Going by the title, you might think this post is about blending Adsense ads into a website. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. While doing some research, I came across a forum about making money online. I read post after post on how to increase your click through percentage and revenue by blending in your adsense ads into your website so that they look like just another link, or part of your content.  While this might sound logical initially, it will actually work against you in the long run.

How so? Data shows that the conversion rate for advertisers are lower when the person clicking the ad thinks they are clicking a link to more content, rather than an ad. As a result, this de-values the price a link is worth to the advertiser, and thus means less revenue for the site publisher. You might have a higher click through ratio, but Google is looking is for results. Want some proof? Here is a quote from the Google Adwords site:

We are constantly analyzing data across our network, and if our data shows that a click is less likely to turn into business results (e.g. online sale, registration, phone call, newsletter sign-up), we may reduce the price you pay for that click. You may notice a reduction in the cost of clicks from content sites.

 This is what Google refers to as smart pricing,  and I would bet that the reduction is not going to come from Google’s share of the revenue… which leaves the publisher to take the hit. How many forum posts have you read where a publisher is averaging $20 or $30 a day, then BAM!… 5 or 10 bucks a day overnight? Sure, this could be some fluctuation in the market, but most likely, this is smart pricing in action. Now, even though the publisher is an important part of the adwords/adsense equation, can you really fault Google for protecting their source of revenue, which ultimately comes from the advertiser?

How should Adsense ads be displayed?

Google essentially tells you how they like ads displayed in their terms of service. They want the ads to appear as ads. This is why they DON’T want images bordering too close, and DO want titles like sponsored links. At the same time, you don’t want them to stick out like a neon sign in the middle of the night - they should match the look and feel of your site, while still being recognized as ads. Google doesn’t want you ads to stick out either, so they give you the capability of customizing the ad’s features, such as link colors, background colors, borders, rounded corners, etc… I personally don’t mind ads on a website, especially when they are related to the content that I am reading about. And yes, I have even purchased from some of them.

 Going against the stream

Just a caveat here… I am not an Adsense guru. In fact, most Adsense experts tell you blend in your adsense ads to look just like your links and content, so maybe there is something to that. My opinion is based off the Adsense terms of service, the Adwords site, many observations from various forums, and a little personal experience…

The search for help for Roxie

 Yep, that’s Roxie to the left. When she was just a very young pup, she got parvo before her immunization. If your not familiar with parvo, it has a mortality rate of about 50%. I was searching all over the net for others that have battled the illness and won, and what they did. There are plenty of content sites out there on dogs and parvo. Many site I visited had links that looked like links to more content, but were acutally adsense ads. I was still doing research, so I wasn’t ready to buy anything, so I left the site to look for other ones that had better content. I did find some very good content out there, and did find a nutritional product (from an ad) that many had success with. Roxie racked up about $400 in bills and a couple of nights at the animal hospital, and I’m happy to report that she a very happy, healthy, and fiesty dog today.

Conclusion

With Google hiding their pay out percentage, and with smart pricing, its hard to tell exactly what works best. However, one thing to keep in mind is that Google wants what is best for the advertiser, because they are the ones paying out the money. If you were an advertiser with Google, wouldn’t you want the same thing? So, it stands to reason that better conversion rates for the advertiser means continued business with Google, which means more revenue for them. It also stands to reason that Google would want to reward the publisher that provides better conversion rates, or, it you want to view it in reverse, penalize the publisher - by reduced earnings - for low conversion rates. By the way… as a side note… pets are a good niche topic. People like to spend money on the pets.

If your not familiar with .mobi, its the newest top level domain (like .com and .net) aimed at delivering the Internet to the mobile phone. mTLD Top Level Domain, ltd - also affectionately known as dotMobi - is the ICANN appointed global registry for the .mobi top level domain.

 The case for dotMobi and mobile sites

Why design a dotMobi site when the mobile web is virtually unknown - and when those who do occasionally visit the mobile web, myself included, will often get a ‘page cannot displayed’ , or ‘file too large’ error? The answer to that seems to be in the .mobi top level domain itself. A .mobi top level domain name will let the mobile user know that this site will work on their mobile phone. Plus, there are some major players backing the .mobi top level domain, such as Ericsson, Google, GSM Association, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, TIM, Visa and Vodaphone - so expect to see a big marketing push for dotMobi.

 Need another reason? How about this…there are 4 mobile phones sold for every 1 computer. With that in mind, the potential growth… and monetization… is huge!

Of course, the real deciding factor on whether or not dotMobi sites will take off, will be the market place. If companies are willing to put out advertising dollars for mobile sites, the publishers and mobile content will appear. Then additionally, for the advertising dollars to keep flowing, the advertisers will need to see a return on investment. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen, but there is some promising evidence… The appearance of mobile ad networks…

How to monetize a mobile site

The easiest way to make money off your mobile content is to use an ad network. There are two major front runners: Google and Admob.

Ok, we all are familiar with the Google Adsense program. Well, Google has unleashed Adsense for mobile. It works much the same way as the normal Adsense program.  The ads come in only two sizes, a single or double ad unit which looks very similar to the regular Adsense text ads. On a mobile site, you probably really woundn’t want more than a two ad unit anyhow, as space your space is so limited.

The mobile Adsense ads are contextual, just as regular adsense, and will show ads that are targeted to the content of your mobile site. If you already have an Adsense account, Adsense for mobile is already available to you - just log into your account, click on the Adsense Setup tab and you will see the Adsense for mobile option there.

 An alternative to adsense is Admob, which caters exclusively to the mobile market. Admob claims an impressive 2 billion mobile ads served each month! Their portfolio of advertisers is impressive as well, including companies such as MTV, Paramount, and JC Penney, to name a few.

