Beyond Adsense

One of my friends has been creating a blog. He wants to earn online. I asked him how he is going to monetize his blog. He replied, “I will apply for Google Adsense.”

He is not alone. Google Adsense is the dream advertising network for most of the bloggers. And of course it is the best CPC advertising network.

I asked my friend ,” Are you aware of Google Adsense policies?”

“Not yet”, he replied “but I will read them”. His reply evinced carelessness or rather indifference which is going to be fatal for his dreams.

Follow always the rules and regulations of adsense.You would have to follow the rules and regulations of Google Adsense literally failing Adsense has zero tolerance for the violation of its policies.

However Google Adsense is not the only option for you. There are Bidvertisers and Chitika, a couple of CPC networks other than Google Adsense. They are good alternatives. Both are good options, but because of having lesser number of advertisers the farmer pay less than Google Adsense.

CPM (Cost Per Mile) ads are other option. These networks pay you on the basis of per 1000 impressions. Obviously you would need a heavy traffic to your blog or site. However there are smaller CPM networks Casale media. But casale media too requires a considerable amount of traffic to accept a blog or site.

Then there are affiliate marketing networks like Commission Junction and Clickbank. Here you are paid for referring paying customers or subscribing to email newsletters.

One more option is selling your own advertising spots. If you adopt this strategy, you would have to talk to sponsers directly.

There are many other great strategies for monetizing your blog and I have already informed you about them in one of my previous posts, “Make money blogging”. But the most essential prerequisite for a successful strategy is the traffic. So, first take steps to improve your traffic. Once your traffic is improved, any strategy you adopt to monetize your blog would be successful.     

How can we earn good money from Google Adsense

How can we earn good money from Adsense?

Of course, with such a blog and a good traffic to it, you can have a satisfactory income, but how much can you earn? A simple search on Google can reveal that these are blogs that have succeeded in grabing bucks, and then again there are blogs that make minuscule amounts. Ask yourself, “What are the factors that distinguish between the former and the latter categories of blogs?

Make a simple search again and watch the most visited, most popular blogs carefully. You will find the answer. You will discover that those highly successful blogs have a high level of traffic, been created on popular topics( that often related to costly gadgets or things), have high valued ads that are relevant to the topic and optimally positioned in the blogs.

In brief, a high level of traffic, a good topic, high valued ads optimally positioned and relevant to the topic of your blog. It’s certainly a well balanced list of factors that lead a blog to success. But I would like to add one more factor to it : a quality content, I think, can take care of at least three of the above mentioned factors : traffic, high valued ads relevant to the topic of your blog.

You can’t write a quality and originally informative content unless and until you have a good knowledge and experience of topic. If you want to create a blog with optimal earning potential, writing a quality content becomes even more important.

Let me make the importance of a quality content clearer and show to you how it has a positive effect on the earnings from your blog.

Suppose you intend to create a blog on laptops or digital cameras. These are costly gadgets. Google Adsense would accept your application only if your blog contains a quality, informative content about the gadgets. Topic is good, content is informative, interesting and attractive. You need not care about traffic, it will automatically follow. Regular or loyal readers of your blog constitute traffic to it. When they first come across your blog, they are only visitors to it. Just ordinary, transient visitors who seldom come back. They turn regular or loyal readers of your blog only if they find quality content in it. If the content of your blog lacks quality, they would not waste time reading it.

Thus a highly informative, quality content maintains a good inflow of traffic to your blog. It attracts visitors who ultimately become loyal readers of your blog.

Now let us see how a good content with a good topic helps you get valued ads from Google Adsense.

You may write a fine content on a very trivial thing, for example, on ball pen refills. But even a content of the highest quality written on  trivial product can’t expect high valued ads from Adsense. You can’t hope to earn much from such a blog. But if you are blogging about cars, laptops or digital cameras, Google Adsense would serve you high valued ads that would generate higher incomes for you.

I know most of my readers may got confused here. They may argue,” If this is the case, then the credit of getting more revenue from adsense should go to the selection of topic and not to the content.”

I would like them to reconsider their conclusion. My experience is that if you write a poor content on a high valued product, Google Adsense would not accept your blog in the first place. And if it somehow accepts it, the lack of traffic would have an adverse effect on the earning potential of the high valued ads. No blog with a poor content can attract traffic.

However all this is an imaginary situation. Google Adsense does not accept a blog with a poor content.

My formula for getting a high income from Adsense is : TCT(Topic, content and Traffic). So take care of the three factors. Choose a good topic and write a quality, informative and interesting content. Traffic will follow automatically and the combination of three factors will unlease a source of great income for you.

