Monetize Your Site

There are at least millions, and probably billions, of pages on the web that are indexed but never show up on the first page of search results or even in the first hundred results returned for a search on the topic of the page. Many people worry about their pages being indexed, but that should not be the focus of their worry. There is little value to having a page indexed if it is not visible on the search results page.

The process for a page to be indexed and returned in a visible position goes something like this. First a page must be ‘crawled’ by a search spider. What that really means is that the page is downloaded to a database where it can be analyzed. The page is then run through the analysis program to determine if it meets the criteria to be included in the index. If it passes muster it will be included in the index. The indexed pages are where the search engine looks when information is requested, so until a page is indexed there is no possibility that it will show up in the search results.

The search engines want to serve the most relevant results for each search query. They develop an algorithm to check the pages to determine the relevance to the search term. Google’s algorithm looks at over two hundred factors to check for relevance. The search engine engineers constantly tweak the algorithm to attempt to generate more relevant results. So getting to that number one slot is really very simple. Your page just has to be better than the rest in two hundred different ways!!

I located another article directory script today. This one seems to  shows promise so far. I did install it on my server and began working with it this evening.

There are some features that I like already, and the things that are lacking are not significant. This script allows for images to be uploaded with the articles. I like images in articles as they break up the block of text and make the article more interesting. The major article directories do not allow images with the articles.

The admin interface is not as slick as WordPress, but it is functional.  The templates are available for editing as is the stylesheet. I did not find a spell checker in the article input section, but FireFox has a fairly good spell checker built in. Many authors will actually write their articles in some word processor program that does have spell checking anyway.

One thing that I am not too enthused about is the hybrid layout. There is some use of tables and some use of divs.  I would prefer a div based layout. I may look at what would be required to convert this to a completely div based layout, but I am concerned that it may be too extensive or break the script.

The script does come with one small banner from the developer, but it is not locked. It is, in fact easy to replace with any other banner or other advertising. There is one link in the footer that is required unless you pay for the privilege or removing it by buying a non-branding liscense. I don’t mind that. If the script works I will be happy to promote it.

I wrote and submitted a short article after playing with the css file for a bit. I still do not have the site exactly as I would like it, but it is loosing the family look to some extent. Remember that it is a work in progress, but if you want to check out the script do the famous click here. I have not published the link on the site, not that anybody visits there or that there is any reason to visit for that matter.

This is really just a test install. If it works out I may go live with it, but my real purpose is to investigate the possibilities that the script offers. I have two sites that need something of this sort and may adapt this for another application as well. This could end up providing user generated content on several sites. I was nearly ready to buy a script, but in my investigations it appeared that support was a problem and so I held off. I may be very glad that I did.

Please check out the new script on my site and give me your impressions. If you get there soon you may catch it before I make more changes. Try submitting an article or something while you are there.

I have had the Article Exchange “free” article directory script installed in two places for most of the year. During that time the script has crashed a couple of times. One of these is in a sub-domain, so it was not a big problem. The other is in the root directory of a site, so if someone tries to visit the site by the front door they can’t get in. Most of my traffic comes to this site through the back door and it is still open.

There is a new version of the script that has just been released. There is not an updater with the new version. You must reinstall the script on your space. The installation is fairly quick and painless aside from needing to reenter a few things that should have been picked up from the existing installation. I do think that the new script will probably be more reliable.

The earlier problem was probably bandwidth related. The developer of the script had originally set the script up to pull the articles off of his server. Very little was stored on the user’s server. This meant that his server was providing bandwidth for every article that was served. The new script stores copies of the articles on the user’s server. The developer will have the initial hit of serving the files all at once for each install of the script, but then his bandwidth usage should stabilize at a much lower level.

This is a very slick piece of work. The carrot held out to induce you to host his script is that you will have a site with a great deal of content. He provides three locations for you to place banners or text ads. He also has an affiliate program in whiich he allows you to participate. There are a couple of things that he neglects to mention in his sales letter, though.

