Participating in Online Surveys? - The Jury Is Still Out On This One!

My opinion on those paid surveys online is not very good!

There is one paid survey program that I have here on the side of this blog but so far it is the only one that I have seen that I have felt is worth mentioning! So far all the others that I have seen are just not paying enough, they want you to do a whole lot or they want too much information from you. Another thing that irks me is their payment process. While they do pay you to participate in online surveys they seem to charge so much for their payment to you. Some of these paid survey sites want you to download their program and install it on your computer which I have grown to become very wary of because of all the spyware, adware, "anything"-ware that could be bundled with this download.

Keep in mind that this is only my opinion and you may have found a survey program that you like. If that is the case then you should tell everyone you know that you have found a good one because there are a LOT of bad ones out there!

Auction Ads

People are always asking if there are any other programs like adsense and here is one that I like - it's called AuctionAds!

It operates in ways that are similar to adsense. You join up for AuctionAds and you are given coding to add the ads to your site. However unlike adsense the AuctionAd's ads are not based on the content of your site. When are going through the process of deciding the ads that you want to place on your site you enter in keywords that relate to your site and AuctionAd will give you ad codes based on the keywords that you fill in.

Another difference between this program and Adsense is that you don't get paid per click. You earn money when someone clicks on the products that are being auctioned on Ebay and they either make the winning bid or they press the "buy it now" option to buy the Ebay item immediately.

There is also an affiliate program where you also get paid when someone signs up for the AuctionAd's program.

You get paid a percentage of what the person pays for the Ebay item.

Another thing - unlike the adsense program, AuctionAd's minimum payout amout is $50! (while adsense minimum payout is $100).

I have been using this program for a few months now and so far it has taken me those few months to earn the $50 minimum payout.

AuctionAd site says that they pay at the beginning of the month for last month's earnings and you can get your payment via PayPal.

So if this sounds good to you you can look at AuctionAd's site to find out more about the program

Adsense Publishers Are Upset (to say the least!) - Where is the September 2007 Payment!

* Update! - As of 6:30pm EST, the payment in progress line appears for my area - East Coast/Philadelphia area.

Others have reported that the PIP line also appears for those in Ireland and Sweden

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Adsense publishers are getting very upset because they have not received their adsense payment for this month (September 2007). What they have to say is not favorable

• that's what happens when you become a big company you get to screw anybody you want............
  

• it's a good thing that I don't depend my life on my adsense payments
  

• my payments used to be around the 23rd of the month why is adsense making the payments later and later?
  

• I'm very upset with adsense

It may be hard to believe but I have seen people post that they depend on their adsense payments for food! One person wrote that they were starving to death waiting for their adsense payment.

I noticed on Adsense's blog that they made a new entry for September 25th but there was no mention about why the adsense payments are so late this month.

If you want to be kept updated on the latest discussions concerning the payments for September 2007 here are a couple of links:

• Has Anybody Gotten The PIP In Their Adsense Accounts For This Month Yet?
  

• PIP for September 2007?

Payment In Progress? The 25th Of The Month

Every month around this time there is the high anticipation of seeing that all-important "Payment In Progress" line (PIP for short) which means that your adsense payment is being processed

Adsense publishers are waiting with anticipation! But I found a particularly interesting comment on one message board that talked about the PIP line for this month. Someone that posted to this board said that they had given up hope of receiving their adsense payment earlier than the last week of the month. Usually and on average the adsense payment date is usually on the 25th of the month which happens to be today.

Now I was hoping to see the PIP line on my account yesterday but no such luck! So now today I'm waiting again. But I know from past experience (and also from what other people have written and posted) that from my own past records and posts I posted that if there was going to be a PIP line on my account it would occur after 7pm - the last time I noted this the PIP line was on my account at 7:15pm. Now I'm on eastern standard time and the adsense site is operating 3 hours behind me. Someone posted that adsense always waits until after 4 o'clock (which is after the banks close) to post the payments (for those that get their adsense payment by EFT). That kind of means that the earliest one could actually spend their payment would be the next business day.

* I should also mention that for some reason (hopefully its because they are positng the PIPS!) the adsense site seems to be not coming up in any of my browsers. This started at around 5:20pm and at 5:45pm it is still happening.

As of this moment there are a LOT of people that are upset at both Google and Adsense for taking so long to process the payments for this month!

Why Is It

Taking Them So Long

To Process Payments

This Month?????????

About Your Adsense Payment?

Here is a link to my earlier posts that have to do with the adsense payment progress every month.

