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A new ad program was recently launched: PerformancingAds.com. I’ve been using it for more than 4 days now on 2 of my blogs and I find it better than a few other ad programs I’ve tried out. The genius behind PerformancingAds.com is that they’ve merged 2 ideas together… they’ve merged ad selling together with banner exchanges!
Merging Adspace + Banner Exchange = PerformancingAds.com
When you use PerformancingAds.com but all your ad spots don’t sell, they’ll use the un-sold spots for banner exchange purposes and drive free traffic to your blogs!
PerformancingAds Pros
1. Free Advertising: The biggest benefit of using them is their Exchange Ads feature. If your ad space isn’t sold, they will use the remnant space for banner exchange purposes. They’ll show other websites ads on the spots. And in return, you earn credits that can be used to show your ad on other blogs.
2. Book Your Own Spots: Another benefit of PerformancingAds.com is that they allow you to sell or use your own ad spots as you wish. So you could sell ads on your own too. Or promote affiliate programs.
3. Ease of installation. Installation on 2 of my blogs took all of 3 minutes. Its very easy to setup and start running.
PerformancingAds Cons
1. Low Payouts: As a publisher, you only get paid 60% of the ad money. So if you sell $500 worth of ad spots, they keep $200 out of it. (But they do allow you to book your own ad spots too. So you can sell ads privately and then list them up.)
2. Un-Transparency: The ratios for their ad exchange program isn’t revealed. And they give away free credits to sites whose ad spots sell. So you may not be getting the traffic you deserve.
Verdict
It makes good sense to start using PerformancingAds.com. Especially if you are an up-and-coming blog. But don’t forget to try selling ads privately too (as selling ads privately will always earn you more money).
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Making Money, Traffic on 30 Jul 2008
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Google just released Knol - and the pundits are touting it as a wikipedia killer already. So what is Knol and should you pay attention to it?
What is Knol?
Knol is a Google project where users write authoritative articles on specific subjects and publish them at knol.google.com
Its not like wikipedia.com because:
1. Its not completely open source. Others can’t edit the articles you publish without your consent. So in that way, its more like squidoo.com than wikipedia.com
2. The article URLs are in the format of
http://www.knol.google.com/k/[username]/[article-title]
So it seems like more than one person can write an authoritative article on the same topic - unlike on wikipedia.
So Should You Pay Attention to Knol?
One word answer: Yes.
Although historically, Google hasn’t given a lot of weight to pages created by others on the Google network (eg: on GooglePages and Blogger) - it seems like they have changed tracks for their Knol project.
More than half of the Featured Knols rank in the first page of Google for their titles!
- How to Backpack - Google Rank #4
- Tooth Pain - Google Rank #3
- Toilet Clogs - Google Rank #4
The other un-featured Knols aren’t doing too good at the moment. But seems like that will change soon.
On top of that, Google also shares Adsense revenue that are shown on your Knols pages.
So my prediction is that the Squidoo.com lens writers are going to jump on the Knol bandwagon in droves! I personaly will be creating new Knol pages before creating Squidoo Lenses too (but I’m not totally giving up on Squidoo just yet).
Action Summary:
- Create your own knol for your blog
- But don’t try to make it an ad for your blog. Follow Google’s Good Knol Writing guidelines
- Reference other sites and links within your knol. Write your Knol like you are writing an article for a science journal
- Because the goal is to become one of the Google’s Featured Knol and enjoy a lot of traffic to your blog through the knol
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Traffic on 24 Jul 2008
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How to keep your blog going on and on and on…
I’m a juggler of projects. At any given time, 3-4 projects are on my table simultaneously. Thats why, I find it hard sometimes to be consistent with my blogs.
I’ve found that I’m not alone with this problem. Some awesome blogs find it hard to be consistent too. So what can be done to make it easy for you to remain consistent with your blogs?
I have a few ideas…
Idea # 3: Have a buffer of posts
i. Find out how many posts you should publish per week.
ii. Then sit down over a couple of weekends and write at least 3 times the posts you need to publish per week.
iii. Follow an easy schedule now. Because you’ll be ahead of your publishing schedule, your blog will always have fresh content on it even if you have to take some time off.
Note: This idea doesn’t work for blogs that focus on current news. And you do have to be very disciplined to maintain a buffer of posts all the time.
Idea # 2: Hire a Co-Blogger
Another idea you can use to keep your blog fresh year after year is hire or joint venture with other bloggers. There are quite a few benefits of having multiple bloggers write for one blog:
i. The pressure is off any single blogger. If one blogger is slacking, others can put in a big more effort.
ii. You can now take vacations!
iii. Multiple authors bring multiple view points. Thus you can also attract a wider audience.
iv. More bloggers = more promoters too. Marketing your blog becomes a whole lot easier!
Idea # 1: Accept RSS ads
But the best idea of all to make sure you keep on blogging consistently is: accept RSS ads.
Let me explain: I’ve been consistently publishing a premium newsletter called Marketing Hotsheet for more than 4 years. Over the past 4 years, 98 issues of Marketing Hotsheet have been published (2 issues are published every month). And I’ve never ever missed a single deadline for that newsletter!
How so? Because the subscribers of Marketing Hotsheet pay me in advance! I have to be on time or else they’ll start calling me up to complain. And a few may ask for refunds!
Because I’m already obligated to others to publish the newsletters on time, I’m never late!
The key is: you’ve got to be obligated to others to come out with new content on a fixed schedule. By accepting pre-payment for RSS ads, you will be forced to be on time!
Why Doesn’t the Sidebar Ads Work in Making You Disciplined to Blog?
Because you’ll most likely be charging for the sidebar ads on a monthly basis. Or on a CPM basis. But with RSS ads, advertisers will be paying you for a fixed number of posts per month!
So How To Run RSS Ads on Your Blog?
i. If you use WordPress, you can install the RSS Feed Footer WordPress plugin to run ads. (You may have to find other alternatives if you don’t use WordPress…)
ii. The easiest way to attract advertisers is to make a new post on your blog with a graph of the number of RSS subscribers you have. And asking people to contact you if they want to advertise.
iii. You can charge as much as $5-50 per post for every 1000 subscribers. (Start low and then slowly increase the rates.)
iv. If you don’t have many RSS subscribers, you can go to a forum like DigitalPoint.com and sell RSS ad placements for $1 or so. The money is not important. The fact that pre-selling RSS ads obligates you to write a certain number of posts every week without fail is.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Writing on 08 Jul 2008
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