Tuesday, October 9, 2007

My BlogRush Account

I got my BlogRush account approve within 48hrs.

Below is an abstract of their email to me.

* We have already rejected a lot
of blogs (several thousand) that do
not meet our strict quality guidelines
and we will continue to enforce our
detailed criteria in order to protect the
integrity of our network.
Sounds like boasting to me but I do believe that many blogs have registered to be part of BlogRush network. "Free" is indeed a very attractive factor.

Some comments:
  • Their Dashboard is still under construction.
  • I tried clicking on the links in BlogRush and some of them took a very long time to load - maybe its a sign that that the site is swarming with traffic or that there's a problem with BlogRush.
  • As for the relevancy, it's still alright but I'm beginning to think that BlogRush uses the Blog Category that you select rather than your content for matching.

Read More...

Sunday, October 7, 2007

BlogRush

Everyone has been talking about Blog Rush - a FREE service that will enable your blog to reach out to a wider range of audience never before possible. It may sounds too good to be true but since it's free, I've nothing to lose. I have just registered for My Personal Finance blog and I should be hearing from them within 48hrs.

Below are some tips for Using BlogRush to Generate Traffic for Your Blog. (Courtesy of ProBlogger)

1. Optimize Your Titles - there are a number of things that will increase the chances of getting someone to click on a link appearing in someone else’s blog - but the title of your post will be most important. You have around 40 characters only to play with (before the widget cuts off your title) so think carefully about what you’re communicating about your post - particular in the first few words.

2. Choose the Right Category for Your Blog - when you sign up you’re given a list of categories to assign your blog to. My hope is that BlogRush will add more (as the more focused they become the more relevant ads will be). If your blog spans a couple of categories run with one for a few days and then swap to the other. I suspect that some categories will out perform others significantly due to the type of readers that they have and their tech savvyness.

3. Promote it Early on - this system is one that will be most beneficial to early adopters. While some are already spamming their referral links out to other bloggers via mass emails - one way to promote it and possibly pick up a few extra referrals is simply to place it in a reasonably prominent position on your blog and even to draw attention to it in a post. If some of your readers have blogs they’re likely to check it out too - which will exponentially increase the benefits for you. Just be aware that if you get spammy with your promotion of this (or any) service you could actually do more harm than good to your blog.


Like the author, I suspect that BlogRush will be using more of the title then your content to match the relevancy to your blog. It's still in its beta stage and is too early to say how good it is. I believe BlogRush future plans may to add in Ads or some form of affiliate marketing.

Read More...

Kontera ContentLink

A wonderful opportunity from John Chow to allow smaller blogs to have another channel to make money online. I'm giving it a shot and I hope I my My Personal Finance Blog will be accepted.


Kontera ContentLink
Abstracted from John Chow's blog.

Kontera ContentLink allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertising spots. Their technology reads your post and turns certain words into an ad. The highlighted words are double underline and an ad pops up when you hover over it. Normally Kontera requires a site have a minimum 500,000 page views per month before being accepted into the program. However, I have a partnership with Kontera that will allow smaller blogs to use their ContentLink service.

Fill out the application and enter “John Chow Kontera partnership” into the Comments field. The application is sent to my personal account representative. He will approve you based on your blog content and not your traffic level. This is a great way to use a service that is normally only available to high traffic sites.

Sign up for Kontera with John Chow

Read More...

My First AdSense pay check

My first paycheck earned through the internet. Not much but nevertheless a little reward for my work and more importantly spur me on to greater things. I will be setting up a forum and maybe moving my blog to a web host. It has also been a long time since I last visited blogcatalog, mybloglog and other social networking sites. It's time for me to pay them a visit.

Read More...

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Google AdSense - Creating Custom Channels

When I first started with AdSense, my plan was simple. I will put the maximum number of ads allowed base on the "heat map". However, I'm beginning to wonder which of my ads are my main money makers and which ads are making the least if not nothing at all. Another reason is the introduction of referrals - I would like to know where is the best placement for them.

Channels ain't new but many like myself usually do not use them. The main reason I feel is that we are too focus in driving traffic to our sites - more traffic means more clicks on our ads. However, this may not necessary be true. I have come across sites with low traffic count with equally impressive ad earnings.

Creating Custom Channels

The following is extracted from Google AdSense Help but I customize it to my own requirements. You can refer to the original post here.

