AuctionAds are now offering a free $25 to any new publisher that sings up with them. So anybody who hasn’t heard of them (unlikely if you’re on this blog) or who just isn’t using them… $25 up for grabs! why turn it down. By the way apart from the free $25, AuctionAds is actually a fantastic program in itself, very high CTR.
I’ve been looking for a decent WordPress banner rotator plugin for a while. Just browsing John Chow’s blog and spotted a new post on a new plugin that somebody had coded for him because he asked.
This is free to download, as i’m writing this post I haven’t tried it out myself yet but i’m sure if JC is happy with it that it’s fine no doubt. So anybody in need of a banner rotator, give this a try.
By the way. You can read how to install it here
Review of topgptsites.blogspot.com
Domain Name – Nothing to review here as it’s a free sub-domain using Blogger. If you ever want to have a really successful blog… well I don’t think it’s essential obviously you could probably achieve a successful blog just using Blogger but I think at some point you need your own domain so buy one as soon as possible. Because smarter readers or more mature readers or even readers of your age who maybe aren’t Internet Marketers but realise what ads are and if you put them there or not might get annoyed because of the simple fact that you’re not paying for hosting and it’s not your domain. Yet you’re trying to use them to extract profit from your free site… buy a domain.
Design – Literally again, not much to say, very simplistic design and not by yourself but it’s fine for your blog. In all honestly though I think everyone knows WordPress is a better service, I think you’d be better off switching to WordPress, getting a free theme, you can design your own obviously if you can do that but if not just grab a free one. They have alot of pro looking themes in the free them directory, plus there’s a tone floating around the web. One big mistake I think you’re making though is placing your subscribe button on the right hand side all the way down there! are you crazy? your absolute key, key goal with your blog should be to get people to subscribe, hiding it down there does it no justice, switch your Recent Visitors position with your RSS feed position and that will be better.
Ads – I think you have a good grasp of AdSense and basic placement for your age, nice integration. Not a bad range, but I would rotate more to reduce ever increasing banner blindness.
Conclusion – Overall I think you have a blog with potential. The viral aspect obviously being that your 12 years old. You should get a good relevant domain name and relevant within the viral aspect of your site, something novelty and memorable about your age and status, obviously short enough to remember. Experiment with more ads, more affiliates and get a more professional design (just use WordPress)!
Review of bigdogbiker.com
Domain Name – Good name, I think you did the right thing in choosing something viral over a keyword stuffed domain. Not much else to say, it works and sounds good. I think people will remember it fine.
Design – Too much red man, it sort of works but too much of anything will hurt your eyes eventually. I think you need a contrast of some sort, I bet if you get some white and other colors on some of the backgrounds to make it more aesthetically pleasing that you’ll get a higher sign up rate from your traffic. Well… I wont ‘bet’ just sort of metaphorically bet as in not put any money on stake. But it’s almost like you love red and are forcing it on your visitors, your forum needs a color theme to define it’s atmosphere definitely but it’s just too much red man.
Ads – Top unit = good, bottom unit = opposite. There is almost no point in the bottom unit man, surely your CTR for that is near non-existent? it’s a waste of a unit. At most the average person will scroll down to the ”previous” and ”next” buttons to also glance how many pages, alot of people wont even see that ad never mind have a chance to contemplate clicking it. The top ad though I think is good, nice position but I think you should try a targeted affiliate there, rotate a few. Also try A/B testing on that with AdSense, there is an official way you can do that which I explain here.
Conclusion – Overall I think it’s a pretty good… site / sort of just forum. Not much else I can say, good domain name, half decent design and OK ad placement (color scheme could maybe use some tweaking). Also maybe an ad after every first post.
Review of coffeesh0p.com
Domain Name – Really hate this domain name. I think you’ve made the common mistake of compromising originality for keywords. Obviously two primary keywords there, except for the zero instead of an ‘o’ either you did that to try and add a new twist to help people remember or you compromised having a zero because the domain with an ‘o’ was obviously taken. I think alot of people do this as if the domain name is the only aspect search engines consider, they can be a big help no doubt but you can still outweigh the help of search engine traffic with viral marketing by about… 10 hundred million times. It’s not worth compromising digits and letters in a domain just for SEO value or presumed SEO value and attempted simplicity. Most likely people will type it with an ‘o’ 90% of the time and if it’s not what they remember or wanted, just leave. I would buy a more viral domain name more easy to remember for humans.
Design – Pretty good design, nice subtle color scheme and simplistic graphics. I think maybe… some other color somewhere though just to diverse too much visual blending would go a long way.
Ads – Well seeing as your trying to make money via the use of sales, I think it’s a good idea not to have ads, as you haven’t. But maybe… one or two affiliate links or AdSense blocks integrated smartly would bump up your revenue without being damaging to sales.
