The Big Secret for Adsense Earnings

There is a lot of focus on monetising websites via Adsense, but what many people don’t realise is that there are four key factors in developing income from Adsense:

1. Integration
2. Traffic
3. Sector
4. Audience

There is a lot of focus on integration of Adsense ads and generating traffic, but often little focus on sector and audience, despite that these will be key for earnings.

1. Integration

There is already a lot written about this and Google certainly provide tips on blending Adsense into a site. It’s still surprising to see sites that fail to make basic attempts at blending and putting at least one main block above the fold, so here are a couple of fundamentals about integration:

- the 250×300 block is commonly the best performing. This is not least because it is optimised for image and video ads, which makes it easy to get high-end campaigns running on your site

- draw attention to the ads, but not at the expense of the site. In other words, place your Adsense around your content, rather than your content around your Adsense. It’s better to keep users on your site long enough to read, bookmark, and want to generate a conversation about it before they click out.

- more ad blocks means lower paying advertisers therefore lower paying clicks therefore lower revenues. So consider restricting the number of ad blocks you use. Personally I usually limit it to two: one in the content, and one at the foot of the content.

- make sure site colours are continued into the Adsense block so it looks a natural part of the site

TIP: Limit attempts to advertise on new sites, and instead push for developing traffic and return visitors through strong content and good presentation. Once you build up traffic, advertising will seem more acceptable to users.

2. Traffic

Theoretically, the higher the traffic, the higher your clickthrough rates.

However, the traffic needs to be targeted so that visitors to the page can have a need served by the Adsense.

So don’t think about traffic volume as much as volume quality traffic - ie, users who are more likely to be drawn to the topic in the page and therefore more easily engagement by the ads.

TIP: For high traffic pages with fewer clicks, consider running Image-only ads to run as a banner program by proxy.

3. Sector

The topic area of your pages and site are key to earnings - some industries pay a lot higher than others.

For some reason this is little discussed, but your target sector can mean the difference between running a high traffic site where Adsense barely pays for the server, and a high traffic site that could pay your server and mortgage bill.

For example, financial services ads are more likely to pay more per click than ads about self-publishing.

So try and put some effort into developing a site or pages which could attract better paying industries and advertisers to build traffic at.

TIP: Don’t try and tap into higher paying areas for the sake of it - instead, consider your interests and try and ensure you have enough passion in the sector you choose to keep your website fresh and interesting.

4. Audience

This bit is absolutely critical but remains little discussed, so remains something of a secret that I’m sharing with you now:

The less intelligent your audience, the more likely they are to click ads.

It sounds somehow nasty yet common sensical at the same time - after all, web savvy users learn to recognise ads - and how to avoid them.

It can be especially hard to monetise content where the target audience is industry professionals, because they have the intelligence enough to spot ad types quickly, and that includes Adsense, no matter how well integrated, and avoid clicking on them - unless there’s something that really pulls them in to click.

As you have no control over the ad content, it can therefore become pretty hard to earn

General consumers are much less likely to know the difference between a menu link and an Adsense link, and therefore click through.

TIP: In earnings terms, a niche can easily outperform generic sites. Just as advertisers will tend to avoid generic keywords in PPC bids, so niche sites with a tightly focused audience will often be more attractive to advertising.

Summary: Earning from Adsense

There’s no secret formula to earning well with Adsense that everyone can follow - each website and its audience are different.

However, the four factors above are ones I see as key.

Not every site will hit all four elements well, but a decent website will usually be able to hit a few of them together.

If you can find a way to connect general consumers with a high-paying vertical then you are probably onto a winner as you build up the traffic.

On saying that, though, do remember that Adsense earnings are only as good as the advertiser payments into Adwords.

When times are hard, advertisers tend to lower budgets, and content network targeting is often avoided because of too many people setting up junk sites in the past.

However, so long as you can develop a strong voice in your niche, keep content fresh and users engaged and returning, there is always a chance of attracting site advertisers who pay per impression rather than per click, which is one of the most lucrative areas of Adsense.

In the meantime, hope that helps, and enjoy. :)

Adsense Websites

Are you ready to start making some serious cash? Sick and tired of trying online businesses that seem destined to fail from the start? Then it's time to look at setting up your own Adsense websites for profit. Many people fail to realize that making money online is very simple if they know where to look. It is very true that the money seems to trickle down on the internet in terms of commerce, and this is especially true when discussing Adsense websites. Think about how many investors have poured money into Google, and then picture how many millions of people advertise with Google each day. The numbers are mind boggling, and that is why Adsense websites can afford to pay you a ton of cash if you know how to set up your sites for profit. There is literally an endless amount of money to be made with Adsense websites for the person that takes the time to learn about the trade, and utilizes the tools and tips needed to bring home big profits from Adsense websites. Without a doubt the most consistent way to make money online today is through affiliate marketing. Adsense websites provide you with an easy way to get involved with the Internet's top affiliate, Google's Adsense.

Simply setting up a website, and putting the Adsense websites to work for you won't cut it, and certainly will not make you rich. The key to Adsense websites is the keyword placement, and the building of content and quality. In order to fully realize what is in this secret recipe one must first understand how Adsense websites really work. Advertisers typically pay Google to put their ads in areas where customers might be searching for them. Then, the advertisers pay more money to have the customers click them. When the Adsense websites are set up for ease of use for a customer, chances are they will get a click. Each time an Adsense website ad gets a click, you will receive a payment for that click, typically a few cents to a dollar per click. This is how Adsense websites work, and how thousands of people have been making a small fortune for years off of Google.

One product that works well is adsensegold, a unique e-book that explains how Adsense websites can make you a lot of money. The one time fee of less than $100 accounts for all that one needs to start making money with Adsense websites, and is a great way to get a solid body of knowledge on what works with Adsense websites, and what doesn't. Further adsensegold is owned and operated by an Adsense guru that has made a fortune using the same techniques.

Also there is a site adsensepowerpack that provides a large amount of Adsense websites for you to use for your profit. Since the websites are unique and custom made, one can utilize them to make major cash from Adsense websites each and every day.

Whatever the product, it is important to look at unbiased customer reviews of the products before purchasing them. With Adsense websites, it is necessary to check out a site like Review Place where customers chime in about the quality of a product, and its overall ease of use. When visiting Review Place users can get information about the price, and quality of many Adsense websites, and related products.

Making money with Adsense websites can be an easy task if you follow the road carefully and look for the best deals possible. It is not always necessary to purchase a product to make money with Adsense websites, but it can greatly help increase your chances for success.

How To Rank In Google?

If you are a webmaster, the first and foremost thing that comes to your mind is getting ranked in google for your all important keywords. Though traffic comes from other search engines too, but as everyone knows, google is the King as it gets the most traffic. Let me discuss on this topic today.

Some people give more importance to content while some on links. I think for getting a decent google rank, a proper combination of both is required in addition to on-page optimization. The first thing you should do is to make sure your on-page optimization is perfect. For this you will have to make sure your title, headings, meta tags, and keyword density is right.

