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Written on 9/26/2004 at 3:02 pm by

Advertising in your RSS Feed

Filed Under: RSS

One of the disadvantages of RSS reeds and the increasing numbers of people reading blogs via News Aggregators is that those bloggers running advertising on their blogs can only expose their readers to ads when those readers actually surf to the blog in question. Banner ads, amazon individual ads and ads like Google’s adsense don’t translate too well (at all) through RSS. There has been quite a bit of attention recently given to finding ways to incorporate advertising into RSS feeds in recent times to get around this problem. Moreover Technologies have just announced (see press release below) that they can now deliver such ads through RSS. Of course the revenue from these ads doesn’t seem to end up in the hands of the blogger or webmaster running the sites but in Moreover’s hands – but maybe one day we’ll see a system like Adsense (or maybe Adsense will incorporate it) that will enable contextual ads through RSS. Until then it might be worth considering ways in which you can actually draw your readers to your site from RSS.

Moreover Press Release

Moreover Technologies Announces Intelligent Delivery of Contextual Advertising In Free RSS News Feeds



Delivery to RSS news readers respects users need for high-quality aggregated news while serving relevant advertising

San Francisco, CA – September 21, 2004 – Moreover Technologies, the premier provider of aggregated online current awareness and business information, today announced the availability of free RSS (Rich Site Summary) aggregated news feeds supported by contextual advertising – ideally suited for individuals that rely on RSS news readers to track breaking online news.

[Read more...]

Written on 9/26/2004 at 2:35 pm by

GreyMatter Blog Publishing Platform Review

Filed Under: Blogging Tools and Services

Business Blog Consulting has a good review of the Grey Matter Blog Publishing platform that is really worth a read if you’re thinking through which is the best blogging platform for you. Rick describes Grey Matter in this way:

“It’s a server-side, PERL-based platform, like Movable Type, which means, among other things, it requires rebuilds of the archives when you make significant changes to the templates. Joni tells how this process early on crashed her then mom-and-pop web host’s servers and she was polited asked to take her web site elsewhere. (Bad blogger! Yikes!) Also, GreyMatter is no longer being actively developed by its principal developer, although there remains an active, die-hard community of plug-in and hack makers. It is also not so easy to install for novices. For those reasons, Joni suggests it’s better for those who like playing around with the underside of the tools and maybe not ideal for most corporate blog installations.”


[Read more...]

Written on 9/25/2004 at 11:15 pm by

More Search Engine Optimization tips for your Blog

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Search Engine Optimization

There is a lot of articles out there about how to optimize your blog for search engines – Google in-particularly – but this one has some pretty handy tips on SEO and promoting your blog. The key one really is to find ways to get others to link to your site – using the keywords you are targeting on your search engine.

Of course this isn’t always easy – I get emails every day from people asking me to link to them, sometimes for reciprocal links, but 99% of the time they go straight to the trash bin. People WILL link to you if you write quality content and treat them with respect and genuineness. It is also worth thinking a little creatively about this also – if you can actually provide other sites and bloggers with a service that will benefit their blog whilst still giving you a link (with your targeted wording) you can do quite well. This is why our ‘mini medal table’ at our recent Olympics Blog was so successful. We provided bloggers with a free medal table that was updated live with medals won – but the table contained around 12 links back to our site using keywords that we’d chosen such as ‘Medal Table’ which linked to our medal table page. This page was hugely successful during the games – it ranked #1 on google and because it was one of the most searched for terms those weeks we generated hundreds of thousands of visitors.

[Read more...]

Written on 9/25/2004 at 6:39 pm by

eComXpo – Affiliate Marketing Event

Filed Under: Affiliate Programs

eComXpo is an online event for Affiliate Marketers that might be worth ProBloggers participating in. They are planning over 100 presentations spread over 3 days.



“eComXpo is a bunch of folks’ attempt to create a “big-tent” event for the affiliate marketing industry: a single, independent venue where all involved in this industry can educate, be educated, meet, and have fun.

Because it’s being held completely online, the hassles and costs of physical events are avoided. Besides providing enormous flexibility for attendees and exhibitors, it means that this event can be attended by just about anybody, by any organization, big or small.

We expect to make a formal announcement around the first of October.”

