Jane May Blogs

I got a kick out of two interesting posts that came out last week. The first one was Paula’s list of blogger salaries where she listed me at #14 in the company of John Chow, Darren Rowse and Jeremy Shoemoney which I am flattered about and will hopefully be at their levels soon

Following Paula’s article, came Worldwide Success’ Millionaire Bloggers Hall of Fame. This post focuses on some of the top earning blogs and puts a monetary value on them based on the same valuation that the S&P 500 stocks trade at.  Career Ramblings is the 4th highest valued blog at $1.8MM, behind Steve Pavlina, CoolestGadgets.com and John Chow. If anyone would like to buy Career Ramblings at a discount of 36% for $1.2MM, contact me. I’ll gladly sell

I have done an experiment this whole week to test the theory that having less adsense ads on your site gets you more money and I have found it to be true. I used to run the adsense maximum of 3 blocks on my main site: (1) leaderboard; (2) 250 x 250 ad block; and (3) 468 x 60 banner ad. If you add all those up, it’s a lot of ads. The theory is that sites bid for their ads to be placed on contextually relevant web sites with the highest bidders getting the best adsense spots (the higher the better). If you only show 4 ads in 1 block, then adsense will place the highest 4 bidding advertisers in those spaces netting you the highest profit. The more ads you show, the more lower-bidding advertisers show up on your page that when those get clicked, your cpc becomes lower than it could be if they weren’t on your page to begin with.

My Test

A few weeks ago, I removed the 468 x 60 banner ads I ran at the bottom of every post. This increased overall cpc by a small margin. My biggest money makers were always the leaderboard and 250 x 250 block so getting rid of the banner was a no brainer. This week I removed the 250 x 250 block, leaving only my leaderboard and boy was I surprised at the results. My cpc nearly doubled and I had a close to record day in earnings. Everyone thinks that the more ads you have the more your site will make but my experiment has proved otherwise.

I am aware that these results may have been caused by the content I posted this week because earnings do increase and decrease based on content, but so far I am satisfied with the income from only having 1 ad block. I will continue to play with the ad placement and style because you can never test too much.

What are some of your experiences with adsense ads? Do you notice increases or decreases based on number of ads and content? Please leave your comments below and let me know

The get a free backlink from a pagerank 6 site promotion got some great immediate responses. We had 10 reviews within the first 2 days. Right now we have 3 reviews complete for the 3rd batch of published reviews and need 2 more until I can post them.

If you’ve read any of the review posts on Career Ramblings, John and I pick 1 or 2 of the best reviews in each round and write a bit about the blog and author. We’ve received good feedback from those blogs saying that they are receiving excellent traffic from the backlink, in addition to the good SEO benefit of a backlink from a PR6 site.

If you would like to participate you still can. Just head over to the rules post to find out how.

Exactly 1 week ago I wrote about making $100 per day. Thanks to all your inspirational comments and a small partnership project I am working on with 2 other people whom I will introduce to you soon, yesterday was another big first for me. All my projects combined for over $300.

How Can You Make Over $300?

The simple answer is by diversifying your income streams. As I review yesterday’s stats, I had income from Adsense, Affiliate Sales, ReviewMe and a small PPC site.

In order, here are broad steps to developing web sites/blogs to make you money.

1. Excellent content. No doubt about it, this is the most important step. Your web site must have unique, quality content that people want to read.
2. Regular updates. If you update your web site every day, people will continue coming back daily. If you update once per week or less, you are losing valuable readers. People forget about sites if they are not updated daily. Sure there are some sites that can get away with less frequently updated content, but their content must be the most invaluable source of knowledge in your subject matter. If you update daily, you can get away with very good content, but not necessarily the best in the subject.
3. Marketing. Market your site, network with other bloggers, etc etc. There are so many different ways to market that this subject will need its own detailed post to explain fully.
4. Perfect 1 method of monetization. Before you can make money with 5+ income streams like the best bloggers do (John Chow, Shoemoney, Steve Pavlina), get good at making money every day in ONE stream of income. Some may view this as putting all your eggs in one basket, but you are only starting with this one basket. If you cannot make money in one method, how are you going to make money with multiple methods?
5. Expand to multiple monetization methods. After you’re consistently making money with adsense or another method, then start developing and focusing on another method. Introduce the new methods slowly so you don’t get in over your head. Really RESEARCH the method you are using for hours and hours. It is not an over night thing and not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time and knowledge but is more rewarding than most 40 hour per week desk jobs because it becomes your baby. You are solely responsible for developing and growing your projects and income streams, and can measure your success.

