Wednesday, 16 August 2017

Best High-Paying AdSense Alternatives for Your Website

Best High-Paying AdSense Alternatives for Your Website
Don’t want to work with Google AdSense? No problem. There are many alternative ad networks available for those who don’t want or can’t work with Google for some reason.
Let’s look at some common scenarios in which people seek out alternate means of monetization.

Reasons to Look For AdSense Alternatives

There are many reasons to look for AdSense alternatives—the most important being to create a hedge against unexpected account troubles and suggest drops in revenue. Some other reasons I commonly hear about include:
  • Google AdSense rejects many sites for not having enough content or if they feel your site would not be appropriate for their advertisers.
  • Getting a site approved for Google AdSense is not as easy as it was in the past.
  • If you read any of the internet marketing or webmaster forums, I’m sure you’ve seen thread after thread with a title that goes something like… “AdSense banned me! Why?”
  • Google AdSense has a lot of rules and they monitor sites constantly. If you happen to break even one rule, they will not just ban the site, they will ban you and won’t let you open a new AdSense account. And even if you manage to open one somehow and they catch you later, they will ban the new account.
  • Did you know that if you even accidentally click on an ad on your site you could be banned for life?
  • Many site owners feel that Google AdSense rules are just too strict. Conforming to the many rules often leads to site design issues.
  • In some instances, you have to redesign your entire site just so you can use Google AdSense.
  • Contextual text ads sometimes just don’t fit a site’s design and layout. Other ad formats that Google AdSense does not support work better on many sites.

Types of Ads

Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.
Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.
In-Text: These style of ads popup when you hover over selected text phrases with your mouse. A small box pops up and usually contains either image, text or video as well as the ad’s link.
Display: Display ads contain images, headlines, body text and other elements used to get a viewer’s attention. Sizes range from eighth page to full page ads.
Banner: These are your typical image ads you see on many sites. They can be just the image or an image with a text line above or below it. Sizes range from button size to half page and come in all orientations.

Alternative Ad Networks

Here are the top alternative ad networks that you can use instead of Google AdSense. Take your time and check out each one of them. You should find several that will work well with your sites.

1. Media.Net

AdSense Alternatives: Media.net
Media.Net gives you exclusive access to the Yahoo! Bing Network. They are one of the world’s largest contextual ad networks and boast many top publishers like Forbes, ELLE, Reuters, and Good Housekeeping.
Media.Net offers publishers several ad styles. Do note however that they only allow one of each ad type to appear on a page.
The main ad style available is the content ad. These are contextual ad blocks that are available in different sizes to suit your needs.
The next ad type available is the search targeting ad. These appear the same way as contextual ads but are only displayed to search engine traffic.
Media.Net also provides web bar and mobile ads to its publishers.
I feel that this is the closest AdSense alternative currently available. But, be aware that they are known for suspending accounts and not stating the reason. So, if you use them, read all the rules and be careful to follow them.
Possible roadblock: Media.Net needs to approve each site you want to place ads on. And they’re a little strict on what sites they approve.

Bonus Network: AdRecover

AdRecover is an ad network which exclusively works on recovering your ad blocked inventory, which most publishers are currently not monetizing. Hence this opens a new avenue for publishers to increase their ad revenue by 10-35% by monetizing their ad blocked traffic, which most existing networks (including other networks in this list) cannot monetize since they are blocked by ad blockers.
Through AdRecover, you can measure as well as monetize your ad blocked traffic. Since Ad block users are a sensitive audience, AdRecover maintains a very fine balance between user experience and Monetization, by showing user-friendly ads (that is no rich media, popups, auto-play video, flash ads, etc) and controlling the ad coverage on every page. They also provide website visitors an option to provide feedback about the ads and control their ad experience.
Great solution for publishers who are not generating any revenue from ad blocked traffic at the moment. Click here to know more about AdRecover.

2. Adsterra

AdSense Alternatives: Adsterra
Adsterra is a premium advertising network serving over 10 billion geo-targeted ad impression per month. They offer various popular ad formats for web and mobile devices: popunders, standard banners, pushups, interstitial, sliders, and direct links.
Adsterra works with websites from all types of niches and have a great ad fill rate for all countries. They are a perfect alternative to AdSense.
Publishers can enjoy on-time payments made bi-weekly via major payment systems, as well as a personal account manager and real-time statistics provided through Adsterra API. Adsterra also offers a 5% Referral program.
Learn more about Adsterra Network

3. Ad Maven

Ad maven
In the past year Ad Maven has positioned itself as one of the top alternatives to Google Adsense. Offering their publishers a wide range of monetization methods such as Banners, Popunder, Lightbox, Interstitial, Slider ads and more – they serve over 500 million full page ad impressions per day.
Once you register you will be immediately approved and receive access to Ad Maven’s user friendly platform. Ad Maven identifies your website type and presents to your users ads that are most likely to convert, thereby increasing your revenues for all GEO’s.
Ad Maven also supplies a unique Adblock bypass solution allowing you to present ads to 100% of your users, increasing your revenues by up to 50%.

4. AdBuff

Adbuff is the ultimate AdSense Alternative ad network due to their ability to outperform AdSense for many publishers. Because Adbuff is a Real Time Bidding (RTB) platform, AdSense is competing directly with other advertisers to monetize your site through Adbuff. As a result publishers earn some of the highest page RPMs available in the industry. Their ads are also fully compliant to run along-side AdSense, so you can even double your page RPM by running AdSense and Adbuff together.
adbuff_adpushup
Adbuff is an AdSense Alternative ad network that has strict approval guidelines for publishers and advertisers. They are currently accepting publishers who have English sites with a majority of the traffic coming from USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. Publisher sites require at least 2,000 unique visitors per day. Approval times can take between 5 – 7 days and every approved site will receive a $25 welcome bonus for signing up.
For premium publishers who are looking for the best AdSense Alternative ad network, Adbuff is the first ad network you should look at.

