Your blog and Google Sitemaps: summary, and note on feeds
1. Make sure your site is being indexed by Google already (no point pinging them if it isn't!). Submit your blog URL to Google if not, and then be patient - do the occasional search to check.
2. Assuming your blog is already on Google, sign in to Google Sitemaps using your blog Gmail address (or register with Google for a Google Account if you haven't yet, then sign in).
3. Under Add Site, enter the URL of your blog and OK. Against your blog URL, click Add a Sitemap, choose type Add General Web Sitemap. In the list that appears, tick all the boxes:
• I have created a Sitemap in a supported format.
• I have uploaded my Sitemap to the highest-level directory to which I have access.
• My Sitemap URL is:
and in the box below that, enter the URL of your blog's feed (NOT the main blog URL), then click Add Web Sitemap. (For example my feed URL is http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/atom.xml and yours should be similar, i.e. your blog URL with /atom.xml added to it, if you're on Blogger). The Sitemap Status column should now say Pending.
Check back by logging in from time to time; the Sitemap Status column should change from Pending to OK which means they've, theoretically at least, re-crawled your blog.
After it's done the first re-crawl, under your site name there's a link labelled "Verify" which asks you to upload a verification file to your server. If you can't upload anything (which is the case with us Blogspot users), don't worry about it. Verification just gives you access to more detailed Google stats; the lack of it won't stop Google from re-indexing your blog at all - see the Sitemaps help (but consider lobbying Blogger (the Suggest New Feature box at the bottom) and also Google Sitemaps to allow what we need - tell 'em you want Blogspot users to be able to have full Sitemaps functionality including verification!) [Added 28 April 2006:] As from 26 April 2006 you can now verify your Blogspot blog - see this post for a howto and why you might want to verify.
4. In future, when you update your blog or site, ping Google Sitemaps. Other ways are mentioned in my previous post, all just variations on the same thing, but the easiest way by far is to use this form - fill in your blog feed's URL (NOT main blog URL), then hit the button. Bookmark the resulting page or save it as a favorite, then next time you want to ping Google, just click on the saved bookmark/favorite:
Checking your feed
I just wanted to add a note about the importance of checking your site feed settings. Google takes your feed file (the XML file) to use for its sitemap. This means what gets re-crawled on your site or blog will depend on what's in your feed.
So - you should make sure your feed file is being created in the first place, if you don't already make use of your feed! In Blogger it's Settings, Site Feed, and make sure Publish Site Feed is set to Yes (it should be by default anyway - Blogger normally create the feed file for you whether or not you make use of it).
Also, Google will only notice the URLs of posts which are listed in your site feed. If the feed shows only the last 5 posts, and you've just written 15, the earliest 10 may not get picked up. To fix this, you need to change the settings so that your feed reflects the number of posts that will be most appropriate for your blog, e.g. 15 in this case, and leave it like that until Google have re-crawled your blog. It's easiest to pick a number that will work for how much and how often you post on average, and then leave it alone. (If you've not come across feeds as used in your blog yet, I plan to write an introduction sometime, when I can get to it! For now, if you're on Blogger at least, hopefully this explanation will be enough for present purposes).
There should be a setting somewhere to tweak your feed. On Blogger, it's not on your site feed page - instead go to Settings then the Formatting tab. It's the setting for Show X posts on the main page. This seems also to dictate the number of posts shown in your site feed. So you can adjust the number there.
Showing posts with label adwords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adwords. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Google Analytics
Google Analytics hearts AdSense publishers
As an AdSense publisher, you've probably put a lot of effort into making your website the best it can be -- optimizing your ads, building good content, and driving high quality visits. But there's one crucial step left: to see just how effective these things are. How many visitors are you getting each day? What pages are they visiting? Where do they come from, and which keywords brought them to your site -- both from pay-per-click efforts and from natural search?Many website owners push their site live, and then leave it at that, remaining in the dark about all these questions.
Google Analytics can enlighten you. We think it's much more fun to have the answers to these burning questions, and that you owe it to yourself to know for sure. After all, this is the payoff for all the hard work that's gone into creating your site. When you launch or make a change to it, there's that initial excitement of wondering who's going to check it out. And Google Analytics can help you with all of this.It's as easy to set up as AdSense. All you need to do is add a couple lines of code to each page in your site, and to gain valuable insight with graphical representations of visitor levels and detailed, easy-to-use reports that show:
pageviews of each of individual web pages
the average time spent on each page
new vs. returning visitors
visitors' geographical location and language
their browser and platform choices
click path data
Perhaps this gives you an idea of how Google Analytics can help you measure the success of changes to your site, and confidently make design choices. The best part? After retreating into invitation mode since it launched last November, we're happy to tell you that Analytics is now available for everyone, so you can get started analyzing your site right away.
