Blogging Money and Traffic

In Part 1 of Blogging Money & Traffic, I gave a detailed review of some of the popular paid blogging websites out there, including PPP, Smorty, ReviewMe, Sponsered Review and many others. This time, I’ll be delving into the two other big components of the e-market: advertising and traffic. Being more of a personal blog, Ubiquitous only tried out a fraction of the available websites, so feel free to suggest others.

TRAFFIC

Despair / Rouged / Exentrique ★★★½☆

What it is: Wow, just noticed, all three have different URL endings. This entire set include various blog comment rotation websites for the casual blogger, ie those who focus on their personal life for comments. Basically, you join and your name gets listed in the database. Emails are sent out to members on a weekly or biweekly basis with a number of blog links for them to comment on, yours included. You also receive a short list for you to comment on. Despair sends out three emails a week, with three links (depending on the size of the community, your link will get sent out 3-4 times). Rouged follows a similar model while Exentrique sends one link one week. All three have been declining lately due to lack of maintenance and good faith.

The Visitors: Blog rotations take a little effort on your part, and of course, a lot of faith for other bloggers who have to comment. You will find many teen-bopper websites here, as well as extremely dull ones. Although it’s not much traffic for those who are accustomed to the huge waves sent from Stumbleupon, it still gets your lonely blog entry some notice. Of the three, I believe one is getting filtered out from my email, one put me on Warning Status, and another one keeps sending me the same crappy ad-filled site which I don’t bother commenting on anymore. My excuse: life is busy.

Entrecard ★★★★☆

What it is: Entrecard has been making quite a name for itself in the blogosphere. I’m sure many of you already know their business model as you got here through Entrecard. To summarize for this section (advertising info in the next section): Entrecard places a “dropbox” on participating sites - mine’s the yellow one in the sidebar” and visitors get there to “drop” off their card, which are displayed in my EC Inbox. You receive credits when you get a Drop, or when you drop your cards on other people’s blogs. With these credits, you can purchase visits in the forums or advertising space on other people’s drop cards.

The Visitors: I’m really quite fond of Entrecard because I sort of managed to build relationships through reciprocal dropping with many blogs who share similar topics. Reciprocal dropping is basically returning all the drops you receive in your inbox. Of course, my bounce rate have definitely gone up, but I think I’m going to stay with Entrecard because…

  1. These are not random splogs on the net. Some turn up very very interesting contents and you can imagine the unique individual hard at work behind the screen. I leave comments as I drop cards and I encourage you to do so as well.
  2. There are many ways to spend your EC credits so they’re not just staying idle in your account. You can purchase advertising, donate to contests, host contests, and sell it for cash on Ebay.
  3. It’s not visually distracting. It sets droppers on a mission to “hunt down the yellow box”.
  4. The people in the community are quite friendly!

I currently have about 1000 EC (which I will probably blow all soon on advertising or some fabulous contest), so feel free to send some love!

The Featured: I’m running a Entrecard Combo Deal here and as promised, a feature! Michael Aulia’s Tech Blog is just one of the many I came across through Entrecard. He provides you with the latest, juicy news in the tech world (the Wall*E trailer is just too cute!) so definitely hop over there for a peek.

Shalomautohits (and a plethora of others) ★☆☆☆☆

What it is: These sites promise you great riches and awe-inspiring readership and community development. In truth, they’re so bad I’m hesitant to give you the link. Basically, these sites put your site in a surfing frame which can be refreshed every 30 seconds. When you reach the 30 seconds, you click some letters on a CAPTCHA box and it moves on to the next site. By browsing, you get credits which are usually automatically directed to display your site and you receive traffic back.

The Visitors: Aside from the random popup-ad-filled sites, you will see spammy web portals, crappy affiliate sites, and lazily put-together e-commerce sites that have bloody video introductions (gah!). I only started using it after seeing it dominate the referral section of one popular websites’ traffic report. Advertising sites frown heavily upon these, because of the low quality in the traffic. Shalomautohits, your 30 seconds are up. Time to move on!

General Thoughts

But gasp! I “forgot those popular social news media”! You exclaim. Yes yes, here they are: Digg, Stumbleupon, Technorati, the list goes on. No doubt they’re very effective and my 12 Useful Tips for Pulling Effective All-Nighters made quite the headline. My favourite kind of traffic is still from my regular readers whom I have linked and who linked me back. These are the regulars I can always count on to be there for me, and vice versa. Some people always forget that more important than the traffic a blog can receive, CONTENT IS KING.

ADVERTISING

Google Adsense ★★★★½

What it is: The grand-daddy of all advertising sites, Google Adsense is truly ubiquitous. Even the name sake Google will boost its advertising potential. Advertisers pay to get ad space on a site, and are charged by the clicks the ads generate. Publishers earn revenue when their ads are clicked or when they get page impressions. Everything is done by algorithm to ensure the highest revenue supposedly. Ads range from small boxes to banners to skyscraper image ads.