Conclusion – In conclusion I think you’ve got a nice idea for an online store, a nice simple design scheme which works and a bad domain name. Change the domain name to something viral, memorable, brand-able and relevant and push it like mad and I think it will do much better. Obviously you don’t have to, just my opinion but I think it’s worth it.
Review of bloggingsecret.net
Domain Name – Pretty good domain name. I think maybe blogging ‘secrets’ would of been better but at least it’s got a viral element to it.
Design – Design is pretty non-existent. Put more effort in with your design, I think alot of people don’t value design enough. Obviously content is king but that doesn’t mean design isn’t prince, people remember good designs and logos whether they know it or not. Some things just globally hit a nerve because they connect so well socially on a general scale, such as YouTube obviously. But the design was there. You really have no design, there is nothing defining about your blog to separate it from the millions of other blogs out there writing on the same topic. Don’t get why the arrow has a US flag as a background, so that means other people probably wont either, which isn’t good. Think of a memorable logo, branding is one of the most important things, especially with blogs. There needs to be something to separate yours from others. Also maybe a border around content and a proper footer structure instead of just bare links with no surrounding.
Ads – Not much ad placement to judge here, which is good as the blog is still coming up so I think it’s good to keep ads minimalistic whilst your enticing readers. Otherwise you’ll run risk of losing the full effect of your posts and having a very uneven mix of loyal readers and readers who get lost in the ads or leave straight away. Keep building traffic, keep posting and then maybe think about integration… whatever works best, experiment.
Conclusion – I think you’ve got a semi-decent blog. You obviously put effort in with posts, but the main thing is your grammar and English. Obviously nobody expects you to have perfect English if you’re from a different country, no problem. But on a blog that’s being marketed in English, you’ll have a tough time enticing a great volume of readers from the US or UK with the way that you type. Think about the bloggers from the US or UK or anyone who can type in fluent English, people will go there instead because it’s easier to read. It’s just like, if you needed your car fixed and one place said ”ok this is going to take about 4 days” and another said ”I can have this ready in an hour” you’d go with that one right? because people like efficiency and ease. Trying to adhere to western slang to think that you need to write in English when you can’t type that great in English… bad idea in my opinion. There are plenty of people online in your country to remember, try marketing your blog in your own language, I think you’ll have more success.
Google have agreed to pay 50,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in the United Kingfom for content provided for YouTube.
The deal between YouTube and the non- profit MCPS-PRS alliance includes licensing for more than 10 million pieces of music.
YouTube is striking partnerships to expand its library of legal professional content after being sued for copyright infringement by Viacom, the English Football Association and music publisher Bourne Co. The MCPS-PRS said that it’s the first music royalty society outside the United States to forge an official agreement with YouTube.
Another great thing about AuctionAds is that you can rotate keywords and you do that like so…
You’ve got your keywords line in the java script like this:
auctionads_ad_kw = "keyword 1";
Now to rotate keywords you simply add more keywords to the line, like this:
auctionads_ad_kw = "keyword 1; keyword 2; keyword 3";
This is a great feature, it allows flexibility in a single ad unit. But the only problem is you can’t track specific keywords. If anybody from AuctionAds reads this, I wonder if they could take this into consideration as a new feature, somehow allowing keyword tracking.
This would allow terrific pinpoint click marketing for publishers, being able to A/B test keywords and track the best ones for improvement. Maybe you could allow a maximum of 5 to track as ‘keyword 1′ ‘keyword 2′ etc and track the amount of clicks for each keyword rotation.
Just an idea, but I think this would be really great.
Review of aromatherapypoint.com
Domain Name – I don’t particular like the domain name. It’s relevant and keyword friendly but you could of been more original. People like simplicity with site names generally, as they’re easier to remember. Some people would probably spell ‘aromatherapy’ wrong before they spell it right, long words or words even hinting on the complex side of spelling are usually a bad idea.
Design – Design is ok, a bit bland and colourless though. Completely featureless at the bottom of the page, try and use every bit of practical space for something decent, at least spaces people expect things to be. As the page fades down it goes into nothingness which really doesn’t help the site out visually in terms of giving it any sort of defining design to help it stick in people’s mind. Chances are people will see your site and go straight back off, or stay for a few seconds then leave and forget it completely due to the fact it’s too plain and simple.
Ads – Pretty good ad placement. No need for the border on the top unit though. It’s good that in a way your not trying to trick users into clicking by blending perfectly but you sort of are to a degree. If you’re gonna do it… do it, don’t meet half way, a placement like that is bold and intended to trick so lose the border.
Conclusion – Basically you’ve got a very bland looking site with no defining features to help anybody remember it. Which is a shame because it looks to me to be absolutely packed with unique text content, which is good. But you ain’t doing your content any favours by having such an unoriginal boring design. Work on the design, lose the ad border at the top, or lose the ad and brighten everything up abit, give it some originality. Also, I would pick a shorter more viral domain name and use that, then redirect the current domain to that.
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