Monetize - Part 4

BuySellAds: Faster and Better(Show ads vertically with a click)

We all know that internally Google is thinking of considering site loading speed as one of the criteria for ranking the website. Apart form that, faster loading sites are key for grabbing user attention.

BuySellAds has come up with an innovative idea of making the javascript ad codes asynchronous(as they call it).

When any browser downloads the ad code that displays the ads, it blocks everything else on the page from rendering. And, while this process may take less than a second of the user’s time, it is noticeable and it is a big problem.

You can read more at BSA blog.

It is frustrating some times, when my visitors have to wait for the ads to load before they could see the entire page. Now I am happy as BSA is taking every effort to minimize that wait time. Infact, what I understand by reading their blog post, is that, with the new ad codes implemented visitors need not wait. i.e., the javascript codes as well as the other elements of the page load simultaneously. Thats great. So from now, we need not compromise user experience for making some pocket money(of course which is used for paying hosting and other expenses – coffee included!)

Faster is Ok, but I said “Better” in the title? It is because, a known issue for BSA publishers is alignment of the ads(problem with vertical alignment of ads). Now BSA has made it simpler. i.e., if we have implemented the new ad codes, now we can log into our BSA a/c, click on get code and make changes(make ads align vertical) and hit SAVE and the settings will be applied to the ad boxes on our site…..isn’t it better?

Additionally, you can even style your ads from within the BSA a/c – see below screen shot.

Previously we had to add float: left; to the a tag of the code. But people with no css knowledge what so ever, found it very geeky/confusing. So now, alignment of ads isn’t a problem with BSA ads.

If you had made any custom changes to the styling of your old code, then you need to add those changes to the new codes by applying them in the advance settings area in your BSA a/c.

Update:

To Show ads: 2 horizontal and the rest aligned vertically, you need to uncheck the vertical checkbox, and add float: left; to Anchor Style in the Advanced Settings of your BSA a/c. And don’t forget to SAVE the settings!

I highly recommend you to grab the new ad codes and make your site load faster.

Guide To Make Money Via Twitter: We Hate Spam Too!

First of all, let me make it clear – I am not here to suggest you or convince you to start using your Twitter account to scatter some sponsored ads and make loads of money from it.
A single rule of thumb be – “Provide Value to Your Followers.”

First of all, let me make it clear – I am not here to suggest you or convince you to start using your Twitter account to scatter some sponsored ads and make loads of money from it.

I am here to suggest some of the ways you can make money without annoying/hurting your followers.

My simple excuse for trying this service!
If you have used a product/service and satisfied with it, and if you get to tweet about the same product/service, then why not?

With so much of buzz about Making Money using Twitter, many people will be eager to know whether its just a hype or something worth while.

With this in mind, I started researching and testing some of the sponsored tweet services.

My official Twitter ID is @technotip and I tested sponsored tweets with my brand new Twitter a/c @thinkwithsatish

I got 2000+ followers in matter of days using twitfever.com. This is an online tool designed by Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com.
I suggest you to visit the website(even if you don’t want), and signup for the newsletter there. You will get a valuable Twitter course for Free.

Sponsored Tweet Service:
There are lot of websites which promise to make you rich, but never show up with a sponsored tweet again! I personally tested many of these websites(with my unofficial Twitter a/c @thinkwithsatish ) and here are some of the websites, from where you will get maximum value for your tweets(will add more websites to the list, after testing and retesting).

1. Adly: Calculates and shows how much you can expect to earn from 1 tweet.
2. SponsoredTweets
3. My Likes: This one is for most of us. You get a list of sponsored tweets, you can select the one you like, and tweet it or post on your blog. And you will receive money when someone clicks on those sponsored ads. Simple. The advantage is, even people will small number of followers can also participate and make money. Now the exciting thing! Payouts are fixed to as low as $2. Yes, you read it right. And the payment will be made once in a week i.e., on each Friday. You can almost get paid each week.

