Category Archives: Site News

AdSense Now Rare Here

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For those of you that frequent this blog, you might have noticed that AdSense has almost all but disappeared on this site. It might still show up from time to time, but I have been wanting to move away from AdSense on this site for a little while now as the CPM rate I was getting from their ads was lower than I would like to see to continue to build my business.

Google is great at monetizing high traffic sites or being a great starting point for bloggers with low traffic, and I was receiving a check each month, but I wanted to find something better for the niche that this site covers. The advertisements that Google showed here weren’t of the highest quality, nor did they seem to interest any of my visitors, and as such, I was paying writers far more than Google was able to bring in and that is never a good way to run a business.

Thankfully, I have been able to fill my advertising inventory for the most part and so AdSense is now being relegated to my other blogs I am building.

I owe a large part of this change to the advertising sponsors I have in the sidebar, so please take a minute to check them out, as they continue to support my writing of this blog.

With some time, effort, and most importantly, research, you too can find ways to monetize your sites slightly better.

I will be talking more about how I monetized Xfep effectively soon, and why I can’t do the same for the other blogs I am currently running.

Originally posted on May 11, 2008 @ 2:54 pm

Feeling Better: Getting Things Back on Track

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While I thought it would take me a lot longer to feel better, thanks to some great friends, family and even strangers, I am already starting to feel better and get back into the swing of things.

One of the biggest issues is finding the time and energy to really hunker down and get everything done. It quickly becomes easier to prioritize blogging lower and lower as you get out of the habit of writing, and so I wanted to jump on here quickly and get some posts out. I have some friends who also might help me out posting a few things on here to take the load off of me a little bit, giving me more time to sort out the personal issues I mentioned before.

By Wednesday, the Xfep Podcast will be back, better than ever I hope, with Thursday probably being my first attempt at a video episode in the recent history. I am also up for the idea of doing a Ustream.tv session or a talkShoe session for those that are interested in interacting with me in such a way.

I have so many thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams to still publish on this site, so thank you all for sticking with me during this rough patch in my life.

Originally posted on May 5, 2008 @ 4:28 pm

Everything On Hold: Personal Reasons

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So, for those of you waiting for a new podcast yesterday, I am sorry. Other than the one tonight on WordPress Weekly, I am going to take a short break with regards to the podcast, and even posting over the next few days as I got some bad news that has really effected my mood, and ability to write.

Hopefully, I will be back to my old self soon, and thanks to all those that have been and continue to be supportive during this time.

Originally posted on May 2, 2008 @ 5:59 pm

New Advertising Rates

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I have decided to update my advertising rates once again, as traffic continues to soar pretty high on this site, and rankings continue to rise and things change both in my life and on the site, I figured it would be a good time to set them once again.

Currently, you can advertise on this blog starting at prices less than $0.20 CPM!

I think that blows the industry standard out of the water, and I hope many potential advertisers will appreciate the low rates. I doubt I will keep them this low, even if the response to the prices is low, as I could be more active in seeking out advertisers and I know I could secure them, even at higher rates with the high amount of traffic I am receiving.

Some quick stats for those that are interested:

  • Last month, this blog did over half a million page views.
  • This blog is now 17th on the 45n5.com/top100 Make Money Online blog list.
  • This blog now has nearly 400 posts, and over 1100 comments
  • This blog is now read by over 400 RSS subscribers daily

If you are interested in advertising on Xfep.com, check out my Advertising page, and then contact me. Get your 125×125 banner on Xfep.com for $60 today!

Originally posted on April 19, 2008 @ 2:32 am

No More TTZ Media or Pepperjam Network Advertisements

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I am on a quest to remove advertisements that don’t perform for me on this site to make your user experience as clean as possible and give more focus to the advertisements that do help pay the bills. I mean, why clutter up the site with advertising that doesn’t work, right?

As of today the TTZ Media advertisements from John Chow’s company will no longer be displayed here. Not that there was anything wrong with the advertisements, but they didn’t perform well on my site because there are no real “blogger” products that you would all be interested in and as such, I didn’t give it a very good position. I made absolutely nothing from having the ads on the site.

I have also removed the Pepperjam Network advertisements for more or less the same reason. While they did have products and services that some of you might have enjoyed, I didn’t find that it was converting well on my blog. I gave it some good positions and a good trial run, but after over a month of displaying a variety of ads under their program, I only made five dollars.

I am sure none of you will miss these advertisements, and while I am sure many people are experiencing successes with them, they just didn’t work for this blog. If you have had successes with either of these ad programs, I would love to hear about them. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Originally posted on April 4, 2008 @ 6:13 pm