5 Google Adsense Alternatives

Google Adsense is a great tool that webmasters can use to make money with their website. They way it works is you copy and paste a code on to your web pages that Google supplies you with. Then google searches its database of ads and posts them to the web pages you put the code on. You get paid each time someone clicks on that ad. Google and the publisher split the revenue It is referred to as pay per click and is a great way to make money with a website.

However, google is no longer the only pay per click ad network that webmasters can use to make money from clicks of visitors on their site. Google was the first to come up with this method, but recently there has been a rise in ad networks like this. Many webmasters are switching to a different ad network and seeing surprising results. They are earning more money per click.

This is actually not surprising seeing that Google announced last year that it was cutting back the percentage publishers earned per click(translates to Google keeps more of the profit share). This results in publishers making less money since they only get paid when someone clicks. This is why you should take a look into some alternatives to Google adsense.

Here is a list of 5 alternatives to Adsense

1. Yahoo
2. Pepperjam
3. Adbrite
4. Adsmart
5. Chikita

Yahoo is probably the best out of those 5. Many people report that yahoo pays more per click than Google does which is not surprising. What sets Yahoo apart from other Google Adsense alternatives is that it has a large amount of advertisers. This means that a visitor is less likely to see the same ad on multiple pages. This ultimately leads to more clicks which leads to more money. The other small publishers may provide some great short term success because they pay a lot per click since they just got into the game and are looking to build up business.

Aside from making more money you might have a different reason for switching to a alternative. Google is notorious for shutting down people's for click fraud. When someone clicks on their own ads it is called click fraud. When Google things one is clicking their own ads they shut off their account and it is difficult or impossible to get your account back. The bad part about this policy is that often times a sites visitor repeatably clicks on ads to get that persons account shut off. If you experience this you will want to look for a Google Adsense alternative because getting your account reopened can be difficult.

Author Bio
If you would like to learn how to make money online and make money on the internet visit his Justin‘s personal website. There you will find many free resources and instructional articles to help you make money on the internet.

Useful Tips on How To Make Money Online

Difficult times often call for desperate and difficult measures to earn that much needed income. With the advent of the internet, earning is no longer as difficult with the availability of various modes to earn tangible income from virtual transactions. Note these tips on how to make money online, and start generating income in no time.

1. Explore your online money-making options.

The internet is a lucrative hub of information that points not always to plain entertainment but also to useful income-related activities. Check the internet for a multitude of money-making options, from online marketing and advertising of your products of other people’s products, to offering writing, editing, graphic, or clerical services. If you are wondering about how to make money from the comfort of your own home, these full time or part time online ventures are perfect for you.

2. Invest on your interest and skills.

If you find yourself more passionate in the sales and marketing aspect of your online activity, pursue it in depth to master the details. Explore related activities. For online content writers, you can also earn from blogs and essays, as well as from other SEO activities.

3. Follow through and expand!

The question of how to make money online will be easily answered once you dedicate yourself in mastering your chosen venture. For affiliate marketers, you can earn more by expanding your site to cater merchants selling a variety of products. You can employ other marketing tools to maximize visitor count and site visibility such having keyword-rich contents and expanded links. Before you know it, you could be your own boss in your affiliate program. These tips on how to make money online are guaranteed to help you earn as much as you can over the internet.

What Is The Best Way To Make Money Online?

"What's the BEST method of making money online?" or "What's the best way to get to $X,000 per month online?"

If you're really looking to make money online and you're just getting started, it seems like a reasonable question - after all, you don't want to waste your time on something that's NOT the best method, do you? You want the best, fastest, easiest method to make the largest amount of money online possible.

If you've ever asked that question, let me give you an important piece of advice... There is no BEST way to make money online. There are SO many ways you can make money and build a business on the internet and they are all very different disciplines. If you're just getting into this stuff, you're going to be coming across a whole lot of these methods and all of them will be telling you they're the best... There's eBay, Pay Per Click Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Writing Content, Surveys, Niche Marketing, Blogging, Article Marketing, Adsense, List Building, Product Creation, JV Partnerships, Ebooks and so many more.

So how does knowing this help you? It helps you because it lets you change your question from... "What's the best way to make money online?" to "What's the best way for ME to make money online?"

Already you're on a much better track. How do you know what's the best way for YOU to make money online? You need to know about yourself. Each of the methods above require specific skills, attitudes, and strategies, some of which you will be good at and enjoy, others you'll be terrible at and hate.

Here's an example:

Blogging is a great way to make money online. But to make money with blogging, you need to do a lot of writing. You need to write content, write articles to promote your site, write guest posts on other blogs, and more. If you aren't good at writing (and you don't have money to outsource) blogging may not be the best option for you to choose in making money online.

Pay Per Click marketing is a great way to make money online. But to make money with pay per click marketing, you have to spend alot of time researching affiliate programs, and setting up ads, with minimal contact with other people. If you're a people person, you're soon going to get bored and quit sabotaging your own success with this method.

The best thing to do as someone starting out in online marketing is get a SMALL sampling of many of the different methods available for making money online in search of one that really fits with you.

Then when you find something that you feel like you're good at and you enjoy (and here's the key)

You STICK WITH IT!

The only other mistake you can make than choosing the wrong method for you, is choosing the right method, and then changing your mind among the methods so many times that you never make any progress on any method!

But that's the subject of a whole new post.

Finally, here are some guidelines for finding what method could work best for you.

• If you already have a great deal of knowledge in any particular field (I mean ANY field) you could be sitting on a million dollar information business.
  

• If you're a great writer and love expressing your thoughts and knowledge, you could be the next super blogger and make a fortune.
  

• If you love research, spotting opportunities, and "trading" (buying low selling high) you might find PPC marketing fun.
  

• If you have existing experience with Ebay - you might find it easy to transition a hobby into a full Ebay business.

And of course there are many more.

By finding the method that is right for you, you increase your chance of success at making money online by 100% straight off the bat. It could take time. Some people take years to find what clicks with them online, but when you find it, it won't be long before you see the money flow.

