What is it that I have in mind, which you may not know about?  Well, I call it GAM, because it used to be named Google Ad Manager.  The name was changed last year to “Doubleclick for Publishers”.  I will call it GAM in this article, because that is the name that I am comfortable using.  When I say GAM, I am talking about Doubleclick for Publishers.

DoubleClick for Publishers - Google Ad Manager

So, what is GAM? Basically it is a free service from Google that delivers advertising on your site, it is ad server software, only running on Google’s server rather than your own.

Basically, GAM can deliver Google AdSense in conjunction with any other ads that you wish to serve on your site.  Or, you can totally eliminate the AdSense ads if you wish.  What is nice about GAM, though, is that it gives you the ability to rotate ads, which helps eliminate ad blindness (ad blindness is when regular visitors to your site no longer even notice the ads any longer, because they are used to seeing them all of the time).  The ability to rotate ads in the same slots means that you can serve up any number of different ads in certain slots, based on lots of different criteria.  You could say that the ads will rotate at random.  You could show certain ads to people from a certain country, while showing a different ad to visitors from another country.  You can show different ads based on the time of day.  There are lots of different criteria that you could choose to determine what ad shows to what visitor.  Generally, I rotate ads randomly, except in some cases where I sell ads to somebody and they specifically want the ads only shown to visitors from a certain part of the world.

Google App-Sphere

GAM will work best for you when you have a lot of different ads for it to put into the rotation.  Part of the reason for this is that your readers will see many different ads that might catch their attention when they visit.  If they see the same ad over and over, without a doubt they will become blind to it.  But if they visit today and see a graphic ad that is red, then tomorrow it is text based ad, then the next day the ad is blue… well, it will look different than normal, and draw their eyes.  This ability alone will help increase your earnings from your site.

You know what?  GAM goes one step further in helping you make money from your site.  Do you show AdSense ads on your site?  If so, GAM is for you.  Why?  Well, you can set up GAM in a way that it will show your ads (ads that you sold, affiliate ads, ads for your own products, etc), but if it has AdSense ads that will pay you more than your own ads do, then and only then will it show AdSense.  So, that means that it is going to show only high paying ads on your site! With AdSense you never know if a click is worth 10 cents or 10 dollars, but Google does know, and GAM will help you to not show those 10 cent ads, because frankly making 10 cents per click is not really worth your trouble.  I know that I’d much rather show an ad for one of my books or another service that I offer than to show an ad that has upside potential of only 10 cents.  This aspect of GAM alone makes it worthwhile to use it on your sites.

Now, there is a downside to GAM, though.  The learning curve is huge!  Using GAM is not easy to do, at least not at the beginning.  I have been using GAM for several years now, and I feel like I have a good handle on it.  I can do a lot of great things with GAM, but when I first started using it, I was lost and embarrassed to even admit that I had no idea what I was doing with GAM.  Now, though, I have spent enough time and effort on the software to make is very useful.  I feel that my online earnings are probably double because of my use of GAM.  It’s worth the time necessary to learn the software, the payoff will cover your time involved in learning the use of the system.

The good news is that like most other Google software, the use of GAM is free.

If you want to use GAM and need help in setting it up, contact me, and I can help you, it is a service that I offer through my Web-Earner service.

I have used a lot of methods to monetize websites, I’ve done it through advertising like AdSense, affiliate ads, and other methods.  Over the last six months, though, as I have alluded to before, I have taken a special interest in monetizing one of my sites.  This particular site did not monetize well with any kind of advertising that I tried.  However, it was the site most precious to me, one that I love a lot, and really a daily part of my life.  Because of that, I wanted to find a way to make money from it.  So I introduced several new moneymaking possibilities on the site.  These included things like advertising services, much like what Mark is talking about in his video.  Recently, I started offering a few e-books that were really targeted to that site as well.  You know what?  That is my number one earning site now!  And, I’m doing things that I enjoy, things that I love, and in a lot of ways things that I would be doing every day anyway, even without the site.

You know, I have come to the conclusion that offering my own services and selling my own products is the way that I like to go.  Firstly, I find it is more profitable.  Secondly, I have control over what’s on the website.  I am not at the mercy of Google or somebody else putting ads on my site that I can’t approve.  Thirdly, the premium products that I’m selling offer additional value to my readers.  These products are specifically about the topic that I write about, thus it is certain that these are things my readers are interested in.  A year ago I was strongly into the AdSense  thing, but mostly, I kind of abandoned that.  At least I’ve decreased it.  Most of my sites are highly specialized, very niche oriented, and my niche is very narrow.  In terms of how many people it attracts.  Because of this, it can be difficult to get ads that are targeted properly.  However, when I create my own products and advertising things that I do myself, I get to choose how targeted those things are.  And believe me, they are targeted to my customer.

