A blog on blogging, computers and such

Here are two good resources on the proper use of title tags to drive traffic to a site:

The first article discusses both title and meta-tags:

http://www.searchbliss.com/seo-tools/search-engine-optimization.htm

The second article is more narrowly focused on titles:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/best-practices-for-title-tags

The articles are good introductions to this topic. However, the advice to include you company or site name in the title tag of your pages is a bit too strong. My thinking is that usually it is best not to include it - simply because it is a waste of very valuable space! I would say that the ony exception to this rule is where you are willing to invest a lot - including your valuable title space - in building a brand name. For most purposes, say for blogs and most web sites that do not sell branded products, I would, as a rule, say that the name should not be in the title. For these types of sites, it is usually sufficient to display the name of the blog or site prominently on each page.

– Peter

In a previous post I discussed the important role the titles of your postings play in increasing visibility in search engines and driving traffic to your blog or site. That’s a fairly simple advice that is easy to follow and yet have large benefits.

Another, equally simple and important thing to do is to blog frequently. The reason for this is that the posting frequency is factored into Google’s calculation of page relevance. And the more relevant your site is, the higher it will rank. So, other things being equal, a blog that gets new post several times a day will rank higher than a blog getting getting updated much less frequently.

That’s why a number of the most popular bloggers write short posts frequently, rather than long posts infrequently. Also, this has been evidenced by many bloggers who have experienced drops in their traffic when they have reduced their posting frequency.

Advertising is generally the most important source of income on blogs (and web sites). However, monetizing your blog is not quite as easy as many may think. There are a number of pitfalls, and a large number of companies and agencies out there that want to serve you deals that look promising, but in reality will make you very little money.

I have learned some lessons about this. I have made some costly mistakes that I am willing to share so that others can avoid repeating them. There are a bunch of people out there writing blogs about how much money they make, how fast they’re making money, and how easy it is to make money. A number of them make big money on that. Some of the advice is good, some is not. Very few of them say very little about the mistakes they have made. Neither do they say muc about the posible pitfalls you may encounter when you seek to monetize your blog. And, for sure, it’s not nearly as easy as most of those people say.

Making money by blogging really is not only about getting visitors and driving traffic; it’s also about avoiding pitfalls and making money for yourself instead of for others. Your blog may well create a lot of value, without you getting anything near a fair share of it.

So here are some stories about pitfalls. This is straight talk, and valuable and expensive lessons. Some of my readers, I am sure, have similar or other stories. Sharing them will, I am sure, be to our joint benefit.

I have associate deals with several companies. The ones I am very pleased with, are Google and Amazon. However, being eager to make bucks, I also entered into deals with some online advertising agencies (I will not, for now, name them). They offered deals of a different nature than Google and even Amazon - all sorts of so called “incentive-based” payment structures, often with extremely high pay-offs if my visitors did A, B or C, but nothing if they didn’t do just that.

So far, I haven’t made a nickel on those affiliate deals. Many of them, I think, are scams. At least a large number of them are structured in ways that favor the advertiser and possibly the agency, but definitely not me. So somebody else is getting the value I create. Let me explain in more detail by giving an example.

One deal I have is with a credit card company. I show their ads, banners, and the like. Now, since I run a book site, I figured at least some of my visitors would be interested in an extra credit card. And the deal looked very sweet - I would receive about USD 100 if a visitor filled out an application for a credit card. So far, I have showed the ad about 30,000 times. Not one visitor - according to the agency - have applied for the card. OK, so maybe my visitors aren’t interested in credit cards, you say? Well, I’ve tried a number of other products as well. Same story. So what is happening? Now, it could be that the cookie they use to identify applicants as coming from my site isn’t working. But there is more to it than that.

One thing I notice is that the advertiser(s) I get from one of my online advertising agencies don’t run any campaigns (like “Free of charge first 2 years” or “0 percent APR for one year” or the like). And the ads aren’t extremely attractive. Some of the other companies also advertise offers that really are not very competitive.

So, as a result, I show the ads, but my visitors don’t respond to the ads by performing the actions that would give me my rewards based on performance incentives.

