Google Toolbar Tracks Your Movements
Posted by Mitch on Feb 4, 2010
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Do you have Google Toolbar installed on your browser? I do, and I have to admit that I find it as a convenience in two ways. One, I know I can click on the Google button and it’ll pull up the Google search page. Two, I also use Google Desktop, and the icon for it sits on the toolbar, easy to find.
One thing I’ve rarely done, however, is type my search term into the little box next to the button. I almost never think about it sitting there. What’s funny is that, as I look up there now, I see the search terms I typed into the actual Google window the last time I was there waiting for me, as if I’m going to type them in again. That’s a quick way to search for something; I wonder why I have rarely used it.
Turns out there might have been a good reason not to do it, and I was just lucky. It seems that every time you put a search term into that little window and click the button, you’re sending information to Google telling them what you’re searching for. They in turn use that information to try to target ads specifically to you based on where you live and what you’ve been searching for. They store this information away, waiting for the next time you use it so they can do more calculations, trying to figure you out.
It seems this has been written about often enough, but I’ve always missed it. The last article I saw comes from Mashable, where they found that even if you disable the tracking part of the toolbar it still continues to track your movements.
Of course, you can look at that and gripe, or you can decide to gripe about the issue of Adsense reducing its payments from 75% to 72% to its publishers, of which most of us are. Man, working on getting our money coming or going; how fair is that?
January Income Report – Changing For 2010
Posted by Mitch on Feb 1, 2010
I want to preface this report by saying that, for now, it’s going to be my last report. I have to admit that the numbers are disappointing to me these days, and they don’t seem worth reporting until they start getting much better. So, after this report, you won’t see this type of thing again until I have my first $500 month. And since I don’t see anything to indicate that could be coming up any time soon, it could be awhile before we get another one of these.
So, without further ado, here’s how things looked this month:
Adsense – $64.75
Infolinks – $22.50
Commission Junction – $20.50
Google Affiliate Network – $.90
Grand Total – $108.65
Once again, most of my money was earned via my medical billing site, but the money has gone down, somewhat being replaced by Infolinks. The CJ sale was another one time fluke, and the GAN sale was someone buying a DVD from Barnes & Noble through one of my links, that’s a pretty low percentage, isn’t it?
Here’s the thing. I’ve been giving more and more thought to income lately. Though I’ve said I don’t expect to make a lot of income from this blog because of its nature, it wouldn’t depress me to make something more than once a millenia. The same goes for my other sites as well. The basic ideas are twofold; one, you work on selling your own product, where you get to retain all proceeds from the sale, or two, you work on selling the products of others and accept your percentage from that.
Those are really the only two ways of making any real money online, though some folks will make big money off Adsense by having multiple websites. Frankly, I don’t see myself as a guy who will ever own more than 10 to 15 websites, period, and that could be pushing it. Hundreds of websites; no way! So, since I don’t see myself as a web mogul in that fashion, trying to earn more money through Adsense seems to be illogical. I’ll be happy with what I’m getting now and try to move onto other things.
For instance, the CJ products. That money above was for one lousy sale; if I could get more of those, life wouldn’t be all that depressing. Some of my advertisers market some fairly technical and pricey stuff. For instance, imaging the commission I would earn if someone decided to buy this HJ Namdar Diamond Ring; I’d be living large for a month. I’d be a happy camper if someone decided to purchase one of these World Imports chandeliers
also; stunning stuff.
But to get people to buy things like that, I really have to push the sale, market it well, and say some pretty good stuff about it. I’d also have to know it, and truthfully, I only know what I like to look at when it comes to jewelry, and my tastes in chandeliers only goes so far since many times I don’t even notice them (though I’d notice that one for sure). At least I’d feel like I’d have to know them if I were going to talk about them on a blog; if I set up product pages, I might not have to know as much.
Kind of like my sales page over there; I don’t have tons of products on it, as most of the deals are via banner links, but I easily could select products to push and, if there’s a code, indicate that there’s a timed sale of some sort. By the way, I’ve never gotten any feedback really on what people think of that type of sales page, the one next to me holding the parrot, which is always changing because the sales end and new sales come up. What do you think of something like that in general?
Anyway, onward and upward, as the saying goes. Let’s see what the financial future holds in store for me.
December Income Report – Something To Build On For 2010
Posted by Mitch on Jan 1, 2010
At least I can say that December was better than November. Actually, my December income was higher than October also, so maybe I should just shut up. But I really have to drastically increase these numbers in 2010, and I need to get it done quickly, though not necessarily through this blog. But this blog should be generating something, I figure, so some changes will be made.
First, the income numbers:
Adsense – $60.04
Commission Junction – $5.17
Infolinks – $14.84
Firetrust – $14.97
Voxant – $.01
Grand Total – $95.03
So, I made just under $100, which means I was under average for the year. This doesn’t bode well for my 2010 goals, but so be it; we all have to start somewhere, right?