Yes, I still make money off of AdSense, but not nearly what I used to make.  And now my earnings from Google are about one third of what they were last year.  However, my total earnings are higher than they were last year, and these self-made products and services are what accounts for that.  Whenever you’re selling advertising, unless you’re talking about direct ad sales, you only get a portion of what the advertiser pays.  People like Google or others get a cut as well.  When you make and sell your own products, or selling your own services on your site, you get the whole thing.  You can actually sell it to the customer for less than what Google would and still get more money from the sale, because you’re cutting out the middleman.

The other thing that I find is it is easier to make that money.  Why?  Well, if you build up a good side and you have a good following the people, those people trust you.  They know you.  Many of them visit you everyday online and read what you have to say.  You have established a relationship with those people.  Thus, if you come out with an e-book or some other product that you did yourself, they know what to expect.  If they thought that your writing wasn’t very good, they wouldn’t be visiting your site anyway.  Since they obviously feel that your site has value, by extension they would also feel that your products have value.  If the product that you offer is something that they are interested in, it’s likely that they’ll buy.  So it’s good for you, and it’s also good for them because they get information that they want and need.

Thanks to Mark for bringing up this topic on his site, 45n5 is a site that I like to visit every day.

Over this past week I have had experiences where two of my friends could have had a seriously negative impact on my ability to earn money online.  I want to advise my readers that you cannot always help your friends, especially it is very important to not let your friends do things that could limit your ability to earn money.

The first incident happened with a very close friend.  I am willing to do almost anything to help this fellow if he is in need.  Almost anything.  But, this week, he asked me to do something for him that could cost me around $1,000 per week worth of business.  Sorry, I can’t do that.  What did he ask me to do?  Well, here is the story:

This fellow is in a bit of a financial jam right now, due to circumstances.  Some of the circumstances are beyond his control, some are not.  This fellow has some money in his Paypal account.  He recently tried to withdraw money from Paypal into his bank account.  Somehow, some trouble came up with the transfer, and the money never made it to his bank account.  He tells me that due to this transaction, Paypal has put his account under investigation.  Now, I don’t know the details of this investigation, but just the fact that there is an investigation worries me.  Next, my friend said that he wanted to send me about $500 from his Paypal account to mine.  I would then withdraw the $500 to my bank account, and give it to him.    Red lights started flashing!  With this guy’s Paypal account under investigation, I don’t want to have any connection to him.  If money is moving from his account to mine, it is very possible that MY account could soon be under investigation.  I sure don’t want that.  I make significant money through the use of Paypal, and I would not want to jeopardize it in any way.  In the end, I loaned my friend some cash, and told him that he needed to work out the problem with Paypal, but not to include me in it!

On another front, I got an e-mail from a reader of one of my blogs.  He had a proposition for me.  He would start doing unethical things on my site that would cause me to earn money.  In return, he was asking me to do the same.  Hold on!  No way would I become involved in this.  What he proposed could have cost me more than $1,000 per month.  If he did what he was proposing, I might have made an extra $5 per month, but endangering $1,000 per month.  Not a good idea.

My whole idea here is that if you are experiencing some success with online money making, don’t let other people jeopardize your ability to keep that money flowing!

Some people have very “general” blog sites. One day they write about the flowers they planted in the garden, the next day they write about a new factory being built in their town. A few days later they write a post about their kid’s school project. Frankly, these things are not related. Or are they? Well, I can think of one way that these could be tied together. Let’s say that you live in “Anytown, USA.” If you had a blog about what is happening in Anytown, USA, you could make these topics all tie together nicely. One day you write about what kind of plants and flowers are in season in Anytown, and how you just planted some in your garden. Next day, “Anytown is getting a new factory which will bring 10,000 new jobs.” A few days later, what is going on in Anytown Schools. But, if you can’t do something like this, it’s better to focus in on a certain area that interests you.

Let’s say you are an avid gardener. You can have a blog about gardening. Teach people like me, who know nothing about gardening, how to do it. Just write about gardening. Let’s say that you also have a passion for cooking. Well, start a different blog about cooking!

