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Review of #SOCIAL MEDIA NONPROFIT Tweet

May 11, 2010 No comments

Janet Fouts, author of Social Media Success!, and Beth Kanter, author of The Networked Nonprofit, have recently collected a selection of ‘how to’ tweets related to social media and non-profits, and compiled them all in #SOCIAL MEDIA NONPROFIT tweet. I got a copy of the book yesterday, and it’s a quick read, as the authors’ intended, but chock full of inspiration.

A few of my favorites:

“Focus on sharing your cause. The money will follow.”

and

“Create a relationship first, and then ask for support.”

This is a great book for traveling, or if you’d like to see bite-size examples of successes in non-profit social media. Either way, I’m recommending this one, especially if you’re involved with a non-profit.

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Review of #SOCIAL MEDIA NONPROFIT Tweet

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Six ways to experiment with AdSense and grow your earnings

February 6, 2009 No comments

Welcome to our first-ever guest blog post on Inside AdSense. We’re thrilled to have none other than Blogging Evangelist himself, Darren Rowse, to share his expert tips on AdSense optimisation.

Darren first discovered blogging in 2002, and initially thought he’d turn it into a hobby to supplement his full-time job. These days, Darren runs a handful of successful blogs, his most popular being Digital Photography School, and has co-authored a book. He also posts regular tips and advice on ProBlogger.net, a respected and successful resource for bloggers around the world.

We recently caught up with Darren at his home office in Melbourne Australia, and asked him about his experience with Google AdSense.

October 4, 2003 is a date I’ll never forget – that was a day that my life changed. It was the day that I discovered AdSense and added it to my very first blog. I added that first advertisement to my blog on a whim, with what I thought was the lofty dream that I might be able to pay for my blogs hosting costs. Over 5 years later, those little text ads have paid my mortgage, fed my family, and enabled me to move my blogging from a hobby, to a part time job, to a full time job and beyond.

It’s not been an ‘overnight success’ by any means but as I’ve learned to use it, AdSense has been one of my highest online income streams.

My #1 Tip for Using AdSense

If I had to narrow my advice on using AdSense down to a single word it would be ‘experiment’. Let me explain.

That day back in October of 2003 I had no idea on what I was doing. The next day when I logged in to see how much I’d earned it was barely enough to buy me a coffee.

However, on that day I decided that those few dollars in earnings showed potential and I determined within myself to learn how best to use AdSense to grow that income. Almost everything I’ve learned since that day has been through trial and error.

It has been a long process of testing and tracking results. You see, while there are a few good home truths that seem to work on most sites, every website that I’ve used AdSense on is different. Some things work well on some sites, but it is rare to find something that will work on every site. As a result I tend to experiment with my use of AdSense in these six ways:

Ad Position – Most AdSense publishers have seen the neat little heat map that AdSense has produced to show where ads work best on websites. In general it works fairly well and is a great place to start, but make sure you experiment with new positions for ads and see what works best for your site.

Hint: Ads near (or even surrounded by) content have worked the best. I’ve also found ads at the end of content perform well. People get to the end of reading your article and then are looking for something to do or click — an ad positioned there can work well.
Numbers of Ads – More ads earn more than less ads… don’t they? Unfortunately it isn’t always the case.

