My First Recurring Affiliate Commission

July 23, 2007 by Justin

So I wake up the other day, turn on the computer and logon to Gmail as part of my morning routine. When I get to my Inbox, I find that I have 2 emails from Yaro Starak:

When I open them up, I find that I’ve received $20 as commission for referring Jeff Christman to Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentoring program. So, Jeff, if you’re reading this, thanks buddy! This is my first ever recurring commission (so I should be getting paid $20/month for as long as Jeff is on the course) and really, my first ever real commission (apart from one off TLA payments), so I’m pretty excited about the extent to which I can gather a continual referral income (especially since I only did the one review of the course).

And it should be noted that Yaro got the other $57 which made up the total sale price of $77. If any of you guys have tried Blog Mastermind could you tell us how you found the experience and maybe give us a short review of the site and its features and how it’s worked for you so far. It would make a great case study.

How I Got Banned then Unbanned From Adsense

May 16, 2007 by Justin

25 Comments

As you can see, I no longer use Google Adsense on this site anymore. There are multiple reasons including the fact that they make the reader experience worse by providing annoying ads, the fact that in most cases they are an eye-sore and poorly designed, and also by the fact that they took up too much space in my old design (especially in the sidebars), and only earnt me $10 or so each month.

So after this new theme was relaunched at the beginning of May, I’ve hardly been checking my Adsense account. So, when I tried to login a few days ago, I was shocked to see that Google wasn’t letting me in.

Now, the Adsense account is linked to my mother’s name as I’m not yet 18 years old, so I checked her email, and was horrified to see the following email:

Subject: Google Adsense Account Disabled

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks and/or impressions
have been generated on the Google ads displayed on your site(s).
Therefore, we have disabled your Google AdSense account. Please
understand that this was a necessary step in order to protect the
interest of the AdWords advertisers.

A publisher’s site may not have invalid clicks or impressions on any
ad(s), including but not limited to clicks and/or impressions generated
by:

- a publisher on his own webpages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programmes or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the
layout, behaviour, targeting or delivery of ads for any reason

These or any other such activities that violate Google AdSense Terms
and Conditions and programme polices may have led us to disable your
account.

OK, this really got my back up. I for one have hardly ever clicked on my own ads, and if I did, have immediately reported it to Google or a representative to warn them of invalid clicks. Therefore, I really was annoyed to have seen the back of my account, also due to the fact that there was still $40 left in there that I was being owed (I suppose that’s not a great deal for some, but £20 can get you a long way!).

Anyhoo, I immediately contested the decision (for those who are in a similar situation the link to contesting is here) to see whether my account could be reinstated. Within 24 hours, another Google rep had sent the following email:

Thank you for your email. As you know, Google treats instances of invalid
clicks very seriously. By disabling your account, we feel that we have
taken the necessary measures to ensure that invalid clicks will not
continue to occur on your site. Due to the proprietary nature of our
monitoring system, we are not able to disclose any specific details of
these clicks.

Short but sweet. I knew my battle was over. So it came as an immense surprise as I was writing this post to try and login to my account to find that I was able to do so with my $40 given back to me! Very strange, my emailing must have hit a G-Nerve somewhere! It seems by looking at a report, that a Blogger site that has been dormant for a year now, got around 20 clicks in 1 day - probably by some unscrupulous visitor/bot.

Anyway, morals of the story: don’t just rely on Adsense for your online income. Diversify your streams of income so that if one goes caput, you’ve still got others that will keep your pocket money or rent pay coming in monthly.

My Best Adsense Layout Ever!

April 16, 2007 by Justin

25 Comments

Who wants more money from their adsense sites?

My name is Mark Wielgus, from 45n5.com, and I’d like to thank Adnan for the opportunity to make a guest post at Blogtrepreneur.

Last month my adsense earnings were over $700 dollars, which means I’ve got a long way to go to catch the higher earners, but also that I know a thing or two about adsense.

I thought I’d share what I think is “My Best Adsense Layout Ever!” for three reasons.

Show off “My Best Adsense Layout Ever!” (thanks Mr. Obvious, lol)
Help anybody struggling to earn with adsense see a proven money making layout.
Listen to any constructive criticism to help all of our adsense incomes improve

So Let’s See That Hot Adsense Layout Please

There she is. Perty ain’t she?