The title is very important for google and you must include your main keyword(s) in the title. After that you have to make sure that your meta tags for description and keywords is perfect and all important keywords are included in your keyword tag. After that, the first paragraph in your content must contain your important keywords but ofcourse written in a user friendly way and must make some sense. Opinions are divided on keyword density, some seo's try to have more keyword density while others say that excessive use of keywords may be harmful as google is very strict. I too personally believe that its better to be safe than sorry, and you must be very careful here to ensure that all important keywords are there and at the same time they are not used excessively. A high keyword density may work well in msn and yahoo but may not work in case of google. My experience says having a keyword density of 5-10% works best.

Hope you people liked reading this, do share what you think about this. I will discuss about backlinks in my future blogs.

Google Trends

Google Trends is definitely one feature that the statistic loving Internet marketer is going to love.

While Google Trends is currently still in testing mode, it looks as though Google Trends is basically very close to completion. Of course, everything that Google releases is generally in beta for a long time.

Providing a search term receives or has received enough searches in the past, visitors can enter this term into the Google Trends page and be presented with a graphical representation of the number of searches that have been conducted over the past 24 months or so.

While this gives some very useful information on the patterns of particular terms, it unfortunately doesn't provide any actual figures. Whether this will change when Google Trends goes live or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, though, there is some relatively useful information to be found.

Pick a topic relevant to your own site and look at the search trends. If you find that the topic you searched for is depleting in searches then look for alternatives. Of course, be careful to use another tool to ensure that changing is the sensible thing to do.

You can also compare search terms to see which ones are more popular.

You can view how the time of year affect the search volume that certain keywords have.

Alternatively, if you're just interested in discovering the rise or fall in popularity of specific terms then go to http://trends.google.com and give it a try.

Whether this will become one of Google's biggest successes remains to be seen. This is unlikely because the information is mostly used by webmasters and there are many tools out there already that provide more comprehensive information. The good point about this information is that it is probably the most accurate there is.

Google Sandbox- The Basics

Introduction

Google's Sandbox Effect has been a matter of controversy since an article appeared on Search Engine Round Table about how new sites ranked low in Google as early as April 2004. This was before the term "sandbox" was even used to refer to the phenomenon. The term sandbox effect came into being when a guest writer on the Search Engine Round Table wrote an article entitle The Sandbox Effect. In the article the sandbox effect meant that a new site can not get high ranking immediately by depending on PR and back links. This is because the author felt that "PR and back link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve- called the sandbox- for a period of time before it is applied to ranking and has an effect" with the purpose of preventing PR and link purchasers from getting a very high rank in Google right away and dominating the field. Although the term caught on quite rapidly it became highly debated since many SEO experts considered the term sandbox as inaccurate or, at least, lacking when it comes to describing the phenomenon. Despite the differences in opinion among SEO experts on the terminology as well as its definition and scope, everyone agreed that the sandbox effect DID exist and was a matter that caused SEOs and website owners huge problems.

The sandbox phenomenon was difficult to define earlier because it affected such a wide and varied range of websites and affected their ranking for a different length of time. And since Google never officially commented on the sandbox effect the most that SEOs could do was observe and note the possible factors that could possibly be one of the reasons for being sandboxed. It wasn't until 2005, when the sandbox effect has been in place for sometime that a good definition of the phenomenon was written in an article called 2005 Analysis of Google's Sandbox. In the article the sandbox effect was described as:

"The observed phenomenon of a site whose rankings in the Google SERPs are vastly, negatively disparate from its rank in other search engines (including Yahoo!, MSN & Teoma) and in Google's own allin: results for the same queries."

This definition was more general and inclusive taking into account all the different observed sandbox phenomena that different websites experienced.

Websites Affected

The sandbox effect, as it was first noticed, affected and still does affect a large number of new websites starting from the websites registered after 2003. It has been observed that it affects entire top-level domains instead of just web pages and directories and sub-domains. The most common websites also affected by the sandbox effect were those that used search engine optimization tactics such as meta data and link building efforts. However ordinary websites such as blogs, whose owners don't even use such tactics, were still affected by the phenomenon. It was also noticed that the sandbox effect mostly affected websites in English with only a few reports of websites in other languages experiencing the effect. Dutch and Italian language websites were particularly free from the sandbox effect. In addition to these low quality sites as well as spam sites, affiliate sites, and websites carrying AdSense were affected more frequently than sites that did not have those features. However, not all such kind of sites was affected by the phenomenon while other more organic sites were sandboxed. It was and is pretty clear that whatever kind of website was put up there was no guarantee of not being sandboxed since there was no clear cut criterion for being sandboxed. The only websites that did escape or were exempt from being sandboxed were the .gov, .mil, and .edu websites. This meant that the sandbox effect could be experienced by any commercial and private sites.

The Effects

While the sandbox effect was felt by nearly all newly registered websites with such varied characteristics, the effects of the phenomenon itself is easier to enumerate since they are very evident.

As mentioned in the definition the effect of being sandboxed on the websites is a temporary lower ranking on Google's SERPs (search engine results pages) as compared to their ranking on other search engine results. Note that the effect ought to be temporary. Sites report being "waiting to get out" of the sandbox for anything from 1 month to a year. The sites which take longer to get out of the sandbox are generally of low quality.

The websites' rankings are also affected, as the definition states, ONLY on Google's SERPs. New websites that rank low as well in other search engines and has been attributing their low rank on the sandbox effect are mistaken. Website owners of such sites should concentrate on improving the quality of their site and make some SEO efforts to improve their rankings since the low rank might very well be well deserved.

There were also misconceptions that the sandbox effect discriminates according to the competitiveness of keyword phrases used with a greater effect on highly competitive keywords and phrases. This is actually untrue since the effect could be felt by many sites even for non-competitive terms.

Getting Out of the Sandbox

Undoubtedly, SEO experts have tried their very best to come up with a way to get their clients of out the sandbox. Unfortunately everyone agrees that there is no way to get out of there until Google decides to "free" a website. However here are some suggestions from the 2005 Analysis of Google's Sandbox article aimed help prevent new sites from getting sandbox. These tips are not fool proof and do not guarantee that the resulting website won't get sandboxed.

• Target "Topical Phenomena" & a Non-Commercial Audience
• Build Natural Links & Avoid Getting Blogrolled
• Get Noticed in the News
• Build Exceptional Quality Sites

For those whose sites are already in the sandbox there is no option but to wait. However, you can make sure that the waiting time is productive. Tweak the parts of your website that needs improvement so that when it gets out of the sandbox it'll be of even better quality but don't bang your head trying to get your rank to go up while still sandboxed. You can also focus on doing well in other search engines. Google is not the only search engine out there that will bring traffic to your site. For more ideas on how to make sure that the time spent by your website is productive do read David Wallace's article on How To Play In Google's Sandbox.

Google Keywords Tool Guide

If you have thought about starting your own website or already have one, and have done any research at all, you have read about the importance of keywords. Everything on the web is driven by keywords. It's the fuel the Internet runs on.