I hope this answers some of the email questions I have received about steps on building income streams. Use your prior successful days to build new, more successful days. Your first $25 day will lead to your first $75 day which will lead to your first $500 day. Get creative. I will provide many more posts in the coming weeks with plenty more details. I’d like to take each of the above 5 steps and expand on them in their own posts. Now that you’ve read this, let’s start making money! Be sure to share your experiences in the comments section. It helps push everyone to do more and I find your words very encouraging.

• Be sure to sign up for my free newsletter in the sidebar to get exclusive money making tips that I will not always publish on this web site.
• If you don’t have hosting for your web site yet, message me for advice. I’ve used 4 different hosts in the last 6 months and have experience in which company might be best for your specific needs.

** Update: An easy way to start making money everyday is PayPerPost which currently has 44 opportunities ranging from $5 - $175 per review. You write the reviews on your blog and as long as you meet the minimum requirements you get paid. You can view the opportunities here.

As I mentioned yesterday, I will be giving an overview for new bloggers of what they should be doing in week one and break each day (Monday through Friday) into individual posts throughout this week and maybe next week.  So if you are new to the blogging world or you want to clean your own site up, be sure to pay special attention to this series as it will help you have a successful blog or web site.

Full Speed Ahead

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long-term maintenance activity, something you do throughout your online life.  It is made up of both productive spells and waiting periods.  Sometimes it’s hot, and other times it’s not.  Your SEO plan should be designed so that your waiting time (waiting for other web site owners to get back to you, waiting for the search engines to notice what you’ve done, etc.) isn’t spent doing nothing. Rather, you’ll use this time to take on new initiatives. And even though you’ll constantly move into new SEO territory as the plan progresses, you’ll periodically come back to revisit and continue the work you started in earlier weeks.

As we begin Week 1 of your first week of blogging, you want to take the following into consideration:

Monday: Page Titles

Today, you’re going to take a stab at writing unique and compelling page titles for each of your landing pages.

Remember, as I mentioned yesterday, have a sheet of paper or a log to keep you in tune with your goals and keywords as you write them down. This will help you in the future when you are testing new things or you are starting a second, third or tenth site.

Effective Page Title Do’s

DO keep it short. Like a telephone answering machine that cuts you off before you finish talking, most search engines display only 40 to 60 characters in the listing title. So to get your message across, you should include important keywords toward the beginning of the title and make sure that the first 40 to 60 characters of your title form a complete thought.  Keep in no longer than 8 words.

DO include your keywords.  Your page title is important in the ranking algorithm, so it must include your target keywords! Since your space is limited, focus on the two to three key terms that you previously matched with your landing page. Feeling a bit squeezed by the 40 to 60 character cutoff? Remember that you can combine keywords to save space.

For Example:

Learn to Blog and Earn Money= Learn to Blog, Earn Money, Learn to Blog and Earn Money, Blog and Earn Money, etc.

DON’T overdo it! First and foremost, you want to connect with your intended audience. Excessive keyword repetition is a short-sighted strategy. Is this a marketing message or a synonym sandwich?

Remember to think of the big picture! Your approach to site optimization will affect more than just ranks…it will also affect your readers’ decision to engage and interact with your web site or blog

DO include your name. Although I do not recommend this for every title in your blog, your blogs or web sites name will not only differentiate your listing from your competitors’, it may earn you more clicks. Maybe your name carries a good reputation with it, or maybe it provides important context, making your listing more attractive or relevant.