I’m going to assume that most of the readers of this site already have a website or blog, so you are halfway home. Do you have Google AdSense on your site? If you have even a half-busy site, you can make much more than $1 per day by using Google AdSense on your site! If you don’t have AdSense already, go to google.com/adsense and sign up! I’m not making anything from referring you, I just want to help you get started.

Your next step will be to set up a regular schedule for blogging. The more often you update your site, the more that people will come and visit. When people come and visit, there is more chance that they will click on your Google Ads, and when they click on an ad that interests them, you make money!

Congratulations… this could be your first step to checking off your assignment for this week: to come up with one new idea that will produce $1 per day for you!

See you tomorrow with more ideas.

However, in addition to rotation by the ad server, it’s a good idea to go and look for new kinds of ads from time to time to keep your site fresh, and to keep people looking at new things that will attract their attention.  I recommend that you do this 3 or 4 times per year to keep things from getting too stale.

Where will she click?

Admittedly, I have not been following my own advice!  That’s why when I was thinking of looking for some new things to promote on my sites, I realized that it had been a couple of years since I did this and added anything fresh to my sites.  Big mistake!  That is why it is important to get this done.  I mean, if you can make more money, why not?

Affiliate Dollars

So, this morning, I started looking.  Frankly, I was disappointed.  My first stop was at Chitika.  I use Chitika ads on one of my sites, but only one.  I used to use their ads on multiple sites, but it got to the point that they did not have many ads that were very relevant to my content, except on that one site.  So, I thought that it was time for me to check again and see if they had ads that fit in with my content.  In the past, you could set up an ad unit, and they had an area where you could type in keywords and see what ads would be shown.  Now, you just set up the ad unit, and leave the keywords to them.  Well, frankly, I want to be able to see what they have to offer.  A big ad company like Google AdSense has thousands of companies advertising, but a smaller one like Chitika does not.  If I have a site that is about living in the Philippines, I don’t want it to show ads for ladies clothing!  It just won’t make me any money, so why even mess with it.  So, not having that keyword tool in the ad setup area any longer is a big downer for me.

I also checked LinkShare, which is the Affiliate program that I use the most.  It has been at least a year since I looked at their affiliate offerings, and frankly, I saw nothing very new today, at least nothing new that was relevant to what I publish.  Very frustrating.

Right now, I am mostly just using Google AdSense and ads for my own products.  I do have a few Amazon ads on my various sites, and that one site has Chitika.  I want to mix it up a little more, though.  I just have to find some decent ads that are relevant to my content.  Any suggestions?

As I make adjustments to my Adsense placements and other factors in order to improve earnings, I am really learning.  I spent the past months working on improving the number of ad views that I could attract.  The more that people saw the ads, the more clicks I would get, resulting in more income, right?  Well, that is true.  But, I have learned that there are other ways to improve that income too.

For the past few weeks, I have been closely watching how much I am getting per click, instead of how many clicks I am getting.  I mean, I am learning now that I can get only half the clicks, but if I am attracting higher paying ads, my income can be more!  And, I am learning strategies that are paying off and helping me get higher values for each click.  I can also see that at certain times of the day, click values are higher than at others.

So, if you are working on improving your Adsense earnings, keep in mind that you need to keep many different factors in mind, and optimize each of those factors in order to really get optimal value from Adsense!

You see, back in the past, the channels were all arranged by which ones earned the most money.  A few weeks ago, they all seemed to be displayed at random.  A channel that had earned nothing might have been listed at the top, followed by one that made $10, followed by one that made $1.  It was confusing, and required me to spend time taking a close look at each channel and analyze the data.  That is a waste of good time!

Last week, when I looked at the report, it was fixed!  I never saw anybody complaining about this error online, but I am sure people found it annoying, as I know I did.  Now, though, when you look at the list of channels on the main Google AdSense reports page, you get the channels listed in order of highest earnings to lowest.  I like that, because at just a quick glance, I can know exactly which pages are paying off and which are not.  I pretty much know which of my sites earn the most, and which earn not so much.  If I look at the report and see that site “x” is not near the top of the list, I know that something is wrong, and I need to check the site and see what is happening, because in my mind, I know that this site should be one of my top earners.

How about you, did you notice this Google AdSense reporting anomaly over the past few weeks?

Thanks for fixing it, Google!