There are three text links at the top of his nav column. One of the three ends up being an affiliate link. From the wording of the text this is probably the least likely of the three to be followed, but there is a chance. The next section of the nav column has about twenty of his affiliate links as does the footer section of the page. Then there is the category list for the article directory. Following that is a gaudy banner that does report your affiliate link and  finally the space for your tower or wide tower ad unit. You do get one prime ad space at the top of the article list.

The coding of the page, both html and css is not the best. I did not check the new css file but the original took a good deal of adjustment to get things to display properly. My css file works fine with the new script, so I wonder if the current css file is any better than the original. The html uses empty divs for spacing and a table for the main content area. In order to see the coding of the page I needed to use a page source view in my browser. The original files are all encrypted. On the surface this is to protect the IP rights. Underneath, it prevents a user from removing his affiliate links.

I suspect that would not be much of a problem as most of the installations that I have seen change nothing on the site. Some do not even take advantage of the opportunity to place their own ads in the available slots. I don’t think many even realize that they are doing more for him than he is doing for them.

There are extensive instructions and videos on how to promote your article site. Of course, you are really promoting for the developer as much as for yourself, so it is in his best interest for you to know how to promote your site.

One of the bullet points in the presentation of why you would want to put up one of his article directory sites is that you can submit your articles on your site. They will then be distributed throughout the network of sites. So, not only do you get an article directory, you also get an article distribution service – all for “free”.

I wrote one article and submitted it through my installation. When I checked the article had been added to the end of the category under which I had submitted the article. Most article directories list the most recent articles first. Often you may be on the main front page for only a few minutes and on the category front page for a few hours to a few days depending on the category. Adding new articles to the end of the list gets you no exposure.

The features on the submission page were also a bit lacking. There is no provision that I could find to edit your article. Neither is there a preview feature. The instructions also left something to be desired. I ended up with a broken link in my resource box because I guessed wrong on what was required, and had no way to fix the link. I don’t recall that there was a spell checker available for the submitted article. I don’t recall that there was an approval process for the articles. If that is the case expect that many of the articles will be of low quality.

After installing the new script I looked things over on my server. There are a large quantity of articles in one sub-directory. Another sub-directory has author bio pages. My name was not included even though I had submitted an article and probably filled out a bio page. I downloaded a file from a third directory at random. When I looked at the file in my text editor I found that it was encrypted. Next trip up to the server I will download one from the apparent article sub-directory and one from the author bio sub-directory to see if they are also encrypted.

There was one other way in which the actuality did not live up to the promise on the sales page. This may not be entirely the fault of the developer but it is the case none the less. One of the bullet points in the sales letter stated that if you dedicated a domain to the article script your domain would be listed in their directory of article sites. They send out a list of the sites every so often. The ones that I checked recently did not list my article directory site. I had emailed the url when I put up the site and I saw from analytics that they had checked the installation. After their server problems they did say to submit an article to insure that things were working properly. I did not do that and probably they are now generating the list from the article submissions rather than the email notification that I was asked to send. The ones on the list are probably the ones that are actively helping him promote himself.

My general conclusion about the Article Exchange Script are more negative than positive. Do I really want to promote him so much and me so little? I put the script up on the sub-domain space to check it out. I doubt that I will bother to reinstall it in the top level domain space. I can not recommend this script. It will populate a site with articles – and the developers affiliate links and commercial messages. There is limited chance of seeing any traffic, and the page rank of these sites is unlikely to grow so the link juice may not be so sweet.

I had a site on the domain and made it a menu item with the article directory script. I can just delete the script and rename the old index page and be back where I was before I installed the script on the site. I may just do that.

The ad network Chitika seems to take the business of serving ads very seriously. Not only that but they share some of their research information. In looking over the Chitika site I noticed a sidebar link for Research. One of the articles caught my eye.

They recently looked at search term length from a couple of different points of view. They looked at the number of search terms used in searches and the number of terms used in searches that resulted in a click through. Their ad network keys off of search terms for many of the ads displayed, so their information is strong and relevant.

