Google AdSense has been one very consistent top revenue stream for DragonBlogger.com over the past 3 years but only in the past 18 months has it become my single highest revenue source.  Prior to that in 2008/2009 IZEA with SocialSpark and PayPerPost used to be my highest overall revenue sources.  I am always looking to try and boost my AdSense performance and earnings and periodically experiment with it on my blogs.

The appeal of Google AdSense is that it is passive earning, you merely place the banner ads and they start collecting impressions, clicks and you start to earn.  Though your earnings potential is truly based on the amount of traffic/exposure the ads get (naturally assuming the % of users that click on ads that appeal to them) there is actually some degree of optimization you can do not just for having a slightly higher % of users click on your ads, but earning more from your ads per click.

Which Ads Perform Better with Google AdSense

From my own experience experimenting with ad sizes over the past few years I found that the best banner as far as earning performance has been the traditional 468×60 banner.  This banner earned 10x the number of clicks and almost 4x the earnings of any other banner on the site, even my 160×600 which had more impressions.

Now, I did originally have that 468×60 banner under my articles and it performed very poorly in comparison, placing that 468×60 banner at the top of your article right under the title was the best performing place for a Google AdSense banner.

However, this also means your bounce rate is high (probably) that user arrived on your article, may have been distracted by the Google banner and clicked off your site fairly quickly, they may not have received the info they were looking for when they arrived on your site.  This is why I think having a 468×60 banner can be a good choice, you want to catch and monetize the people who arrive on your site and were never intending to stay or read further.  If you are selling your own product/pitch however you probably don’t want to give your reader such a quick way to exit the site.

I did find that the largest square banners at the bottom of article are also good converters, I have a dynamic ad in my post with the 336×280 size and it performs the 2nd best on my site.  (Ironically this ad used to be my channel for header, so my 336×280 bottom of post ad is really the “dragonblogger header” channel).

So my official recommendation is if you don’t sell your own product and you want to monetize your site with AdSense a 468×60 banner at the top of your post under or above your title and a 336×280 banner at the end of article before comments are the best performing options I have used over the past 3 years.

Finally, I do have a skyscraper ad in my sidebar and while it earns less than the other two banners, it does own a respectable amount and is worth keeping around.

Leveraging AdSense URL Channels

URL Channels are a great way to see which sites are performing compared to others and is recommending if you run multiple blogs.  If you look at my URL channels you can see my flagship site DragonBlogger.com dominates my AdSense earnings (as it should it gets 20x the traffic of all my other blogs).

You can even see that my AdSense earnings for Blog Engage where I just submit articles to the directory outperform my AdSense earnings on my poetry blog.  I learned that poetry blogs are just not good fits for Google Adsense, they have too hard a time matching the content to the ad and often it just is of no interest to readers.  This is why I have since switched to targeted Amazon ads and actually see better performance with SocialSpark Ads on my poetry blog.

This is just for WandererThoughts and you can see for the same time frame, SocialSpark Ad platform earned almost 5x as much as Google AdSense banner in the same place.

Better Earnings from Fewer Impressions

You will notice the staggeringly high variation between earnings on my site from day to day.  This snapshot is from DragonBlogger.com only in early January.

Some days I get $16 on a single day, while others get $3 – $4 average, why such large variations when the # of clicks stays between 13 and 21 on all days?

The reason is simple, some ads are worth more!  The keywords used, the targeted ad displayed…etc.  The key is to focus articles and keywords in your articles toward the higher paying AdSense terms and AdWords terms so that you earn more per click.  This takes a lot of work but I have read about other bloggers who can make tremendous earnings from AdSense with a fraction of the traffic I have because they have a much higher CPC earning rate.

Unfortunately as a portal site where I cover so many topics it is hard for me to selectively target the AdWords keywords that reap the most earnings per click, but this is seriously something to consider if you want to seriously boost up your AdSense earnings.

In Summary

AdSense is a powerful earning mechanism for bloggers looking for a passive income, it is something that you have to experiment with so that your ads blend in with your site, but so much that they aren’t noticed.  There is a lot of optimizing that can be done, but approaching my 4th year of blogging I am now earning nearly $3000 per year from a single website.  There are some bloggers who run dozens of sites devoted to AdSense optimizations and some are very effective at bringing in lucrative incomes from leveraging AdSense.

What AdSense optimization tips do you have to share?  Are you doing well with AdSense or struggling to earn enough?  Share your AdSense stories.

