Written on December 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Performancing Ad Network to Introduce Network Ads
Performancing Partners Ad Network (aff) has been around for a couple of months now and I’m seeing more and more publishers with ads being bought on their blogs. However for some (especially smaller blogs) it’s harder to get advertisers signed up and so Performancing are introducing a new type of ad to fill unsold ad spaces - they’re called ‘Network Ads‘.
Network Ads are CPA (Cost Per Action/Aquisition) ads which means publishers get paid when a reader clicks the ads and purchases something from the destination site.
This new Network Ad type of ad is in a beta test and so Performancing are saying that ‘features are limited’. If you have Network Ads served to your unsold ad spots they will stop running when a real advertiser purchases an ad.
Publishers can opt out of having Network Ads served to their blogs. I think I’d be happy to have the ads served if they are advertising quality products (I’ll reserve judgement until I see them) and see an added benefit of having them run as giving potential advertisers the impression that your ad space is in demand.
Read more on the new Network Ads as well as a full description of how Performancing ad network pricing works here.
Update: I’ve chatted to Performancing’s Nick Wilson just now and he tells me that initially there will be only a handful (6-10) ads in circulation across the network but that they are planning on rolling out more (as well as more features which will let publishers control and choose ads by category that fit their blog) in future as they learn from the beta implementation of the program.
Ads will have a fairly ‘general’ focus initially but as time goes on expect to see them add features that allow you to get more relevant ads for your blog. This will be key from my experience of CPA ads and affiliate programs which generally rely upon ads relating closely to the content of a site to be successful.
He also tells me that they are partnering with an undisclosed affiliate network to run these network ads.
Revenue from the ads will be split in the same manner as other Performancing ads with 70% going to the publisher and 30% going to Performancing.
The amount paid for each time a reader buys something from the advertisement hasn’t been disclosed yet by Performancing but they will give further details of this before setting the Network to Active.
If you’re not using Performancing’s Ad network yet you can sign up here.
Written on December 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Poll of the Week - How much did You Earn from AdSense in November 2006?
Every few days someone asks me when I’m going to do another ‘poll of the week’. The reason I’ve not done any is that the plugin I was using to run them had some security problems and I was waiting for an update. This has recently come through so I’ve added a poll for this week asking readers about their AdSense earnings.
It’s been exactly a year since I asked about AdSense so it will be interesting to compare earnings for November in 2005 with November 2006. Here’s the results from last year.
Next week I’ll do the poll on Chitika earnings (as I did last year) so we can compare those results also and then the following poll will be on total earnings.
Head over to the sidebar and vote now.
PS: am aware that the results version of the plugin is screwing up my sidebar. We’re working on it.
Written on December 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 04:12 am by Darren Rowse
8 Signs it Might Be Time to Take a Break from Blogging
“English cricketer Jim Young, 57, carried on batting after a heart attack at the crease in Buntingford, Hertfordshire. He scored another 12 for his village team despite crushing chest pains. He collapsed to his knees and was taken off but went back after a glass of water and scored four more to end up on 48 not out.”
Source The Age - Friday September 1, 2006
Sometimes people need to learn when to take a break. Here are 8 times you might need a break from blogging:
- bloggers block - one of the first signs to me that I might need a day (or ten) off from blogging is when I run out of things to write about. You know the feeling - you stare blankly at the screen unable to string a sentence together for hour on end. If you’ve got nothing to say - it’s probably best to say nothing.
- when everything you do is ‘blogable’ - at the opposite end of the spectrum to bloggers block is where everything you do, say and think becomes a potential post. You start seeing ideas for posts in your breakfast cereal, start blogging about conversations with your wife, write rants on the postman being late….. If this is happening to you it might be time to step back from blogging a little and get a life :-)
- when it intrudes on family - it might seem obvious but I’ve come across a number of bloggers whose family life has come close to breaking down as a result of what bordered on blogging addiction. When blogging intrudes upon real life relationships it’s time to take a good long look at things.
- when you have unrealistic expectations - one of the problems with the blogosphere is that it can be a place where hype is ’spun’ and where people develop unrealistic expectations of what blogging can do for them. I see this all the time in the ‘pro’ blogging space and would strongly advise those looking at ‘going pro’ to take their time, not rush into any extreme actions (like quitting jobs) until you’ve got a realistic understanding of what’s involved. If you find the reality of your blogging and the unrealistic expectations don’t match up you might want to take a break to reevaluate.
- when it intrudes on your health - sometimes our body has a way of telling us to ’stop’. I learned the lesson the hard way earlier in the year when my eyes gave out for a week or two and I thought I was going blind. Give your body (and mind) a break every now and again to rest.
- at the end of the week - I come across more and more bloggers who blog long hours 7 days a week. Give yourself at least one complete day off from blogging a week - if you can’t bear the thought of not posting for a day write in advance and set posts to go off while you take some time off.