Having earned almost a million dollars over the past three years as an online marketer, Andrew Hansen is a leading expert in the field of blogging and affiliate marketing online. Get your free report on finding profitable niche markets and making thousands of dollars per month from them at http://geo-earnonline.blogspot.com.

Bidvertiser: A Smart Alternative to Google Adsense

We all know that placing ads on your blog can make you a substantial amount of money. When it comes to choosing the company most people choose Google Adsense because of its popularity and consistency. However, I have found that Bidvertiser is also a good alternative to Google Adsense.

Reasons I like Bidvertiser

1. Bidvertiser's payout is only $10 which is a lot better than Adsense's $100. This allows people to receive payment more frequently. Many blogs take a while to generate $100 dollars in earnings so $10 looks more friendly is easier to achieve.
2. Bidvertiser pays by check. For some people who don't have Paypal like me, this is a huge advantage because it allows me to monetize my blog.
3. For people who have blogs or websites that pertain to making money online, Bidvertiser is for you. I have learned that for these kinds of sites, Bidvertiser outperforms Google Adsense by a fair amount.
   

Bidvertisers pay per click is around 10-15 cents for me. There are both text ads and banner ads of all sizes. Another cool thing about Bidvertiser is the ability to accept and decline ads that you want on your site. If you see an ad you don't particularly want on your blog, then you can just decline it.

Using Adsense and Bidvertiser

There are a number of people who use Bidvertiser along with Google Adsense. This is a great idea because it diversifies the ads and gives you two places to make money from. From what I have heard and read, the results are pretty good for this.

Referral Program

• When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, we'll credit your account with $5. When that same advertiser spends $50, you will be credited with an additional $20.

• When a user signs as a publisher and first earns $10, we'll credit your account with $10. When that same publisher earns $50, you will be credited with an additional $40.

Bidvertiser's referral program is great, but so far I haven't had much luck with it.

If you have had problems with Adsense you might want to consider Bidvertiser. It's reliable and can really help your blog make money.
my blog http://geo-earnonline.blogspot.com/

32 Days to Success - A Proven Strategy For Reaching Success?

Earlier I told you about a new online money making program called 32 Days To Success. And with the official program launch only a couple days away (March 1st) there is a flood of new free stuff being given away at the http://32daystosuccess.com

And this stuff isn't the typical things you see people giving away, but hours of great content packed videos that give detailed information on several ways to make money online.
Currently, James has just release a "secret video area" with 3 videos that show you some easy ways to start making money online.

Video 1 - This is all about a cool way to make money online by just playing games. Definitely great if you're one of those type of people that play online games.

Video 2 - This goes over a whole bunch of effective ways to get quality traffic to your site and how you can make money by driving free traffic to sites online. Really worth checking out if you're looking for ways to make money online or if you're looking for some great ways to promote your own website.

Video 3 - Shows you how to set up a cash generating online business with minimum effort (in fact 99% of the work has already been done for you with this).

You can get insider access to these videos by just going to the http://32daystosuccess.com website and signing up. You'll get access to these videos and a whole pile of other cool videos and content like a 33-page report that tells the story of how a high school dropout made $122,672.24 in just 32 days.

James has put in a lot of time and effort into creating the 32 Days to Success program - and it really shows. Simply put, this program will teach you how to make money online.

The techniques he teaches are proven, time tested “money-getting” strategies that have been making people money online for years. And because of this fact, you can be sure they'll make you money online too - despite the current economy situation

There are even people making money with the free info he’s been giving away all month. So if you’re looking for ways to make money online I’d recommend you check out http://32daystosuccess.com. website.

A Make Money Online Update

Hi Folks... no... I'm not deceased!

Thanks for the 1247 emails over the past couple of weeks. I was down and out with a vicious Flu bug for a week and then spent some quality time on my favorite golf course just to get back into the swing of things - pardon the pun.

I have not made a dent in reading all the mail in case you were wondering or worse - are waiting for a reply. My email is just silly!

On a personal note - I am touched by how many of you wrote to see if I was alright or if there was anything you could do. I'm fine and amazed at how many great people I have met through this crappy little blog. Thank you all - it really meant more than I can say.

I just want to touch base on a few topics so this post isn't going anywhere in particular.

As most of you know Vic has begun his Affiliate Academy and asked if I would help moderate. I, of course, am honored and will try my best given my time constraints. I have received quite a bit of mail about the Academy and need to clarify a few things. Believe it or not but I haven't had a chance to talk to Vic yet and I'm not up to speed on what is happening over there yet. I know he has had some bugs and is busy ironing them out - the joys of starting a new program online. Unfortunately I have been blocked from most of the site as a result and am in the dark about most of it so please send your questions on to Vic. Hopefully I will get a chance to talk to him shortly and get up to speed. I really haven't wanted to add more to his plate at the moment.

For those interested in knowing more about the Affiliate Academy Vic provided me with the following link. Affiliate Academy Registration or head over and check out Vic's videos on Blogger Unleashed. Affiliate Academy Videos I suspect at this stage there won't be too many of you who aren't already familiar with what Vic is doing as we have most of the same readership. If anyone can fill me in on how things are progressing please don't be shy.

Forums

I have been getting links from forum threads for some time and a lot of them are private forums in which I can't join in - I'm not a member. I get mentioned in relation to my views on various topics and Adsense is prime among them. It appears that there is a lot of confusion over when to add Adsense to your new blogs. I thought I would touch on this briefly as I would like to explain my reasoning for NOT adding Adsense to a new blog and only adding it when the right conditions are met. I used to tell people to get some posts up - 10 or so - and wait til G started sending some traffic. I have a much more refined approach these days and I think it is worth sharing with you. I know many of you are making at least some money from Adsense after having followed my advice and I say this just to get across my bona fides. I have never had anyone tell me they make money following the advice of Joel Comm - advice they paid for. There may well be other methods of making money with Adsense but all I see is countless followers of the "get as many sites making $1 a day as you can and smart pricing be damned" method. This is just so inefficient and "2 years ago" that I'm not sure anyone else has really figured Adsense out yet.