5. Infolinks

AdSense Alternatives: Infolinks
Infolinks ad network currently serves targeted ads on over 125,000 websites. They work best on sites that contain large amounts text-based content.
Infolinks indexes your pages to determine the best ads to display. Several types of ads are available to publishers for use on their sites.
The main ad type Infolinks provides is their in-text ad links. Selected words on your page are selected and either double underlined or dotted underlined. When a visitor scrolls over one of the words, a pops up containing an ad relevant to the word appears.
These ads can appear a little spammy and get a little annoying when you accidentally move your cursor over a link. They do allow you to limit the number on a page, though.
They also have an ad block called related tags. These are very similar in look to AdSense horizontal link blocks.
A tag cloud ad block is available for your use if you feel it would be suitable for your site’s layout.
Infolinks has a search widget that sits at the bottom of the screen and when a visitor moves their cursor over its bar, it slides up to display its contents.
Infolinks will not approve a site if they feel it is thin on content.

6. RevenueHits

AdSense Alternatives: Revenue Hits
RevenueHits is a fairly new ad network and looks very promising. They offer a nice variety of ad types including banner, pop-under, sliders, top and footer style banners, buttons, and interstitials.
They offer both contextual and geo-targeted ads. They are a performance-based network (CPA), not a CPC or CPM network. So make sure you understand that you are paid when a visitor to your site takes specific actions instead of being paid when they click on an ad.
RevenueHits offers payment via wire, PayPal and Payoneer. The current minimum payout is $50.
They do not allow ads to be placed on pages that do not contain content.

7. Chitika

AdSense Alternatives: Chitika
Chitika is an online advertising network with over 350,000 publishers. They serve over four billion targeted ads per month. Chitika has several top-tier advertising partners like Yahoo!, SuperMedia and HomeAdvisor.
Since the Chitika ads are search targeted, they work best with websites that get most of their traffic from search engines. Visitors that arrive at your site by other channels are displayed generic ads loosely based on your site’s title and keywords. If the majority of your traffic is from links or type-ins you may want to look at other AdSense alternatives.
They do allow you to use alternative ads that you can display to your non-organic visitors to better make use of your site’s ad space.
Publisher payments are available by PayPal starting with a $10 minimum.
Chitika is one of the few ad networks that has an affiliate program. This could bring in an additional income for you.

8. Adversal

AdSense Alternatives: Adversal
Adversal is an excellent alternative to AdSense if your site gets over 50,000 page views per month. They have fast approvals but make sure your site meets their requirements before you apply to be a publisher. They offer various banner sizes and types to publishers. Pop-unders and ministitial type ads are also available for publisher use.
Currently, their minimum payout is $20. A PayPal option is available. Adversal is also one of the few ad networks that have an affiliate program.
Please be aware that Adversal will reject any site that does not receive at least 50,000 page views per month.

9. Clicksor

AdSense Alternatives: Clicksor
Clicksor offers publishers multiple ad formats including clickable text and targeted contextual banner ads for use on their sites.
All ads displayed to your site’s visitors are context sensitive. This way your site visitors see ads that they will be more likely to click. They offer weekly payouts via PayPal or check. The minimum payout threshold is currently $50. Clicksor also offers an affiliate program that pays a 10% commission.
Caveat: They’re getting more picky on which sites they accept and are rejecting many sites that are not based in the US, Canada or the UK.

10. BidVertiser

AdSense Alternatives: Bidvertizer
BidVertiser pays you on both clicks and conversions. This could help you make more money from your sites.
Text ads, banner ads, mobile ads and slider ads are available. They offer publishers a point-and-click ad builder tool that helps you to customize the ads to fit the look and feel of your site. They pay monthly by check, wire or PayPal. The current minimum payout is only $10 if you choose to receive payments through PayPal.
One downside to BidVertiser is that they use an advertiser bidding system. Each advertiser bids ad placement and what sites their ads appear on. So, it may take some time for advertisers to find your site in the BidVertiser network and start bidding on your ad spots.

11. Intellilinks

AdSense Alternatives: Intellinks
Intellilinks lets you sell simple text links on your sites to advertisers for a set monthly fee. The more traffic you have and the better your search engine rankings, the higher you can set your monthly charge.
If you have a site that is ranked well and receives a good amount of traffic, you will want to take a close look at Intellilinks. For integration, they provide a WordPress plugin or script that is easy to install. This plugin or script automates the process of adding text links to your site. Sold links can be placed inside of content and on the sidebar as related links. Your site visitors do not have to click these links for you to be paid. Payments are made through PayPal on a monthly basis.
One negative thing about Intellilinks is that it may take time for advertisers to purchase links on your site.

12. PopAds

AdSense Alternatives: PopAds
PopAds specializes in pop-under ad delivery.
They claim that their average earnings for a site that receives 1000 unique visitors a day is $4.00 a day. You can select the minimum bid you will accept from advertisers as well as setting the frequency with which the pop-under ads display to site visitors. One of the great features of PopAds is that you can request payment of your PopAds revenue anytime you want. If you are earning at least $5 a day, you can even make payment requests on a daily basis.
Getting an account and site approvals is easy with PopAds.

