Ask the Blogger

Where’s the best place for ad placement?

October 10, 2011 By Troy Rutter 1 Comment

Question: Where is the absolute best place for ad placement?

Answer: wherever people see it!

Ok, that’s a bit of a non-answer. The real answer to this question has been debated for years. Web site designers have employed the use of heat maps and usability studies, meticulously crawled through the web site usage stats, and have tried to find a rhyme or reason to locate the best location for their advertisements on their web site. In fact, for every person who claims they know the best location, there is at least 1 more (and usually a hundred fold) saying the opposite is true. So where do you start

Conventional wisdom tells us people scan webpages in an S pattern. Eyes start on the right, move toward the right, scan the page from left->right, and then back towards the left again making an “S” pattern from top to bottom of the web page. Banner Blindness often occurs since large ads at the top of the page are so commonplace, so that spot is usually left for a run-of-network ad or internal promotion.

Following this logic, the best place to put ads on your blog, and where you should put your highest affiliate links, will be immediately to the right of your content near the top of the page. This is where the “S” starts. You can also put ad blocks in your content, and immediately thereafter to capture the attention of the reader as they are reading or skimming your content.

Your website is unique, so your best locations may differ too. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different ad locations and keep track of clicks, earnings, or another means of figuring out where your ads better performed. Even if you find the perfect location, there may be times where a particular ad underperforms or bombs altogether – its normal.

If you look at the design here on asktheblogger.com, you will see I have used this type of placement for the small, square graphics on the right hand side. Yes, there is a banner ad at the top, but it is not the best performing ad. In addition, after each blog post’s content, there is a larger rectangle of Google-served ads immediately following the article.

Where to place ads on your site depends a lot on your site’s main design, and even the habits of your users. Start with basic ad positions such as on the right hand side and under your content, and then continually test to find the best ad position for you. That is part of what makes blogging fun – finding what works for you.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger

What Is a PR Rank?

March 20, 2011 By Troy Rutter 1 Comment

Question: What does [it] mean by blog rank PR 1/ 2 / 3 etc ?

A “PR” ranking is short for a Google Page Rank.

Simply put, the Google Page Rank is a number from 0-10 on how “popular” google considers your site. The term popular is a misnomer really, because the actual calculations google uses to compute your PageRank include links in from different sites, number of pages index, and more.

A good place to check your Google Page Rank is http://www.prchecker.info.

A more thorough explanation of the PageRank history can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank,

Sorry for the short answer, but all the information you need can really be found on wikipedia, and with formulas and a lot more information.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Google Page Rank

How Can I Maintain the Same Content On Two Blogs?

March 3, 2011 By Troy Rutter 2 Comments

Question: Can I have maintain same content in wordpress and blogger blog,if the answer is yes means ..how can i import the data to blogger to wordpress?

This is a tough question to answer because there are so many different tangents that can go off from examining it in detail. The intricacies of the question center around both the technical and generic reasons for wanting to maintain content in two different places.

First, what is the reason for maintaining content in two places? In the search engine world, there is a line drawn in the sand amongst those who believe in the Google duplicate content penalty and those who do not. But the bigger issue is why would you want to have the same content in two places? In my opinion, doing so will only hurt you in the long run.

First, whether you believe in it or not, the duplicate content penalty for Google is always a possibility of being real. Having the same content in two places can be a flag to the search engines that the same content is being used on two different sites. Think of it from their point of view – you are trying to get twice the search engine listings for your content using two sites. It is in their best interests to try and weed out duplicate content.

Second, whether or not the duplicate content penalty exists or not, having the same content on two sites will severely hurt your link popularity. Where you might have other websites linking to one site and increasing your link popularity and SEO, having two separate sites give visitors two different sites they may link to. Consider the following:

Site 1 links to www.domain.com
Site 2 links to www.domain.com
Site 3 links to www.domain.com
Site 4 links to www.domain.com

You now have four links to www.domain.com which will greatly help your search engine rankings and people to find your site.

Now consider:

Site 1 links to www.domain.com
Site 2 links to www.anotherdomain.com
Site 3 links to www.anotherdomain.com
Site 4 links to www.anotherdomain.com

Your site www.domain.com is now being penalized because the other sites are linking to your other domain.

Having all links going to one domain is definitely preferred.

All that being said, there are a couple things you can do.

Exporting From Blogger and Importing to WordPress

Exporting from Blogger and Importing to WordPress is fast and easy. I will post a “how-to” here shortly. I will post a link to the article when it is ready.

by Exporting/Importing the content, you will now have the same content on a Blogger blog as you do on your WordPress blog. However, all future posts will not automatically appear on each blog.