Not long ago I mentioned how I doubled my Adsense Income. The post referred to Smart Pricing and why it was important not to use Adsense on poorly targeted sites. I won't get into smart pricing again (you can follow the last link) but I want to show you what has happenned with the blog I used as an example of in the previous post. The blog is now 7 months old. It had been earning $20 - $30 a day for several months when it suddenly grew in earnings after I quit being smart priced. This happened in early August. Below is the earnings for September from the same blog. From $900 per month to $1800 per month and growing. If you look at the last day in Sept. you will see that the blog broke through the $100 a day barrier. Actually, as happened with the blog you are now reading - it didn't just climb to the $100 mark, it raced well on by. Yesterday it made $126.38. It is now my 7th $100/day blog. It will bounce back and forth for a while as all the others do (the more money you make with Adsense the bigger the swing in earnings from day to day - a $10/day blog may make $8 or $12 but usually close to consistent. A blog making over a hundred dollars a day can make $175 one day and $65 the next in an extreme case - a $20 swing is normal.)



I harp on Adsense for a reason and use this example to point out a few things. The blog in question is only 7 months old. Many of you have been with me for longer than 7 months. Many of you have asked me how long it takes to make any real money with Adsense. I would say you have an answer although to be honest that is the fastest I have had any blog turn a $100 day. This MMO blog took a year and a half. Those of you who have been with me since the beginning have seen me take 7 blogs to that level - a little over two years. So in two years I have 7 Adsense blogs bringing in a rough average of $700 per day. I have no technical computer skills. I use free crappy looking Blogger blogs that any technically challenged person can operate and I am trying to teach brand new bloggers how to make money online. That is why I harp on Adsense so much. It is something that absolutely anyone can master and provided you don't screw up - is continuous... day after day...

Now don't get me wrong - it ain't easy but it is doable if you do things right. Yes, finding the right niche is crucial. I have many failures but have put those blogs to other uses. I can't tell you the niche to pick but I can give you some pretty accurate tips as to what to look for from my own experience.

All 7 blogs rank number 1-3 for their main keywords. They all broke the $100 barrier between 500 ad impressions and 1500 ad impressions daily. Some average as low as $0.60 per click and some as high as $2.00 - none are high CPC niches. This means you want a niche that can deliver 500 to 1500 people a day to your site. You want a niche that has people looking for an answer to a question - sounds obvious but most people don't realize this. This blog does well because a lot of people are looking for the answer to "how to make money online?" All the blogs save this one have only one form of monetization - Adsense. There are few links to leave the page other than ads or backing out.

All the blogs are highly targeted to their keywords. I say "highly" because they have to be to do well with Adsense. Google ranks them on top of the serps and you can't get more highly targeted than that. Because they are so targeted they get the best adsense ads - meaning the highest paying and or converting - whichever brings in the most daily revenue. The majority of traffic comes from search engines and not social sites. This means the traffic is highly targeted. When highly targeted visitors visit a highly targeted adsense ad good things happen for all involved - I get paid more and the advertiser gets the type of traffic they were paying for.

None of the sites are splogs - the content is decent, bordering on very good and most of all, highly relevant to their respective keywords - just as this blog is.

None of the blogs are pretty.

Only one of the blogs has a readership - this one.

So... I bet it would help if I showed you what it takes to create a perfect Adsense blog in record time in one of the most competitive niches online. Guess what? I already have...

Let me introduce you all to Make Money Online with Grizzly

Okay so you've seen it already but guess what. It is ranking on pages 1-3 on Google for the term "Make Money Online" depending on your data center. It will be 3 months old on Oct 5, 2008.

Below is a screenshot for the keywords I'm receiving traffic for - notice the prevalent keyword "make money online".



Notice the similarity to the keywords used to find this MMO for beginners blog.



Granted the new blog is only getting 20 - 30 hits a day as it bounces in and out of the top pages but this only confirms that it is moving up nicely and in record time. What it really tells me is that the site is highly targeted in Google's eyes and I could now ad Adsense to the blog. I won't get smart priced as the traffic is finding me predominantly for my main keyword. If you have a wide range of long tails that aren't closely related then don't use Adsense. This is how you know when to ad Adsense. Any sooner and your traffic will not be targeted and you will suffer poor clicks and possible smart pricing. If you can't generate targeted traffic - don't use Adsense.

How often do you post? The new blog has a grand total of 5 posts. It is a PR3 and is now ranking well in Google. You now know just how little content or PR is needed to rank well in a very competitive niche. Imagine how easy a less competitive niche is to dominate.

It has about 100 backlinks - yup - that's all.

The thing is the backlinks are mostly keyword anchored for my "make money online" keyword or are closely related. This folks is the key and what I have been going on about for some time now.

Forget all the advice you read elsewhere - get targeted backlinks and you will make money online using Adsense.

Study the blog - it won't take long. Check my links. There is no secret weapon being used. The site is an example of the bare minimum needed to make money online. You can see what I have done and how long it has taken.

Btw. I still wont ad Adsense until I get a few hundred hits a day on a consistent basis and only if the traffic remains targeted.

If you are a beginner I urge you to conquer Adsense first. In doing so you learn all the SEO you will ever need and then you can easily move on to other types of monetized blogs. Learn how to get targeted traffic and everything else will follow naturally.

I had more I wanted to talk about but this is long enough for today. I'll be back soon with something related that I want to share with you.

Till then,

Cheers,

Making Money Online with Social Traffic

Can you make money online with social traffic?

This is the million dollar question and believe me people are desperately trying to do just that - make money from traffic generated through social networks like Stumbleupon, Digg, Entrecard etc. So far the general consensus is that social traffic doesn't convert into buyers or at least not very well. In fact, the only meaningful money being made from social traffic is indirect - sites that have managed to attract a large enough audience are able to sell advertising. They make money not from the social traffic but because of the social traffic - advertisers are willing to pay in hopes of attracting the traffic to their product or service.

