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Written on 3/24/2005 at 1:51 pm by

Google Search Box Ads

Filed Under: Adsense

One of my wonderful readers, Danger, just emailed this question – ‘I was just looking through my adsense reports and it occurred to me that I’m not using the google search box on my site to serve ads. I’m debating whether to employ it and I kinda wonder if a lot of us beginners aren’t asking the same question. Any chance you could do a post about the performance difference between your regular ads and search box ads?’

I will be a little careful in answering this – as I’m not completely sure what Google allows me to say about it in their changed rules. But I can make some general statements without going into specifics of CTR, impressions and earnings.

[Read more...]

Written on 3/24/2005 at 12:55 am by

Adsense Earnings Poll Update

Filed Under: Adsense

The Poll we’re asking in the sidebar this week asks how much bloggers earned from Adsense last month. At the time of writing this 295 readers have voted (thanks everyone!) I’m going to let it run until the end of March at which point I’ll give you a full tally and nice little graph.

It is pretty obvious that a distinct pattern is emerging – over half of ProBlogger reading bloggers earn less than $3 per day from Adsense. A further 14% don’t use the system at all.

These are the sorts of results that I was expecting – the anecdotal evidence I had been collecting through conversations with bloggers over the past months made it clear that very few bloggers using Adsense were making more than a few dollars per day from it. However these results also show that a few bloggers are actually making significant money from their blogging (9% over $1,000 per month and 2% over $10,000).

Its my goal to bring some change to these figures – I’d like to see more ProBlogger readers getting their monthly earnings into triple and quadruple figures in the coming months.

Update: In addition to the numbers you’ve already indicated that you earn – I’d also be interested if readers would give some indication in comments below (anonymously if you’d like) at the percentage rises or falls that you’ve seen in your monthly earnings over the past few months.

I’ll be writing a post in the next few days that will draw on this information and I’ll share a few more of my own earnings figures – but in the mean time am interested in hearing how your earnings from Adsense have changed over the past few months if you’re willing to share.

Written on 3/23/2005 at 3:30 pm by

Random Blog Tip – Contact Options

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

Related to my previous post about About pages I’d also like to make mention of another personal preference that I have – the inclusion of the ability for readers to contact you privately.

There are many ways of doing this – but I’m surprised by just how many blogs give no option for getting in touch with their author, editor or owner. Some may argue that having the ability to make comments is a way of letting your readers get in touch with you – however I don’t find this to be an appropriate way of communication on some topics as it does not ensure privacy for your readers.

I can think of a number of times over the past week where I’ve wanted to make contact with a blogger only to be confronted with the choice of the whole world being able to read my message or to refrain from making any contact at all. In the end I refrained from interacting with the blogger concerned and am unlikely to go back to the blog.

[Read more...]

Written on 3/23/2005 at 12:53 pm by

Ambush Podcasting – Screen Your Skype Calls

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

Watch out Jeremy Wright is Ambushing Business Bloggers.

You might like to screen your Skype calls or you might get asked questions like ‘How do you justify your Existence’.

His Ambushees included:

Nice format actually – which could be adapted quite nicely to different Business Blogging topics.

Written on 3/23/2005 at 12:05 pm by

Wikis and Wikipedia

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

There is a good article over at Wired on Wikis and in particular – Wikipedia. I’m a regular Wikipedia user and often wondered how it got going – now I know.

thanks to Rachel for the tip

Written on 3/23/2005 at 11:37 am by

Meeting Cameron Reilly

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

This morning I spent a couple of hours with Blogger and Podcaster Cameron Reilly.

Meeting face to face with other bloggers is always an interesting experience but to do it with a podcaster added a new slightly surreal element.

Not only have I been reading what he writes daily for months now – I’ve also been listening to him for quite some time, I was quite familiar with not only his ideas but also his voice – weird.

Anyway – once I got of over that (it took all of four seconds and a gulp of coffee) I had a really enjoyable time. Conversation topics were diverse and productive. We talked about potential Podcasts and the idea of a Melbourne Blogger’s Meet Up which I’ll get to work on after Easter.

What I appreciated most about our time was connecting with someone who has a similar desire to see the new mediums that we work in become something that is not just about making a quick dollar – but has the potential to be about making a difference in the world we live in. I’ve long believed that Podcasting and Blogging can be change agents and life giving mediums. It was great to find someone else with a similar vision for medium – not just interested in building a business or a career – but interested in using the opportunities and developing tools before him to play a part in creating a better world.

