Author: Dan Morris

This author has written 644 articles

How Google AdSense Works

 

I got asked this question this week, “I don’t understand how Google Adsense Works. I and another blogger have about the same traffic and have ads in the same places but she makes a lot more money. What am I doing wrong?”

Now this isn’t a bad question because Google Adsense isn’t the easiest thing to understand. But it was clear to me the way she asked the question, she just didn’t understand how Adsense worked.

So, let’s talk about it from the beginning. Google built a search engine that attracted lots of people. In fact, something like 70% of all searches go through Google.  With all those eyeballs, Google decided to sell advertising space in the right sidebar and at the top. (more…)

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Are Brands or Celebrities Following you on Twitter?

Ever want to know who’s following you on Twitter? There are several services that will give you that information.

But if you’re just looking to find out who because it would be fun, you’re missing the real value. What you really want to be looking for are the brands and personalities in your niche (or related to your target market) that are following you. These are the people who can see your tweets and engage with you.

And sometimes it indicates researching you as well. (more…)

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How to Monetize Youtube with External Links

YouTube gives you one more way to monetize videos now by allowing external annotation links in the video itself. If you read our previous post on different ways to monetize YouTube, you previously had to be a YouTube partner to get external links in the videos.

This doesn’t take the place of using the annotations feature to strategically move your audience to other videos. It doesn’t take the place of the links in the description, or the call-to-action in the video. This is something new to consider in your video and YouTube strategy.

The only feature that hasn’t been enabled yet is the ability to link to any website. At this point you’re only allowed to link to the website that is associated with your YouTube and connnected Google account. So if you’re hoping to link to sales pages, build them inside your main site. (more…)

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Monetize YouTube: External links in the video

YouTube gives you one more way to monetize videos now by allowing external annotation links in the video itself. If you read our previous post on different ways to monetize YouTube, you previously had to be a YouTube partner to get external links in the videos.

This doesn’t take the place of using the annotations feature to strategically move your audience to other videos. It doesn’t take the place of the links in the description, or the call-to-action in the video. This is something new to consider in your video and YouTube strategy.

The only feature that hasn’t been enabled yet is the ability to link to any website. At this point you’re only allowed to link to the website that is associated with your YouTube and connnected Google account. So if you’re hoping to link to sales pages, build them inside your main site. (more…)

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Bounce Rate Failure is a Myth

I was over at Kyle Nelson’s blog reading about bounce rate today.

I agreed with his clinical definition of bounce rate. But our opinions diverged there.

I don’t agree that a high bounce rate is something that needs to be fixed. That’s painting with a broad brush and contributes to the myth of “bounce rate” that plagues so many. Let me start by saying:

  • A high bounce rate by itself does not indicate anything.
  • A high bounce rate does not signal website problems
  • A high bounce rate should make you think, not take action.
  • A high bounce rate just may be an indicator of great profitability (more…)

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Pinterest: How to grow faster, get more repins, and win

So I’ve figured out a little something with Pinterest. It’s not rocket science and it isn’t going to blow you away, but I bet  you’ve neglected it and I bet you’re going to be really happy to start doing it again.

And this concept is the same for YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and any other image based account that ties into Twitter.

The concept started to sink in a bit after seeing the “likes” that Crystal Collins of TheThriftyMama.com was getting on her Instagram account. It took a bit for it to sink in, but then it all made sense.

For instance take a look at Stabiano on Instagram. He’s got 35,353 followers of his Instagram photos. And Yaron007 has almost 6,000 followers for the same reason. That reason is right here in this picture. (more…)

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