Creating Posts From an RSS Feed

In order to keep both sites updated you will need to try and find an option to create new blog posts based on an RSS feed. There have been a few WordPress plugins over the years that claim to do this, but they don’t always seem to work.

The best I have found is called the AutoBlogged plugin, and it costs about $60 for one domain. Click here to visit AutoBlogged.

The best way to do this would be as follows:

Use blogger.com as your “source” blog. Find your RSS feed by going to your blog and clicking on “Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)” at the bottom of the screen.
Keep this URL handy, save it, bookmark it – whatever you have to do.
Purchase the AutoBlogged plugin mentioned above and install it on your WordPress blog
Use the feed URL you obtained previously in the settings of Autoblogged
Use blogger.com to make all of your new posts.

Setting up Autoblogged is not something we can really help you with, you will have to consult their support and documentation on how to fully configure the plugin to create posts from your feed.

If everything is configured correctly, every post you make on blogger.com will be carried over to your WordPress blog.

The Fine Print

Maintaining the same content on 2 different blogs/services is definitely not what I would recommend. I always prefer to have once site that I drive visitors to. There are times where I might create a pointer domain, exclude search engines, and then redirect them to the main site. This is done a lot of times where a domain name is long, or not very search engine friendly. For instance we might have hierson-reynolds-insurance.com as a pointer domain that sends people to youroregonlawyers.com.

Trying to maintain the same content on two sites will be tricky, please let us know how it works out.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blog Redirect, Blog Software, Link Building, Moving Blogger To Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins

What is a Website Silo?

February 9, 2011 By Troy Rutter 1 Comment

Question: What is a website silo? Is it just another word for categories?

A website silo is a type of format for websites and blogs that categorizes its contents in distinct silos, or categories, and confines each piece of content (pages, posts, etc) to those silos. In addition, each silo has its own page that links to the various topics within.

By using silos on your website, you can keep your content organized, and help your search engine ranking by offering the search engines a clean “path” to indexing the content on your website. Silos are not only physical categories on your website, they also help you organize your thoughts, pages and posts into easy-to-follow areas your site visitors can quickly navigate.

Let’s look at an example website on apples.

You might have the following main categories:

type of apples
apple recipes
growing apples
apple news

Those are your silos They are usually your main topics that are listed (sometimes as dropdowns) in your navigation menus.

Each of those silos also has its own page. That page has links to all the articles underneath it.

For instance, the apple recipes silo might have articles on apple pie, apple crumb cake, cinnamon apples, and caramel apples. The main index page would contain links to all of those other sub-topics or even individual articles. The page can be in list form in a pinch, but doing so in a narrative (paragraph) format will help boost your SEO rankings.

Each article, such as apple crumb cake, would link back to the main silo of apple recipes, using the term “apple recipes” as the linking text.

Cross-linking between silos isn’t forbidden, but usually everything underneath a particular silo will link upwards, but not across categorizes.

Using a silo format on your blog/website helps keep your posts and pages within their categories, which is said to also help search engine relevancy.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, Categories, Writing

My Topic Isn’t Unique. Should I Still Blog About It?

January 26, 2011 By Troy Rutter Leave a Comment

Question: I have an idea for a blog that is something I am really interested in. But there are already a lot of blogs, some of them really popular, on the same topic. Should I even try?

First of all – YES!

But your question does bring up some questions of its own. Namely the big one – what is your goal in blogging?

Defining your goal is one of the keys to your happiness and sanity. If your goal is just to make money blogging, then you will get disappointed very quickly. Building a blog up to the point where it creates a steady income takes years, and success is definitely not guaranteed. If on the other hand your goal is just to talk about what you are passionate about, and if it makes some extra income that’s great – you will find that a lot more rewarding.

Looking at a topic and finding heavy competition is definitely tough. Think about all the blogs on how to do blogging. There are hundreds if not thousands of blogs on that topic, and many are written by the top powerhouses who have books, products, programs and more. But they all had to start somewhere.

What gives your blog its uniqueness isn’t only the topic – it’s your voice. You are unique. You have your own personal spin on what you are trying to say, and your own take on the information. Two people given the same material and information will present it in two completely separate ways. And the one who presents it in the most unique way will probably come out on top.

I have written a book on a subject completely different than blogging. It was a grueling process. Every time I thought I was done, I took the chapter I just wrote, broke it in half and then added to it so each of those halves were its own chapter. Little by little I built up the book. It took over a year just to write! I didn’t write the book because I was looking for a big pay-day. I didn’t write the book because I thought I “had to”. I wrote the book because I needed to. Not needed as in money, needed as it was burning in my soul. Writers need to write!

