The Power Of Images

As we are always looking for ways to get more referrals from search engine's I thought I'd mention again the power of images.

Not only do images / photos brighten up posts and make them more interesting and appealing they also can bring lots of referrals to blogs.

My celebrity blog has been running for 237 days and has now had 148,969 referrals from Google Images (see below). This averages at about 628 per day since starting the blog from scratch.


I don't get anywhere near as many referrals for Mikes Money Making Mission, as I've only really been adding images conscientiously since I altered the page format. I get about 5 per day - and every little helps!

What I have found is that images have to be presented in a certain way. I say this from personal experience and 'experts' may disagree!

(1) The image should have a proper name. By this I mean it should tell you what the photo is about.

Many people seem to give their photos numbers, like 1028.jpg, or some other code instead. If we take the example of the photo on the right the name is Kirsten Haglund bikini. This makes more sense to the search engine.

I'm using Kirsten's photo as she is the new Miss America and I might just get a few hits because of this. Blatant promotion!

2) Use the 'alt' option. In this case I have used alt="Kirsten Haglund, Miss America, bikini".

I've used these words because I consider them to be the keywords that people will use when searching. They may well use Kirsten Haglund or Miss America and I've added bikini because I think this is likely to be used together with the aforementioned names.

I always try to use the name of the photo within 'alt' and sometimes add a couple of extra words that tie in.

3) Don't overdo the number of keywords included in 'alt' as this makes search engine's think, "Mmmm, spam!"

And that's it. Some say that including the size of the photo is search engine friendly i.e. height="200" width="100" but I'm not convinced of this.

Think post - think images!

Good luck,
Mike.

Discipline Makes Money

It's all about discipline, blogging that is.

I've noticed several blogs have been writing about SEO Meter recently. It can tell you how often Google crawls your blog or website.

Yes, you can have your very own Google Crawl Cycle chart but I'm afraid all this did was make me yawn.

"Not more stats to pour over," I thought.

I'm sure statistics, charts and whatever are useful but it's possible to spend so much time looking at them, comparing them, moaning about them that a lot of valuable blogging time is actually wasted.

Most bloggers have only a certain amount of time to devote to their blogs and I bet, in lots of cases, this time isn't always used to it's full potential.

If we go off at a tangent, from what our real aims are, we end up getting - well not as far as we hoped.

I feel that blogging time has to be planned.

I'm not going to say what the plan should be, this is a personal thing and depends on your objectives and why you blog.

You could be just blogging for fun, so what the heck, but if say your priority is to make money then it makes sense to use the allotted time wisely.

Do whatever is most important first.

Pretty obvious, but I know I used to start my blogging session looking at what amount of money I'd made the previous day from each of the programs I was promoting. Then it would be the stats for each blog and other things - and all of this didn't actually benefit me financially.

Now I look at earnings only weekly and try to concentrate on making money and getting more traffic before anything else. They are really virtually the same thing as traffic = money.

I earn most money from my celebrity blogs so therefore they have to get priority. As I keep saying - play to your strengths.

When I've finished this post I know what I'll do next - it's on my plan.

I really do think that one of the secrets of success with blogging is discipline. It's so very easy to get side-tracked.

Stats, Google crawls and the like can be useful to monitor how everything is going but peruse them at the right time - say a special time slot each week.

Discipline, discipline, discipline. Yes, it can be a bit boring, unless it's a particular fetish, but it brings results.

Good luck,
Mike.

Blogging Good Blogs

Make Money With Free Information

One of the easier ways to make money on the Internet, or with blogging, is by giving some 'useful' information away for free.

In a way I guess that this is really what all of us are doing when we monetise our blogs. We can, however, take this a step further.

As an illustration I saw someone doing this a few weeks back, unfortunately I've no idea who it was now. It was just something I jotted down for future use when I was surfing about.

Anyway, this bloke was advertising on Google Ads that he knew of a way to make easy money and would give the info for free - if an email address was provided.

The free details was in fact a roulette system that he claimed worked - it was actually something quite old whereby you double up losing bets on red or black and then switch colours when you win.

The point is though that he suggested joining one of about eight gambling style websites he had listed. He also suggested that the reader deposited a small amount of money with them to prove that the 'mathematical system' did in fact work.

