If you monetize a blog then you want the maximum blogging income possible. The one thing you don’t want is to waste the value of any clicks.

Let me clarify ’smart pricing’. Whilst Google does not say much about it, they will cut your income by 90% if you don’t have a site that is performing to their standards. Their standards equate to CTR of around 3% or better. If your CTR is below then Google will only pay 10% of the standard click rate. Instead of a keyword click being worth $0.50, it will only be worth $0.05. This is a huge drop - but it gets worse.

If you run more than one site then your return is based on your lowest CTR site. If you have three sites, one with a CTR of 5%, a second with a CTR of 4% and the a third with a CTR of only 1%, they will all return the value of the third site - 1%. This is known as ’smart pricing’. Is it fair, probably not. Whilst Google can tell you every thing about a user and about a blog, they cannot account for different web/blog sites.

How do you avoid ’smart pricing’? First, make sure you have good analytics on each of your ad units. Secondly, if any ad unit is performing at less than 3%, either reposition it or remove it altogether.

You can reverse ’smart pricing’. Simply remove the poorly performing ad units. Once you stats are showing a better than 3% CTR across the board your income level will return to full value. This can take from 3 to 10 days.

In brief. Your blogging income will fall across all ad units if just one of those ad units has a CTR of less than 3%. Keep good statistics on each ad unit. Remove any poor performing ad units. Another good tip provided to you by the best blog marketing journal around.

There are many blogging income streams available ranging from the traditional Google ads, Yahoo, affiliate marketing and PPC. The Rubicon Project on the one hand is no different to the traditional methods and yet it is in it’s own right a fairly new concept. It has certainly created a deal of hype.

The Rubicon Project has partnered with traditional advertisers like Google, Adbrite and Shopzilla to name just a couple. The concept is that you place advertising units on your blog or website in much the same way as you do now. You can specify banner, skyscrapper or box units of various sizes. You can also nominate which advertisers, which geographical area and even which demographics you want ads targeted towards. You can also nominate the ratio of ads from the different advertisers.

Once you have set up and placed your ad units, the Rubicon Project then goes to work to display ads according to your setup.  For the publisher, you no longer need accounts with each of the advertisers. The Rubicon Project collects all the statistic and collects your income on your behalf. You only need the one account.

The plus side. You get to publish ads from a wide variety of advertisers. Every time someone visits your site they will view a completely different ad. You only need to keep track of one ad company. Another plus are the comprehensive statistics that are available to keep track of your blog marketing efforts.

The down side. Not all ads will be targeted to your sites content. If you include Google Adsense you are still constrained by Google’s three ads per page rule. The biggest downside for me is that I have not been able to determine what percentage of revenue I receive from each advertiser.

As a blogging income stream the concept has merit. I have trialled it on one of my other sites and income from this ad stream is almost triple what I experienced before placing the ad units (similar ads units too). The Rubicon Project is still in Beta, however it may be worth a visit to see if it fits in with your blogs aims.

Blogging income can be derived from many options. If you are relying on Adsense then I suggest you keep a careful watch on any Google announcements. Over the six weeks or so Google have announced several changes to their publisher partnership arrangements.

The first change would probably not affect most small time or new bloggers. Google is discontinuing the Adsense Referral system generally for those living outside the United States. There have been a few modifications of the policy since the first announcement but the bottom line is that the number of partners eligible to receive income will be reduced. Not only that, the size of the payments have also been reduced.  The Google announcement stated:

[source] The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You’ll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You’ll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January.

The latest announcement from Google involves the Google  referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox. The amount to be paid for these referrals is being halved. The statement from Google:

[source] Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.

Firefox: We’ll also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. Again, this is independent of your location as a publisher.

It seem that Google is going through a rationalization period and I would not be surprised to see more announcements in the future relating poor performing partners. Google has grown with a high percentage of blogs running Google ad units of some type. This is flooding the market with some partners taking a year to earn the $100 minimum payment. If Google is going through a rationalization stage then I expect these publishers to be the next target.