One of the ways to get great traffic to your website is through the Google Adwords program. You select the keywords you want to bid on and set up the budget you want to use to get traffic based on those keywords from websites that utilize the Google Adsense program and other sources.

There is a tool to help you choose the best keywords to bid on that you definitely need to know about. I just learned about it from a friend, so we are going to learn how to use it together. Open a new browser window and copy and paste this address into your address bar.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

If you are not sure about all of the terms used in association with keywords and Google's Adwords program, click that very first link that says, "keywords for your ad campaigns". You can use that as a guide if we get into unfamiliar territory.

In that first paragraph is a link titled, "Learn More", that gives a more detailed explanation about using the Google Keywords Tool. In this article, I am going to try to give you the information in layman's terms to make it easier to understand.

As with anything, you should also at some point read the terms of service. It is always a good idea to read the terms of service for any program you are about to use. But we will skip that step for now.

We all think we know which keywords we want to and are targeting with our website. I just had a humbling experience. I have been at this for a long time and have a lot of experience in optimizing websites for keyword content. However, I just clicked the tab at the Google Keyword Tool that says, "Site-Related Keywords ", to extract keywords from one of my own websites and can see that it is not optimized for the keyword I would have chosen.

You may want to do this first. Put in your URL and let it pull out the keywords it finds to be most relevant to your website. You might be as surprised as I was. Now I am going to be re-writing some of the text content at my website before I bid on any Google Adwords. Without the Google Keyword Tool, I would have likely just wasted money.

Make sure your website is optimized for the keywords that you wish to target by analyzing it with the Google Keyword Tool before bidding on your Google Adwords.

Now, using the other tab, "Keyword Variations", you can type in one keyword phrase or keyword per line and it will give you suggestions as to other keywords and phrases you can bid on that are related to your topic. (I like to type in one keyword or phrase at a time)

The suggestions the Google keyword Tool creates for you are based on statistical data Google compiles from the numerous searches that occur daily through their search engine, so those keywords and phrases are more likely to produce targeted traffic to your website.

As you type in each keyword or phrase and check the results the Google Keyword Tool gives you, look over to the right. You can add the keywords and phrases you might like to bid on. Create your list as you go. You can always edit it down to a few later on.

Once you have your list of keywords and phrases you might want to bid on, you can login to your Google Adwords account and check to see how much it will cost you for each of them. Then you can decide how to spend your budget wisely. Nothing replaces good research. The Google Keyword Tool takes a lot of the guesswork out of buying Google Adwords and I applaud them for creating this great tool.

Now, what they do not say anywhere at the Google Keyword Tool website, is that you can use this tool to analyze your competitor's websites as well. Go to Google and type in your targeted keyword or phrase. Copy the URL of the top 10 results. Analyze each of them using the "Site Related Keywords" tab at the Google Keywords Tool.

By doing this, you will see what keywords and phrases their websites are optimized for. If you want to compete with them, you need to optimize your website in a similar way and you may want to start bidding on keywords and phrases that match those that were pulled from competing websites.

Follow success and it will follow you. Do what successful people are doing and you are likely to also achieve success. The Google Keyword Tool can help you do that.

Adwords, Adsense, SEO - Common Denominator, Keywords

If you have just put up a website, you probably all ready have heard words like: keywords, Google Adwords, Google Adsense, and SEO. Adwords, Adsense, SEO have one thing in common - Keywords. How important are keywords? Very Important.

Google Adwords

Adwords, be it through Google, Miva, or any pay-per-click search engines, you need keywords. With Adwords, you create a three-line ad - 25 word title, with two 35 word lines of ad copy - then you create your keywords. To get the hits, you have to brainstorm for different keywords that are different but relevant to your target audience. Sound easy? It's not. It takes time, patience, constant tweaking, and hoping that the product you are selling is not already saturated -- to much competition, makes it a little more difficult for the novice to make a profit.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense is an advertising program created by Google, and which is beginning to be explored by other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN - that allows you to put targeted ads on your website. If someone clicks on the ad, you earn a small amount of money. These ads are keyword driven and are relevant to your webpage or website.

Sounds simple? Well, not really. There is more to it than just putting an ad on your website and expecting someone to click on it. What's involved? Let's see - color, position, style, to name just a few.

SEO

Search engine optimization - this for me has been a time-consuming process - since I am still learning. SEO is keyword driven - the search engines pull the keywords from your web copy - not, to my surprise, from the meta keywords tag. Granted, I still use the meta keywords tag, but maybe in the near future, I will slowly eliminate the tag from my WebPages...

The search engines do, however, pull information from Meta Description, Meta Title, and the content of your WebPages. Thus, content does reign supreme.

Since content reigns supreme, each page should contain useful content and most importantly, you're most relevant keywords that you want to emphasize. Secondly, it is best to try and base your keywords around a central theme. I have found that when the keywords diverts away from the main theme - that sends a red flag to search engines. So, if you want to look at your keywords and the density of the keywords on your webpage or WebPages - You can get a quick rundown at: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html . It's a free tool, and very helpful.

To conclude, keywords is one of the main ingredients that leads people to your website, product, service and/or ad. ...AND, keywords based around your quality content will help with your positioning on your website.

Five Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses" of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some five proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text", and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

World of Google Adwords

Google adwords is an excellent way of promoting your ads on the Internet. It operates on an AdSense program that is related to different content sites providing access to different users on the basis of relevance to the content page. Publishers earn considerable amount of money on display of Google ads on their websites. However, certain guidelines must be adhered to avoid any sort of disapproval at the later stage. If the users face problems related to pop ups while entering or leaving a particular web page, then the link may be disapproved by google.

There have been different misconceptions related to the interconnection between pop ups and google adwords. The relation comprises of consistent efforts on the part of Google adwords to provide quality and good services to their users. An advertisement program should be such that it favors the searchers and does not trouble them in any way.

What Kind of Customers are to be Targeted Through Google Adwords?

The targeting options provided by Google adwords are manifolds including language, location and the density of keywords appearing on the web page. Google adwords does not facilitate the provision of translating the keywords and adwords in different languages. There have been doubts whether google can detect if a particular person of different language can be targeted. Some ads do give a good response while others may not even warrant a glance altogether. This largely depends on user preferences. You never know whether a particular adword can be attractive to an user or not.

A business with multiple locations can be targeted at the same time near any or one of the locations. Most of the people who are interested in utilizing the services of Google adwords are not sure where the ads would appear. The answer is as simple as it can be. The ads appear along the search results or above it so that the navigation becomes an easy process. The ads need to be relevant to the web page content so that it does not look awkward. Google adwords work by incorporating the latest technology so that both the users and the ad makers are benefited. The performance of the Google adwords can be tracked so that you get to know about the quality and selection of the keywords. This can be done on a regular basis and gives you the satisfaction that Google adwords are doing a great job for you.

