Written on August 24th, 2005 at 10:08 am by Darren Rowse

Affiliate Programs - Commission Junction

31 Days to Building a Better Blog, Affiliate Programs 41 comments

This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs

Commission Junction is another affiliate program mega store (like clickbank) that offers thousands of products from different industries for you to get commissions from.

In a sense CJ is a middleman between you the affiliate and companies who have products to sell.

I’ve used Commission Junction for a year or so now and have never really had much success with it - partly because I’ve not found many products in it that quite fit with the topics that I write on and partly because I have found other programs (like Amazon) to be easier to add to my blogs.

In fact I’ve used Commission Junction so little in the past few months that today when I logged onto it I found that my account has been deactivated (I’ve since reactivated it).

Once you’ve applied to join Commission Junction you then need to apply to join some of the many programs that run within it. Each advertisers in the system has their own program and if you wish to promote their products you apply to do so. Once your application is approved you are then able to use links provided to promote their products.

I understand why they use this system but it can make getting products up onto your blog to promote a longer process (and more frustrating if you’re rejected) than other systems like Amazon and Clickbank in which you are free to promote any product or service in their system. For example I’ve just now applied to become an affiliate of the Commission Junction program but was rejected for no reason.

As you can tell I’m not a major fan of CJ but I include it in this series because I know of website owners who use it very effectively and make good money from it.

Pros of Commission Junction

• wide variety of products/services/companies to promote
• better quality products than clickbank (no cheap and nasty e-books here). In fact they represent some very big companies.
• options given for different types of links (including text, buttons, banners etc)
• reasonable statistics information given

Cons of Commission Junction

• perhaps a downside of the variety of products on offer is the overwhelming nature of CJ
• slightly more complicated interface than a program like Amazon
• they deactivated my account!
• application to programs within the larger Commission Junction network can be frustrating and a long process

Share your experience with Commission Junction in comments below.

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Written on August 24th, 2005 at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse

Adsense Optimization Case Study - BuzzMachine

31 Days to Building a Better Blog, Case Studies, Adsense 25 comments

Yesterday I mentioned that Jeff Jarvis has made the decision to add Ads to his Blog (BuzzMachine). After posting this I emailed Jeff to let him know that I’d be happy to give a few free tips on how to get the most out of his Adsense ads. I’m yet to hear back from him (I know he’s a busy guy - so I’m not offended) but as I thought about what I’d suggest to him I thought it might make an interesting case study post here at enternetusers as part of the 31 Days Project.

So consider this an open letter of advice for Jeff - but also for the many other bloggers who have similar blogs. Jeff uses a fairly standard WordPress template so what I share here might be useful for others too. Feel free to add your suggestions and tips to the comments section below.

The first thing I would recommend that Jeff does is go and have a look at the advice the Adsense team give publishers at their optimization page. Of particular usefulness is the heat map that they give that shows hot zones for the best positioning of ads (see diagram below).

Possible Problems/Issues

If you compare this heat map (above) and Jeff’s page (left) you’ll notice immediately a couple of things.

1. Jeff’s BlogAds position is in a completely cold zone. White patches on the heat map are dead/cold patches. I was actually going to buy an ad space from his blog ads but when i saw the position I decided against it.

2. Jeff’s Adsense ads are in a pretty cool zone also (right hand sidebar). This is the position of them on every page in the blog. probably the only worse place for them would be below his footer and on the same sidebar but below the fold.

Another issue that I’d suggest Jeff take a look at is the visual barrier that he’s created by putting the ads column on a different color background to the rest of the blog. There is a line between his site proper and the ad section. While this might help to identify what is an ad and what isn’t an ad - it is a pretty basic no no if you want to get good results form your ads.

Not only is there a line between his content and ads, there is also a menu column on his main page which further separates his readers main attention and the ads.

