Google Advertising Professional Test
May0
So I just hit 900 dollars a month on spending for PPC with Google across all my campaigns so I think its going to be coming time to take the AdWords Professional Test. I took a look at what exactly you get from aligning yourself with Google in such a way and the benefits are many. Starting with the fact that you can now post an AdWords certified image on your site (great for perspective customers) but just for passing the test you get a 100 dollar credit for your accounts, free money is always welcome. You also get a professional status page which is like a mini-profile for people to look at and verify that Google is indeed backing you. And last but not least, to quote Google, you get a “warm, fuzzy feeling of accomplishment.”
The test itself costs $50 to take and inorder to even be eligible to take the test you have to build and maintain a minimum of $900 dollars spent over 90 days. Assuming you have built this up, the test should be too hard as you are already maintaining a decent amount of money in before you can even take the test.
Ill most likely do some research for a few days to make sure im “up to snuff,” no reason in wasting the $50 fee because i didnt feel like being prepared. Look for my results soon.
Saving Money
May0
It’s safe to assume that if you are reading this article, you are interested in making money. Be it money earned online or money earned offline, earning your keep can make you feel just as good as shooting your arch-nemisis with a net gun. However, making money is only one side of the coin, if you are going to be raking in the cash, you need to make sure that it isn’t running back out. You see, part of why internet moneymaking remains profitable is because you are able to start with such a low overhead. Once you see a decent ROI over time, you can then up the ante and start dishing out some money for AdWords campaigns and the like, but you want to spend your money wisely, and that includes budgeting and saving. There are several ways you can track what you have coming in vs what is going out. For a while i was using Mint, but for whatever reason, it seems not to ever be 100% accurate. It sometimes forgets to send me my balance text messages and it doesn’t connect to my BoA accounts correctly, so ultimatley its use has come second to me just logging into my Bank of America account and doing it that way. At any rate, when you are consious of the what you are spending and can put it in an actual dollar amount, you can inadvertently save where you might have otherwise spent.
Another tip for this upside-down economy. If you cant control yourself with your credit cards, why not ask the issuing company to lower your credit limit? I had a $17,000 limit for no reason on my Mastercard. I never spent over 1k/month, so i called them and had them drop it to 8500. I know its still not close to the 1k i spend a month(average) but it allows for half of thew wiggle room and potential trouble from the larger credit line.
Overall, just make sure to spend only the money you have. Just becasue things are cheaper now, does not mean they need to be bought. Its great to make a lot of money, but even if you do, be sure to save wisely, not just spend wisely.
Buying A New Domain Name to Increase SERPs
Apr2
Often overlooked by beginning companies, buying additional domains that relate to your products and services, and hosting blogs on them can be a valuable tool in creating valuable backlinks to your site. Lets say you own PetesOrganicDog.com and sell dog leashes, collars, dog bowls, poop bags, and more. Now, lets say you buy organic-dog-collars.com and natural-dog-products.com and host simple but related blogs on each. As the search engines spider those additional sites and see that not only a block of relavant content is pointing to your domain but an entire site on your topic favors your brand, it weights those links heavier. Also, aging links are often seen as the most important in search engines, and if you control the keyword rich domains, you can always make sure that your links stay valid. This also helps you create your own ring of sites, which has the potential to rack up a lot more valid traffic, and also helps you put yourself more in control of your important links.
Google Adsense For Domains
Dec0
Looks like Google has added a new method of making some money on your websites, but this time it’s websites that you have nothing on. They have introduced Google Adsense for Domains, which is basically just parking domains with adsense ads all over them. I just set it up on a few of my domains, some of which had content at one point and some of which that has never had any content on it. So we’ll see if this method makes any money at all. It can’t hurt since the domains were just sitting with GoDaddy parking them for me, so why should they get all the money.
New Magento Version Released, Updated SEO Features
Nov0
The open-source ecommerce solution, Magento has just released a new version in time for all those online Holiday stores(woot!!). You can download the update within the Connect Manager in the admin portion of Magneto. It includes:
- Google Base integration
- Scheduled DV logs cleaning options
- Google Website Optimizer Integration
and more, its pretty slick, i sound like an advertisement - but im not, its that great. Here is a fancy little video showcasing the Google Website Optimizer options within 1.1.7.
Full 1.1.7 Patch Notes here.