As an AdSense publisher, you've probably put a lot of effort into making your website the best it can be -- optimizing your ads, building good content, and driving high quality visits. But there's one crucial step left: to see just how effective these things are. How many visitors are you getting each day? What pages are they visiting? Where do they come from, and which keywords brought them to your site -- both from pay-per-click efforts and from natural search?Many website owners push their site live, and then leave it at that, remaining in the dark about all these questions.
Google Analytics can enlighten you. We think it's much more fun to have the answers to these burning questions, and that you owe it to yourself to know for sure. After all, this is the payoff for all the hard work that's gone into creating your site. When you launch or make a change to it, there's that initial excitement of wondering who's going to check it out. And Google Analytics can help you with all of this.It's as easy to set up as AdSense. All you need to do is add a couple lines of code to each page in your site, and to gain valuable insight with graphical representations of visitor levels and detailed, easy-to-use reports that show:
pageviews of each of individual web pages
the average time spent on each page
new vs. returning visitors
visitors' geographical location and language
their browser and platform choices
click path data
Perhaps this gives you an idea of how Google Analytics can help you measure the success of changes to your site, and confidently make design choices. The best part? After retreating into invitation mode since it launched last November, we're happy to tell you that Analytics is now available for everyone, so you can get started analyzing your site right away.
Adsense Payrate
Adsense Pay Rate
Google does not disclose exactly how much you'll earn per ad clicked. The payment you receive depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular keyword ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of people earning anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.
So it is logical to believe that the more popular keywords (debt free, money, mp3, etc.) may earn you more since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web. As a result, advertisers generally pay more for these keywords.
In other words, it would be to your advantage to create a site that focuses around the more popular keywords to increase your chances of earning more for the ads you display.
To get an idea of the keywords people are paying the most money for check out high paying keywords list .
Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.
How much you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests and of course, the amount you receive per click.
Google pays Web site owners with a monthly check that is sent directly to your specified address.
Keep in mind, the better the ads match your content, the more clicks you'll receive.
Google does not disclose exactly how much you'll earn per ad clicked. The payment you receive depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular keyword ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of people earning anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.
So it is logical to believe that the more popular keywords (debt free, money, mp3, etc.) may earn you more since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web. As a result, advertisers generally pay more for these keywords.
In other words, it would be to your advantage to create a site that focuses around the more popular keywords to increase your chances of earning more for the ads you display.
To get an idea of the keywords people are paying the most money for check out high paying keywords list .
Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.
How much you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests and of course, the amount you receive per click.
Google pays Web site owners with a monthly check that is sent directly to your specified address.
Keep in mind, the better the ads match your content, the more clicks you'll receive.
Adsense features
Adsense features
Adsense Features
The important AdSense features are listed below.
Context Sensitivity
Google ads are based on your website content. The keyword rich content decides your ads.
Google says :"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising.
Google adsense allows you to display either textual ads or image ads or both.
Example Adsense Ad Formats
Multiple Ad Units
Google adsense allows upto 3 ad units per webpage. These ad units can be of same kind or different type.
leaderboard (728x90)
banner (468x60)
skyscraper (120x600)
medium rectangle (300x250)
Multiple Search Units
Google's Search is also available to adsense users in the name of adsense for web search. Google adsense allows 2 search units per web page. Adsense for search can be both as web search and site search.
Relevant Ads Only
Google adsense is backed by google's unique keyword matching algorithm. Thus the ads coming on your site is based on the keywords in your sites content.
Live Statistics
From your adsense control panel you can view the live statistics of the clicks, impressions , CPM ( Earnings per 1000 impressions), CTR ( Click Through Rate ), each day's earnings. These statistics are almost real time now. You will get the data with in seconds.
URL Filter
You can add up to 200 sites to your filter list. The URLs you enter into your filter list can be the actual URL of the website or the URL that is displayed on the ad for that website.
Channels
Channels provide you with a way to view detailed reporting about the performance of your pages. By pasting channel-specific ad code into any combination of pages, you can track a variety of metrics across your sites. Track your leaderboard performance versus the performance of your towers, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages, by assigning each group of pages to a specific channel and comparing results in your custom channel reports. You can even assign a channel to each of your separate domains, to see where your clicks are coming from.
With up to 50 AdSense channels, plus 50 AdSense for search channels available for each publisher, you can use channels to gain the insight you need to optimize your site's performance. It's easy to add, deactivate, or rename your channels, and customized reports are simple to generate.
Alternate Ads
Alternate ads allow you to utilize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page. By specifying an image, HTML page, or ad server of your choice, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively, either by targeted Google ads, or by your own choice of content. You can also select a solid color or collapsing ad unit script as your alternate ad, if you prefer not to display other advertisements or content when targeted Google ads are unavailable. Alternate ads count as page impressions like any other ad. Google does not keep track of clicks on alternate ads and you will not receive revenue for them. Alternate ads, if specified, will be shown when there are no targeted ads available for your page.