To determine the optimal word count, Chitika looked at a sample of 41,103,403 impressions of search traffic coming into their network between June 13th and 19th.  Within the sample, 10,710,579 impressions – some 26% of all search traffic – came from three-word searches.  The next top word counts were two-word (19%), four-word (17%), and finally one-word (14%).  Any query beyond five words will see dramatically lower traffic, throwing into perspective just how fragmented traffic from long queries really is.

Three word domain names are often recommended by IM pros. This data supports the value of the three word domain name, as an exact match of the domain name can often achieve a number one SERP. Their further research supports the value of the long tail in Internet Marketing:

Additionally, Chitika looked at the advertising click rate by word count to see how visitors’ intent was reflected by how many words they searched for. The highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words. The implication is that a more complex search is more likely to convert into revenue for a publisher, up to a point.

The long tail terms are shown to convert better. This gives some additional insight into your SEO efforts.

To read the full article and see the graphs that they include with the report see the article: SEO Sweet Spot – Three-Word Searches

There is a theory that to optimize the value per click on Google AdSense advertising only one ad unit per page should be displayed. You might have an ad unit and a link unit on a page, but the theory states only one ad unit. The rational for the theory is that Google serves the higher cost per click ads first.

If you have but one ad unit the ads displayed will be the cream of the crop. If you put multiple ad units on a page the lower cost per click ads will also be displayed giving more opportunity for your visitors to click on an ad that will give you a lower income. This could be a two edged sword. Is it better to get a low value click, but a click, or to hold out for only the higher value clicks.

In addition there may be two sides to this coin. It appears that low click through rates can also affect the quality of ads displayed on your site. I suspect that it is more a function of click quality than quantity. My guess would be that a low click through rate that leads to the advertiser’s most wanted action would not cause a problem. If your visitors click on ads and then only glance at the advertiser’s landing page then the click may be considered low value. With the better quality ads your visitor is more likely to spend some time on the advertiser’s page and you may get extra points for that.

Basically the theory makes sense to me. I have wanted to have the larger number of opportunities to click available but I also want to maximize the value of a click. I decided to add another ad network to my arsenal. NetKlix was mentioned in a blog post as an alternative to AdSense. I looked up the NetKlix site and signed up for an account. I received my account approval email this morning.

Some of the things that were attractive to me about the NetKlix program were the ability to control the colors of the ads and the ability to select categories of ads to match the content of the site. Google does a great job of targeting AdSense ads to the content of the page, but Google has the infrastructure to do this realtime. Smaller networks might not be able to target the ads so well, but the capability to select ad categories should be a big advantage.

The sign-up process was relatively quick and painless. The most time consuming part was reading the full Terms & Conditions document. That along took far longer than the 5 minutes that they talk about, but if you read that first the rest of the steps would probably fall within the time frame for most people.

After I signed up and got my codes and installed them on a couple of sites, I thought that I should check NetKlix a bit further. I used the usual Google search terms to dig up a little dirt. Most of what I found was not too current (2007-2008), but there were a few complaints.

Some of these complaints appear to have been addressed, but there is still a major problem from my perspective. It appears that the NetKlix ad inventories are non-existent for the categories that I selected. Before my approval there were some generic ads displayed on my sites. These were not very high quality, but they showed that the ad code was working.

Today, when I checked the sites after my approval, there were no ( as in zero ) ads displayed on either site. I looked at the page source code and my ad script does show up, but there is nothing displayed. I suspect that the categories that I selected for these sites have no ad inventory.

These sites are two of my highest traffic sites. I will need to do some further testing, but that will need to be done on some less important sites. I really need to maximize my income from these sites that have the most potential.

The other network that I have heard about and went on to investigate a bit is Chitika. The positives that I saw with Chitika were a low payment threshold and the demo did return good quality ads for keywords that I tried. I was not particularly enthused about the thumbnail images displayed with each ad, and no mention of color options was made in the material at which I looked.