Test different combinations and numbers of ad units on your site. There’s usually a ‘tipping point’ where you hit a ceiling of how many ads your users will accept — push it too far and you could hurt reader engagement, traffic, and in the long run your earnings. On the flip side of this, don’t be afraid to have more than one or two ads on a page, particularly if you have long pages with lots of content.
Ad Design – I can still see the first ads that I first used on my blog back in 2003. I can still see them because they fried their imprints into my retina — they were so LOUD!
I figured that the ads would do best if people noticed them so I went for the most crazy color scheme I could come up with. Over the years I began to experiment with different combinations of ads and found that more subtle or blended ads tended to work best for me. Having said that, you can sometimes blend too much, to the point that the ads become invisible to your reader. So test different colors and designs of ads to see which work best. Use the ad rotating tool that AdSense offer publishers to rotate different designs to work against ad blindness among regular readers.
Ad Sizes – AdSense offers us a range of different ad sizes, so experiment with them all to see which works best. Hint: Some might think that the bigger the ad the better it performs. This is not always true.
For example, I found that the ‘large rectangle’ ad (336 x 280) didn’t work as well for me as the smaller ‘medium rectangle’ ad (300 x 250). It turns out that more advertisers (at least those in my niche) prefer the medium rectangle ad as it’s a more standard ad unit size than the larger one. Again, the key is to experiment and see what works best for your site and niche.
Ad Formats – I’ve found that choosing image and text ads works better than just choosing text ads, but that’s not the only choice we get as AdSense publishers.
AdSense also allow us to run link units, AdSense for search, etc. I’ve found that each of these different formats will work differently from site to site. I’ve had blogs where the link unit ads were the best performing units on the site while on other sites it didn’t really perform at all. You’ll never know unless you test it!
Which Content Converts? – One of the best advances that AdSense has made in the last year has been the integration between it and Google Analytics. To be honest I’m still digging into the metrics that this opens up, but the insight that this gives has amazing potential to increase earnings.
By looking at this data you can see what type of content is converting and what isn’t. You can also see what type of traffic is converting and what isn’t. For example, I’ve found that search engine referrals are converting better than traffic from social media sites on one of my blogs. Knowing this is powerful as it tells you what type of ads to serve to what types of traffic, what type of promotion to put effort towards, and what type of content to write more of.

Test Track Test Track….

There are books, blogs, articles, forums, and other kinds of resources available to AdSense publishers to help them learn how to use AdSense better. However, in my experience the best way to learn is to ‘do’. Put time aside to try new things and then put more time aside to review what you learn.

But don’t leave it at that. When you learn something — test it against something else (do some research on A/B split testing to learn how to do this). This continual learning will help you to grow in your own expertise of AdSense and increase your earnings.

Posted by Darren Rowse – Blogging Evangelist and AdSense publisher

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Six ways to experiment with AdSense and grow your earnings

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101 Tips And Tricks For Ipods.

June 27, 2008 No comments

Tips, tricks and troubleshooting guide to getting the most from your ipod.

More here:
101 Tips And Tricks For Ipods.

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Business Books I’ve Been Reading

June 24, 2008 No comments

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been head down in some great books. The books I’m discussing today were the ones that really motivated me to post. One I bought, two were sent to me for review. For the rest of the books that I have received lately, I either have not gotten around to reading them yet (and I promise that I will) or I have decided not to post about them. Not saying anything if I can’t say something nice and all that…

The first one, Beyond Booked Solid, is a follow up to a book that was a huge success, Book Yourself Solid. After reading the follow-up, I can see why people bought the first book in such huge numbers. Michael Port has an engaging style and the book was an easy read, even though it was one of those books where you had to stop every now and then to complete an exercise. It was empowering, in that it really focuses on building a business that you will enjoy, not one that will necessarily make you as rich as Trump. However, there are plenty of nuggets in the book that will help you get to that mega-crazy rich status, if that’s what you desire. If you liked 4 Hour Work Week, you’ll love this book. Seriously, go buy it, it’s like $15.

Here’s the link on Amazon. Beyond Booked Solid: Your Business, Your Life, Your Way Its All Inside

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The next book, The Chic Entrepreneur: Put Your Business in Higher Heels, by Elizabeth Gordon and Leanna Adams, was also sent to me and I knew, from the moment I saw the cover, I was going to like it. The book’s style is fun and conversational, and I am not kidding that I read this book in like 2 days, it was so enjoyable. The book really focuses on women who’ve made it in their own way and how you can take their proven methods and get your own business just where you want it to be. Again, an inexpensive paperback, at $10, and one that should be on your must read list.

Amazon link. The Chic Entrepreneur: Put Your Business in Higher Heels

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The last book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, was written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research. I had planned on reading it, as I saw many of my friends online were reading it, but it wasn’t until I happened to attend a webinar on the book that I knew I had to buy it. See, in some cases, webinars do still work…

The book is good, but speaks on many things that I already know. However, the metrics in the book alone are worth the $20 price tag (it’s a hardback). Likewise, the case studies in this book are great and are helpful in understanding directly how community, social media and reviews/ratings can impact your brand. Highly recommended.

Amazon link. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies