This is a guest post submitted to JMMO by lisafolder from the site Little Money Maker. The author’s email address is: lisafolder@gmail.com .

Google AdSense program has made it easier for webmasters to make money through a website. Webmasters who run an AdSense campaign will display Google’s contextual Ads relevant to the content of their sites and thus encouraging visitors to click the ads and earn money for each ad click.

However, you will earn very little AdSense revenue if you don’t know how to optimize your AdSense ads on your website. Here are some tips to increase your AdSense earning:

1. Focus on one Adsense ad format. The Large Rectangle (336X280) ad format seems to work better than other ad formats because this format tends to result in higher click through rates (CTR). Another reason is that the ads will look like normal web links that visitors use to click on them. It doesn’t matter whether the visitors know that they are clicking AdSense ads or not, as long as there are clicking, you earn AdSense commission.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Select a color that matches your website’s background. If your site’s background is white both, the color of ad border and background should set to be white too. Also the color of the ad title should be similar to coloe of the links in your website. This is to make your AdSense ads look like it is part of the web pages. Again, this will boost AdSense CTR.

3. Don’t place your AdSense ads at the bottom of your webpages because it is proven to be less effective. Displaying your AdSense ads at the bottom is like hiding your AdSense and thus leads to low CTR and AdSense revenue. Try to put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between AdSense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Try to place your AdSense ads near rich content as visitors main focus usually are your content. There are several ways to insert AdSense ads into your content and one of the ways is place your AdSense just after the end of your content.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your AdSense code into the webpages 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, name it as “AdSense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then use 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 some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. There are other ways to optimize your AdSense that produce high CTR also. You can learn more tricks by reading in AdSense and webmaster forums.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

5 Tips to Boost Your Adsense Revenue

When I first heard of OIO Publisher, I became quite excited. It seems like a great solution for D-I-Y advertising. And, although it took me a while to give it a go, I finally did just a few days ago. And, I’m quite happy that I did. It’s actually one of the best D-I-Y ad solutions that I’ve come across so far. Here’s a quick review for those of you who may be looking for a similar solution -

Pros

• Works as a WordPress plugin. Yes, if you run WP, then this is a fantastic way to run direct advertising on your blog.
• Works as a standalone application. If you don’t have WP, then you can still install it on your own server and run it on a Blogger/Blogspot blog, or any other system.
• It’s relatively inexpensive. Just $47 for a license.
• For a single license, you can use it on as many sites or blogs as you wish. No need to pay several license fees.
• Offers several ad solutions – banners, text links, and in-text ads. You can even sell reviews and run your own affiliate programmes.
• Has a central ad marketplace that’s easy to set-up.
• Offers several automated features – including auto payments via Paypal or Entrecard.
• Available email templates to send.
• Tracking options. You can even serve ads to a particular demographic only.
• Statistics – you can check # of impressions + clickthrough rates, etc.

Cons

• Doesn’t have a ‘homepage only’ option for running ads just on the homepage. At least, not that I’m aware of.
• Can only run one type of ad per zone – no big deal, really. But, I thought it would’ve been great if I can alternate let’s say a 250×250 zone with several 125×125 instead, if that spot goes unsold.
• Has a single number of days option per zone. So, if you set a particular zone for 30 days, an advertiser cannot choose to buy 60 or 90 days in one go.
• Does not have other payment options other than Paypal or Entrecard. It’s okay with me, but some people might find that limiting.

Bottomline

It’s definitely an app worth investing in, if you’re seriously considering selling direct advertising on your blog or site. It’s easy to set up and run. And, it will make your life as an online publisher a lot easier. You’ll probably get a quick return of your investment if you already have enough people showing interest in advertising on your site/blog. Plus, they run an affiliate programme, so you can even make some money promoting the application. Absolutely two thumbs-up.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

OIO Publisher: Sell Links, Reviews, and More on Your Blog or Site

If you’re a blogger who might have been thinking about do-it-yourself text advertising, then you would’ve been on the hunt for the best solutions out there. Something that doesn’t rely on third party services like TextLinkAds.

Well, if you’re a WordPress user like I am here at JMMO, then you’d have a few options available. One of them is a WordPress plugin called WPTextAds.

Some of you may remember that I mentioned playing around with it about a month ago. After one month, here’s my review of WPTextAds plugin.

Overview:

It’s a cool little plugin that you add just like any other WordPress plugin. Once activated, you can specify your advertising requirements. It has a few features, which include being able to offer Homepage, Site-wide, and Per-Post ad links, as well as being able to offer 30, 60, and 90 day ads for purchase. WPTextAds has a limited-edition free version, where you can install the plugin for trial with some limitations.

Pros:

• Easy to install, good admin interface.
• Features like homepage/site-wide and per-post ad links, and the multi-days package availability.
• Has customisable email templates that may be sent automatically to people requesting to advertise on your blog.
• Offers a free trial version that you can use to play around with.
• Automatic ending of ads when their subscription is over.

