Advertising Revenue Tips

Page Title Search Engine Optimization

2009-06-02T10:51:00.004+01:00

Page Titles are one of the most important elements when a search engine such as Google comes to index your site. eBlog Templates has an interesting article on how to optimize your pages titles, and how the order of keywords (from left-to-right) is important:

Improve Your Google Rankings in One Easy Step

This useful article will show you exactly how to edit your Blogger page titles. But, naturally, the same logic applies to all sites.

Keyword analysis with Google Insights for Search

2009-05-24T11:01:00.006+01:00

A large majority of your visitors are likely to be arriving via Google's search engine. You're probably already aware of the most popular keywords for your site (for example, from Google Analytics).

Google Insights for Search is a very useful tool for researching your most popular keywords. Research may include finding related search terms, spotting seasonal trends, or geographic distribution. All of which can then be useful for search engine optimization.

Google provides useful examples for all these scenarios here, and here.

More on Google Blog Search

2009-05-22T11:31:00.003+01:00

Seems that the problems with Google Blog Search indexing the whole page are a side-effect of an earlier fix to work around partial feeds:

Google Blog Search Changes How It Indexes Posts

I have not found a good solution, other than keeping the blog to the left-side. I recently tried using the CSS style 'float:left', to bring my sidebar over, but it was still indexed before the post. Actually, I was quite impressed that Googlebot picked up on that.

To be fair, Google Blog Search is clearly labelled as 'BETA', but I wonder what's really going on - some posts do seem to be correctly indexed.

GoogleBot is indexing my left sidebar!

2009-05-18T16:30:00.003+01:00

I think I've worked out what Google doesn't like about this site. The posts are now getting indexed again, but Google Blog Search is only showing the first few, and omitting the rest of the pages for being too similar.

Indeed, when you see them on Google Blog Search, they are very similar. The left-hand sidebar is being included before the body of each post.

It looks like I'm going to have to re-arrange the template HTML, so that the post body is included before both sidebars. Not something I'm looking forward to...

Live Search Webmaster Center

2009-05-17T22:25:00.004+01:00

Okay, so Microsoft also has an equivalent site tool, known as Live Search Webmaster Center. Like the others, it's fairly simple, and gives an insight into what the Live Search engine knows about your site.

Overall, it's nice enough, but I did notice the meta tag was not picked up if I added it before the closing </head> tag (putting it right after the opening <head> tag solved this).

Yahoo! Site Explorer

2009-05-17T18:32:00.005+01:00

If you've used Google Webmaster Tools, then Yahoo! Site Explorer should feel very familiar. Having authenticated yourself as the site owner (either by adding a meta tag, or uploading a file), you can view crawl statistics and manage site feeds.

Obviously, this is a useful tool for checking how well Yahoo! is getting on with your site, and what kind of keywords are bringing in the most visitors.

Ping your Blog with Feed Ping

2009-05-17T11:50:00.002+01:00

Many search sites offer a pinging service, whereby your blog can notify (ping) them that something new has been posted.

Feed Ping is a free service offering to ping a number these sites. Take a look for yourself - the list is quite extensive.

If you haven't already done so, you should try it at least once. If it makes a noticeable difference, consider re-pinging on a regular basis.

Google Webmaster Tools

2009-05-16T13:49:00.004+01:00

Generally, Google Webmaster Tools are useful for helping to get the whole of your site indexed, and seeing what kind of keywords are bringing in visitors (which you can also do with Google Analytics).

I noticed today that this blog is no longer being indexed at all. This is most disappointing. I don't know why, as there is just a long list of what is considered bad practice, which I'm not aware of breaking.

I have a couple of logos on previous posts, but they are not being used in a misleading way. The only thing that comes to mind is that changing the blog address might have confused Google in some way.

Changes to Google Blog Search

2009-05-16T13:01:00.004+01:00

When checking how well your site performs with Google, you should also ensure that Google Blog Search is returning good results.

I recently noticed some changes in my results, which may be due to some updates Google has made:

Quietly, Google Updates Its Blog Search Algorithm

AddThis Customization

2009-05-14T14:57:00.004+01:00

While reading about AddThis, I came upon an interesting article about blog intergration here.

To sum it up, the default AddThis code will link whatever current page you are viewing. That's great for linking to posts, but not so great for linking to the index page.