Another observation that i make is that when you look at the source code on Jeff’s site - the Adsense code is the very very last piece of code that you see on the page. This means that the adsense code and the content (which adsense looks at when determining which ads to place on the site) are not in proximity to one another. This is one problem that many bloggers have and it can be one of the reasons that many bloggers get quite irrelevant advertisements served.

Suggested Solutions

I would highly recommend that Jeff do one or all of the following things:

Move his ad column to the left hand side of the blog - This is probably the simplest tweak he could make. It would solve a couple of the problems mentioned above including putting the ads into hot zones and putting the Adsense code higher in the source code (and hopefully increasing ad relevancy).

New Positions - While just moving the ad to the left of screen would definitely help click through rates I’d suggest that other positions are worth experimenting with ads also. For starters could try the positioning on his son’s blog (see below) - a small banner at the top of content. This is a good position for a front page. These ads would do well if they were blended in (ie black text and blue title/links) in a similar way to how they are at Jake’s Blog (note - Jake is not only Jeff’s son but he’s Jeff’s blog designer - and does pretty nice work I have to say).

Another useful position on a front page is to position a rectangle ad two or three posts down the page (say between post 2 and 3) - as I do on my main page.

On individual pages I’d recommend jeff consider either placing an ad inside content like I do on many of my blogs (example). This is the hottest zone on the above heat map. In addition to this another option is to add a second ad at the bottom of his posts but before comments. Jeff gets a lot of comments on his blogs and as a result readers often get to the bottom of his posts and will see these ads (illustrated below). As with my other suggestions I’d encourage a blended ad approach here - black text, blue titles/links.

Add more ad units - at present Jeff has only one ad unit - I’d recommend that if income generation were a high priority that he consider adding at least one more unit, if not two. Of course he probably doesn’t want to dominate his page with ads (I’ve no problem with this) but I suspect adding a second unit on individual pages above the comments section would not clutter the page with ads too much.

Add Link Units - the beauty of Adsense’s link units is that they are small and pretty adaptable. Again Jeff’s son Jake has these on his blog - in one format that might work (at the top of a sidebar). Another option would be to place them along the top of Jeff’s blog or underneath his header (as I do here at enternetusers at present). Adlinks work very well on some blogs and not on others - but it’s worth a try as they are pretty small and unobtrusive ads.

I’ll leave it at that for the moment - there is a lot more that can be said but these are the basics that I’d recommend to someone wanting my opinion.

I should say that I’ve written these tips not knowing what Jeff’s overall blog goals are. I suspect that while he’s interested in advertising revenue that it’s not the main motivation for his blog and that he will not want ads to dominate his pages. This is great and fits his blog well - however I believe that he could make a few of these tweaks, still keep a clean and classy design for his blog and not interrupt the flow while still earning a few dollars on the side.

As I’ve written above - I’d love to hear what suggestions you’d make to Jeff in comments below.

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse

What Is WordPress.com?

Blogging Tools and Services 7 comments

Do you want to know what WordPress.com (a new and upcoming service of WordPress) is?

If so I recommend you head over to Lorelle’s blog and read What can you do with wordpress.com. Looks like a great service - although perhaps a little further off going live than I thought when I heard about it a couple of days ago.

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse

AdSense Policy Changes to Hit Comment Spammers?

Adsense 4 comments

Jen observes that Adsense have made a few changes of wording in their terms and conditions (mainly minor changes) and points out one that could be linked to an attempt to crackdown and penalize comment spammers. The wording that they’ve added is:

‘In addition, publishers may not bring unnatural attention to sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites. These activities are strictly prohibited in order to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.’

‘unwanted advertisements on third-party websites’ - sounds like comment spam to me too. If it is comment spamming that they are talking about I’m right behind them. Of course the challenge is to go beyond changing a policy and enforcing it - time will tell if they have what it takes to tackle this on a larger scale than just the one off banning of publishers that we’re used to for breaches of policies.