Cons:

• A bit pricey at US$127 compared to some other similar plugins out there.
• There’s no affiliate programme running, so people don’t have extra impetus to promote it.
• Only offers text advertising, so you need to look for other solutions if you wish to offer graphic ads on your blog too.
• There are no ‘extensions’ to the plugin/service. That is, there’s no way to track clickthroughs and such.

Overall:

Although the free version only offers 2 links per area (2 for homepage, 2 for site-wide, 2 for per-page post), it’s still something worth looking in to if you’re not anticipating a huge number of advertisers clamouring for ad space on your blog. In my case, I found it quite useful trying it out – as I managed to gauge the interest levels of direct advertisers on my blog. I would’ve purchased it, had it not been for the “cons” that I found in this plugin. I especially found the limitation of not having the ability to offer direct graphic ads using the same plugin to be quite a difficult hurdle to get past. And, the fact that there was no way that I can track statistics made it even tougher for me.

So, that’s why even though I’m still currently using the free version (I especially like the ability of being able to sell homepage ads separately from site-wide ads!), I’m considering phasing it out when I find a better DIY advertising solution. But, we’ll see how it goes.

In any case, if you think that this is something that might be of interest to you, you might find that WPTextAds is still worth exploring.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

WP Text Ads: WordPress Plugin for DIY Advertising

When I first wrote about Domain Cash Parking, I wasn’t quite sure how it all worked. But, ever since then, I experimented with various domain cash parking services like Sedo and GoDaddy, as well as Chitika’s domain cash parking service. And, so far, I must say that I haven’t really seen any benefits from this practice. There must be more to it than what I’m doing, though. So, I decided to give it another go.

When I saw that Google Adsense is now offering the Google Adsense for Domains service, I immediately decided to sign-up a couple of my undeveloped domains. Since it comes free with my existing Adsense account, I thought, why not?

These are the basic steps that you need to take to get your domains on to the Google Adsense for Domains service:

1. Sign in to your existing Adsense account (or start one if you haven’t got one yet).

2. Go to ‘Get Ads’ tab and select ‘Adsense for Domains’ in the list of services.

3. Click on ‘Add domain’ and follow the instructions that Adsense will give you.

4. Instructions include signing in to your domain registrar and making changes to the account information. Adsense provides detailed information on how to do this with most popular registrars.

5. Once you’ve set-up your domain according to Adsense’s specifications, wait until it gets approved.

6. When your domain’s approved, you can then edit some of its settings (palette and keywords).

7. Wait for the money to roll in! (or not! )

I’m curious to see if domain cash parking with Google will be different. I’ll have to see and let you know.

What about you? Have you tried domain cash parking just yet? Have you looked in to Google Adsense for Domains? If you have, do let us know what you think of it!

Here’s a sample domain on the Google Adsense for Domains service.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Google Adsense for Domains

Anyone here tried using Project Wonderful yet? I haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet. But, I’m liking the sound of it.

Basically, Project Wonderful is an online advertising marketplace with a twist. Publishers can sign-up to run advertising on their sites or blogs. And, advertisers can bid on those ad slots.

I think it’s great for smaller sites/blogs who’re not quite sure how to price ads on their online property. This way, the pricing gets taken care of, depending on demand. And, advertisers can get a real good deal – and target blogs/sites where they want their ads to run on.

Anyway, as always, I’d welcome your feedback if you give Project Wonderful a go. I’ll report some more if/when I get the chance to try it out myself.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Project Wonderful: Advertising by Auction

Has anyone come across ShowYourAdHere? It’s another advertising marketplace that primarily offers banner/graphic advertising (available in popular sizes). They do not offer text advertising at this time.

For publishers, you need to sign-up, create an ad zone, then put the code in your blog or site. Once your listing is approved, you get listed in the marketplace where advertisers can find your listing.

It’s not clear to me, however, how the ad prices get set. And, how much ShowYourAdHere split the revenues with publishers.

They also run an affiliate programme, for recruiting advertisers. They offer 10% commission of the advertising dollars spent. They say that they pay via PayPal.

If you use ShowYourAdHere – or you’ve had some experience with it – we’d welcome your input.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

ShowYourAdHere: Ad Marketplace

When I posted this call for Probloggers from Kontera last week, JMMO reader Lindsay said:

Do you have to use Kontera?

Blogging has changed my life and is how I make a living, but I don’t care much for those kind of links on other people’s sites, so I’ve never tried them.

Well, first of all: What is Kontera?

Kontera is a a Pay Per Click In-Text Advertising Platform. Basically, advertisers buy certain keywords from the service, and publishers who sign up with them allow Kontera to ad sponsored links within publisher’s blog entries/posts, based on keywords that were purchased.