Most people are familiar with the so called A-List blogs. These blogs for one reason or another have managed to attract tens of thousands of readers or subscribers and are able to sell advertising as a result of their large readership and their blogs subject matter. They post large earnings and this in turn has spawned legions of others trying to duplicate the success of the A List. So is it working? Not really but rather than dissuade people, as I usually do, from following this strategy I want to make a couple of suggestions that can drastically improve your chances of gaining a large enough readership to enable you to make money from advertising.

My regular readers know that I myself do not chase social traffic nor do I promote it. Search engine traffic provides me with a good income without requiring all the work necessary in promoting a social site. However, I am always looking for new ways to make money online and if it can be made from social traffic then so be it.

The blog you are reading is for better or worse, an Adsense blog. My goal with this blog is to rank well in Google for as many "make money online" terms as I can and earn money from the revenue generated from Adsense. All in all I have been quite successful and make a decent buck - about $100 - $125 a day. My serp rankings generate several thousand visitors a day - most from Google.

The funny thing is - I also have a lot of regular readers. Rather astounding in light of the fact that I don't do anything to promote a readership. I don't stumble, digg or bookmark. I avoid forums as much as possible (a huge time sink) and I have never made a YouTube video. In general I DON'T do all the things I see everyone else doing that IS trying to build a readership.

So the question is this - why do I have more readers than most of the sites who are trying to get readers? Am I doing something that they (you) aren't?

Yes. I'll get to it in a moment...

Some of you may think that quality of content has something to do with it and you are right - good content will make people subscribe and keep them coming back. The thing is almost all of you chasing social traffic have quality content. What you are lacking is a means of getting new people to your site. Most of you belong to one or more social groups and are able to build up a few hundred RSS subscribers and even a few hundred links from your friends within the social circles you frequent. Unfortunately you soon run out of new people in the group and everything stalls. No new blood - no new subscribers.

The trick to building large readerships is not found in the social networks - it is found in the search engines. The bulk of my readers haven't found me through social networks - I don't use any. Yes, a lot of readers have been sent this way from my online friends but the vast majority of my readers found me while searching for information on Google. Remember I push thousands of people through this site everyday and a few actually stop and read - some end up subscribing.

Now I know what you are saying - great if you happen to get search traffic but most of you don't. I want to make two suggestions that will drive search traffic to your social blog and both suggestions are easy to do.

I am going to use two blogs as examples. Both these blogs have great content and a small existing fan base. Many of you are in the same position as the sites I am about to look at so apply what I say to your own blog and watch what happens.

Turnip of Power is a blog about Social Networking. Turnip's blog is on a mission to find ways to make money from social networks. Using Google's Keyword tool there appears to be about 15k searches a month for the term "social networking" and another 15k or so worth of searches for related terms. Turnip has spent a year building the site and has about 180 RSS readers. The problem is that Turnip doesn't get any of the search traffic looking for social networking sources. If the blog did get search traffic I can guarantee the RSS numbers would be much higher. Turnip can make two little changes in order to rectify this situation - changes I urge all of you to make if you are after readers.

The number 1 mistake - of all time - when it comes to search traffic is...

Most of you don't tell Google what your main keyword is. You tell Google what the name of your blog is but in most cases the name of your blog and the subject matter are totally different.

Here is Turnips Blog Title. (Click images to enlarge)



I'm showing you the title as you see it in a browser window because this is what Google sees. Turnip's blog is about "Turnips" and "Power" as far a Google is concerned. In reality the blog is about social networking and Entrecard. In fact Google can decipher this using the blogs content but when it comes to serp ranking the sites that use "social networking" or "Entrecard" in their Title will far outrank the sites that don't.

Quick fix - Turnip should add "Social Networking" or "Social Networking with Entrecard" to the blog Title. The on-page title can stay the same (In the header) but remove it from the Blog Title tag and only use keywords relevant to the blog content.

Let me show you something. Turnip has 600 links according to SEO Elite and just about every link pointing to the site has "Turnip" or "Turnip of Power" in the anchor text.



As a result Turnip ranks number 1 in Google for the term "Turnip of Power" and probably ranks not bad for "Turnip". This would be great if the blog was about turnips and people were searching for turnips in droves. The thing is no one looking for blogs about "social networking" will ever find Turnip's site. Would you think to type in "Turnip of Power" if you were searching for info about social networking?

Quick fix - I'm sure Turnip knows most of the people linking in. Ask all the friends linking to you to change the anchor text so that the keyword "social networking" is used and not Turnip of Power. I can guarantee that any blog with 600 backlinks using the right keyword would rank on top of the serp's.

I have used Turnip's blog as an example because it is the type of site that contains quality posts and the owner has above average work ethic and most importantly some actual talent. Given a steady stream of new visitors there is no reason that the site couldn't gain a large and loyal following. The problem until now is that Turnip has really only used the Entrecard traffic to build the site and after a year this has only netted 180 readers. A lot of work for little results.

A note to everyone - notice that my link to Turnip's blog above uses the keyword and not the blog name. I have just given Turnip the first Good link in a year. All of you can and should link to each other the same way - use a keyword that is relevant to the site you are linking to and stop using the person's name or blog name.

Another site I want to show you is Kathy's Online Humor blog called The Junk Drawer.

I feel like a total shit as I promised to give Kathy some tips a while ago and just haven't got around to it. Kathy I am sorry but I didn't forget about you - just swamped. I have met a number of exceptionally talented writers online and Kathy is as good as they get. I believe she could become quite well known if only people knew she was there. The two things I just told Turnip to do applies to Kathy as well.

In Kathy's case her blog title is "The Junk Drawer". A cool name but not something that someone will type into the search box when looking for a humor blog. Kathy you can keep the name in the header but change your blog title tag to "Humor" or "Online Humor" or "Humorous Stories Online" or well, anything related to humor.

Secondly, like Turnip, Kathy has a ton of great links but all of them use "The Junk Drawer" or "Kathy" in the anchor text of the links. Kathy I know your fans love you (I do) and if you asked them to change the anchor text to various "humor" related keywords they probably would. Do it - you won't believe how quickly the search traffic will come.

