Getting Your News Into Google (Again)

In Getting Your News Into Google I showed the basic steps involved in getting your news (via an RSS feed) into the Google search engine. I forgot to mention another way to do it, however, and that’s to use Google’s blogsearch ping feature. It’s something they added a few months ago — until that point they relied on pings from third-party ping aggregators. Now you can ping Google directly whenever you have new content. This information is buried here, though, so I’m not sure how many people know about it.

It’s been two days since the ferry travel site I mentioned submitted its feed to Google, so what are the results? As you can see from this query, Google’s blog search now incorporates results from the FerryTravel.com feed, which is exactly what my reader wanted to happen.

Now that the site’s listed, though, there’s some more work to be done. The titles of all the pages need to be reworked. Ideally each page should have a unique and descriptive title that includes relevant keywords. Don’t just repeat the site title over and over. Here’s some reading about the proper use of titles for SEO:

AdSense publishers, take note: the title is also used by the ad selection algorithms (along with the page URL, headings, etc.). So it’s not just for SEO purposes that you want to do this.

Then there’s the sitemap issue. Whenever possible, provide a sitemap for your site. Actually, two sitemaps: one for the humans (so they can find their way around) and one for the search engines (so they can find their way around). See my previous post Google Sitemaps 101 for details.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 30, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 2 Comments 

AdSense Notifier Goes Crazy

Heart attacks among AdSense publishers may have spiked yesterday as Google changed something in its management console that caused the AdSense Notifier to show bogus data. Here, for example, is what mine is showing this very minute:

The earnings shown are way lower than they should be for the reporting period in question. (Since the data is bogus, I can safely display the stats here.)

As you can see, though, Allen Holman (the plugin’s creator) is aware of the situation and will have a fix out for us soon.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 29, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 2 Comments 

Getting Your News Into Google

There was an interesting discussion yesterday in Shoemoney’s blog about learning money-making secrets from the “gurus” where he nicely plugged my first AdSense book. (Wish he’d plugged the second, though, because I make 40 times more per copy with that one!) The discussion revolved around whether ebook writers were actually selling their “secrets”: if they were, why were they so stupid to do so, and if they weren’t then they’re just fraudsters. Read the post and the comments, they all make good reading.

Today I’m going to talk about something more mundane, which is getting your blog listed in Google. One of my readers runs a ferry travel site that specializes in ferries operating in the Washington, British Columbia and Alaska regions. The site is actually the online extension of an offline business, one that seems very useful to me. They’ve got a great keyword-based domain name, they’ve got decent PageRank (3 or 4) on the important pages. They seem to be doing everything right. So what’s wrong?

One of the unique features of the site is the ferry news section, which features newsworthy and usually time-sensitive ferry travel information. But you can’t find that information in Google. So what should they do?

When you have news you’d like to get into Google, the best thing you can do is get listed in Google News. But you have to be a news organization for this to happen. So what’s the second best thing to do? Getting your feed into Google.

A feed is a resource list stored in a special format. Most feeds are associated with blogs nowadays, but that’s not how they started. Feeds can list pretty much anything. If you have news, you can build a feed out of it.

Luckily, the ferry news site already has a ferry travel news feed up and running. That’s the hard part. All they have to do now is get it into Google.

Here’s what you do: create a personalized Google homepage. Click the “Add Stuff” link on the right side of the page, then click “Add RSS feed” on the left side of the resulting page. Enter the feed address. Your feed will now show up on your personalized home page. Google will eventually start indexing it, which is what you want. It usually happens pretty quickly, too.

Oh, and get a link or two from someone else’s blog. That helps, too.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 27, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | Comments Off 

MEMWG is now… MEMWG

As of today I’ve officially changed the name of this blog from Make Easy Money With Google and AdSense to simply MEMWG, with the tagline The Unofficial AdSense Blog. Many companies do this kind of name change as they evolve, witness how the National Cash Register Company eventually changed its name to NCR Corporation.

We’ll see how this goes. MEMWG isn’t very pronounceable, but neither is my last name (to English speakers — think jee-gair) and it did have a spammy quality to it that probably turned off some potential readers. It was named that way because of my first AdSense book, of course, whose name was actually chosen by the publisher’s marketing department (and I couldn’t come up with anything better). This blog has gone way beyond that book and many people were already referring to it as “MEMWG” anyhow, so going forward this should be an improvement.

Most of the adjustments have been made, I’m sure there will be things to tweak over the days to come, let me know if you see anything really bad. No URL change is required, thankfully, since I’ve had to suffer the ill effects of that twice now.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 26, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 3 Comments 

25 AdSense Alternatives

As everyone surely knows by now, I’m an AdSense fan. In some ways this blog is the “unofficial AdSense blog”. Or at least, I’d like to think so…

I do get asked on occasion about alternatives to AdSense, either from people who are dissatisfied with the payouts (and the payouts definitely vary a lot) or people who’ve been banned or suspended from the program. I can’t say I’ve researched the topic much. I did list a few programs in Uncommon AdSense based on things I’d tried myself (Chitika in particular, which seems to work quite well for product-based sites and blogs) and things others had recommended to me (such as the Yahoo! Publisher Network, which I’d love to try but can’t because I’m not a US resident). But except for the occasional affiliate link here and there, the majority of my focus is on generating AdSense income.

If you are interested in AdSense alternatives, Ben Shaffer has a new ebook out called AdSense Alternatives that lists 25 AdSense alternatives, including:

I don’t think it would be fair for me to list all 25 here. Pros and cons of the various programs are listed, but you’ll have to look closely at each program to determine which ones are or aren’t for you.

The book is about 50 pages long, only about half of which is devoted to the list of AdSense alternatives. At $27 it’s a bit pricey for what you get unless you count the bonuses, which are:

The latter looks interesting, it’s a PHP script to put up “buy now because there are only XXX left” type offers on a page.

That’s my nutshell review. If AdSense isn’t your cup of tea, or you’re looking to diversify, AdSense Alternatives might be a good resource for you.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 25, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 3 Comments 

Notebook Keyword Bid Prices (Part 1)

In the US, the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the start of the Christmas shopping season and one of the biggest shopping days of the year — “Black Friday” is what they call it. I thought we could do some keyword analysis in the month before Christmas and see what’s happening from an advertiser’s viewpoint.

As it happens, I need to buy a new notebook computer, so I’ve been looking at various prices and such online. So let’s start with notebooks. I generated a fairly long list of keywords using the AdWords keyword tool and then ran those keywords through AdSenseAccelerator to get a list of keyword bid values. This is what I came up with:

Keyword Bid 1 Bid 3 Bid 4 Bid 6 Bid 7 Bid 10
computer forensics $7.59 $5.06 $1.46 $0.95 $0.17 $0.08
laptop security $4.48 $3.19 $1.53 $1.03 $0.34 $0.19
laptop notebook computers $4.04 $2.89 $0.64 $0.44 n/a n/a
computer repair $4.03 $2.88 $1.07 $0.69 $0.20 n/a
laptop computers $3.93 $2.84 $0.64 $0.43 n/a n/a
buy laptops $3.90 $2.82 $0.70 $0.48 $0.35 $0.20
gaming laptops $3.89 $2.79 $0.44 $0.26 n/a n/a
buy laptop $3.84 $2.60 $0.57 $0.36 $0.20 n/a
computer security $3.83 $2.70 $0.51 $0.30 $0.18 $0.09
bargain laptop $3.82 $2.74 $0.52 $0.33 n/a n/a
computer help $3.82 $2.72 $0.81 $0.52 $0.26 n/a
business laptops $3.81 $2.69 $0.43 $0.26 n/a n/a
laptop pcs $3.73 $2.67 $0.61 $0.38 n/a n/a
laptop pc $3.67 $2.59 $0.39 $0.22 $0.14 $0.07
notebook computers $3.58 $2.56 $0.47 $0.30 n/a n/a
buy notebook computer $3.53 $2.36 $0.42 $0.25 n/a n/a
deals on laptops $3.43 $2.47 $0.62 $0.40 $0.07 $0.05
cheap notebook computer $3.37 $2.44 $0.61 $0.39 $0.11 $0.06
wireless laptops $3.26 $2.35 $0.61 $0.38 $0.10 $0.05
buy notebook $3.14 $2.09 $0.19 $0.09 $0.05 $0.00
cheap notebook $3.08 $2.26 $0.38 $0.24 n/a n/a
laptops deals $3.05 $2.20 $0.45 $0.26 n/a n/a
small laptop $3.05 $2.20 $0.52 $0.33 $0.09 $0.05
cheap laptop computers $3.04 $2.23 $0.31 $0.19 $0.05 $0.00
laptop sale $2.97 $2.19 $0.37 $0.23 n/a n/a
cheap new laptops $2.95 $2.12 $0.90 $0.62 $0.52 $0.31
laptops deal $2.95 $2.14 $0.45 $0.30 n/a n/a
small laptops $2.94 $2.10 $0.44 $0.28 n/a n/a
laptop deal $2.92 $2.12 $0.48 $0.34 n/a n/a
laptop memory $2.91 $1.94 $0.46 $0.28 n/a n/a
laptop sales $2.90 $2.06 $0.38 $0.22 n/a n/a
gaming laptop $2.88 $2.09 $0.60 $0.37 $0.10 n/a
laptops $2.86 $2.03 $0.36 $0.20 $0.10 $0.05
used laptop computers $2.82 $2.08 $0.50 $0.33 n/a n/a
smallest laptop $2.81 $1.99 $0.37 $0.22 $0.09 $0.05
cheap laptop $2.80 $2.01 $0.41 $0.25 n/a n/a
laptop computer sale $2.80 $2.07 $0.47 $0.31 n/a n/a
cheap notebooks $2.79 $2.05 $0.41 $0.26 n/a n/a
portable laptops $2.76 $1.97 $0.43 $0.25 $0.07 $0.05
lenovo laptop $2.75 $1.98 $0.15 $0.07 n/a n/a
laptops notebooks $2.75 $2.00 $0.62 $0.41 $0.22 n/a
thinkpad laptops $2.75 $1.97 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop batteries $2.72 $2.03 $0.71 $0.62 n/a n/a
laptop repair $2.68 $1.92 $0.42 $0.24 $0.09 $0.05
tablet notebook $2.66 $1.93 $0.31 $0.17 n/a n/a
laptop deals $2.64 $1.92 $0.47 $0.29 $0.05 $0.00
laptops for sale $2.61 $1.91 $0.34 $0.21 n/a n/a
discount laptops $2.58 $1.88 $0.36 $0.23 n/a n/a
computer deals $2.56 $1.79 $0.34 $0.20 n/a n/a
notebook sale $2.55 $1.86 $0.32 $0.18 $0.05 $0.00
notebook deals $2.51 $1.83 $0.59 $0.38 n/a n/a
low cost laptops $2.49 $1.83 $0.46 $0.28 n/a n/a
lap tops $2.49 $1.81 $0.27 $0.15 n/a n/a
computer recycling $2.48 $1.79 $0.42 $0.25 $0.10 n/a
computer training $2.47 $1.76 $0.29 $0.15 n/a n/a
discount notebook $2.39 $1.74 $0.31 $0.19 n/a n/a
computer desks $2.38 $1.73 $0.51 $0.34 $0.06 $0.05
new laptops $2.37 $1.72 $0.28 $0.16 n/a n/a
computer monitors $2.37 $1.69 $0.40 $0.25 $0.07 $0.05
gaming notebooks $2.35 $1.71 $0.40 $0.23 n/a n/a
refurbished laptops $2.33 $1.72 $0.40 $0.24 n/a n/a
computer desk $2.32 $1.69 $0.47 $0.29 $0.06 $0.05
cheap laptops $2.30 $1.66 $0.34 $0.21 n/a n/a
discount laptop $2.30 $1.66 $0.31 $0.19 $0.05 $0.00
new laptop $2.29 $1.66 $0.30 $0.17 n/a n/a
lenovo thinkpad $2.25 $1.60 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
laptop prices $2.25 $1.66 $0.31 $0.19 n/a n/a
best buy laptops $2.20 $1.59 $0.32 $0.19 n/a n/a
laptop power supply $2.18 $1.58 $0.45 $0.29 $0.18 n/a
bargain laptops $2.17 $1.59 $0.31 $0.20 n/a n/a
free laptop computer $2.10 $1.54 $0.46 $0.34 n/a n/a
laptops uk $2.10 $1.50 $0.35 $0.21 n/a n/a
wireless laptop $2.08 $1.50 $0.28 $0.15 n/a n/a
laptop stands $2.02 $1.50 $0.75 $0.52 $0.19 $0.11
laptop mount $2.00 $1.46 $0.63 $0.41 $0.16 $0.08
best notebook $2.00 $1.47 $0.30 $0.17 n/a n/a
refurbished laptop $1.99 $1.47 $0.39 $0.23 $0.08 $0.05
laptop hard drives $1.99 $1.44 $0.37 $0.23 n/a n/a
best laptop $1.99 $1.46 $0.34 $0.19 $0.05 $0.00
hp computer $1.97 $1.42 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
laptop computer $1.96 $1.40 $0.28 $0.15 $0.07 $0.05
purchase laptops $1.96 $1.42 $0.34 $0.19 $0.06 $0.05
laptop harddrive $1.92 $1.36 $0.35 $0.21 n/a n/a
wholesale laptops $1.91 $1.40 $0.42 $0.27 $0.10 n/a
cheap computer $1.91 $1.39 $0.37 $0.23 $0.05 $0.00
laptop ram $1.89 $1.38 $0.32 $0.18 n/a n/a
computer lab $1.89 $1.38 $0.21 $0.10 $0.05 $0.00
computer jobs $1.88 $1.33 $0.38 $0.23 $0.05 $0.00
computer animation $1.87 $1.36 $0.40 $0.21 $0.15 $0.06
notebook hard drives $1.86 $1.35 $0.36 $0.21 n/a n/a
slow computer $1.85 $1.34 $0.55 $0.35 $0.18 n/a
computer geeks $1.84 $1.33 $0.43 $0.25 $0.13 $0.07
refurbished notebooks $1.83 $1.37 $0.37 $0.23 $0.05 $0.00
laptop accessories $1.82 $1.30 $0.23 $0.13 n/a n/a
laptop parts $1.81 $1.33 $0.41 $0.27 $0.12 $0.06
thinkpad t40 $1.80 $1.30 $0.21 $0.10 $0.05 $0.00
hp laptops $1.79 $1.28 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop table $1.79 $1.34 $0.48 $0.33 n/a n/a
laptop cart $1.77 $1.29 $0.46 $0.28 $0.09 $0.05
compare laptops $1.77 $1.29 $0.27 $0.16 n/a n/a
laptop covers $1.76 $1.28 $0.35 $0.22 $0.09 $0.05
best laptops $1.74 $1.26 $0.29 $0.16 $0.05 $0.00
hp computers $1.72 $1.24 $0.06 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer sales $1.72 $1.24 $0.34 $0.19 $0.08 $0.05
laptop desk $1.71 $1.24 $0.31 $0.18 n/a n/a
laptop hard drive $1.70 $1.24 $0.29 $0.16 $0.07 $0.05
shop laptop $1.70 $1.24 $0.28 $0.18 n/a n/a
laptop notebook $1.68 $1.12 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
budget laptops $1.66 $1.16 $0.06 $0.00 n/a n/a
computer armoire $1.65 $1.23 $0.69 $0.49 $0.23 $0.12
free laptops $1.64 $1.20 $0.25 $0.14 n/a n/a
notebook cases $1.63 $1.19 $0.34 $0.20 $0.08 $0.05
second hand laptops $1.62 $1.22 $0.36 $0.25 n/a n/a
laptop notebooks $1.62 $1.14 $0.06 $0.05 n/a n/a
refurbished notebook $1.61 $1.18 $0.27 $0.16 n/a n/a
computer bags $1.61 $1.18 $0.35 $0.22 n/a n/a
computer networking $1.59 $1.12 $0.17 $0.08 $0.07 $0.05
thinkpad x60 $1.59 $1.13 $0.11 $0.06 n/a n/a
notebook pcs $1.59 $1.12 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
compaq laptops $1.58 $1.12 $0.10 $0.06 n/a n/a
buy a laptop $1.56 $1.10 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
notebook pc $1.54 $1.00 n/a n/a n/a n/a
computer programming $1.53 $1.10 $0.23 $0.11 $0.07 $0.05
thinkpad t60 $1.53 $1.09 $0.13 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop notebook computer $1.49 $1.04 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer virus $1.47 $1.05 $0.20 $0.09 n/a n/a
thinkpad t43 $1.45 $1.03 $0.12 $0.05 n/a n/a
thinkpad $1.45 $1.03 $0.15 $0.07 n/a n/a
thinkpad t30 $1.44 $1.02 $0.16 $0.06 n/a n/a
notebooks $1.44 $1.01 $0.12 $0.07 n/a n/a
computer stores $1.41 $1.01 $0.29 $0.15 $0.08 $0.05
laptops computers $1.40 $0.98 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop backpacks $1.40 $1.03 $0.56 $0.40 $0.15 $0.08
laptop stand $1.40 $1.02 $0.38 $0.23 $0.06 $0.05
pink laptop $1.39 $0.99 $0.29 $0.17 $0.08 $0.05
laptop sleeves $1.38 $1.03 $0.38 $0.24 $0.12 n/a
laptop cases $1.37 $1.00 $0.48 $0.32 $0.13 n/a
computer store $1.36 $0.98 $0.18 $0.08 n/a n/a
thinkpad t42 $1.36 $0.96 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
free laptop $1.34 $0.99 $0.31 $0.17 n/a n/a
computer programs $1.33 $0.94 $0.25 $0.13 $0.09 $0.05