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 23

31 Days to Building a Better Blog 2 comments

Time flies when you’re having fun - and blogging has been fun this past few weeks. I can hardly believe we’re up to day 23 of the 31 Day Project already! Here are the reader submitted posts from the past 24 hours:

• Julian wrote Target Your Audience
• Dominic Foster submitted Blog Rating - Increase your Blogging Confidence
• un papier writes Blogging while on the clock
• Amit submitted Display relevant Ads in Blogs: Just suggest Google

Do you have a Blog Tip that might help your fellow bloggers? Write it up and let me know of the URL and I’ll link up tomorrow.

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 07:08 pm by Darren Rowse

Affiliate Programs - Clickbank

Affiliate Programs 29 comments

This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs

Clickbank is another affiliate program that I know quite a few bloggers use. I’ve used it myself to promote a small selection of products with moderate success.

The product I’ve seen the most success with is Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense (affiliate link) which I reviewed here. I think I had some good results with this product because I’d personally read and used it and gave an honest appraisal with it for my readers. Personal recommendations are important with all affiliate sales - but especially with Clickbank as some of their products have a pretty average reputation.

Many of Clickbank’s products are e-books and software products - which are broken down into the categories of Business to Business, Computing & Internet, Fun & Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Money & Employment, Sports & Recreation, Home & Family, Marketing & Ads, Society & Culture.

As I note below - while the money can be good with Clickbank - you might pay for it with the ‘cheap and nasty’ feel that many of it’s products have. I would strongly recommend that you carefully consider which products you link to and suggest that you (or someone you trust) has personal experience of them before recommending them to readers.

Clickbank Pros

• it is pretty easy to use Clickbank. Once registered you just need to insert your affiliate name into a URL to be activated for the product

• commissions are very good. Some pay out up to 70% of the value of the product. I’ve made commissions of up to $50 on some sales and know of people who make quite good money from them.

Clickbank Cons

• many of Clickbank’s products are quite quite cheap (although expensive) and nasty. You get a lot of get rich quick programs, dodgy e-books etc. There are some quality products in the mix - but they don’t have the best reputation among many people.

• the Clickbank affiliate interface is pretty basic. In comparison to the stats you get from programs like Amazon and Adsense it’s not very helpful.

• there are no inbuilt options for creating links automatically as there are with many other affiliate programs. I’ve heard of a variety of clickbank tools that can help with this but if you just use their provided interface all you can really create is text links.

What experience have you had with Clickbank? Would/do you use it? Which products have you had success with? What works best in your Clickbank strategy?

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 05:08 pm by Darren Rowse

Six Figure Blogging - 200 Participants and Counting

enternetusers Site News 4 comments

I just spoke to Andy and he tells me that the free preview call for the Six Figure Blogging (7th September - 8pm Eastern US time) course that we’re running has already got over 200 people registered. We’re both really exciting about not only the call but the six weeks that follow where we’ll be exploring via a weekly tele conference call how bloggers can add income streams to their blogs. Some of those signed up are among the whose who of blogging so I’m starting to get a little nervous/excited.

If you’re planning to participate in the free preview call you need to register on the Six Figure Blogging Page. This will enable you to access the call either live or after the call to download it at your own convenience. Andy and I are hoping to make the call a worthwhile one in and of itself and hope that even those that don’t continue on with the rest of the paid course will take home something worthwhile out of it. The call will go for at least one hour - although looking at what we want to pack into the hour it could go even longer than that, especially if we’re able to take a few questions.

Also exciting is that a lot of bloggers have signed up as affiliates to the course. For each person they sign up as participants in the full course they’ll be paid a 50% commission. Sign up two people and you could use the money to sign up for free - or find yourself with a cool $325 in the bank.

Sign up for the affiliate program at affiliate program at Andy’s Blog and make use of the banners and buttons he’s put together there.

This is going to be fun - I’m really looking forward to getting it all under way in just a couple of weeks time. I hope you can join us for the free call!