Scenario: I have a site on personal finance. My homepage currently has three ad units and two link units, and I want to find out which of the units is performing most effectively. To do so, I'll create a separate custom channel for each of the five units to monitor their performance.

Creating and implementing custom channels requires a more involved process than that for URL channels. No worries - we'll show you how to create custom channels in 4 easy steps:

  1. Start off by logging in to your account and clicking the AdSense Setup tab, followed by the Channels link. For this scenario, we'll be looking at AdSense for content custom channels, so make sure you're on the right product and channel subtab. Then click the Add new custom channel.

  2. The next step is naming your channels.

    It's important to be precise and consistent when naming custom channels. The more information you provide in the name about where and how the ad unit is being used, the easier it will be to identify later, when you're generating your channels reports. (*Note that you are allowed only 30 characters for the naming convention).

    For the example used here, I used names like:

    • MyPF_Left_160x600_#eeeecc
    • MyPF_MiddleTop_480x60_#eeeecc
    • MyPF_Middle_300x250_#eeeecc
    • MyPF_Top_728x15_#335577
    • MyPF_Right_200x90_#558866


  3. You'll notice that all of these names follow the pattern Blog Name+Location+Ad Format+Color Palette. This is a pattern I've found useful, but feel free to use whichever method works best for you. You will also notice a "Show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement " - I will skip this for now until I have read up more about it.

    Enter the channel names into the new channel box and click Add channels.

  4. Now you can create your channel-specific ad code. Once your names are in place, click the AdSense Setup tab, then choose AdSense for content as the product.

    Continue to choose the ad type, ad format, and color palette as you would normally, then in the Channels section, select the name of the channel(s) you'd like to add by clicking the Add>> link (you can add up to 5),

    and click Continue to see your choices reflected in the ad layout code.

  5. Finally, you'll copy-and-paste the code into your webpages. The channel identifier within your code will immediately begin tracking performance. If you already have ad code on these pages, you should replace it with the new channel-specific code.

    Repeat the process for each of the ad units you'd like to track.

I will give myself 1 week to collect the relevant data and will do a post on generating channel reports.

Read More...

Monday, June 18, 2007

Disable Copy and paste

Thinking of a way to make it more difficult for people to copy the contents of your blog? Here's a neat little JavaScript that will disable Copy and Paste.

<!-- Disable Copy and Paste-->
<script language='JavaScript1.2'>
function disableselect(e){
return false
}
function reEnable(){
return true
}
document.onselectstart=new Function (&quot;return false&quot;)
if (window.sidebar){
document.onmousedown=disableselect
document.onclick=reEnable
}
</script>

Insert the code between the <head> and </head> tag.

However, there is no guarantee way to prevent your contents from being stolen.The JavaScript above can be easily bypassed by an experience internet user. E.g. If the browser's JavaScript is disabled, the code will not work.

An alternative way to protect your work is to use Copyscape. You can read more about it here.

Read More...

Monday, June 11, 2007

My Blog Log (Mon 11 June 2007)

Been a pretty busy week. I have finally set up My Personal Finance Blog. Traffic is pretty ok. I get about 50 unique visitors a day. On top of my tracking my own finance, I hope to provide more information on everyday financial products, stocks and investments. I have contacted a few like-minded bloggers and has obtained permission from them to post their articles in my blog.

I have added Nuffnang ads into my finance blog so that I can do a comparison between Nuffnang and Advertlets. One difference that I have discovered is that you must put your Nuffnang ads in specific areas of your site. It takes a longer time to load and I think it looks really horrible on my finance blog. I will decide weather to take it down only after I receive the amount Nuffnang will pay me - that will take a week.

I also started on another few sites.
The Best Of Clickbank
The Worst Of Clickbank
Men's Fashion Blog

While I would like to concentrate on all of them, time permits me to only concentrate on a few. I'm not going to sacrifice quality for quantity.

Recommended: Super Affiliate Handbook.

Read More...

