Blogging Blog

Though almost embarrassingly late due to unforeseen complications, here is my earnings update for September 2006. Last month wasn’t particularly strong in overall blog earnings for me. Overall revenue was down 18% from August 2006 - not a positive sign. The reasons? I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly what’s gone wrong. One of my blogs skyrocketing in traffic and revenue, while another plummeted in traffic, revenue, and average ad value. The rest were pretty much flat across the board. Unfortunately, it was my most successful site which took a nosedive, thus the overall drop in revenue.

Looking at the chart, you’ll notice that Chitika is gone - I don’t make any significant income from Chitika anymore, so I don’t feel the need to include them on the chart. I’m down to just 2 profit sources - I definitely need to diversify to help minimize my risk. Text Link Ads increased it’s percentage of my revenue, from 13% last month to 17% this month. This is partially due to the fact that my TLA revenue went up, but also because Adsense revenue dropped.

Ok, so the facts are out of the way. Now, what am I going to do to make sure that I don’t have the same poor results in October? Well, for starters, I’ve begun to dabble in a few affiliate programs that piqued my interest. I’m working on developing ways to promote them so I can diversify a little bit. I hate having all my eggs in 2 baskets - it just makes me nervous. Next, I’m going to focus a little bit more on my two most profitable sites, and decrease the number of posts on my less profitable sites. After all, I am in this to earn some money, and hopefully go full-time one day. You don’t get there by wasting time on unprofitable things.

That about wraps up this post - how did your September go?

Comments are one of the single most powerful tools at your disposal. And no, I’m not talking about you leaving comments on other people’s blogs - although that is important too. I’m talking about getting as many comments as possible on your own blog. I know what you’re thinking - if it was that easy, I’d already get hundreds of comments. And you’re right - it isn’t easy. But you do have some say-so. You can increase the number of comments you get - sometimes drastically. It’s all in the way you post.

Remember, some times of posts naturally garner more comments than others. If you write a 500 word essay and call it a post, chances are that 90% of your readers fell asleep or left before finishing it, and those that did finish it learned everything they needed to know, and thus have no reason to comment. You need to stay concise - short and simple. If you leave some things unsaid, you may end up with a few questions in your comments.

Question posts are also very powerful comment gatherers. If your entire post is a big question, you can expect more comments. However, you can end quite a few of your posts with questions - that works too. If you ask your readers a question, there’s a good chance they’ll answer. The more comments you get, the more active your blog is, and the more readers you know that you have locked in. A repeat reader is very powerful indeed, as he’s likely to tell his friends about your blog. Word of mouth advertising is still one of the best ways to get known.

What are you doing on your own blog to get as many comments as possible?

The secret to making money online is not complicated. It doesn’t involve any sort of voodoo or use of The Force. You don’t even have to know any of the martial arts. All you need to do to make money online is Be convincing. Sound like you know what you’re talking about. A phrase I love to use is “Perception is Reality.” Let that sink in for just a moment, and really think about what it means. Perception is Reality. If a customer perceives that you know what you are talking about, then guess what? You know what you’re talking about - whether you do or not. And the end result is that the customer buys whatever you’re selling, or buys whatever you’re promoting. And of course, you get paid.

You don’t need to be an expert on the product that you’re selling. You do need to be familiar with it, of course. But it’s not necessary for you to know everything there is to know about it. Most successful people in sales are not experts on the product they’re selling. How are they successful, you ask? They are convincing. They create the perception that they are experts, and they know what they’re talking about. The create the perception that their product is the best on the market, and it is available at a price that represents a good value. Once this perception is created, it turns to reality in the customer’s mind, and he’s hooked. A sale is made, and money passes hands.

If you want to be successful at making money online ( and I think it’s fairly safe to say that we all do ) then you merely need to work on your salesmanship. Be convincing. Work on creating a perception and watch it turn into reality - and money.

Adsense Gold is probably the most well-known tool in the Adsense statistics genre. Some of the tools to help you track and optimize your Adsense performance are free - Adsense Gold is not. It’s not even cheap - it will run you $97. Why in the world should you pay for a tool to help you make money? It seems contradictory, after all. You’re trying to make money online, not spend it. There are dozens of reviews for Adsense Gold online, most of them promoting it completely, and basically saying that it is the ultimate Adsense tracking software. Of course, they are promoting the product so you’ll go buy it via their affiliate link.

