eXtra For Every Publisher

I first found out about Kontera about a year ago now from the little pop-ups that occur and a variety of different websites, including JohnChow.com, and I thought it might be good for Xfep, but I quickly realized it wasn’t an advertising system for this site at this time. Some of you might be applauding my decision to remove the advertising, while others will be wondering why after less than a month I am giving up on the well known program.

Why Did I Remove Kontera?

There were a few reasons I decided to remove Kontera including:

Too in your face. I didn’t enjoy all the links it was placing and the words it was selecting to change. I am also the type of reader that highlights as I go, and those dang pop-ups disrupt my reading habits, even on my own blog. That was strike one for me.

One cent per click! I was seriously only making a single penny every time someone was interested in what the pop-up had to offer. Looking back at this, I think it would take a good twenty cents a click for me to deem this type of advertising as worthy of the disruption is causes.

Thousands of impressions, few clicks. Seems all my readers are smart enough to avoid clicking on Kontera’s links, leaving me with around one click for every thousand impressions. This site, though it is in the same niche as John Chow’s, just doesn’t work with this type of advertising.

Conclusion

I really appreciated Kontera allowing such a young site into their program, but this just isn’t a site that was doing well with what they had to offer. This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy their service. Their advertisements were fairly relevant, and their control panel worked decently. I didn’t like that they couldn’t give me hourly statistics. They provide stats that are a day behind, and for any advertising program I am in, I find this to be very frustrating.

As far as I could tell, there was very little I could do to optimize Kontera’s Contentlink script, and the stuff that I did do, probably hurt my chances at making more money with the service, but I still stand by my decision to remove the advertising, and I hope that by doing so, my readers will be happier with this site, and continue to come back and read it.

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Bryan Clark has put up a post entitled “Why I Want To Be A Full Time Blogger“, and in it he describes why he wants to be a full time blogger. I just wanted to go over his points and point out a few things as I think he is a little naive about what it means to be a problogger.

1. I love to write - When writing is a hobby, and something you do for fun, of course you love it, but once your income depends on it, and there is no money for food because you haven’t been in a writing mood, then tell me how much you love writing.

2. Sense of community - Say something wrong? Believe something different? Prepare to be chastised for it. The masses can quickly turn on you, and the community you were hoping for becomes a lynch mod that wants your head on a spear.

3. Meeting new people - Who? Where? When? I have been blogging full time for two years now, and while I have talked to people online, I have met very few people through blogging. Blogging actually takes so much time and secludes you from the rest of the world. You won’t be meeting new people, unless they are on an instant messaging client or respond to your comments on their blog.

4. No ceiling on how far I can go - He is right in that there is no limit, except the one you put on yourself, but making John Chow or Darren Rowse cash is very difficult, and everything has to come together perfectly for this to happen. I have been working full time for two years now, and while I make enough to pay the bills, I am not even close to making the highly sought after “big bucks”.

5. Money - This goes along with the previous point. Did I mention that for my first year, I worked for pennies? Well, that’s what you can expect for a fair bit of time unless you are highly creative, passionate, well connected, and “get” all the intricacies of the blogosphere.

6. Creative freedom - Unless you work with a blog network. You might be able to select your topic(s), but don’t expect them to just leave you to it. They are running a business and will expect certain things, and honestly, if you want to make it big with blogging, learn to link bait. It might not always be fun to write, but it works at boosting a site’s profile.

7. Freedom - Setting your own hours doesn’t really happen for some full time bloggers. You work on blogging from when you wake up to when you go to bed, especially if you want to make it big. Working for a network that gives you more money based on revenue share? Prepare to spend all your time writing posts, researching to write more posts, and editing pictures to draw attention to your posts. Blogging for real, life living wages means putting in long hours.

8. I’m my own boss - Being your own boss sounds great, right? Well, do you like accounting, advertising, server administration, dealing with backups, spam, taxes, invoices, computer failures, and information overload? Well, as your own boss, you have to be very good at a variety of different things, and they all can take away from blogging time. As your own boss, you actually have to be much harder on yourself than any other boss has ever been, so don’t expect a cakewalk.

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Marc Eilbeck has put up a post on his site about five simple things you can do to improve your rankings in seach engines.

The list is very basic for those that understand HTML and whatnot, but what is most interesting is that Marc doesn’t even follow his own advice.

Pick a Keyword Rich Domain
This is obviously something I didn’t do when buying the domain for this blog! Ideally for this blog the domain should be makemoneyonline.com but its already taken! This tip is only for when your starting a new site or blog really. However you can still have a bash at this by having a keyword rich page on your site example: domain.com/keyword/

Check out the full post at marceilbeck.com.

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Nearly every day I have a new idea for a site, and one of the first steps I take is to try to figure out a domain name that is available. Sometimes the domain that would fit my original idea best is taken and so I need to slightly adjust my idea to fit the domain that I can get. I do this so that the branding, and idea are harmonious, but finding available domains can be a pain.

I use the Instant Domain Search website in order to quickly figure out if a domain is available.

Why is this the Best Domain Search Tool?

Simplicity: The design is simple and focuses on the main use of the site, the tool couldn’t be easier to use, and the follow through to register with one of the major registrars is right on the page.

Fast: As you type in each letter of what you want, it checks to see if it is available. This can sometimes result in shorter domains than you originally assumed you could get. It also allows you to change quickly if you find your domain has been taken. You can do a variety of different manipulations quickly, and for me, this usually results in a domain I can be happy with.

Feature Filled: The Instant Domain Search tool not only shows if the dot com top level extension is available, but also the dot net and dot org extensions. I think this was a wise choice on their end. They also give you the estimated or best prices from a variety of different high quality, well known domain name registrars.

They even provide searching over a secure HTTPS connection if you are that paranoid about your domain ideas, and they promise not to record your searches.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a domain search tool, this one has helped me find dozens, but unlike some other services that help you come up with domains, this tool requires your creativity and imagination. I highly recommend the Instant Domain Search website.

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I know this isn’t money, advertising or blogging related really, but it can effect bloggers greatly as even servers can crash.

Over on Freelance Folder there is a post about backing up your data, and some simple steps you can take. Also, in the comments there are some other great recommendations. Not all of the things listed in the post or comments might help you back up your blog, but make sure you do it. And don’t forget to back up your database, and not just your files. In WordPress and other blog software, the database is where all your posts are, as well as you comments and configuration, so without your database, you won’t have much of anything.

A snippet from the Freelance Folder post:

The first stage of a Disaster Recovery plan is simply backing up all your important data. And it’s never been cheaper to do so - you can hit your local computer store and pick up monster-sized external hard drives for less than a hundred dollars. They plug right into a USB port and are ready to go with little or no setup. I just picked up a pair of 320 GB external drives yesterday for $70 a piece, plugged them in, and was good to go.

Check out the full post on Freelance Folder.

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