notebook computer $1.32 $0.93 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop $1.32 $0.92 $0.16 $0.07 n/a n/a
gaming computer $1.32 $0.93 $0.25 $0.13 n/a n/a
computer laptops $1.31 $0.92 n/a n/a n/a n/a
compaq laptop $1.31 $0.92 $0.10 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop bags $1.29 $0.94 $0.42 $0.27 $0.11 n/a
quotes from the notebook $1.29 $1.24 $0.10 $0.00 n/a n/a
hp notebooks $1.28 $0.91 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
lap top $1.27 $0.88 $0.11 $0.06 n/a n/a
computer monitor $1.25 $0.88 $0.25 $0.14 $0.09 $0.05
laptops online $1.25 $0.88 $0.16 $0.08 n/a n/a
computer cases $1.24 $0.91 $0.31 $0.19 $0.05 $0.00
17 laptop $1.20 $0.86 $0.27 $0.15 n/a n/a
laptop screens $1.17 $0.83 $0.27 $0.15 n/a n/a
computer science $1.16 $0.82 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
computer software $1.16 $0.81 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
notebook hard drive $1.15 $0.84 $0.26 $0.15 n/a n/a
compaq presario notebook $1.14 $0.80 $0.13 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop bag $1.14 $0.83 $0.34 $0.21 $0.14 n/a
best computer $1.14 $0.80 $0.21 $0.11 n/a n/a
computer technology $1.13 $0.80 $0.12 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptops sales $1.12 $0.78 $0.10 $0.06 n/a n/a
dell financial services $1.12 $0.82 n/a n/a n/a n/a
build a computer $1.11 $0.77 $0.16 $0.07 n/a n/a
hp laptop $1.11 $0.77 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
toshiba hd a2 $1.11 $0.79 $0.27 $0.14 n/a n/a
the notebook quotes $1.10 $1.04 n/a n/a n/a n/a
laptop speakers $1.10 $0.79 $0.27 $0.15 n/a n/a
computer parts $1.09 $0.78 $0.24 $0.13 n/a n/a
computers $1.08 $0.73 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
used laptops $1.06 $0.74 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
laptop skins $1.04 $0.75 $0.34 $0.19 $0.14 $0.08
computer keyboard $1.03 $0.72 $0.21 $0.11 n/a n/a
notebook sales $1.03 $0.71 $0.12 $0.06 $0.05 $0.00
hp pavilion notebook $1.03 $0.72 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
toshiba laptops $1.01 $0.69 n/a n/a n/a n/a
keywords $1.00 $0.70 $0.15 $0.07 n/a n/a
toshiba laptop $1.00 $0.69 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer bag $1.00 $0.72 $0.25 $0.14 n/a n/a
toshiba dlp $0.99 $0.70 $0.25 $0.13 $0.07 $0.05
computer memory $0.99 $0.63 n/a n/a n/a n/a
laptop mouse $0.99 $0.70 $0.21 $0.10 n/a n/a
notebook $0.97 $0.67 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop battery $0.95 $0.65 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer power supply $0.94 $0.67 $0.16 $0.09 n/a n/a
compaq notebook $0.94 $0.65 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
dell financial $0.94 $0.69 n/a n/a n/a n/a
used notebook $0.93 $0.65 $0.15 $0.07 $0.05 $0.00
used laptop $0.92 $0.64 $0.16 $0.08 $0.06 $0.05
laptop keyboard $0.92 $0.64 $0.18 $0.08 n/a n/a
computer viruses $0.91 $0.63 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
my computer $0.91 $0.63 $0.16 $0.08 n/a n/a
laptop cooling $0.90 $0.64 $0.28 $0.16 n/a n/a
linux laptop $0.90 $0.63 $0.22 $0.11 n/a n/a
laptop sleeve $0.89 $0.64 $0.31 $0.18 $0.08 $0.05
laptop backpack $0.88 $0.62 $0.26 $0.14 $0.08 $0.05
hp notebook $0.87 $0.61 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
notebook memory $0.86 $0.66 n/a n/a n/a n/a
acer laptops $0.86 $0.59 $0.12 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop ratings $0.86 $0.60 $0.21 $0.11 $0.05 $0.00
computer hardware $0.85 $0.59 $0.20 $0.10 $0.10 n/a
computer engineering $0.84 $0.58 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
acer notebooks $0.81 $0.55 $0.10 $0.06 n/a n/a
notebook paper $0.81 $0.56 $0.17 $0.09 n/a n/a
laptop skin $0.81 $0.56 $0.20 $0.10 $0.06 $0.05
desktop computer $0.81 $0.55 n/a n/a n/a n/a
laptop video card $0.81 $0.56 $0.16 $0.07 n/a n/a
notebook skins $0.80 $0.58 $0.31 $0.19 $0.10 $0.08
toshiba notebooks $0.79 $0.54 $0.06 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop fan $0.79 $0.54 $0.18 $0.09 n/a n/a
toshiba notebook $0.79 $0.53 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
computer graphics $0.79 $0.54 n/a n/a n/a n/a
notebook quotes $0.78 $0.71 n/a n/a n/a n/a
notebook battery $0.77 $0.52 $0.07 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer associates $0.76 $0.53 $0.06 $0.05 n/a n/a
www notebook $0.73 $0.50 $0.11 $0.06 n/a n/a
laptop magazine $0.71 $0.49 $0.17 $0.07 n/a n/a
toshiba tv $0.70 $0.48 $0.18 $0.09 $0.05 $0.00
laptop motherboard $0.70 $0.47 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
computer speakers $0.69 $0.47 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
toshiba a105 $0.68 $0.46 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop review $0.68 $0.45 $0.16 $0.08 n/a n/a
laptop gps $0.67 $0.45 $0.13 $0.07 n/a n/a
secondhand laptops $0.67 $0.45 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer reviews $0.65 $0.45 $0.16 $0.08 n/a n/a
free computer games $0.65 $0.43 $0.17 $0.08 $0.07 $0.05
acer laptop $0.64 $0.42 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
note book $0.64 $0.43 $0.11 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer world $0.62 $0.41 $0.13 $0.05 n/a n/a
compaq $0.61 $0.42 n/a n/a n/a n/a
laptop reviews $0.60 $0.42 $0.15 $0.07 $0.05 $0.00
pcmcia card $0.59 $0.39 $0.13 $0.06 n/a n/a
toshiba com $0.58 $0.47 n/a n/a n/a n/a
notebook stand $0.58 $0.38 $0.12 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer chess $0.57 $0.37 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
notebook reviews $0.57 $0.39 $0.14 $0.07 n/a n/a
laptop cooler $0.57 $0.38 $0.14 n/a $0.09 $0.05
laptop battery recall $0.56 $0.43 n/a n/a n/a n/a
toshiba tecra $0.55 $0.36 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
toshiba dvd $0.55 $0.36 $0.11 $0.05 n/a n/a
toshiba $0.55 $0.36 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
asus laptop $0.53 $0.35 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
laptop to tv $0.53 $0.34 $0.11 $0.06 n/a n/a
notebook sleeve $0.53 $0.35 $0.11 n/a $0.06 $0.05
notebook mouse $0.50 $0.32 $0.13 $0.06 $0.06 $0.05
notebook cooler $0.50 $0.32 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
nitro notebook $0.50 $0.33 $0.16 $0.07 n/a n/a
computer games $0.49 $0.32 n/a n/a n/a n/a
asus notebook $0.48 $0.30 $0.12 $0.06 n/a n/a
free notebook $0.47 $0.32 n/a n/a n/a n/a
notebook ram $0.47 $0.32 n/a n/a n/a n/a
computer mouse $0.47 $0.35 n/a n/a n/a n/a
pcmcia $0.47 $0.30 $0.10 $0.05 n/a n/a
notebook backpack $0.46 $0.29 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
acer notebook $0.45 $0.29 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
toshiba gigabeat $0.42 $0.27 $0.15 $0.06 n/a n/a
lg notebook $0.41 $0.25 $0.09 $0.05 n/a n/a
notebook review $0.39 $0.24 n/a n/a n/a n/a
bratz laptop $0.37 $0.22 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
notebook hardware control $0.37 $0.25 n/a n/a n/a n/a
the notebook $0.35 $0.23 n/a n/a n/a n/a
the notebook movie $0.34 $0.21 n/a n/a n/a n/a
the note book $0.34 $0.22 n/a n/a n/a n/a
xbox 360 laptop $0.32 $0.20 n/a n/a n/a n/a
toshiba l35 $0.32 $0.20 n/a n/a n/a n/a
computer history $0.29 $0.21 n/a n/a n/a n/a
notebook soundtrack $0.28 $0.20 n/a n/a n/a n/a
first computer $0.27 $0.17 n/a n/a n/a n/a
computer wallpaper $0.27 $0.15 $0.08 $0.05 n/a n/a
computer terms $0.25 $0.15 n/a n/a n/a n/a
the notebook myspace layouts $0.23 $0.15 n/a n/a n/a n/a
computer backgrounds $0.22 $0.13 n/a n/a n/a n/a

