Blogging for Adsense Bucks - Is it Worth Your Time

The internet is brimming with articles, ebooks and hype about using blogs in conjunction with Google’s Adsense program as a means of generating revenue. The formula for success, it seems, is simple. You blog, you place ads, you get traffic, visitors click on the ads and you get paid. The question many people have about the whole process is whether or not the end result will really be profitable considering the time and effort that is required to implement the strategy.

This question has been difficult to answer, in large part, because of the Google Terms of Service for Adsense users. Although the terms have recently been loosened somewhat, users were long prohibited from sharing personal information regarding their success levels and other key statistics that might have provided prospective for-profit bloggers from developing a clear perspective on the profit potential available.

If you are curious about whether or not you can make blogging with Adsense a legitimate moneymaker, it is worth conducting this relatively simple exercise. The results can give you an idea of whether or not it is worth your time.

First, determine how long it will take you build your blog. Consider the set up time and the time necessary to do initial promotion and to write at least ten to twenty starter posts. We can term this variable ST, for “start-up time.” For our hypothetical, we will say our ST is twelve hours.

Second, estimate how much ongoing time it will take on weekly basis to do additional promotion and to add at least two new posts. Multiply this figure by 52 (the number of weeks in a year). We will term this variable MT for “maintenance time.” For this example, we will set MT at 104 hours (2 hours per week).

Third, add ST and MT. This will give us an idea of the total time required (TT). In this case, TT is 116 total hours.

Fourth, investigate the average value of an ad click in your niche. You can use the Overture bid tool, easily found online, to get a reasonable idea of the value of each click. In order to make your projection “safe,” reduce that number by half. This yields PPC, or “pay per click.” Let’s say the bid tool says clicks related to our keyword are worth about fifty cents. Our PPC is .25.

Fifth, determine how much your time is worth. Do you feel your blogging time should generate at least $10 per hour? $20? This is a matter of personal preference. We will term the resulting variable DR for “desired rate.” We will assess the value of our time at $15 per hour for this exercise.

Sixth, assume a click-through rate of five percent. This is a low figure, as many blogs can generate click-through rates approximating 25%. Click-through rate is expressed as CTR.

Now it’s time to perform the critical calculation. One needs to determine the required number of visitors necessary to produce enough money to make process worthwhile. If we express that number as V, the equation will look something like this:

V x PPC x CTR = DR x TT

This translates to:

V x .25 x .05 = 15 x 116

Or
V x .0125 = 1740

Thus, V must be 139,200. In order to make the process pay, you will have to drive 139,200 visitors to the blog over the course of one year. That translates to approximately 391 visitors per day, on average. Obviously, that is a very “doable” number based on the amount of time we have set aside for the process.

So, for our example, blogging for bucks with Adsense is a winner.

Perform these calculations based on your unique circumstances and you can determine the viability of earning money with a blog and Adsense.

Learn more about blogging at http://www.blogging.internetdiscussionforum.com

Kind regrads
David hobson

5 Easy Ways To Use RSS On Your Site

You hear so much talk about RSS these days on the Internet and in
the media. Everyone is acknowledging it’s importance in boosting
your site’s presence on the web. Not to mention how it can increase
your site’s traffic and ranking. But what exactly is RSS and how can
I actually use it on my site? Try these Five Easy Ways…

First, just what is RSS?

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Basically, RSS allows
you to directly deliver your content to all interested parties…
don’t come to us; we will deliver the information to you or your website.

It syndicates your content. It lets you send updated headlines and
brief summaries to your subscribers. In a nutshell; it’s simply
a more efficient way to get your content ‘out there’.

Many people associate RSS with Blogs or Blogging because Blogs
are usually written in XML or RSS format (code like html) so that
these headlines and postings can be easily read and accessed.

RSS has been around for awhile but it really didn’t catch
on when users had to use RSS readers or aggregators but with
the increasing popularity of MyYahoo, the Firefox Browser
and Blogging…RSS is becoming: more popular, more accessible
and more mainstream.

That’s great –you say– but just how do I put the
stuff on my site!

If you’re wondering how to actually use RSS and Benefit from
it — Try these Five Easy Ways…

1. How do I Get My OWN RSS Feed?

First, you need to get an RSS Feed for your site. There are
several ways to do this. Let’s just stick with the easiest.
You can use a site like www.blogger.com and start a Blog on
your site’s topic or any topic that interests you.

Creating a blog with sites like Blogger (owned by Google)
or Bloglines (recently acquired by Ask Jeeves) is quick,
fast, and painless. Within minutes you can have your own blog
up and running.

This Blog will also supply you with an RSS Feed that you can
place on your site. Get a XML or RSS orange button and place
it on your site. Link it to your RSS Feed url - this is your
atom.xml link if you’re using Blogger.

You can also use a MyYahoo button so visitors can add your
feed to their MyYahoo. Each time a subscriber opens their
MyYahoo site; your RSS Feed will be updated.

You can also add ‘MyMsn’ and ‘Bloglines’ buttons on your site.
Plus others, give your visitors every opportunity to subscribe
to your RSS Feed or Blog, and you will see a marked increase in
visitors to your site.

Of course, you can also get your own blogging software and install
it on your site. For those who want to choose this route, it might
be helpful to check out this comprehensive comparison of the different
blogging software here:
http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

2. How Do I Place Other RSS Feeds On My Site?

Have a cool RSS Feed from your favorite site and you want to
place that Feed’s content on your own site. How is it done?