Creating A Blog Poll

Creating a poll in your blog is a good way to generate views and opinions for your blog or a particular question. This works well especially for readers who do not like to be identified or find it a hassle to leave a comment. Here are a few popular free blog polls that I have personally tried. Free free to add on if it is not listed here.

blogpoll
If you do a search for "free blog poll" in Google, blogpoll is listed number one. It's not difficult to understand why - no registration needed and a simple and user-friendly interface (3 simple steps and you are done). However I did not use this in as I had some problems in blending the design to my blog.

polldaddy
It has a very sleek webpage as compared to the others. What makes it unique is that they can create your own custom style (using html) or choose among the 14 (as of 11 June '07) different designs (polldaddy call it skins). It even has a RSS feed for your poll and offers a poll in flash. I had a problem adjusting the column width and I only realized recently that I have to edit the html code. Customization may be a little difficult but definitely an interesting prospect for the future.

blogflux poll
The poll that I'm currently using for my personal finance blog. It does not have as much features as poll daddy but it doesn't offer something interesting - a map of where your voters came from. It can be a useful tracking tool.

bloggaries
I have not tried this but if you interested in setting up a poll in a single page, this is the one for you.

BlogPolls.com
Not to be confused with blogpoll. This will be of particular interest to monetizing bloggers' - When your readers vote, they’ll see the results where you placed a banner ad (such as BlogAds), or a network banner ad (such as Google Adsense). However, I strongly recommend that you check with the respective advertisers if it comply with their terms of service before putting them in your blog.

Which blog poll to use depends on your preference, if you want something simple and straight forward, blogpoll is the one for you. If you want a something extra, you can choose between polldaddy and blogflux poll and if you want to have more ad space, you can try BlogPolls.

Recommended: Online Survey Software for Online Business

Read More...

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Copyright Explained

I have been blogging for sometime now and have come across many interesting articles. I know that copyright laws forbid me from using any of them but yet I have seen many blogs and sites posting exactly the same articles. Is there a loop hole in somewhere?

Not wanting to break any copyright laws, I read up further and uncovered several interesting facts.

“Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy" an original creation.”
Wikipedia

“If I don’t see a copyright notice, it means I am free to use them.”
No. This is the most common misconception and I myself thought so too. Base on Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic, every new work created will automatically be copyrighted, even if you there is no copyright notice. The Berne Convention is the de facto standard of Intellectual Property and many countries have adopted it. You can check if your country is included here.

“How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission?”
Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.

“Can I change someone else’s work and claim it as my own?”
No. Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. Accordingly, you cannot claim copyright to another's work, no matter how much you change it, unless you have the owner's consent. See Circular 14, Copyright Registration for Derivative Works.

“Emails sent to me are mine and I am free to use them."
Wrong. The email that you receive is intended for you only and not to the general public. If you receive stock reports like I do, there will always be a copyright notice at the end of the email. With that said, I do not think that anyone will be crazy enough to sue you if you were to forward or post an ordinary email message of no commercial value.

The information is from the United States Copyright Office and is generally free to publish.

Further Reading: 10 Big Myths about copyright explained, What is Copyright protection?

There will be many other questions like “I’ll be fine if I give credit to the author”, “I’m not charging anyone for the article”, “The internet is free, hence everything in it” etc, but as a general rule of thumb, always assume that everything is copyrighted unless stated. If you are still unsure on what is allowed and what is not, ask the author or publisher.

Recommended: Email Promos Exposed.

Read More...

Sunday, June 3, 2007

My Review On Advertlets.com


I took down my Advertlets Ads from my blog last week as I do not think that it will be a useful monetizing tool for my blog. However, I receive an interesting mail from Josh Lim of Team Advertlets and it got me excited again.

SGD 8800 for 300 Singaporean Bloggers!

I know what you are thinking. Nope, it's not SG$8800 for each blogger. If the payout is really that good, chances are that it is a scam. Here's the breakdown:

  • 280 Reviews, SGD 25 each (blogs with more than 10 unique visits per day)
  • 10 Reviews, SGD 60 each (blogs with more than 100 unique visits per day)
  • 10 Reviews, SGD 128 each (blogs with more than 500 unique visits per day)
My blog is still relatively new. Getting 100 unique visits or more may be out of the question but with the support of my friends in the community, 10 unique visits a day is an achievable target.

Why Sign Up For Advertlets
"Advertlets is a blog advertising network. Bloggers make money doing what they love by selling advertising space on their blogs. Advertisers get to connect their message to the right
audience through the use of demographics."

The use of demographics is something new and you will need to have at least 50 people to participate in the demographics poll.