I’ll regenerate this list in a few days and we’ll see if there are any changes as Christmas approaches.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 23, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 1 Comment 

101 Uses For PLR Articles

Today is Thanksgiving, which means most of you have the day off and are enjoying some quality time with friends and family. Us Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving in October, of course, so today’s just another regular day. In some ways it’s better to have Thanksgiving earlier, because the weather is so much nicer — here in southern Ontario we’re in the middle of a small snowstorm, the first of the winter season. It’s not a great time to be traveling, which is what many Americans are doing, unfortunately. I hope you’re all having a good time no matter where you are! (For fun I did an improvisation in celebration of the first snowfall this morning.)

Over a year ago I wrote a three-part series about private label rights (PLR) articles: What Are Private Label Rights Articles?, The Pitfalls of PLR Articles and The Uses of PLR Articles.

Expanding on what I wrote, the folks at DocuMaker Communication Solutions have put together a list of 101 Things To Do With PLR Articles. I’ve taken their list and edited it a bit, so without further ado here are 101 Uses For PLR Articles. (Use the link to get a PDF version of the list.)

  1. Allow other people to give them away. As long as they have your URL on them, PLR articles can become effective viral marketing tools — more people will become aware of your website while the articles are around.
  2. Bundle them and offer them as a bonus for buying something else. If, for example, your website sells time management software, offer a complementary set of related articles just to say “thanks.”
  3. Chop them up to write unique poetry. By today’s standards, the stuff doesn’t even have to rhyme!
  4. Chop them up into little paragraphs to create random essays. (Requires programming knowledge.) You’ll essentially divide paragraphs into appropriate database fields and use a programming function to select random paragraphs. As long as the database is carefully organized into related records, what appears to be “random” could compile a sensible article or essay.
  5. Collect them just for the hell of it. Just because you can…
  6. Compile them into a Windows help file. Offer this help file on your website as a free download so people won’t have to read each article as a separate file.
  7. Compile them into an ebook. Why? See reasons #2 and #6.
  8. Convert them into downloadable mobile files for people on the go. This way, you can make your website “mobile friendly.”
  9. Convert them into several different languages. This is one way to transform PLR content into ‘unique’ material. Just be sure that a native speaker performs your translation. Clarity is important to marketing success.
  10. Convert them to “books-on-tape” type products. Record yourself reading a few PLR articles aloud and offer them as downloadable mp3 files.
  11. Create “Top 10″ or “Best Of” lists from them. Peruse the content of your PLR articles and pick out the most savvy industry-specific advice or recommendations. Then compile a list of them for your visitors.
  12. Create a list of government resources from them. Help your visitors interact with your subject even more by linking relevant sections to free government resources.
  13. Create a list of relevant news links from them. Prove that the content in your articles is true by linking their key points to news stories you find.
  14. Create an extensive FAQ from them. Let the content in the articles be your answers. You just supply the questions.
  15. Create inspirational quotes from their phrases and short sentences. As an example, we found “It is harder to make people laugh than to make them cry” inside a PLR article about comedic timing.
  16. Create small classified ads or banners from their phrases and short sentences. As an example, we found, “Command Higher Rates” from a PLR article about copywriting jobs.
  17. Create some craft ideas that illustrates their main points. What do you give a body piercer for Christmas? How about a tiny bust of President Bush… wearing a skull studded nose ring… ?!! Well, that idea came from a PLR article about diamond body jewelry!
  18. Critique them to demonstrate your editing skills. Use the articles on your website to demonstrate a “before and after” PLR makeover.
  19. Extract their facts and figures to create a statistical trends and analysis report. Some PLR authors back up their claims with real numbers. Use those numbers to compile a downloadable spreadsheet for your web visitors.
  20. Feature a few pieces in your newsletter. Your readers will appreciate useful content.
  21. Fix them to make them better. A lot of PLR articles are poorly-written. Fixing them up makes them so much more useful.
  22. Give them to a freelancer to rewrite. You could just rewrite your collection yourself… but if you’re pressed for time, hiring someone else to do it is easier!
  23. Illustrate them with artwork or photographs. Just this small effort alone will make your collection more personal and unique.
  24. Make a list of favorite places from them. See #13. Same idea, but different slant.
  25. Offer them as part of an editing challenge on your website. Are your website visitors writers? Do they think they’re “all that?” Put them to the test by asking them to rewrite your PLR content as a contest.
  26. Pick out relevant phrases and plaster them on your business signs, bookmarks, t-shirts, mousepads and mugs. We found “Keep your child’s age in mind” in a PLR article about spending quality time with your kids. And it sounds like a great slogan for an age-conscious toy manufacturer to us!
  27. Point out everything that’s wrong in them and offer your suggestions as alternatives. This way you can offer your annotations as your own content.
  28. Present parts of them in an autoresponder e-course. See #34 too.
  29. Print them out and mail them to people who really need to follow the advice inside! Or simply email them…
  30. Rewrite them and claim them as your own. The right articles can make you look like an expert.
  31. Rewrite them in such a way that a child could understand and promote them as part of your “For Dummies…” series. Just don’t call them “For Dummies”, or you’ll be sued!
  32. Read the content and learn from them! You just might pick up a few tricks of the trade yourself!
  33. Refute all their statements and demonstrate how they’re part of a propaganda campaign against a cause that you feel strongly about. Then go to idea #86.
  34. Release bits and parts of them as a “step-by-step” program. This program could be an e-course, PowerPoint presentation, or anything that can delivered in easy-to-understand pieces.
  35. Scour them for keywords and keyword phrases for SEO campaigns. In an article about PLR, we found “private label, private label resell rights, resell rights, private label products,” and more.
  36. Sell them. They’re PLR! And that means you can basically do whatever you want with them. (But be sure you understand any license restrictions.)
  37. Send specific parts of them as daily email “hugs.” If your web visitors don’t mind, you could use PLR content as part of a daily email type program. Examples could be “A Recipe A Day” type program or a “365-Day Lesson Auto Repair Class”.
  38. Turn direct tasks inside each article into your own personal “to-do list.” A lot of PLR articles give readers direct instructions. Follow them.
  39. Turn direct tasks into software functions or program macros. Automate the tasks in PLR articles by programming them in your own downloadable software programs.
  40. Turn each sentence into a question and offer them as a quiz. You could use this quiz as study material for a school exam, or you could just offer one on your website for fun.
  41. Turn them into a collection of jokes. Is there anything funny in PLR content? You might not think so at first, but after a couple of beers almost everything becomes funny.
  42. Use them for material in a comic strip. We’ve never seen a comic strip about the different types of barbecue grills, but you could probably make one with the content from its PLR content.
  43. Use them into material for a role-playing game. See idea #38. Same principle, only you’re not performing any tasks, your game players are!
  44. Turn them into small dictionaries, glossaries, or encyclopedias. Turn those lengthy explanations into definitions and fill your website with a SEO keyword-rich glossary.
  45. Turn them into material for brainstorming cards. Cut out short snippets of text and then print them onto index cards. Shuffle the cards and pick one to jog the creative side of your brain.
  46. Use them for material in crossword or word find puzzles. This idea may be more appropriate for generating teaching material than for your adult website visitors… unless you’re appealing to a younger audience.