How I use it: I started using Adsense (the banner on the bottom of the page) here and on IB Years (text at the top, banner on the side, search box) on January 24th. I also recently added the referral badge on the side (!!!), and I’ll report back on how that’s working. Some people can just sit there and wait for the profit to come in. I on the other hand, am always impulsively checking my earnings in the daily report. Ah, what a depressing life.

The money: Google Adsense sends you a cheque at the end of the month if your cumulative earnings since the last payment is more than $100. It’s a shame because a lot of people don’t reach this amount in time (the PIN number issue for example, where you have to receive a postcard Google sends you) and all of the payment is cancelled after a brief period of time. LET’S ALL CAMPAIGN FOR ADSENSE TO USE PAYPAL! They’re also against payment disclosures, so let’s just say based on current earning trends (and provided Google doesn’t freeze my account), my first cheque will be sent out at the end of April most likely. I’m very happy with how Adsense works and how effortless it is. The ads aren’t really intrusive when placed properly, and of course, they sync the content to something related to your site. If Adsense is your cup of tea, I definitely recommend it!

Entrecard ★★★☆☆

What it is: Let’s talk about the advertising component of Entrecard first. Under the Google referral link on the side, you’ll see an Entrecard dropbox. Users come to this site to “drop off” their cards, which shows up in my inbox. I earn “EC Credits” when I receive drops and when I drop off my own cards (there are other ways of course). The card you see on display is not “dropped”, but purchased using EC Credits. I choose which card to accept, and it is displayed for a day. A lot of my credits are earned through ad clicks, ie. when someone clicks on my card advertised on someone else’s site.

The money: Everything is done using Entrecard Credits, and the ways of earning them are outlined above. I have about 1000 HARD-EARNED credits right now (haha will probably spend it all on advertising in a bit) so feel free to donate. There are also people auctioning off ECs on EBay.

Bidvertiser ★★★☆☆

What it is: The concept is very similar to Google Adsense. You select the ad type, get the code, and put it on your site.

How I use it: I’m not very fond of Bidvertiser actually, because it’s less flexible than Google and is slow to generate relevant ads. The market is slower as well. I only have one text ad on IB Years in the sidebar. The referral up there is for testing out this new untapped market. Let’s see what we can do!

The money: Payment is sent out a month after the publisher reaches $10, through Paypal (thank god!) With two small text boxes on two sites, I managed to get enough for a payment at the end of March. I still think Bidvertiser generates very meagre profit for the casual blogger. Of course, if you want to go all out on any advertising, you’ll get some cash fast, your call.

Text-Link-Ads ★★★½☆

What it is: After submitting your site to the market place, you wait for link advertisers to knock on your door and put a price on your link. It is then displayed for a month for people to enjoy and click on.

How I use it: I downloaded the TLA widget for my sidebar, and when it’s empty, it just says Coming Soon. I had two advertisers in the past, neither of them lasted more than a month. People are fond of these because the income is steady and generous, the format is simple, and the TLA interface is nice and sleek.

The Money: Payment is sent through Paypal no matter how much it is. I’ve made a grand total of $7.50, then my Google PR slap came and no more advertisers. Yes, it’s causing me much grief. And the bloody referral links don’t work for some reason, grr.

Project Wonderful ★★★★☆

What it is: Project Wonderful has been gaining some momentum lately. Instead of finding ads for you, the site let advertisers bid on ads through a process called Infinite Auction. It lets advertisers see the website stats and traffics before putting down an amount for the day. There’s a wide range of ad blocks publishers can choose from. The “wonderful” idea behind this is that it gets rid of fradulent clicks that cause advertiser money for simply bounce hits. Also, advertisers are charged down to the second, so there’s no money wasted.

How I use it: I have four 125×125 blocks down on the side, with the bidding price available. I encourage you to put in two cents (literally) and make it on my sidebar!

The money: Payments are sent through Paypal once the fund reaches $10. I just started, so I only have a few cents in the account, but I’m hoping to see a rise in bidding soon. Some bloggers claim that they’re drawing in a lot more through PW than through Google. You can do the math: on four 125×125 blocks, if each block is 25 cents, you get $7.00 after a week. Some have it as high as $5.00 a block, that’s $140 a week!

General Thoughts

I know I know, there are TONS more out there. Advertisers are getting creative nowadays eh? You have Pop up ads, Pop under ads, those corner peeling ones from Adtoll, word ads where they automatically change words on your page to ad links, and even direct bidding shopping ads (this site has a huge list). I stayed away from many of them because I thought banner ads were intrusive as it is. Do I really need half of my page peeling off? Like the sites mentioned in the paid blogging entry, online advertising also leaves a sour taste (though maybe not as sour). Some thing personal has turned into something commercial, but money solves problems. So when it comes to money on the internet, earn diligently, consider wisely, and spend carefully.

P.S. - Anyone know how to customize the Review Star plugin so that the boxes (set as div.entry img {} wouldn’t show up)? I tried setting a zero border class in the PHP file, but as you can see, it’s not working. FIXED. THANKS JEM!

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