None the less, I think it is time that I revisit the Chitika site. I don’t want to put affiliate banners up on the sites, but I do want to offer the opportunity for my visitors to pay me a bit more. Testimonials on the Chitika site say that these ads have provided an additional income stream without negative effect on their AdSense income.

What other ad networks have you tried, if any? Have you had experience with either NetKlix or Chitika? Please leave a comment! Thanks!

I have added an ad network in addition to AdSense to my arsenal. I have seen the theory postulated that one Google ad unit can be more effective than multiple AdSense units on a page. The theory is that with multiple units you dig deeper into the ad barrel.

In order to maximize their revenue Google displays the relevant ads that have the highest cost per click first. If you have only one ad unit on a page you get the cream of the crop. To fill additional ad units with unique ads you get down to the lower tiers. The first ad in the first ad unit may be worth a dollar a click while the last ad in the last ad unit may be worth a nickel. By using less ad units per page you are more likely to display high value ads.

With the new ad set-up I can display just one Google ad unit on each page. The theme that I use, and probably most WordPress themes, presents some information on the front page that they do not present on post pages. On post pages I have a large rectangle Google ad unit between the post title and post content. There was also a wide tower unit in the sidebar. By positioning the tower unit in the section that is only displayed on the front page I can now display only one Google ad unit per page. I do not use the large rectangle on the front page.

I replaced the Google tower unit with another networks tower unit, and moved the Google unit down to just before the meta section. This falls between my category links and my external links sections. Then after the external links is the Google tower unit on the home page. On post pages I have my large rectangle and the tower unit from my second network, but the Google tower unit does not display because it is located within the sidebar content that only shows on the home page. My visitors will see two ad units on each page, but only one Google ad unit on any page.

I went with NetKlix as my second ad network partner. They were the first that I found when I began my search. Perhaps I should have researched a bit further, but there was a recommendation from a blogger and the program seems to fit with the site, so I filled out the application and now have NetKlix ads on my most active site. I will probably put some of their units on a couple of other sites soon, and then I will see how they perform.

The possible down side that I see from this is that now there are two payment thresholds to meet. If the Google ads are really of more value than it may not make a difference as far as payment frequency. On the post pages the Google ad has the prime territory. On the home page the NetKlix unit is above the Google unit, but if a user scrolls the entries they will be exposed to both. Most search traffic is sent directly to a post page, so this will be an interesting experiment.

Have you tried other ad networks on your sites? What have the results been?

There is a strong indication from the performance of my site, Web PickUps, that the position on the page of the ad block does have a significant effect on the number of clicks you will see. This is a confirmation of information that I have found on the web. What works for others seems to be working for me with this site.

Web PickUps is a viral email archive site. It has been amazing to me to see how many of these emails are searched for by subject. Since I started using the WordPress blogging software and the email subject line as a post title I have seen increasing traffic to the site. When I set up WordPress I followed the general thinking that I had gleaned from my research on the best ad location for this type of site. This site I have always expected to produce little in the way of ad revenue. That has been the case since I put up the site. Now the click rate has improved enough that my overall click rate including junk pages is nearly double my historic rate. And this is from a site where the visitors are not even shopping, they are looking for humor.

I have two other sites that get steady daily traffic. I will be moving the ad blocks on at least one of those sites  soon to see if the change makes a difference there. If the test proves successful I will move the position on the other site.

The ad block and position that are working on this site is a large rectangle located between the post title and post content on post pages. There is one other recommendation that I should implement here. I have a second ad block on the post pages in the right column. The recommendation is to only have one ad block and perhaps a link unit on a page. The theory is that the more ad blocks the lower the mean price of the ads presented will be. Google serves the higher priced ads first and then fills in with decending value ads. The more ad units on the page the more opportunities for a visitor to click on a lower value ad.