The rundown on the adsense.

1. Google search box above the banner

2. Large rectangle after the title and before the content

3. Link unit above the vertical menu (people usually click the first link first)

4. Small adsense block at the end of the menu

5. Footer is covered by a leaderboard

The Rundown On the Layout

1. Width no wider than 760px

2. Make menu text look similar to ad unit, but leave space between them

3. 2 column layout

Simple, yet elegant, and maximizing your adsense units.

Only Listen To Advice From Your Visitors

I presented a good starter template, however each site is unique and has unique visitors. Therefore it is up to you to test what works best for your site.

Never settle with any default layout or adsense colors, rather, let your visitor tell you what they like to click on by constantly using adsense split testing.

Seriously, even the hard fast “blend your ads” rule isn’t always true, and I’ve found I sometimes get a higher click through rate by using a contrasting color. Test, test, test!

In Conclusion

That is “My Best Adsense Layout Ever!”. Hopefully if you’re struggling to make an adsense dollar you have something to start with now, and if you disagree that is the best adsense layout ever, let me know in the comments why!

I look forward to hearing from you.

10 Reasons Why TextLinkAds and ReviewMe are Kicking Blogging Butt

March 8, 2007 by Justin

7 Comments

Lately it’s all been about ReviewMe and Text Link Ads (aff). These sister companies are becoming the base of online income and you can find their names on almost any page in the blogosphere, such is the consumer base and loyalty they have garnered and attracted.

Recently, I completely sold out on my TLA sidebar spots - meaning that I now have 8 monthly advertisers! I raised the amount to 10 now, so still 2 more spaces left if you wanna buy your ad! And I did a review of NorthxEast Business Blog which managed to earn me $50 which I finally received on March 1st.

But the fun isn’t just stopping there. A few days back, ReviewMe announced the arrival of their much waited upon affiliate program.
To quote from the blog:

“Not only will the affiliate program drive traffic to your individual listing at ReviewMe which will encourage review sales for you but it will also pay you $25 for any referred sale even if the visitor does not purchase a review from your blog.”

Unfortunately and unlike TLA, ReviewMe only coughs up the $25 if you refer an advertiser who will buy a blog post. For publisher referrals there is unfortunately no reward. Maybe this is to do with the increasing amount of publishers signing up day after day - Im not really sure. Anyhoo, here’s my brand spanking new affiliate button which you can use if you want to buy some ads to boost Pagerank, Search Engine Recognition and traffic for that all important site, blog or forum in the form of a review:

But why are these TLA and ReviewMe so dang popular? Here are 10 sweet reasons:

An easily navigable site

2. Cheap links on newly submitted sites - looking for a cheap, quality advert on someone elses blog? Search for New Text Link Ads, check for high Alexa ranking blogs and high Link Popularity at a low price ($15 is a steal). New sites tend to be underpriced due to unseen potential by the TLA robots - so take advantage of it!

First Google AdSense Payment Received

March 5, 2007 by Justin

29 Comments

This weekend marked a memorable landstone for me and my income earnings online. After spending a year blogging, I finally reached the $100 payout stage and received a Direct Deposit into my bank account. You can see the screenshot below (click on the thumbnail):

A few of you may be asking, how come it took so long to reach the barrier? Well, at first, traffic was very low (especially considering how I had a Blogger account), and this resulted in poor pageviews and a poor amount of clicks. $0.05-0.10 days were common, and most of the time I made nothing from my online efforts.

Then when my site reached its .com-ness, and it hit a 4 month old stage, I started to get money making opportunities from other areas. Advertisers such as TextLinkAds, Adbrite and ReviewMe started making more money for me than the notorious Adsense, so I thought it would be better to diversify my income. Its only in the past few months where my income alround has picked up, and each segment of my online earners have performed.

So how long till the next payment? Hopefully extremely soon, as I’m already a third of the way through until my next payout. Direct Debits are the dogs bits though, as I don’t even have to worry about cheque depositing!

Anyway, have any of you guys managed to crack open the $100 with Adsense? If so, how long did it take to reach the payout stage? Here’s to the next $100!