Adsense Gold does a tremendous job of providing you with raw information. You can tell which pages get the most clicks, have the highest CTR, and earn the most money. You can tell which ads pay the best. You can even track clicks based on the referrer - which means you can tell who is sending you profitable traffic.

Now that you have all this information, what are you going to do with it? After all, if you just gather the information and sit on it, then you wasted $97. It’s now time to make adjustments. See which ads pay the best - and consider targeting ads like it more frequently. If certain referrers convert very well, consider trying to get another link from them. On the other hand, if you participate in a paid link program and one of the referrers converts very poorly, drop them!

Remember, your overall goal is to make more money. Right off the bad, you have to recoup the $97 that you spent on Adsense Gold - and that’s not just $97 in revenue, you need to make $97 in additional revenue, on top of whatever you would have made before you purchased the software. Is Adsense Gold worth it? I don’t know, that’s for you to decide, not me. If you feel that it is, then Click Here. ( That is, by the way, an affiliate link. If you do decide to purchase Adsense Gold, please do so via that link. Thank you. )

Google is undergoing their next Page Rank update - woo! Page Rank certainly isn’t as important today as it was in the past - there’s no question about that. However, there is some cachet to having a high PR site - it makes you part of a semi-exclusive club. Maybe even more important, it tends to offer a little bit of “trust” to your page. Information on a PR8 site tends to sit better than information on a PR0 site.

As part of the PR update, I’ve decided to offer a little contest. No, there won’t be any money prizes - I don’t have any to give away! Here’s what I can offer. To the person who guesses Blogging Blog’s new PR, and is the first to post it in the comments, I’ll put a link to their website in my sidebar for the next 30 days. Remember - you have to be the first to post it, and only one guess per person. Good luck.

That’s right - it stinks. It doesn’t interest me, or 99% of the people in the world. They don’t like what you are writing about, they don’t like how you write - they don’t even like your design for Pete’s sake.

So what?

If 99% of the people hate your blog, you should be thrilled. That means that 1% of the people love it - and that’s fantastic. 1% of an incredibly huge number is still a very large number - and that means you’ve been successful. Everyone should wish that 99% of the world hated their blog. We’d all be much happier, and have fatter wallets.

Read that carefully - and I’ll say it again so it will sink in. Your blog’s theme doesn’t matter. If you’re a new ( or new-ish ) blogger, you truly need to take these 5 words to heart. Let’s face it - most of us are very busy people. We have to juggle work, family, children if we have any, and our online ventures. We only have a small amount of time to spend on blogging. I’ve seen many bloggers fail simply because they spent a vast amount of their blogging time tinkering with their blog’s design. Perhaps they switch themes often, or write their own from scratch, or just play around with the CSS code.

The problem is that the more time they spent playing with the design, the less time they spent writing content. There are 0 blogs I read because of their design. There are dozens I read because of their content. So remember - when making the decision between changing your theme or writing a solid post, write the post. Every time.

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I have a post up at my “fun” blog, “16 Things Google Trends has taught me.” Check it out if you have a moment, and if you like it, Digg it!

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Google never rests - they’re always working on something new for us to try out. Their latest offering is a 200×200 Adsense ad unit.  I like seeing new ad formats - especially small ones like this  “small square.”   The more variety, the more flexibility I have in designing my site.  Anyone plan on using this new ad unit?

First and foremost, decide what you want to write about. No one likes a post that goes absolutely nowhere - it’s annoying. Once you’ve decided on the topic, figure out your goal. Is your post intended to inform your readers, provoke thought, start a debate, or perhaps even ask a question?

These two very basic elements will be the differentiating factors between a good post and a great post. A great post is clear in the topic and the goal. A good post may have one or the other down, but is a little bit fuzzy in the other area. Be clear.

Once you’ve decided on a topic and a goal, begin writing. Don’t be hard on yourself yet - write whatever pops into your head. You can always change things later, but often you cannot remember lost ideas.

After you’re out of ideas, start editing your post - and be tough on yourself. Quality is far more important that quantity here. You want to be sure that your original message comes across exactly the way you intended it. You also will want to cut out some of the fat - remember, editing is absolutely crucial, and is a step you cannot afford to skip.

After you’re finished, re-read your post from the beginning, and make sure that it reads the way you want. Only then should you post. The results will speak for themselves.