It has taken me ages to convince people that these two SEO tips make all the difference in the world when it comes to getting search engine ranking and the traffic that comes with it.

If you need convincing please drop in on RT's Philippine blog called Untwisted Vortex and ask him what happened when he changed his title from Untwisted Vortex to Philippine.

Or, ask Fiar what happened when he changed the title of his Radioactive Liberty blog to Political Humor.

Or, ask Chanya about what happened when she changed her Blogstruk title to Blogging Tips... oh wait... Chanya you haven't done it yet! Tsk Tsk.

A word of warning - I'm expecting all my friends to get with the program and make these simple little changes and if they don't I will list the whole works of them in my next post and give em' all such a verbal ass kicking that I won't have any readers left. :-)

Do it folks - let the search traffic find you. It is well worth it.

Cheers,

Does Trackback Spamming Make Money Online?

submit-trackback.com and Trackbackspider.com - Two of the biggest scams online.

How much spam do you get? If you are using Blogger you probably don't get much - if any. I don't. Not so with wordpress blogs though.

Look at my spam from my Make Money Online wordpress blog.

Click all images to enlarge.

Wow 79 new spam messages - half in the form of comments and half from trackbacks. As I was scrolling through the assorted dr*g and S*x spam I came upon one that made me laugh...

Check out this loser...



The highlighted spam is from the dipsh*t who is responsible for most of the crap you see in your spam folder each day. If you don't see the irony then let me spell it out for you - this Trackback spamming software that he sells and others use doesn't work. His own spam talking about how his software can fool the anti-spam software like Akismet didn't fool ummmm... Akismet.

A lesson for all you aspiring spammers - pay attention because you are all noobs and haven't learned how to do a little research before wasting both your time and money on all the crap being pedaled online by arse-wipes like the owner of Submit Trackback. Never mind that this nose-wipe couldn't get past Askimet using his product - his own website is a failure which should tell you just how ineffective his product is.



You would think a guy bragging about getting "Millions of links" would have a PR8 at least and should have ranked himself for all the highest traffic keywords online thus bringing in thousands if not millions of visitors a month. I can get a PR3 with a dozen links and my Make Money Blogging site has an Alexa rank of 285,000 and it only gets 50-60 visitors a day. (Alexa is pure crap and has zero value but I'll use it anyway.)

This joker also brags about ranking #1 for the term "trackback software" which is funny as a quick check on Keyword Elite and Google's Keyword Tool shows no searches for that term.

I have talked about this before - before you buy anything that promises to drive traffic to your site or claims to teach you SEO or guarantees you a higher PR check out the site selling the product. Here is a prime example of what to look for. This website sells nothing but spamming crap including the Submit Trackback software just mentioned. The site is called getbacklinks.net and I love outing this kind of sh*t.


By all means check them out and ask them why they can't seem to rank higher than a PR1 if the products they sell are so effective?

If a site tells you how to rank number one in Google for a term like "How to Make Money" then they had better rank number 1 on Google or pretty damn close. If they do then maybe you should listen to them - if they don't then find the site that does. (hehe...)

If a site tells you to buy something from them then at least check to see if the product worked for the seller - 99.9% of the time it doesn't so save your money.

So does spamming make money online?

No!

And the sooner you noobs, who get sucked into this learn it - the better.



Alright - enough fun for one day - down to business.

The Asia'h Contest is Done.

I'm trying to give away $500 bucks and I need the paypal emails from the top three ranking sites for my Asia'h Epperson contest. It is officially over and while no one outranked me I still want to give away the cash.

At the moment I have heard from Elliot who sits in 8th spot with his Squidoo Lens http://www.squidoo.com/allaboutasiahepperson.

All those who attempted this contest get your results into me by Saturday November 15.

(Who knew giving away money could be so hard?)

email me with Asia'h in the subject line here Grizzly

That's it - except for a quick shout out to a new friend in Ireland that I have been getting to know over at Vic's Affiliate Academy. Dave has a quick wit and has just launched a new site called Niche Renegade and I want to wish him well.

On a related note Courtney Tuttle has been missing in action for a while and has come out swinging with a brand new site. He and long time collaborator Mark have just launched a new blog catering to a topic close to my heart - Keywords. Check them out at The Keyword Academy

Cheers,

How to Make Money Flipping Blogs and Products

I'll keep this short and to the point. It has been a long time since I found another marketer who impresses me. To impress me you only have to do one thing - show me a system that actually makes money and is easily duplicated. Ok two things - show me the system for free. That's not really asking much is it? The list of marketers who meet this criteria could be counted on one hand. In other words there are very few people that really make a living online using a system that can be divulged to others without it causing the system to stop working.

I tell people (for free) how to make money online using SEO and Adsense.

How to Flip Websites and Products for Profit

Jason AKA The University Kid has a system for selling product and flipping websites that he has made available for free. Read the post linked to above and then shuffle over to his new site MakeMoneyDynamo and download his free ebook which explains exactly how to make money online selling ebooks and then how to make even more money by flipping the ebook's domain. It's a clever system that can be duplicated as many times as you feel motivated to do it.

In case it matters I am not being paid to promote this (it's free anyway). I simply want to offer my readers another alternative for making money online and to introduce you all to Jason who caught my attention a while back and has steadily built up a site that delivers real info and real methods for earning a living online. Keep it up Jason - you are a breath of fresh air in this niche.

Btw - I am on vacation (yes - again) while waiting for the lake to finish freeze-up and haven't touched my emails for the past two weeks - sorry if you have been waiting for a reply. I am busy with some real world business matters at the moment but should be home in the next week.