At first I thought that there was a direct correlation between visitors that arrived by search and click rate. It appears that the ad positioning is the defining factor. Those arriving by search for a subject line are sent to a post page rather than the front page of the blog. The front page has only the right column ad block. I should redo the ads using channel identifiers to determine which ad position is actually doing the job.

Of course, without traffic there are no clicks. My main objective must be to build traffic, but my recent experience shows that optimizing the monetization scheme can significantly improve the results.

The more information that you have about what is working for you the more successful you can be at monetizing your websites. Using AdSense for content ads is a popular method of monetization. Using AdSense channels can give you information that you need to optimize your sites.

When you go into the AdSense set-up section along the way you are offered the opportunity to identify the ad with an ad channel. You can use this feature to discover which ad placement and the type of ad that works best for you with your content and lay-out.

To do this you would need a unique identifier for each ad unit. I would suggest adding a suffix to the name to identify the type and placement of ads. You might start with the site name or some variation of the name. The suffix might include a number for various positions on the page and you might add a letter to identify a link unit or an ad unit. You might divide the page into sections like:

1. header
2. left column
3. center column
4. right column
5. footer

Using a letter like ‘l’ for link unit and ‘a’ for ad unit would complete your ad channel designation. For an ad unit in the center column your ad channel identifier might look like:

mysite-3a

When you check your AdSense Report you would immediately know which ad is producing your income. You may find that a particular ad position works best with your content. You may also find that what works best on one type of page does not work as well as some other position on a different type of page. Using the ad placement that works best for the type of page can improve your income.

If you have several sections on your site like content pages, a blog, or a forum you may wish to add an additional identifier for the various sections. This would tell you which sections of your site are producing the most income with what ad position. The more information that you collect the better you are able to optimize your site.

When first starting out with AdSense you may not realize the value of the information that Google makes available to you. I used the same ad units and link units across several sites for too long. I have just begun to update these units to provide more information. I am enjoying improving AdSense income as a result.  You may be able to improve your potential as well.

Internet Marketer Brian Johnson has just announced in an email to his list that several of his many sites have been hit by a Google Slap. The sites, mostly on one dedicated server, have been De-Indexed.

Brian gives his analysis of the situation and some hints to avoid the same problem in a YouTube video (see below). Brian has several highly acclaimed IM products on the market. As an ethical business man, Brian wanted the people on his list to know exactly what the situation was. Many of these sites are used as examples in his products. I suspect an element of damage control also entered the picture.

The fact that Brian sent the notification shows that he cares about the people who have purchased his products. He is to be applauded for this action. He mentions that he has been through this before and that it is one of the dangers of Internet Marketing. He does make some suggestions of ways to minimize the danger.

Here is Brian’s YouTube Video on this situation:

The world is not always a kind place, but all you can do is follow the rules and do the best that you can.

Killer Landing Pages that Sell – Landing Page Quick Reference Guide

By: Michael Cordova

A landing page is a special purpose website workhorse page that is produced for one goal – to persuade the website visitor to convert into a customer by converting into a lead. It is the most powerful tool for Pay Per Click advertising campaigns.

This landing page quick reference guide ensures that your landing pages convert at the highest level. It is divided into 4 sections and is intended to be an all-inclusive white paper.

Most importantly, consider that you have eight seconds or maybe less than that to convince your visitor to act. If you haven’t convinced the visitor in this time then your mark will leave to another site to find their solution, since the web has created the most fussy buyer in sales history.