DON’T assume your slogan does the job. Even if branding is your only objective, you need to think about whether your slogan contains your targeted keywords and, if so, whether you think it will encourage visits to your site. 

DO write unique titles for each page. You’ve got enough competition out there. Don’t add to it by pitting your landing pages against each other with identical page titles.

Since each of your landing pages is already targeting a unique subset of your top-priority keywords, you can always find a different angle for each page title. Give each of your landing pages the chance to shine on its own.

DON’T duplicate site navigation in the title. Whether generated automatically or written by hand, page titles are often used as a place to mirror the navigational structure of a site. I won’t say never for this because, if your site sections are named well, it can be an effective way to display keywords. For example, a furniture store might have a landing page titled “Frank’s Furniture – Patio Furniture – Wicker.” This works—the navigation text is very brief and includes target keywords. But most sites aren’t built this way, and you don’t want words like “Index,” “Main Page,” or “Our Products” to take up space that’s best reserved for your targeted marketing message.

Hopefully these Do’s and Don’ts for your first day on the job, or blog, help.  Because the importance of titles, I wanted to be sure you started with this first when looking to create an effective and optimized web site.

I’ve had a number of emails and comments from people asking about starting a web site and a blog.  Questions ranging from “is my domain name too long” to “do you really email each individual commentator when they leave their first comment.”  All of these questions will be answered in an ebook I am creating for people wanting to learn how to blog and earn money.  But before I introduce that ebook, I want to give you a sense of what you should do in the first week of starting a blog.

I will give an overview of week one here and break each day (Monday through Friday) into individual posts throughout this week and maybe next week.  So if you are new to the blogging world, be sure to pay special attention to this series as it will help you have a successful blog or web site.

For the sake of time and since I’ve touched on these topics previously, I will assume you have a domain name and hosting.

Week 1: Basic Site Optimization

In week 2 you’re going to work hard at finding blog owners and convincing them to link to you. But before you call this kind of attention to your blog, you’ll need to spend a full week detailing, polishing, and checking for the proverbial spinach in your site’s teeth.

One of the major goals for this week is to optimize your blog, with the hope of positively influencing how search engines view and rank your web site. You’ll also tackle basic site structure issues making sure that search engine robots have easy access to your landing pages. With these improvements in place, your site will have a basic level of optimization: nothing tricky or fancy, and no time wasted on tiny technicalities, just common-sense, best-practices solutions.

I recommend that you keep track of all your changes in one document as you go.  This document will help you when starting a second or third site.  You see what works and what doesn’t work and you can recreate what you do based on this one document.  Who knows, you may be able to use it as a foundation for an ebook.  

Here are your daily task assignments for the following week:

Monday: Page Titles

Tuesday: Meta Tags

Wednesday: Robot Walk-Through

Thursday: Site Text

Friday: Implementation

This week and next week I will walk you through each day and the specific things you should consider as you begin to optimize your blog and/or web site as you earn money online.

USA Today had a feature last Monday showing a list of the “top 25 things that shaped the internet”. Although I don’t necessarily agree with all their rankings of the events, some are very important. The list included Myspace (24), YouTube (20), Instant Messaging (11), Google (6) and Email (2).

We still use all these things in our daily lives but I really believe blogging will be one of the next big things people rely on as an information source. The growth has been tremendous, but most of the thousands of blogs started every day never make it past 1 week. This creates a huge inefficiency in the market allowing for determined bloggers to do very well. The few blogs and bloggers that do make it have a chance at getting a lot of popularity. I’m sure we all read several blogs daily and I’d give you a list of some of the really mainstream blogs but I don’t have time to Google for them right now. For example - the 795th (according to alexa) most popular web site in the world right now is the blog PerezHilton dot com. It has been around since mid 2005 and has become one of the main sources for celebrity gossip.

