I stopped selling banner ads on this blog over a year ago because I didn’t feel I could give the advertisers their money’s worth. The click-through rate (CTR) was always super low and it didn’t seem to matter what image or ad was displayed. That’s why this site is third-party banner free, not because I don’t want your money.

I have also been a blog banner advertiser for years now. I have advertised various sites, programs and products using banner ads on blogs and websites. For the most part, I hate to say this, they have failed miserably. I could just be very bad at banner advertising but I think blog banner advertising probably isn’t the best use of our advertising budget. Sure, it’s relatively inexpensive unless you are going after the really large sites and design and setup are a breeze.

I haven’t given up yet. I have several banner advertisements running on a few blogs right now and I’m determined to make banner advertising work. I will stop all current campaigns and try smarter ad practices.

Blog Banner Advertising Challenges

Challenge #1: There are several challenges to running banner advertisements on a blog. First of all, the layout. We all love our beautiful blog themes but most of us have become immune to the 125 pixel banners grouped in that right sidebar with one or two larger banners. Yes, bloggers get banner blindness very quickly.

Solution:
Contact the blogger directly and ask if you can advertise on a particular, upcoming blog post that will be relevant. Ask if your banner ad can be embedded into the post it’s self, the same way we do for our own ads from time to time. For example, a banner ad designer promotion would fit nicely with this post. This obviously takes more effort but I believe it will pay off.

Challenge #2: The second challenge is the ad getting stale. Most blogs sell banner ads by the month yet in the video below Mike Blinder says, “If it goes stale it will fail”. Referring to banner ads he says online ads die after nine days.

Solution:
This can be corrected if the ad image remains on your server and in your control. We can update the image on the fly without waiting to renew the ad. The links will stay the same but we are in control of the image and landing page. Weekly changes and lots of testing are the solution I think.

Your Thoughts? Do you offer banner advertising? Are they selling? Are they effective? Do you buy banner ads? Is banner advertising dead?

Ok, many of us have been fighting the same battle for a very long time. The battle… Too many projects – not enough time. We start a blog or website and just as things start getting interesting we start another. And another. The next thing we know we’re up till two in the morning everyday trying to keep up. That battle can only be won if we know what we’re up against. Below shows how a single blog post can take up to five hours or more.

1. 2 Hours: The first step to any post is deciding what to write about. It is impossible to put a time on that step. Once we have our subject we need to consider our keywords. A little keyword research goes a long way. Now we draw up an outline and begin to form the post. We sometimes go to a dozen or more sites checking details and researching facts. We also need to decide which posts are relevant enough to link out to. Once we have the outline in order it’s time to check sentence structure, spelling and punctuation. Having someone proofread your article helps a lot. Now we’re almost ready. All we need now is an image. Searching for that perfect image that we are allowed to use can take a lot of time. So we publish our post. If you are anything like me you just spent at least two hours of your time on this single post. But we are not finished investing time on this blog post.
2. 1 Hour: Now it’s promotion time. The post needs to be pinged, dugg, and tweeted. We need to add the post to our Facebook and FriendFeed. We need to add the post to the best blog directories and build backlinks. If we really want success we write a couple of separate unique articles to submit to article directories linking back to our post.
3. 2+ Hours: Hopefully we’ll get a bunch of comments to moderate and reply to. We clean up the spam and moderate the rest. We need to follow the link back to each blogger that commented and return the favor. Here’s where many of us get very distracted. Reading posts and comments, following links and commenting more. I’ve lost many hours here.

I have heard some bloggers say they can toss up a post in twenty minutes. I envy them. What about you? Do you spend a lot of time on a single post? How many blogs are you running and how often do you post?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaunsglo/ / CC BY 2.0

File This Under General Advice For Newbies: I have an all paid membership site that has given me a vivid insight on why most newbie internet business owners never make money online. My site is just $4.95/month or $49.95/year (no, this is not a promotional post – I’m not even going to link to the site). I am amazed at exactly how many people sign up for the membership and simply don’t have five bucks in their PayPal account a month later to keep the service. I’ll get a couple of notifications from PayPal that the payment subscription has failed and many times I get emails from members asking for more time.

This post isn’t to insult anyone, we all have to learn and that takes time. My membership site is an ad tracking site so I have the unique opportunity to take a peek at what members are promoting and there is definitely a disturbing pattern.