Cheers

How I Find A Money Making Niche

How I Make Money Online... over and over again

I've been in Winnipeg for the past couple of weeks and in between taking care of some Lodge business I spent the best part of a day tutoring an old friend in the art of making money online. I've known Jim for about 15 years - he's a mechanic and travels north every few months to work on various pieces of heavy equipment. He is an avid car buff and rebuilds old cars in his spare time. This led him to join several internet communities who shared his passion which then led him to start his own website which led him to learning that some people could make money with a website which led him to start searching for methods in which to do so which led to him finding a blog that explained the process. In Jim's words "I spent 3 days reading the blog before bothering to see who the writer was - I clicked the about page and fell off my chair - it was YOU!"

This has happened frequently over the past year. I have tried to separate my Lodge business from my online business but more and more friends from the "real" world have been coming across this blog and while they don't know me by my online nick name (I got it years ago when I bar tended my way through University) they quickly put it together when they see the about page. Unfortunately this is something I was hoping to avoid. Let me explain.

I spent most of yesterday sitting in the airport waiting on plane delays (weather related) and finally took a peak at my mountain of emails that have accumulated over the last two weeks. As usual there were a few that I wish I had read in a timely fashion. (Court, Monika, Chanya, Frank - sorry, will be getting back to you today) The rest can be categorized as follows; people asking me to review their blog, people asking me to JV with them, people asking to advertise on this blog, people writing really nice comments about how my blog has helped them and not asking for anything (thank you all), people wanting to trade links, people asking to pay me to mentor them and of course the usual spam. There are also a fair number asking me why their blog isn't ranking well on Google without supplying me with all the pertinent info.

Having spent a day with Jim I learned a great deal. He reminded me of just how confusing this whole MMO biz is and gave me an appreciation of just what beginners are facing these days. I confess that I have lost touch with a beginners point of view as it has become a fairly easy game for me. Bruce who runs a work from home blog asked me on the Affiliate Academy

Bruce's comment

forum a few weeks ago about this very issue;

You always make it sound simple but I am questioning what I am missing and probably others are missing as well or everyone would be succeeding like you are.

I worked hard and was seeing some real nice results up until about a month and a half ago. I was a happy camper as I was solidly on page one of Google for a handful of terms and getting more and more search traffic.

I've mentioned this before but now the bottom has come off and I am way down to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th pages if at all for most of my terms. It started and has continued where I would take two steps back (in the rankings) and then one step back up. Over and over until I am where I am now. (talking about my main blog only here)

I have done nothing differently to my knowledge to start this downfall and so I am wondering how someone like you (or anyone) can have such spectacular success. I have now gotten out of AMA and deleted all my articles so that no more will be published but this all started way before that.

This is my big question: Is it the quality of your links? I have to think that your ability to get better links than most is a very important factor in your success. You write with the best of them but it seems that your SEO can only take you so far.

Bruce's comment has stuck with me and after working with Jim I've mulled this issue over a great deal.

Why does this seem so simple to me and not to others?

Put the coffee pot on and I will tell you all a story.

When I started online web 2.0 didn't exist. Social Media didn't exist. I started out knowing from day 1 that if you are going to make any money online you needed a steady stream of traffic and the only way to get that traffic is with Google.

I have never changed my position on this. Google is still and always has been the best source of traffic online. Social media showed up and everyone jumped on it because it is easy to get traffic using social means. The problem is that social traffic is sporadic, requires hours and hours of work to maintain and in the end it doesn't convert well into money. You have all heard this from me before but in spite of this almost everyone of you still chases it and this is your downfall.

I had several emails informing me of yet another list of "Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs" that doesn't have me included on the list. My readers like to rib me about such things and I must have a hundred emails asking why I am not on the former 45n5 list. The fact is that these lists are part of the problem - many of you are trying to get on these lists and that's because at the heart of the matter you are a blogger looking for recognition from other bloggers. You want to be the next Problogger and spend all your time trying to get attention from other bloggers thinking this is the road to making money. Well yes it is a road but you have no idea about just how much traffic you need from the social arena before any serious advertising offers show up.

Do you realize that most large advertisers won't even look at you if you aren't pulling in at least 250,000 unique visitors a month? Do you have any idea of how much traffic that is? That's 8300 visitors a day - every day. That's 350 visitors every hour or almost 6 visitors a minute - every minute of every hour of every day.

You think that stumbleupon or digg or making a top 100 list or commenting on blogs is going to get 6 visitors a minute to your site month in and month out? And now the harsh part (and I don't mean to insult) you think that your site is so unique and interesting that 250 thousand people will keep coming back to read it. Okay - so you realize that maybe you aren't the most talented and interesting writer so you resort to gimmicks like starting a Top 100 list in hopes that people will spread the word and maybe even use your Badge and send you links. Or you will run a contest. Or you will give away a free ebook to pad your RSS numbers. Or you will come up with any number of tricks or treats to get people to your site. And then they are gone...

Perhaps the hardest thing to realize is that you aren't talented enough to capture 250k of readers based on your writing alone. Let's face it - if you are an exceptional writer word will get out and you will eventually have thousands of followers without you having to chase them down. Think about that. If you need contests and lists to keep people coming back then maybe you aren't producing value that will do it naturally.

But Griz - social media gets me links.

Sure it does - for your name or blog name. All useless. Ranking in Google for your name won't get you traffic.

Yes many of you finally understand the power of keyword anchored backlinks but you are trying to get them using social media.

And that is your downfall. You are at heart a blogger and not an internet marketer. You want to rank on Google but wouldn't it be nice to combine that with becoming well known.

I spend zero time using social media - okay, I have stumbled a few friends blogs in the past and tried everything half assed just to see what the fuss was about but always toss these networks to the side.

I do one thing and one thing only - I study Google.

I experiment constantly while you guys are socializing. I don't read about SEO from others - I learn it first hand. I have developed a system that while changing as G changes still proves to be the most effective way to make money online with the least work involved.

The first rule I have is focus on the task at hand - making money. Toss your dreams of becoming famous out the window as it will simply sidetrack all your efforts.

Find a Niche

Yes I slap up hundreds of blogs to test the waters with but I do have a general system in place in order to find the best niches.