SEO - Onsite Optimization

While there are intelligent SEO's out there who would disagree, the entire debate seems obvious to us at least.

If the search engines are looking at onsite factors at all (which they are) and looking for relevancy then it naturally follows that there is a percentage of your content that can consist of the targeted keywords and indicate to the engines that your site is relevant for a given phrase.

That said, and like the titles, it is not about cramming in keywords anywhere to boost the density in your Home Business Start site?s content. Using a KDA tool to find the optimal density for your industry will give you a good idea of any content changes you may need to make.

From here you will want to look at two additional areas of your competitors sites. One which you can get from an advances KDA tool and the other you can get right from the engines themselves. Which brings us to

Special formats and positioning.

Special formats will be considered content elements such as bold, colors, anchor text, or any other content characteristics that sets specific text out as different when a search engine is spidering your Home Business Start site.

Positioning refers to the position of the keywords in relation to the entire content on a given page. Aside from this type of positioning there is also the consideration of how the content and keywords are positioned relative to the code of the page (and sometimes these can be two very different things).

Special formats such as bold, colors, italics, highlights, etc. set specific content aside as more important than the rest.

The use of these formats, provided that it is done correctly, can not only help improve that rankings of your Home Business Start website for specific phrases but can also enhance the usability of your website in general by drawing the human eye to key content.

This is not to say that you should bold, highlight and color every instance of your targeted phrase but rather use these elements to draw the eye to the key content you are most interested in getting read.

With positioning the job is a bit more difficult to assess. One of the best ways to quickly isolate how your competitors have used special formats and where they have positioned there keywords in relation to the entire page is to simply run a search for the phrases on Google and view the cache of the page.

The keywords will be highlighted in a variety of colors and will allow you to quickly glance through their page and isolate what special elements they are using and where they have positioned their keywords on the page. You will want to do this for the top 10 competitors.

Conclusion.

As with any competition, if you understand what those who have what you want are doing it becomes a matter of doing the same and then adding 10% to your efforts.

In the case of onsite optimization you'll simply want to duplicate the best of the top ten, in part two on external factors you will be doing the 10% more.

This is the truly incredible aspect of what a good SEO tool can do. A good SEO tool will spider the links of the top rankings sites for your phrase and provide a detailed list of your major competitors' links...

Google Adsense Profits Mixed In With Affiliate Marketing

Are you a webmaster who needs funds to keep your website running? Or is your website the only way for you to earn income? Whichever you are, for as long as you are a webmaster or a web publisher and you need cash, affiliate marketing may work well for you. With affiliate marketing, you may get a lot of cash pouring into your bank account easily. And if your website is rich in great contents and you want to earn more profit, why not get into the Google Adsense program as well?

Why Affiliate Marketing?

Well, simply because affiliate marketing is the easiest and probably the best way to earn profits online, unless otherwise you are a businessman and would rather sell your own products online than advertise other businessman's products on your site. But even online retailers can benefit from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates.

Affiliate marketing, simply said, is a relationship or agreement made between two websites, with one site being the merchant's website and the other being the affiliate's site. In the relationship, the affiliate agrees to let the merchant advertise his products on the affiliate's site. The merchant, on the other hand, would agree to pay the affiliate in whatever method they have agreed into. This would generally mean easy income for the affiliate, as he would do nothing but place the retailer's ad on his site. This would also be very beneficial for the merchant, as getting affiliates to advertise their products would be a lot more affordable than hiring an advertising firm to promote their products.

There are a variety of methods on how the merchant would compensate the affiliate for his services, and for the webmaster, these methods simply translates to the method by which he would earn easy cash. Among the more common methods of compensation are the pay-per-click method, the pay-per-lead method, and the pay-per-sale method. The pay-per-click method is the method most preferred by affiliates, for their site's visitor would only have to visit the advertiser's site for them to gain money. The other two methods, on the other hand, are better preferred by merchants, as they would only have to compensate you if your visitor becomes one of their registrants or if the visitor would actually buy their products.

Getting much profit on affiliate marketing programs, however, does not depend so much on the compensation method is it does on the traffic generated by your site. A website that can attract more visitors would generally have the greater chance of profiting in affiliate marketing programs.

What about Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is actually some sort of an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products. These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser's website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.

While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences. In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.

The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows you to monitor the earnings you actually get from a certain ad.

So, where do all of these lead us to?

Where else but to profits, profits and even more profits! Affiliate marketing programs and the Google Adsense program simply work, whether you are the merchant or the affiliate. For the merchant's side, a lot of money can be saved if advertising effort is concentrated on affiliate marketing rather than on dealing with advertising firms. For the webmaster, you can easily gain a lot of profits just by doing what you do best, and that is by creating websites. And if you combine all your profits from both the Google Adsense program and other affiliate marketing programs, it would surely convert to a large amount of cash.

Tips On Pay Per Click Campains

So what is pay per click really all about? The following report includes some fascinating information about pay per click info you can use, not just the old stuff they used to tell you.

Make an attempt to add psychological triggers to your PPC campaigns. For instance, consider using the words 'shocking,' 'scientifically proven,' 'explosive,' or 'secret' somewhere in your advertisement headline. This will catch searchers' eyes. Of course, you will want to test to determine whether or not this causes your conversion rates drop.

If you plan to sell affiliate products with PPC advertising, you more than likely will not be able create a direct link to the affiliate program. Instead, you will have to landing page you own and then get the visitor to move from there to making a purchase in the most effective manner. You may want to use an opt-in list to facilitate the sale.

Never use pay per click advertising to drive traffic to your home page. Instead,drive traffic specifically to landing pages designed for the traffic. For instance, if you own an Internet marketing site, drive traffic specifically to opt-in lists and sales pages for specific products, rather than to your home page, where you have links to all of your different pages.

If possible, in your Adwords or PPC campaigns, use a subdomain or extension that includes your targeted keyword or keyphrase for the given campaign. This will catch the searcher's attention, as he/she will associate your advertisement with the specific keyword for which he was searching. This will increase your click-thru rate.

The information presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about pay per click or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

Use Overture's Inventory tool as a starting point for your pay per click keyword research. This will help you to generate a rough list of keywords you could use for your niche. You can then segment this list by considering the keyword groups within it. For instance, are there 5 or 10 keyphrases that share the same two-word base? Put them together on the same list.

Use pre-selling methods to warm up the traffic you send to your sites via pay per click advertising. For instance, give them a completely free demo download of software your team has developed or give thme a report you created. The goal of course should be to eventually close a sale, but these pre-selling intermediary steps will only increase the chances of making that sale.

Pay careful attention to your campaigns. In many cases the network through which you advertised with freeze your ads for different reasons. Google Adwords, for instance, will stop ads that are 'underperforming,' which means they either are drawing a small amount of impressions or have a low click-thru rate. To make sure all of your ads stay active, watch them carefully and make changes when required.

Break all PPC campaigns down into multiple groups that share a base of at least two words. This will allow you to create Adwords campaigns that specifically repeat those two keywords, so that they are highlighted by Google in multiple places when someone searches for them. This will increase your click-thru rate.

