The move was not easy at the beginning as we strive to have long term relationships with Internet advertising providers even if it means to miss opportunities. We did ran into some invoicing issues with Vibrant Media which definitely fueled the decision to move. We were contacted by one of Kontera’s business development managers who convinced us that Kontera would be able to monetize the website better which essentially meant more revenue for us.

We did not run blindly into this though as we have been burned quite a few times in the past by Internet advertising agencies who claimed to up the revenue but failed to deliver. Kontera was easy to setup on the blog as they provided access to a Wordpress plugin. Took a couple of minutes to install and configure the plugin and everything was set to go. One of the differences between Kontera and Intellitxt is that the former allows to change the color of the links while the latter does not. Kontera managed to reach the same level of revenue that Intellitxt provided but managed to surpass that after the first week. We are now at about 150% of the Intellitxt revenue.

Every website on the other hand is different and performance can therefor vary quite a bit depending on your site’s niche, language and other factors.

Related posts

• Internet Advertising: Opt-Out Of Behavioral Targeting (8)
• The Rubicon Project (0)
• Refer an advertiser, get half the money for the first month (1)
• Protect your privacy from Google AdSense’s new behavioral ads (17)
• Money Makers: Auction Ads (0)

One of them was the non-existing option to pick site categories and provide information to potential advertisers. Google now has introduced the Google Ad Planner which changes this slightly. The service seems to be in a testing phase with webmasters being invited by email. Every website that has been added to Google Webmaster Tools can be added to Google Ad Planner which then offers a basic interface to add information about the website.

This includes a small 250 character description, the selection of an advertising url directly on the website, up to five categories that describe the website’s contents (Computer & Electronics category alone has dozens of subcategories to choose from, the accepted advertising forms and the option to share Google Analytics data with Google Ad Planner (only unique visitors and pageviews which are estimated by Ad Planner).

It is obviously to early to tell if these information will make any difference at all as they only seem to affect so called placement ads on a website. Placement ads are ads that are placed by Adwords customers directly on the website. This stands in contrast to contextual ads that are placed globally on websites. Contextual ads usually make up the bulk of ad placements on a website whereas placement ads pay better.

Interested webmasters can take a look at how their website is displayed by visiting the Google Publisher Center.

Related posts

• Protect your privacy from Google AdSense’s new behavioral ads (17)
• Which Adsense Ads and Locations work best on my blog ? (6)
• Two New Google Trends Features (0)
• New Adsense Clickzone consequences (1)
• If Google Went Down What Would You Do? (28)

There are however several differences between the Rubicon Project and Pubmatic which are worth noting. When I first joined Pubmatic I was turned off by the fact that I had to add my username and password for all the advertising companies that I did work with and that I had to sign up for all that I was not a member of yet.

This required a huge portion of trust on my side which I was not able to give at that time. I did not want to give away my login details which basically could be used to change account details like payment address. I therefor never tried out Pubmatic.

The Rubicon Project does not have this requirement. They use existing accounts for sites that generate less than 300000 impressions per day. This has several advantages. First, I do not have to give them my existing login information which is great. Second I do get paid by Paypal or Check from one company and not from several. I also see all the stats and performance in one place instead of having to log into several websites to check the performance of my ads.

Third, I do not have to join networks that I’m no member of yet and finally I can use advertisers that are not available yet in my country. This means that it is for instance possible to have YPN (Yahoo Ads) displayed on your website even if you do not have a US-American SSID. That’s the theory at least because I can currently select only a handful of networks from the list of advertising networks listed on their website.

A quick chat with the excellent support revealed that the Network Directory contained most known advertising networks and that users could comment and rate them even if they have not been added yet to the Rubicon Project. Plans are to add as many advertisers from that list before the commercial release in 2008.

I’m currently using ads from their website to fill as second tier for certain ad spots on my website and will report back when I have some data that I can share. Here is a short list of changes that I would like to see:

• Create Ad Zones and disable certain networks on those zones. Currently a network can only be disabled for all ad spots.
• Faster reporting times. They are updated once a day only but they will most likely fix this before they leave Beta
• More Advertisers. Some heavyweight advertisers are missing currently. Those are YPN, Tribalfusion, Burst Media and others that I use on my website currently
• Make it clearer that users have to select ad colors themselves and make it possible to use different colors for different ad zones.