ICANN Approves .tel Domain Names
Nov0
Who is going to be picking up some of these new .tel domain names? And yes, the article below is from 2006 when the .tel started making it’s move, but the sales are finally going to be happening. Check below for the dates.
An Internet regulator has approved the creation of the .tel domain, the company that proposed the domain announced on Monday.
Telnic, which proposed .tel to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2000, said the domain will give individuals and businesses a naming and navigation structure for Internet communications.
The idea is for people to use .tel as a way of communicating directly with the person or company behind a particular Web site, using technologies such as voice over Internet Protocol, e-mail or Short Message Service (SMS). Telnic used the examples of AdamSmith.tel or Hertz.tel.
“The .tel domain offers the first genuinely different use of domains since .com was first created. It will provide seamless integration of existing methods of communication, with emerging technologies like voice over IP,” Telnic’s chief executive, Khashayar Mahdavi, said in a statement.
“The days of needing to remember several telephone numbers, numerous VoIP or instant message identities and other points of contact for our social and professional networks are over. By leveraging innovative DNS (Domain Name System) technology, the .tel domain will allow anyone to publish and control, in real time, how they can be reached,” Mahdavi said.
Telnic, whose mission includes developing a text-based naming and navigation system for Internet communications, hopes to start awarding .tel addresses in 2007.
A similar initiative, called ENUM, already exists. It uses an architecture based on the Domain Name System to resolve telephone numbers to domain name addresses.
Last week ICANN rejected the adult-oriented .xxx domain, a move that was welcomed by adult industry insiders but criticized by the European Commission, which accused ICANN of bowing to pressure from the U.S. government.
Sunrise Registration (Trademark Holders Only)
Pre-booking available Now to December 3, 2008
Sunrise Registrations open December 3, 2008 & continues until February 2, 2009
Landrush Registration (Open to Everyone at a Premium Price)
Pre-booking available Now to February 3, 2009
Landrush registration opens February 3, 2009 & continues until March 24, 2009
General Registration (Open to Everyone at a Standard Price)
Pre-booking available Now to March 24, 2009
General registration opens March 24, 2009
source: CNET
My Experience With .info vs .com
Nov0
One of my biggest money making websites had been on a “.info” domain for over a year and was pulling a fair amount of money. I know that “.info” domains are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality and they are usually picked up by spammers for cheap. When I initially started the website I didn’t anticipate the amount of revenue I could generate with it and therefore didn’t want to spend the extra money on a “.com”. This was a big mistake!
A dot com domain costs anywhere from $6-10 per year, depending on what GoDaddy promo codes you can dig up, where a dot info domain runs you $1.99 per year. I was trying to save money but had I known that meager $4-8 for the year would have had me pulling in much more money I would have done it right the first time.
Earlier this month I decided it was time for this .info site to get a makeover and a new domain. It was starting to become cluttered with ads that didn’t need to be there, information that nobody clicked on and so forth, plus it was out of season and I wasn’t making a lot of money. First thing I did was secured a brand new .com domain for the website, making sure to use a good keyword. After that was secured, I got a different layout going and setup everything how I wanted. I did a few tests to make sure everything was going well and setup all the plugins and other stuff I needed. Everything was done, I switched the RSS subscribers over the new site, the twitter feed, all I needed to do was make a post on the old site letting people know that we’ve moved and then start updating the new site instead.
Keep in mind that I hadn’t been making much money on this site over the summer, it’s off season for this niche. As soon as I turned on the new site and started making posts there I was getting a ton more visitors than I normally had gotten. I was coming up way higher in SERPs and getting more click throughs which in turn was generating more revenue. I also had more people signing up as followers on twitter and subscribers to my RSS feed. I was certainly happy with the way things were looking.
It’s been about 13 days since I’ve launched the new look/domain and I’ve made more this month than I did all summer. I can’t put a finger on exactly what caused the massive change in visitors, but I’m pretty confident it has to do with the the SEO tactics I’ve implemented as well as the dot com domain. People seem to trust a .com more than a .info. The site is also not cluttered with ads anymore, although there are still a few minor issues I have to fix. Overall I’m amazed at the turnaround of the site over the past few weeks and it seems as though it’s not slowing down.
So my advice to you is if you’re going to start up a website and are debating between a .info and a .com due to the cheaper price, I would always go with the .com (.net if you absolutely have to). Just from my personal experience this month I can tell you that you will regret it if you go with the lesser of the two.