Will the Ads be as relevant as contextual advertising like AdSense?
Only time will tell. One of the reasons why I took down my Adverlets is due to limited ads. Maybe it's because I don't have 50 pple to take the poll, maybe it's because I don't have 50 unique visitors per day or maybe Adverlets just don't have enough advertisers. I will doing another update in 1 month time and I hope to have an answer by then.

How much money can I make?
"We can’t give you a figure right now, obviously. But how much you make would definitely be determined by:

- how much traffic your blog gets.
- how many Malaysian visitors come to your site
- how relevant your blog content is to a wider audience
- your visitor participation rate "


Another reason why I took down my Adverlets - Everything seems so vague. Most glaring being "how many Malaysian visitors come to your site". I believe it must be a mistake but it reflects badly especially when it appears in their FAQ page.

Advertlets Compared With Other Online Advertising Services
"A note: Why have we removed the comparision chart with our nearest local competitor? Simple. We’re taking on bigger competition soon, and bigger challenges. Our network exclusivity level has grown tremendously, and we are now ready to compete in an entirely new space. Stay tuned. Q2-Q3, 2007."

The obvious competitor for Advertlets is Nuffnang - another Advertising company from Malaysia that has recently expended to Singapore. I have not tried it yet but at least they have a more definite answer on their payout. Read it here.

I have decided to give Advertlets another go. I like their novelty and it will be an honor if I could be the one of the first 300 Singaporean blogger to write a review on Advertlets. I have added Advertlets Ads on the left column of my blog. I will greatly appreciate if you could take part in their demographics poll.

Lastly, I wish Josh and his Advertlets Team the very best.

Recommended: $120,000 Per Month With Google AdWords.

Read More...

Saturday, June 2, 2007

The PC Show 2007 - The Great Gizmo Sale (May 31st - June 3rd)

The PC Show, Singapore’s Longest Running Microcomputer Show opened to throngs of bargain hunters. By 6pm on the first day, the 150,000 people who had been the doors had blown about S$2 milion on tech buys.

I have uploaded some pictures taken by hardwarezone during the first day.

If your like the pictures, please drop me a comment and I will upload more.


Click here on how to create a slideshow.

Recommended: Get Google Pay-Per-Click Ads Free!

Read More...

How can I embed a slideshow into my blog or webpage?

I believe most of us have many pictures which we would like to share with others. However if we were to show each picture individually, it will take a long time for our site to load. Creating a slideshow will reduce the waiting period and you can even add in some cool features.

I have explored two imaging hosting sites - Picasa and Photobucket. One is back by Google and the other by MySpace. Photobucket offers more interesting features than Picasa but it takes a little more time to load. Click here for an example of a site using Photobucket slideshow.

I'm using Picasa to embed my slide show. You can see an example here.

Embedding Picasa slideshow into your blog or website

Using Picasa Web Albums you can create a Flash slideshow to embed in your blog or webpage. To do this, click the Embed Slideshow link on your album page. This creates a Flash slideshow from the album you've selected. When you update this album, your slideshow is automatically updated to show the latest photos.

To embed the slideshow, copy and paste the HTML code we show you into your blog or webpage. The slideshow features built-in playback controls, size options, and the ability to display captions.

Note: If you do not see the "Embed Slideshow" in the left column, goto your user settings on the top right and make sure that your Language Preference is "English (United States)". I spent quite some time figuring it out before I found the solution in a forum.

Recommended: Paid Surveys - The No.1 Survey Site

Read More...

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Adding a "Add A Page Element" Widget To The Blog Post Main Column

Sign into Dashboard, and in the relvant blog, click LAYOUT, then click EDIT HTML. In the Template Editor, look for this block of codes:

<div id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='HTML10' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>
</b:section>
</div>

Look particularly for showaddelement='no' and change it to showaddelement='yes', then save the template. Click "Page Elements" to get to the LAYOUT and observe that an additional "Add a Page Element" have been added to the top of "BLOG POSTS".

Source: Blogger Tips And Tricks

Read More...

Can I Run Google AdSense With Bidvertiser?

I've received a reply from Bidvertiser. I'm glad to announce that you can run AdSense with Bidvertiser. However there are some guidelines.