I always start with the goal of making money from Adsense. Why? Because it is the largest advertising network in the world. 5.5 billion in sales last quarter - 1.7 billion in profit. Google has a 67% share of search traffic and is by far the biggest source of traffic online. All the social media sites combined don't handle any where near the daily traffic that Google does.

If you want to make money online then go with who provides the most traffic and use the largest advertiser. In this case Google just happens to be both. A no brainer.

How I do It

I look for niches that can provide me with at least 1000 visitors a day. I didn't say keyword - I said niche.

I look for niches that have enough keywords to provide me with 1000 visitors a day.

I want a niche that lets me build keyword rank in ascending order from least competitive to highly competitive. (I will show you what I mean below)

I want a niche that is competitive.

I want a niche that has lots of Adsense advertisers.

I want a niche that allows me to write long rambling posts.

An Example

Make Money Online

Just for the hell of it let us pretend I could possibly dominate a niche dominated by such well known bloggers as Darren Rowse, Shoemoney, John Chow and the rest of the A-List. And just for a lark let us pretend I could do it using a free Blogger Blog that looks like crap. Why - well maybe if I did people might catch on that you don't need a fancy looking site like the experts claim and that you don't really have to spend money on hosting either. Yes - a bold claim I know. Some people might even figure out that nothing makes people click on Adsense ads better than an ugly site.

So if I was to take on this task how would I do it.

First off I would target a long tail keyword that contains all my shorter competitive keywords in the long tail.

I would use a variation of the long tail for my URL.

example

"How to Make Money Online for Beginners" - my long tail
makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com - my URL

or

"How to Learn Knitting for Beginners"

or

"How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies for Beginners"

These are all examples of killer long tails. Why? Because they contain "How to" and "Beginners" in them. One term "How to" is used by people looking for information. I use "Beginners" because people will notice it in the serp's and click on your site because they are likely beginners looking for info on "How to" do something. And they contain my prime and secondary keywords as well. Let me show you.

How to Make money Online for Beginners - least competitive. A Long Tail
How to Make Money Online - more competitive. A secondary keyword.
How to Make Money - very competitive. 50,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Make Money Online - extremely competitive. 27,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Make Money - really extremely competitive. - 200,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Money - the big Kahuna - 3.3 million searches last month. The prime keyword.

This niche also allows for literally hundreds of related keywords that you can rank well for and though the traffic might not be much for any particular term they all add up.

Making Money Online Anonymously

The longer I blog online the more I realize the irony involved in making money with Adsense. I'll get to that in a minute though... first up...

A big fat PR0 - yup - the big G finally slapped me good. Why?

Well when all your pages are reduced to the big goose egg it is usually a sign that they perceive you to be selling links. Am I selling links? Nope. But I can see how they might get the idea based on the amount of links I have on my homepage. I could write them and plead my case - I have a lot of friends and all my links are legit but I'm not going to. I have said this for ages - has nothing to do with pagerankserp rankings and perhaps dominating the MMO niche with a big fat PR0 site will get my point across in spades. For those who were concerned my serp rankings haven't changed and the SE traffic is still pouring in.

How this happened is likely the result of some "friend" who reported the site as selling links. You will find that dominating a popular niche is a constant battle with competitors and they will do whatever it takes to unseat you.

Which brings me back to keeping anonymous online. Yes I know this goes against every blogger's deepest desire - to get famous. The thing is I'm not a blogger - I'm an internet marketer and my goal is to make money. You make money by flying under the radar and I want to give you all a prime example of what I mean.

I don't post often. I get a lot of emails asking me to post more. There is a reason for not posting (aside from being lazy)... I make more money not posting.

Huh... wtf you say.

Tis' true... let me show you what I mean.


Some Adsense Secrets

This has taken a long time to decipher and I'm still not convinced that I have it right so don't take this as gospel but...

3000 ad impressions a day seems to be a magic number with Google.

The screenshot below shows my Adsense income for January (for this blog only) - the January 18 (today) total is not final as it shows my earnings early in the day when I took the shot.

After two months of lower than normal earnings (lack of advertiser competition I believe) my January earnings bounced back nicely and until a few days ago were on course for a new high with this blog.

Blogger Public Service Ads Fix

If you are using Blogger and run Adsense then you may have awoken this morning to find all your Ads are showing Public Service Ads (PSA's).

First off don't panic!

Second stop sending me emails! Lol.

There is an easy fix.

Why this happened is unclear but appears to be connected to several recent and ongoing changes within Adsense and Blogger.

If you are showing PSA ads then you are using the Channels feature available when setting up your ads in Google Adsense. This method requires you to set up your ads in Adsense and then transfer the code supplied over to a html/javascript Gadget in Blogger.

Simply remove all those html/javascript Gadgets (just the ones using your Adsense code) and replace them with the "Adsense" Gadgets provided in Blogger. This means opening an "Adsense" Gadget, selecting the ad format you want and then place it in the appropriate location. These ads don't require you to use Adsense setup.

The PSA ads will be gone but you will not be able to track your ad blocks as you did using the code supplied by Adsense setup.

Cheers,

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Let me start by apologizing ahead of time for being a manipulative bastard. I've just finished a set of tests on this blog and now I want to explain a few things to you about the world of Internet marketing. Some of this you will have heard before but even you seasoned readers should read on.

I just convinced several hundred people to download a firefox add-on that apparently doesn't work and only Paul from Internet Marketing Product Reviews dared mention that Brad Callen's products tend to be crap. After having a few PPC friends check their own ads with the PPC Web Spy tool - we found out that it didn't bring up their keywords. In fact it looks like the tool simply digs out the relevant keywords and CPC much like keyword elite does from the same source - Google. It doesn't appear to show the advertisers individual keywords or bids after all. If any of you use PPC then please check your own ads and let me know if the tool is working.

Why do so many people trust the word of others (yes even me) and never bother to check things out for themselves?

This is the X factor.

Do you know who really succeeds online? The people who think for themselves, the people who take everything with a grain of salt and verify things on their own. The people who know how to separate the bullshit from legitimate information.

