أرشيف شهر أبريل, 2008

Selling Advertising

أبريل 30, 2008 في 9:59 م · Filed under Advertising

To deal with the money going out of my account to pay bloggers, I have decided to hit the streets and contact companies that I think would do well to advertise on this site.

I started by looking at my competitors. Most of which seem to be using affiliate banners, or cost per action banners on their blogs. A few seemed to be using AdSense or something similar, and so only a very small amount of advertising positions seemed to be direct advertisement placements.

I have advertised this site on a few other sites, of both friends and competitors to try to build up my brand, and I think it worked masterfully, but finding companies to now advertise on this site hasn’t gone as well.

So What’s the Problem?

The reason companies aren’t seeking out this blog to advertise on it is because of a variety of reasons. One issue that might be limiting the number of private ad sales on this blog is that Xfep still isn’t a thought leader in the niche it covers, despite placing fairly high up in the Top 100 list for making money online blogs.

Another issue that might be hindering the number of advertisements on this site is that my advertising page is all text. Most people are very visual in nature, and despite describing advertising positions, all they see is a jumble of text and move on. This is something I am planning on fixing in the very near future.

One of the final reasons I will throw out there is that advertisers don’t see the value in advertising on this site. There are so many other competing blogs, and there aren’t many products that would fit with the type of visitors that this blog brings in. Things like blog design, search engine optimization, coding, and other blogger related products or services will work well, but outside that focused group, the type of audience just wouldn’t match.

I have priced the advertisements on this blog fairly aggressively for the amount of traffic I get, and have slowly built up a list of products, services, blogs, web hosts, and whatnot that would benefit from advertising on here. The revenue that is generated with this blog goes to pay the salaries of other bloggers that I employ (so now you all know that I am not getting rich off this site or anything).

The Big Question

So, I guess now the big question is, will I be successful in finding advertisers for the open inventory I have, or will I have to fill it with affiliate banners and CPA advertisements like most of my competitors?

2 تعليقاً

Paying Bloggers

أبريل 30, 2008 في 9:36 م · Filed under Blog Network Tips, Problogging

One of the worst things about the end of the money for me right now is what happens to my bank account as I go around and pay all of the bloggers and other freelancers that I work with. I continue to spend inordinate amounts of money on slowly growing my business online, and the one thing I have learned is that Paypal, while great in some respects is such a huge rip-off sometimes. Not only does it use horrible currency conversion rates, but they also fee my freelancers to death.

I wish there were other popular services that I could use. Luckily, some of the people I work with live in the same country as I do, and as such, I can e-mail money to them through an e-mail money transfer system that all of the banks in Canada participate in.

Why not just use advertising revenue, and have companies pay the freelancers directly? Well, the sites I run outside of this one, don’t make enough to do that. Hopefully, at some point that will change, but for now, it is definitely helping me realize how much work I have to do on the ad sales side to make this business of mine break even.

Are there better services than Paypal? Are there better ways to pay bloggers? Let me know in the comments below.

3 تعليقاً

Xfep Podcast: Episode 17

أبريل 30, 2008 في 9:26 م · Filed under Podcast

Overview

Today, I cover Grand Effect, its new design, my place in the network, and possibilities for others to join. The new design for Grand Effect goes live later tonight!

Subscribe directly to the Podcast RSS Feed to always keep up to date with any new releases.

Show Notes

0:26 – Where was Tuesday’s Podcast?

  • Went to see a drive-in movie
  • Worked on the new Grand Effect design

1:11 – Grand Effect Membership Opportunities

2:37 – Issues with Reworking the site

3:47 – Next Steps with Grand Effect

  • New Members
  • Advertising Program
  • Helping Members with WordPress, SEO

4:15 – Why Work on Member Sites for Free?

  • Builds their blog which helps bring in higher revenue ads

4:40 – Is it Worth Joining a Network?

5:43 – Wrap-up

Intro and Exit Music

Wired for Loud by David Henderson, found via PodsafeAudio

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Google PageRank Update: Again!?

أبريل 30, 2008 في 10:51 ص · Filed under Google

First we had a Google that almost didn’t seem like it wanted to update PageRanks, and now they are updating fairly regularly. I haven’t noticed any shifts in any of my blogs as of yet, but I think faster updates by Google will keep PageRank relevant.

If you want to see what your PageRank is, I suggest checking out BlogFlux, as they have a fast tool for doing so, and most tools that show by data center don’t seem to be working.

I found out about it from 45n5.com.

3 تعليقاً

What is Twitter, and Where Can You Learn More?

أبريل 28, 2008 في 8:05 م · Filed under Communication

TwitterThe Twitter trend just doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, and while on there, I saw a message asking people to explain what Twitter is, using the maximum 140 characters that the service allows in a message.

I was profiled on the post about twitter on GhostBlogging.net, and wanted to link it here for all to see.

At the end of the post, there are some links to some helpful articles, if you want to learn more about Twitter. And for those looking to follow me, you can find me at www.twitter.com/davidcubed.

2 تعليقاً

Xfep Podcast: Episode 16

أبريل 28, 2008 في 7:37 م · Filed under Podcast

Overview

Today, I talk a little about the history of this blog, reminding everyone to pursue their passions, no matter how crowded a subject may seem.

Subscribe directly to the Podcast RSS Feed to always keep up to date with any new releases.

