So, if you haven’t wasted 30 minutes yet flipping through the new Gmail themes, go do it now. Then come back and join the conversation. ;-)
My favourites were Ninja, Cold Shower, Shiny, and Tree, but I also did like those cartoon-ish themes like Bus Stop and Tea House, too.
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Last month I had a breakout month with Clickbank, with affiliate earnings exceeding $400.
This month, I’ll be lucky to break $100 with Clickbank with the same site and same niche and same product, largely because traffic is wa-ay down. The keywords which were driving much of my traffic from Google are no longer ranking my site well.
So, since natural search traffic is killing me, I’ve been experimenting with PPC traffic. (You’ll remember that I wrote an earlier post about signing up for Findology, one of the many 2nd-tier PPC networks out there. I signed up after finding a $50 coupon code with an initial deposit of at least $25.)
Well, so far, my opinion of Findology is this:
The Good:
The Bad:
In the last week, my ads have generated 630 click-thrus. Result: No conversions. And, actually, I don’t even think I got any AdSense clicks. I got nothing. In comparison, with natural search traffic for the same site and same product, my conversion rate was 0.7%.
Also, Google Analytics is showing a very high bounce rate. And my gut feeling just tells me that the traffic was not engaged.
Granted, I’m still new to PPC and so, my ads are weak, my landing pages are weak and/or canned, and my sales pitch is untrained. Maybe it’s just a lack of skill on my part.
So, I queried Google to find others that WERE having success converting Findology traffic. What I found was the exact opposite. Link 1. Link 2. Seems that others have come to the same conclusion as me. Findology traffic has low conversion rates.
So, What Now?
I’ve now eaten through my initial $25 deposit with them, and still have $50 remaining. It’s essentially free money.
Not sure how to use it though. I figure I’ll still run the campaigns, and continue to tweak them to see if I can generate a sale. I just need 1 or 2 to recoup my initial $25 deposit.
After that, I don’t think I’ll deposit anymore money with Findology.
I had a good laugh when I saw this in my inbox over the weekend:
The valuation of clicks received for the time period July 2005 – October 2008 has generated a parking revenue of:
$21.45.
Yes, I earned a huge $21.45 over the course of over 3 years with Sedo, which averages out to about $0.55 per month.
After a maintenance haitus that lasted a few weeks longer than their posted notice stated, DealDotCom is back in action.
For those that are unfamiliar with DealDotCom, their concept is similar to that of Woot! in that they have a different product on sale each day. But, each product/tool/ebook is focused on blogging, affiliate marketing, generating traffic… topics that webmasters (especially those wanting to make money online) are interested in.
What sets them apart is that they have a 2-level affiliate marketing program, where you can earn 35% of the sales you send their way.
Anyway, in their first day back, they’re advertising the AutoMarker Social Bookmarking Software, which allows you access to a community of users that will propel your blog posts up the social media site ladders through votes. Sounds sorta scheme-ish, but, hey, traffic is traffic.
I just found out I won a $350 multi-function color printer!
A few weeks ago, I entered the TechVibes Small Business Week contest by commenting on one of their small business posts. It’s the kind of contest I don’t mind entering, because it’s quick and easy to write a comment, plus you might also get a few extra hits from your website link in the comment signature.
Anyway, I’m pretty stoked. I don’t have a printer at the moment, so I’ll be sure to put it to good use.
Here’s what it looks like:
Thanks TechVibes!
In Google’s recently released Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF ALERT!), they describe the best practices to follow to ensure that Google can properly crawl and index your site data.
Shaun at Hobo has created a list of tips on what to AVOID doing, by summarizing many of the suggestions from the Starter Guide. Here are some interesting ones I saw:
Avoid:
There are a total of 30 tips listed on Shaun’s post. Read them all here.
We’re now half-way through November, and it looks like my earnings this month are going to come in way below what I was expecting.
At the beginning of the month, I had blogged about how the niche site which is responsible for 75% of my earnings has had it’s SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions) completely disappear for about a week. They did come back, but all of a sudden, have disappeared again. Google, you’re breaking my heart!
It’s been quite disheartening, but to keep myself distracted, I’ve been working to update content, implement nofollow’s on my blogs, and research PPC more. I’d really like to start an effective PPC campaign using the Facebook ad platform, but just haven’t had the time to do the appropriate research.
It’s times like this that PPC Bully would come in handy, as it would be doing the research for me! (LOL). But, before I start using an automated tool to create successful ads, I’d like to do it by hand, to really digest how to do it successfully. To me, that’s what attracts me to this whole Make Money Online concept– understanding how all of these various tools and methods work and seeing if I can take my learnings and execute a successful campaign.
One of the WordPress plug-ins I use on my blog is the great Show Top Commentators plug-in, which displays the top commentators each month on the blog sidebar. I feel it really helps to create a sense of community and even GIVE BACK to the community of readers by rewarding those readers who help to keep the dialog going each month. Each of the top commentators receives a site-wide link back to their website/blog, which is essentially a free (unpaid) text link ad.
Half-way through November, the top commentators on my blog are:
This is a really easy way to advertise your website and generate a little more traffic. So, if you have something to add, please leave a comment!
On Halloween, I wrote that my SERP’s (Search Engine Ranking Positions) were totally off-the-wall, with keywords that I was once ranked #2 and #3 and #4 for showing no ranking at all. My niche website had essentially disappeared from Google’s radar for these high-traffic keywords, resulting in a > 75% drop in traffic. Forums like SitePoint and DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld were filling with posts of weary webmasters, concerned about their keyword positions changing for the worse.
Thankfully, SERP’s seem to be returning to where they were pre-Halloween, as in the last 24 hours I’ve started to regain my keyword positions. (At least for some keywords.) I expect the Google Dance to go on for another 24 hours or so, after which time things should be back to normal.
I’ll be doing a more complete write-up of this after work today, but from the reading I’ve been doing, it seems to have been a Google error, where they accidentally reverted to old indexing data.
Are you on Twitter? I am.
If you’re looking to add to your daily intake of distracting tweets, feel free to add me. You can find me under @rhansen.
On other Twitter-related news, Darren Rowse (of ProBlogger.net fame) has launched his newest blog TwiTip, with the clever tagline, “Twitter Tips in 140 Characters or More.”
The most amusing part of the site so far is his blog’s tag cloud.
Can you imagine what it’s going to look like when the blog really get’s going?! “T”-overload!