You may have noticed I recently installed the DISQUS Commenting system across The Free Advertising Blog, Top Affiliate Marketing Blog and here.  This is a pretty robust commenting plugin with some builtin social network marketing capability (ie. Twitter and CoComment).

With one DISQUS account I can add all my blogs and manage their comments within one central repository.  No more creating profiles for every site under the sun to get your message out to the broadest audience possible.  If you're running a number of blogs the ease of management using DISQUS can save you a great deal of time

Installation is a snap too.  I use WordPress across all of my blogs and the DISQUS plugin is just as easy to install as any other WordPres plugin.  More to come on customizing this commenting system in the future.

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Early this month Google released a beta version of the new Google Adsense interface for selected publishers.  The Google AdSense Team reports that the new Google Adsense interface provides:

• Comprehensive performance reports: View your daily stats in graph format, and gain insight into new metrics such as the amount you're earning from different ad types, targeting types, and bid types.
• Quicker account maintenance: We've streamlined the process for a number of common tasks to help you get things done more quickly. Whether you're trying to update your contact information or make a change to a number of ad units at the same time, you'll find that these types of tasks require fewer clicks and less account navigation than before.
• Prominent help links: There's now help content available on every page, so you'll be able to quickly find answers to your questions while navigating through your account.
• Easier access to online resources: Visit the redesigned Resources page, where you can find the latest content from the Inside AdSense blog, our YouTube channel, and our Twitter account, all within your own account.

So far I like the new look and added analytical features.  Here's a visual look under the hood of the new Google Adsense interface:

It took some getting used navigating around in the backoffice but it works for me.  So what do you think of the new Google Adsense interface?

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Ahh, the joys of being a small business owner or vendor when everybody wants a "break" or a "special deal" on your product/service.  Yes, at some point in our life we've all been "That" customer. 

There is a fine line between negotiating a fair price for a product/service (like the 2010 Ducati 1198 S for $21,795 I'm trying to get a better deal on)  and trying to gouge a vendor for the product/service they provide.  Nowadays, especially in these trying economic times, vendors are afraid to stand by their price structure because of a singular misconception:

"If I refuse to negotiate my price, I'll lose all my customers."

I think this is completely backwards.  When a reputable vendor stands behind their product or service 110% they garner my complete respect..  For me confidence is everything when it comes to selecting a vendor for just about anything I'm working on from logos, and web designs, to custom coding and more.  The more confidence you exude in your product/service the higher the perceived value of your product/service will be in the eyes of your potential customers.

Sure, there are obviously times when negotiating a fair price with your customers is necessary, but only if it's beneficial to you.  After all, the only reason you're even in business is to make money. 

So stand your ground vendors!  Be confident and assertive because no customer will ever feel slighted by a price that is reasonable and relative to the perceived value of the product/service.

Now please enjoy the below video for a humorous parody of 'The Vendor Client Relationship'.

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OK fellow online marketers I have a question to ask you. If you were given $20,000 to start a new online business from scratch what would be your approach?

Over the years a lot has been said about starting a successful online business from scratch. However, this often excluded those individuals who already have a sizeable amount of upfront capital to start with and want to hit the proverbial ground running.

Would you:

• Invest it in PPC campaigns…
• Have a new product created…
• Outsource mass unique content creation…
• Setup up a blog empire…

Let’s assume this entrepreneur has a basic understanding of PPC, SEM, SEO, Affiliate Marketing, etc.

What would you do?

Post your comments right here and if you wish to remain anonymous no biggie. I’m very interested in hearing what the professional marketing community would do with $20,000.

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What is social marketing? In a nutshell, it is the process of making positive changes in a population through the marketing strategies usually used by commercial companies.  The positive changes may be anything from reduced smoking rates to conserving ecological resources.

In a world where even third world children recognize Ronald McDonald, it’s easy to see how populations could be made healthier, smarter, and better citizens through commercial influence.  A good example of social marketing can be seen in the “public service” announcements now seen on television.  Between reality shows and cereal commercials, Americans are beseeched to vote on election day or to eat more vegetables.  The hope is that the public can be convinced to make socially conscious choices the same way they are influenced to buy certain brands of food and clothing.

But how new is social marketing?  Although it is often touted as a new concept, it has actually been around for centuries.  The difference is that when we don’t endorse the cause being socially marketed, we call it ‘propaganda’.  Take, for instance, the posters tacked to every flat surface during both World Wars asking healthy young men to join the military.  Consider Adolph Hitler’s use of the radio and written media to market his beliefs to the wartime Germans.  Both examples qualify as classic social marketing, although most people no longer approve of the subject matter.

The basic steps of a successful social marketing are the same as those for traditional, consumer marketing.

1. Choose a tangible goal. For a corporation, the goal would likely be increased sales of a determined amount.  In social marketing, the goal might be, for example, to encourage a higher percentage of the local population to have their children vaccinated.

2. Analyze the market.  In our immunization scenario, the ‘market’ would be the population that is not inoculating their children.  The marketing campaign would be most successful if the social marketers know basic demographic information about these families such as race, income, geographic location, and education level.

