Blog To Great

Adsense for Feeds

     I love this news --- Google has announced that it will start including AdSense into Feedburner feeds. The integration process was more complicated than they expected, considering the time taken since the acquisition. It's been rumored for some time.  This is great news for all bloggers alike. Read the Feedburner May 30th announcement for more details:

We’ve been hinting at this for awhile, but it’s finally time to spill the beans: Starting next week, we’ll be rolling out AdSense for feeds to a small group of publishers, in anticipation of a full launch to all FeedBurner and AdSense publishers “coming soon”. If you start seeing “Ads by Google” on an ad in a feed somewhere, that’d be us.

Publishers that are currently part of the FAN (Feedburner Advertising Network) will keep serving CPM ads, and have AdSense ads to fill the remaining inventory.

This is another quality source of income to be considered by most blogs / bloggers and another reason to get into Adsense if you haven't already.  Your thoughts and comments on this news??  Will you sign on?

Don't just blog, Blog To Great !!

Link Building Tips

     It's important that you don't pass up great opportunities to link your blog with others.  Often, in the pursuit of reading top blogs, I pass right over some bloggers "link love" posts.  Sometimes it's because the blog is not appropriate to any of mine.  Sometimes, I'm just too busy, and often it's because many, many other bloggers are being linked.  Everyone makes the same mistake at some point, we're all in a hurry and are interested in ideas for new content driven posts.  But why miss the chance to get a quality, appropriate links ???   What you can do is make some effort to create high quality appropriate links.  There's no reason not to go for it.  Here are some ideas to make the linking process easier  -

Adsense Optimization

  Now that your decided to use Google's Adsense to help monetize your blog, you want great suggestions to get as much revenue possible.  Here are a few -  you need to generate the greatest number of ad responses from your traffic --- meaning--- the highest click through rate.  You will then earn the maximum amount of revenue possible per click.  To do this, and increase your blog's click through rate you need to spend time on your choice of ad format, color and placement. 

Choosing the Ad Format that you'll requires that you choose it and not have your current website layout choose it for you.  Most bloggers assume that you have to work within the confines of your currrent blog layout. It's best to reconfgure your page layout to accommodate the ads that perform best. This also means that placement is more important than format.  An Ad Format rule is that wider is better and Google has a great explanation for this, click here.  It means that a large rectangle - 336 x 280, the medium rectangle - 300 x 250 and the wide skyscraper 160 x 600, all perform better.  In blogs,you should use at least one large rectangle, but remember a blog can often accommodate more than one ad.

Blogging too much to the Max?

     If you find yourself seemingly addicted to your blog, blogging and the internet, you may be interested in a recent grass-roots movement.  With 1-10% of the population possibly addicted to internet use, many folks are working to get back some of their time, even if it's only a few hours a day or one day a week.  call them "shutdown days, unplugged days" or other names, the point is the sames. If you find yourself sitting down to blog and you re-surface eight hours later in a daze, you may be one of this group.  Though, more than likely, you're not, but this problem is still a good reminder of the importance of tracking your blogging and internet use habits so that you don't lose track of your goals.  Yes, it's important for you to do research for posts with great content, just don't completely lose yourself in the process.  Don't blog aimlessly, have a purpose and stick to it.  See the full article, Texting While Driving... ?. 

What do you say?  Are you addicted?  If so, what will you do?

Blog on, but Blog To Great !!

Memorial Day Weekend- Great Time to Blog

Those in the USA know that this weekend is the "unofficial" start of summer. As much as I'd like to enjoy the entire great, long Memorial Holiday weekend, and honor those that have died to protect our nation, I know that I'll be at the keyboard typing, reading, researching for future posts and studying more about blogging.  But that's what successful blogging is all about.  You need to be persistent, hard working and dedicated to have a well trafficked, profitable blog.  Resist the urge to goof off as sooooooooo many others will.  Take some time off, but, while others are grilling, traveling and relaxing, those of us that want to improve our blog/s will trudge on and take advantage of the need for new content.  So look at your post idea list and put your posts out this weekend !  I know I will.

Social Networking, a great tool for blogs

     A new study completed by the owner of Opera Mini mobile software shows another great reason for a blog and bloggers to be active in social networking sites.  Nearly 40% of mobile internet traffic goes to social networking sites.   Most users visit social networking sites more often than any other! So, to increase your blog readership, get active and contribute.  Submit not only your blog and articles, but items of interest to your "ideal" reader. It's important to not spread yourself too thin, be active in as many social networking sites as you can manage.    Read full article from PhysOrg.com below.

Mobile browser maker says social networks top use from PhysOrg.com
(AP) -- People who use their cell phones to surf the Web tend to steer to social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook ahead of news, maps or weather, mobile browser company Opera says.
[...]

Adsense, a Great Opportunity

     One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your blog is with Google's AdSense. It's a great blog ad program, easy to join and for you to manage and gain some ad revenue with little effort! You can enroll to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on your blog. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a pay per click (PPC) or per-thousand impressions basis. They're also currently testing a cost-per-action based service.  Google uses its search technology to supply you with ads based on your blog's content, the reader's geographical location, and other factors. AdSense has become a great method of placing advertising on a blogs because the ad design/colors are chosen by you and the ads are less intrusive than most banners, with content of the ads relevant to your blog.

Increasing Blog Readership

     All new bloggers, and at some point experienced bloggers, face the great problem of a lack of readers or a readership plateau.  Today, we'll discuss how to increase readership for a new and growing blog.  Keep in mind the regular, fresh content is at the core of a great blog. But yes, even great bloggers who have blogged for over a year contend with this.  Below are a few additional tips that can help you increase and improve readership:

Write clearly and completely explain the point/s you're making- Don't assume your readers have a good understanding of the subject. Your reader must be able to see your post for the first time and understand what you have to say without any confusion. If you are expanding on an prior post, link to that post so readers will refer to it.

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights- a great cause

      Today, bloggers and great blogs around the world are reminding their readers that help and money is needed to continue the effort to protect human rights.  I'm taking a break from normal business issues with this post, to ask that you please take a few minutes to learn more about the serious human rights issues and recent emergencies humanity needs to address. 

Net Neutrality Update

     Blog owners should keep an eye on the net neutrality issue and contact your US elected officials to let him/her know your feelings on this important issue.  We need to act and keep the internet available equally for all.  It's great to see that a new bill has been introduced that would charge broadband providers with violating anti-trust laws if internet service is slowed or interfered with.  Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan has recently sponsored the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, along with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California and should get the support of all bloggers.

See link for a recent article in computerworld.com.