Reply from BidVertiser
Dear customer,

Your ticket concerning 'Hi, I would like to know if there a ...' has been responded: Dear sir/madam,

Google allows to run BidVertiser ads along AdSense on the same pages, as long as a few guidelines are kept, were the most crucial one is to apply a different color scheme. Please see below the official response from Google:

"We´re asking that publishers use good judgment on how much they change the colors or formatting of the ads to ensure users don´t confuse third-party (BidVertiser) ads with Google ads. Proximity plays a role as well - if you´re placing the ad units directly adjacent to one another, we´d ask that you use clear borders and offsetting colors to indicate where one network´s ad unit ends and the other begins. If the ad units are on opposite sides of the page, using different backgrounds colors and/or a different color scheme for ad text and borders should be fine."

Best Regards,
BidVertiser Support Team


There you go. As long as you differentiate your BidVertiser Ads, it will be fine.

Recommended: Wordpress Adsense System : Blogging For Profits

Read More...

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Rise Of Asian Bloggers

I may have only started blogging recently but a good majority of my friends in the blogging community are from Asia. I have stumbled upon many other blog sites from Americas and Europe but they are mostly out-dated. I can't help but wonder if the majority of the active bloggers are indeed coming from Asia.

Source: Serene Luo - Digital Life
"A recent survey by communications planning firm Universal McCann (UM) revealed that netizens from China, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines had the most active blogospheres.

However, countries such as the United States, Germany and Britain which use to dominate the blogging world has less vibrant blogospheres now.

The survey was done with 10,000 respondents in 21 countries, most of them major advertising markets across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Base on the survey, more than 85 per cent of all respondents from China and South Korea were reading blogs, comparing to less than 15 per cent in Germany. In terms of other kinds of social media such as podcasting or the sharing of photos and video clips, Asia also outside the rest of the world."

The chart (abstracted from Digital Life) caught me by surprise. There are less than 20% read blogs in Germany for the last 6 months as compared to 90% in South Korea. I am very dubious of such a finding. While I do agree that the number of bloggers in Asia has indeed increase, the difference is too great. Blog tracking is very difficult - what qualifies to be a read blog?

Base on UM survey, I assume that as more people from Asia are introduced to blogging, hence the sudden surge in blogs. With more blogs, naturally more people will read them.

Recommended E-Book: Blogging To The Bank - Zero to $1,018.15 in Two Short Weeks

Read More...

Monday, May 28, 2007

My Review on Bidvertiser - An Alternative to AdSense?


Bidvertiser is a Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising site that competes directly with Google AdSense. Its main advantage over AdSense is its low $10 payout. Yep, that's ten times less than Google's $100 payout. This effectively slash your waiting period from months to weeks. For small time bloggers, this is particularly attractive.

Sounds too good to be true?

I did a quick search on Bidvertiser comments and they were pretty negative - ads were completely irrelevant or their $10 payout never arrived. With that said, I still went ahead creating my Bidvertiser account. After all, what's there to lose?

A quick run through of Bidvertiser:

Registration: Pretty straight forward and fast. I got my activation code within 5mins.

Mode of payment: Paypal ($10 Min.) Check ($50 Min.)

Ads Format: Very similar to Google AdSense. However I don't quite like the ad customization. Unlike AdSense, Bidvertiser uses only one code. Changes has to be made in your Bidvertiser account. It will need some getting used to.

No. of Ads: Bidvertiser allows me to show the ads that is displayed. I did a quick estimate and I have about 200-400 ads available for each of my 2 blogs.

Other Features:
You can get to choose which ads you want to display - meaning you can choose ads with the highest CPM. Though this may mean that you can earn more per click, the drawback is that ads may be limited and totally irrelevant.

Just when I decide to implement it into my site, a important question pop in into mind -
Can I use Google AdSense with Bidvertiser?

Google AdSense Program Policy
In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

If you have any non-Google ads on your site that resemble AdSense - even if they are not contextually targeted ads - they will now put you in violation of the AdSense policies. i.e. If they look like your Google ads, even if they say "Ads by Bidvertiser " or whatever, you cannot use them on the same site.

Bidadvertiser can be a good useful montizeing tool but only if it works concurrently with other contextual text ads. Most popular contextual text ads in the market today like Google AdSense and Yahoo Overture have strict guidelines, thereby limiting its usage.

If you’re thinking of joining, please consider joining under me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll do my best to answer them.