I heard about the Rubicon Project at Connected Internet. Make sure you check this awesome blog out and add it to your RSS Reader.

Tags: advertisement, blog monetization, blog revenue, monetize, revenue


Related posts

• Pandora adds commercials (3)
• Breakdown of Blog Earnings (5)
• A second look at TNX (0)
• Which Adsense Ads and Locations work best on my blog ? (6)
• Remove the Advertising in Games like Battlefield 2142 (0)
]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/28/the-rubicon-project/feed/ 0 http://www.ghacks.net/2007/06/28/how-to-create-a-successful-rewarding-blog-i/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/06/28/how-to-create-a-successful-rewarding-blog-i/#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:49:30 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/06/28/how-to-create-a-successful-rewarding-blog-i/ I got several emails the last days asking me about tips on how to start a blog or improve an already established blog which in the end led to the post that I’m currently writing. I sometimes hear the argument that it does not make sense to start a blog because there are so many blogs out there that already cover all topics that one can write about.

While this is definitely not true for all topics you will face serious difficulties if you want to create just another gadget or technology blog unless you can provide something that the other blogs can’t. While it will probably not be worthwhile to just copy and paste what established sites like Gizmodo or Engadget write it could be worthwhile to write about the same topics from a different point of view.

This leads to the most important aspect of a successful blog in my opinion unless you want to create a auto blog that simply posts lots of topics a day by copying articles from other sites getting some visitors from search engines for a few months. You either need expertise, a great writing skill or other skills that distinguish your blog from hundreds of similar blogs that write about your topics.

I personally like to find niches that I’m interested in. This ensures that I like to write about the topics and will be more likely to continue writing. I tried several blogs that covered topics that I was not that interested in and I slowly found out that I was not motivated at all to write for them.

The next important step is to think about domain names, webhosting and scripts that you want to use. You could begin with a free hosted account at blogspot or similar services but I would suggest to start with your own domain name right away. Getting a domain name plus hosting for a year starts at about $20 a year which should be affordable by most writers.

The advantage is that you are creating a visible brand by having your own domain name. People will recognize you and your blog by that name far better. I’m not in the position to suggest a webhost or domain broker but I had good success with Godaddy for domains and take a look at WHReviews for some good reviews of companies that offer webhosting.

This is just a one time process so make sure you take your time and select a good suited webhoster for your needs. You don’t need a big package at the beginning, 10+ megabytes of space (unless you plan a site that hosts it’s own videos or big images), 5+ gigabyte of traffic, one mysql database and php support. You should contact them however and ask them directly if it is possible to upgrade to a bigger plan when your site reaches it’s limits due to traffic increases. (you will be making enough money at that point that you do not have to worry about hosting costs anymore, they are only a fraction of the earnings in general)

I recommend Wordpress as the blog software. I’m using it here at ghacks as well for instance. Wordpress can be easily installed and administrated through an web interface and more than thousand plugins make it ideal to offer a wide variety of services.

To sum up what I have written in the first part of the successful blog series:

• Find something that you are an expert in or write about something that has a unique look and feel about it
• Get your own domain name. If possible get a 6-12 digit .com address. If com is taken get .net or .org
• Read reviews of web hosters and choose one carefully. Make sure that it is possible to upgrade the accounts if needed
• Use Wordpress as the script to run the blog

The next part of this series will give you insight in setting up the blog, choosing the right theme, customizing it, adding plugins and writing the first articles. The last part of the series will give you information about traffic building and monetizing your blog.

If you have tips or something to add leave a comment ;)

Tags: blog monetization, creating a blog, drive traffic to blog


Related posts

• The Rubicon Project (0)
• Internet Advertising Provider Kontera (12)
• Google Ad Planner (2)
]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/06/28/how-to-create-a-successful-rewarding-blog-i/feed/ 4