By the same token – bloggers need to blog! I consistently see people who have tried to start a blog and after a couple of months have given up. I don’t call them bloggers. There was no need for them to start their own blog. They started their blog because they thought it was just part of the process of making money. There was no passion.

If you wake up in the morning and feel you “have to” do a blog post today – do the Internet a favor and stop blogging now.

But if you are truly passionate about your topic – get out there and do it! Who cares if there are 10-20-200 blogs on the same topic out there… put your own spin on it. Participate on those other blogs (don’t forget to put your own website link in your signature or comment!) and enjoy talking about your topic your way and on your own terms.

Yes, if you want to grow your blog, eventually you will need to examine your processes, your visitors, advertisers, and all of the things that move your blog out of infancy to the next level. But you need to get your feet wet first, and if you are doing it just for the money – that money will probably never come.

Bottom line – it doesn’t matter how many blogs there are on a topic, if you enjoy the topic, enjoy writing about the topic, have your own voice, and don’t really care about the money right now – then you have a great start on a blog already. Get out there and start writing.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, Content, Copywriting, Make Money Blogging, niche blogs, Writing

Should I Outsource My Blog Content?

January 25, 2011 By Troy Rutter 4 Comments

Question: I’ve read a lot of prominent bloggers outsource their blog content. Is this really a viable method of generating content and should I try it?

Ever since Tim Ferriss told the world how he practically outsourced his life in his book The Four Hour Work Week, outsourcing content and design for blogs and websites has seen an incredible explosion popularity. It sounds great – pay someone else a low fee per article and receive content to put on your website or blog at regular intervals. Even better – pay a one-time fee and receive 10 or 20 articles so they can be scheduled on your blog while you take a vacation to the Bahamas.

Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?

There are two main reasons to outsource your content. First, your blog is insanely popular and you just can’t keep up with the amount of content being requested from your readers. Your reader’s contact you constantly about writing an article on this topic or that topic, and you simply don’t have the time to keep up with all of them. You need help and you need it now. The other reason is the opposite: You just don’t have any ideas for more content and you need someone fresh to come up with new ideas.

Both of these aren’t necessarily good reasons.

A Voice Is Unique

Many people enjoy a good impression. But no impression can fully copy the original. For a blog to be successful, it needs its own voice. That voice can only come from the blog’s regular writers. You can set as many guidelines for the article as you want, but chances are it will have a feel all its own. Your readers want to hear from you – not a paid article or blog post writer. While you can outsource your posts, you can’t outsource your voice.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Even Tim Ferriss notes in his book how every virtual assistant he used wasn’t the best. If you outsource your content, you may get back articles that are completely worthless or need a lot of revision. Worse, you may google a couple sentences and find the article was lifted word-for-word from another website, blog, or published article. Since you prepay for the writer to supply the article, there is usually no recourse or way to not-approve the article. It’s money down the drain.

For A New Blog, It Isn’t Cost Effective

For new blogs starting out, outsourcing content seems like the perfect starting place. And if you have a healthy budget it may be just the thing to get your blog started. But article writing is not necessarily cheap, and you have to weight whether or not that blog post or article will make the return on investment you made in having it written. If a blog post cost $5, will that post actually make your blog $5? For new blogs, probably not. The posts may bring in traffic, however, and that traffic can eventually and indirectly make that return on investment you paid – but it isn’t 100% trackable.

Still Want To Outsource?

If you still want to outsource your blog’s content, make sure you subscribe to this site’s feed. We are planning another post to help you through the common pitfalls of outsourcing to improve your chances of receiving quality articles and blog posts from your writers.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, Content, Outsourcing Tagged With: blog posts, elance, odesk, outsourcing, tim ferris

How Do I Jump Start My New Blog?

January 4, 2011 By Troy Rutter Leave a Comment

Question: How do I jump start my new blog? I feel like it’s just me.

Starting a new blog is always an uphill battle. According to WordPress.com, there are tens of thousands of new blogs started every day – that is a lot of competition. The fact of the matter is, until you build up a following, you may actually be the only one reading your blog, but don’t let that get you down.

Start with your inner circle of friends and colleagues. Let them know about your blog. Whether it is a personal blog or a company blog – you need to get the word out. Put it in your email signature (careful about putting personal blogs in your company signature!), make sure you send out a tweet on twitter every time you make a post, post it on your Facebook profile – whatever you need to do. Let people know.

A great way to get more readers is to create a facebook fan page for your blog. Some bloggers use their personal facebook page as their blog “landing page” but you can create one for your blog as well. By creating a facebook fan page, you will be listed and searchable in the directory giving you access to millions of potential readers.