  47. Turn them into free checklists. Divide each article into task-related statements and stick a checkbox next to each. Viola! Instant checklist!
  48. Use as a basis of an educational curriculum. No more need to struggle with figuring out what to teach. You’ll find plenty of topics in PLR articles.
  49. Use them as a basis for a research paper outline. This is even easier if the articles have headings and subheadings.
  50. Use them as a basis for finding quality affiliate products. See idea #66.
  51. Use them as a basis for starting a survey. Find out what your visitors really care about by asking questions that matter. PLR content can steer you in the right direction.
  52. Use them as a collection of synonyms and convert that collection into a database. If you’re a programming expert, you can write software that will “spin” your articles and generate new results.
  53. Use them as art, dance, or music interpretation/inspiration. All it takes is just a single sentence to conjure up a great idea for a painting or song.
  54. Use them on your website as-is. Not recommended — but it’s something to do!
  55. Use them for lyrics to a wacky new song. It’s funny, but some authors are poets — and they don’t even know it. Look for accidental rhymes and use them to make the latest hit. In a PLR article about Disneyland, we found “Disneyland’s Discover the Magic Tour…. may be the most popular of the four.” It’s not Nirvana, but it’s a start…
  56. Use them as part of a timeline to show how their concepts have changed over the years. These kinds of things help readers visualize concepts.
  57. Use them as programming stress tests. You just might find PLR articles more useful than dummy Latin text that reads, “Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat.”
  58. Use them as research material for your next hardcover best seller. OK, that’s a long shot…
  59. Use them as teaching material (handouts, word lists, etc.) There are hundreds of PLR topics available and chances are you’ll find one that’s related to the subject you’re teaching.
  60. Use them as job training material. See above.
  61. Use them for material in a scavenger hunt. Well, not the articles themselves…
  62. Use them in your sales literature. PLR articles can make good filler material for sales letters, marketing kits, and more.
  63. Use them to respond to message threads on discussion boards or mailing lists. Create a database of PLR content and make it easy to copy from. Refer to the information inside the database to answer questions on discussion board or mailing list. And remember to include a signature in your responses.
  64. Use them to answer questions in a radio interview. See above. Different tactic, same principle.
  65. Use them to beat writer’s block. Can’t think of anything to write about? Use PLR content as a source of inspiration.
  66. Use relevant sections to create a “must-have” shopping list for your customers. You’ll find a LOT of product ideas in PLR home improvement articles!
  67. Use them to create article templates. Some of the PLR articles we’ve encountered were written rather well. Study their structure and apply it to the articles you want to write.
  68. Use them to create blog content. Don’t just copy PLR articles to your blog — write about your opinions of the subject instead. You could for example blog about why being married to an actor would be stressful based on a PLR article about on-screen love scenes.
  69. Use them to start message threads on discussion boards or mailing lists. Another way to get some links back to your sites.
  70. Use them to create portal pages. Portal pages are mini websites submitted to search engines that link to your main website.
  71. Use them to demonstrate industry flaws. Point out everything that’s seemingly ‘wrong’ about them, and then explain how your business makes everything ‘right.’
  72. Use them to generate new topics for a talk show. Running out of ideas? Consult your collection of PLR articles. Most are written to reach a 500-word count, so you’re bound to find *something* to discuss.
  73. Use them to flesh out a financial grant request. Make sure your intentions are clearly understood by including explanations found in PLR content.
  74. Use them to flesh out a PowerPoint presentation or online video. You’ll need to spend some time trimming some of the fluff, but what you’ll end up with will be sufficient, short blurbs of relevant text.
  75. Use them to flesh out a press release. What’s so grand about the news you have? Not sure if your audience will understand? Use PLR content to educate your audience.
  76. Use them to flesh out a speech. Coming up with stuff to talk about for 20 minutes isn’t always easy. Use PLR content to replace those time consuming “um’s” and “uh’s.”
  77. Use them to flesh out a wild and crazy fictional novel. A good book describes its characters with details. Get those details from PLR content.
  78. Use them to flesh out an employee manual. Is your employee manual too ambiguous? Explain things in detail with PLR content.
  79. Use them to flesh out an infomercial. Don’t know how to “hype it up”? Find some PLR content that does!
  80. Use them to flesh out evidence in a court case. The judge might not understand your case, but PLR content could help you explain things to a “less-than savvy” official.
  81. Use them to flesh out job requirements. Find the right employees by providing exact job requirements — explained in excruciating PLR article details.
  82. Use them to flesh out the content in your direct mail literature. On post cards, on card decks, in catalogs, in brochures, etc.
  83. Use them to flesh out the rules of a contest. Specifics in contest rules are crucial to avoid law suits. Make sure that you leave nothing to chance with PLR article details.
  84. Use them to flesh out the terms of a contract. See #82. Different platform, same principle. (But you’d be better off consulting a lawyer!)
  85. Use them to flesh out your autoresponder. A simple “Thank you for writing” response is boring. Entertain your visitors with something valuable to read!
  86. Use them to flesh out your personal manifesto and start a revolution for change. Just find some PLR that matches your worldview…
  87. Use them to flesh out your product descriptions. How many ways can you describe office chairs? You’ll find some rather interesting ones in PLR content. (Editing will definitely be required!)
  88. Use them to flesh out your website’s terms of service or privacy policy. A lot of TOS and privacy policies are boring carbon-copies of others. Use the content in PLR articles to spice up yours and make them more relevant to the theme of your website.
  89. Use them to gather essential tool and equipment ideas. Then see #66.
  90. Use them to generate random content (sentences, paragraphs, etc.) for your site/blog. You could use the results as part of a random sentence generator if idea #4 is too much work.
  91. Use its material to flesh out ideas behind your own board game. Can you make a better Monopoly? How about a different twist? Use PLR articles to make a board game about fishing, tattoos, or Google’s AdSense.
  92. Use them to link to all the products and services on your website. Make a better sitemap with PLR articles that link to all your other pages.
  93. Use them to spark new business ventures. Read them to locate problems that need solving. Then add their solutions to your product or service inventory.
  94. Use them to study for a test or exam. You might be surprised at how informative some of these PLR articles actually are!
  95. Use specific phrases you find in greeting cards. Example: “I would be remiss in not mentioning…” We found that in a PLR article about community college disadvantages.
  96. Use JavaScript to break them into pieces and then let your visitors put them together in a way that they’d like to read them. This is another idea that requires extensive programming, but if you’re willing to do it, it gives “website interactivity” a whole new meaning!
  97. Use parts of them to answer customer objections. This idea could extend your current FAQ (see #14).
  98. Use specific words, phrases, and combinations thereof to create new industry buzzwords and phrases. Need a phrase that describes your current working environment? How about “under the cat’s belly.” Found that one in a PLR article about bathing cats!
  99. Use specific words, phrases, and combinations thereof to create unique domain names. As an example, we found the phrase “maximum torque” in a PLR article about the Porsche 911 Turbo. We don’t know about you, but maximum-torque.com sounds like a cool domain name to us!
  100. Use the content to make your own “101″ list. This 101 list wasn’t created from PLR content, but some of its examples used it! As long as you have a good collection of articles to work with, you should be able to easily create a list of 10, 20 or even 101 relevant topics to discuss.
  101. Videotape yourself doing some of the things that they recommend. You’ll find plenty of ideas for creating YouTube videos in PLR articles!