However, ads have three (main) functions - make people visit stores or web sites, sell goods, and build brands. So my advertisers get a lot a brand building, as well as a few visits, but pay nothing because they don’t sell goods at the same time. My feeling, increasingly, is that many of the deals I have made have been created (set up) this way intentionally. And, what is possibly worse, is that the agencies I am using may well be making a certain amount per ad shown or per click through - without me getting any share of it. Or, they may be owned by companies that have a joint interest in cheap online ads. I don’t know much about this, but I speculate that this may be how it sometimes works out.

Now, you also have to remember that in addition to the three main functions of ads, they have a fourth function: Advertisements affect the attractiveness of your site, positively or negatively. Google’s work with improving the relevance of their ads, will also help you make your site more attractive. Unattractive and/or irrelevant ads, on the other hand, may well reduce your blog or site’s attractiveness.

My sense of what is right as far as payment structures for online advertising is concerned, is that any deal with an advertiser should involve a per view payment - that’s really a payment for branding of the company and/or its product. There exist lots of evidence that Internet ads have strong branding effects, and branding is certainly paid for in other media like TV, newspapers, and radio. It should not be any different on the Internet. Such deals are hard to get, especially for sites with few visitors, but bigger sites and blogs have them.

In addition, there should be a click through as well as a purchase based incentive.

Deals that don’t have all these components are basically biased in favor of the advertiser or the agency, and should in principle be avoided. But, in reality, deals that are “fair” in this, very strict sense, and have all three payment components are hard to get, and only the biggest and most visited sites usually get them. So, in the real world both you and I will have to compromise a bit.

So, what would my advise be, based on this? First, of course - start with content that gives value to your readers. Assuming that is true for your blog, here are some rules about making more money for yourself and less for others on ads on your blog or site:

Maximizing income on your blog - rules about ads:

1. Look for deals where the incentives for you are transparent.

2. If possible, try to get paid per view.

3. If you can’t get per view ads, get ads that pay per click (a la Google).

4. Only run ads that are highly relevant for you site - ads that by themselves add to the attraction of your site for your visitors.

5. Remove ads that don’t make you money quickly (show the ad x thousand times, if nothing happens, then out they go).

6. Don’t run ads that you wouldn’t respond to yourself - e.g. without bargains, special offers, campaigns, and the like that give extra value.

7. Never, never enter into deals with agencies offering very complicated reward structures.

8. Look at what other bloggers say about the various agencies - only go with those that come highly recommended and that other bloggers actually make money on.

9. Report scams - agencies that don’t pay as they should, cookies that aren’t working properly, and the like - online ASAP so that others can avoid them.

So for me at, learning to monetize smartly has taken some time as well as lost me some money!

Some questions to my visitors: Have you experienced similar things? Do you have similar or other stories to report? Was this useful advice? Let’s share experiences - blogging is not a zero-sum game, we can all benefit from doing it smarter!

– Peter –

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is one of the most important factors in driving traffic to you site. However, mastering SEO to perfection is difficult. But some simple things you can easily do will take you a long, long way towards being noticed, simply because they are the most fundamental and important steps in Search Engine Optimization.

First, set up you blog so that your postings are stored by title. Many blog systems store your pages by date or number or some such system. Most blogging software let you change this default (I have done this in my WordPress blogs - it took 2 minutes). Find out how it’s done with your software, and do it.

Second, work with your titles. Make certain the main tags for your posting appear already in the title. The title is the single most important tool you can use use to increase visibility. This is especially true if you also make certain the post is saved using the title name. The reason is simple: Now your title, and hopefully your tags, if you follow this advice, is also part of the URL for your posting!

While working with the title, you must balance three considerations. First, the tags for the article should be there. Second, the title must be sexy so that people want to read the article. But also, thirdly, the title must reflect the content of  the post fairly well, otherwise your readers will grow vary of your titles and not want to return.

So finding great titles involves a huge balancing act. I am not always sure I do this well myself, but I am extremely conscious of the importance of titles and work to balance them, and I may well return and change the title a number of times after I have written a post in order to improve it. And I spend a large amount of time to ponder over alternative titles, even sometimes write down several alternatives on a piece of paper and look at and tweak them multiple times over several days.

I will write more about SEO ln later postings, because of its importance, but if you start by doing the two things I have pointed out well, I can guarantee that you are already one step ahead of most bloggers when it comes to being noticed and driving traffic.

– Peter