13. PopMyAds

AdSense Alternatives: PopMyAds
PopMyAds is a pop-under ad network that accepts publishers and traffic from all countries.
They provide quick site approval; many times in under one hour. This is one of the few ad networks that accepts legal adult sites. Please check their TOS for more details on the sites they accept.
Their minimum payout is just $5.00 and can be paid through PayPal or Payza. You can contact them if you need to be paid through wire transfer. All payments are processed in 1 to 7 business days. PayPal and Payza payments are usually processed within 1 business day of the payment request.

14. PropellerAds Media

AdSense Alternatives: Propeller Ads
PropellerAds is a large ad network that specializes in pop-under ads but also provides standard banner ads, on-click ads, and in-banner video ads. They also have sliders, sponsored links and other ad formats available for publishers.
If your website is in one of the following niches, you will want to check them out: Games, entertainment, movies, dating, finances, software or gambling.
They also have a great ad fill rate for tier 2 and 3 countries. So if you have site visitors from India, South Africa or Singapore, you should give them a try.

15. Vibrant Media

AdSense Alternatives: Vibrant
Vibrant Media is an extremely popular ad network that you will see at work on many popular sites. They have many premium advertisers and pay high CPC rates to their publishers.
Let me give you an advance warning, though. They are very picky about what sites they accept. Any site you submit to them for approval must be of high quality and receive a minimum of 500,000 page views per month.
Vibrant use their own IntelliTXT technology that searches your pages for relevant keywords and phrases. It then underlines these and adds the code needed to open a small popup when the user hovers over the link. These popup ads are interactive and draw a high number of clicks. Vibrant also offers other ad types, including in-image and display.
Though site approval is difficult, if you do have a site that meets their minimum criteria, they are a great network to be on.

16. VigLink
AdSense Alternatives: Viglink

VigLink helps you to monetize your sites by automatically converting key phrases and existing links into affiliate links.
VigLink supports over 32,000 affiliate merchants and pays you between 25% and 50% of all revenue earned by clicks on links converted by VigLink.
Currently, they offer three types of monetization technologies. Their VigLink Convert service takes many of your regular links to products and converts them to links that will earn you a commission if the product is purchased by the visitor clicking the link. VigLink Insert takes keyword phrases from your site and converts then into affiliate links. This works great if your site discusses a lot of products.
The third technology they offer is VigLink Anywhere. This technology is designed for sharing links via Twitter, Facebook, email etc. It’s easy to get approved and account activation is instant once you verify your email address. If you have been turned down by other networks, this one is worth checking out.

17. BuySellAds

AdSense Alternatives: BuySellAds

BuySellAds sells advertising space on your site to advertisers for you.
When you submit a site to BuySellAds for approval they look at your PageRank, Alexa score, inbound link count and other metrics to determine your site’s overall quality. They only accept high-quality sites.

You actually have control of what you feel your ad space is worth. But, be careful that you don’t price yourself out of the market. BuySellAds supports many ad types, including background takeovers, display, email newsletters, RSS feed ads, image plus text, text ads etc. They pay you 75% of the revenue your ad space brings in. BuySellAds only accepts English language sites. You also need to have a minimum of 100,000 page views per month.
Also, note that you must own the domain. They do not allow sites on wordpress.com, Blogger, etc. There are many reasons why people look for alternatives to AdSense. Getting rejected, getting banned, overly strict rules, and that sometimes contextual text ads just don’t work with a site’s design.

Now it’s time for you to explore all the options you have and pick the ad networks that works best for you, your sites and your goals.
Update: Apart from AdSense alternatives, you should also check out some native ad networks, mobile ad networks, CPM based ad networks and affiliate ad networks to explore alternate monetization options.

Tuesday, 8 August 2017

GET PAID TO TELL WHAT YOU THINK




As you know, I a member of survey panels and have been taking online surveys for more than 15 years now.  One of my best and favorite survey companies out there today is from a company called Tellwut.  For those who have never heard of this site before, Tellwut is a Canadian based company that allows you to complete and create short polls for points that you can redeem for gift cards, prizes, and other merchandise.  It is approved by Survey Police ranking in 3rd place as one of the top survey panels in the United States and has the BBB seal of approval.  Not very many survey companies can say that.  Tellwut literally stands for “tell what you think” and you get rewarded for doing just that.  They will also reward you for referring your friends, for joining their voter panel, and more.
Why you should give Tellwut a try?
Another reason that I like this panel is because you will never get disqualified for their surveys, unlike other market research companies.  Every time you complete a survey or poll, you will earn points.  This is a big relief for those who spend time participating in surveys and even filling them out only to find that you did not qualify and all of your valuable time was wasted.  This will never happen at Tellwut.  In fact, they have new polls that are available on their website every single day.  All you have have to do is log into your account daily in order to participate to earn points.  You will not have to wait to receive an email letting you know that you have a new survey to take.
The site is also very user-friendly.  When you log in, you will immediately be prompted to take the latest available surveys at your convenience.  They are easy to find and the site is not overwhelming.  The site also has a very clean layout.  Because the surveys or polls are super fast and fun, you will not be required to spend a lot of time on the site which will encourage you to come back daily for new surveys.  Some people are even able to earn 1-2 free gift cards and rewards each month.
The surveys only take a minute or less to complete and the points add up very quickly!  You can redeem your points for rewards like these listed below.
4,000 Points = $10 Amazon Gift Card
6,000 Points = $15 Amazon Gift Card
8,200 Points = $20 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
10,000 Points = $25 Walmart Gift Card
so many other rewards to choose from
How many points will I earn per survey?
Tellwut surveys on average are worth 5-10 points each but remember that you can take surveys every day and earn more points when you complete these steps below.
Creating an account = 100 points
Other information = up to 150 points
Referring friends = 25 points
Creating surveys = 10-20 points
External surveys = 25-2,000 points
How to earn additional points?
You can also earn additional points for completing your profile online.  In addition to this, Tellwut gives its members who are active on Twitter with an account a chance to tweet as many of their surveys as you can by clicking the sharing button at the bottom of the surveys for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card on Fridays.  You can also increases your chances of winning by retweeting and liking their tweets, so make sure that you follow Tellwut on Twitter for more rewards.
Who can join Tellwut?
Anyone can, as long as you live in the United States or Canada and are at least 18 years of age, you can join to be a member of Tellwut.  Make sure you do so today to start earning rewards for telling them what you think.  Sign up here!  If you would like to find out more about Tellwut or are curious to know how much their members earn monthly, please read the discussion topic on WorkersonboardTalk here.
You can also visit MadCashSurvey for more legitimate paid surveys.