-Dragon Blogger

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There is no need to think too hard about the power of seo and what it can do for a website that’s getting little no traffic. People understand if they can dominate a top keyword then all their troubles will be over. Getting the top placement can mean the difference in five visitors a day to maybe getting 500 or more visitors just by doing a little seo marketing.

So for this reason people are really getting hungrier on seeking out seo help to get them to the top. Now I’m not going to get all into prices or anything like that, but I am going to let you guys in on a little secret you may not be too aware of and that’s the SEO Boogeyman.

This is the seo person who hides behind his website and go lurking in the night to find his next victim. He is looking for that person who have money to spend and not going to ask too many question containing to his background and success rate. His only job is to find the next dummy who will be willing to fork over hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Beware Of The SEO Boogeyman

What he wants is a quick payday and after that you will be lucky to see his website working again. They usually setup a simple template website that includes maybe 10 to 20 pages which are already done and can be uploaded through a FTP software. Then once the site is up they will go out and seek out small businesses websites because they are the most easiest to scam because of their lack of knowledge on how the internet works.

So once they make contact and work out a deal and get payment, the next thing you know your on the outside looking in wondering about what just happen. These are the people who make my world of seo marketing so tough and makes people look at me in a different light.

I call these people the SEO Boogeyman because they will scare the living day lights out of you once they complete their task of taking your money. But take may advice on a couple of things before you lose money turning over your seo work to one of these guys.

What To Avoid

First thing you should do is see how long their site has been online and you can do this by going to Alexa.com and entering their site. This will give you a quick glance of how long they have been online..and if they don’t have an history then I won’t use them.

Next see can you talk to them one on one through Skype or something. This will at least help you see who your dealing with and give you a better chance of making your decision easier. You see these are just two main things you can do to minimize the Seo Boogeyman taking advantage of your hard earn money.

Just realize that seo is not as complicated as you think. Learning seo is pretty easy when you think about it and I really try do my best to educate people on this through my TrafficColeman seo marketing series which helps them understand seo a little more so they don’t end up in a hard place. So take note of these two simple tips and always be on the look out for the SEO Boogeyman.

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This article is for all of the bloggers who follow DragonBlogger.com the ones that are looking to expand and grow their sphere of influence and audience and even those who have sites bigger than this one but could still use a new avenue for growth.

Blog Engage is a service I have touted before for bloggers because this service not only brings me thousands of backlinks, some AdSense revenue and allows me to network with some of the best bloggers on the web, but it also is a service I support as a tool to help yourself grow and expand as a blogger leveraging the Facebook Group, voting system and featured spotlights.

Blog Engage has a PageRank of 4 and an Alexa rank of around 8k the traffic levels to the site are amazing and it has some incredibly interactive bloggers and peers who can help you become better at what you do or simply notice your articles and network to help cross promote.

Blog Engage has brought me thousands of visits over the past year and you will notice that the average duration of Blog Engage visitors is over 3 minutes and 50 seconds, with an average of 1.85 pages per visit.  This is high quality traffic that takes the time to read your articles and majority visit more than a single article when they arrive on your site.  The bounce rate at a low 55% indicates that these bloggers take the time to read what your articles are about and have a higher percentage of leaving comments on your site (especially if you use CommentLuv and are DoFollow).

Right now, Blog Engage is having a special April Blow Out where if you sign up for their Gold RSS Membership ($4.99 per month) or Platinum RSS Membership ($9.99 per month) you will get syndication to all 7 peer networks instead of just Blog Engage.  This is getting the link building features of the Business Membership ($19.99) at a fraction of the cost.

If you have only 1 blog and publish 1-2 times per day, then the Gold RSS Syndication plan is all you need, but you need to jump on this opportunity right now.  If you publish 1x per day this is 210 backlinks per month (30 days x7 backlinks per post), if you publish 2x per day this is 420 backlinks per month from the syndication.

Multiply this by 12 months and you are getting thousands of backlinks per year, seriously at $4.99 per month ($59.88 in one year) you are getting 2520 backlinks if you post 1x per day, this is a value of .02 cents per backlink.  This doesn’t even count the extra traffic you will get, peer networking with bloggers and the ability to have your articles broadcast on the Blog Engage Twitter account and Facebook Fanpage.