Without naming particular sites, most of those not earning are wasting their time with traffic exchanges, safelists and free for all (FFA) type sites. Crazy things like gifting and survey sites. Others are trying affiliate marketing which takes some skill to gain success. But the biggest common denominator is marketing. Almost every member that loses their account from non-payment has setup a ton of tracking links and has no or very few clicks on their trackers.

My recommendation to new internet marketers?

1. First of all, subscribe to this blog and newsletter. Seriously, I’m here to help and I won’t take your money to do it.
2. Second, make some friends. This is one of the best ways to learn the ropes. I love the group of marketers and bloggers we have here. Everyone is quick to help each other and we have fun doing it.
3. Third, find a mentor. Find someone successful that has the same interests and see if they’ll give you the time of day. If they’re too into themselves to notice you, move on and find the right fit. You don’t have to worship a mentor, just learn from them.
4. Fourth, Subscribe to every blog that you can find that offers valuable information in your niche. Who cares if they’re your competition? Subscribe anyway and compete as friends and always interact by sharing and commenting.
5. My fifth, and most important piece of advice – help others. It’s true, you can go a long way by serving others. Go out of your way to help, always acknowledge your friends and don’t be stingy when it comes to giving credit where credit is due.

I’m sure there’s more. I hope more will be added in the comments below. The internet is big enough for all of us to make money and I’d love to see all of my friends get there. Your comments and advice are welcome.

Image Credit: PassionatePhoto.com

I’m happy to announce the official takeover of HotBlogTips.com by Keith Bloemendaal

Last week I posted Who Wants To Run HotBlogTips.com? and Keith decided to take the challenge and he is more than qualified. Keith has experience in business and blogging and he has the drive that most of us just think about. I’m very excited about the new HotBlogTips.com and to see what Keith does with it. He has already done more than the previous admin did in six months but that guy was a slacker

Keith has full control of the blog and can do anything he wants with it. I decided to hand over the blog and just keep ownership of the domain. Keith agreed to keep a link on the blog to my online consulting site but other than that it’s his baby.

Just as a side note, in case anyone is wondering, Keith is not going to build that blog up just to get stuck paying me a bunch of money or worse later. I agreed to sell the domain to Keith anytime he wants to buy it at the value it was the day he took it over which, as we all know, is ten thousand dollars …. just kidding. I don’t even know honestly, but I’m not going to do him wrong. He’s doing me a favor by freeing up some time and easing my stress level a bit.

So please, stop by and visit the new HotBlogTips.com, comment on a couple posts and don’t forget to subscribe. You can’t go wrong because it’s a great blog on it’s way to the top. You can also follow Hot Blog Tips on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Does anyone out there know of a single blog directory worth having their badge on your site? A directory that you actually get traffic from? Of all the blog directories I’ve joined over the years I can only find one back link (that Google knows about) to this blog. That directory is New-List. I joined New-List in September of 2006 and I can’t see any way to edit that outdated URL. I virtually get no traffic from blog directories – ZERO! I have removed every badge and widget from this site with the exception of Blog Engage. Blog Engage isn’t really a blog directory, it’s more of a blog article review site. It’s very cool, check it out.

BlogCatalog:
BlogCatalog is what set me off on this rant so it’s going to seem like a ‘pick on BlogCatalog post‘. My BlogCatalog concerns started a year ago when I spent $72 on two ads. The results? Total visitors = 7

Then a few months ago I was having problem with my blog freezing up whenever I went to it – and I have broadband internet and my site is cached! I could see the browser message on the bottom showing, “Waiting for BlogCatalog.com“. I had to remove the widget and put their silly code in the footer.

No big deal,  I figured, at least they still have that broadcast feature. That’s a very cool tool, right? You would think, until you ran a couple tests.

August 25th, 2009 I sent a message broadcasting to 381 BlogCatalog users promoting my blog post ‘Get Featured With Our Promotional Buttons‘. I used my tracking site to create a tracking link. The result? Zero clicks!

October 17th, 2009 I sent a message broadcasting to 385 BlogCatalog users with a fantastic subject line, ‘AdSense Site – First Month = One Hundred Dollars‘. Tracking result? One click!

I’ve been a BlogCatalog member since November 2006 and even wrote a blog post on how great blog directories are a while back. Now I think it’s time to part ways, just like Entrecard.

MyBlogLog:
While I’m at it, I’m going to get rid of MyBlogLog too. MyBlogLog has never been that great and even though they are run by Yahoo the site seems very unorganized to say the least. I’ve had thumbnails waiting to be updated for over a year – literally. Check it out.

