual advertising. Some of these tips can quickly boost earnings and help to continuously grow a webmasters income.

Below are five simple steps that will help you get started towards greater adsense earnings.

Best Ad Unit

The one ad format that seems to consistently earn more then any other ad and also the one that is favored by the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This ad format has the ability to create a higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why does this ad tend to outperform all of the others when there are so many other options out there? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

Use Custom Color Palettes

Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site. This is known by adsense professionals as blending.

Adsense Placement

Adsense ad placement is a place where many webmaster leave money on the table. You see they sign up and get the ad units up and on their site. However, they bury the ads down at the bottom of the page well hidden from most users. Many webmasters do this because they don't want their site to be filled with too many ads as they feel it ruins the design. While most will agree that the ads are not the most attractive element if you are even reading this article then obviously you are looking to earn more from adsense so just get rid of the notion of a beautiful site and instead focus on a money producing site no matter what it looks like. In fact some of the top earning sites are the ugliest.

Got Links?

Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

Automate Ads

Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the web pages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as "adsense text", and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are a few of the most basic and starting tips that have worked well for those who generate hundreds and even thousands from their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Every site will perform differently and there are no hard and fast rules. The above will give you some good ideas of things to start with. The ultimate trick to earning from adsense to is try many different things out and always test your results. Make one change at a time and then test the difference. Implement the things that increase your earning and drop or forget those that don't. The tips given are complied by those that have boosted their earnings and are therefore just guidelines. If they have worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out on your ads and see the results it will bring. If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

About the Author:
Chris Ryerson
For a way to increase your income check out these adsense ready web sites Or go here for more information on making money with Google Adsense
Article Submitted On: December 30, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Google Adwords Ad Automator: The Next Big Thing

Google is beta testing a new product which allows website owners and AdWords advertisers to automatically generate their AdWords campaigns by submitting a list of their product details via data feeds. The search engine uses the information from the feeds to determine the best keywords for those pages and automatically creates ads that link to them. This is brilliant news for any site owners who have a large database of products as they can now upload the whole lot at once.

The new Google ad automator feature is initially only being offered to select Froogle merchants who also advertise on the AdWords platform. The tool allows you to manage large, scalable campaigns without investing much time and effort. The ad automator dynamically generates accurate AdWords ads targeted to search queries. The content for these ads comes from the data feeds (that you submit as often as you like) containing your product descriptions, specifications, and information. These data feeds are simply tab delaminated text files. You can in fact use your existing Froogle data feed with some extra columns.

The AdWords system then generates ads from the content in your data feed (or from information you submit through the AdWords interface). This means that you can either let Google create your ad copy for you or you can set it yourself. It then continually analyzes all search queries to see whether they're relevant to any of your products. When it finds a relevant match, it shows your ads on the search page results.

Once setup, you can set daily campaign budget much like a normal adwords campaign. The CPC is set in one of three places. You can either specify your maximum CPC in the data feed, in the AdWords interface, or you can allow Google to determine it for you. The later method automatically sets your max CPC by using the average CPC of the competing ads. As with normal AdWords campaigns, you can have your ads displayed on both the Search Network or the Content Network, and geo-target them.

Some benefits of Ad Automator are that ads are dynamically targeted to queries. They are also automatically compliant with AdWords policies; once your data feed is approved, ads don't need to be reviewed again. You don't need to create new ad text. You can leverage existing product descriptions that are likely already on your website. (However, you may submit customized ad text in your data feed or through the AdWords interface if you like.) You can supplement existing marketing efforts without much additional effort.

All in all I think this is set to be a big improvement when it is fully launched. It will compete with Yahoo’s Search Submit product whereby advertisers can pay to have their pages included in the search results.

About the Author:
AdPro
For more information see www.ad-automator.com
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

BLOG…PING…OPT-IN…SIG FILE…EZINE!

A Guide to INTERNET MARKETING TERMS

In the beginning…

I recently started my own “money-making, home business” which I signed up to with the understanding that I was going to earn money for doing nothing. Others (affiliates) were going to pay me commission for referring new sign-ups to their sites. This sounded like a fantastic opportunity to make lots of money without really selling anything. No stocks holding, postage etc.

My signup included (among other items) a guide which covers 30 days. I also had to sign-up to 5 online marketing sites (you receive the enrolment fee back in no time) and join a web-hosting company.

Massive amounts of information are fed to you but in an absorbable manner. It was very exiting. I would liken this information to reading a suspense novel…can’t wait to see what happens next!

Anyway this article is not meant to be about that…it’s meant to cover some of the terminology and their definitions, some of which I had never heard before.

AdSense

AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts — you'll finally have a way to both monetise and enhance your content pages.
It's also a way for website publishers to provide web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying ads on the search results pages.

Adwords

With AdWords you create your own ads, choose keywords to help us match your ads to your audience and pay only when someone clicks on them.

Affiliate

A person, organization, or establishment associated with another as a subordinate, subsidiary, or member: network affiliates.