Sign up for Bidvertiser

Recommended: Blogging To The Bank - Zero to $1,018.15 in Two Short Weeks

Read More...

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Keep Yourself Safe From Google


If you are like me who uses Google extensively as your search engine, you are particularly vulnerable because Google will have a record of all your searches. This is made worse if your Google accounts are link. E.g. Blogger, AdSense, Gmail, Analytics etc. Even if you don't log into Google, it can track your searches because it uses cookies to track from session to session.

The simple was is to delete all your cookies before and after you visit Google. But that's problematic because cookies can be quite useful - they can log you into some sites automatically or remember your site preferences.

Source: Computerworld
A simpler solution is to block only Google from placing cookies on your PC. How you do it varies from browser to browser. In Internet Explorer 7, for example, choose Tools–>Internet Options, click the Privacy tab, then click the Sites button. In the "Address of Web site" box, type in www.google.com, and click Block. From now on, when you visit Google, it won't be allowed to place a cookie on your hard disk, and it won't be able to track your searches. In Firefox 2, select Tools–>Options, select the Privacy tab, and click Exceptions. Then type www.google.com into the "Address of Web site" box and click Block. If you use another search engine, by the way, you can use this same technique to keep its cookies off your hard disk as well.
(Click image to see larger view)

Note that because Google won't be placing cookies on your hard disk, you may not be able to use various Google services, such as Gmail.

If you're a Firefox user, you can also use the CustomizeFirefox extension that among other things, "anonymizes" you when you use Google so that your searches can't be tracked.

Google has numerous services you can sign up for, including RSS readers called Google Reader and Google Groups, which let you read newsgroups and other discussion groups. The more Google services like this that you sign up for, the more information Google knows about you. In addition to your searches, it will know what blogs and newsgroups you read, for example. This makes it that much easier for the search giant to create a profile about you. So either don't sign up for those services or else create separate Google accounts for each of them, so that the search engine can't correlate all your interests.

Finally, think carefully before turning on Google's Search History feature. Search History lets you revisit all your searches and shows what you've searched for every day. When you use Search History, Google stores a record of all your searches on its servers. If you're worried that that search history may fall into the wrong hands, or be subpoenaed by the government, simply don't use the service.

Read More...

Adding AdSense Ads in your New Blogger blog post

Base on the 'heat map' in my previous post, I have added Google Ads into my first two blog post. I've added only one ad unit as I don't want my blog to appear too cluttered and untidy. Another advantage of adding Ads into individual blog post is that the Ads seems more relevant, thus increasing your chances of a CTR.

If you are worried about violating AdSense Terms Of Service (TOS). Stavanger from blogcrowd wrote to AdSense Help Center, and received some vague replies that seem to indicate that slight modification of the code for the New Blogger is OK. Here is the email he received:

"Hi,

You are permitted to make minor edits in Blogger Beta. However, please keep in mind that in general publishers are not allowed to alter the AdSense ad code for any reason. Once you've generated the ad code in your AdSense account pages, you may not alter any portion of the code or manually change the layout of the ads.

Thanks for your understanding.
Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team"
Read more about it here.

This is how it is done. You generate the AdSense script from AdSense site, then replace HTML characters like < with &lt; etc.

Here are some tips for where in the XML Template you should paste the parsed HTML code. Blogcrowds used a barebone Minima template so it should be similar in all templates. Find the normal text and then add the bolded code are added by me:


1)Next To The Post


<div style="float:left;">

<!--parsed Adsense code-->

</div>


<div class='post-body'>

<p><data:post.body/></p>

<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->

</div>


2)After Post Before Credits


<div class='post-body'>

<p><data:post.body/></p>

<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->

</div>


<div><!--parsed Adsense code--></div>


<div class='post-footer'>

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>

<span class='post-author'>

<b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>

<data:top.authorLabel/> <data:post.author/>


3)After Credits


<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/>


<div><!--parsed Adsense code--></div>

</div>

</div>

</b:includable>

</b:widget>

</b:section>



You can read more about it at Google AdSense In Blogger Beta XML Update.

You can actually parse the script in Notepad using Replace All or a HTML text editor like Dreamweaver. For those without any HTML editor, Stavanger has even made it convenient for you by giving a parser at Parse Google AdSense For XML Blogger.