There are many more such services, but I suggest not to get distracted with any low paying services. Use only those services which you think will satisfy your followers and your pocket! ( I mean, provide best value to your tweets. )

All these websites have a market place where advertisers will select a particular group of twitterers to spread their message. In order to get more sponsors you need to maintain a good conversion rate stats, otherwise you will not get more sponsors. If you think of long term, then engage your followers and make sure that your tweets get some attention(in the distracting busy timeline of your followers).

And make sure to enter the interest area of the sponsored tweets(using keywords), so that only those tweet requests which you think would be a best suit for your target audience/followers will show up to you.

Caution: At times, when you start getting more sponsors, hence more money out of your Tweets, don’t be tempted to go the spammers way to make money. Stick on to your policies and make sure that you don’t annoy your followers by endorsing crap product/service.

A single rule of thumb be – “Provide Value to Your Followers.”

Disclaimer: I am not using my official Twitter a/c( @technotip ) for tweeting sponsored ads, thinking that it may disappoint my followers. As I said above, I used a brand new Twitter a/c( @thinkwithsatish ) to test all these. So using the above services is solely at your discreet.

Setting Up Adsense for Domain

With the launch of Adsense for Domain, people with a lot of domain have stared making some money out of their undeveloped websites!

People with 1 or 2 domains may not see any significant earnings. But there are people with almost 300 to 500 domains and they will surly make some good money, if not a living out of it!

Many people having spare domains mailed me asking for the procedure to add their domain to adsense for domain. Google itself provides a very good general step-by-step instruction to setup Adsense for Domain and instructions for some famous registrars. If you have registered your domain with any of the below registrars, then its best to read Google’s guide. Here is the list:
1. GoDaddy
2. Enom
3. Moniker
4. Register.com
5. 1and1
6. Network Solutions
7. Yahoo! Small Business
8. My Domain
9. Domain Direct
10. Name.com

If you have registered your domain with Dream Host, then here are some steps you need to follow:

1. Log into your DreamHost account.
2. In the leftside side bar, look for the Main Menu. Click on the Domains option and then on Manage Domains.
3. Now you can see these things.. “Domain”, “Registration”, “Web Hosting”, “Secure Hosting”, “Email”, “Actions”. You need to click on the Delete button present in the 3rd column i.e., below “Web Hosting” option. This is a mandatory step and you are not allowed to modify/edit the CNAME of your present domain without deleting this.
4. Now click on the DNS option in the first column, under Domain.
5. By default, Name Servers will be pointing to ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com ns3.dreamhost.com. Do not alter this.
6. In the “Add a custom DNS record to yourdomainname.com:”. Enter www in the Name field, select CNAME in the Type field and put pub-xxxxxxxxx.afd.ghs.google.com. (where pub-xxxxxxxxx is your unique ID listed on the AdSense setup page) in the Value field. Click on Add Record Now.

7. After successfully adding the CNAME, we need to add four A records, which is similar to that of adding CNAME.
Under “Add a custom DNS record to yourdomainname.com:” Leave the Name field blank. In the Type field select “A” and in the Value field put 216.239.32.21.

8. Follow step 7 and in the Value field put 216.239.34.21
9. Follow step 7 and in the Value field put 216.239.36.21
10. Follow step 7 and in the Value field put 216.239.38.21

11. Now log into your adsense account Click on AdSense Setup –> AdSense for Domains –> Add New Domains. In “Add Individual Domains” Enter your domain name(s), separated by commas, or each domain on a new line (max 100 domains allowed). Select English(recommended) as Language for your domain(s). Click on Add Domain button.

12. Select the domain you added and in the Action drop down menu select Re-check Domain.

That’s it, if you have done all these simple steps and if Adsense team wants to approve your domain, your adsense for Domain website will be active after some time(max of 24hrs).