Collapsing Ad Unit
Collapsing ad units are an optional advanced feature of alternate ads – the collapsing ad unit code will 'collapse' your ad unit so that it takes up no page space if there are no targeted ads available. This allows you to minimize any blank space that would otherwise occur through the use of alternate colors.You will need to host a small HTML file on your domain. Your alternate ad URL will reference this file, which will be called if there are no ads available for that particular ad unit.
Click here to download the script.
Languages Supported
Danish
Italian
Dutch
Japanese
English
Norwegian
Finnish
Portuguese
French
Spanish
German
Swedish
Adsense Features
The important AdSense features are listed below.
Context Sensitivity
Google ads are based on your website content. The keyword rich content decides your ads.
Google says :"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising.
Google adsense allows you to display either textual ads or image ads or both.
Example Adsense Ad Formats
Multiple Ad Units
Google adsense allows upto 3 ad units per webpage. These ad units can be of same kind or different type.
leaderboard (728x90)
banner (468x60)
skyscraper (120x600)
medium rectangle (300x250)
Multiple Search Units
Google's Search is also available to adsense users in the name of adsense for web search. Google adsense allows 2 search units per web page. Adsense for search can be both as web search and site search.
Relevant Ads Only
Google adsense is backed by google's unique keyword matching algorithm. Thus the ads coming on your site is based on the keywords in your sites content.
Live Statistics
From your adsense control panel you can view the live statistics of the clicks, impressions , CPM ( Earnings per 1000 impressions), CTR ( Click Through Rate ), each day's earnings. These statistics are almost real time now. You will get the data with in seconds.
URL Filter
You can add up to 200 sites to your filter list. The URLs you enter into your filter list can be the actual URL of the website or the URL that is displayed on the ad for that website.
Channels
Channels provide you with a way to view detailed reporting about the performance of your pages. By pasting channel-specific ad code into any combination of pages, you can track a variety of metrics across your sites. Track your leaderboard performance versus the performance of your towers, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages, by assigning each group of pages to a specific channel and comparing results in your custom channel reports. You can even assign a channel to each of your separate domains, to see where your clicks are coming from.
With up to 50 AdSense channels, plus 50 AdSense for search channels available for each publisher, you can use channels to gain the insight you need to optimize your site's performance. It's easy to add, deactivate, or rename your channels, and customized reports are simple to generate.
Alternate Ads
Alternate ads allow you to utilize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page. By specifying an image, HTML page, or ad server of your choice, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively, either by targeted Google ads, or by your own choice of content. You can also select a solid color or collapsing ad unit script as your alternate ad, if you prefer not to display other advertisements or content when targeted Google ads are unavailable. Alternate ads count as page impressions like any other ad. Google does not keep track of clicks on alternate ads and you will not receive revenue for them. Alternate ads, if specified, will be shown when there are no targeted ads available for your page.
Collapsing Ad Unit
Collapsing ad units are an optional advanced feature of alternate ads – the collapsing ad unit code will 'collapse' your ad unit so that it takes up no page space if there are no targeted ads available. This allows you to minimize any blank space that would otherwise occur through the use of alternate colors.You will need to host a small HTML file on your domain. Your alternate ad URL will reference this file, which will be called if there are no ads available for that particular ad unit.
Click here to download the script.
Languages Supported
Danish
Italian
Dutch
Japanese
English
Norwegian
Finnish
Portuguese
French
Spanish
German
Swedish
16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
1. Set up a Bloglet subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.
Http://www.bloglet.com
2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine (see tutorial on http://www.biztipsblog.com)
http://www.my.yahoo.com
3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.
4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
http://www.pingomatic.com
5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines: http://www.submitfire.com
6. Submit your blog to blog directories. The most comprehensive list of directories is on this site:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.
7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.
8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.
9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.
10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.
11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.
To learn how news aggregators/RSS readers work, see this site: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm
13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts
14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.
15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).
16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.
Tip: Use a hit counter to track your visitor stats: how many unique visitors, how many page views, average length of visit. You can get a free hit counter at http://www.sitemeter.com
1. Set up a Bloglet subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.
Http://www.bloglet.com
2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine (see tutorial on http://www.biztipsblog.com)
http://www.my.yahoo.com
3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.
4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
http://www.pingomatic.com
5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines: http://www.submitfire.com
6. Submit your blog to blog directories. The most comprehensive list of directories is on this site:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.
7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.
8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.
9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.
10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.
11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.
To learn how news aggregators/RSS readers work, see this site: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm
13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts
14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.
15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).
16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.