If you have an AddThis button on a sidebar, and you want it to link to your index page, there's a couple of changes to be made (in Blogger, edit your page layout, and select the AddThis HTML/Javascript element):

onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')"

Look for the above text. Replace [URL] and [TITLE]. Next, look for the following text:

href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20"

Replace with the following. Remember to change [URL] and [TITLE]:

href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20&url=[URL]&title=[TITLE]"

AddThis Button

2009-05-14T13:56:00.005+01:00

AddThis provides a small button that you can add anywhere on your site. The button will provide bookmarking, and link sharing (aka social bookmarking) facilities for anyone who clicks on it. Social bookmarking is a great way to bring in more visitors.

If you register, the button will also collect data about your visitors - it's nice, but unnecessary if you're already using Google Analytics.

The AddThis button is worth considering because it's becoming so widely used. Your visitors will have seen it on other sites, and some of them will already be using it. It's also a lot easier than adding your own links to each bookmarking service.

Integrate AdSense with Analytics

2009-05-13T20:27:00.005+01:00

There's a way to integrate your AdSense account with your Analytics account. The Inside AdSense blog explains how to do it (you need to look for a link inside your AdSense overview):

Make a date with data in Google Analytics

Note: The feature is open to everyone now, as mentioned here.

It's a nice feature, although, unfortunately, you cannot intergrate one AdSense account with mulitple Analytics accounts.

Analytics Overview

2009-05-13T13:32:00.011+01:00

So, you've set up a blog (or website) and added some adverts. In order to improve your site, you're going to need as much information about your visitors as possible. This is where web analysis comes in, and one of the best options here is Google Analytics.

Just by placing a small chunk of html on your page, Google Analytics will track every visitor to your site. Not only every visitor, but all kinds of additional useful information:

How frequently a page is viewed
How frequently a link is clicked
How visitors were referred to your site
Where they are located
What browser they use, operating system, screen resolution, etc...

Obviously, it's going to be very useful to see how visitors come to your site, and where they click (particularly regarding advert links).

All the other information is useful too. You can tailor your site depending on where the majority of visitors are located. Or, optimize your site for the most common browser/screen resolution. If they like your site, there's more chance they will return.

CTR vs. CPM

2009-05-12T00:26:00.005+01:00

CTR refers to the click-through rate of adverts on your site.
CTR is calculated as the number of clicks an advert received divided by number of views.

CPM refers to the "cost per thousand impressions". This is the revenue per thousand impressions.
CPM is calculated as your earnings divided by the number views, multiplied by 1000.

Blogger Listing

2009-05-11T23:59:00.017+01:00

There appears to be a broken link on the 'Blogtimise' page:

"Tip for generating more traffic to your blog: If you are a Blogger user, activate this setting to notify Weblogs.com, a blog update notification service, whenever you have updated your blog."

Here is a working link:

What do the 'listing' and 'let search engines find your blog' settings do?

Google should pick up your blog pretty quickly, but you may wish to manually submit the address to the other major search engines:

Yahoo Site Explorer (requires free registration)
Live Search URL Submission

AdSense Basics

2009-05-11T21:50:00.008+01:00

Google AdSense is the ideal companion for Blogger. It is even integrated into the Blogger control panel, under the Monetise tab.

Ideally, you'll want a vertical ad unit on your sidebar, and a horizontal one above or mixed with your blog postings. AdSense even recommends this, as an ideal layout:

Blogtimise: Optimise the ads on your blog

Another important tip is mentioned here: Blend your ad units into the background of your blog, by making sure that the background and borders of your ads are the same colour as the background of the area where the ad is placed.

This information is valid for all advertising services, but AdSense explains it well here.

Starting a Blog

2009-05-07T13:40:00.003+01:00

The good news for anyone new to blogging, is that it is very easy to get started. Sites such as blogger and wordpress offer free blog hosting, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

I would recommend blogger for starters, not least of all because it is owned by Google. Adsense (one the largest advertising services) is also owned by Google, and will easily integrate into your blogger blog.

The first 'difficulty' you'll run into is naming your new blog. Unless you know exactly what you want to blog about, it's probably worth creating a personal/test blog first.

Welcome to Advertising Revenue Tips

2009-05-05T23:57:00.002+01:00

With a bit of spare time and commitment, anyone can set up and maintain a blog. With the right use of advertising, your blog may also reward you with additional revenue.

There are many ways to go about setting up a successful blog and many factors to consider. What's more, there are always new tools and ideas, which could potentially improve your blog.

The aim of this particular blog is to discus such ideas, with an emphasis on increasing the advertising revenue stream.