The famous “Google duplicate content penalty” is a permanent subject of debate among webmasters, bloggers, SEOs and the general Internet marketing community. No wonder the official Google Webmaster Central Blog publishes posts on this topic from time to time. A new one has been recently released and apparently it was meant to put an end to this debate. If it will succeed or no, only time will tell, although I have the feeling that it won’t. (more…)
I’ve previously written about the importance of choosing a niche for your site or blog. But I admit that knowing something should be done often isn’t enough. We also need to know how to do that, right? So I asked myself: what’s the best wat to teach people how to identify niches and subniches? Then it struck me: give the readers some actual examples and they will see what you mean.
As a result, I’m going to share with you a short list of broader niches and related subniches that can be found inside each of them. Hopefully, after reading this article you’ll be able to apply and/or adapt its concepts to your own needs as a webmaster. (more…)
From my experience, AdSense for Search churns out great CPM (at least in most cases, better than those for my AdSense for Content). The problem is that on average, very few people use the search feature on websites, translating into even fewer ad clicks. I’ve already written a post on how to try and boost your AdSense earnings, but here’s a few more little tweaks you can do, courtesy of Google’s AdSense blog. (more…)
Having a job that revolves around the Internet comes with a fantastic amount of freedom. One of the things I love most about it is that I can set my own work schedule, something that a lot of office workers would give an arm and a leg for. However, this freedom comes with a flipside: if you’re not careful, you’ll procrastinate away your day, and end up with a pile of backlog. Making money online is not all about the latest marketing strategies. You also have to manage your productivity, just like any other job out there. Being prone to distractions myself, I try different ways to keep my bad habits in check, and among them is using some nifty Firefox plugins. (more…)
It may come as a surprise for many webmasters and bloggers, but the truth is that waiting for advertisers to come to you is generally not a good idea. Unless you already have a famous site, of course. If you aren’t that lucky yet, it’s time to realise your site won’t be easily found by prospects. So, having an “advertise here” page won’t be enough. If you really want to make some money by selling ads, you will have to approach potential buyers. (more…)
How many websites and blogs should you run simultaneously? Some believe that building one huge portal is the way to go. Others prefer investing in site networks. I’m going to write about both cases and hopefully help you identify the case that best suits your needs. (more…)
While online advertising as a whole has been seeing immense growth, its video component has always lagged behind. However, there are signs that this may be changing soon. Recently, video ad company LiveRail released their quarterly report on the state of online video advertising. They predict that industry spending in the US alone will go past the $1 billion mark in 2010. While that’s still a small fraction of the $36 billion total projected online ad spending for that year, it represents a net increase in market share for video. (more…)
So, you decided that you aren’t going to wait for advertisers to find your site. Instead, you’ll take the initiative to look for them and offer them a good advertising spot or package. That’s great! But now you must be wondering where those ad buyers can be located.
There are several places where you can find advertisers for your blog or website, but today I’m going to focus on the following ones:
1. Your own site
Yes, your own site can help you compile a list of prospect ad buyers. Here’s how: install AdSense (or other contextual ad network’s code) on your template. Wait a few days, until Google learns what your site is about and starts showing appropriate ads. Now visit the sponsor sites (don’t click on your own ads; type their URLs on your browser) and see if they are indeed relevant to your audience. If the answer is positive, these are ad buyers you may want to offer a deal to. (more…)
Twitter has recently added the nofollow tag to all links left on the users’ bio field. This change has been the object of much controversy in both the SEO and the Internet marketing industries. Why? Because many suspect Twitter to have succumbed to Google’s pressure.
How did this story begin?
Everything started when David Naylor published a Twitter backlink tip on his blog. That same day, Matt Cutts — yes, you read it right — sent an email and a twit to Twitter’s co-founder Evan Williams, regarding Naylor’s post. (more…)
Google has just taken one more step in its quest for world domination: now it has its own web browser, named Chrome. According to the Official Google Blog:
We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.