I am not sure about the reasons why Google would not allow a particular domain from participating in Adsense for Domain. Here are some of my guesses:
1. Your domain names must not be a word which is copy right protected by someother famous brand/product/service.
2. If you have sexuality related words.
3. If you have drug related word.
4. Offensive and hate related words.
5. Hacking and cracking related words etc.

If you have a .com extension domain name of any famous website, which uses some other domain extensions(.net, .info, .org etc) then you may get good traffic and income! or else it will just be a small additional pocket money and nothing else. Better than nothing, Adsense for Domain is a good product to be utilized.

Please share your thoughts in the comment section. Have you used Adsense for Domain? Are you planing to use it? How is it working for you?

Change the font face of the text in adsense ad units

Adsense ads have worked great when we blend the ads according to the look and feel of our website.
Examples:-
1. Change the background colour of the ad unit to the background colour of your blog.
2. Use the font colour of the text in the ad similar to that on your blog.
3. Change the colour of the links in the ad to match the colour of the links on your blog.

These simple tweaks will optimize the ad zone.

Now to add to this blending and optimization, Adsense team has released yet another cool feature to our control. i.e., Changing the font face of the ad unit.

In HTML and XHTML, a font face or font family is the typeface that is applied to some text.
Ex:-
<font face="times, serif">Sample text.</font>

Adsense publishers are now allowed to choose between Arial, Times, and Verdana font faces. Please note that while font options will appear in every account, they’ll currently only be applied to ad units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters. Latin-based languages include:

* Croatian
* Czech
* Danish
* Dutch
* English (U.S. and U.K.)
* Finnish
* French
* German
* Hungarian
* Indonesian
* Italian
* Norwegian
* Polish
* Portuguese
* Romanian
* Slovak
* Spanish
* Swedish
* Turkish
So if your blog/website is written in some other language(other than listed above) then custom font face will not work and the default[‘Standard AdSense font family’] font face is shown on such sites[Ex:- Ads on pages mainly in Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian, among others, will not be shown in custom fonts].

You can use this feature to your advantage in two ways:
1. If you’d like to quickly change the font settings for every ad unit generated from your account, visit the ‘Ad Display Preference‘ section of your Account Settings page to select a new account-wide font face. This will affect all units you’ve created in the past.
font-face-adsense

2. You can also change the font of individual ad unit while creating new ad units.

If you want to change the font face of already existing ad units, goto AdSense Setup tab –> Manage Ads now click on the “Edit Ad settings” of the corresponding ad, that you want to edit. You can find a section called “Font“, which is ment to change the font face of that ad unit.
font-face-adsense

If you apply “Arial” font globally to all your adsense ads, then also you can over write it(for individual ad units) by changing the settings in “Manage Ads” –> “Edit Ad settings” of individual ad units and you can show “Verdana” fonts for a particular ad unit. Other ads will still be showing Arial font, except the one you changed to “Verdana”.

From many days we have been seeing Adsense team testing different font face on our blogs. So Arial, Times, and Verdana font faces have worked well so far in the testing, so adsense team have decided to allow its publishers to select between these font faces.

So when will they give the control over font size ? Hope that would be an ultimate thing to optimize the ad unit.
Actually this feature was/is available to Adsense premium publishers from long time, its good to see adsense rolling many good features to all its publishers. These small features will surely help make more money to all publishers….and Google too!

Adsense for Domain Now Available to all Publishers

Adsense for Domain is now Available to almost all Adsense Publishers..if not, then they are busy rolling it to you.

What is AdSense for domains?
AdSense for domains allows publishers with undeveloped domains to help users by providing relevant information including ads, links and search results rather than see empty pages or “page not found” errors.

If you have undeveloped domains, then AdSense for domains can help you make some income. To get started, visit your adsense account and click on “AdSense Setup” and then on “AdSense for Domains”, and follow the instruction.