- at vacation time - sounds obvious that you’d take vacations - but I know some bloggers who blog while they’re away on holidays from net cafes. Periodic longer periods away from blogging are good for you, your family/relationships and believe it or not they can also be good for your blog and blog readers (here are 7 things to do with your blog while you’re on vacation).
- when your sleep suffers - I know I know - bloggers do their best work late at night when they should be sleeping - but when you find yourself lying in bed at night wondering if your server is still up, dreaming up new post ideas, checking your blackberry for incoming comments or scheming up linkbaiting ideas - maybe it’s time for a break from your blog!
Of course none of this is from personal experience…. (lets hope V doesn’t read this).
I’m pretty sure, knowing the blog addiction suffered by enternetusers readers, that together you’ll be able to add another 10 or so points to this list in comments!
update: Robert Scoble updates the list with another 8
Written on December 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:12 am by Darren Rowse
The Argument Against CAPTCHAs
Mark Styles has posted over at Weblog Tools a post on CAPTCHAs (wikipedia’s page on them here) which makes some good points about why they might not be the best solution for stopping comment spam on a blog. Here’s a few of his main points:
- Any extra work required to comment is likely to deter some people from commenting at all.
- Sometimes the images are so distorted they’re almost impossible to read, even with perfect eyesight.
- CAPTCHAs are hackable. Spammers are smart, they can get past many of our barriers.
- Visually impaired users are completely excluded (although there are audio CAPTCHAs available now).
- Dyslexics have a hard time too.
- There are better and less intrusive solutions.
Written on December 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 05:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Online Consumers Spending Up these Holidays - How are Your Earnings?
Clickz reports on the latest stats of online spending this holiday season.
Spending online is up 24% (with last month totaling $11.75 billion) on last year and traffic is up 13% (it seems people are buying more per visit this year).
Obviously those taking the majority of this income are the big online retailers - but I’m wondering how many entrepreneurial bloggers are enjoying an increase in traffic and earnings?
As I analyze my own earnings for the last couple of weeks I’d estimate that they are up about 50% on two months ago. Particularly performing for me are Amazon Affiliates (up by about 70%) and Chitika’s eMinimalls and Shoplinc (up by as much as double across Chitika’s different ad types) (aff) and to a lesser extent AdSense (up around 20%).
How have others earnings been going in the last few weeks of this holiday period? What’s working for you? What’s not?
Written on December 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:12 am by Darren Rowse
What People Searched Yahoo! for in 2006
Searching for a topic for a new blog? One approach is to look at what people are searching the web for and Yahoo! has helped out today by providing us all with a series of Top Ten Lists of surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.in different categories. Of course there are only so many Britney Spears, WWE, Shakira and Jessica Simpson blogs that the world needs - but it does give you some hints at where the world we live in is currently at (warning - some will find the lists pretty depressing).
Also in the list is the 10 most searched for blogs of surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.in Yahoo (with a few similar themes in it).
Thanks to everyone for emailing me about this list - Kris was the first.
PS: don’t forget that Google has a similar tool that updates weekly at Zeitgeist where as of writing this you’ll see that ‘Christmas’ terms are starting to climb the rankings (hope you’ve optimized your blog for Christmas!). No doubt they’ll release their surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.summary Zeitgeist in the coming weeks.
Written on December 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 07:12 am by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 6 December 2006
Two announcements are echoing around the blogosphere today:
- Jason Calacanis today announced he’s taken up a new job after leaving AOL Entrepreneur in Action (EIA) at Sequoia Capital.
- The Blog Herald’s new owners have been announced as a network called the Bloggy Network Ltd - not to be confused with the previously established Bloggy Network LLC. I’ve been aware of the BN LLC for a year or so now but the BN Ltd only came on my radar a little while ago and caused me some confusion as to whether they were the same thing. Why anyone would choose a name already established is just strange. The comments of the announcement post show others feel similarly.
Written on December 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:12 am by Darren Rowse
7 Reasons Why Personal Blogs Rock
I am regularly asked how I started blogging and whether I’ve always been into making money from them.
My first entry into blogging around four years ago was on a free blogspot blog which was largely a personal blog in which I reflected upon many aspects of life including spirituality, movies, politics, my church, work and miscellaneous ramblings from the various hobbies that I have.
While some entrepreneurial bloggers seem to look down a little on ‘personal blogs’ as being second rate - I think that it was my years of using blogs in this personal way that actually made me a better blogger.
If you like - my personal blogging was a great training ground for my current blogging on an entrepreneurial level.
Here are a few ways that come to mind that personal blogging can actually improve your entrepreneurial blogging efforts. Personal Blogs:
1. teach you the skills of blogging
When I started blogging I had no idea what I was doing. In fact I often tell new bloggers that when I started out I didn’t even know how to make text bold. This slowly changed over time - not from reading any books or online resources - but simply by blogging.