I’m Not Alone:
I know I’m not the only one becoming discouraged with blog directories lately. See what Sheryl Loch had to say over a week ago: Has BlogCatalog Gone Down Hill? And check out what John Sullivan thinks about Blogcatalog. I love John and his subtle way of expressing himself lol Blogcatalog An open letter to you

Pulling Back To Ease The Pain:
I don’t mean to come off as blog directory basher. There may be some good ones out there. There may be hidden benefits with the ones I listed. Please let me know if I’ve missed something before I burn the bridges. I hold no grudge or ill will to any of these directories, it can’t be an easy task to run a profitable directory while staying on top of everything. Remember BlogRush? (BTW, how does BlogRush still have a Google PR of 4 when it’s been shut down for the last year? Hardly seems fair)

So I’ll ask it again…
Does anyone out their know of a single blog directory worth having their badge on your site? (feel free to leave links) Am I off base here? Are you making blog directories work for you?

I’m not going to rehash all the news today about the guidelines released by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). If you’ve been asleep and missed it see ‘Potential FTC Fines Raise Big Blogging Questions‘.

Most of what I’ve read today is a lot of strong concerns and objections on the matter. When it comes to the Government we tend to immediately distrust the decisions and I’m no exception. But I would like to explain why I feel hopeful when it comes to online marketing.

If the internet’s overall reputation regarding advertising is cleaned up and consumer confidence improves we all win. If old Uncle Ed decides to trust the net enough now to buy a few Christmas presents online this year every online business gets a little boost in credibility.

It’s not only the scammers that have been hurting the net and internet marketing in general. It’s all of the marketers that push products based on the profit margin and/or affiliate commission rather than the actual value it provides the customer. You see these guys blasting emails every single day offering something different with each mailing. It would be great if some of this disappears. All they have to do at this point is disclose the fact they profit from the sale. Wouldn’t it be nice if they had to actually believe in and use every product promoted? Yes, I’m a marketer and it sounds like I’m against marketing but it’s just the opposite. I love this industry and would love to see it cleaned up. I posted a little on the matter about two weeks ago ‘Brian D. Hawkins – A Name You Can Trust‘.

I usually keep opinion based posts for my personal blog but decided to share this one with my marketing and blogging friends. Speaking of friends, stop by ExtremeJohn.com and read his opinion on the subject. He hits the nail right on the head – ‘Bullshit Review Bloggers Time to Get Honest‘.

It seems that a good number of bloggers seem to be under the impression that one path to success is to follow the guru ghost. If that’s your blogging business model keep reading.

The truth is most of what you read on those mega blogs is outsourced content written by hired writers. That doesn’t mean the content isn’t worth reading and learning from. What it does mean if you are following and commenting in hopes of getting the guru’s attention your chances are slim and none. Take a look at their comments sections and notice how little they even take the time to respond to their commenters.

This post isn’t to attack the blogging gurus, I just want to clear up the misconception that your blogging success depends on them. Quite the contrary, your success depends on developing relationships with other bloggers within your niche and interest. As a blogger, success can be measured in many ways but I’m referring to traffic, comments and money earned.

Blogging is a two-way street and most mega bloggers quit that game long ago. How many of these gurus have emailed you or even taken two seconds to comment on your blog? How many have clicked the link to check your site out?

I’m not going to attack John Chow but he is very well known so I’ll use his blog as an example. One of his featured posts, How I Make $40,000 a Month From a Blog, currently has 191 comments. Out of that only 10 are John Chow’s replies. I’m not saying he’s doing anything wrong, I’m saying you are more than likely wasting your valuable time commenting if it’s to rub shoulders with the Guru Ghost.

One more point on John Chow’s blog while I’m on the subject. In that same post I referred to above, John Chow wrote, “The video contain information that I have never written about before – it revealed my blog business model“. Isn’t that amazing? With all of the ‘make money‘ posts he has published why would he leave out the things he does to make money? Now do you think the video is showing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

For all you marketers out there that have purchased thousands in ‘life changing‘ products pushed by the marketing gurus has a single purchase paid off? Do you think Mike Filsaime is such a good guy that he’s going to give away the golden goose for $97? I think not.

The Truth

You have to find your own way because the path is your own. That’s not some Kung Fu Confucius quote but the truth. You should start with your peers. People you have a common bond with and who you admire. That’s the only why to develop sincere relationships. Anything less is simply trying to take advantage of someone and no one is interested in being a victim, not even the guru ghosts.

Would you like to see who I admire and follow? Who I consider friends? Check out my friends list. Are you on there?