The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you'll be glad you took the time to learn more about pay per click.

AdSense or Authority Site

AdSense is a hugely popular way to earn money online. And it's no wonder. The ease of getting paid for every click on an ad is quite appealing.

But sometimes you'll hear people debating whether making a plain AdSense site or an authority site is best. Really there is only a little difference between the two. It really just depends on how you define an "AdSense site".

Search engines are trying hard to drop the auto generated junk sites, or scrapers. While they can get rankings for a short time, they are very prone to being dropped completely. You can make these and might even earn money off them, but you will have to keep making more to keep up your income, and they are likely to disappear faster and faster.

Premade AdSense sites are a mixed bag. The trouble is that many people may buy and put up the same site. How the sites are made can in part determine their success or failure.

Sites made exclusively with articles from article sites have the advantage that every person will choose different articles and the disadvantage that some articles will be on an amazing number of sites.

Private label articles have similar advantages and disadvantages, although grouped articles are more prone to all being on individual sites, making entire sites more likely to match.

However, private label articles also have the advantage that you can modify the articles themselves freely. Anything from changing a few words to adding or deleting sentences to complete rewrites is acceptable.

Authority sites are built to be highly informative for the visitor, in a format that is highly usable. They're dynamic, so the search engines and your users always have something new to read.

Honestly, I don't see authority sites as anything new - just a repackaging of one way to build AdSense sites. They're simply a reminder that no matter where you get your content, you need to think of your users as well as the search engines in order for your site to last a long time and earn good money.

What kinds of sites do I think will last? I don't care what name you call them by, but sites that give visitors what they want are always the best. This means you will probably need to go dynamic at least a little, so that your information is more up to date, and you will need to keep an eye on what brings in the most visitors, so that you can make more interesting pages for them.

Any site can survive, even if it is not dynamic, if it has what your visitors want. That includes private label article sites and sites built with articles from article sites. When you build a site, stop to think about what will be useful and last a long time, rather than just what will be fast to build. You'll do a lot for your business if you plan for the long term.

Adsense Ads

If online advertising had fads, contextual ads would be the latest "in thing." Also known as "content targeting," they seem to be "popping up" (no pun intended) all over the Web. From news sites to privately owned websites, everyone and his brother seems to be dipping his "toe in the water."

So what is contextual advertising and why should you care? I thought you'd never ask. You know how when you read a magazine, the pages are littered with ads? Context ads do the same thing, but with a twist. It's a way of distributing Pay Per Click search results across the Net.

Here's how it works: the text of a web page is scanned for "keywords" or a theme, then ads are shown that are related to the page's content. A website's content is matched up with the advertisers' keywords. For example,if I were reading a page about dogs. there would be pet related ads, usually contained in the right hand side or sometimes the top and bottom of the pages.

Unlike ads that are shown on Search Engine results pages, these ads are dynamic and allow you to reach people in a different mode other then search. Some call this more of a "shopping mode." Whatever you want to call it, context ads are distributed through millions of partner sites across the Internet.

Some advertisers claim that click thru rates are lower for this type of ad, compared to standard PPC search results ads. You might want to do your own testing to validate that claim for yourself.

There are two ways to approach contextual advertising: as a publisher, and as an advertiser.

Website publishers can earn extra money by displaying ads and enhancing their content. This is not a bad way to earn extra income that might just pay for your web hosting bills, and then some.

Advertisers may find that context ads provide yet another means of attracting targeted traffic. You only pay for click thrus, not exposure. Make sure your ads are narrowly focused, i.e., they should only deal with one topic. You can also "pre qualify" prospects by using what's called "negative qualifiers" in your ad's description. Some examples are "For men over 35," or "For Career Women." This helps to insure that only your target market will click and not those for whom your product or service may not be suitable.

If you've been doing Pay Per Click advertising with Google and Overture, make sure you haven't been participating already in context ads. Many times your ads will be shown on their context networks as the default when registering, and it's up to you to opt out. You should always manage your context ads separately from your search to see which is working best.

Google and Overture are the "Kings of PPC" and both offer contextual advertising, but there are many other smaller companies to take a look at. Whether you're a publisher with web pages to fill or an advertiser looking for more exposure, there's something for everyone here.

1) Kanoodle: Calling their contextual ad program "BrightAds," small to medium sized publishers may display Kanoodle ads on their sites.

BrightAds are more relevant to your site's content due to the fact that they map ads by topics instead of keywords. It's easy to sign up and Kanoodle offers a variety of ad formats to choose from and also offers PayPal as an option for your monthly commission checks.

To join go to http://www.Kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool

Their program for advertisers is called "ContextTarget." Your ads are placed adjacent to editorial content of sites such as MSNBC, CBS, Market Watch, USA Today, and AutoBytel.com. You select the topics that best describe the products and services you sell, set up your ads, and set bid amounts. The minimum bid price is $.20 but runs up to $2.10, depending on market demand for the types of pages you wish to be displayed on.

For more, see: http://tinyurl.com/4c8ff

2) Overture: Their advertiser program is called "Content Match." Your ads will appear on pages of their partner sites, such as Yahoo, MSN.com, CNN.com and ESPN.com. Overture makes it easy to keep your context bids separated from your PPC Search Engine ads. This makes it easy to track your return on investment from both types.

$20.00 minimum monthly spend and $.10 per click is the minimum bid. Find out more at: http://www.overture.com/d/USm/ays/cm.jhtml

3) Google: The program for advertisers is called AdWords, while the one for publishers is called AdSense.

Publishers must first get accepted and approved into the program and are paid when they reach $100.00 in click thrus. You may choose to display only text ads or image ads as well. For more, see http://tinyurl.com/6e3uh

With Adwords, your ads will appear on their network of high quality partner sites which are all Adsense users, including N.Y Times Digital, Village, Weather.com, Primedia,, CNET and others. Text ads are also shown inside emails of Google's new Gmail account users. Google allows you to opt into contextual ads and keep them separated from your search results so you can view reports for each individually.

Context ads are displayed two to four on a page. You can set the daily amount you want to spend and your credit card will be charged monthly according to your wishes. If you're using Adwords now but don't know if you're being displayed in the "context ads," you'll need to log into your control panel to see if you have that option selected. See

https://www.adwords.google.com/select/

4) BannerBoxes: Sign up as an advertiser or a publisher. Publishers must be accepted into the program to display ads and are paid 75% of the click thru price from the ads. Choose keywords that match your website's content, then copy and paste some JavaScript code onto your page.

Several ad formats are available, such as 468x60, 728x90 and others. Very similar to Adsense in formats that are available. Advertisers pay $25.00 to open an account and pay a flat cost per click, which means no bullying for position, as with some of the other Pay Per Clicks out there. You select the sites you want your ads to be displayed upon.

