7 Tips for the Traveling Blogger

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I haven’t got to do much traveling this year, having instead spent my money on getting married, and buying a house, but over on Daily Blog Tips, there is a great post about being a traveling blogger and I couldn’t agree more with the article.

Here is a snippet from the post:

Don’t be afraid to use pen and paper. You may or may not have access to a computer on your trip. As it turns out, though, it’s possible to manually etch your writing onto paper with a stylus. I know it sounds crazy, but it actually works. Sure, you can’t actually post to your blog, and there’s no automatic spell check, but you can always take care of those details later. The important thing is to write, so don’t be afraid to break out a pen and paper when the need arises.

Before I bought my laptop, I did this all the time. I would write out a list of points I wanted to cover, some sentences or paragraphs I wanted to include and some other miscellaneous notes to make sure that my post would come together nicely when I sat back at my computer.

You don’t need to write out every word you will use in your post, but if you don’t record your thoughts at the time, and you are anything like me, the detail, and the emotion will be lost from the post when you later try to recollect what you wanted to say.

A great post for the traveling blogger.

Originally posted on October 5, 2007 @ 9:56 pm

Top Five Online Business Killers

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Over on Can I Make Big Money Online there is a post about the Top Five Online Business Killers. They are fear, procrastination, politics, lack of planning and excuses.

In my work I have had to deal with all of these issues, and while they can be business killers, if you can combat these issues, you will come out of it stronger and better than before.

Here is a sample from the article:

Procrastination: Businesses don’t start or grow if everything can wait until tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, a procrastinator will still wait until tomorrow. This causes a vicious Catch 22: tomorrow is never tomorrow when it arrives and you can wait another day. So if you want to get anything done, get rid of your procrastination.

Each of these points almost deserve their own article, as the post doesn’t talk about combatting any of these issues, but it is still a good guide of what you want to avoid.

Originally posted on October 4, 2007 @ 10:02 pm

Things You Should Know About CPM Advertising

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As you look at advertising on other blogs, forums, and websites, you might come across advertising rates that are broken down into CPM.

CPM stands for Cost Per Mille, or basically cost per thousand views. So if a site has its advertising set at $5 CPM and gets 10,000 page views, then the cost to you is $50.

Some advertising doesn’t give you the CPM value, but it can still be quite important to calculate this yourself as a larger site with more traffic might seem like a good deal, until you realize you are paying $100 for every 1000 advertisement views.

The formula to calculate the CPM is:

CPM = Cost of Ad / (Page Views / 1000)

The standard for most blogs seems to be around the $3 CPM mark, as this is the point where the site is able to profit from their work, and the advertiser doesn’t feel like he or she is getting a bad deal.

Depending on the site though, CPM rates can vary from $0.01 all the way up to $100. Really, as an advertiser or a site owner you have to decide what is most worthwhile to you.

Read/WriteWeb, a very popular site I enjoy, has a CPM of $20. And so for a 160×600 Banner on their site, the minimum cost for 20,000 impressions is $400.

TechCrunch advertises a CPM of around $3. An advertising campaign with them for a 125×125 pixel graphic is $10,000 per month and requires a two month commitment.

eXtra for Every Publisher has a variety of advertising positions open, and using last months statistics, which we are blowing out of the water this month, you will see that my advertising rates are between $1 CPM and $2 CPM, which is well below the industry standard.

Why would a site owner go below the $3 CPM mark?
I can think of two reasons of the top of my head, and eXtra for Every Publisher fits the first one: age and traffic focus.

eXtra for Every Publisher is a new site, having been created in July of this year, but because of how focused the traffic is, and how popular the site has become in such a short time, I think the advertising options here are an amazing deal.

The second reason why sites go below the $3 CPM mark is usually because they don’t have focused traffic. Sites like personal blogs, or generic informational sites are so broadly focused that their can be a limitation in how much success advertisers have, and as such, they don’t want to pay as much. A smart website owner will understand this, and adjust their advertising rates accordingly.