So yes, all publishers need to do is sign-up at Kontera, add a code in their blog/site, and just blog/post content as usual. Kontera will then “crawl” the publisher’s blog/site for relevant keywords and add ad-links to those that meet the match.

The Issues

Some people are not really comfortable with in-text advertising. They feel that their content may be a bit compromised by having external links within their posts that they do not always personally endorse.

Of course, other people don’t see any problems with this type of advertising platform.

What I find interesting, however, is that while trying to share an example of a Kontera ad being run, I checked their official blog – thinking they might be running it there. And, I didn’t see it. So, I may just be missing it. Perhaps, you can share some Kontera-enabled blogs or sites here, as examples?

Your Turn

So, with these things in mind, do you think Kontera is something you’ll be interested in using on your blog or site? Why or why not?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Kontera: In-Text Advertising

Looks like Izea (of PayPerPost, etc) has released a new product/service called SocialSpark. It’s currently in Alpha, invite-only stage. But, you can request to be sent information on its updates.

Anyway, I received my invite a couple of days ago and just registered today. I had a quick look and basically, it looks like it’s simply a hybrid of PayPerPost. However, according to Izea’s release:

“SocialSpark has some important differentiators from PayPerPost:

1. All links are no-follow, fully search engine compliant and must carry in-post disclosure.
2. SocialSpark offers display ads as well as Sponsored Posts.
3. Greatly expanded reporting capabilities and blog analytics.
4. Ability to have bloggers or advertisers initiate a transaction.
5. Social networking tools to foster communities and conversation.”

So far, I haven’t heard a lot of buzz on this at the moment. It’ll be interesting to find out what folks will say about this new advertising/blogging marketplace.

I’m also curious about the name, “SocialSpark” – it makes me think that this will eventually venture in to creating money making opportunities in various social networking sites. What do you think?

In any case, if you’ve tried this out, I’d be interested to know what you think of it. Do you think this is a site that you will use to make money online?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

SocialSpark

If you run a blog or a site that offers RSS updates, you might want to consider making your content available via email. Your readers and subscribers who wish to keep tabs on your blog/site but do not use feedreaders will probably appreciate this, especially if you publish full feeds.

There are several services available for this, and one of which is Feedblitz. You can either manually create your email newsletters – or get auto updates using your RSS feed.

I’ve been using their service for a few months and ‘am quite happy with them so far. It’s simple to set up. And there are customisations available, even for free users. You can customise the look of your newsletter, the number of times it’s sent out, the type of ads it runs, etc.

Recently, I found out that they also run a Feedblitz Ad Network, where people can buy advertising space in various mailing lists. And, those newsletter publishers who run these ads can earn some revenue from such advertising. Here’s a quick explanation of what Feedblitz Ad Network is about (from the site):

FeedBlitz’s email advertising programs enable advertisers to place targeted ads in newsletter updates, and bloggers and newsletter publishers to make money from (or “monetize’) their mailing list. It is an entirely self-serve and opt-in solution.

There are different variables to the earning capabilities of this program.
1) Free users are able to participate, but Premium users are given double earnings/revenue share.
2) List size (number of subscribers) will also affect your earning capabilities, as the number of times ads are viewed and clicked will have different effects.
3) The number of times you publish content via Feedblitz will also affect the earnings.

There’s also $25 payment threshold. Once that amount is reached, payment will be made 45 days later. Fees are payable only via Paypal at this time.

Since I’ve only started using the ad network, I’m not yet sure how good it is going to be. I’ll let you know more when I have more information.

If you use Feedblitz too, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Relevant Links:

• Advertising FAQ
• Premium Subscribers upgrade fees.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

On Feedblitz and Making Money with Email Subscriptions

It’s nothing new – since time immemorial, Google has been hitting websites that used to be doing well in earning organic search traffic with its now-no-more-traffic-love whip.

What could be the reason behind this Google action? Google folks will usually say that you violated its policies and others would mention many other reasons why all of a sudden your site does not get any decent traffic from Google such as PageRank-passing link selling or the selling of links on your page without using the no-follow attribute, the use of duplicate content or putting same exact texts on different websites, robots.txt, meta-tags, etc.

How do you get a site re-indexed? Google can only recommend that you submit a reinclusion request after you’ve complied to all its rules if your site’s diagnosed to have violated any policy. However, this step does not seem to work well.

Because if it does, gazillions of owners of sites that have become de-listed won’t complain how in the world they’re still not getting same amount traffic before Google de-indexed their websites when they have already done everything that Google told them to do.

Oh and if the reinclusion request works so well, College Startup’s owner/s won’t offer a $10,000 bounty to anyone who can get one of his sites re-indexed.

So are you up for the challenge?

image from sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

You Can Get $10,000 if You Know How to Get a Site Re-Indexed by Google