I am reminded of this because today is the 24th of the month and I (as I am sure that many others also)am waiting for that "payment in progress" line to show up on my account ('cause I'm ready to order my celebratory pizza now!)

So I'm still waiting!

Adsense Referrals - Are They Worth It?

The jury seems to be "out" on this issue.

When asked the question of whether or not putting the adsense referral ads on one's site would increase their adsense earnings even more, the replies were not all that favorable. There was even some grumbling about how placing referral ads on one's site would benefit everyone BUT the website publisher!

A few people have said that when they first put the referral ads on their site(s) they did get more income from them but that didn't last for more than the first month that the ads were put on the site.

Personally I have just started to add the adsense referral ads to some of my sites and its just too early to tell of any results yet.

My best piece of advice would be for you to experiment with the adsense refferal ads. Make sure you pick ads that are related to the content of your site.

Adsense Consultant - Is It Possible To Earn $1 Per Click?

Is it possible to earn $1 per click? I would say that it is most definitely possible! In fact I achieved this very thing today when I checked my adsense numbers earlier. Make no mistake - getting a rate that allows you to earn $1 per click is no easy thing to do.

You have to incorporate high-paying keyword content within your site!

Just How Much Money Can I Make With Adsense?

Well, you have the potential to be able to make a LOT of money with adsense - but note that I said "potential"!

A lot depends on a lot of different things! Here is a link to a blog post that I made about just how much money are people making with adsense.

The basic way to earn money with adsense is for you to get the visitors to your site to click on the adsense ads. The more people that click the ads the more you will earn with adsense. Getting the visitors to your site to click on the ads is an "art" form in and of itself. You'll have to constantly monitor the results you are getting and find ways to increase the number of visitors that click on the ads on your site.

An additional way is to include high-paying keyword content into your site. The higher the advertisers pay to put ads on your site the more money you will make. What are high-paying keywords? You can find a lot of websites online that have lists of high-paying keywords. I also have a high-paying keyword list that you can buy via the paypal button on the side of this blog.

You don't have to have a big number of websites in order to make money with adsense. You also don't have to have an enormous amount of visitors to your site either.

What you do need is to constantly monitor the progress of your sites that have the adsense ads on them and see how you can do better to optimize your sites to make more adsense money.

For example on my sites I don't have an enormous amount of traffic and I also don't have an enormous number of websites. However I have made enough in adsense earnings this month to assure that I will get a payment next month. In other words I have already earned the minimum amount of $100 that is necessary to get an adsense payment next month and the month isn't even over with yet!

Is It Difficult To Use Adsense?

Actually I don't think that its too difficult at all! I think the problem comes in when people get frustrated because they are trying too hard to get the adsense codes on their site.

Ust think about it. You hear about all this money that people are making using adsense and you are 'rarin to get started!

The basic process of adding the adsense codes involves you first deciding on some options about the ads that you want to appear - like size and color. Once you have made your decisions you are given the adsense code that your are supposed to copy and then paste on your website on blog.

Now there will be problems if you paste the adsense code in the wrong place! If you do that then you may end up messing up the coding of your entire site!

A New Poll Has Been Added! - How Much Adsense Money Do You Make Per Month?

I have added a new poll to this blog and it is about getting a general idea of how much money a person earns on the average with adsense.

Every month I will add a specific blog entry about the poll results.

Since this poll was just added today, I going to give it a month before I make a general blog entry about it.

So many people are saying that they are earning so little with adsense that it would be a good idea to get a general idea at what some people are making with adsense.

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September 24, 2007 - So far the "numbers aren't looking good! So far the majority of people that have voted in this poll have voted that they have made less than $100 a month.

So far as of this date I have at least made the minimum $100 that is needed in order to get a payment next month. (And I still have the rest of the month to go to earn more adsense earnings!)

The New York Times Is Going For The BIG Money!

There is a discussion going on about the latest news about the New York Times and adsense.

It seems that the online version of the NYT didn't quite meet its goal of online subscribers. (They only made $10 Million!) While the number of online subscribers that they do have is nothing to laugh about, it seems that online advertising is bringing in far more dollars. (If you're paying attention that means that "far more dollars" means that they are maiking more than $10 Million Dollars per year!)

The online version of the New York Times has both adsense ads and direct advertising.

Just How Much Money Have People Been Making With Adsense?

This has by far gotten to be one of my most popular blog posts!

Just How Much MOney Have People Been Making With Adsense?

It just goes to show you that you should never give up on your blog. This list will also show you that there are a lot of different types of sites and blogs that are making good adsense money!