Tip: Use a hit counter to track your visitor stats: how many unique visitors, how many page views, average length of visit. You can get a free hit counter at http://www.sitemeter.com
Getting Started With AdSense
Getting Started With AdSense
Joining AdSense
After you have created your web site completely, go to https://www.google.com/adsenseto apply. Most sites are either accepted or rejected within 24 to 48 hours, so you shouldn't have to wait too long to find out if your application has been approved.
Google will review your site before it is accepted into the program. So if your site is too small or does not contain enough original content, it will likely be rejected.
You should have your own domain name . Don't try to create a free Yahoo or AOL site with banners and pop-ups. The freebie web sites have lost a lot of respect over the years, and it may be harder to get your site accepted if it's created on such a shaky foundation.
If you do use a free provider, your site better be exceptionally organized, full of useful content, and cannot have banners and popups all over the place. Free web sites scream "Amateur!" and that may hurt your chances of getting in the program.
Once you're accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you'd like to show the ads. If you've done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page...increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors.Chances Of Getting Rejected !
Google has to be very careful about which sites they allow in the program. They don't want to lose the advertiser's dollars.
These are some of the probable reasons making your website rejected.
1) Is your site an "About Me" page? Google does not accept these kinds of personal sites because most of them do not have a specific topic. They are usually just random facts about the web site owner. It would be difficult for Google's technology to display targeted ads on these kinds of pages.
They are looking for "content focused" sites that contain a generous amount of information on a certain topic. It could be anything from sewing tips to hair care techniques. Just make sure there is an obvious theme with original content.
2) Is your site organized? Be sure your site has a neat and clean navigation that's easy to follow. Also ensure all the links work and that there are no typos. Keep the colors to a minimum and make sure each page has a consistent layout.
3) How many pages are on your site? Even though Google doesn't specify a page number requirement, many believe they are looking for web sites with a decent amount of content. Again, it's not likely a two-page site will get accepted. Try to strive for at least 20 pages.
4) Is your content solid? Don't just submit a web site with a bunch of links to other sites. Be sure you have enough original content of your own to make your site unique.
5) Are you receiving enough traffic? Google can get an idea of how much traffic you're receiving by visiting http://www.alexa.com/. There's no solid proof they check on this, but some believe they do.
Plus, if you're not receiving many visitors, it will be hard to make any decent money with this program anyway. Wait until your site is getting at least 100 unique visitors per day, then apply.
6)Make sure you have read the program policy and procedures carefully and verify your site hasn't violated any of the terms or policies.
Joining AdSense
After you have created your web site completely, go to https://www.google.com/adsenseto apply. Most sites are either accepted or rejected within 24 to 48 hours, so you shouldn't have to wait too long to find out if your application has been approved.
Google will review your site before it is accepted into the program. So if your site is too small or does not contain enough original content, it will likely be rejected.
You should have your own domain name . Don't try to create a free Yahoo or AOL site with banners and pop-ups. The freebie web sites have lost a lot of respect over the years, and it may be harder to get your site accepted if it's created on such a shaky foundation.
If you do use a free provider, your site better be exceptionally organized, full of useful content, and cannot have banners and popups all over the place. Free web sites scream "Amateur!" and that may hurt your chances of getting in the program.
Once you're accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you'd like to show the ads. If you've done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page...increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors.Chances Of Getting Rejected !
Google has to be very careful about which sites they allow in the program. They don't want to lose the advertiser's dollars.
These are some of the probable reasons making your website rejected.
1) Is your site an "About Me" page? Google does not accept these kinds of personal sites because most of them do not have a specific topic. They are usually just random facts about the web site owner. It would be difficult for Google's technology to display targeted ads on these kinds of pages.
They are looking for "content focused" sites that contain a generous amount of information on a certain topic. It could be anything from sewing tips to hair care techniques. Just make sure there is an obvious theme with original content.
2) Is your site organized? Be sure your site has a neat and clean navigation that's easy to follow. Also ensure all the links work and that there are no typos. Keep the colors to a minimum and make sure each page has a consistent layout.
3) How many pages are on your site? Even though Google doesn't specify a page number requirement, many believe they are looking for web sites with a decent amount of content. Again, it's not likely a two-page site will get accepted. Try to strive for at least 20 pages.
4) Is your content solid? Don't just submit a web site with a bunch of links to other sites. Be sure you have enough original content of your own to make your site unique.
5) Are you receiving enough traffic? Google can get an idea of how much traffic you're receiving by visiting http://www.alexa.com/. There's no solid proof they check on this, but some believe they do.
Plus, if you're not receiving many visitors, it will be hard to make any decent money with this program anyway. Wait until your site is getting at least 100 unique visitors per day, then apply.
6)Make sure you have read the program policy and procedures carefully and verify your site hasn't violated any of the terms or policies.
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