For bloggers to make some type of income from their blogs, the time may be right to start investigating other options. It would certainly be judicious to trial different ad types to determine which ones are most profitable. It should be remembered that some of the biggest bloggers receiving  a lot of blogging income without using and Google ad units. Perhaps you can too!

Blogging income can be earned from many streams with the most popular being Google Adsense. Over the last few days we have seen the banning of IncrediMail, one of the largest listed companies to ever receive a Google ban. I wont speculate on reasons behind the ban, however I think it is a timely warning to all bloggers who display any of the Google ad units to take care.

Google’s policies are fairly clear. The consequences of breaching them are just as clear - you will be banned and lose any income already accrued.

The two biggest problem areas are Invalid Clicks and Encouraging Clicks. To quote Google:

Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited*

Other areas to be wary of include the sites content, both the site and the ads behavior, the ad placement and competing ads. Failing to comply with Google’s policies:

we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account. While in many cases we prefer to work with publishers to achieve policy compliance, we reserve the right to disable any account at any time.*

The bottom line is if you are looking to Google for blogging income then make sure you read their terms and conditions along with their program policies.

Blogging Income - some people want it - others steer right away from it. If you decide to look at blogging income options then there are several areas you must consider. Some of these options are:

• The type of advertising to include on your blog
• Where to place the advertisements
• What size advertisements

The type and placement of these ads are critical to the amount of blogging income that you can earn. Types of ads include:

• Adsense type units - Whilst Google are the best known there are many others including Yahoo and Bidvertiser. Google ads can be further broken into AdSense, AdSearch and Referral.
• Affiliate advertising. These generally require the placement of banners.
• Other pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-impression type ads
• Pay Per View video and audio
• Pay Per Post

Once you have selected the type of advertising you will use you need to think about the size and placement. The graphic on right, taken from Coolayla, shows the various areas on a blog page. You can think of your page as a piece of real estate with each area having a different blogging income capacity.

The red areas are the prime earning areas - they are also the area generally set aside for logos or banners. The orange section top center is also an area that generally makes a good return.

The most popular zone for ad placement and are the two yellow zones. The green zones have decreasing returns whilst the blue zone represents very poor blogging income potential.

The large pink area is your content zone. Advertisements can be placed here, particularly on internal pages where you can place the ads within the content, before the content and/or at the foot of the content.

How and where you place your ads is always a complex matter. You need to balance the look and feel of the blog, the readers comfort (which will affect their decision to return) and maximizing the income. Do your research. Plan your blog using a similar map and you will find your blogging income providing you with a reasonable return.

By using some smart research and planning you can optimize your blog for maximum income.

Happy New Year bloggers! The new year is here and it’s time to set some goals. Unless you’ve already done that.

According to a Harvard Business School poll, 3% of Harvard graduates write down their goals. Those 3% make twice as much money as the average of all other Harvard graduates. Why the big difference?

Goal setting is essential for business - any business. Blogging too. Goals keep you focused. When you write down your goals then you solidify them in your mind. You can go back and review them.

Goal setting is very powerful. Those who set goals and write them down usually have goals for different areas of their lives - spiritual, relationships, financial, hobbies. And I’m a big believer in goals. I’m also a big believer in blogging. Have you set your blogging goals? If not, here are a few areas of blogging that you might want to set goals for:

• Income
• Targeted traffic
• SEO performance
• Number of posts you’ll write this year
• Social bookmarking benchmarks
• Overall marketing expenditure
• Number of new customers

If you haven’t set any goals for your blog in 2008, now’s the time. Take 30 minutes to an hour and think about where you want your blog to go. What do you want it to do for your business? If you don’t set your goals you likely won’t meet them.

If monetizing with WordPress isn’t enough to convince novice bloggers that you can make money online, then this list by Darren Rowse of Problogger.net could perhaps make you think about singing up for Google AdSense.