What is Agloco?

I have been hearing so much about this program! People are posting about it everywhere and claim it is the greatest thing!

I was somewhat skeptical about it since I heard that while this program seemed to be touted by a lot of people nobody was getting paid anything! and now my suspicions were right!

Here is a site that explains it better!

It seems that the Agloco program is still in its infancy and current members are accumulating surfing "credits" but to date haven't been paid any money yet due to the program still being new. Members are being promised a percentage of the advertising profits but no payments have been made yet.

I Am Under The Age Of 18. Can I Still Join Adsense?

Here is an excerpt from Adsense's own help site

Does AdSense have a minimum age requirement for participation?

As stated in the AdSense Terms and Conditions, publishers must be at least 18 years of age to participate in the AdSense program.

If you are not yet 18, you may have a parent or guardian submit an application using their name as the payee name. Please note that, should the application be approved, all payments will be made to the adult responsible for the site.

90% Of Adsense Publishers Earning Little To No Money?

Here is an interesting article about how a lot of adsense publishers are earning little to no adsense money.

I find that surprising and quite an ironic twist to my blog post about just how much money are people making with adsense blog post.

Currently I am about $2 away from earning at least the minimum $100 that is required to get an adsense payment in the next month.

So far July 2007 has been my best adsense earning month and August 2007 is my 2nd best and my adsense earnings are increasing every month! For the past 4 months I have always taken a little bit out of my adsense earning to buy myself a celabratory pizza for a job well done! But my adsense earnings have also allowed me to pay some of my bills and you can not beat that!

Don't get me wrong though. I don't just build websites and let them stay still. I have to constantly work on my sites - updating them and adding new content, etc.....

It's a shame that more people aren't earning more from their adsense ads and fortunately I can say that I am not one of them!

• As of Sunday, September 16, 2007 I have earned the minimum $100 needed to get an adsense payment next month!
  

• As of Saturday, September 15th 2007 - I am 40 cents away from earning the minimum $100 needed to get an adsense payment for next month - think I'll make it?

Can I Click On My Own Adsense Ads?

The answer is "No" - of course. Now it is understandable if you click on your own ad by accident - even adsense acknowledges that they can understand the occassional click by mistake HOWEVER if you continully click on your own ads not only will they be counted as invalid clicks you also risk having your entire Adsense account cancelled!

Here is an excerpt from Adsense's own site:

Invalid Clicks and Impressions


Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. Failure to comply with this policy may lead to your account being disabled.

Is Everyone Approved For Adsense?

No not everyone is approved for adsense. There are a number of adsense-related newsgroups with posts from people who post lamenting about how they weren't approved for adsense.

When you sign up for adsense you have to submit the url of your site so that adsense can review and approve it.

You don't have to have a "high" traffic site but your site (or blog) has to have some content on it.

"Where Do I Find High-Paying Keywords Without Having To Pay For It?"

"Hello Ms. sister2brother,

Thanks for responding to my question in the AdSense blog. I have a couple more questions if you don't mind.

Here is what you wrote:

You may want to concentrate more on the content of your site. The reason why you are getting such low cpm is because the content of your site is only appealing to low-paying advertisers.

Work on incorporating higher-paying keywords into the content of your site.

There have been times when my cpm rate has reached $1000! Too bad I didn't know what keyword(s) triggered that becuae I would be using it all the time.

How do i find out which Keywords that pay more, and are somewhat associated with my subject matter without buying some "so callled" keyword list?

Thanks,
J~

"

The most simplest answer to your question is that you have to do the work and find the high-paying keywords.

I have gathered a number of lists that claim to have high-paying keywords and I'm going to experiment using these "high-paying" keywords on both my and my clients sites.

Do You Have To Have A Business In Order To Use Google's Adsense Program?

No you do not need to have a business to use adsense.

What you WILL need is either a website or a blog and it has to be approved by adsense first before you can add the ads to your site.

You will have to give them your social security number because since they are paying you they have to report and YOU have to report it. (Of course having to report your adsense income as income will depend on how much income you earn from adsense)

Here is a link to what some people (and I stress - people) are earning using adsense:

Just How Much Money Are People Making Using Adsense?

Where Is The Best Place To Place My Adsense Ads?

Here is the infamous "heatmap" showing where the best places are to place your adsense ads!

The darker the block, the better position for your adsense ads.

As you can see the most best place on the map is to place your adsense ads at the top of your content. There is also a term called "above the fold" which means that you should place your adsense ads at the top of your site so that it is the first thing that your visitors will see when they view your site.