Read More...

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Maximize your Google AdSense

Google AdSense needs no introduction. It is the most widely used and readily available online advertising program. What I mean by readily available is that their criteria for joining is pretty low. Unlike other Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising programs like Chitika which require your site to have at least 10,000 page views per month, AdSense does not have such requirements. I manage to apply for my AdSense account within 3 days of setting up my Vitamin and Health blog with about 10 page views per day.

Where should I put my Google Ads on my pages?
Studies have shown that certain locations in your page tends to be more successful than others because this is where people tend to focus on.

This "heat map" illustrates these ideal placements on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). All other things being equal, ad placements above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.

While this heat map is useful as a positioning guideline, I strongly recommend putting your users first when deciding on ad placement. Imagine watching a movie with constant ads appearing - it can very annoying. You will definitely want users to return to your site and not turn them off ya.

With that said, I'll be creating a AdSense Search Bar, a referral and maybe a link unit just below my header. I'll also be creating an Ad Unit for my blog post. This is more tricky because it involve a minor change to the AdSense code while still having to adhere to AdSense Program Policies.

In my next post, I will show you how it is done.

Read More...

Friday, May 25, 2007

Expandable Post Summary for New Blogger

Expandable post summary is the term applied to blog posts where only short snatches (usually the first few paragraphs or sentences) are displayed with a link at the bottom that may say, usually, "Read More..." which if a reader is interested and when clicked, takes the reader to the full post.

Expandable post summary is useful if you have the habit of writing long posts. But the biggest advantage is that your blog looks neater and more reader friendly. For bloggers who monetize with their blog, this also mean a higher chance for a CTR.

There are two ways of doing it - one is pretty straight forward and the only a little more complex.

I would have use the straight forward method but unfortunately, the hack will place the "Read More..." even in short posts. Though some suggest putting the word END at the end of the short post, I still find it annoying. Therefore I opt for the more complex method.

Read about the two different methods here:
Expandable Post Summary for the New Blogger (formerly beta)
Blogger hack: Expandable posts with Peekaboo view

However the other method is not without its disadvantage. The hack has to be linked to a third party site. I'm worried that if the third party site is down, my expandable post hack will no longer work. Also, since the code is fix at that third party site, I wouldn't be able do certain modifications like editing the "Read More..." and "Summary Only..." or change the font color. I email to Ramani on my reservations on hosting the script on a third party site and below is his response:

On May 21, Ramani said...
Derek,

Lots of people have been using this hack for several months and they never face this problem. The domain is with yahoo and I pay for it. If you still have concerns, you can download it and move it to your server.
Having got some kind of assurance, I decided to implement the hack.

Currently, I'm still trying to figure out how to make the hack work without having to upload the script into a server and to do some modifications to the font color. I have email Ramani for help on this. If any blogger has a solution, please let me know. Thanks.

Recommended: Social Bookmarking Automation Software - Get Unlimited Supply Of High PR Backlinks Backlinks

Read More...

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Google Buys FeedBurner for $100 Million - More Opportunities for RSS Advertisers

According to TechCrunch, Google has just acquired Feedburner, a web feed management company for $100 million. With this acquisition, Google will have access to hundreds of thousands of blog’s RSS usage and feed count for a better blog search algo.

Interesting news for publishers currently running Feedburner’s advertising program because it’s likely that Google might integrate its Adsense contextual ad with Feedburner - for those bloggers who use blogs to generate revenue, the benefits is enormous.

I'm particularly intersted how other PPC adverstising sites like Chitika and BidVertiser will fare and how will Microsoft and Yahoo challenge Google almost strangle hold of the online marketing community.

Read More...

Link Exchange

Cool Sites from MyBlogLog community.
Alex - Road to Freedom
Make money online | Add your link exchange
MusicVHP - The Best & Hit Music Videos on the Planet
Newopps Blog
Text Unlimited - A Collection of Text Messages, Love Quotes...
WebVH1 - The Best & Hit Videos on the Internet

Cool Sites from my BlogCatalog neighborhood.
Only God Keeps Me Going
Project Afterlight - Where there is light, there are views
Under The Sun - My Diary, Motivation...


Want to exchange links with me? Drop me an email.

Read More...