10 Reasons Why You Should Consider Using AdSense on you blog by Darren Rowse:

1. International Traffic - Adsense have a large client and advertise base who wants traffic from other parts of the world
2. Easy Implementation - any web idiot can set up ads on his blog
3. Massive Advertiser Base – AdSense’s large advertiser base enables them to serve relevant ads to any blog
4. Obscure Topics – not many ad sponsors have ads on targeted niche but AdSense does
5. Make it Easy For Advertisers to Target Your Blog - there is a big potential of advertisers to make contact with you for further advertisement deals once they see they are getting more than what they’ve paid for from your blog
6. Set it and Forget it – you can leave the code as it is and earn if you’re too lazy to experiment
7. No Minimum Traffic Levels – small traffic can get you approved and can be a good start to a happy online earning
8. Able to be Used with Other Ad Types – you can run other type ads and PPC programs with AdSense
9. Multiple Ad Formats – you can choose to serve different type of Adsense ads : text Ads, Image Ads, Video Ads, Adlink units, referral ads (CPA), and even the Google search tool
10. Reliable Payment – very prompt and reliable once you get your first Google AdSense cheque

AdSense may not be the best choice because there are quite a few number of other Pay Per Click programs available but the fact remains that it has many financial benefits. You decide.

Earlier, I presented tips on how to choose a Wordpress theme and mentioned that your choice of a theme can be influenced by your decision to monetize your blog. There were two opposing reactions : WP doesn’t allow and YES you can! IMHO, it is possible in a way that Wordpress.com or the [.] org version for that matter doesn’t officially offer referrals or affiliates schemes. It’s the themes and the plugins that do the talking…or rather, monetizing through Google Adsense and other Pay Per Click programs.

Perhaps one of the most preferred programs is the Adsense that has allowed few good men out there to earn as much as $300,000 a month. The likes of Markus Frind of plentyoffish.com - a dating service website, and Kevin Rose of digg.com, and Jeremy Shoemaker of Shoemoney.com are lucky enough to earn really big bucks. Of course, these people have worked hard to make their websites popular as they are now. No, they don’t use Wordpress on their websites I’m sure of that. But the figures they are earning are enough to motivate us bloggers.

The closest thing bloggers and web marketers like us have to earning online is obviously blogs. Whether you use WP, Blogger, MySpace, or whatever obscure blogging platform, you can put AdSense. Work harder to be more popular and get noticed via some linkbuilding here and there or writing some controversial posts, you can laugh your way to the bank after you get your AdSense check.

The thing with Wordpress is that there are hundreds to thousands of themes and plugins being made by designers and developers all over the world. Some people are smart enough to design themes that allot spaces for PPC ads.

But just because you can monetize through Wordpress, it doesn’t automatically mean you WILL. Most people forget about “hardwork”. Remember that Frind, Rose, of Shoemaker didn’t get rich quick—they worked hard for it. They may not use our beloved WP on their sites but their bank accounts more than motivate.

WebPosition 4 is a popular SEO Ranking software that I’d recommend, even if the only website you have is a blog. If you are trying to monetize your blog then you’ll need a way to track your conversions, right?

WebPosition 4 can do that and so much more.

Not only does WebPosition 4 track conversions, but it also reports your search engine rankings, helps you target your keywords better, uses a built-in expert to optimize your web pages more effectively, and submits your URLs to the search engines for you. It’s an automated process that is well worth the time.

There are two products that you might have an interest in: The standard edition and the professional. The standard edition is good if all you want to do is use a metrics system for your website or blog. But if you do any pay per click advertising at all then you’ll need the professional edition. The way it tracks and reports pay per click conversions is well worth the extra that you’ll spend on the professional edition.