You can use the above "heat map" as a good reference when you are deciding where to place your adsense ads.

One thing that you should know is that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another and that you should still continue with trying your adsense ads in different places on your site until you get the placement that optimizes your adsense earnings.

I Found Another Adsense Consultant!

I was reading a blog post from someone who was considering becoming an adsense consultant. His post was a year old so I don't know yet whether or not he decided to pursue becoming an adsense consultant. Like me he noticed that a lot of people were (and still are) having problems with their adsense ads - things like not knowing where to put their adsense codes and a good deal of them are just lamenting about how little adsense money they are making with their sites.

His tactics for charging for his Adsense consulting services are a bit different than mine though. He mentioned something about putting his own adsense ads on his clients sites so that he could also earn from their sites as well. This isn't very appealing to me though and I just charge a straight fee. Not counting the fact that a number of things could go wrong I would much rather prefer charging a straight fee for my adsense consulting services.

Why make something more complicated?

High Paying Keywords?

I have seen a lot of people posting and asking about what the high paying keywords are. The truth of the matter is that the list of high-paying keywords changes often. Usually keywords that have to do with things of a financial nature rate highly as high-paying keywords.

Here is a list that I will start mentioning about high-paying keywords

• I recently read that keywords relating to terms about class-action lawsuits are high-paying keywords. I'm guessing that this is because when there is a big class-action suit going on people want to know if they will be able to be a part of the class-action suit.
  

The Adsense Site Is Temporarily Down!

Just in case you're wondering, The Adsense site is down temporarily.

I noticed this about 1:30 PM EST and as of now Adsense's site is still down temporarily!

As of 4:30pm EST, the Adsense site is back up!

Do You Have A Click Bomber?

It may be too soon to tell but I think Adsense has gotten wise to one of the click bombers! I checked my adsense stats a few minutes ago and saw that I was visited by a certain click-bomber. Although this person visited a number of my pages none of his clicks were counted as valid and I am hoping this is because of the log information that I sent to adsense.

Just in case you don't know what "click-bombing" is it is when someone bombards your adsense site with clicks - a whole lot of clicks! It looks as suspicious activity to adsense and it may be grounds to cancel your adsense account. Why would someone do this? It could be someone who is just being malicious, someone who has had their adsense account cancelled and they want to take it out on the people that still do have an adsense account or it could be a comptetitor that is trying to get your adsense account cancelled.

When my site is clickbombed I report all the suspicious activity to adsense and I have now started to include a copy of the click-bomber's information that I got from one of my log reports.

So when you check your adsense statistics and you see some suspicious activity such as a very large number of clicks report it to adsense right away!

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*Added 9/22/07

Here is a list of sites that have been discussing clickbombing and who they think the clickbomber might be:

• Google Group Discussion About The Click Bomber
  

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added 6/18/08 - Adsense FAQ - Invalid Clicks

Some Tips And Advice For Optimizing Your Adsense Earnings!

Here are some things that you can do to help optimize your adsense earnings:

• Blend in your adsense ads with the layout of your site. Take a look at my Blog Consultant Blog and notice how the ads blend in with the colors of the blog itself! This is an often advised piece of advice when it comes to optimizing one's adsense ads to increase their earnings but a lot of people don't seem to follow this good piece of advice! When you are picking the colors for your adsense ads you are given the option of either choosing adsense's already premade palettes or you can create color palettes of your own.
  
  Now of course there are some sites that purposely make their ads look different than the colors used on their site and it seems to work for them - so they say. So my best piece of advice here would be for you to experiment to see what works best and brings in the most adsense earning for your site
  

• "Above the fold" - This simply means that you should place at least some of your adsense ads at the top of your site so that it is the first thing that your site visitors will see - making it more likely that they would click on the ads!

I will be adding more tips as time goes by

Client The Computer Brother - Increasing Blog Traffic

One of my clients is The Computer Brother. His blog is about computers and computer repair(s) because that is what he is into.

Now that his blog has been created and the adsense ads added, he now has to work on bringing more traffic to his blog. I just sent him a quick email note with one such suggestion so that he can increase the number of visitors to his blog.

This is one of the main important things that you have to remember when you have a blog with adsense ads on it. You want to increase the amount of traffic that you have so that you can increase your adsense earnings.

Now since The Computer Brother is a client, I have started keeping records of the amount of traffic that he is getting so that I can see how his traffic numbers are and what needs to be done to increase the number of people that visit his blog.