How many bloggers have spent $4.99 a month testing out a new service to see if it had impact for your blog?  I encourage you to take Blog Engage for a spin and have your RSS feed auto syndicated, but don’t just set it and forget it.  Take the time to join Blog Engage, network with others, add me as a friend and join our Facebook group.  We help each other out, we provide feedback, guest blogging opportunities, networking and so much more.

Sign up for Blog Engage RSS Syndication today and don’t think the network is just for Blogs who talk about Blogging, there are Personal Bloggers, Food Bloggers, Tech Bloggers and more, the network just keeps on growing.

-Dragon Blogger

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The dark and satiric American screenwriter and director, Todd Solondz, once said:

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

Even modern interpretations of Bible term both Adam and Eve as equivocal narcissists.

Let’s understand what narcissism is and how does it apply to bloggers.

What is Narcissism?

Narcissism is an analytic term used in psychological studies to define instances of obsessive self-love and self-absorption, combined with adjective like selfishness, conceit, vanity and egoism. Sometimes it is a mental illness and sometimes it is a cultural malaise.

Recall how Little Red Riding Hood’s stepmother would be always occupied by her beauty, leading to a false sense of security, giving birth to the desire of murdering her stepdaughter.

Perhaps, narcissism is a personality trait in every human being.

• Don’t we pride ourselves in being beautiful?
• Don’t we pride ourselves in being talented than others?
• Don’t we pride ourselves in being more economically well off than others?

We do.

Does that make us narcissist?

Yes, it does. Narcissism has its levels though.

Narcissism & Blogging

Perhaps, you would say connecting narcissism with blogging is a far fetched connection but to me, it is poignant.

The presence of narcissism is summed up beautifully by Alexander Lowen:

To experience joy, one must be free of anxieties about letting go and expressing feeling. Or to put it differently, one has to be carefree and innocent as a child. Narcissists are neither carefree nor innocent.

While the exhilaration, the power of expressing, giving words to one’s thought is undeniably irresistible, especially in an online platform that gives immense freedom, there is an underlying negative shadow lurking inside us, giving itself voice whenever things don’t turn out the way we desire.

To rephrase Lowen and Solondz, bloggers are not innocent and neither are they carefree. In the vast virtual world, there works an invisible sense of self-deception, surviving and harping on inner defense mechanism as and when needed.

Are you a Narcissistic Blogger?

Being narcissistic is rarely a ‘good’ quality. Nevertheless, here are certain pointers which if you nod ‘Yes’ most of time shows that you are very much a narcissistic blogger.

I, Me, Myself

For you, no one exists outside the “I, Me, Myself” mode. You boast about “your” work on social networks, like “I did this” and “I did that’, not stopping for a second to really listen what the other person is trying to convey!

Your blood pressure goes up when no one tweets or ‘likes’ your blog posts, and when there are no comments – you literally go a bit paranoid!

Lack of Acceptance

Narcissists think they are ‘great’ and all others are dirt bags. It won’t be wrong to suggest that a blogger wants to be revered, wants to be fawned upon, and wants to be looked upon with starry eyes much like a narcissist.

While there is nothing wrong with expecting praise, there is a line between getting natural appreciation and forced appreciation.

Another instance is commenting. Forget back link building for a while and think of your reaction when you see a comment severely criticizing your work. Do your eyebrows become quirky and you think – ‘who the hell is this to write so damnably about my work?’ You cannot accept criticism and that comment never goes ‘live’. Do you react like this? Answer YES, and you go into the category of control freak narcissists.

When enough is not enough!

• Is the blog design attractive enough?
• Do I have enough Facebook friends?
• Do I have enough Twitter followers?
• Why aren’t there enough comments on my blogs?
• Why aren’t people talking to me all the time?
• Am I humorous enough?

…and on and on the list goes! The obsessive consciousness towards one’s image is the sign of a narcissistic blogger. You cannot have enough of anything. Everything seems little to you. You behave like a humongous shark ready to gobble up everything that comes your way.

Self Loving

• My work is the best.
• These people are really lucky to have me.
• Every blogger out there wants me to mentor them.
• People can’t get enough of me.
• Bloggers cannot exist without me.

These far fetched thoughts are examples of how a narcissistic blogger is so wrapped up with self adoration and love that they consider themselves indispensable to the blogging world, as if the blogger is a god and any mere mortal cannot succeed without receiving the blogger’s blessing!

Isn’t the Blogging World Narcissist?