The standard edition supports up to 5 domains, but the professional edition has unlimited domain support, so if you have multiple domains then you should think about shelling out the extra bucks for the professional edition. You can also have your reports e-mailed to you with the professional edition, which is a huge time saver. And two other new services that come with the professional edition are meta tag manager and link validation. I really like the link validation tool!

At any rate, before I go on too long, check out WebPosition 4. You’ll be glad you did.

This is the last of the are you a cheapskate series. I’m sure you’re glad by now.

Let’s start with the content on your blog. If you write your own blog, you may wonder what this has to do with you. However, it needs to be noted that the more often you post to your blog, the better results you will get.

Many blog search places like Technorati serve up the “most recent” results related to the keywords a searcher types in there. That means if you have not posted for awhile you will be buried under all those who have used your keywords and blogged more recently.

In part 1 of are you a cheapskate, I mentioned sweat equity. This is where that comes in. You need to post no less than once per day if you want to be found in places like technorati.

Many bloggers, who also may be targeting the same keywords as you, are posting 2, 3, 4, or more times per day to keep their blog current. So how can you compete with that? Especially if you blog less than once per day?

How do you find the time to blog more than once per day? Invite a guest blogger to post on your blog. There are a lot of bloggers who will post to your blog for a link back and a little recognition. Ask people who comment on your blog. Ask bloggers whose blog you read and like.

Another way is to hire a blog content provider. Pay bloggers to post daily to your blog. Make sure they know how to target your keywords. Make sure they post about things you want them to post about. Give them instructions. A professional blogger can help you keep your blog up-to-date if you don’t have the time.

You may spend a little money, but it pays off in the long run. Your readers will keep coming back if there is new content all the time. They will get bored with your blog if there is not. After all, there are thousands of blogs that are updated more often that they could be reading.

Now about advertising your blog. Again, a little of your time is required first. There are a lot of blog directories you could be listing your blog in to get more traffic. You have to invest the time to do it is all. Most of them are free.

Using places like feedburner that make your blog’s feed available to more people will help you get traffic as well. You have to invest the time there and make your blog available through all of these mediums.

Now, about money and advertising for your blog. You need to create a budget. Decide how much you are willing to spend to advertise your blog. All the free services are great, but buying the right ad on the right website can bring you in extremely targeted traffic that can convert to click-thrus or sales.

You may want to use adwords or yahoo sponsored ads to bring in more traffic. It doesn’t take that much money to get started, but you have to be willing to invest a little if you are doing this as a business or a profession.

This series wasn’t meant to belittle anyone who is not doing this professionally or anyone that does not have the money to get started. It is just meant to make sure you know that just like any business, blogging takes a little money to make some money.

The more money and time you put into your blog, the more it will pay off.

Well, are you? I understand that if you are blogging as a hobby or just getting started with blogging that you might not be able to or may not want to invest too much money into blogging.

However, if your goal is to be a professional blogger or to run an online business of any kind, you need to invest a little money to make it happen. It’s not that different from running an offline business. You have to spend money to make money.

The investment of your time, or “sweat equity”, is also important. So if you are unwilling to put the time into your online business or blogging career, then no need to plan on what you will do when you become a successful blogger. It won’t happen.

Let’s go over some of the areas where I find people who want to make their living online, but are unwilling to spend either the time or money to make it happen.

Let’s start with the basics;

Domain Names: I hear people all the time say that they are going to get their domain name at the cheapest registrar they can find. Why? Is the difference between paying $6.99 per year for your domain name and paying $50 per year for your domain name going to make or break you? Is your business plan so weak that this will eat into your profits? If so, you have the wrong business plan or you are not very confident in it in the first place.

Find the best domain name for the main key phrase you want to target. It does not matter if it is dot com, dot net, dot org, dot cc, dot pn, or dot whatever.

I can’t wait for the domainers to read this because they will come in and argue that ccTLDs like dot pn don’t do well and that dot com is the only way to go. If you think you are a domain expert and you are reading this, before you try, you have to know I can prove you wrong.