Sunday, 6 August 2017

Understand Basics Of Online Advertisements: CPA, CPC, CPM and CPL

Understand Basics Of Online Advertisements: CPA, CPC, CPM and CPL
A strong foundation helps you to achieve success in the longer run. It is crucial to know the basics of your trade.
Today, we will discuss basic terminologies used in online marketing to make money from it. Most of the advertising companies work by CPA, CPC, CPM and CPL advertisement. This post explains all about the above-used terms.


Common Terms in Online Marketing

CPM stand for cost per mille or cost per thousand. In simple words, you will be paid when the advertisement gets 1000 people or page views. In this method, a fixed rate is decided before the advertisement, and you get paid according to that.


CPC advertisement means cost per click. You will be paid when people will click your advertisement. The payout varies from few cents to few dollars. That’s how AdSense and contextual advertisement works.   They place the relevant advertisement, and you will get paid when people click on them.

CPA advertisement is by far one of the best payout advertisement program. In this advertisement module, when visitors click on the advertisement and at the same time perform some action like buying an ebook, buy a game, play a game or sign up for some course. The price range from cents to some 2-3 figure on dollars. Affiliate marketing is an example of CPA advertisement. You can see them in action at the sidebar in openoutLoud.

CPL advertisement or cost per lead advertisement is almost similar to CPA advertisement, but, in this, users sign up for the newsletter or fill up a survey form. The payout is much better then CPC advertisement in this program.
You need to be very careful while selecting the right advertisement program for your blog. If you have a high traffic blog, I recommend you to place a CPM ads anywhere on the blog, like at the bottom of the page and make money out of it.
If you have a text based blog , placing the contextual advertisement at the right place will be beneficial for you.

CPA and CPL advertisement will depend on your niche or the kind of subscribers you have.
I hope this article helped you to understand the basic terms. In the next update, I will let you know about how you can make money online. So make sure you

How to Get AdSense Account Approved for Blogspot with Little Trick

How to Get AdSense Account Approved for Blogspot with Little Trick
We all know that AdSense contextual ads are best-paying Ad program for Bloggers. Though, I have already shared my tutorial on: Create Adsense account but question remains the same: How to get Adsense account approval for BlogSpot bloggers, getting an AdSense approval is not that easy. Google AdSense have some strict account approval policies, and one of them is blog should be six months old. Though, it’s not always true, and if you have created a quality Website, you can get an approved AdSense account easily.

The major problem is for BlogSpot bloggers, for some reasons Google AdSense, doesn’t entertain BlogSpot bloggers. One of the most common reason BlogSpot bloggers get is Issue with page type.  One easy way to get AdSense account with a BlogSpot blog is grabbed a custom domain, create a professional Email address and apply for AdSense account.
how to get adsense account
There is a simple trick which you can use to get your AdSense account approved for Blogspot domain quickly.
If your BlogSpot account have a sufficient number of post (minimum 20+) then it’s easy to get your AdSense account approved. If you have personal domain and host chances of AdSense approval are very high.
Now the question is:

How to get Adsense account approval for BlogSpot blog:

  • Buy a custom domain name.
  • Use Google apps to create a domain specific email address.
  • Add pages like About, Contact
  • Ensure you use a clean BlogSpot design.
  • Have at least 10-15 well-written blog posts.
  • Ensure you don’t use copyright images. Here you can find sites to download free images. If you have copied images from Google search, go back & delete it from your blog.
  • Ensure your sidebar looks clean & professional.
  • Apply for AdSense & enjoy!
Even I got my AdSense account approved after almost 8 re-submission.

Saturday, 5 August 2017

How to Increase your AdSense Income from Existing Traffic

How to Increase your AdSense Income from Existing Traffic
Google AdSense is like the first teenage love in the life of a blogger. When a new blogger enters into this world of blogging, he often does so due to the potential of making money from blogging. Frequently, displaying ads on his blog using ad networks like Google AdSense comes at the top of a new blogger’s wish list, as it is the highest paying ad network on the planet.

Most new bloggers believe making money from AdSense is a simple process. A new blogger may think he simply needs to create a blog, drive traffic, and apply for AdSense, and he will be making money immediately. This is true to an extent, but there are a variety of tips one can employ in order to take full advantage of the money-making opportunities from Google AdSense


AdSense works best when you have a quality traffic blog (target audience from U.S.), and you are using high CPC keywords on your blog.

Let’s consider two blogs:
Blog A and Blog B
Blog A is a successful blog which attracts millions of readers every month, and blog B is not as popular a blog, with only a few hundred visitors per month. Both bloggers are using AdSense to monetize their blogs.
In this scenario, blog A will make more money as it gets more traffic, and blog B will earn less. (For the sake of this example, we are ignoring some points like keywords CPC, and we are assuming both blogs are in the same niche).
If you own a blog like blog A with high traffic, then you may not need to study the information in this post.  But if your blog is more like blog B, with comparatively minimal traffic, I would suggest that you pay close attention to the information in this post, as I am going to show you how you can increase your AdSense income from your existing traffic.