Some of the suggestions are a bit silly, but there are a lot of good ideas in there. The only thing missing is #102, use my AdSenseResurrector tool (the new name for PLRSiteBuilder, being included with the forthcoming AdSense Resurrected ebook) to quickly and easily create websites based on any kind of text content you have, including PLR articles.

License: The list “101 Uses for PLR Articles” (as shown here, or in the PDF version) is freely distributable under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This means you can repost it or share it with anyone you wish as long as you don’t charge for it and you leave the attributions intact. The original version by DocuMaker Communication Solutions is available at http://www.outsource2documaker.com/101-plr.htm, the version modified by Eric Giguere at http://www.memwg.com/101-uses-for-plr-articles.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 22, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 3 Comments 

(Credible) Google Assassin Review Roundup

Since I don’t have time to review Google Assassin but I know some of my readers are interested in it, I thought I’d put together a quick list of actual and credible reviews of the product. (Which is harder to do than you’d think because so many of the “reviews” are just sales pages masquerading as reviews…)

Here’s the current list:

Some like it, some don’t… use your own judgment!

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 21, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 3 Comments 

Google Assassin Launches Today

Actually, there’s another good reason to delay the launch of AdSense Resurrected: Google Assassin is launching today, and there’s going to be lot of hype surrounding it.

Google Assassin is from Chris McNeeney, the Internet marketer behind such hits as AdWords Miracle, Affiliate “Project X” and Day Job Killer. Given the huge success of those ebooks, you can expect Google Assassin to draw a lot of hype. It’s not an ebook, though, this time: it’s a membership site that gives you access to various pay-per-click (PPC) tools that McNeeney’s team developed. I guess it was only a matter of time for McNeeney to jump on the membership site wagon once ClickBank started offering recurring billing.

The tools look useful enough, but I won’t have any time anytime soon to do a proper review. It looks like they focus on Google AdWords and ClickBank, just like his ebooks. Hmm…. maybe I should be building my own tool site…. too bad I can’t hype things up like these guys can!

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 20, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 1 Comment 

What’s Up With AdSense Resurrected?

The launch of AdSense Resurrected has yet to happen, but it’s coming. Let me explain.

When I first found out about AdSense Resurrected, I wrote them a quick email asking them to please spell “AdSense” properly in their ebook and in the promotional material… It’s kind of my pet peeve. This email became an extended discussion about what they were doing and the realization that my PLRSiteBuilder tool could be used to build content sites using the principles they discuss in the book. The software needed work, however, before it could do that.

I was just getting set to launch PLRSiteBuilder, but I scrapped that launch and instead focused on adapting the software for use with AdSense Resurrected. The new software — now AdSenseResurrector — is a lot better than the original PLRSiteBuilder. But it’s also been a long process — software always seems to take longer to create than planned. Since I just delivered the “final” version (there are already some changes I want to make!) of AR to them on Sunday, they are now revising their book to incorporate it. And I’m writing some proper documentation for the software.

So I guess we were premature. But I think everyone will be happy with the end result. Certainly those who took advantage of my pre-launch specials for PLRSiteBuilder will be happy — they’ll get an automatic upgrade to the AdSenseResurrector software regardless of whether or not they buy AdSense Resurrected.

All I can say is… stay tuned. The wait will be worth it!

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 20, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | Comments Off 

Smaller Clickable Area To Affect AdSense Ad Trackers

There’s a lot of activity over at ProBlogger about the news that Google is making AdSense ad units less clickable. Personally, I don’t think it’s such a big deal: most publishers make the titles blue (the universal link color) and most users click on the ad titles anyhow. This is more about preventing accidental clicks. In the long run it will benefit everyone because advertisers will have more trust in the system.

One side effect,though, is that AdSense ad tracking scripts will be much less accurate. Let me explain.

How Ad Tracking Works

Ad tracking scripts have two parts to them: a JavaScript script that you insert on the pages you want tracked and a PHP or Perl script that runs on the server. When someone clicks an ad, the JavaScript script detects this and communicates the information to the server script, which then logs it to a database. The site owner can then query the database at any point in time to view data about the ad clicks for that site.

There’s a limit to what the JavaScript script can track, however, due to the nature of how the ads are served. AdSense ads are served using an <iframe> tag, which lets you seamlessly embed one page into another. Internally, though, they’re still separate pages: one page (the one with the iframe) is hosted on your domain and the other (the ad unit) is hosted on google.com. Here’s what I mean:

As a security measure, most browsers prevent cross-site scripting, which means that a script loaded from one site (in this case, yours) cannot access or affect the parts of a page that are loaded from another site (in this case, Google). The <iframe> is part of your page, so a script can attach itself to it and listen for mouse and click events on the iframe, but it can’t do the same for the contents of the iframe.

What Does This Mean?

Since the tracking script can only track what happens to the <iframe> and not individual HTML elements within the iframe, Google’s change to the clickable area means that tracking scripts are suddenly less effective. Before there was a (pretty much) one-to-one mapping from AdSense click to iframe click. Now, though, some of the clicks on the iframe won’t actually correspond to valid ad unit clicks. So the tracking script will overreport clicks.

This is the second blow to tracking scripts that Google’s done recently. A few months ago they changed the way the ads were being served to make it impossible for scripts to tell which URL was being clicked on. Now the scripts won’t be as accurate.

Tracking scripts are still useful, mind you, if only because Google limits publishers to 200 channels per account. If you have a lot of content and/or a lot of sites, you’ll still find a tracking script useful… just not as useful as before.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 14, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 1 Comment 

Review: Google Payload

Over the weekend Alex Goad sent me an unsolicited review copy of his new ebook, Google Payload. You may remember Alex Goad from the infamous Day Job Killer. Well, he’s back, and to distract myself from my coding I decided to look at this new ebook. Here’s my review. I don’t expect further invitations from him in the future…

Google Payload Review

Google Payload is being launched with a lot of hype. The headline screams it all: “Insider Reveals Secret Traffic Arbitrage Tactics Making Over $9,547 a Day“. (Aside: why are these headlines so precise? Why not just round it up to $10K/day?). The launch price is $77 and will climb to $97 within a couple of days. In addition, by poking around with the ClickBank order URL I was able to determine that there’s some kind of upsell for $67, but I don’t know what yet.

The book itself is a PDF that is 68 pages long. It is, disconcertingly, written in a large monospaced (typewriter) font. I always find these hard to read. They’re often used, though, to make a book appear longer than it really is.

The book is all about pay-per-click arbitrage, which is something we’ve discussed before several times. You buy cheap pay-per-click traffic and direct them to a page with high-earning ads. If the gap between the price you pay per click for the traffic and the earnings you get per click for the pages, and your conversion ratio is high enough, you make money. In theory the amount of money you can make is infinite: the more traffic you buy, the more you make. If you do it right.

AdSense publishers are naturally wary of pay-per-click arbitrage. Not too long ago, Google officially took a stance against the AdSense arbitrage business model, quietly terminating publishers who were using AdWords to direct traffic to AdSense pages.

And this is where the book falls flat in my mind. A lot of the book is spent on the design of AdSense-based landing pages. There’s some pretty standard stuff there to start with: each page must have a link to a privacy policy, a contact page, a terms and disclaimers page. These are things that Google looks for in landing pages in general. Then there’s a detailed section on page design. I was surprised at the focus on AdSense, actually.

But you must tread carefully with arbitrage where AdSense pages are concerned. Here’s the relevant quote from the AdSense program policies:

Publishers using online advertising to drive traffic to pages showing Google ads must comply with the spirit of Google’s Landing Page Quality Guidelines. For instance, if you advertise for sites participating in the AdSense program, the advertising should not be deceptive to users.

Google isn’t forbidding arbitrage per se, but the pages you send traffic to must live up to the landing page quality guidelines. Be careful, in other words. If you’re unsure, create a test site and get Google to clear it first. One of the things Alex does is place links to other pages on his site right next to an AdSense ad unit, making those links look very similar to those ad units. While I don’t think this technically violates the prohibition against using competing ad services with similar look and feel, it does kind of violate the spirit of the prohibition and I’d get Google to OK it before actually going live with it. But that’s just me.