First, you’re probably wondering where the income is from the book I helped promote, Beyond Blogging. I got one person who signed up under me as an affiliate, but that’s as far as it went. I don’t even know if anyone clicked on any of the links, to tell you the truth. All I know is that I didn’t make any sales, though I said I’d consider my part as being successful if there were even 3 sales. No problem; I’m still going to list the book over there on the side for awhile.
Second, I think it’s time for some physical changes to this blog on how I’m advertising things. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do, but I do know that some of the affiliate ads you see now will be removed. There will still be a product or link of some kind at the end of each post, with more products than in the past, and more links to products within a post if something fits. Unfortunately, products don’t always have anything to do with the post, and I’m not going to try to be conscious enough to do that because, well, that just ain’t me. I also want to concentrate on finding more ways of driving traffic to my products, which you see here, but I know that I’m going to have to change up those sales pages to draw more visitors from search engines as well.
Third, I know I’m going to do something with both my Reviews of Everything and Services & Stuff sites, where I’m going to create more sales pages within both of those. My Reviews site will have reviews of some of the affiliate programs I have, since I know something about many of them, and when I review a product, I’m going to make sure to only advertise that product on a page. That will make a lot more sense than what I’ve previously done.
Fourth, my medical billing site is still my biggest Adsense producer, while my anti-smoking site has generated almost nothing, but my medical billing site used to generate way more money than it is now. I’m not sure if Infolinks has taken away from that, but one would hope that the two together would at least equal what I was making before.
No matter. I have big financial goals for my online activities this year, and I figure that my January report has to show at least an increase of 50% over this month to even make me think I have a chance on increasing finances. What you can still believe in, though, is that I still won’t be writing any paid posts, that I won’t be recommending anything I haven’t checked out first, and that I’ll be telling y’all what the heck I’m doing while trying to move forward.
And with that, onward and upward!
November Income Report – Going Backwards
Posted by Mitch on Dec 2, 2009
When I posted my October income report, I really thought that was about as far back as I could possibly go. Well, I was wrong. This month’s income is even worse, and I have to admit that I don’t have high hopes for December at this juncture.
First, the numbers; short indeed:
Adsense – $50.62
Google Affiliate Network – $3.07
Infolinks – $7.90
If there’s any bonus for the month, it’s the strong jump in income from Infolinks. What I decided to do early in November is add it to my Medical Billing Answers site on a trial basis. Seems it’s working, and I’m going to leave it there for now. I also decided to add it to my Smoke Not So Much site as well, but that site generated almost nothing. However, that site did generate its first Adsense money in November, so maybe it’s close to being ready to start generating something positive.
I guess the good news is that I’ll be getting an Adsense check at the end of the month; who-hoo! I probably need to figure out a better way to drive people to my sales page, which is highlighted by me holding that parrot on the right, as well as figure out how to drive more people to my other sales pages, if I’m going to continue doing this stuff. At least this blog sent 6 people there in November, Commission Junction should be bringing in nice money; I know I’m doing it all wrong, though.
And that’s that; let’s see what the final month of our first decade in the 21st century has in store for me.
Problems Getting Into Google Adsense Account
Posted by Mitch on Oct 7, 2009
So, just what is it with Google anyway?
Every once in awhile, I’ve had problems getting into my Adsense account. It will tell me that I have a Google Adsense account and to log into it, but it just doesn’t work.
Once again, tonight I’m having that same problem, and it’s irking me to no end. Usually after a few tries at it it’ll pop back and start doing right, although I have no idea what I’ve done. This time, it’s just not letting me in at all.
I went to the Google page and saw where, it seems, there’s a lot of people complaining about it this time around. Google says they’re working on it, but Google is one of those sites where they don’t often answer people’s questions. Kind of like how some of us complain about big time bloggers never responding to comments on their blogs. It reminds me of putting in my request to get my page rank back, knowing that they’ll never write me to tell me if I get it back or not, just that it’ll either show up one day or it won’t.
But not being able to get into my Adsense account is problematic. I can’t check my revenue. I can’t change any of my ads, nor add any new ads. Basically, I can’t do anything, and that stinks as much as the first week of August when I, and many other people, weren’t generating much revenue, if any at all, without any explanations from Google.
Anyone else having this problem tonight? Man, I hate when my money is being messed with. This stinks, so I need to take steps to get rid of the stink. What do you think about my ad below?
Update – I finally found a workaround for this issue. It seems Google is doing something with the logins and acknowledges that they’ve messed up; in their own way, of course. So, the workaround is to log in, and if you get something telling you to go back and log in again click on this link and it’ll take you there:
https://www.google.com/adsense/login3
Update 2 – You know, Google’s just messing up these days. The above fix worked only for a day. Then they came out with a new messages saying to go to this site, https://www.google.com/accounts, change your password, and all will work again. I went ahead and did that, and it’s working once more. I hope this is it.
How To Know If Your SEO Is Working
Posted by Mitch on Feb 27, 2009
Since this is about to be my third post, I guess I can officially call this a series on SEO, my first official series of 2009.