Another great way to get your blog out there is to do video blog entries, or at the very least a video describing your blog, and upload it to youtube.com. Remember to put a link to your blog in the description and your profile so people can click and get to your blog easily. Doing regular video blog entries and successfully using categories and tagging will drive readers from youtube to your blog and will be very targeted traffic.

Above all – write great content! The first second of someone finding your blog are crucial and can mean the difference of them coming back or leaving for good. Good content – GREAT content – is a surefire way to get people not only reading your blog but spreading your link for you.

This is an important point. You can do all the promotion you want for your blog. You can spend money on advertising, widgets for trade shows, and more. But if you don’t provide good content, it all doesn’t matter.

So don’t worry if it is “only you” when writing your blog. A successful blogger not only writes on their blog, but also is out there on the Internet promoting their blog and adding value to other people’s blogs. Being active in your niche is one of the most important things to remember. It isn’t all about your blog, its about reaching your readers no matter whose blog or website they are on. Be an active participant and people will find you.

As well as the search engines.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Being Successful Online, Blogging, Content, Increasing Website Traffic, Online success, Video Blogging, Writing

5 Ways To Make Money Blogging in 2011

December 29, 2010 By Troy Rutter 7 Comments

It’s every blogger’s dream – to make a living blogging. But the odds are against the part-time blogger making even the smallest payout from Google adsense their first year (if ever.) So how do you beat the odds? These tips should help

Find Your Own Advertisers

Putting up an advertising space saying “advertise here” is not going to get you anywhere. You may think advertisers should be trampling each other for that above-the-fold 125×125 ad on your homepage, but chances are it will never come. So go to them. If you don’t have a rate card for your the spots you are selling then you better make one fast. An ad for $30/mo. is still $30 more a month you didn’t have.

Find a local angle to the niche your blog is about. If you are writing about “silver lab puppies” seek out a local breeder specializing in that type of dog. Likewise, if you have a more general blog such as “sailboarding” you may not have a sailboarding shop near you, but chances are you might have a local sports or outdoor supply store that sells life jackets.

Just because you have a “national” focus does not mean you can only have national advertisers. I hope you are active in your local blogging and twitter community and follow (and are followed by) other people in your area. They are probably reading your blog regardless of content. There is always a local advertiser you can hit up for some exposure. It’s great if they have a shopping cart and ship nationally or internationally, but even if they don’t – they may be interested in advertising.

Bottom line: don’t wait for advertisers to find you, go out and find some.

Post A Product Review

There must be a product or two on Amazon.com you can promote with an affiliate link. I’m not talking some random product but a product you actually use and would not hesitate to recommend. Look it up on Amazon and lin kto it with your affiliate ID. If you don’t have an amazon affiliate account – get one. Now. Seriously.

Some people do review sites for the sole purpose of making money through affiliate programs. Some are successful, most are not. So if you really love a product, review it. If you tried multiple products that are related, compare and contrast them. Some of the best performing blog posts are comparisons of similar products. An example might be The Flip video camera vs the Kodak Zi8. You aren’t just copying the description from amazon, you are doing an honest-to-goodness comparison you yourself have tried.

THAT is authenticity.

Review Your Adsense Stats

I admit it, I don’t spend nearly enough time figuring out google adsense placements and performance. I log into adsense, check my balance and then look at it again in a few hours. Repeat throughout the day.

But there is a lot of information waiting to be mined. Like everything it takes time and effort. Look at your pages and figure out the best placements for your ads. Maybe all of your ads are in the same place on every page – maybe not. Try testing different placments and sizes. It will take a while to get the relevant stats, but once you hit upon the formula for your site, it can mean the difference of tens or hundreds of dollars a day.

Review A Site or Product for $5

This one is a bit controversial so stay with me. There is a great web site called fiverr.com. On it you can buy (or sell) practically anything for $5. Everything from a phone call impersonating Kermit the Frog, to a picture of your dog posted in the middle of Tokyo’s biggest street.

One of the ways people used to make money on their blogs was through a site called ReviewMe. It’s still around, but you had to be selected by an advertiser based on your traffic, and personally I made about $20 in 2006, then nothing.

But on fiverr, not only can you sell a “review” but you can also just sell a link if you want. Now, if you want to remain reputable you would include the proper attribution such as “Sponsored Post” before your blog post, or s a similar disclaimer letting people know you are getting something in return for reviewing or linking to the site. Go ahead and search fiverr for some other ideas.