3. Research and test the marketing materials on the desired demographic.  This could be done through focus groups, informal surveys of the population, or larger scale studies.  The product may have to be modified several times to produce a more effective package of marketing materials.

4. Determine the venue of marketing. If you were marketing to a highly literate population, newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines would be good venues for marketing. In the immunization example, the target population would be parents of young children, and thus good venues might be commercial spots during children television shows or brochures left in local pediatricians’ waiting rooms.

5. Place and promote the product.  In this step, the tested marketing materials are placed in the appropriate marketing venues.  Although this is the step most people picture when they think of marketing, it is only a small part of the overall process.

6. After a set amount of time, analyze the results.  In our vaccination example, public health officials could analyze the change in immunization rates following the marketing campaign.  An increase would make the campaign a success, while stagnant or decreasing rates would indicate failure.

7. If necessary, the campaign would be modified, reconfigured, and re-marketed.  However, because the goal is to get the target population to accept certain behavior, a truly successful social marketing campaign would mean that no more marketing of the issue is needed.  If the parents in our immunization example had dramatically improved their immunization rates and truly embraced the idea of vaccination, they would not need further convincing.

It’s important to consider in social marketing that there is a reason the behavior has not already been embraced.  The reasons may include a lack of knowledge, lack of finances, lack of time, or perceived negative effects. In the immunization example, the cause could be side effects of immunization or a lack of education about the role they play in disease control.  It is crucial that all objections to the socially desired behavior be addressed to the audience’s satisfaction.

The classic “4 P’s” of marketing can clearly be seen in the above example:  Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion.  The product is immunization, the price is perceived side effects, the placement is the venue, and the promotion is the ads and brochures themselves.  Social marketing mimics commercial marketing because in our advertisement laden world, social causes truly are just one more product being sold.  The most important goal of social marketers, and the one made most difficult by traditional marketing practices, is setting causes above and apart from the constant bombardment of marketing.  This truly will be the social marketing challenge of the new millennium.

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Whether you have had a blog for years or are thinking about starting one, there are many ways to make money blogging.

Get A Blog

If you don't have a blog yet, the first step is to start one.  One of the easiest blogs to set up is a Blogger blog http://www.blogger.com. Bought by Google in 2002, they strive to make the experience easy and the sites made are easily searchable by Google and they are free. If you get to the point where you would like to do more customizing than possible at Blogger, try TypePad for about $50 a year.

Buy A Catchy Domain Name

When a blog is hosted by a blogging software, it is given a rather long name, such as www.thebestblog.blogger.com. To shorten the name and make it more catchy, buy your chosen domain name at GoDaddy.com for about eight dollars a year and set it up to mask the longer name, so that www.thebestblog.blogger.com becomes www.thebestblog.com.

Write With Authority

Start honing your writing skills by posting everyday. Everyone has something they are passionate about, whether it is raising beagles or buying photography books. If you love something enough to write about it, you can guarantee that others out there will be into the same thing. Be specific and don't be scared to be personal- people will want to get to know you too.

Start to Make Money Blogging

Now, we get to the part on how to make money blogging. There are many ways to do it and you should pick the one that most fits your subject and doesn't compromise your integrity.

Advertise Yourself

In many fields today, having a blog makes your supporters feel more connected to what you are doing. Bestselling author Nick Hornby has blog where he writes about the state of his various projects so fans know when to head to the bookstore. While you might not be a bestselling author, people are still interested in you and your process. They will keep up to date on any shows you have or track things you have for sale. A great example of commerce and blogs blending is Etsy, www.etsy.com, where you can sell one of a kind items. In their success stories, most of the successful sellers have blogs that detail what they are making and how.

Relevant Contextual Ads

Advertisers have been interested in blogs since the onset. Many of the first ads were big and unrelated to any of the site's content and were very distracting. With Google AdSense distracting is not an issue, as AdSense scans the site content and posts related ads, similar to the way gmail puts ads in the sidebar. In addition to google Adsense is Chitika.  Chitika is the leading blog advertising company with a network of thousands of blogs/websites and hundreds of name brand advertisers and merchants.  Highly recommended!  Most bloggers using ads report earning anywhere from $30 to $5000 a month.

Become an Affiliate for a Relevant Product or Service

Many blog topics lend themselves to talking about merchandise, from camera and computer talk about equipment to reviews of books to niche topics.  To reward those who talk about stuff, Amazon set up one of the first affiliate programs on the web, http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join.  Just keep posting and any time an item is mentioned that can be purchased from Amazon, have them generate a link with or without a picture which refers back to their site. For every purchase from these referrals, you can earn up to 15% of the purchase. Amazon is just one of thousands of affiliate programs you can join.  I personally prefer to join affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Shareasale and Linkshare to peruse potential products to promote from my blogs.

Books And Calendars From Blogs

If your blog is original and funny, at some point, a forwarding-happy emailer will probably find it and then the world will know about it. These sites then get seen by book publishers and entrepreneurs and get turned into merchandise. Two good examples are the addictive and heart warming Cute Overload, http://www.cuteoverload.com/, which posts sugary-sweet pictures of all things small and furry, which now has a best selling calendar on Amazon. Another example is Stuff White People Like, http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/, which simply list things white people like, such as bumper stickers and New Balance shoes, and writes about them in a funny manner. Rather than publishing old posts from their site, the book is filled with all original content.