What you must know before applying to adsense

Their can be no dispute that Google Adsense provides you with a great chance to make money online. However you can cash in on this opportunity only if you satisfy certain conditions. We would be discussing these conditions in subsequent posts. Here we take up the first condition : abiding by the rules and regulations of Google Adsense.

The first step in this direction is having an idea of the rules and regulations( policies) of adsense we are required to go by. In this post we are going to have a glimpse of some of the most essential policies of adsense.

The first of them is that your blog should be written in any one of the languages supported by adsense. English is one of these languages.

It is a well known fact that Google loves content. So your blog must be content rich. And the content must be a quality one, original and informative. The more informative the content of your blog, the more are your chances to develop a good traffic to it.

Equally important is the fact that the content of your blog must not in any way be related to pornography, illicit drugs, racial intolerance and other such objectionable things.

Adsense likes blogs with internal and back links, but not the links generated from link exchange sites.

Your blog should not have excessive ads, and ads that are similar to Google Adsense ads in design and color.

Easy navigability of your blog is another important factor that adds to the acceptability of your blog by Adsense.

This is a brief account of the most essential policies of Google Adsense.

But what I am going to tell you now is the most important thing that you must know before you apply for adsense.

If adsense accepts your application, it would serve ads to be displayed on your blog. Since Adsense is a PPC advertising network, it would pay you for clicks on its ads displayed on your blog. But who will click the ads? It’s your visitors. Visitors of your blog constitute the traffic to your blog. Obviously the more traffic your blog enjoys the more visitors you have who might click the ads on your blog.

Remember that your success in Google Adsense depends on the traffic your blog has. So try to build a good traffic to your blog and then continue developing it. This is one of the factors that will contribute to your success in Adsense. We will discuss other factors in the next post.

What google adsense likes?

One of my father’s friends, a doctor in our home town, has been a web site owner for last several years. He purchased a web space and domain name, designed a template with the help of his son and launched his site. After sometime he applied for Google Adsense ads, but Adsense rejected his application.

Why? I think, perhaps the doctor’s site lacked some factors that adsense likes to see in a site or blog?

I have cited the example to show you that Google Adsense does not allow every site to display its ads.

So, here we will see what factors are important for Google Adsense.

Google Adsense gives importance to six factors. They are keyword, domain name, template, content, updation and SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

Let us discuss all these factors one by one.

Keyword : Keyword, in blogging, means a word or a set of words that indicates the content of the blog( or, site). For example, let us this blog.

 Domain name:- Domain name is a set of addresses, or, say, a subset of the internet with addresses. All these addresses share a common suffix. You have two options here. If you can afford, you can  buy your own domain name and blog space, or else, you can get them for free from free blog services like blogger.

Template:- An attractive template for your blog is one of the essential factors for Google Adsense. You can purchase a fine template from blogger and wordpress or get one for free from either of these free blog services. You can also design one if you know how to design a template.

Updation:- Frequent updation of your blog is extremely necessary for Google Adsense. A frequently updated blog attracts visitors and enriches the blog’s traffic. Adsense values it. So update your blog twice or thrice a week. However if you are too busy, update your blog at least once a week. Many great bloggers are in favor of daily updation of blog, but it is not always possible to write quality posts everyday. So I would like to suggest you to be flexible, or say, follow a middle path in this respect. Update your blog as frequently as possible. It will keep your blog alive and brighten your net presence.

Content:- Visitors love visiting with quality and informative content. They continue frequenting such a blog again and again and so the traffic of the blog never dwindles. It goes on improving and so does the income from the blog. So whenever you are going to update your blog, make it a point to write quality posts packed with information.

SEO:- SEO is the abbreviated form of Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving your blog traffic both quantitatively and qualitatively. Besides, it also makes it easier for search engines to find your content. It hightens the rank of your blog in the search engine results. The higher the rank of your blog, the more visitors will it attract.

                      These six factors are important for Google Adsense. If you are going to apply for Adsense ads for your blog, make sure that all these factors of your blog are in order so that your blog becomes more acceptable for Adsense. We had discussed the methods of optimizing your blog in our post. Click here to read it once again.

    

What is keyword?

While writing the previous post, I had not thought that I would have to write a separate post, though a small one, to illustrate the meaning of “keyword”. But I found that some of my friends in my hometown have confusions about the meaning of “keyword”. So I decided to clarify the meaning of keyword through a small post.

The keyword of a blog or a site or a document is the word that indicates its content. You can define “keyword” as a word or a set or string of words that is used by the surfers to find the information they seek on the internet.

As we know, internet is the greatest treasure of information. Finding a particular information from among piles of information on innumerable topics is not easy. It is the keyword that serves as a key to open the lock and find out the required information within minutes.

For example, suppose you want to know about the sites or blogs on “work from home”. You would have to make a search on the internet. You will type “work from home sites” or sites and blogs on work from home or anything like that. And you will find a list of such blogs and sites within seconds.

Here in the example the set or string of the three words,” work from home” is the keyword, because it indicates the content of the sites or blogs.

I have often seen people mistaking the title of an article or a site or blog for keyword. A title is different from keyword. However I some cases they may be identical. For example, let us take the article you are reading at the moment. The title of the article is “keyword”. The content of too of the article is about keyword. Thus the title here indicates the content. So the title itself is the keyword of this article.

In brief, the golden rule to identify the keyword is: Title is not always identical to the keyword, but the content is.  

How to make money from your blog?

A brief look at online earning opportunities

Now your blog is at the threshold of its destination: making money from it. So it time now we discussed how we can use our blog to milk the sources of income available online.

There are countless earning opportunities online you can in on if you have a good web site or blog. As the heading of the post suggests this post contains only a glimpse of these opportunities. We would be discussing them in detail in subsequent posts.

Now let us have a glance at some of these wonderful online money making options for your blog.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense is the most preferred money making option for bloggers and web site owners. If your blog enjoys original, quality, and informative content in good quantity, you can apply for ads from Google Adsense. They say that content is what Google loves most. Another thing important for Google is traffic.

Detailed information about Google Adsense follows in the next post.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate markets like Commission Junction, Clickbank and many others are excellent sources of online income. All you need here is promote and sale products related to your niche and pocket a decent profit. Here I have mentioned only a couple of affiliate markets. There are many more of them out there on the internet. We will discuss about affiliate marketing in a subsequent post.

CPA Networks

CPA networks pay you when a visitor signs up. It’s a good source of online income.

CPM Networks

Here you get paid on the basis of the page view of your blog.

The list does not end here. You can write a quality review for a service or product and get paid for it. You can add your blog to these review networks like payperpost.com and sponsoredreviews.com.

Besides this, you can sell ad space on your blog.

You can write E-books and sell them through your blog.

You can even sell your blog for a handsome profit.

In brief, there are numerous ways of earning through your blog. Only a few of them are mentioned here. We will have more information about these and some other options in future posts.

                                    I know a large chunk of the readers of this blog may consider this post unnecessary. They may think I could have written about the earning opportunities online for a blog in this post. They are right, but I thought it would be better to encourage my readers, especially beginners or first timers and convince them about the earning potential of a blog.

Some more tips of improving traffic..

The ultimate aim of your blog is to make money. The earning potential of your blog depends upon the traffic it attracts. The more traffic the more income.

In my previous post I had mentioned some of the strategies that help a lot to generate traffic. These strategies include Search Engine Optimization or SEO, submitting your blog to blog directories, social networking sites, classified sites etc. Here in this post I would be giving you an idea of some of these strategies and some more tips to increase traffic.

First, Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

What exactly is Search Engine Optimization? In simple and non-technical words, it is the process of improving the traffic of your blog both quantitatively and qualitatively. The higher the position (rank) of your blog in the search results the more visitors will it receive. In other words, you may say that in order to attract more visitors, you will have to optimize your blog.

So, how to optimize your blog? Here are some tips to improve the rank of your blog in search results by boosting the quantity and quality of the traffic it now receives.

The most essential pre requisite for improving the traffic is a quality content. I have stressed the importance of content in my previous post also. The content you write for your blog should be as much informative as you can make it. Written in easy-to-understand words and full of information, your post would draw visitors to your blog.

Links, too, add to the quality of your blog and make it more user-friendly. You have multiple ways here.

First, you can interlink relevant posts on your blog in order to facilitate readers get more information on the same topic.

Second, you can also link up your blog to other blogs or sites on the same topic. If you have more than one blog or site on the same topic, you can establish link between them.

Third, other bloggers or site-owners too may take the initiative of linking their blogs or sites to yours provided your blog consists of quality content. It adds to the value of your blog, because it is likely to unlease a flow of traffic to your blog, a criteria that makes your blog more acceptable in the eyes of Google. As a result your ranking in search engine improves.

You can implement all these strategies at the same time. But the most important conclusion we arrive at here is that you should concentrate on writing quality posts. If you write informative, quality posts for your blog, then you can rest assured that incoming links or back links will automatically follow. Writing quality posts is like walking facing the sun. When you walk facing the sun, you needn’t look back to see whether your shadow is following you.

I have learnt about one more excellent tip from a great blogger. You can try it to generate back links from other bloggers and site owners. This blog is on making money online. There are thousands of other great blogs and sites out there on the same topic. Request those bloggers and site owners to go through at least one good post (in my opinion) on your blog. If they oblige you, you may expect back links to your blog from them.

Try both online and offline to increase your readership. If your readers like your posts they will tell their friends about them. They will also write about your blog in forums and social networking sites. The process may culminate in a dramatic improvement in the traffic of your blog. However the success of this tip depends upon the quality of your blog posts.

Another great way to improve traffic is Yahoo Answers. There you will have to answer questions on your topic. With each answer you will have to provide link to your blog or site in the source box. The process generates back link and free traffic to your blog. You too may ask questions and get answers.

All these are online methods to promote your blog. There are many other online ways to generate traffic. Follow them, but don’t underestimate the importance of offline methods. Tell your friends and acquaintances about your blog and ask them to watch it. They may prove a great source of traffic tom your blog.

Remember that blogging is not a get-rich-quick project. It demands great perseverance and hard labor from you. If you have these qualities or if you develop them, you will achieve success.

How to direct a good inflow of traffic to your blog?

If you know how to have a shop with a large number of customers pouring in, you know the basic secrets of driving traffic to your blog.

Think why customers throng a particular shop instead of going to other shops. You can easily realize that it is because the shop fulfills all their requirements, the shopkeeper is friendly and co-operative with customers, the shop sells quality goods in reasonable prices etc.

If your blog has all the criteria mentioned above, it will flourish. Your blog should have quality, informative posts and you should be friendly and co-operative to your visitors-i.e. welcoming their suggestions generously, commenting on them and readily implementing good suggestions that any of your visitors may have made.

I have gone through many articles on tips to improve blog traffic, and I would like to put them into two categories: traditional and non-traditional or untraditional. Traditional tips are those which are used by ulmost all beginners in blogging. They include submitting the blog to search engines, blog directories, social networking and classified sites etc. These tips, if implemented, are great sources of traffic. But at the same time they are not the only ways to boost your blog traffic. There are some other tricks also that play an important role to obtain great results. Since they are less known and beginners are generally not aware of them, I have choosen to call them untraditional or non-traditional ones.

Let us discuss the topics that help to boost your blog traffic one by one.

                         One of the most important tips is: be regular in updating your blog. If you have time, then make it a point to write one quality post everyday. The impression your readers will get from it is that you are regular and your product is a quality one. This positive impression leaves a favorable impact on your readers’ mind. They curiously look forward to your next post that, they know, is scheduled to appear on your blog the next day. Of course, they expect yet another quality post from you. Quality posts attract traffic.

You have created your blog to express what you think on a particular topic, right? What if people fail to make out what you are saying? So, ensure that the language you write is simple and easy to understand. Great writers always write simple language.

Till now we have been talking about how your blog posts and the language you use to write them should be. Now let us discuss some technical aspects that are essential to improve your blog traffic.

First, submit your blog to big search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. These search engines help a lot to achieve your dream traffic.

Now take the next step and submit your blog to blog directories. There are many directories on the internet. Some of them are toptofblogs.com, blogcatelog.com and others.

After you have submitted your blog to blog directories, it is time to submit it to social networking sites like myspace.com, facebook.com, orkut, twitter, digg and stumbleupon.

The comes to turn of the submission of your blog to classified sites like Usfreeclassifieds, Hindlist.com, adoos.com etc. You may search many other classified sites on  the internet.

These are the traditional ways to promote your blog. Almost all the beginners use them to garner traffic for their blogs. But there are some other ways also. If you follow them you get wonderful results.

One of these ways is writing articles on ezine.com. All you have to do is submit the longer and more informative articles on your blog to ezine.com. If your article is liked by visitors of ezine.com, it would result in creating flow of a new bunch of visitors to your blog. Your continual contributions in ezine.com may also benefit you with a large inflow of traffic. You have to create a resource box of your own. A resource box is a signature file with one or two sentences which link back to your blog. Someone who likes your article has to publish it including your resource box. You thus get back links and search engine placements.

You can also expose your blog to people by posting your articles in web sites, blogs and forums where your topic will be discussed. This enhances your chance to boost your traffic.

Last but not the least is creation of links. The more blogs have created links to your blog, the more your chances of getting page rank and search engine ratings. It upgrades the quality of your blog.

The list of blog traffic tips does not end here. I will write more about some other great tips in my further post.   

How to choose the topic of your blog?

Now that you have created your blog, it is time to start writing posts for it.

                             What should you write about? What should be the topic or content of your blog?

                                                                           

Actually you can create a blog on anything you can imagine.  You can blog even about what you take in your breakfast, or what you like to read at night. But can anything be choosen indiscriminately as the content of your blog attract visitors. Obviously, no

                                                                          

Remember that you are blogging to make money. The earning potential of your blog is directly proportionate with the number of visitors it attracts. If the number of visitors to your blog goes up, it would mean more income to you.

                                                                          

First of all the topic of your blog must have a business value. Advertisements on your blog generate income. So the topic of your blog should be such that advertisers may have the chance to advertise their products. For example, if you write about yourself, advertisers cannot advertise their product on your blog.

                                                                          

My experience is that people love to have solutions to their problems. If you help them solve the problems they face in their day-to-day life, they will come to you again and again.

                                                                           

So create a blog to give them tips, for example, about how they can  multiply their income from the comforts of their own homes in their leisure, or, how they can teach their kids effectively, or what exercises they should take to keep themselves fit and healthy. Problems are endless, so are the earning potential of your blog.

                                                                          

But you can’t write anything unless you have sufficient knowledge about what you are going to write. So acquiring knowledge about the content of your blog is a must. You can take help from the internet about the topic you are writing about.

                                                                           

However sheer knowledge of topic cannot produce great results. You must have a passion for what you write. Passion combined with knowledge makes your writing vivid, vibrant and therefore impressive. So love your topic and be passionate about it.

                                                                           

I have also noticed that people dislike reading long posts. So try to be brief, if possible. Ensure that your content does not exceed 1000 words. But this does not mean that your posts should be too short unless you can’t avoid keeping them so. People generally ignore too short posts and they don’t have time or patience to go through too long ones.

                                                                          

To sum up what I have said by now, the content of your blog should be based upon your first hand experiences, as far as possible.

                                                                          

Last but not the least make sure that your language is grammatically correct. Use simple words and short sentences to express yourself.

                                                                                                        

How to create a Blog?

So create a blog. You have two options : buy a domain name and a blogspace or go to blogger.com. Blogger.com is a completely free service. 

Open an account with blogger.com. 

You will have to think a name you like for your blog. Check in blogger.com if the name you have thought is available. If it is not, then contemplate another name. It will be better if you think of five or six names at a time and check them in blogger one by one. The name which is available will be your blog’s name. Then on your blog will be known  as yourblogname.blogspot.com . This is the format for a free blog account.

                                  But if you opt for buying your own domain name, the format would be “yourblogname.com”.

                                 Then select a template from among the ones displayed there.

Blogging..What is a Blog?

Remember one thing : if you are going to create a blog, you may be in the process of creating a source of a solid online income.

                       The secret of your success in blogging lies in adherence to some rules that will be mentioned later. Now the question before us is : what is a blog? 

                       

A blog is a website. A non-technical website. So non-technical, so simple that anybody with the most ordinary computer skills ;- swiching on the computer, using the mouse, browsing the internet and sending emails etc. – can create it. You need not be a web master to create a blog. You just go on sending posts and all your posts are arranged in a chronological order. It’s so simple that you can start within minutes. 

Work From Home

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”


                                               -Douglas Everett 


Do you know a person, employed or unemployed, who does not need money?


The truth is that you will or can never find such a person on this planet. The employed earn, still they try to multiply their income. The unemployed need money, because it is inevitable and a prerequisite for their survival. 


You may fall in any one of these categories. And I am sure you would not mind spending 2 or 3 hours a day from the comfort of your home to earn online. Those who are unemployed can have more time to engage themselves with more concentration, and pocket a decent income which may be several times more than what their employed friends earn in a month.


This blog is for you regardless of whether you are employed or unemployed, or whether you are 16 or 60. Since you are visiting this blog, I suppose you have a basic knowledge of computer, a computer with internet connection, some spare time which is usually wasted in useless and unproductive activities, a keen and burning desire to earn money and a decisive perseverance. And this is all you have to invest in the quest of an excellent online income. 


I have tried to explain all the tips(ways to earn online) in easy and comprehensible language so that the willing visitors may follow the ways without any difficulty.   


The ways of earning online suggested in this blog are genuine and, if followed yield excellent financial benefits. All you need is to follow the guidelines given in this site.