I can show you blogs with dot pn, dot cc, and others that are PR5 and above and have great search engine rankings for their main keyphrases. The ONLY way that dot com is better than other TLDs is IF you plan to advertise on the radio or TV. People do remember the domain name with dot com better than other TLDs.

However, on the web, they click links in search engines and on web pages or they click banners and ads and do not care what the domain name is. They use bookmarks and still do not care what TLD is at the end of your domain name.

So choose a domain name that is your exact key phrase you want to target in whatever TLD it is available in. Some ccTLDs will cost you more money. You might have to pay as much as $100 per year for your domain name. OMG!

Again, if your business plan will not support getting the domain name you want, then maybe you should re-examine your business plan.

Now I’ll probably get the SEO gurus saying the domain name does not matter. Again, if you are an seo expert and plan to say thyat then I warn you I can prove you wrong there as well.

I can show you many many blogs with the number one listing in google that have the exact key phrase they are targeting as their domain name.

And before you say it, of course JUST having the domain name that matches your key phrase does not automatically mean you will rank high in the search engines for that phrase. But you want to do everything you can to get those listings and it all starts with the domain name.

So the domain name is worth the investment. Invest in the domain you want. Don’t settle for something that will not help you such as abbreviations only you understand or made up words no one will ever search for just to save a few dollars.

I know I planned to continue blogging about blog directories, but I’ve decided to go back to the basics and to the beginning to help people get started on making some money on the web.

When blogging first started, it was mostly personal diaries and real weblogs that just kept people updated on things that were going on with a particular topic like the development of software.

Then the opinion blogs came right after that along with the bloggers who became citizen journalists like the Drudge Report.

Now companies have discovered how valuable blogs are as a way to communicate with employees, investors, current customers, and potential customers.

We know all those reasons to own a blog, but something that is not talked about much is how blogs can be used as an SEO tool.

Besides all of the other reasons to own a blog, here are some of the SEO reasons having a blog benefits you.

1. A blog in a folder within your website gives you the opportunity to add fresh new content to your website daily, bringing the search engines back to crawl your website more often and increasing your search engine saturation.

2. A blog on a separate domain name and c class IP block can help increase link popularity for your website by linking to different pages within your website from different blog posts.

3. The best reason to own a blog is that a blog can make you more sales. Every time you post to your blog, you have the chance to sell something. Either by including an affiliate link, using ppc, linking to your products pages, and by directly pitching your products and services to customers.

I may look at things differently than some of you, but from a commercial standpoint, every web page you build is an ad. Not your home on the web. Not your store on the web. Not your address on the web. Every page is simply an ad.

If you think about it, the Internet is the newest advertising medium. When radio came along people were slow to accept it as an advertising tool. When tv came along, advertisers were slow to catch on to that too. Compnies were also slow to catch on to the Internet as an advertising medium.

But even those who do know about Internet advertising, think only of buying links and banners on websites and using google adwords or other ppc programs as the forms of advertising that are available on the Internet.

Most do not really realize that the real ad is the webpage you are building. With organic SEO, you are distributing that ad to more people through the search engines. When you also buy ads or participate in ppc, you are really just paying to distribute your webpage ad to more people.

If that is the case, and each blog post you make becomes a webpage of its own, then every time you make a blog post you are creating an ad.

Now, before you protest, I said this applies to people who use the Internet commercially. People who are selling products and services. If you are a commercial entity, you need to be thinking of every page you build as an ad.

Now, that does not mean you cannot still be helpful and provide useful infomration to people for free. You do not have to build nothing but squeeze pages and landing pages that use a lot of hype and a strong, pushy sales pitch.

Subtly advertising your products and services in the sidebar and at the bottom of each post, while providing helpful information is one of the best sales methods there are. You are providing value to your readers for free. They will want to do business with you as a result.