For Publisher info, see: http://www.bannerboxes.com/common/partners.cfm

For Advertisers info, see: http://www.bannerboxes.com/common/advertisers.cfm

5) Clicksor: Serving over 200 million impressions every month and partnering with over 10,000 specialized websites. As an advertiser you can run text or graphic ads that only appear on sites that best match your keyphrases. The higher you bid, the the higher placement your ad receives. For more, see: http://tinyurl.com/4yflt

For publishers, Clicksor pays you 60% of the advertisers' clicks that your site generates. You must earn over $50.00 to be paid for the month or your earnings will rollover to the next. Free to join:

http://www.clicksor.com/PPC_affiliate_program.php

6) Bidvertiser: Publishers can join free to display text ads on their websites. You can customize the look of all ads you display and block any unwanted ones. You must earn a minimum of $10.00 in a month to be paid by PayPal or $25.00 minimum to be cut a check. For more information, see: http://tinyurl.com/4g23d

Advertisers can choose the sites to run their ads on and only pay for click thrus. You set a cap on how much you'd like to spend daily, weekly, or monthly. Your bids are automatically adjusted so you only pay 1 cent more than your competition. No minimum monthly spend at this time. Advertisers find out more by visiting:

http://tinyurl.com/6w46m

7) RevenuePilot: Publishers can fill out an online application to be approved to display RevenuePilot's ads. They do favor original content type of sites. Advertisers are paid 60% of each search terms bidded value. To be paid for the month, you'll have to have earned a minimum of $25.00. You can sign up here: https://secure.revenuepilot.com/signup.jsp

Advertisers must apply to have their ads displayed across the network. Go to: http://www.revenuepilot.com/advertising.html

8) BidClix: If you're a publisher, you'll find BidClix has strict guidelines for joining their network. Your website needs to be approved first, then you'll be sent some HTML code to add to your pages. The types of ads served are skyscrapers, banners or pop unders. For more, see:

http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html

With over 30 million ads served per day, advertisers are sure to find targeted websites to run their ads. Advertisers can open an account for only $25.00 You select the "channels," such as entertainment, news, health, etc., that you want to bid on and pay as little as five cents per click. For more, see: http://www.bidclix.com/AdvTop.html

9) FindWhat: Targeting small to mid-sized businesses, Findwhat calls their program "AdRevenue Xpress," and uses category or keyword targeting for distributing their ads. At this time, this program is only available to existing FindWhat advertisers. Go to: http://www.findwhat.com/content/advertiser/index.asp

Publishers who want to display ads on their pages can choose between a search box that returns ads from Findwhat, or display text ads directly on their sites. You earn a portion of all click thrus and Findwhat offers a 10% reward bonus to publishers who also reinvest their share of what they earn back into their own Findwhat Advertising Account. For more, see their site: http://FindWhat.com

10) SearchFeed: This is a private label feed program. Webmasters can display relevant information and earn extra cash at the same time. Real time reports, publishers earn from 35 to 50% of all click revenue. For more, see

http://tinyurl.com/62g95

Advertisers can open an account for only $25.00. Find out more at: http://tinyurl.com/664ly

11) ContextAd: Serving up contextual ads with high precision. Publishers can choose from a variety of ad units and also have access to their very own dedicated account manager.

Publishers need to be approved before they can display their ads on their sites. Then it's a simple matter of adding some cut and paste code onto your website pages. You can also review and ban ads that you don't want shown on your pages. Advertisers and publishers can find out more at

http://www.contextad.com/

12) Quigo: Calling their program "The AdSonar Exchange," at this time they only accept publishers and advertisers that cater to the Health, Beauty & Fitness, Travel and Educational Fields. This ad network includes over 200 sites, including USAToday and NYPost.com

For advertisers, Adsonar reads your ad's landing page and offers choices for placement. You bid on topics, and keyword discovery is handled by Quigo.com. Then you set the price you want to pay per click. Advertisers and Publishers can find out more or apply at:

http://www.quigo.com/adsonarexchange.htm

Whether you're a publisher who wants to add content to your pages and earn some extra income at the same time, or an advertiser looking to get more exposure for your website, you're sure to find it here. So take some time and select one or even two programs that will work best for your site and increase your bottom line as well.

Adsense Tip

I've been working with Google's Adsense program for a while now. If you're not already in the program, why not take a look at it now at https://www.google.com/adsense. I really like Adsense. It makes me money and it's easy to work with. Just some simple copy & paste into your webpage and you're done. Right?

Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.

I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.

Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?

Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colors on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.

After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one color combination that seemed to work the best.

Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colors of the label. What were these colors? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colors has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.

My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's color scheme may work better with a slightly different color combination. Try lots of different color variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colors. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the color scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.

After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colors even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of color combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.

(c) Brad Bahr - All Rights reserved

http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com

Adsense Money

Have you received your check from Google? If you own a business web-site you should be receiving a check from Google. Why not accept a check every month from Google by placing their ads on your site?

Google AdSense allows you to serve text-based Google AdWords on your web site, (ads are relevant to your web site subject) and receive a share of the pay-per-click payment. There are pay-outs of 50 cents or more per click being achieved through AdSense. It is simple to join and it's free.

Go to google.com/adsense and you should be serving Google AdWords usually within 24 hours.You can choose between either horizontal or skyscraper AdSense ads, and they also have a large variety of color schemes to choose from. After your site has been approved you will paste a code into your site and the text ads will appear. Always backup your site before you paste your code, as you may decide to change your AdSense location.

Google also is doing a good job of finding ads that are highly relevant to your site. They go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and contents of web pages. They are able to know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page. Then they also give you the ability to block certain ads from appearing on your site if you choose.

So what are you waiting for? It's Free and you get paid!

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This article may be reprinted providing it is published in it's entirety, including the author's bio and link to the URL below.

Google

In the mid 1990’s websites used to earn income by receiving money from advertisers by publishing or allowing companies to deploy a banner ad campaign on your website. Usually these banners would be brilliantly designed to catch the eye of the consumer along with a short message. The website in turn would receive a tiny profit from a click-through, which was when a customer actually clicked on the banner and went into the website and purchased the product. This was considered traffic-driven income. It was the industry standard until Google came along.

Google has since revolutionized the click-through market by using an innovative approach to advertising, Google AdSense. The beauty behind getting involved with Google now more than any other search engine is due to Google’s straightforward approach to a banner/content-free home page. You would sign up your website for affiliation with Google and upon approval your site would be given special code to place the targeted ads on your website. Basically saving Google the space and inconvenience of having to deal with banner ads.

You still may be wondering what Google AdSense actually does. AdSense is a program in which you get paid for targeting your readers to another websites product or service.

A click through is measured when someone actually clicks on the hyperlink. Many web sites now have Google AdSense ads employed. Google AdSense uses Google Adwords content and services in a display box that you place strategically on your website. Google Adword customers pay Google a determined amount of money which will be paid to the website from Google. Since the popularity of Google has risen to such prominence, AdSense affiliates can make a nice amount of money should they be able to deploy the Google AdSense box properly on their website.