I judge these ebooks primarily by how much I learn from them. While I did learn a bit about alternative pay-per-click ad networks, something I’ve never really explored too deeply, overall I don’t feel I learned enough to justify the $77-$97 price tag of the book. Unless you want step-by-step arbitrage instructions, I’d say give it a pass.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 13, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 3 Comments 

The Uneconomics of Book Publishing

Now that AdSense Resurrected has been delayed (see this post for an explanation — it’s mostly my fault, really) — let’s further explore something that frequent commenter Chuck Brown and I discussed extensively at the end of last week — the economics of book publishing. Or, rather, the uneconomics of book publishing. I may never publish another book through a conventional publisher again, because I can make more money as a writer doing other things. Let me explain…

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

Let me preface my remarks by stating that I’m only talking about non-fiction, non-academic book publishing. Publishing fiction is very different from publishing non-fiction. As is academic publishing, which tends to serve very captive markets. I’ve only ever published non-fiction, so that’s all I can really comment on. But that’s probably what interests most of you, anyhow.

The Idealized Version

Here’s the idealized version of how book publishing works, what folks in the mainstream thinks happens:

If only it were so easy. My 8-year old daughter must think so… she made her own board game over the weekend and one of the “lucky cards” (like a “chance card” in Monopoly) was “write a book and get $1,000,000″. But she’s 8 and has a child’s view of the world.

Book Proposal Reality

In the real world, of course, things are very different than the idealized view:

So remember, up until now no money has changed hands. Smart authors don’t actually do any writing until a signed contract is in their hands. And this process usually takes several weeks, not counting any contract negotiations.

The Book Contract

A book contract sounds like a very glamorous thing. And to a first-time author it is very glamorous. It’s also full of pitfalls for the unwary. Book publishing contracts always favor the book publisher. They are the ones in the driver’s seat, they set the terms. Smart authors will use an agent or an attorney to negotiate away certain offensive clauses, such as the cross-accounting clause (the one that says that if the publisher publishes a book of yours that loses them money, they can make it up from your other books), but most of the terms are set in stone.

The most interesting part of the book contract is how much money the author will get. It’s not nearly as much as you think it is. First, some background:

Let’s do an example and keep the numbers simple: cover price of $30, net price of $15, royalty of 10%. So if a book sells 1000 copies, the author makes 15 * 1000 * 0.10 = $1500. Not a lot of money… Obviously, if you sell a million copies you’ll make some serious change, but most non-fiction books published by the major book publishers only sell between 1000 and 5000 copies total.

The Advance

Book publishers pay on ridiculously long payment cycles. One of the publishers I deal with pays twice a year! That’s a long time to go without seeing any money for your hard work… (And you thought the AdSense payment schedule was long!) So most book publishing deals include a provision for an advance against royalties.

The advance is essentially an interest-free loan to the author from the book publisher, a loan that is repaid from royalty earnings once the book is published. Most authors will get no more than $10,000 as an advance, usually in parts based on how much of the book has been completed. It’s not usual, for example, to get 1/3 of the payment on signing of the book contract, another third when half the book has been completed, and the final third when the entire book is done and accepted by the publisher.

Once the advance has been paid, the author won’t see any more money from the publisher until the book has “earned out” its advance.

Just for the record, only 2 out of the 5 books I’ve written or co-written have earned out their advances, although it’s still too early for Programming Interviews Exposed to tell with it — I haven’t received the first royalty report yet since it was only published in April. (I told you it was a long cycle…)

The Writing

So, the proposal’s been accepted, a contract’s been negotiated and signed by both parties. Now the author gets to work and writes the book. The time and effort varies considerably, of course, but it’s probably more work than you think, trust me.

The book contract requires the author to submit a completed manuscript by a certain date. If he or she doesn’t, the publisher can cancel the contract or else give the book to someone else to finish. Or the contract gets extended, which is usually what happens, but then that puts other things into jeopardy in the publisher’s carefully-constructed publishing cycle.

The Packaging

After the book’s been submitted, the book publisher kicks into high gear. The book is farmed out to a variety of subcontractors for processing: copyeditors to check and correct grammar and spelling, technical editors to check concepts and test things, designers to come up with a cover and a layout. Meanwhile, the publisher’s marketing department puts a marketing plan in place to promote the book. (Note that they normally get involved earlier in the process… they choose the book’s title, they tell the sales force what to expect from the book, etc.)

At some point the author gets a corrected version of the book to look at and to correct any incorrect corrections (which happens a lot with technical material). The final version is then sent to the printer for layout and printing. The author may get to see a “galley proof” of the book for a last look before the printing, but that’s not always the case.

Printing and Distribution

Now the book gets printed, bound and stored in the publisher’s warehouse. The publisher will print thousands of copies of the book in a single go to get the per-copy costs down, so there’s a significant investment on their part in getting the book printed and out the door.

Once the book’s been printed, it’s sent to the various distributors and retailers who’ve ordered it. The remaining books are left in the warehouse to fulfill later orders. Hopefully.

Book publishing is a funny business. Most booksellers can return unsold, undamaged books to the book publisher within a certain time period for a full refund. So just because a publishers ships 10,000 copies of a book doesn’t mean that they can book the revenue. 8,000 of those books could come back within 3 to 6 months. That’s why payment cycles for the authors tends to be so long, and also why the book publishers hold back a portion of the royalties earned (the reserve) from the authors for a set period of time — to cover unexpected book returns.

Marketing

Like anything else, most books succeed or fail based on marketing, not on the worthiness of the material inside the book. Publishers have a budget for marketing their books, of course, but the lion’s share of that budget is devoted to a small set of books that the publisher hopes will sell really well. All the other books receive pretty much the same treatment: a press release or two, review copies, some promotional emails to booksellers and others, listings on Amazon and other places. Not much, in other words. The publishers just can’t afford to devote resources to each and every book they publish. Book signings, tours and other expensive things just don’t happen except to a few lucky authors.

Most books, then, depend on their authors to do some marketing. There are two problems with this approach, though:

Actually, there’s a third problem: the piddly royalties they get per book make it hard to justify devoting a lot of time and effort to marketing efforts. It’s uneconomical.

So Why Publish A Book?

So why do people bother writing non-fiction books. There are actually other quite valid reasons to publish a book:

Note, however, that money or getting rich aren’t on the list. Obviously there are authors who do strike it rich with their books. These are far and few between, however.

Books can be a step on the way to making serious money, of course. A good book on a hot topic can get you speaking engagements. You can give seminars and sell books (which you buy from the publisher at a discount, therefore making substantially more per copy) to the attendees. You can get work by virtue of the book. You can get invited to joint ventures and other opportunities. But again, there’s a lot of luck involved in these things and certainly not everyone who publishes a book is going to be able to leverage it into something extremely profitable.

Self-Publishing

There’s nothing saying you can’t write your own books, of course. Many people think it’s hard to do, but it’s not — apart from the actual writing, of course. Here’s what you do:

Don’t get me wrong, finding buyers is hard. But the mechanics involved in selling on the Web aren’t difficult at all.

Notice that you don’t need to get an ISBN number for your book or anything like that. You only need an ISBN if you want to sell the book through sites like Amazon that require an ISBN.

And we’re only talking about PDFs here. You can certainly print a version of your book if you want and try to sell it. You can use print-on-demand shops like Lulu.com to do it, or else print copies in bulk and sell them the traditional way. I don’t really recommend the latter — lots of time, effort and money up front — but some people do it. (If you’re really interested in self-publishing, check out this great site.)

Will Book Publishers Lose Their Authors?

Book publishing is all about making money from content. But it’s a publisher-centric business model. With the Web it’s possible to move to a more author-centric model. Which is where AdSense and other content monetization programs come into play.

If a book publisher were to approach me today and ask me to write a book, I’m not sure I’d do it. The last one I published was done more as a favor to my editor than anything else — they needed someone to revise an already-successful book. It was a special case.

As an experienced author, though, I have to think carefully about any proposal that comes my way. For the amount of time and effort required to write a 300-page book I could probably create at least 10 quality sites. The book would net me $10,000 in advance money, which might be all I’d see, and only after about 6 months of contract negotiations and writing. Those ten sites would minimally make me $5 each per day on average, which would equal 50 * 30 = $1500/month at the end of six months. So I’d probably have $10,000 in earnings (mostly AdSense, but some affiliate stuff as well) by the 9th or 10th month. So in the short run (the first year) it looks like the book publishing wins.