See it that way and I tend to agree that each one of us is a narcissist in our own way. Since blogging is the self expression of opinion on subject/s, it is difficult to avoid narcissism.

However, there is a limit to everything. It is when the limits are ignored when everything blows out of proportion. Note that in the blogging world, people value you and me for our opinions; therefore, on one level, narcissism is accepted. But, as I said earlier, one should know where to draw the line, when to step back and retain one’s sanity.

Excess of anything is bad.

Be real. Be a real blogger. Be honest. Be capable. Be committed. Don’t look down on others. Blogging is a huge world. There is always a place on the top for us. But, to achieve that top status, there is no need to be deceitful, selfish, jealous, and conspiring against others.

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To ensure higher ranking on Google, there are important considerations that you need to think. Aside from posting quality contents, link building also plays a huge role.

Based on the survey result of the SEOmoz, majority of the SEO practitioners believe that link building is the best solution. However, many webmasters are already using this strategy. This is when you need to answer the question on how to become competitive online.

Below are the two of the most effective strategies that only few SEO practitioners are using:

Link blending

This method allows you to build links to your website and other authority websites. To illustrate, if your site deals about search engine otimization and want to promote your website effectively, you can ask a favor to your blogger friend to write a blog about your site.

In case your main keyword is ”SEO Services”, you will definitely tell your friend to use this keyword as the link or anchor text of your website so that the people clicking it will reveal your own website. This is actually helpful in increasing your chance to rank high on different search engines.

If you can develop your website as an authority site, this definitely pushes you higher on search engine rankings. To achieve this objective you need to have more links, but this can become a costly idea down the road.

If you can link your website to authority sites and other relevant sites and on the same page, your website gets better treatment from many search engines just like how they treat dominant authority sites online. For example, Wikipedia ranks tremendously higher every single day.

Again, you can use the idea of asking your blogger friend to link your site to an article from Wikipedia that talks about the different SEO history. This is in addition to linking your site directly to the blog site of your good friend. Remember that you need to guarantee that the text links appear natural and will not affect your plan to rank higher because search engines are very strict these days.

One best way to avoid this issue, think of other possible links that are relevant to your main keyword. Do not use the first keyword repeatedly, as Google will immediately detect this as spamming. For example, your main keyword is ”SEO Services”, you may consider using other relevant keywords like ”SEO Services in NewYork”, ”Article Marketing for SEO” and more.

If you can leverage the exact link blending strategy by providing relevant search on Google, you get the chance to reveal other relevant authority sites for your own benefit. Because of this, you can compete better for the top ranking on many search engines without the necessity of getting more links.

Stage 2 Link Building

It may be true that once you discuss things to an SEO specialists, he or she will reveal that building relevant links are more useful. Meaning, if you are developing a website for link building service, you can get links through SEO websites.

However, some web marketers believe that there is a different definition about relevant links despite what most SEOs are telling. Relevant links are those that come from other websites competing on the top 100 Google search results for the keyword you are targeting.

You might also be asking yourself on why you need to spend money to allow your site link to an individual who owns high-ranking keywords. Although it is possible to get these keywords, you need to think about breaking the rules of Google and this is not the right thing to consider. Furthermore, it is not easy to convince someone who ranks on top 100 searches to link with your site.

This is when you need to consider link building. Again, if you blogger friend wrote an article involving the relevant keyword ”The Best SEO Service”, you can expect that this bog post may not be able to reach even the top 1000 search results if your target keyword is ”SEO Services”. However, if you create few links to the blog using ”SEO Services” as your anchor text, you will notice results from hundreds of searches or possible within the top 100.

Once you execute this somehow easy method, you are producing a relevant link already. This likewise helps you reach the top ranking using your keyword without using several links.

Conclusion

Although it is possible and effective to leverage the traditional styles of link building of other site owners, you need to spend for this. With this, you have to think about using link blending and stage 2 link building to rank higher. These are effective and affordable techniques to choose.

However, it is important to learn exact method to build your links when using these aforementioned techniques. Do not try to break the rules of Google by means of purchasing more links.

Try to execute other alternatives like guest posting with back link to your website or other relevant authority sites. In addition, you may consider leveraging email site owners and link building if you can link them to your site. On the other hand, you need to study the procedure because you want to get fair share of visitors once you link your site to them.

Aside from these two useful methods, can you share other ideas to build effective and natural links?

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