So, when I say every blog post is a sales page, that does not mean you should write your blog as if you are a used car salesman. Just remember to structure your blog and the posts you make to give you a chance to also sell product. Those pages are found by searchers and you could be making sales.

If you have not read 10 Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Pageviews - Part 1 you should do that first.

6. Write once per week special projects. These are a series of articles on a particular topic. You will be offering it once per week giving readers a week to comment on it, then have them hanging on for next weeks special post in the series. Each time add links to previous posts in that series.

7. Using your content from your other websites or blogs is also a great way to get more pageviews for all of them. Use the target new tag and refer to material on your other blogs and websites. It will open a new window leaving the current blog open while they visit your other website or blog. You can quickly double up your pageviews while also introducing your readers to your other websites and blogs.

8. Make a list of 10 previous posts and the links to those posts. Make a post in your blog about 10 things you want your readers to know and read in case they have not done so before. At your suggestion they will at least go see if they have read those posts before, increasing your pageviews once again plus bringing old material to new readers. That also lets them know they should browse the archives for things they have missed.

9. Using that same list of 10 posts or a new one, visit other blogs on your topic. Find posts that talk about something similar to one of those 10 posts, then instead of adding a link in your signature to the home page, make a comment there and refer to the post that is similar and that contains helpful information to that blogger and their readers. You will also be increasing your link popularity while doing this. Do not spam the link. Make sure it actually contains useful information. Don’t be trolls or spammers and you will end up with new readers and more page views for your blog.

10. Do not stop being creative. Use the tips in this article, plus invent some of your own ways to interlink your blogposts together. Create pages. Don’t just post and forget. That content is valuable, use it. Do not make people search your blog. They are lazy and busy. Bring it to them. That is just good customer service.

I hope this helps you learn there is more to blogging than just writing a post once in awhile or even daily. If you employ the tips I just gave you into your blog I guarantee you will increase your pageviews which in turn will increase your revenue if using an ad program in your blog.

With Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher, having people click onto more pages helps your revenue immensely, but how do you get them to read more than one page when they visit your website? Here are a few tips.

1. Create pages within the blog that contain reference material you refer to often in your posts. These static pages will also get crawled and indexed by the search engines and as you write posts about your topics you can refer people to these static pages as references to what you are posting about.

2. Use articles as static pages. You can reprint articles on any topic for free by visiting one of the many article directories like http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit/ Then refer people to read the articles that relate to the post you are making. You could even add one article as a new page every time you make a post.

3. Refer to other posts you have made on your blog or on another one of your blogs while posting. This gets the reader to click over to previous posts. You can even decide your posts by browsing previous posts and deciding which one to follow up on. Those archives are not to be lost and forgotten. Its great material, (you wrote it right?), so use it.

4. Create a page that links to your favorite posts that are timeless. You browse your old posts, find posts that you want readers to find easily, then build a links page with those posts directly linked. Then add a link to that page from your front page. Call it favorite posts or whatever and you will benefit by those that click through and follow those links.

5. I’ve posted before about the “more” tag. You write your post as normal, then decide where you want to break the post up onto a new page. You put the more tag in and readers have to click to a new page to read the rest of the story.

Part 2 tomorrow with the other 5 ways to increase your blog’s pageviews. So subscribe to our feed or bookmark us and come back for more tips on blogging.

I know feedburner has been around for a long time, but I just started using it on a couple of my blogs. I think feedburner is pretty amazing. The number of ways you can customize the feeds you offer allows you to reach more users and look more professional.

Feedburner makes it easy for subscribers to sign up and follow your blog. You can even monetize your feed through feedburner making it profitable as well.

You can add images to your feeds, summaries, widgets, affiliate ads, and more using feedburner. I just wish I had started using it a long time ago. But speaking of time, it takes about 30 minutes to set up, add it to your blog template, and customize all the options feedburner has for you to choose from.

I think feedburner is worth the time and effort and recommend you set up an account there as well.