2. familiarize you with the tools of blogging
Within a month or two of blogging I not only learned a lot of skills but I also had a pretty good idea about what blog tools and platforms that suited my needs. As a result I moved on from my Blogger.com blog for MovableType where I continued to blog on a personal level. I also experimented with plenty of other services and widgets that continue to serve me well to this day.
3. help you work out how much time you have
Many new entrepreneurial bloggers under estimate the amount of time and energy that building a successful blog can take. Starting out with a personal blog gives new bloggers a taste of what is involved.
4. help you work out if you can sustain blogging for the long term
Personal blogs are a good way to get a feel for whether blogging is actually for you. The fact is that while some talk blogging up as being the be-all-and-end-all - blogs are not for everyone. Starting a personal blog and just writing about the things that you love gives you a realistic feel for whether you actually enjoy the medium. You also begin to develop a ‘rhythm’ of blogging that will help you down the track as you blog commercially.
5. give you a taste of blogging ‘culture’
Bloggers are a strange bunch and have developed their a whole way of relating with each other which at times can be a little foreign to ‘non-bloggers’. We’ve developed an unspoken etiquette, rules and customs that can take a little while to get your head around. Starting a personal blog can help you understand this before you launch into it as a commercial enterprise.
6. help you define a niche
One of the biggest benefits from my own personal blogging was that over a year or so I gradually began to discover the niches that I then wanted to blog about entrepreneurial. Over time I began writing more and more about gadgets (and a series of blogs was spawned off) and then I started writing about blogging (and this blog was born). I wrote about other topics and didn’t go on with them - but it was only through having a personal blog where I could write about anything at all that I began to see what clicked for me in terms of topic.
7. help you find a readership
Another benefit of blogging on a more personal level is that over time you begin to connect with more and more people. As you blog on topics that appeal to others you’ll find some will keep coming back for more. This means that when you’re ready to launch your commercial blog you are able to leverage some of your personal blog’s traffic and will start with a more established readership.
So - these days when I’m talking to someone and they tell me that they want to start a money making blog and ask for advice on how to start - I generally tell them to ‘just start one’ - and to at least start out with something basic, free and of a more personal nature. Get a feel for the medium, work out if it’s for you, test some topics, make some friends, build some skills and as a result when the time comes to launch into commercial blogging you’ll do so from a much better position.
Written on December 5th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 01:12 am by Darren Rowse
How to Build Community on Your Blog By Giving Readers Jobs
Creating Passionate Users has a great post on building community which I think can be applied to building community around a blog.
“The best way to grow a user community is to get even the beginners to start answering questions. The more they become involved, the more likely they are to stick with it through the rough spots in their own learning curve, and we all know that having to teach or explain something to another person accelerates our own understanding and memory of the topic.”
It reminds me of something that I learned in my early days of being a church pastor (tangent time):
Many churches have a welcoming strategy for new people that aims to ’serve’ the new people in any way that they can. They go to extreme lengths to do welcome people in ways that make them feel included but that keep the visitor passive.
I found in my early days of church work that we had a much higher rate of integrating new people into our community if they were given a job right from the start. The jobs they were given were always small but they didn’t allow new people to remain passive for long but instead encouraged them to belong by Actively participating.
So at LivingRoom (the community that I currently lead) you are asked to bring something to eat/to share from your first or second visit and are even encouraged (not forced) to lead (or co-lead) a night’s discussion in your early days.
In contributing in small but real ways people almost immediately felt like they’d invested something in the community and were more likely to continue to do so over the long term.
I’m pretty sure that a similar thing applies in building all kinds of community and can’t see why it wouldn’t apply to blogging.
My ‘group writing projects’ this year have been a great example of this. Many (I’d estimate up to 30-40%) of those who participated did so on their first visit to enternetusers - and many of those have stayed on and have become regular commenter and even guest posters in my recent ‘quick tip’ series.
In a similar way over at Digital Photography School I have run a number of threads in our discussion forum asking readers to submit images with tips on how they were taken - I then feature some of these on the main blog. This has the benefit of me having user generated content - but more importantly the feedback that I’ve had from those who’ve been featured on the main blog indicates that they have been won over as loyal and Active participants in the community there. One or two have even offered to contribute more posts.
Take home lesson - it’s never to soon to get readers Actively participating in your blog!
So how do you do it? Here are a few ways off the top of my head:
• encouraging comments
• inviting guest posts
• running ‘projects’ for readers to contribute to
• run competitions
• emailing readers asking for feedback on aspects of your blog
• using polls and surveys
• inviting readers to email suggestions/questions
• asking questions and involving readers answers in future posts
I’m pretty sure that others will come up with a lot more ways than that - feel free to add your suggestions below.
Written on December 4th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:12 pm by Darren Rowse
AdWords offer $50 free Ads for New Advertisers
Have you ever wanted to test out AdWords to promote your blog?
Google are currently running a promotion where you get a $50 Ad coupon when you sign up here.
thanks to Jaro for the tip via email.
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