Working tips to increase AdSense earnings with little effort:

To ensure these tips will work for you, don’t simply read the following tips – take the time to employ them on your blog, as a little extra effort could help you to double or triple your total AdSense income.
Visibility factor
check Ad heatmap
The visibility of your ads plays a major role in the number of clicks you are getting on your ads. The simple reason for this is, of course, if they don’t see the ad, they don’t click on it.
So the first thing you need to focus on is placing ads at highly visible positions, such as:
  • Below or above the title
  • Below the post content
  • At the top, header or sidebar
Focusing on ad placement is a very easy way to bring yourself more income. You can also try using services like Crazy Egg to check your readers’ focal points.  Crazy Egg will create a heat map which shows the places where readers are looking and clicking the most. There is a fee for Crazy Egg, but if you don’t want to spend money on this type of service, you can try out Inspectlet, a similar service that is free for the first 100 page views. 100 page views may be enough to give you a sense of where you can best place your ads toward optimal performance.

Make your ads large and noticeable
A few days ago I was reading a report on engagement to content online. I read that updates with an image receive 39% more interactions than those without an image. The article I was reading related this statistic to Facebook, but this also holds true for advertising.
In the past few months AdSense has come up with the 300×600 ad unit and the 970×90 ad unit, because they understand that larger ads get more attention.
Let’s do an experiment: look at any two items – one large in size and the other small.
  • Close your eyes for one minute, and then re-open them.
  • As you opened your eyes, which thing did you notice first?
  • 99.999999% people notice the larger item first.
Make your ads larger, because people will be more likely to click on your ads when it is easy for them to be noticed.
Use the units
I have heard many bloggers say that we can only place three AdSense ad units on one page.
Not so! You can place eight ad units on a web page.
You read it right – eight ad units on a single web page.

Those eight ad units include three standard ad units, three link units, and two search forms.
In order to take full advantage of the money-making potential of Google AdSense, take the time to focus on this point, and fit all of the appropriate ads onto your blog and wait to see more money rolling into your AdSense account.

Another reason why this works is that additional ad units increase the variety of ads, and the increased variety of ads in turn increases the probability of a person clicking on one of your displayed AdSense ad units.

Remember to place the ad units in prominent places in an effort to make the ads work for you.  Place them above the fold and around your content area. For example, you could place one AdSense search ad unit at the header, and another one after your content.
An example of poor placement of AdSense ads is at the footer area of your blog.
Color combinations
color combinations

Remember – one key to the success of your AdSense ads is grabbing the attention of your readers.
If you are using the standard text ad unit on your blog, remember that you have control of the color combinations.
Also, if you are going to place the text ad unit in between your content, try to merge it with your post text.
These factors will increase the chances of your readers looking at the ad and clicking on it, because you have made it more noticeable and differentiable. Adding a thin boundary outside the unit is also a good idea, because according to AdSense policies, the ads must be differentiable from the content.
And if you don’t want to merge the ad with your content, then make it different in order to make it stand out.
For instance, if the background of your blog is white, then try using black or any other bold color that stands out for your ad units.
  • Take a blank white page with some text written on it.
  • Then take a sketch pen of a different color, and make an adequate size box on the paper.
  • Close your eyes for a minute of two. When you open your eyes you will first notice the box that stands out because of its color, as it looks different on the page.
  • Again, this will grab the attention of your readers, thus increasing the chances of them clicking on the ad.
Use DFP (Double Click for Publishers)
Google’s double click for publishers is a free ad server program which allows bloggers to sell ads on their blogs. If you need to make some money while using AdSense, you can sign up for DFP.
  • Create your own ad space which you want to sell.
  • Sell the ad space to advertisers.
  • Create and manage your own campaigns.
  • Deliver ads and get paid.
The  way this works with AdSense is that you create an ad space on your DFP account and set it up for selling. It will take some time to attract advertisers, and of course you don’t want the ad space to remain vacant because then you won’t earn anything. So you can link your AdSense account with your DFP account, and as a result the spaces which are not yet used will be showing AdSense ads until someone buys those spaces.
This can help you to earn more, as Google’s ad filter only shows the highest paying ads on a website. So if an advertiser is paying less for AdSense, but another advertiser is paying more on DFP, then the latter will be given preference and you will earn more.

Make your ads responsive
The responsive website interface is the trend nowadays as more and more people are browsing the internet through their phones and tablets. The problem is that if the screen width is less than the ad unit, the ad will not be shown. So if you have placed an ad unit of 728×90, this unit will not be shown on screens with a width less than 728px.

So to increase your ad revenue, you can try making your AdSense ads responsive. In theory this will allow you to earn more money, as the people who visit your blog through their mobile phones or tablets will also be able to see your ads. (At the time of the writing of this post, AdSense responsive ad unit is currently in beta, and is available for all AdSense publishers.)
responsive adsense ad unit
If you have a responsive blog layout, you should add responsive AdSense ad unit codes.

Rotate your ads and experiment:
Ad blindness is one of the most common reasons for low performing ads, and that is why we recommend that you use ad units above the fold, and rotate your ads. When we use the term “rotating”, we mean using a combination of text and image ads, and rotating them with affiliate ads and AdSense ads.

This is also the reason I recommend that you tweak your ad placement regularly. Whenever readers see anything new, they are more likely to notice and thus more likely to click.
You can also try merging the first few tips I noted above, and attract your reader’s attention toward your ads to get more clicks.