Become A Celebrity Yourself

I'm not a fan but one of the most famous bloggers is Perez Hilton, born Mario Lavandeira, who with www.PerezHilton.com changed celebrity blogging forever. His signature style is doodling on celebrity photos and often posting catty remarks and picking on his least favorite celebrities, like Jessica Alba. Still, he gets the scoop faster than anyone and Perez posts non-stop throughout the day. Many celebrities have admitted to checking out his site more than once a day. Perez is now a pseudo celebrity himself and lives solely off the advertising revenue from his site and his appearances on television and radio. These methods are a start on how to make money blogging. Remember, write about something you are passionate about and the money will follow. Happy posting!

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Google Adsense has just rolled out their new advertising platform, Google Adsense Video Units, via the #1 video sharing site YouTube. After Googles $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube back in October 2006 it is no surprise Google is looking to heavily profit from their purchase.

Below is an example of a 400X415 Google Adsense Video Unit. They can also be deployed in 500×510 and 780×560 dimensions.

As you’ll notice above companion and text overlay ads are relevant and flow seamlessly into the video content. You can also blend your Google Adsense Video Unit into your site with some pre-fabricated player skins. As with Adsense you can have relevant videos automatically targeted to your site content, choose specific ad categories to target your site or select content from individual YouTube partners.

I LIKE IT. I’ll be experimenting with Google Adsense Video on some of my future site deployments. Everybody loves videos. I think targeted Google Adsense Video Units, that match what your site visitors are searching for, should see a decent CTR but only time will tell. Go experiment!

Technorati Tags: google adsense video, video sharing, youtube, video content, site content, ctr, google

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I have more domains hanging in limbo than I care to develop…for the moment. Sound familiar? With over 100 domain names in my portfolio it will easily take me the next year or so to actually develop them into fully functional web sites….But that’s OK.

It’s OK because I use a domain name web hosting service called WhyPark. WhyPark advertises themselves as a domain parking service but they’re really a domain name web hosting service.

WhyPark has enabled me to generate a consistent passive revenue stream with a minimal amount of time or effort. They basically do all the work for me beside web site promotion and they let me keep ALL of the revenue generate from parked domain names.

Here’s how it works:

1. You sign up with the WhyPark domain parking service for $99.95 which allows you to host up to 100 domains at WhyPark.com. This is a one-time payment. If you have an abundance of domains this is obviously a NO BRAINER.
2. Log into your domain name registrar and switch your primary and secondary name servers over to NS1.WHYPARK.COM and NS2.WHYPARK.COM. This simply points your domain over to WhyParks servers. *Note: I use GoDaddy.com as my preferred domain name registrar but there are many other reputable companies such as www.dotster.com and www.networksolutions.com to choose from.
3. Time to research some good long tail keywords for your domain name. Generally speaking try to use three word combinations or more for your WhyPark domains. An excellent free resource to use for keyword research is the Digital Point Keyword Selection Tool. Additional keyword research tools I recommend using are WordTracker.com and NicheBot.com
4. Paste your Adsense, Yahoo Publisher, Adbrite, affiliate offers, etc. into the pre-configured header, footer and sidebar portions of your site. No worries, WhyPark allows you to customize your themes via CSS or add your own custom theme so ad placement is really up to you. Here’s an example of one of my WhyPark domains:
   
5. Log into Google Webmaster Tools and add your WhyPark generated sitemap.

That’s really about all there is to it. I’ve tried many domain parking services such as SEDO and Afternic but none of them compare to the revenue and page rank I generate from using WhyPark.

Technorati Tags: domain name web hosting, whypark, domain web hosting, domain name hosting, domain parking, domain name for sale, domain parking services

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Widgets, widgets everywhere and not a one to keep. Seriously. How many sidebar widgets are you currently running on your blog? Too many probably.

As an online marketer I’m constantly scouring the NET looking for the latest and greatest technologies, widgets, etc. to optimize my websites and blogs with…but in the long run do widgets like MyBlogLog, BlogRush, etc. really offer any value to YOU and YOUR online marketing efforts?

With the whole “Web 2.0″ moniker still on everyone’s lips, it’s all too easy to get caught up mindlessly widgetizing ones blog. Unfortunately web aesthetics, accessibility and user friendliness seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Let’s be serious for a minute. At the end of the day, as online marketers, we blog to make money. Period. So why bother filling up your sidebar with worthless widgets that do not produce revenue, add to load times and all too often generate worthless page views with no user interactivity?

Sure, I do believe there are some good widgets out there that actually do enhance the usability and aesthetics of your blog. However, at least for me, widgetizing is just a waste of space.

I think maybe it’s time to start cleaning up some of my blogs and get back to the basics of online marketing: K.I.S.S.

What about you?

Technorati Tags: widgets, widgetizing, sidebar widgets, mybloglog, blogrush, online marketing, online marketer, blog, blogging, web aesthetics, accessibility, user friendliness, web 2.0, make money, revenue, page views

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