This post is going to sound like I’m spiteful, jealous or even bitter. I’m not – really. I love internet marketing and I believe in the free market system. I’m impressed when others out do everyone and make a ton of money and I’m happy for them.

I just want to clear something up for our subscribers and site visitors. I also want our Ad Tracking members to understand this too. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the be-all end-all expert on the subject but I’ve been here for years. What I’m about to say will make a few people mad but most will already know the truth. Here it is…

Let me say that again:

I’m not saying don’t buy online products. I’m just saying know what you are buying and buy it for the right reason. When Big Boy Marketer says you will make thousands by reading his secret ebook he may not be the right one to listen to. You already know why. He’s trying to sell it. If it was that great he would keep his mouth shut and do it himself getting rich in the process. No, Big Boy Marketer knows the only way to make money with that product is by selling it so that’s what he’s doing. You didn’t think he was just a really really nice guy did you?

Here’s how it works. You tell me if this sounds familiar at all:

An internet marketer comes along and gets moderate success. He sells a few products for $27 and then $47 while he builds a small base of affiliates and a list. Now he takes that success and his team of affiliates and sells $97 products. Then, as he gets well known and everyone wants to work with him the prices go up. Products go quickly at $197, $497, $1497 and up. They get so high payment plans are created just so people can buy the products.

All that sounds great and I’m all for making money. The products are not what’s selling it’s the marketer. No surprise there, that’s the system we live in. But here’s the problem…

Many of the marketers are selling a lie. They lead others to believe that’s how they got where they are. A newbie sees the successful marketer and hear’s him say, “Do this and your world will be blessed with gold and silver“. Once he squeezes as much out of that product as possible he sets up the next sale. “Buy this“, he says, “and you’ll have to hire a team of accountants to count your money“. The truth is that very often the product is no better than the first one that sold for $27. Oh, it didn’t work for you? You must have done it wrong. Did you follow my steps exactly as outlined? You see, the marketer forgot to mention that he didn’t make his money from the steps outlined in the ebooks, tele-seminars, live conferences, online courses, membership sites, video packages or any other product he’s offering. He made his money by convincing others that he did. Period! That’s it, case closed. No really, I mean the post is finished

Image credit: SXC

According to InternetWorldStats.com there are over one and a half billion internet users worldwide. That’s 336.1% growth from 2000 to 2008 with 23.5% penetration by the end of 2008.

With one forth of the world having access to the internet combined with the overall world economy it’s pretty easy to understand why so many are turning to the internet for an income source.

This is hardly scientific but I have been running a small poll on our Tracker Blog asking, ‘Are You Making Money Online?‘. 49.0% admit they have not made a cent while another 33.0% say they haven’t even made enough to cover expenses. With 82% of our poll takers loosing money online while they are trying to earn a profit I have to believe there is a large need for legitimate instructional resources.

It’s sad to see internet marketing newbies slapping together a quick site or blog and filling it with affiliate and PPC ads. With average “click-through” rates of around 1/2% a lot of traffic is needed to go that route yet that seems to be standard procedure.

Why bring it up? I was a little surprised at the numbers and think it may be a huge opportunity for many. I think this trend will keep moving in the same direction for a long time with more and more newbies needing direction. A lot of our subscribers and site visitors are already working the newbie niche and providing an excellent service. It’s just something to think about.

BTW, As a side note I’m not that fond of the term ‘newbie‘ but it seems to be the most accepted name. I mean no disrespect or insult to new internet marketers.

Strange question but I’m interested in what you do while working your online magic. What gets you in the right frame of mind. Is it music? Watching TV? Oh, you’re so bad! LOL

I’m guilty of both but lately I’m trying to get back into an ‘all business‘ environment. Today we have a lot more distraction then we did just a few short years ago. It use to be the phone every now or then and perhaps a family member needing your attention. Now we have things like cell phones, text messages, email alerts, instant messengers, Twitter and Skype just to name a few. Toss in a cool program like House or a great album playing in the background and we’re soon in desperate need of hair transplants.

Ok, the best solution is quiet. Shut everything off and get to work. That might work for some but I need those little distractions mentioned above, I don’t care about my hair falling. It can’t get any grayer! What I can do is regulate them a little. As cool as Dr. House is wouldn’t it be better to fill my head with a little Seth Godin or Robert Kiyosaki? What about a teleseminar we may have missed? I’m a big fan of YouTube and most of these videos can be played behind your work while listening to the audio portion. I use a laptop next to my desktop for audio and video learning.