Unlike Adsense for mobile, Admob offers graphical banner ads in addition to text link ads. Adding ads is also a snap. After you have signed up, just log in and just cut and paste code in the appropriate scripting language (PHP, ASP, etc…).

Of course, you DON’T have to have a .mobi domain to offer mobile content. Many sites use code to detect the user agent (browser) you are using to access the site. If a mobile browser is detected, the site delivers a trimmed down version of the site’s content to your mobile device. In fact, there are many plug-ins already available for popular bulletin board, CMS’s, and blog software that will auto-detect if you are accessing with a mobile device, and deliver alternate content customized for mobile devices.

Still, the mobile web is in its infancy. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Expect to see more about dotMobi in future posts!

Don’t make a perfect website?

Why not? Why would I say something like that? Wouldn’t that be ideal - to make your website perfect?

Yes, that would be ideal, but from personal experience - it’s just not possible to make a website, to standards that you would consider ‘perfect’, in a reasonable amount of time.

I have a site that is centered around one of my many interests - one that I am particularly fascinated with. And since this is one of my favorite past-times, I felt that I needed to have the perfect website for it. So, here I am - one annual domain name renewal later (plus some), with the site on its third re-design - still incomplete.

Although I do plan to monetize the site, probably with just some simple contextual ads, the niche has some very low paying keywords. My main motivation for the site is to enjoy it, and the user generated content and interaction, however, I am unable to do so.

Webservation and lesson learned:

Now, I’m not saying to skip taking the time to carefully plan your site and its design and just throw out some junk. If you are going to make a website, doesn’t matter if its just for fun, or as a money making venture - just make a decent looking, well planned site with good coding practices, and get it out on the web instead of striving for absolute perfection. Once you have the site published and are happy with the content and the direction of the site, you can always go back and make updates and additions to improve the site - and get it a little closer to ’perfection’. 

The bottom line is if a website is something you really enjoy and are passionate about, there will ALWAYS be something you want to improve and make better - which is not a bad thing. But if you wait until the site is perfect before you publish out on the web, it’s likely going to be a really, really long time before that will happen, if ever.

Current State of my project?

Truth be told, I would like to take my site and re-design it a 4th time, with more of a pure CSS design. However, I am taking my own advice and sticking with my current development plan, and I estimate I should have the site near completion in about another month. The design is very modular, so it would not be extremely difficult to adopt a pure CSS design at a later time as an update. My goal for now is to just get the site finished and start enjoying it.

My newest web site that I have been working on is for a local/regional audience. My wife was considering starting a new offline business, so the whole reason for the local site was to develop some local traffic so that I could provide some ’free’ premium ad space for her on my site.

 She has since scrapped the idea for her offline business for the time being, but I have decided to go ahead with the local site. The more I think about, the more I think that the site could be a decent source of revenue.

Before I explain why I think the site can do well, and how I plan to monetize it, allow me list some of the features that I plan for the site.

• Local news and weather feeds
• A free, full featured classified ad listing
• Local restaurant pages, with links to menus
• A ‘Deal Around Town’ section where locals can submit various bargains around town, such as a gas station with below average prices, or a great deal on Hot Pockets, etc… (I know I could use a good deal on gas)
• Articles of local interest, maybe with some guest contributors
• A bulletin board/discussion forum
• Since there is a large college student population here, I think a text book exchange/buy/sell page might go over well also

Now, I did check out the competion beforehand and found several other local sites, but they all seem to focus around a specific area, such as employment, news, or sports. I estimate on one site that focuses on employment only, a monthly revenue of about $800-$2000+, as estimated from their posting rates and postings listed. Other news sites in the area had some classifieds that charged anywhere from $10-$20/week for a listing.

 I think that my site will have a particular advantage over the competition, as my site offers the same basic services, plus more, for free -  which I can do cheaply and with minimal maintanence as a one person operation.

Since the services and classifieds are free, I plan to monetize the site with Adsense contextual ads on the classifed ad pages, and then sell some premium 125×125 ad placements, and possibly a banner at the top of the page. I expect, as on the other local sites, local businesses and maybe some local political candidates will be the market for the premium ads.

One thing I must note, I am probably in a perfect size town for this type of site (about 140,000 people + some near-by small towns). It’s small enough so that the content is relevant to everyone who might visit the site, yet big enough to have some decent, repetative traffic.

I’m really exited about developing this site…  so more updates to follow on its success (or failure ) in future posts.

Since this blog is on WordPress and this is my first experience with it, I thought it would be only  logical to talk about installing WordPress as my first post. I have to say I am very impressed with it! Installation is super easy and adding a theme is a snap.

The plan for my theme was to keep the default until I had some time to design my own, but the default was just a little too plain for me - so I did a little searching for some free themes, and found this one at wpthemesfree.com. There are literally thousands available out there. The only drawback to using a free theme is that other blogs will also be using the same exact theme. I still plan to design my own unique theme when some time avails itself, but until then, I’m pretty happy with this one.

To install WordPress, just follow the documentation when you download it. It really only takes about 5 minutes. Or my recommendation, if you don’t already have a hosting company, look for one that has Fantastico. You literally just click install and fill out a short form and your done! If you are in need of hosting, check out HostingZoom.com , I’ve been using them for about 2 years.

To install a new theme, just do a search for WordPress themes and download the one that you like. Usually it will be zipped when you download, so just extract the files and install the whole folder in the ../wp-content/themes/ folder on your web server. That’s it! You can then change the theme from your WordPress admin panel.