The Donation Button

We’ve all seen them, and most of us hate them, but in this day and age, who cares. The old “tip jar” is a viable way for your readers to make a donation to your site. Even Adam Curry supports his podcasts The Daily Source Code and No Agenda through listener donations. Yo may never see the $1,000 donations Adam sometimes sees for his show, but you might make a few dollars a month. PayPal makes an easy Donation button that gives you an embed code you can just copy and then paste into your blog.

Of course the biggest way to make money blogging in 2011…

Keep writing great content. Write regularly, write well, write write write. There is no shortcut for great content. Great rewards come with great work. If you only give a few minutes or hours for blogging a day, then that is what you are going to get out of it. A great blog requires a lot of work. Making a good income with your blog likewise requires a lot of work – but it is possible.

Here’s to a profitable 2011!

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Being Successful Online, Blogging, Content, Google Adsense, Make Money Blogging, Professional Blogging, Writing

What Is A Niche Blog?

December 23, 2010 By Troy Rutter Leave a Comment

Question: I’ve been hearing the term “niche blog” a lot lately, sometimes good and sometimes bad. What is a niche blog?

Great question!

If you are new to blogging, you may hear about “finding your niche.” In fact, most blog mentors advise people to start with a niche they enjoy, and grow their blog from there. Sounds great, doesn’t it! It is… but that isn’t the kind of niche blog being talked about these days.

Today, the term “niche blog” is used a lot of times to refer to what used to be called “MFA” or “Made For Adsense Blogs.” These are blogs on a super niche topic used only to put up SEO content to rank high for keywords, so they can earn adsense revenue from people coming to the site.

By having no real content, when a visitor arrives at the site, they will more than likely want to leave right away. The best way to do that is through the google ads presented on the page. In this way, MFA or niche blogs are very popular with the types of bloggers who want to “get rich quick.”

There are many themes catering to this niche blogs easily and quickly. By purchasing a developer license from the theme’s creator, the niche blog author can use the same theme over and over again on hundreds or thousands of different niche blogs.

Some people claim niche blogs have a short shelf-life, making money quickly at first and then falling off. Others say they their niche sites earn as much today as they did 6 months or a year ago. One thing is for certain though, you have to produce a lot of niche sites just to be sure your income stream is not depleted should one or two stop earning revenue.

If you are running a true “niche blog” then really it is just a blog. Mentioning you run a niche blog may get some strange reactions from others in forums, especially if there are those who think niche blogs are spamming the Internet.

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, niche blogs, Writing

Why Are Adwords For My Blog Always Disapproved?

December 22, 2010 By Troy Rutter 4 Comments

Question: I am using blogger.com for my blog. And I’ve been reading a lot of blogs with so much affiliates. Now I joined affiliates and place banners and text link ads in my blog. But when I activated my google adwords to advertise my site, my ads was alwasy disapprove due to violation in landing page or advertising policies. How can I resolve that? I reviewed my site and removed all the ads but still it was disapproved. Can you help. Thanks

That is a pretty big question, and without knowing the specifics, it is hard to give a good answer, but I think I might have some insight you can use.

First, adwords are disapproved for many different reasons. The email you receive from google regarding your ads is often not very helpful, but it should provide at least a clue.

The most common reason ads are disapproved, based on what you have told us, is your pages quality score. There are a lot of ebooks floating around that talk about “adsense arbitrage.” That is, you spend money on adwords to get visitors to a page that you then have adsense (or other affiliate programs) on. While this might have worked 5-10 years ago, the rules have certainly changed, making it harder to get adwords ads approved.

When you create an adwords ad, the system now looks at the total page (and perhaps the entire site) and determines a quality score. If the quality score is too low, your ad may be disapproved, or it might cost a higher price to display the same adwords ad.

For instance, say you have setup up a blog about vacation deals. On it you have a page for “vacations in Dubai” where you list some very basic information like “Vacations in Dubai are nice. Wouldn’t you like to vacation in Dubai? Vacations in Dubai will form memories that last a lifetime.” You include a few photos of Dubai, and then surround the content with ads, affiliate programs, pay per click offers, and more.

That is going to be a very low quality score.

If you want to make real money with affiliate programs, you have to provide real content. If your blog is just a few sentences on each page, surrounded by affiliate programs, not only will you not make money, but as you have said – adwords to your site will continue to be disapproved. A blog with no substance with only affiliate programs is only one step above a Made for Adsense (MFA) site.

Follow the adwords rules and have good content on the page(s) you are doing adwords for.

Filed Under: Ads On Blogs, Adsense Arbitrage, Ask the Blogger, Conversions, Make Money Blogging, Making Money Online