Read more at ReveNews: eComXpo

Written on 9/25/2004 at 11:16 am by

Getting Indexed Through Google AdSense

Filed Under: Adsense, Search Engine Optimization

One of the theories that often goes around forums that discuss the use of Adsense is that site that use it get indexed faster and higher than sites that don’t. The theory goes that if you use Adsense – Google will want your site to be more successful (and therefore earn them extra money) and so it will do its best to get your site seen by as many people as possible by giving it a high page ranking. Google denies this to be the case in their promotion of Adsense.

I’ve often thought that it would be interesting to test this theory – but never got around to it. Luckily someone else has.

Search Engine Round Table has done a little tester of the theory and believes Google is truly playing fair and not elevating Adsense sites. They write:

‘I personally tested this out on a site. I put up a new site, made sure not to put any links to it. Then I put up AdSense ads and waited. Months later it was still not included in the Google index. Only recently has it been indexed, and I believe that is because someone, somewhere put a link to it. I strongly feel that this theory, although logical, is not correct.’
Read more at Getting Indexed Through Google AdSense

Written on 9/25/2004 at 12:06 am by

Blog Farming – Fatten your Blog up to Sell at Market

Filed Under: Other Income Streams

Another way of earning revenue from your blog is simply to build it up to sell it. There are not too many examples of blogs that have been sold yet but one that recently went on the market and was sold is Ensight.

I have recently read The E-Myth Revisited and found myself thinking along these lines. In the book it is suggested that one of the best ways to make a profit from a business is to build it up to be sold. He suggested that it is reasonable to expect 10 times the annual profit of a business to be paid for it.

In a sense what we’re talking about here is ‘blog farming’. Similarly to my grandfather who farmed cattle and sheep – he would breed them, fatten them up and then sell them at market – I wonder if we’ll start seeing more bloggers taking a similar approach with their blogs.

I know I’d be willing to consider selling one or two of my blogs for 10 x their annual revenue! Any offers?

You might also be interested to read more about the Ensight sale over at Blog Business World.

Written on 9/24/2004 at 11:17 pm by

Blog Post Formats

Filed Under: Writing Content

Amy at Contentious is writing a series on different types of blog posts which might be of interest to some readers. She’s broken blog posts down into 7 formats and is working through each post (only 3 completed so far.)

1. Link-only

2. Link blurb

3. Brief remark

4. List

5. Short article

6. Long article

7. Series

“Why should bloggers understand and care about posting format?…

Bloggers who clearly understand posting formats and consider them consciously are more likely to choose the best format for each posting they publish – one that suits the content as well as the audience and the blogger’s own resources.

Before you start blogging, it helps to envision what your final posting will look like. Remember: your ultimate goal is communication, so it helps to publish in ways that effectively support communication. For text-based blogs, selecting the right format for each posting is a big part of achieving that goal.” Read more – Found via Weblogg-ed

Written on 9/24/2004 at 6:43 pm by

Webmaster World – Free Advice for Bloggers on Profitable Blogging

Filed Under: Adsense, Affiliate Programs

Webmaster World is probably one of the best places that I can suggest you head over to if you’re interested in developing a profitable blog. It is on my regular rounds of surfing for ideas and discussion about how to get the best out of your website. Of particular interest to me, as a Google Adsense user, is their forum dedicated to the Adsense program. Whilst the discussion rarely mentions blogs and at times can be a little criptic – I’d say I’ve learnt more about how to get the most out of the program through digging through the hundreds (if not thousdands) of threads there. Often users of the forum are pretty secretive about the sites they are talking about and don’t give everything away (and I don’t blame them – tell everyone your secrets and you’ll end up with hundreds of new competitors) but if you’re willing to dig around and read between the lines you can learn a lot.

I remember one afternoon learning one small thing on those forums that doubled my earnings with a simple change to my approach. So it is well worth visiting and participating in the discussions there.

Also in their Marketing section of forums is one dedicated to Search Engine Promotion and another looking at Advertising Sales and Affiliate Programs – both of which are full of useful information.

Add to that the rest of their forums and you’ve got hours, if not days, of rich learning about running a successful website (and most of it is easily transferrable to blogs) – and its all free.

Written on 9/24/2004 at 3:11 pm by

Search Engines, Directories and RSS Agregators to Submit your Blog to

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Search Engine Optimization

Most Search Engines, Directories and News Aggregators will not find your blog on their own – well not quickly anyway – many need a little help and have ways of suggesting sites to be added to their databases.

Big List of Blog Search Engines is just what it says – a big list of Search Engines, directories, and web-based RSS aggregators that you might want to consider submitting your blog to in order to promote it to web users everywhere.