For WordPress blogs, we have the AdSense CTR theme which is perfect for a website which is constructed to make money from AdSense (for example, a micro niche site), or you can use WP Advanced ads WordPress plugin to rotate your ads, and run different ads for every page view.
Last but certainly not least, make sure you deliver quality content to your readers. It is best not to focus so directly on generating more revenue, but to work on getting more traffic. At the end of the day, that traffic is what will bring you the revenue you seek.

If you find the information in this post useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

Friday, 4 August 2017

How I Built A Micro-Niche Site Earning $174/Month from AdSense

How I Built A Micro-Niche Site Earning $174/Month from AdSense
The internet is full of opportunities to make money, and blogging is one of the smartest and most ethical ways available.
One misconception about blogging is that you need to work day and night to make money. There’s some truth to that if what you’re trying to do is create a name for yourself and/or build a brand

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But if your goal is simply to earn money within a short period of time (but with long-term gains), then there are many shortcuts available.
Let’s take a look at one such shortcut:
  • The micro-niche blog.
In this guide, I will give you a detailed example of a micro-niche blog that I created which is currently making $174/month from AdSense, and an average of $100/month from affiliate marketing. All of this only took a few hours of work to set up.

Niche Blog Ideas

This is a blueprint for creating a micro-niche blog, and you can use it for any topic or niche that you like. In my case, I didn’t use a content agency, so I picked up a niche that I enjoy reading and writing about. However, if you are not great at writing, you can hire writers from sites like Contentmart or Textbroker.
This micro-niche blog has made me over $2000 in the past year, requiring only 40-50 hours of work!

Why start a micro-niche blog?

First of all, following many algorithmic changes from Google, niche websites now rank higher in search engines than non-targeted sites.

If you create a high-quality website on any particular topic, your chances of ranking higher are stronger than any existing authority website out there.
Plus, you won’t have to worry day and night about keeping your blog evergreen.
Once you’ve done the hard work to create your niche site, the next step is to wait for the money to be deposited into your account.

So let me give you the micro-niche blog blueprint that I’ve created.
Remember: This is the exact method that I followed, and you can follow this blueprint to create a successful micro-niche blog of your own.

The Complete Blueprint To Building A Niche Website That Makes Money:

niche site example

1. Select Niche & Domain
The most important thing you need to do is find a niche that you are comfortable with.
Make sure to think about the potential commercial and popularity aspects of your niche.
Since the target is to make money from the blog using AdSense, it is very important to choose a topic that is popular in countries like the U.S. and the U.K., and that has high commercial value (high CPC).
In my case, I chose a topic called “Cydia”, which is a jailbreaking tool for iOS devices, and very popular among iPhone users. I chose this topic because I was very comfortable with the subject matter, and the expiration time on this topic was quite high. Furthermore, it had a good search rate in Google.

To find out things like CPC, Google search rate, popularity, and competition, I used LongTail Pro.
November 2016 update: This niche is now saturated, but this blueprint is still valid.
For keyword research, I used SEMrush. I like SEMrush because you just need to put the website link of the most popular site in your target niche & it will show all of the keywords that site is already ranking for.

Along with that, SEMrush lets us do a complete SEO audit & a few other things that help bloggers and webmasters grow organic traffic. (You can try SEMrush for 14 days using this special promo link!)
The next step is to get a nice domain name. Since it’s a micro-niche site, I would suggest including your keyword in the domain name. Ensure it doesn’t look spammy & add a little flavor to it by using words like “Guide”, “Users”, “101” & so on.
For my domain, I settled on CydiaGuide.com
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2. Keyword Research & Content Planning
This is the most interesting part, and it’s a little time-consuming. But it pays off well in the long run.
I usually suggest using a Google docs spreadsheet to jot down your research to keep everything organized.
For content planning, I was clear about a few things I needed to do:
  • Choose topics that would be in demand for a long time.
  • Design this micro-niche site like Wikipedia.
  • Choose keywords that are driving traffic and have a high CPC.
Instead of being particular about choosing only high AdSense CPC keywords, I created a mindmap of content, which was more like an FAQ.
For example:
  • What is [topic]?
  • How to use/install [topic].
  • Advantages and disadvantages of using [topic].
  • Important facts about [topic].
These were some of the basic ideas I started with before getting into detailed keyword research.
I then used SEMrush to find keywords.


Next, I chose a few related blogs on my topic & as I mentioned earlier, I used the same tool (SEMrush) to find the precise keywords which are already driving traffic to these sites.
Note: SEMrush is a paid tool, but you can use this link to try SEMrush completely free for 14 days (a value of $150).

Keyword research and content planning
By the end of this process, I had at least 20+ topic ideas for my micro-niche website!
Next, I spent a few hours writing 4-5 blog posts, and then one post each day for the next several days. Within a few days, I had 15 high-quality evergreen posts and my content was ready to go. (Evergreen posts have a 2-3 year expiration date, meaning that these topics should be relevant for at least the next 2-3 years.)
As I said earlier, if you are not good at writing, there is no harm in hiring someone to write for you. Managing a blog takes a lot of work, and it’s important to make sure you have good content to manage.