Auto-Responder

This is a clever marketing tool. It automates your emails and follows-up on potential clients after they have signed up to your newsletter etc.

Blog

An online diary or personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. It is a shortened form of Weblog.

Ezine

A magazine that is published electronically, especially on the Internet.

Keyword

A word used as a reference point for finding other words or information. See Adwords.

Off-line Marketing

As an example, advertising in newspapers, radio and television. Using the phone as a off-line marketing tool has also become very popular.

On-line Marketing

Advertising using the internet, examples may include…email, banners, popups etc.

Opt-In/Opt-out Subscribers

This is when you choose you receive newsletters etc. via email. Example:

By doing this you opt-in to an email mailing list. These lists are sold over the internet by various marketing companies. Most emails sent via the opt-in method also have an opt-out choice. Use this when you no longer wish to receive email from the marketer. When you have no choice it is referred to as SPAM.

Ping

A protocol that sends a message to another computer and waits for acknowledgment, often used to check if another computer on a network is reachable.
You need to use ping your blog to get it online. (easy as pie)

Sig File

A block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information for instance, web/e-mail address.

Solo Ad

This is advertising via email attached to an ezine. This is only one ad (as apposed to many small ads from various companies), thus giving you maximum exposure.

Viral Marketing

This works similar to a virus but instead of being destructive it encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Copyright 2005 Michelle Kiely

About the author:
Michelle Kiely
Not long ago, I didn't know ANYTHING about Internet marketing... However, within just 2 weeks, I launched my own website AND learned how to profit from an opt-in list, pull in sales with ezines, make money with Google Adwords and setup my own BLOG! Here's how: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-9949
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Adsense and Real Estate Web Sites; An Additional Source of Revenue

Adsense is a simple concept! The publisher or the realtor (that's you) inserts a java script into their website. And each time the page is accessed, the java script will pull advertisements from the Adsense program.

The ads that are targeted will be related to the content that is contained on the web page serving the ad. If a visitor clicks on an advertisement, you, as the webmaster serving the ad, will earn a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying the search engine for the click.

Inspiring Facts

Fact number 1: Kids in high school are making thousands of dollars every month with Adsense.

Fact number 2: Housewives, retirees, mom and dads, who are just staying at home and have never made a dime on the internet have created full-time incomes by simply placing Adsense ads on their web site or blog.

What his goes to show is that anyone, any age or gender can become money generating Adsense publishers...period!

When you accumulate $100.00 in earnings, Google Adsense will send you a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to the payment address you supplied when you signed up. This is just another security precaution that Adsense has in place to protect their publishers.

Once you've been mailed a PIN number, your account payments will be on hold until the PIN is entered in your account. You can still have access to your account and earn money; you just won't be paid until the PIN is entered. If it hasn't been entered within 1 year, your account will be disabled.

To enter your PIN after you receive it in the mail, log into your Google Adsense account. Click on the My Account tab, then click on edit. Update the appropriate field and click submit changes. It would also be a good time to check your contact information and make sure it is correct. You're now well on your way to receiving your first Google Adsense check.

What Are URL Channels and How to Organize Them

URL Channels allow you to view detailed information about the performance of your Adsense for Content pages.

Suppose you have two blogs, one about writing and the other about jogging. It might be interesting and profitable to track which one is getting more clicks.

Log in to your Adsense account and click on Adsense for Content. Scroll down until you see Channels and click on manage channels. You may need to scroll up when the next page loads. Under Manage URL Channels you would type writing and click on Create New Channel.

You will immediately see writing in the Active URL Channels dialogue box. Now type in jogging in the same channel text box and again click on Create New Channel. You now have two channels and you will be able to track your progress on each channel.

You can view channel reports from the Advanced Report page under the Reports tab. Choose Adsense for Content, choose the date range and then select the Channels Data radio button.

Choose any number of active channels by holding down the CTRL key. Next click on Display Report. It's as easy as that.

Summarily, there's no magic involved in generating AdSense income. Instead, it's a simple concept that is easy to implement. All it takes to succeed is a little time and effort, like most other things that are worthwhile.

About the Author:
Lanard Perry shows Realtors how to Average 1 or More Listings a Week. Find out how at Farming Expired Listings and Real Estate Marketing Talk.
Article Submitted On: January 19, 2007
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Does Pay-Per-Click have a future?

Reading the Google hit piece that appeared in Barron's this week got me thinking about the whole pay-per-click model. Pay-per-click (PPC) has been around for more a decade, and while Google has made some positive changes to it, it's showing its age.

If you think of the Internet advertising process as a series of actions, it would go like this:

Impression -> Click -> Action

Back in the old days the metric was CPM (cost per thousand), and advertisers paid per impression (getting the ad on the screen). CPM favored the publisher over the advertiser, as the publisher's responsibility ended at the first part of the process. DoubleClick, an early ad serving company, came up with their DART system to match the right advertiser with the right screen in order to maximize the return on CPM.