Quite simply he made his money by being an affiliate for each of the gambling sites he asked his prospective punters to consider joining.

So he made money by giving away free information.

There are dozens of variations that could be done on this theme and all using free blogs. All you need is some info, that others may want, and link this with relevant affiliate programs.

You need a good 'sales pitch' within the info and also give a convincing reason as to why the reader should click on one of the affiliate links.

It's not a something that needs to be continuously updated. It's a 'one off' single page item placed on a blogging host and then advertised using as many ways as possible.

It may not bring in a lot of money - though it could - but what if you had dozens of similar blogs/sites - then it could get interesting. It's also a way to build a list of email addresses.

Good luck,
Mike.

WidgetBucks and RealRank Updates

WidgetBucks
I've had a grumble about WidgetBucks in the past but I forgot to mention that the end of December figures show that I've now gone through the $50 payout barrier - $64.31 at the end of the year to be precise.

This month, to the 19th of January - they are always a couple of days behind - I've made $37.73, an average of $1.985 per day.

I don't think this is all that good considering one of my celebrity blogs alone has had over 104,000 unique visitors this year and this is without reloads.

By comparison with Voxant, for example, I've made around $250 this month so far and AdSense, plus some other money making programs, are also going well.

RealRank
There I was yesterday getting almost enthusiastic about RealRank but today I'm waining already. My confidence in them is subsiding rapidly.

In the entertainment Top 100 List my Celebrity Insider blog dropped from 2nd to 7th place. Okay, still not bad but quite frankly I don't think the figures are accurate.

Money Money Money told me that regarding her blog stats RealRank are "counting my pageviews but not my traffic. I understand a fix goes out this week."

I'll say no more for now, and will see how things pan out over the week.

I just wish I could find a ranking system and stats that I can fully believe in.

Otherwise life is great!

Good luck,
Mike.

Is RealRank A Real Ranking?

I wrote a few thoughts on various blog rankings on Thursday. In view of what I said you might think it strange that today I'm going to write about another ranking system - this time about RealRank.

I signed up to RealRank yesterday.

Why would I bother as I'm not over enamoured with ranking systems?

Mainly because I'd read about it on various blogs and wanted to see if it would be of any use to me. Could it, for instance, direct any traffic my way?

Okay, before I get into my first day with RealRank a few facts: It is run by the Izea group who also run PayPerPost. From this you can gather why they have an interest in an alternative ranking system to Page Rank. A lot of PPP members had their PR's slashed for writing sponsored posts.

Though they do have a self interest in promoting their own ranking system they make some good points in favour of another ranking system. For example they write:

"PageRank is not based on real traffic, but on what Google perceives as the quality of a website as determined by a link rating algorithm and some cloudy rules. The arbitrary and unpredictable nature of this ranking system has left both bloggers and advertisers longing for accurate statistical measure."

This is true. Does it make sense for a PR4 with 10,000 visitors a day to have the same 'value' as a PR4 with only 100 visitors daily or maybe a PR7 with 1000 visitors a day?

RealRank is based on the following open formula:

70% weighted towards visitors per day
20% weighted towards amount of ACTIVE
inbound links per day
10% weighted towards pageviews per day

So if you are, or were, an advertiser which has the most useful info you need? PR or RR? I know which I'd prefer.

I'm sure we could all think of other formulas that may be as effective. Also RealRank is limited because it only lists blogs that that sign up as members - whereas PR covers all established blogs. (Note that RealRank is for blogs only.)

The overall rank is based on all blogs (who are members) but these are also subdivided into various categories - as per list shown at the top of this post.

Each category has a Top 100, as does 'All Blogs'.

As I said, I signed up yesterday with my Celebrity Insider blog - and in the first day it has a RealRank of 11 (1 is best going upwards to however many blogs there are who are members).


If I look at the category for 'Entertainment' then Celebrity Insider is in second position in the Top 100 list.


However, I still fully stick by what I said on Thursday: Focus on the right content and getting visitors to your blog - because nothing else really matters.

In other words I'm not too fussed what my blogs' rankings are - though obviously, if I had a choice, I'd prefer them to be reasonable and accurate.

What I am interested in though, regarding RealRank, is to see if this will send me any traffic or something else worthwhile. As more and more blogs sign up I may well slip down the list, only time will tell.

I'll be keeping an eye on referrals and will let you know what happens.