The Reason I Can Call Myself An Adsense Consultant Is Because.....

The reason that I can call myself an Adsense Consultant is because

• For every month so far this year I have been able to make at least the $100 minimum amount that adsense requires in order to issue a payment. I have had adsense since late last year and it took me two months to get my first adsense payment. I think my first month with adsense I made something like $22. The 2nd month I managed to make $99 so I was able to earn at least the minimum $100 the 2nd month to get my very first adsense payment.
  

• I have a few clients "under my belt" now.
  

• I have worked a lot with building up my and my client's adsense accounts.
  

• I have done a lot of technical programming that has to do with the adsense coding.
  

• I have had my "ups and downs" with adsense too

Now in case you're wondering why you don't see any adsense ads in this blog it is because it is against adsense's terms of service to have the name "adsense" in one's url - so that is why you don't see any adsense ads here.

It is a good lesson to learn because one of the most important things about keeping one's adsense account is that you follow the rules of adsense's terms of service.

You can see the adsense ads on my Blog Consultant Blog.

What Should I Do If I (Accidently) Click On My Own Ads?

Adsense's own page says that "they understand the occasionally click
by the publisher" - those won't be counted as valid clicks but like
their site says they understand the occassional "ooops".

But going to their site and sending them an email telling them that
you accidently clicked on your own ads will be in your best interestes
- and will make you look good by reporting it.

Just click here to find out what adsense has to say about "invalid" clicks. Here is a link to their blog post Accidents Happen which also talks about what you should do if you accidently click on your own adsense ads.

Just make sure that you don't do it again

What Does CPM Mean?

From Adsense's own site:

"From a publisher's perspective, the effective cost-per-thousand impressions (eCPM) is a useful way to compare revenue across different channels and advertising programs. It is calculated by dividing total earnings by the number of impressions in thousands. For example, if a publisher earned $180 from 45,000 impressions, the eCPM would equal $180/45, or $4.00. However, please keep in mind that eCPM is a reporting feature that does not represent the actual amount paid to a publisher."

Personally I use it as a way to judge what kind of rate I'm getting from advertisers - in other words - are my sites drawing high-paying advertisers

How Many Adsense Ads Am I Allowed Per Site?

For each site, adsense allows you:

• 3 context ads
  
• 3 link units
  
• 3 refferal bars
  
• 2 search boxes

New To Adsense? Want To Know More About It?

First of all in order to join the adsense program you have to have a blog or website AND you have to make sure that the blog or website that you have allows you to have adsense ads on it. Some sites like MySpace and others don't allow you to have adsense ads on them. That's why a lot of people start with Blogger.com and start a blog at a site that ENCOURAGES having adsense ads.

When you start your blog or website make sure that you have some content on it. As far as blogs are concerned adsense doesn't accept blogs of a "general" nature which means you should pick a topic for your blog (and/or site)

Once you have done that you can apply for adsense. You have to provide the url of your site or blog so that adsense can approve it. Once your site is approved then you can go through the process of picking the layout of the ads that you want - such as color and size. You do not get to pick the specific ads because they will depend on the content of your site. (One thing I should stress here is that you read adsense's terms of service because they list the kind of sites that won't get approved). When you have picked everything out you will be given some coding that you will have to paste on your site - that is the coding for the ads.

Now the more visitors to your site that click on the ads the more money you will earn. You have to earn at least $100 during the month before adsense will issue you a payment either in check form or by bank transfer. If you don't make $100 during the month your earnings will be rolled over into the next month and so on until you reach $100 and then you will be paid. (So far as of today I'm past the halfway mark-$50)

The basic stragedy of this is that the more people that click on your ads the more money you will earn:

Here is a link to one of my previous blog posts about a list that talks about how much some people have already made with Adsense:

Just How Much Money Are People Making With Adsense?

Do NOT Delete Your Blog!

I was going to go through the process of deleting my Adsense Consulting blog. But afterwards I read an interesting post about why one should NOT delete their blog.

It seems that there are lots of spammers out there that love to get a hold of recently deleted blogs and claim them so that they can put their spam content on it. Now you may think that since you are going to delete your blog then it shouldn't matter to you but you would be wrong! You see even though you deleted your blog it is still being indexed in the search engines so when people see a link to your "recently deleted" blog they may click on the link to the blog and they will be welcomed with a lot of spam messages.

This same thing holds true for those of you that are re-naming your blog as well.

The advice is to keep the blog that you want to delete for a while. Erase all the posts that you have made to the blog and then hold on to that blog until it doesn't show in the search engines anymore.

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