I shouldn't have to tell you folks to verify the things I say. You should be doing it on your own. Now I realize many of you wouldn't call bullshit on me in the comments out of friendship or respect but no one did it quietly in an email either. I can list on one hand people who have taken me to task in the past - Fiar from Political Humor, Gary from Everything Everywhere, Frank at How to Earn Money Online and a few others. I love these guys and can tell you they will be successful. They sniff out the bullshit and think for themselves. (I don't want too many links but Terry, Trent, RT, Splork all belong in this category as well). Considering the amount of readers I have the list is small. I'm not trying to insult anyone or show a lack of respect - I truly value all the friends I've made with this blog but I am trying to point out one of the biggest factors when in comes to being successful online or elsewhere.

Think for yourself.

Why do the A-List have such large fan bases? Because the majority of people trying to make money online don't think or verify anything. They just follow along doing whatever the so-called expert tells them to do. They are a gold mine for anyone who wants to manipulate them. I can just imagine how much money I would have made if I had told everyone that PPC Web Spy was a great affiliate product and buy the upgrade!

I joke all the time about how I am just setting my readers up in order to scam you all big time one of these days. The scary thing is I probably could. (I won't but I'll keep threatening)

Now there is a point to this other than being a jerk. A recurring theme in my emails is "Please talk more about internet marketing". The emails aren't asking for advice on selling "Oil Filters" - the people all have MMO blogs of one kind or another and they want in on the whole "selling IM products to Bloggers and IMer's" niche. Now instead of me telling you how broke you will be following that path I set up this little experiment to show you results instead. I'm not pulling the PPC Web Spy banner down just yet. My readers have had a crack at it and now I will see what kind of response I get from my search traffic.

Here are some stats.

9156 visitors have seen the banner.
218 people downloaded it with my link. No idea how many may have downloaded it without the link.
No one paid for an upgrade. (Thankfully)

So you want to sell to internet marketers huh?

I only got a 4.2% conversion for a "free" download. And not a single sale.

Remember I have a lot of targeted traffic, I'm seen (I think) as reasonably honest and this is all I could pull off.

How well do you think you are going to do selling to other Internet marketers?

One of the biggest problems with this whole online biz is assumptions. People assume a site with 5000 visitors a day must make a killing selling things. People see someone with 50,000 feed readers and assume they get 50,000 visitors a day - not. Do you really think Darren Rowse makes a killing everyday selling the crap in his banners? No. He makes money selling ads to others who put up the banners and they make nothing from his traffic. The assumptions stem from the fact that no one who has a large traffic base is willing to tell people just how few affiliate sales are made in the IM niche. Rowse won't admit it or he wouldn't get advertisers willing to pay big bucks to put their ads on his site.

One of the reasons for me adding that banner is to gauge my own CTR when it comes to selling advertising space on top of my blog. I have run a few different banners just to see what an advertiser might expect. The results are woeful. In fact after this episode I don't think I will offer the ad spot. My Adsense revenue takes a beating (a loss of about 30% ctr every time I've added a banner). This means charging an advertiser at least $50 a day for the ad. Unfortunately the advertiser won't get their money's worth and that bugs me. I know others would just sell the spot and don't care about the results but I don't want my name dragged through the mud for ripping people off.

You have all heard the saying that there is no money in selling to other bloggers. With the exception of the developers and their handful of super-affiliates this is true. Even then the return is small. Callen may make a few grand from his latest venture but he won't retire on it. In a month he will be flogging something else. He has too to keep a steady income coming in.

But Griz - you're in the MMO niche so there must be money in it... right. Yup - using Adsense there is. Selling products? Nope. ( Yes alright - with my targeted search traffic I could probably sleaze out a living scamming beginners but would you want to do that?)

Think on this. If I put through 9000 people in two days on my shoe site how many affiliate sales (or leads) do you think I would have compared to the IM crowd? Actually it's not as high as you think but still a world away from IM. On average my conversions are in the 8-12% range and sometimes a lot higher when a hot seller comes along. Strangely enough I still tend to do better with Adsense than affiliate sales. The thing is, civilians buy and click. IMer's don't and while you are tired of hearing this I thought some hard numbers might get the point across. If I can't make a good buck selling crap to bloggers do you really think you will with a fraction of the traffic?

I'm sorry if I sound harsh and that I have avoided answering all the emails asking for help in this area. The fact is I don't want to encourage any of you to follow the IM path. I'm not hogging it for myself. It just isn't a profitable business model and especially for beginners. Learn SEO and get non - IM niches to the top of the serp's first. Once there you can experiment and flog whatever you like but at least you will have traffic to flog it too. And there is always Adsense if nothing else pans out.

Most importantly - learn to question everything and everyone. I don't mean that you should become a cynical bugger - just have a healthy skepticism about what you hear and learn how to verify the claims you come across for yourselves.

I just want to mention this - a congrats of sorts. While I was typing this up Lane left a comment on the PPC Web Spy post.

Here is part of it.

(1) When I click on each of the advertisers, they don't necessarily have the specific keyword that I queried for on their list. For instance, I just typed in the keyword phrase: buy perfume. The top advertisers are clearly looking for people looking to buy perfume, as their ad reads "Buy Perfume at Sephora" However when I click the "View Keywords" button, NONE of their ads listed are about perfime -- they, like several of the other advertisers listed show ads about other things liked shaving cream and acne.

Why don't I see the keyword that I was searching for?

(2) Sort of related to the previous question... Since I don't see the keyword that I am looking for, how can I tell which advertisers are the lower priced one that I would want to eliminate?

Finally someone actually used the tool and realized something fishy is going on with it. Well done Lane. The answer to your questions btw - it's a piece of crap.

Again sorry for misleading everyone with this download - I just had to make a point.

Don't believe everything you read online - check it out yourselves. I don't mind people calling bullshit on me. It means you are thinking things out.

I hope you will all forgive me but I imagine the old feedburner cancellations will start about a minute after posting. I hope not as my intentions were honest.

I will provide the search stats for the banner in a few days.... and then it will be gone.

Cheers,