Show Notes

0:27 – Blogging for a Blog Network

0:40 – Content Concerns

1:40 – Social Media Promotion

  • Who is responsible for it?
  • Build it into the payment model

3:00 – Traffic

  • Build in a payment bonus for traffic increases

4:10 – Go With a Network or on Your Own?

  • Paid slowly from building a blog
  • Paid for your effort right away with a blog network

5:09 – Wrap-up

  • Xfep Podcast is going to be a 4 day a week podcast

Intro and Exit Music

Wired for Loud by David Henderson, found via PodsafeAudio

3 تعليقاً

Clickbooth: Bad Marketing

أبريل 28, 2008 في 1:18 م · Filed under Advertising

I keep up to date on what’s going on with a variety of different services, and that includes having a ReviewMe account. One of the great things about all the different pay per post type systems is that they now require you to be open and honest about the source of the content, but Clickbooth Publisher Network doesn’t want to play by those rules, and in their ReviewMe posting, they ask that people not mention that it is a sponsored review.

Clickbooth Bad Marketing

Please do not put sponsored listing in the title or anywhere in the content of the review, thanks!

In the frequently asked questions on ReviewMe, they specifically state:

1. You must disclose that the post is a paid post in some way. Here are some ideas: “Sponsor Post” “Sponsored Post”, “The following is a paid review,” “Advertisement.”

Looks like Clickbooth doesn’t want to play by the rules, and deserves a thumbs down from me today. Don’t promote Clickbooth and their bad marketing practices. They should have their advertisement removed from ReviewMe and ReviewMe should also be held accountable for letting advertisement text like that through their system.

3 تعليقاً

Promoting Your Design

أبريل 28, 2008 في 12:39 م · Filed under Design, Promotion

I have never been able to design something decent enough to promote in the various design galleries, but I have witnessed first hand what happens to a site that is widely promoted in such a way.

If you have what you consider a beautiful custom design for your site, the rewards of taking time to show it off can be huge if done well.

I recently read a post on Design Reviver about promoting your site on design galleries, and they give some great advice. I used to work on posting sites on CSS Vault, one of the first CSS galleries and also one of the biggest, and highest PageRank ones, and the tips in the article definitely held true when I was working on CSS Vault.

Tips like:

Submitting with a Purpose

You could randomly submit your site to one gallery and more than likely end up on many more. However, if you take a more structured approach to your submitting, you end up getting featured on more sites. There are some galleries that want to be the first to feature you, and probably won’t feature you if you have already been seen on too many other sites. The key is to submit and get listed on these first, then follow with the less picky sites.

If you aren’t sure if your design is gallery worthy or not. It doesn’t hurt to submit it and see what happens. The worst that can happen is you aren’t featured, and have lost a little bit of time, which is not a big deal when you consider the possible rewards.

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Grand Effect Member Corvida Interviewed

أبريل 28, 2008 في 12:19 م · Filed under Grand Effect

I just wanted to write a quick shout-out post to fellow Grand Effect member, Corvida of SheGeeks, as she was recently interviewed on Center Networks.

Corvida is definitely a name to watch in the blogosphere, and that is why we are glad to have her in the Grand Effect network. Her passion is quickly being recognized, and rightly so. Personally, it is always nice to see Grand Effect members continuing to do well. We definitely have a network of stars.

From the interview:

Allen: Is Facebook worth the $15 billion valuation?

Corvida: Hell no! lol Facebook is not with $15 billion. If it were, they wouldn’t have half the problems they have now. If they were, monetization wouldn’t be a problem. They’ve gotten too big for their own good and in the process I feel their value has actually decreased. Facebook was worth a lot more when it started out than it is now based on my usage of Facebook and why people joined it in the first place. What made it special when it first launched, that excitement is long gone, especially if you were apart of Facebook before the hype, like I was.

Check out the full interview for more information on her thoughts regarding the newest trends on the web and don’t forget to check out SheGeeks.

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Upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1 but 2.5.2 Will Be Out Soon

أبريل 25, 2008 في 11:00 م · Filed under WordPress

WordPress 2.5.1 was released today and normally, I would be writing about this sort of thing on Blogging Pro, but the site has been down all day.

The new release includes some bug fixes, and a major security update. Here are some highlights:

  • Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
  • Better performance for those who have many categories
  • Media Uploader fixes
  • An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
  • Widget Administration fixes
  • Various usability improvements
  • Layout fixes for IE

Usually, this is where I tell everyone that has held off on upgrading from WordPress 2.3.3 to go ahead, but you might just want to wait a bit longer as I just got a message on Twitter from Mark Jaquith regarding the WordPress 2.5.1 release. He says, and I quote:

2.5.2 will probably be out before too long (password resetting was broken by 2.5.1 — doh).

So before you go run off and upgrade to 2.5.1 to protect yourself from whatever the security issue of the week is, understand that in a short amount of time, you might be upgrading to WordPress 2.5.2 so that password resetting works correctly once again.

When a simple thing like password resetting breaks, it definitely makes me worried about the attention to detail the team is currently having. Maybe only two releases should be done a year, in six month cycles, also allowing for what will hopefully be more bug fix, security check time of each release before putting it out in the wild.

This definitely makes me even more adamant about moving to an environment where I can run Subversion to update all of my WordPress blogs. Are you getting tired of upgrading? How will you feel if you have to upgrade to WordPress 2.5.2 in a week?

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