Other sites like Earthlink and Ask.com also employ the same technologies through click through methodologies. The more people that visit popular sites and see your name or hyperlink associated with a product the better chance your site will be seen. Remember, you will be paid a small amount per click for some websites and much more for others. What determines the amount is how much the Adwords advertiser places on each click.

Advertisers can pay as little as .50 per click in upwards of $5 (even more). Often campaigns are budgeted for a period of time. The amount budgeted will be rationed over a period of days, the less days involved or the higher price per click the higher the ranking. The more traffic you receive will increase the possibility of a sale and a click through fee in your account.

In short, Google’s idea to market itself from the inside out has changed the way websites are doing business. Starting as an AdSense affiliate is a practical approach to making money using one of the hottest tools on the Internet today.

Adsense Revenue

As the dust settles and the excitement caused by Google's AdSense gives way to the normal, everyday routines of old, it's time to put some serious thought into how you can 'milk this cash cow' on your own web site.

For the past couple months AdSense has dominated forums, discussions, and newsletters all over the Internet. I've heard tales of fabulous riches to be made with AdSense, but up until now I've been admittedly skeptical of placing someone else's ads on my pages.

Why? In short, I didn't like the idea of losing even a single visitor to another site.

The key to success with AdSense is to place your ads on pages that receive high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. It doesn't pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that don't receive hits.

Instinctively, my mind drifted to horrible images in which my homepage was buried in little ads promoting other people's services. . .

Then I thought of what's proving to be an excellent idea on my first AdSense page. By placing my first AdSense link on a page that offers free ebooks related to marketing, I successfully blended a mix of two major factors for overall success.

1. Target high traffic pages on your site.
   I checked my logs and discovered many of my visitors take advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and ebooks offered on my site. Hmm...
   
   
2. If possible place AdSense links on pages that produce little or better yet, no profit. By placing AdSense on a free resources page I have drastically reduced the amount of potential customers lost to other sites. Bingo!

End result? A high traffic page producing a minimal amount of revenue. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to pick up some extra cash with AdSense.

This is especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can gain a return on their services.

By no means is AdSense a perfect program, but, I've yet to stumble across a program that didn't have room for improvement in one category or another. My main gripe concerning AdSense is the inability to determine the profitability of a chosen keyword. competitive, high demand keywords will undoubtedly generate larger commissions, but the exact number is withheld by the big 'G'.

Google promises to update AdSense frequently, tweaking and polishing in order to maintain their 'squeaky-clean' image. Who knows, maybe some day we'll see AdSense add a 2nd tier? Can you imagine the smiles on the faces of webmasters around the world as they sign sub-affiliates and double, triple, quadruple etc... the amount they earn from AdSense!

One particularly handy feature available with AdSense is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. This gives you the option of 'blocking' spammy low value offers from your pages as well as competitors to your site.

The possibilities are limitless, yet looming on the edge of my consciousness is the fear that one day someone will find a way to exploit this 'golden goose' and force Google to crack down (much like the pay-per-click affiliate programs of old.). For now they enforce a strict anti-spamming policy, anyone found to be spamming their own links or abusing AdSense by other means will find their AdSense privileges terminated.

Pay Per Click

Has anyone else noticed a disturbing pattern in your pay-per-click advertising campaign, of the same IP addresses clicking on your ad, spending one or two seconds on your website and then leaving?

That's called click fraud and it's a major problem among all of the pay-per-click search engines.

Click fraud is a scheme that takes advantage of online advertising programs like those offered by Google, Yahoo/Overture, Findwhat and others. A fraudulent website is set up and participates in programs like Google's AdSense program. Unlike legitimate websites that attract human visitors to the site, fraudsters use software "hitbots" or employ boiler-rooms of low-wage employees from other countries to generate clicks on ads, and then collect commission from pay-per-click programs.

In June, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Michael Anthony Bradley 32, of Oak Park California who was charged with fraud and extortion for a scheme involving Google's pay-per-click program. Believe it or not, Bradley actually tried to extort Google into paying $100,000 for click fraud software he created called "Google Clique."

Click fraud hurts advertisers by driving up the cost of each click because many online advertising programs adjust the price of each click based on the popularity of a particular keyword and the number of competing advertisers. And depending on how popular your keyword is, it can take just a few minutes to register hundreds of clicks. Click fraud can quickly deplete your pay-per-click account and leave you with little or nothing to show for your expentiture.

In a recent filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google acknowledged, "We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks, we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members."

Now, in all fairness to the pay-per-click companies I've used in the past, I have to give credit where credit is due. Whenever I complained of click fraud, which was often, all of the pay-per-click companies, without exception, did the right thing and credited the stolen funds back into to my account. Ironically, I have not had a click fraud problem with Google.

You can reduce your risk of being victimized by click fraud, by regularly auditing your website’s log files and immediately reporting suspicious traffic to the pay-per-click companies. If you are unfamiliar with analyzing your site’s log files, there are some excellent software products available to assist you like ClickTracks, WebTrends, and AWStats. These products make it fairly easy to identify patterns in your website's traffic.

Recently, I noticed the same IP number clicking on my ad over and over again--often many times within just a few minutes. I did some basic detective work and discovered it was actually a competitor of mine devouring my pay-per-click dollars. I approached him with my findings and threatened him with law enforcement intervention, if he didn't cease and desist. He denied any involvement, of course. But I haven't had any problems with that individual since.

So, how did I find out who the culprit was? Easy.

When checking your log files, if you notice a lot of clicks from one IP address, you can trace its origin by visiting the American Registry of Internet Numbers. By feeding the IP address into their "Whois" search, they will tell you who has been assigned that IP address, and whether it's an actual IP or another business entity.

Should the IP address not be assigned to the Americas, you can verify RIPE Network Coordination Center for all Russian, European, and Middle Eastern registries, or the Asia Pacific Network Information Center. There are only three such sites, so you should be able to track the source.

However, if someone is using sophisticated software to generate clicks on your ad, it will probably be impossible for you to trace the IP address yourself. For example, according to alleged Google extortionist, Michael Bradley, "Holland Engine software was originaly written to allow spammers to conceal their orginating IP address from mailservers and to keep it from apearing in e-mail headers.

Holland Engine is the core of LincolnSX, the most powerful mass-emailing software, running at rates of 5 million e- mails per day per machine. Holland Engine will actually tunnel through the internet and connect to the desired IP address from, not your IP but rather from another, the one at the end of the tunnel."

In conclusion, if you choose to use pay-per-click search engines to advertise, watch your log files closely and report improprieties immediately.

Also don't put all of your eggs into one basket, by depending solely on pay-per-click advertising. Utilize a variety of ways to attract traffic to your website, such as ezines, newsletters, writing articles, offline advertising, etc.

google phenomenon

As my readers know, I've been one of Google's harshest critics. However, I'm also a firm believer that it's okay to criticize, as long as it's justifiable and fairly balanced with deserved praise.

Hence, in this article, instead of criticizing, I will be saluting Google and several of its many accomplishments.