PAGE LAYOUT

• Your logo should be at the top-left of the page. Visitors expect your logo in this position so exhibit your company branding where it counts.
• If the visitor came from a search engine keyword search or a Pay Per Click ad then place the keyword words in bold at the top of the page. This reinforces to the visitor that they are at the right place.
• Always keep the Golden Triangle in mind. It is the most important and scanned part of the page. The Golden Triangle is the area of the web page from the top left of the page to the top-right of the page then moves down to the bottom-left diagonally just above the fold. The fold is the area of a website page that the visitor sees without scrolling down. You should never force a visitor to scroll horizontally to see your message. This means that your landing pages must ideally be able to be seen completely on a 1024 x 768 screen resolution. Place your most important messageM in the middle of the Golden Triangle.
• Contrast your Calls to Action with respect to the rest of the page – use different colors, use round vs. rectangular shapes, straight vs. slanted, cold color vs. warm color, big vs. little. Make sure you can spot the Call to Action from 6 feet away.
• Place assurances, testimonials and guarantees in the far-right column.
• Place the logos from proper associations or online companies on the side or at the bottom of the page to show credibility – BBB Online Reliability, certified by…, Alexa rank (if your Alexa ranking is low), powerseller, 24 hour support, live support, credit cards supported, open 24 hours a day, Hacker Safe, Truste, Verisign, Chamber of Commerce, as seen in Entrepreneur Magazine, etc.
• Don’t place external links on a landing page except for the following – links to your home page, contact us and privacy policy pages. Links to your contact us and privacy policy pages will increase your Adwords quality score.
• Having said the above, always place your privacy policies or a link to the privacy policies page on the landing page. This instills confidence.
• Think of Amazon.com. Their Call to Action is the hotspot at the top-right of all pages – add to cart, one click ordering, etc. Consider a similar tactic.

WRITING STYLE AND CONTENT

• Results of many tests have shown that the most effective tool on a landing page is your offer. Ensure you have a powerful offer that speaks to your visitors benefits – and make sure you test different offers for effectiveness.
• Spend time on your strong points – A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and set is the core differentiator of a company’s product or service from those of its competitors. Put it into the heart of the Golden Triangle. A perfect one will describe your market and the key difference between your competitors and your own company.
• Write in scannable sections without long paragraphs. Visitors scan pages instead of reading all of the text on them.
• Write with section headers and sub-headers summarizing the text that follows.
• Use bullet points as much as possible so visitors can scan them quickly. Search engines prioritize bullets instead of extended paragraph text.
• If you want to add a picture then ensure that the picture is going to reinforce your message. You can easily lose significant conversions by having the wrong image on the landing page.
• If the landing page purpose is to publish an article or white paper then make an image of the article or paper with large, readable text and place it on the page.

THE FORM

• Keep the number of form fields as small as possible. This is important to getting them to complete the form.
• Add a Comments textbox asking for visitor input. It is key to qualifying leads. Those that describe the services they need should be contacted as soon as possible. Here are some titles you can use for this Comments box:
• What problem can we solve for you?
• What is your projects purpose?
• Please list your goals for this project.
• How can we help you?
• In case your site visitor doesn’t fill-in the Comments box on the first page, add a 2nd page with only a Comments textbox on it requesting visitor comments again. Tell them that if they fill in the Comments box now they will receive an extra free article that is germane to their visit. These visitor comments are important.
• Present the visitor with a checkbox that says something like “YES! Send me the free gift that will change my life.” It is the psychological method of coercing them into completing and submitting the form.
• Prominently list the valuable purpose of completing and submitting the form. Make sure to write in terms of user benefits instead of your service features.
• Ensure you save the form information into a database then send the visitor an email as soon as the form is completed so you can immediately contact the web site visitor. The lead’s effectiveness drops significantly with the passing of time. You should contact your lead within minutes.

LANDING PAGE BLUNDERS

• Text that presses the sale too much
• Landing pages that aren’t optimized for keywords
• Using your website home page as a landing page
• Graphics or text not relevant to the landing page – limit copy to only the point of the landing page
• Long forms with unneeded fields – limit your form to what is completely essential
• Fonts that are difficult to read
• Unnecessary navigation leading off of the landing page
• Placing important persuasive copy below the fold

Author Resource:-> Michael Cordova writes about technology and builds SEO optimized WordPress websites. He has been doing Internet marketing, search engine optimization since the beginning of the Internet. BEFORE YOU GO call Michael at (303) 744-2178 for a free initial SEO website evaluation or contact him from the 21stsoft.com links above.
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