But not in the long run. A steady income from those sites will easily surpass potential earnings from a book.

And here’s the kicker: you can take all that content you wrote for the sites and create ebooks from them, which you can then sell as well. It’s tedious work repackaging things, but it’s a lot less work than writing it in the first place. If your content is really good you may even have a conventional book publisher sniffing around your site looking for some kind of republication deal.

Don’t write a book if you want to make money. Write content, yes, but make it available electronically. Monetize it via AdSense and ebooks. Try to develop a following — blog subscribers, a mailing list — and leverage that following as part of your efforts. It will take time, but it will eventually pay off.

Notice that I didn’t say “Don’t write a book.” There are various reasons to write books, but money isn’t one of them. Do it if you want to do it, or have other substantial non-monetary reasons to do it.

Is this the death of the printed book? Probably not. But the uneconomics of book publishing are going to make it harder for publishers to find good authors. Expect more material to shift to electronic form as a result.

Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.

November 12, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 6 Comments 

QuickWebCreations: Fun With Web 2.0 Graphics

So it looks like the launch of AdSense Resurrected has been delayed, which is ironic given the name — it’s been more than 3 days since I posted. More details when I know them…

In the meantime, here’s a fun site to join… if you’ve ever tried to create Web 2.0 style graphics with your paint program, you know how much fun (not!) that can be. There’s a new service called QuickWebCreations that makes it all simple. Here’s a quick “logo” I created in just one minute using their site:

It’s fun to play around with all the settings. Notice how it added shadowing and a reflection for me automatically (you can disable these things, of course). For $7 it’s pretty good.

Here’s a tip, though: when you’re creating text-based graphics like the above, don’t use them to replace your headings. Search engine crawlers (and others, like the AdSense crawler) don’t see images the way we do, they need plain text headings to do a good job of indexing, theme determination, etc. If you really want to replace your headings with images, you can techniques like this one to get the best of both worlds.

Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. If you like this posting, why not link to his blog or bookmark it as one of your favorites?

November 12, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | Comments Off 

AdSense Resurrected Is Coming

There’s a new ebook called AdSense Resurrected launching in a couple of days. This ebook is written by Zeila and Mo Rich, a couple from Singapore who’ve managed to make a lot of money from AdSense and are “spilling the beans” so to speak to show how others can do the same — if they’re willing to put in the work!

Remember my recent post The AdSense Crapshoot? In that essay I said there were basically two ways to make a lot of money with AdSense: build one or two high-volume sites or build a whole pile of smaller niche sites. Well, that’s what Mo and Zeila have done. According to their own post, they have over 1300 sites (on separate domains!) in their AdSense content network. Think about it… even if they average just $1/day in profit per site, that’s $1300/day or $39000 a month. And that’s very much on the low side of their potential earnings.

But it’s not just about the sheer volume of sites they’ve deployed, it’s also about the way the sites are created and organized, what they refer to as “AR Tactics”. Using those tactics they’ve been able to generate thousands of dollars a day in AdSense earnings.

I haven’t read the ebook yet — a full review will be forthcoming — but I’ve had some discussions with them about their techniques. There’s no doubt that the money they’ve been able to generate is exceptional, but it’s also the result of a lot of hard work on their part. Creating and managing all those sites — even when you’re outsourcing a lot of it — takes time. Lots of time. And I think we have to give them credit where credit’s due — they’ve talked the talk on this one.

When I first came across AdSense Resurrected (via their blog), I shot them off an email asking them to spell “AdSense” properly. (See my video Are You An AdSense Guru? for what I mean.) That email led to a long discussion with them about what they were doing and how they could make things simpler and more valuable for purchasers of their ebook. Like I said, it takes a lot of work to get where they’ve gotten.

As it happens, I had recently “pre-launched” my PLRSiteBuilder tool, which I thought could be used to create sites using the AR Tactics with some tweaking. And so the new, souped-up tool is going to be part of the AdSense Resurrected package. It’ll help you get going with building your own AdSense empire. More details will be forthcoming.

The nice thing about this product launch is that there’s a charitable aspect to it. As Zeila and Mo explain in their blog:

We have decided to limit the sale to only 1 million copies, after which we will put a stop to the sale of AR. From this 1 million sales, we are hoping to raise at least $10 million dollars for the Save The Children organisation. That would mean over 5 million children will have food for a day, or we could feed 150 children for the rest of their lives.

Ignoring the unrealistic sales figures (I don’t know anyone who can sell a million copies of an Internet marketing product), there’s a chance here to raise some serious money for a good cause.

But that’s not why you should buy the product, of course. You should buy it to help you succeed as an AdSense publisher. Will it do so? I’ll be posting a full review shortly after AdSense Resurrected launches, so stay tuned.

Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. If you like this posting, why not link to his blog or bookmark it as one of your favorites?

November 9, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 23 Comments 

Review: The 4-Hour Workweek (Part 3)

Time to continue my review of The 4-Hour Workweek. Please refer to Part 1 and Part 2 before continuing. I’m sorry it’s taking such a long time, but I’ve got something big in the works coming out next Sunday… stay tuned.

E Is For Elimination

Since we already covered the “Definition” part of the “DEAL” acronym, it’s time to move to the second letter, which stands for “Elimination”.

The second step in becoming one of the “New Rich” is all about becoming truly productive by eliminating all the things that make you unproductive. Ferriss asserts that you don’t need to worry about time management (this must rile fans of Getting Things Done) because you shouldn’t have to worry about the “results-by-volume” approach:

“Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory.”

If you follow his advice, he claims you will see “an increase in personal productivity between 100 and 500%”, whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur. (Aside: one of the nice things about this book is that its principles can be used by both types — employees and entrepreneurs — which means you don’t have to become an entrepreneur first as in some other systems.)

The first thing he recommends is to apply the 80/20 rule to all aspects of your work and life using two questions:

  1. Which 20% of things are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
  2. Which 20% of things are resulting in 80% of my solutions and happiness?

Once you identify these things, do what you can to eliminate the 20% of things that are causing you grief and spend essentially all of your time working on the 20% of things that make you happy. Minimize your interaction with the other 60%.

Then Ferriss discusses his approach to time management, which is very simple:

  1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (the 80/20 rule)
  2. Short work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law)

In other words, identify “mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion”, because if you don’t do this then you’ll be overwhelmed by the unimportant things that suddenly become seemingly important.

So how do you do all of this? Here are Tim’s key suggestions:

That, in a nutshell, is what Elimination is all about.

How Much Can YOU Eliminate?

Following through with everything that Tim Ferriss advocates is not easy, although I do think following his advice in your work life is easier than in your personal life. Remember that Ferriss has no children and is essentially single (at least as far as I can tell), which makes many of these things he advocates much simpler to do.

That said, there’s something to be said about eliminating or reducing unnecessary or unimportant tasks. I recently moved from daily to less-frequent posts on this blog, for example, as a way to free up some time for other things — such as building up my network of AdSense sites. (Hence the creation of PLRSiteBuilder and the product coming out next Sunday.) I’ve also started to unsubscribe to certain email lists that weren’t benefiting me. I haven’t gone whole hog, though, because I still read the newspaper most days. It’s true that it’s hard to go from being an information junkie to a dedicated ignoramus.

In fact, one of the many criticisms of the book is that if everyone did what Tim advocates that we’d have no intelligent discourse, no communication between groups of people. One of the examples he gives is how he decided who to vote for in the last presidential election: he asked friends who’ve educated themselves on the matter for their opinions and watched the debates. In other words, “I let other dependable people synthesize hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of media for me.” This theme of pushing things off for others to do is a big part of the next section of the book, the one that deal with “Automation”.

The truth, of course, is that only a small percentage (or micropercentage) of the people who read The 4-Hour Workweek will actually become like Tim Ferriss, so society won’t actually collapse overnight. But the next section on Automation is decidedly more controversial…. and also of real interest to AdSense publishers and others reading this blog. We’ll leave that for next time, though.

Sponsored Link: Looking to quickly build good-looking, well-linked, AdSense-ready sites? Check out my PLRSiteBuilder tool.

Eric Giguere is the author of the AdSense book “Uncommon AdSense” and the award-nominated AdSense blog “Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense”. Subscribe to the blog and get free stuff!

November 4, 2007 | Filed Under AdSense | 1 Comment