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 03:08 pm by Darren Rowse

Interview with Jason Kottke

Pro Blogging News 5 comments

Blogebrity interviews Jason Kottke at midway point of full-time blogging year about his decision to quit his job and go full time as a blogger - relying upon the support, through donations, of his readers. Blogebrity asks about whether Jason is considering putting ads on his blog and about how the contribution levels are currently going:

‘B: It seems close to the style used by advertising-supported blogs, in order to increase page views. Have you reconsidered putting ads on your blog?

K: Nope, haven’t reconsidered. No ads on kottke.org, probably not ever.

B: How, if I may ask, is the contribution flow?

K: Oh, it’s trickled down to almost nothing. Which is fine…I don’t really advertise it. The initial 3-week push was enough for the year and most of the regular readers saw it at that point and either contributed or didn’t. I don’t want to beat anyone over the head about it.’

It will be fascinating to see how Jason goes when the second year’s drive for donations comes around. His blog has definitely changed in the past 6 months and I’ll be interested to watch how readers respond to another invitation to donate. Read Jason’s blog at kottke.org.

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 12:08 pm by Darren Rowse

Yahoo Publisher Network Rev vs. Google Adsense Rev

Yahoo Publishing Network, Adsense 13 comments

How does the Yahoo Publisher Network compare to Adsense? This is the question on many bloggers lips - especially those who are not in the US and are excluded from the beta test. Those in this boat are watching beta testers carefully for any hints - most of which seem pretty positive.

Jen reported a few days back that YPN was doing better than Adsense was for her and today Paul Scrivens reports that he’s switching all of his sites over to YPN after massive improvements on one of his blogs after making the switch. He reports the following increases:

‘* August: 1112% of Google
* July-August: 189% of Google
* June-August: 80% of Google
* May-August: 56% of Google

What this means is that I have seen a 1112% increase in revenues for this month using Yahoo over this month’s Google. 189% just for the ten days of Yahoo in comparison to the whole month of July and part of August combined for Google!!!!’

Wow. If I was seeing improvements of between 56% and 1112% I’d be moving my sites over too.

Ok Yahoo! - I think its time to let some of us non US bods in on the act!

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Written on August 23rd, 2005 at 10:08 am by Darren Rowse

Overnight Blogging Success

31 Days to Building a Better Blog, Miscellaneous Blog Tips 12 comments

Here is a quote from Paul Allen that I should be tattooed to the foreheads of all bloggers hoping to make it rich via their blogging efforts:

‘My brother Curt, founder of Folio Corp, former CEO of MyFamily.com, and current CEO of Agilix, a venture-backed company, is fond of saying telling how his company was going to be an overnight success…after 10 years of hard work.

I believe that the single most important key to success in an online venture is doing the little things day after day for years and years until you magically reach the tipping point and everyone seems to have heard of you. In other words, persistence is required for most successful ventures.’

Last night I had just finished posting on 15 new digital cameras and printers that had been announced by Canon - it was 2am - and I was just about to close my laptop when my instant messenger beeped - signaling someone wanted a chat. 2am is not my favorite time of the day to start IM conversations but my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the window to find out who it was. It turned out to be a journalist from a pretty major online publication wanting an interview (glad I checked).

I am a little fearful of the article that will be the result of the interview because at 2.00am to 2.30am in I don’t generally have much that is worthwhile to say - however the one thing that I found myself saying to every second question is ‘it takes time’. The questions were varied - but the answer remained.

• How do you build up a readership?

• How do you get ranked in Search Engines?

• How do you start so many blogs?

• How did you learn your craft?

• How did you get credibility in the area you blog in?

• How quickly can you build a successful blog?

It takes time. As a result essential qualities of successful entrepreneurial bloggers are patience and persistence. If you have these you just might find yourself becoming an overnight success - eventually.

Read Paul’s post - How to have Overnight Internet Success

While you read it I’m going back to bed - I’ve got a blogging hangover.

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