Previously AdSense for domains was only available for people with huge portfolios(large number of domains, with high traffic). With the opening of adsense for domain to all adsense publishers, even if you have 1 or 2 domains laying around you will now be able to monetize it with adsense.

adsense-for-domain
Never think that you can make a living out of monetizing your undeveloped domains, even if you are having hundreds of domains to monetize. Its good enough if it earns you some good income so that you pay the yearly domain registration charges.
But if you have a already popular domain with TLD (extension) .org or .net etc and if you park the same domain with .com extension, then chances are there that many of your visitors may landup at the .com domain by mistake and you may start seeing more earnings from the parked domain.
For example:
When Darren Rowse started blogging at problogger.net and established a great readership and a huge traffic to his blog, problogger.com had no content(it was an undeveloped domain), yet it ranked very high in Alexa and was receiving a lot of traffic. In such a case if the .com domain is monetized with adsense for domain, then it will yield more income! –> Just an example to clarify. Darren bought problogger.com domain and redirected it to problogger.net later.

Nevertheless, adsense for domains is by far the best way to monetize your undeveloped domains. We have tested with other ad network and they perform very poor and the ads delivered are also not contextual..now wondering how can adsense for domain deliver contextual ads when there is no content on the blog!
Google probably takes into consideration the name of the domain. If your domain is mp3zone.com then the ads served are mostly related to mp3. And if a user comes from search engine then the content matches to the search term.

For a detailed step by step procedure to setup your adsense for domain follow the link to support page.

To check whether AdSense for domains has been enabled for your account, log in and visit your AdSense Setup tab

Make Money From Orkut

Yes you read it right.
Its possible to make money from Orkut, using OpenSocial.

What is OpenSocial?
OpenSocial is a set of common APIs for building social applications across many websites. OpenSocial consists of both JavaScript APIs and Google Data APIs.

How do I create social apps using OpenSocial?
Social apps are initially created in the same manner as gadgets: with your favorite text editor or within the Google Gadgets Editor. They then can be augmented with the OpenSocial JavaScript APIs, where they can fetch and post social data about friends and activities.

What resources do I need to create an OpenSocial gadget?
Other than a good idea and a few minutes to write JavaScript and HTML, you don’t need any. Google will do all the hosting for you if you want, but you are also free to use your own servers.

Now coming back to the topic, how do you earn the money?
Many of you might be thinking that, nobody can make good income by developing and monetizing the gadgets. But hey there are some gadgets which are so viral and many people use it, so I hope atleast those guys who developed such viral applications will surly earn a good income from it.
Just come up with an innovative idea, which can be converted into a gadget and which will be very much useful for Orkut users. Finally put it into action. There is a lot of difference in coming up with an idea and putting it into action. Learn some basics of programing and then refer to the huge documentation by Google and convert your idea into a gadget.

You can make money by developing gadgets even for FaceBook, Hi5 etc. But Orkut started using OpenSocial recently.

Watch the video for more clarification and proof.

Can I make money on Orkut?
Here is what in the video:-
Yes!!
The lawyers are working out the details, but here are our basic principles:

Canvas page belongs to the app – keep money you earn there.
Advertiser happiness – they want some control over where their message is displayed.
Profile page is user’s face to the world – we should only show content that user has authored or put there.

[We can already see ads in the gadget canvas page of Orkut.]
Now you can start from here to learn from the basic, how to develop a gadget. We hope it won’t take a lot of time to come up with a simple, sample gadget. But remember, all gadgets will go a strict review by Orkut team and they let only those gadgets that they think are valuable for Orkut members.
So invest some time in getting an innovative idea and then start executing it or just start learning about creating the gadget and in the process of learning you will get some good idea(that’s how it works with me).

What I feel is, to get an application viral effect, we need to solve a user problem or provide a very useful application(gadget). If we just come up with a very innovative gadget and if it does not solve any user problem or needs then it will just be in the list of innovative gadgets and not on the users profile.