November 2016 update: You can find a more detailed step by step guide on micro niche blogging over at Shout University.
3. Setting Up The Micro-Niche Blog
This part of the set-up was very easy for me. If you know how to create a blog on WordPress, then this step will be easy for you as well. Beyond this, your content will be the main attraction.
The following is a list of the exact tools I used to create and set up my blog:
  • Hosting: Bluehost – only $3.95/month with one free domain.
    • Check out this tutorial to learn how to install WordPress on Bluehost.
  • Theme: Genesis – plug and play.
Plugins:
  1. Yoast SEO for site SEO (click here to see the video tutorial).
  2. Akismet for preventing comment spam.
  3. Auto Post Thumbnail for automatic generation of featured images. (optional)
  4. SocialWarfare for social bookmarking icons.
  5. Jetpack by WordPress for multiple purposes, including stats in dashboard.
  6. No Self Pings to stop self-pinging!
  7. PushPress for faster indexing.
  8. SEO Friendly Images for image level SEO.
  9. Shortpixels for image compression.
  10. WP Super Cache for caching. An alternative is W3 Total Cache.
Additional steps that I followed:
  1. Made the blog’s SEO perfect.
  2. Took extreme care of content quality and keyword score.
  3. Made a few videos on YouTube and linked them to my blog in the description, generating additional traffic. This also helped me generate backlinks.
  4. Submitted my sitemap to major search engines. (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)
  5. Submitted my blog to traffic estimator sites using IMT submitter. Note: Don’t build more than 50 links using them in a day.
  6. Created a logo using a free online logo maker.
  7. Set Up Google AMP.
  8. Set Up Facebook Instant Articles.
Optional (but very good) steps to follow:
  • Add “Contact” page and “About” page.
  • Configure push notifications for getting return traffic.
  • Start building an email list. You can later give them interesting deals related to your industry & earn commissions via affiliate marketing. You can read about affiliate marketing over here and in this eBook.
The whole idea of the blog was to not do a lot of work, and create a blog that was capable of earning money. For this reason, I didn’t invest much time on branding. The goal was to get great search engine traffic, provide solutions, and quickly make money from this micro-niche blog.
Here is the traffic report:

Micro niche site traffic
Remember, the blog had only 29 posts and had not been updated beyond the first month. At this stage, I had to prepare more content to push traffic again.
The following are a few things that I should have done, and are things that you should do if you are interested in creating a micro-niche blog
:
Create A Separate Social Media Page
Social media profiles are helpful in many ways, but I skipped this step because I didn’t want to create a new social media property. That said, it’s always good to add social media profiles to your site and use social media automation. (I use Buffer to share content from this blog on my Google+ and Facebook pages.)
Backlink Building & Promotion
I did not build a single backlink beyond submitting my site to IMT and my YouTube videos. I did not do any promotion apart from a tiny bit of social-media promotion. All traffic is organic, and purely due to the SEO settings of the site.

However, this approach may not work for everybody as it varies from niche to niche. For certain niches, competition is too high & the best way to make your blog rank is by generating high-quality backlinks.
Here at ShoutMeLoud, you can find tons of amazing link building guides contributed by the community. Use the search button to find free link building articles on SML.
Here are a few:



Monetization

For the first couple of months, I only used AdSense, and later I added one affiliate product related to the iPhone niche, which generated an extra income of around $100/month.
However, if you haven’t gotten AdSense approval, then you should use AdsOptimal or Media.net. Both of them work great if you have traffic from the U.S.A or Europe.
Something To Consider
With a $160 investment and 40 hours of work, I made over $2000 in one year. This blog is still making money. The idea is to create a few more niche blogs like this one, thus creating additional sources of online income. I’m working on a new niche site right now called CoinSutra.
For now, this micro-niche blueprint is enough for any minimally experienced blogger to create a money-making site with just a few hours of work.

If you are a member of , you can find all video tutorials (and a more detailed extension of this micro-niche guide) in the AdSense section.

If you have any questions, or if you have any tips to add, I would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments below!
If you find this micro-niche site blueprint useful, don’t forget to share it!

Best Google AdSense Account Approval Process- 2017 and 2018

Best Google AdSense Account Approval Process- 2017 and 2018
Adsense Approval Application Changes

Update: This article has been updated in December 2015 with new AdSense account approval process.
It’s pointless to mention again that Adsense is one of the best contextual advertising networks. Until now, AdSense approval process was simple: You create a new AdSense account, your account is reviewed, Adsense team accepts your application, and you can implement ads on your site and start making money

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From now on, Adsense has changed the AdSense approval process, and made is easy for new publishers. Here is the new account approval process:
  • Ensure your website is compatible with AdSense
  • Sign up for an AdSense account
  • Login to your AdSense account
  • Add the AdSense code
  • Wait for 1-2 weeks for final review & approval
Once you add the code on your blog, that will be showing blank ads. Here is a video that shows how to create your first AdSense ad unit:

In a typical scenario, it would take 48 hours to review your application. Once your application is approved, it would start showing ads on your blog & you will start making money.
Here is the process for AdSense approval:
  • Register for an AdSense account by going to AdSense.com. Provide all the correct information about your Name, Address, and Website URL.
  • Login to AdSense account, creates AdSense codes. Place the codes in your blog sidebar.
  • Ads will shows as blank until final approval process doesn’t finish. It may take up to 2 weeks for approval. Make sure you don’t remove the ads.
  • After the final AdSense approval, you will get a confirmation email.
  • Once your AdSense earning reaches $10, AdSense will mail you a PIN to your address.
  • Login to your AdSense account, and enter the Pin once you receive it.
  • Congrats you have completed all the steps. Once your account reaches $100, Google will send you or wire your earning. I recommend you to enable direct bank transfer for AdSense payments.
Though this will certainly help in domain ownership verification and more over those who are signing up using someone else website, might find it tough to get into Adsense. Nonetheless, if your account is still rejected, it’s time to try out AdSense alternatives.


reason why You Will Never Make Money Blogging (And How To Change That)

reason why You Will Never Make Money Blogging (And How To Change That)
Why You Will Never Make Money Blogging
Let me start you off with this simple truth:
  • You will never make money as a blogger if you continue to do the wrong things.
Albert Einstein’s great quip sums this up – “It is sheer insanity to do something over and over again and expect a different result


Many new bloggers are lost in thoughts of being able to travel the world and spend time in expensive hotels eating the best meals. While this is a possible feat to achieve, it sure takes a lot of guts and time in getting to this place of tremendous achievement.
Daniel Lyons (Fake Steve Jobs) confirmed that, “While blogs can do many awesome things, making lots of money isn’t one of them.”
He was right, if you ask me.

Your blog isn’t a money printing machine; rather, it’s a tool used for reaching the world with your valuable products/services… and possibly making money in the process.
Of course, it takes a lot of work. You must be willing to go through the process patiently, and if you do, success will surely come.
I love Whitney Young Jr.’s great quote, “It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared for it.”


The latter part of the quote paints a typical blogging situation- someone who has a chance at becoming one of the most respected people in the annals of the world, but loses out by reasons of unpreparedness.
In this post, I will reveal to you the reasons why you will never make money blogging in 2017. Aside from that, I’ll also show you how you can reverse this and build a money-making blog right now.
Are we still together?
Let’s dive in!

Why You Will Never Make Money Blogging This Year (And How To Reverse It)

1. You don’t have a concrete business model.
Concrete business model

Now, before I explain what a business model is and how to set up one for your business, let me quickly tell you why the lack of one is ruining your blogging business.
When you don’t have a system or a plan that encourages or pushes you to take the necessary actions in your business, you risk losing your enthusiasm and passion which will eventually result in the death of your blog.

So what is a business model?
The term “business model” can be defined in so many ways…
For the sake of this tutorial, I will describe a business model simply as a plan or design for the successful operation of a business, the intended customer base, the identified revenue sources, products, and sources of financing.

Similarly, Wikipedia defined it as: “an abstract representation of a business, be it conceptual, textual, and/or graphical, of all core interrelated architectural, co-operational, and financial arrangements designed and developed by an organization presently and in the future, as well as all core products and/or services the organization offers, or will offer, based on these arrangements that are needed to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.”
One of the mistakes often made by bloggers is in thinking that a business model is all about saying: “I want to make money.”

Honestly, if you put the “making money” thing as the primary reason for starting your business, you’re already doomed.
Money shouldn’t be your focus when starting out online as a blogger. The focus should be on creating systems; that includes creating significant and valuable content that takes a reader from where they are to where they ought to be.
Distilling it down, a good business model will let you:
  • Identify who your target audience is.
  • Identify revenue sources.
  • Figure out how to serve your customers. (With text, videos, audios, infographics, etc.?)
  • Identify products to create that will further educate your audience on what you currently teach them via your blog posts. (Example: You can create and sell an eBook.)
  • Identify where will you get funds and how will you continue to invest in your business to stay relevant in the marketplace.
  • Find the best promotional strategies to get your business out there.
These are just some of the things to consider when creating a plan/model for your business.
This is a very important step when starting out as a blogger.
You must give it maximum attention.
For further reading:



2. You are not concerned about value.

Making Money Blogging
Like I mentioned, you will never make a single dime blogging if you concern yourself too much about making money.
Making money from blogging does not come overnight. I’ve been in the internet marketing and blogging niche longer than most of you, and I’ve never seen anyone that launched one day and started seeing money roll in the next day.
It doesn’t happen.
Forget all those adverts hovering over the web about how Jack made $$$$$$ within 48 hours of launching his business. If it actually worked that way, everyone would be doing it.
Here’s what you need to remember:
  • If you want to make real money in the real world, you need to solve real problems.
If you’re serious about making money, learn to shift focus on wanting to be a quick and overnight success to providing a lot of value to your readers
Value is what sells you and your products, and it is what ultimately helps you to achieve your money-making goals.

According to Copyblogger, “If you don’t offer customers something they dearly want, whether it’s to gain some great pleasure or escape some great pain, you’re not going to make any money.”
3. You are not asking the right questions
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Ask Blogging Questions
I constantly get readers of ShoutMeLoud asking me:
  • How do I make money blogging?
  • How can I get traffic to my blog?
  • How can I build influence and get blog engagements?
While all these questions are great, there’s always something wrong with the phrasing.
Example:
Don’t ask: “How can I get traffic?”
Ask: “Is my blog capable of getting traffic?”
A lot of the time, people come into the online space to build blogs, publish some crappy content, and splash ads all over the place expecting to make lots of money.
Well, it doesn’t work like that!

You have got to push yourself really far by asking the right questions and doing the right things if you want to attract the right people in order to maybe make money blogging.
For instance, if your article headline is not engaging and compelling enough, it won’t attract visitors to stop over and read the article. The same thing applies to your content; if it sucks, no one will want to engage with your blog.
You have to give people a good reason to leave your competitor’s site and read yours.
How do you do that?
It’s mostly about creating informative and entertaining content that readers will find hard to ignore.
Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Write in your own unique voice, and soon, people will start noticing your unique and outstanding approach.
That’s when they will fall in love with you and make your blog their new dwelling place.

How To Make Your Blog A Success

If you take the time to really read through this post, you will definitely go from making nothing to making a substantial income as a blogger.
Many people are already doing it, and there’s no reason you can’t be doing it too.
You just need to make sure you’re doing the right things.
Don’t fall into the “make money online” trap. Nothing can replace hard work and dedication.
When people can see that you care about what you do, they’ll learn to respect and trust you as an authority in your niche.

When that happens, the money will start rolling in.
What are some common blogging mistakes you often see in the blogging world? Which one of these mistakes are you guilty of? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!