There are lots of people who write about SEO, search engine marketing for the uninitiated, and there are lots of tips given. Heck, I gave five tips myself, as well as talked about how multiple web pages can help your efforts on your regular website. So, in one way, I’m like a lot of other people.
But in another, I am my own man. In this case, I’m going to tell you something that I’m not sure anyone else will tell you, another tip if you will, that I know I’ve never read anywhere else, but it’s possibly out there.
One of the questions that may be out there for some folks who aren’t quite up to snuff on SEO is how one knows it’s working. For some, SEO is only working if their websites or webpages are in the top 10 on Google. Since there’s a big world of websites and blogs out there, making sure everything you do ends up in the top 10 is a daunting task. If that’s the only standard for everyone then there’s going to be a lot of people thinking they’re doing a bad job.
So, here’s an easier way, and all it takes is Google Adsense. Yup, that’s what I said, Adsense. Google has set Adsense up so that it’s supposed to bring up ads that are related to the content on your webpage. If you’re checking your main blog page, which will usually show multiple articles in some fashion, you may not be getting exactly what you’re hoping for, which will happen if you write on multiple areas of a topic. However, if you check individual posts, you should notice that the advertisements showing on Adsense are related to what your post is about. As a sidebar, you might have to sign out of your account to see the ads from the point of view of your visitors.
I decided to look back through my last 20 posts to see what came up on Adsense. I used IE, since it’s not my main browser, and therefore I’m not signed into it, to view them. Out of those 20 posts, 17 of them are optimized properly. Well, let’s define that; there were 3 posts on blogging, so my ads were about blogging, and I guess that’s standard. On my blog, whenever ads don’t quite match up to what I’m writing about, Adsense shows posts on either blogging or Adsense; I wonder how much Google pays itself when their own ads show. 
Anyway, if I wanted to, I could go back and change the language of my posts somewhat, or maybe add something different into my All In One SEO Pack, to see if that might change some things up eventually. Or I could just move on, because, let’s face it, we all hopefully know that not every single one of our articles is going to knock the ball out of the proverbial SEO ballpark (that’s a baseball reference, for those who aren’t from the U.S. and may not understand the reference). Sometimes, it’s best to move on and work on the newer stuff, or maybe, if the article was a particularly close one to your heart, then do something with it.
Anyway, that’s a quick down and dirty way to check your SEO. Give it a shot and see if your SEO efforts are working; that is, if you’re giving it any effort. 
Even The Big Time Marketers Make Mistakes Sometimes
Posted by Mitch on Apr 18, 2008
It would seem that, sometimes, even the big boys, the ones who really know what they’re doing, might make a misstep.
I subscribe to a weekly newsletter written by a lady named Lynn Terry called Self Starter Weekly Tips, which gives tips on internet marketing; I’m always trying to learn more from someone who’s already there.
A couple of days ago, she sent out a newsletter promoting the new book by Joel Comm (perfect name for an internet marketer, don’t you think?), a big time internet marketer who’s knows as the “Adsense Guy”. He’s known by this name because he is probably the first guy to become a millionaire by using Adsense.
Anyway, in one of her emails, she mentioned that he had a new book out, and that, instead of charging what he normally does, which is around $97, he was having a major league sale and only charging $9.95. Heck, this sounded like a great deal to me, so I clicked on the link and went to the page so I could check it out. And it looked pretty good, I have to say. However, I’d had an experience with something else I’d purchased from his site many months ago, where I had inadvertently been signed up for something on a monthly basis, and didn’t notice it on my bill until I couple of months later. Seems you get automatically enrolled in one of his special programs that they don’t charge you for in the first 30 days, then hit you up with the fee afterwards. So I went looking through all the add-on deals, and there it was, plain as day.
I decided to pass on the deal. Sure, you can cancel at any time, but I have all sorts of things going on, and I didn’t want to take any chances of something happening like it did the last time.
Yesterday Lynn sends out a follow up email mentioning this very thing, which she indicates that she herself had missed. And she had a link to her blog so that we could all read more about it. I decided to go there, and saw how some people had commented on the topic. I also noticed that Joel himself has joined in the fray, which I think is kind of neat because one wouldn’t expect a big time internet marketer to pop onto someone else’s blog to defend himself.
Still, he’s having to defend himself, and he’s taking a lot of heat because of the way he’s set this thing up. And I’m kind of surprised by it; not that people are complaining, but that this interaction keeps occurring, and that someone who’s supposedly as savvy as Joel wouldn’t just think about pulling that particular “offer” after seeing how many people are angry about it. Of course he has a defenders, people who have purchased other products and services from him, but they’re in the minority, and they’re also missing the part.
People don’t like add-ons that could possibly cost them money later on, especially when they don’t know about it. We don’t mind joining membership sites, but we really like it to be our choice. Also, the sales page is extremely long, and if you’re not someone who regularly reads all of the copy on pages like that, you’d have missed it because it was almost all the way at the bottom, the very last thing mentioned as a “giveaway”. It’s not in small print, but it might as well have been.
So, even the big boys make a misstep every once in awhile; I feel a little bit better this evening.
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