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Header - Adding a "Add a Page Element" widget

Headers are the first places where readers will see when they first come into your blog. Adding a graphic, banner and/or advertisements is a sure way to get your desired results.

I have implemented Google AdSense into Vitamin & Health blog.


This is how you can add a graphic to your header. Sign into Dashboard. For the blog you want to modify, click LAYOUT, then click EDIT HTML. Then look for this block of codes in the template:


<div id='header-wrapper'>

<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>

<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Replacing Blog Header (Header)' type='Header'/>

</b:section>

</div>


Change maxwidgets='1' to maxwidgets='4'(or any other number greater than 1, or even leave a number out, then there is no maximum) and change showaddelement='no' to showaddelement='yes'. (you may also leave out the figure in maxwidgets='' in which case the number of widgets you can add to the header is unlimited). So the section should now be


<div id='header-wrapper'>

<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='4' showaddelement='yes'>

<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Replacing Blog Header (Header)' type='Header'/>

</b:section>

</div>


Click SAVE TEMPLATE. Then click PAGE ELEMENT tab to go back to LAYOUT. You will see an extra "Add a Page Element" above the Header.

Source:
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/09/adding-graphic-to-your-blog-header.html

Read More...

Blog Burnt Out

I think I have been blogging too much which made me fell sick today. You can read all about it here.

My advice to fellow newbie bloggers like me is not to over stress your body. Blogging is fun and can be very addictive but please listen to your body, stop if you are fatigue. Go for walk, have a nice shower, drink plenty fluids and have a good rest, and that's what I'm going to do now.

Read More...

AdSense - An internal error occured. Please try again.

Anyone experience this error? I had and it was frustrating but fortunately, the solution is pretty simple.


Solution 1
Log into your AdSense account, generate the code and under Template, Page Element, add the code into your HTML/ JavaScript page element. Sounds pretty simple ya but when I was starting out, I thought that the only way to link to AdSense is via the page element.

Solution 2 (may not work)
Adding the code manually can be very tiresome. Since Google created AdSense to work with blogger, we should make full use of it.

  • Log out from all Google accounts.
  • Enter the following into your browser http://www.blogger.com/adsense-login.g?blogID=XXXXXX
    Replace XXXXX with your blog ID. Every Blog that you create has its own blogID - refer to the screenshot below on where you can find your Blog ID.

Read More...

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Maximizing The Space In My Blog - New Blogger 3 Column Template

I believe that the 3 column is the neatest template to maximize the space in your blog. Be it for adding more ads to generate revenue or additional features like shout box or widgets.
You can view an example of a 3 column Minima template at my Vitamin and Health Blog.

However there are certain things to take note:

  • The blog will look very nice when viewed with a large screen. However, for readers with 800x600 resolution, the effect will different.

    To see how it will affect those with 800x600 resolution, try typing (or pasting) the javascript code into the address bar and press ENTER:

    javascript:top.resizeTo(800,600)

    It will resize the window to 800x600. You will notice relatively wide sidebars on either side and the main content squeezed into a narrow column in the middle.

  • Before changing or editing a template, it is always good practice to backup the current template so that if there is anything you are not satisfied with or if anything goes wrong, you can always revert to the previous situation.

    To backup the template, sign into the Dashboard, and in the relevant section of the list of blogs;
    click "Layout" -> click the "TEMPLATE" tab -> click the "EDIT HTML" sub-tab which will open the template editor window.

    At the top of the page, click Download Full Template and save the template with a suitable filename into a suitable folder which you can easily remember.
For my current blog, I'm using the Minima Black 3 column fixed width New Blogger template. The template can be obtain from http://www.blogcrowds.com/resources/view_template.php?id=23

*To access to the code, you have to first register yourself as a member of blogcrowds and have at least 3 posts. It's not that hard and I got access to the code in 10 mins.

Source: http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/new-3-column-blogger-formerly-beta.html

Update 29 May 2007
Rounders3 3 column New Blogger template Example:
My Personal Finance Blog

Click here to see all 3 Column Templates for New Blogger.

Read More...

Welcome to My Blog Log

I have decided to create a blog to keep track of my progress. I'll be posting the latest news and update from the blogging world, tech articles and reviews.

I hope to establish a huge network of friends via Link Exchange and also to supplement my income via blogging.


Many thanks to MyBlogLog for giving me the inspiration for the name of my blog.

Read More...