PPC moved the metric forward in the process, measuring success (and payment) based not on how many times the ad was served, but how many times it was actually clicked. When most people think of PPC they think of Adsense, Google's contextual advertising engine. But PPC is employed in banner advertising, on big ad farms like Doubleclick and other companies, and in some affiliate programs, though the number seems to be waning.

The latest incarnation of search engine based PPC (thanks to Google), works like this: you select keywords that you think people will use to search for stuff related to what you sell. For example, if you sell pretzel dough you might want to advertise under pretzels or making pretzels or something along those lines. Selecting keywords is way beyond the scope of this article, but there are plenty of companies out there that make a living helping you pick keywords. Anyway, you then bid on those keywords and your ad is shown on the page with the search results.

With Adsense Google moved the context from the search engine results page to your web site content. It reads your site and decides what keywords to use to display advertising on your site, just as it would with a Google search.

For affiliate programs it's a little different, but the concept is the same. You choose the ads (or pay someone a piece of the action to choose the ads for you), and they get displayed on your pages. Rather than selecting the keywords explicitly, you are selecting the ads based on what you (or your agent) thinks people who have chosen to read your content may have an interest in seeing.

When someone clicks on the ad, you get paid. It's that simple.

For Adsense, appearing first on the list makes all the difference. A study suggests that being the #1 choice increases your chance of being clicked by up to 40%, because a lot of people don't look past the first entry (I always check the first few). The difference in bids between the first position and second position could be staggering. For example, 1900 people searched Google for the word tax yesterday. The top spot in Adsense would have cost you $25.12. Positions 2 and 3 drop to $6.96, and 4 and 5 would have cost you $4.24.

My experience with Adsense tells me that in this case the first position would probably pay Google close to $10.

As the publisher, this is a home run. Every time the person clicks I get a $5 bill. God, what a country!

As the advertiser, $10 to get the person in the door seems like a lot of money to me. If I'm selling a high margin item (like maybe tax software or one of those quickie tax loans), it seems like it may be okay.

But I still have to get them to buy. Conversion rates (getting the person to take some action once they've clicked on the ad and gone to your site) vary wildly, but I always use 1.5 - 3% of those who click on an ad. That means that 97 - 98.5% of the people who click on the ad do not buy. Let's use 2% as an example. That means that for all the five dollar bills flying into the publisher's pocket, only about 2 people out of every hundred will buy anything. So for every $1000 I spend I get 20 sales. That means that every sale costs me $50. Your results will vary, of course, depending on how targeted your keywords are and your industry and offer. Get the conversion up to 5%, for example, and you will be down to $20 per sale, which is a little better. I am designing a what-if tool to help with this, and I'll post it when it's ready.

One of the reasons for low conversion is probably click fraud. If an unscrupulous person wants to make money in PPC, all he needs to do is find a bunch of people (or computers) to click on the ads on his website continually, and he'll reap the rewards.

Barron's believes that the smart money is getting out of PPC. They cite FTD as an example:

Flower giant FTD Group (FTD) recently complained about the high price of search advertising. "During the Christmas season, certain online search engine costs increased significantly over the prior year, and as such we made the decision not to pursue the resulting high-cost order volume," said Michael Soenen, chief executive officer.

First off, let me just say that as an advertising exec I pitched FTD, and they didn't strike me as the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. That being said, it's easy to see why FTD wants out. Being #1 or #2 in the keyword Flowers around Valentine's Day would have cost between $6.25 and $10.00. There were 100,000 searches on the days close to VD on that keyword, and 11,500 on Flowers Delivered, which would have cost between $5.03 and $6.72.

Some simple arithmetic shows me that FTD nets about $6.20 per transaction across its network. So the transaction is either a wash or a loss. FTD is the number 1 ad on Google for their keywords, so I guess they decided to eat that first transaction, counting on continuity to save them. According to Barron's this isn't going to work either:

One industry executive noted that the lifetime value of a customer acquired through Google for his/her business had approached zero. Oops. So much for that theory.

So the answer seems to be that the big guys are getting out. Using the flowers example, though, the top 5 ads are FTD, ProFlowers, Hallmark, 1-800-Flowers and Teleflora. So I guess it's going to happen over time.

So where is the future? According to the inventor of pay-per-click himself, Bill Gross (formerly of GoTo.com), the future is in pay-per-action, which moves the metric down to the final part of the Internet advertising transaction, where we think it belongs. There's a terrific article on Seochat.com that has more information on this.

Pay-per-action is simple...both parties have a stake in the outcome of the click, whether that is a sale, a lead, or even an instant telephone call (more on that in part 2). We think this is going to be the next big thing, and it's already happening.

About the Author:
Matt DeAngelis runs Affiliate Blog.
Matt is the former Chief Technology Officer of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind ad campaigns and online presence for a good portion of the Fortune 100, including AT&T, GE, John Hancock, Delta Airlines, Compaq, GM and many more.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com