The point of this post is that although blogging has been around for a few years, there are still huge opportunities for growth and monetization. If you are not making money blogging right now, don’t give up. It takes time, quality content and perseverence.

• I am currently working on a very short, free eBook for my newsletter subscribers which will provide methods and resources to start your blog, grow and monetize it. It should be ready within the next 2 weeks. Trust me, it will be useful. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do so to receive the eBook and newsletters

There are many great ways to build traffic to your web site and engage your readers. A couple that never fail are promotions and give-aways.  Everyone loves getting free things for nothing so here are some ideas you can implement:

• Create a contest on your web site and give away $25-$50 value in gifts to the winner(s).  John Chow does this very well and he tends to give away very nice prizes like a Nintendo Wii and Zune MP3 player.  He has also raffled off promotional pens which I was lucky enough to win once
• Create a promotion where every certain commentator wins a prize or free advertising on your site. If your web site is still young and doesn’t get much traffic, it is always better to bribe people with monetary prizes. The promotion can be something like “every 25th comment wins X”. This encourages reader participation which can make your web site appear more popular thereby gathering more traffic. You can also include a Top Commentator list and remove the No Follow code so people are rewarded for leaving comments.
• Create a creative way for people to enter your contest by somehow incorporating a backlink to your site with your prefered anchor text.  You can even tell them exactly what you want written so they literally have to do no thinking and can paste your exact words. If you would like a lot of people participating, be sure the prize is worth their while. Even though it is easy to post a backlink on someone’s web site, they do not want to link to poor quality sites, or if the contest is not worth them writing about.

Have you guys run any successful promotions and give-aways that have attracted a lot of new traffic?

It is commonly viewed that the single best way to move up Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) is by the quality of backlinks coming to your web site or blog.  The higher quality the linking web site is, the more value that is placed on that backlink.  It is better to have a few incoming links from high Page Rank and traffic sites rather than a bunch of backlinks from lower quality web sites. 

How Do I Get More Backlinks?

Advertise: One way to get more quality backlinks is to buy them from directories or niche sites similar to your topic, but that is questionable because rumor has it that Google is trying to develop a system to figure out which links are paid and which are not.  They might punish paid links if they can figure out an algorithm to track them.

Review My Blog: I’d like to offer everyone an easy opportunity to get a free backlink from a Page Rank 6 site.  This is an idea initiated by John Chow several months ago which he has had a lot of success with.  All you have to do is write a review about Career Ramblings (Page Rank 6), with a minimum of 200 words and email me the link to your story.  I will post all reviews on Career Ramblings with a free backlink to your site. For complete rules and details, please read Get A Free Backlink From A PR6 Site.

Unique, Excellent Content: Linkbait is another common method to getting backlinks. There are endless ways to spin your content into an interesting story that the masses will enjoy. This web site that focuses on providing unique content for blogs had a great linkbait post comparing Britney Spears to Blogging.

Social Bookmarking: The 4th method is to submit your stories to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit and Delicious. Tons of fellow bloggers read the front page of Digg to get interesting and popular stories to link to. With one Digg front page story, you can accumulate hundreds of backlinks. This is the biggest value of social bookmark sites.

Since I often write about Career Ramblings as a case study, I thought I would offer my readers a chance to get a free backlink from a PageRank 6 site. It is a very simple promotion and receiving a backlink from a high traffic, PR 6 site can really boost your Search Engine Ranking and also help you get a higher page rank.  Here is a post about How to Improve Your SERP Position. 

Criteria for getting a free backlink:

• The review must Career Ramblings homepage using the anchor text “Career Development“.
• It should be a minimum of 200 words.
• It must have a link to the Get A Backlink From Career Ramblings post somewhere in the review (Not a link to JaneMayBlogs.com).
• You can use any tone you want in the review.

For every 5 reviews we receive, we will write a post linking to your site from Career Ramblings.  Why not take 10 minutes to write a review and receive a valuable backlink in exchange?  Be sure to email me the link to your review when you’re done so we can link to it. I look forward to reading your reviews!