So that's RealRank. It may be worth joining to see if you make their Top 100 lists. Depending on your niche you could well do so. Perhaps this could be of value - you never know in life.

Good luck,
Mike.

Teenage Success Stories

A couple of quick stories I picked up on today in the UK newspapers that illustrate the 'potential with blogging' I mentioned yesterday. Both are about teenage girls who have managed to attract a lot of attention - and, before you ask, there's nothing 'dodgy' going on!

Firstly there is Jaydee Stone from London who started an online video diary and she's now amassed nearly 3 million hits. Her most popular video has had 1,123,800 when I checked it earlier.

Okay, it's all kids stuff you might think but supposing the site had been monetised. The mind boggles!

The second girl I'll mention is 19 year old Rebecca Strachan. I've written more about her here on my celebrity blog where there is also a video of her singing.

Her story is that she's caught on in a big way in South Korea - even though she's from Basingstoke, UK and has never been to Korea.

She's made some music videos that the Korean's love, so much so that a South Korean network site are paying for her to travel to Seoul and to do a gig there.

All these two stories do is illustrate the enormous possible worldwide potential of blogging - and the power of videos. The right something or other that catches on, or is promoted properly, and the money might just pour in.

Perhaps vlogs are the way to go - food for thought.

Good luck,
Mike.

Blogging Is a Laugh!

I just can't take this blogging business seriously.

It's all a bit laughable when so many gauge the success of a blog on stats and rankings that are frankly ludicrous.

Okay, perhaps not ludicrous, but lets put it another way. Why should big organisations be able to have a detrimental effect on honest bloggers?

The simple answer is, of course, because they are big and powerful.

I'm talking about things like PageRank, Alexa, Technorati and commercial websites such as Commission Junction and AdSense. They can all do virtually whatever they want and 'say' whatever they want about a blog (or website). This wouldn't happen in any other form of business without recourse or repercussions.

For many PageRank is all important. It has a value for prospective advertisers - though I'm not fully sure why. Surely what really matters is the number of visitors to a blog and the number of clicks/sales this produces.

Anyway, as with many other money blogs, my own PR has been slapped down.

In naive days, when I thought PR important, I worked at getting a PR5 and achieved this. Then, as most of us know, the PageRank secret algorithm was messed about with and I was relegated to a PR3, and then last week to a PR0! Today, however, it's back to a PR3.

My sin was doing a few sponsored posts.

Lets look at Alexa. Advertisers and the like attach some importance to the figures they produce. Again, goodness knows why, because the stats they produce are estimates - and very bad ones at that.

As I've said before on my main celebrity blog I've had up to 11,000 unique visitors a day. Alexa seem to say I only get between 100-200. I think I would call Alexa stats ludicrous in this instance.

As for Technorati, for ages they black listed this blog and a search on their website would show 'no such blog'. Again some think that Technorati ranking is important. I emailed them several times without response. In fairness I have now, at last, managed to get this blog reinstated though the 'authority' has dropped considerably.

So there we have three instances where organisations, for a want of a better word, can have a detrimental effect on a blog - that has done absolutely nothing dishonest or underhand.

As for Commission Junction they closed my account, owing me money, supposedly something to do with fictitious clicks - which is nonsense. The thing that made it worse was that the money I had earned was for sales and not clicks anyway. Needless to say my emails were unanswered.

And no doubt we've all heard of cases where bloggers have been 'terminated' from AdSense. Fortunately this hasn't happened to me.

Okay, you may think that I'm on a bit of a downer writing this post - but I'm not! I'm actually feeling very upbeat.

None of it means a jot.

The message I want to get across is that if you blog there may be disappointments, things that annoy you but it's still a great 'business', 'hobby' or whatever to be involved in.

Despite PageRank etc. etc. I'm now making more money than ever - which was my reason for starting blogging. It doesn't matter what problems arise they can be overcome - just don't let them get to you.

The potential with blogging is amazing. I told you a while back that I had 40,000+ visitors to one of my blogs in one day, when I hit on some good content for a post. This strikes home what can be done and achieved. It's almost mind blowing to have contact with that many readers in one day. Just think: the clicks, the response, the commission ...

My advise, for what it's worth, is: Focus on the right content and getting visitors to your blog - because nothing else really matters.

Good luck,

Mike.