[Read more...]

Written on 3/23/2005 at 1:04 am by

Add an ‘About’ Page to Your Blog

Filed Under: Blog Design

One of the ways you can make your blog more engaging for readers is to consider adding a feature that I’ve noticed that some bloggers are increasingly avoiding using – an About page.

About Pages: Two of the most viewed pages on my blog here are my About ProBlogger and About Darren pages – this gives me some indication that people reading this blog are a little curious about what this blog is about and who is writing it. This is the case on most of my blogs.

I can only speak for myself – but one of the things that frustrates me about many blogs is that they lack much in the way of information about the author/s of them. For some blogs this is more important than others (and its a personal preference thing about how much authors choose to reveal of who they are) but I find pages without an About page can be quite frustrating.

Why have an About Page?

There are a number of advantages of About pages that bloggers should consider. [Read more...]

Written on 3/22/2005 at 10:24 am by

Introducing The Wealthy Blogger

Filed Under: Case Studies

Jeremy from Ensight today announced the launch of a new blog he and a buddy have been working on – its The Wealthy Blogger - a blog about Money Management. Its a good example of a niche topic that aims to provide good helpful advice whilst providing its owners with a growing source of their own income.

Jeremy engaged my services with a little Adsense placement consulting so am interested to see how it will perform. They seem to be off to a good start if the numbers of comments on each post are anything to go by.

Written on 3/22/2005 at 9:00 am by

Interview with Professional Blogger – Paul Scrivens

Filed Under: Pro Blogger Interviews

Paul Scrivens-1I still remember the day when a friend told me to head over to the 9rules network of blogs to check out the design and style of blogging that was going on there. I surfed in and immediately found myself drooling over a clean and nicely laid out design and reading the content of someone who seemed to really know his stuff.

I’ve often gone back to 9rules and in more recent times have found myself drawn to its owners latest blog – Work Boxers – a blog not dissimilar to ProBlogger in some ways that is dedicated to one blogger’s lessons learnt whilst blogging for money. The Blogger I’m talking about is Paul Scrivens. Paul is also one of the guys behind Business Logs and the author and owner of the recently sold CSS Vault. I respect his work and have learnt a lot off him already since finding his blogs and hope that you find this interview with him helpful in your own blogging enterprises.

ProBlogger – Paul thanks for your time – can you briefly tell us a little about yourself (ie how would you introduce who you are and what you do when you meet a new group of people).

Paul – I am a 24 year old kid who likes to play with new methods of making money on the web. Since there are so many ways to do so I am still wondering around the landscape trying to find the best mix possible. I am not a workaholic or someone that is overly obsessed with his work. I just love doing what I do and hope to continue doing so while also

helping others do the same.

ProBlogger – How long have you been involved in online ventures? How and when did you first discover and enter into blogging? What sites/projects/blogs are you currently involved in?

Paul – I started blogging around June 2003, but didn’t start to make money online till January 2004 when I implemented Google Adsense on Whitespace. Being a web designer I had been reading web design blogs for the longest time, but felt none of them said the things that I wanted to say and so I decided to start my own.

Currently I am involved with all the sites in the 9rules Network.

ProBlogger – Can you give us an idea about how much you earn directly from your blogging activities?

[Read more...]

Written on 3/22/2005 at 4:25 am by

Monkey Bar Blogging

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

Side Monkeybar-1

I’d like to take a moment to make a ProBlogger Public Service Announcement.

Its actually something that I’ve been considering doing for a while now because I’ve had two worrying incidents happen in the past week that have left me somewhat concerned.

The latest of these incidents happened two days ago when I received an excited email from a new ProBlogger reader (I have his permission to share this with you without using his name) who was writing to tell me that he’d just ‘turned Professional’ as a blogger and quit his job to go full time with blogging.

His email was written in an excited tone and was full of grand visions of blogs that would make lots of money. Not only was he excited but his partner was also as they had been reading numerous stories of bloggers making their riches from the medium over the past week. They have two little kids and he was excited to be able to stay home with his family to write each day and be able to provide an income for his family.

The email left me with a sinking feeling in my guts as I considered the decision that this guy had made to quit his secure job to become a Professional blogger. You see he’d only started his first blog a week ago – the day he handed in his resignation.

[Read more...]