According to the dictionary, the definition of phenomenon is:

"A remarkable development or occurrence. A marvel. "

I think we would all agree that definition fits Google like a fine tailored suit.

In 1998, singer Janet Jackson was the biggest star on the planet. On September 7, 1998, Google Inc. opened its door in Menlo Park, California. The door came with a remote control, as it was attached to the garage of a friend who sublet space to the new corporation's staff of three. The office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub. It also provided a parking space for the first employee hired by the new company: Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

Already Google.com, still in beta, was answering 10,000 search queries each day. The press began to take notice of the upstart website with the relevant search results, and articles extolling Google appeared in USA TODAY and Le Monde. That December, PC Magazine named Google one of its Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines for 1998. Google was moving up in the world.

The name "Google" is a play on the word "googol," which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. It refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web.

Anyway, the rest as they say is history, as Google continues to write its remarkable history with each amazing new achievement.

Let's detail a few of Google's more recent achievements:

Froogle

In December 2002, Google introduced a beta version of Froogle, a play on the word "frugal," a product search engine that enables users to search for millions of products across the web.

Google AdWords

In October 2000, Google announced its new content-targeted advertising program. Google AdWords was a huge "out-of-the- box" success, boasting well over 100,000 advertisers to date.

AdWords Select

In February 2002, Google launched AdWords Select, an updated version of the AdWords self-service advertising system with a number of new enhancements, including cost-per-click (CPC)- based pricing.

Google AdSense

In June 2003, Google anounced AdSense, a program designed to maximize the revenue potential of a website by serving highly relevant ads specific to the content of the page, launches with initial partners, including ABC.com, HowStuffWorks, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc., Lycos Europe, Knight Ridder Digital, About.com, CNET and others.

Google Deskbar

In November 2003, Google announced the Google Deskbar, a free software download which enables users to search Google without using a web browser.

Gmail

On April 1, 2004, Google announced a new web-based mail service called Gmail that will include a gigabyte of free storage for each user. The service also includes a powerful search engine to locate and retrieve messages, which are displayed in a "conversation view" that chronologically arranges all emails sent or received with the same subject line. Gmail also includes relevant advertising delivered with the same technology that scans web pages as part of the AdSense service.

To say that Google has had a meteoric rise to stardom would be an understatement. Years ago, who would have thought that the little search engine with the funny name would reach such massive heights that a monolith like Microsoft would find it tough competing.

So, what's next? Only Google knows for sure. However, I for one would like to see it tackle the current click fraud problem with the same excellence, zeal and determination its shown in its other remarkable achievements.

Adsense Website

As my readers know, I've been one of Google's harshest critics. However, I'm also a firm believer that it's okay to criticize, as long as it's justifiable and fairly balanced with deserved praise.

Hence, in this article, instead of criticizing, I will be saluting Google and several of its many accomplishments.

According to the dictionary, the definition of phenomenon is:

"A remarkable development or occurrence. A marvel. "

I think we would all agree that definition fits Google like a fine tailored suit.

In 1998, singer Janet Jackson was the biggest star on the planet. On September 7, 1998, Google Inc. opened its door in Menlo Park, California. The door came with a remote control, as it was attached to the garage of a friend who sublet space to the new corporation's staff of three. The office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub. It also provided a parking space for the first employee hired by the new company: Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

Already Google.com, still in beta, was answering 10,000 search queries each day. The press began to take notice of the upstart website with the relevant search results, and articles extolling Google appeared in USA TODAY and Le Monde. That December, PC Magazine named Google one of its Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines for 1998. Google was moving up in the world.

The name "Google" is a play on the word "googol," which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. It refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web.

Anyway, the rest as they say is history, as Google continues to write its remarkable history with each amazing new achievement.

Let's detail a few of Google's more recent achievements:

Froogle

In December 2002, Google introduced a beta version of Froogle, a play on the word "frugal," a product search engine that enables users to search for millions of products across the web.

Google AdWords

In October 2000, Google announced its new content-targeted advertising program. Google AdWords was a huge "out-of-the- box" success, boasting well over 100,000 advertisers to date.

AdWords Select

In February 2002, Google launched AdWords Select, an updated version of the AdWords self-service advertising system with a number of new enhancements, including cost-per-click (CPC)- based pricing.

Google AdSense

In June 2003, Google anounced AdSense, a program designed to maximize the revenue potential of a website by serving highly relevant ads specific to the content of the page, launches with initial partners, including ABC.com, HowStuffWorks, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc., Lycos Europe, Knight Ridder Digital, About.com, CNET and others.

Google Deskbar

In November 2003, Google announced the Google Deskbar, a free software download which enables users to search Google without using a web browser.

Gmail

On April 1, 2004, Google announced a new web-based mail service called Gmail that will include a gigabyte of free storage for each user. The service also includes a powerful search engine to locate and retrieve messages, which are displayed in a "conversation view" that chronologically arranges all emails sent or received with the same subject line. Gmail also includes relevant advertising delivered with the same technology that scans web pages as part of the AdSense service.

To say that Google has had a meteoric rise to stardom would be an understatement. Years ago, who would have thought that the little search engine with the funny name would reach such massive heights that a monolith like Microsoft would find it tough competing.

So, what's next? Only Google knows for sure. However, I for one would like to see it tackle the current click fraud problem with the same excellence, zeal and determination its shown in its other remarkable achievements.

Adsense Tips

You may have heard about AdSense and thought "that's only for professional web developers and marketers". Don't believe it! Adsense can generate revenue for almost any web page or web site.

You don't have to be a full time professional or intend to make millions, for AdSense to work for you. Start with the existing pages that you already have on the web. They can be personal pages, a blog, or a site on some topic you are interested in.

Google's AdSense automatically reads your pages and displays the ads that are most likely to interest your readers. Interesting ads get clicked on, and Google pays you for most clicks.

You don't have to design special web pages to get started, or go look for high-paying search terms. While you may want to use free articles and other information to create pages, such as this site www.n2information.com, you can make revenue from the work you have already done, just by adding AdSense scripts to your existing web pages.

It is easy to sign up for AdSense, just go to the Google site, click the Advertising Programs link under the search box, then the Google Adsense link. Sign up for AdSense, and follow the directions to add AdSense to your web pages.

Your readers are already used to seeing AdSense everywhere, so you are not likely to get a negative reaction by adding AdSense to your pages. The revenue you earn for AdSense may even help justify spending more time and resources on adding to your pages. If a reader complains, you might even suggest they try AdSense themselves.

For most people the ads are a helpful addition to the page content, offering sites and service that relate to the subject of the web page.

The key thing to remember, is that you do the work once to add AdSense to your web page, and AdSense keeps working day after day, month after month, even year after year, to reward your efforts.

Try to make each web page focus on one central idea or topic, to get the best result with AdSense. That way the ards will be better targeted to each page, and your click through response rate will improve.

Get started with AdSense, and soon you may be finding yourself spending more time making web pages to host content – and also making more money you can use to make the rest of your life fun and enjoyable.