It’s a lot easier than you think!

There are several ways, but we’ll again stick with the
easiest way. If you just want to place headlines on your
site - try a free service like www.feedburner.com and you
will get a headline animator. This will display the RSS feed’s
headlines with links to the content.

If you want to place other content from a feed on your site
- one of the easiest ways I found is to use this free site:
www.bigbold.com/rssdigest/

This site will generate the source code (html or javascript)
that you need to place into your webpages. It’s good because
it gives your code in several options: Javascript, Php file,
and Iframe.

Keep in mind that Search Engines cannot or don’t read
javascript so if you want this daily updated content to be
indexed please be aware of this.

Just take this code and add it your webpages where you
want this content to go.

3. How do I place MSN Search Results Directly on My Site?

MSN has come out with their Beta Program using RSS in their
search. You can now place RSS search results directly onto
your website. It can enrich your site with daily updated content.

And it’s quite simple to use; just add “&format=rss” at the end of the
URL in your MSN search engine query. For example, to get an RSS Feed for
‘tsunami relief’ you would use this url: http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tsunami+relief&format=rss

4. How do I place Yahoo Results on my site?

In Yahoo the URL would be slightly different:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=tsunami+relief&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&x=wrt

Of course, in both cases you can change ‘tsunami+relief’ with the keyword
or phrase of your choice to suit your website’s content.

Yahoo also has an RSS Search Directory here:
http://news.yahoo.com/rss

5. What are Tags? How can I use them on my site?

Tags are more or less keywords for blogs and you should
take advantage of them to bring targeted traffic to your
site or blog.

Tags have hit the radar lately because Technorati, which
indexes 4.5 million blogs, started sorting blog posts by
using tags.

They have created a folksonomy, drawing tags from
different sources, mainly Flickr.com which sorts or
groups pictures and from del.icio.us — where you
create a tag when you bookmark a page.

Or if your blogging software supports categories; this will
be recognized by Technorati as a tag.

If you want to create a ‘tag’ it’s very simple; just place
this code in your blog:

<*a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Computers" rel="tag">Computers<*/a>
(remove asterisks in actual code)

and you will have created a tag for computers.

Conclusion

You have just discovered five easy ways to put RSS on your
website, but you have to implement this newly acquired information
in order to see any results. You don’t have to try all five — just
pick a few and put them on your site. Just take action and do it.

It’s fairly easy, and you will see the benefits of RSS
almost immediately. You will also see what all the fuss is
about!

Copyright © 2005 - Bizwaremagic.com

This article may be freely distributed if this resource
box stays attached.

EzineArticles Expert Author Titus Hoskins

To Put RSS On Your Site Within Minutes - Visit This Link:
RSS and Blogging Guide

Visit http://www.bizwaremagic.com for more simple solutions to your online marketing tasks.

Blog Problems

What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I’m concerned the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity. The other day I decided to do some research on the Web and try to connect to some blog writers out there that interested me. Let me tell you it was not an enjoyable task as I had envisioned. I spent four painful hours surfing through around a thousand on-line journals, and I found only a few that interested me. What are we doing out there people?


First of all, just getting to a blog can be a pain in the arse. For example, you type in the words ‘Philosophy blogs’ and a whole bunch of sites come up. Some are conglomerate sites with thousands of journals, but the area you’re searching for may have only one blog in it! This is because they separate the blogs into a million different categories, like ‘love’, ‘lovers’, ‘lovable’ etc. Why not have just a few main categories to choose from?


The next problem is the content. People with ‘philosophical’ blogs are having personal chats with their mates about the local dance competition on Tuesday! Why not go to a chat room if you just want to talk to your friends? Blogs are supposed to be a personal viewpoint expressed to the whole Web community. Wouldn’t you actually like to meet more people like yourself? How is this going to happen if you talk in strange uncommon slang and acronyms that you and your friends can only understand? Please stick to the subject at hand, and take it at least half seriously.


Another major problem is the fact that you can find a really cool blog that sparks an interest, but then find that the writer hasn’t added an entry in over a year! What’s it doing on the Net? Have these people passed away? I seriously doubt it, as there are so many blogs in this ‘lost’ state. Having a blog is a responsibility; it’s a shared diary for the whole community. How can someone form a relationship if you only write in your blog once a millennium?


Back to the subject of content: These on-line journals are a real chance to communicate regularly with others with similar views to yourself. We can learn a lot from each other, as each human is an individual with special traits and skills that only they have. So why do we see so many blogs just talking about trivial nonsense like ‘Who the coolest movie actor is.’ Humanity is an intelligent species evolving everyday towards a higher consciousness. So where are all the thinkers out there, the people who have taken us to the next levels of spirituality and scientific exploration? I’d really like to hear what you’ve got to say, but all I can find are philosophical beliefs on why died pink jeans express one’s true inner self.


The issue of making comments on someone’s blog is also a controversial one. Why have comments sections if you’re not going to reply to people who have expressed an interest in what you’ve had to say? How is this community going to function if all the conversation is one-way! Come on people, wake up and smell the onions! Let’s change the blogging community into the awesome structure of shared knowledge that it was intended for. Please don’t let it turn into the small-talk world of chat rooms.

Jesse S. Somer
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net
Jesse S. Somer is a concerned human attempting to inform his fellow people of the real possibilities hidden in the Internet.