When do you go above $3 CPM?
If you have built up a powerful brand, a popular site, and have decided to further monetize your site, then you can raise the rates of your advertising.

I think that there does come a point though where you will hopefully get so much traffic that you can charge $3 CPM and make $10,000 a month, but until that point, if you are the resource for a subject, and you know you can find advertisers willing to pay beyond the $3 CPM mark, then raise your rates.

You will know if you have gone too far as you won’t be able to sell your advertising positions, even with hard work.

The last thing you will want to consider is the amount of space you are giving an advertiser, and its positioning. Larger advertisements and premium advertising space usually goes for higher rates than positions lower on the page and in smaller spots.

Final words
Getting advertisers, and setting your rates can be very difficult. If you price too low, then you will have a full slate of advertisers, but you won’t be getting the most revenue return for your effort. If you price too high, then you will have a hard time securing advertisers, and again may not make much revenue for your efforts.

Also, as a site grows and changes, it continues to become a balancing act. There are some who have done very well for themselves through advertising, both at higher CPM rates, and lower CPM rates. It all depends on the site, the advertisers, and the owner.

If you are looking for advertising that is focused on web development, making money online, problogging, and WordPress, then I suggest you check out my advertising page and contact me today.

Originally posted on October 4, 2007 @ 6:56 pm

How Long Before Your Blog Will Start Making Money?

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JohnCow has a post up with information on how long it can take to make money from your blog.

Here is a snippet from his post:

A lot of new bloggers seem to think that once you’ve setup your blogspot.com account and you’ve written your first article, you’re set. Slap a couple of ads on and you can start planning your early retirement. If only..

The only thing that will make your blog money is you. Setting up the blog and providing it with (good or interesting) content is only half the the work. You’re going to have to sell yourself the best way you can –with your words.

I think the whole thing is interesting to read, but a little light on the key information that the post sets out to answer. He sums it up saying that it depends on the blog, and honestly, that is very true. It depends on the blogger, the blog, the subject, and how well linked and like the site is, but when it comes down to it, I would say that for the best bloggers, you are looking at around six months or more. Some bloggers won’t see a dime until their blog reaches the one year mark or more. It really depends on how aggressively you market your site.

If you are not bringing in some revenue by the six month mark and making money from your blog was your goal, then it is time to reassess what is going on with your site.

If you need help figuring out why your site isn’t monetizing well, feel free to purchase some time from me with my consulting service, and I will help turn your site around.

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 8:49 pm

Google PageRank Penalty: Text Link Ads

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Well, it looks like Google is cracking down on paid links, and some people are being hit hard with their rank dropping. The Stanford Daily saw their PageRank drop from an incredible PR 9 to a PR 7.

I have yet to hear one person say that their rank has gone up. This doesn’t mean that people won’t see their rankings rise over the next while, but Google is on the warpath against paid links.

It looks like Text-Link-Ads and similar companies might have a huge issue on their hand, and if nothing else, it can’t be good publicity, since the majority of their pricing is based on Google’s PageRank, and people buy these links in hopes of gaining PageRank to their own sites.

I have yet to experience any negative side effects on any of my blogs, but I am a very lightweight advertising sales person. I think I currently have one text link sold amongst all my blogs.

So far many of the sites owners I have talked to aren’t concerned about their dropping rankings as they continue to focus on bringing good content and an abundance of traffic to their sites, but over time this could become a competitive edge for those willing to forgo selling text links, and monetizing their blogs other ways. These sites that find these alternative revenue builders, could then eventually rank higher in Google, causing those selling links to re-think their lack of concern.

The question I have been getting quite often by people just entering the world of advertising sales is, “how does Google know I am selling text links?” Well, with systems like Text-Link-Ads and other text link sales companies, they have you put code on your site, and that leaves a footprint that Google can then search for, and once identified, and probably checked by a real person, they can adjust your PageRank accordingly.

The whole paid link market has to change, Google is forcing them to. It is a very interesting time to be an Internet marketer.

Originally posted on October 9, 2007 @ 9:13 pm