Last week Chitika announced their newest, best-performing ad unit – the Chitika List Unit (CLU).  I am really excited about these ad units. It will give me another way to increase my Chitika earnings from a new unit that has proven to directly increase my CTR. You might also be interested in these ad units, therefore I have prepared a short Q & A for you:

What is the Chitika List Unit (CLU)?

The CLU looks just like your regular Chitika text ad units. It also has the ability to expand & display up to 9 ads in the unit. (wow!)

Here is an example of the CLU on a website:

There is a saying in the make money blogging business; “The More Ads In One Unit, The Higher The CTR”. So you will probably be making more money with a CLU.

Why should you use the CLU?

1. CTR Increase usually means more money for you! According to Chitika initial tests have proven that the more ads within an ad unit, the higher the revenue for you from the unit. I am also testing, will update you about my personal test too.

2. Great User-Experience. The CLU will expand and contract to however many ads are supported for a query within our ad inventory. In other words, if Chitika can not supply 9 ads for a particular query, the ad will automatically adjust its height, ensuring no ugly white-space.

How do you get the CLU?

All you need is to sign up Chitika and then login & get your code.

Where should you place the CLU on your website?

CLU is recommended to go directly below your content, or mixed in/bottom of a list.

You may also read my previous blog posts if you haven’t heard Chitika before. Here you are:

Chitika Premium Upgraded to Chitika Select

Chitika + Adsense Ad Placement Guide

Double Your Blog Income With Chitika Premium

How To Make Money With Blogs – Part 5

Writing talent and excellent web content will get your foot (and blog) in the door, so to speak, when it comes to establishing a web presence, but it won’t make you money.  Talent must be harnessed to “web savviness” in order for you to quit your day job (if in fact that is your goal) and make decent money from your blog.  This demands a fundamental understanding of diverse web technologies.  To be without this knowledge is like being a general in charge of a battle without knowing what the weapons are.

Online income generation depends on understanding these technologies and knowing how to utilise them to propel the most traffic to your site.  Take for example, a lack of knowledge about search engine optimisation (SEO).  Without an understanding of SEO, the search engine ranking of your site is significantly decimated compared to the ratings of a site where the webmaster is au fait with the concept.  Still, technology cannot stand alone and in order to be truly web savvy you must understand that making money with a blog means knowing how to please the majority of those who orbit around your blog most of the time, namely: visitors, advertisers, search engines, affiliate programs, etc.

One direct method to monetise your blog concerns Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising networks of which Google AdSense is the most popular option.  As with others of its ilk, you sign up and then simply copy and paste code snippets on your website.  Google then places contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.  The amount of profits gleaned is proportionate to the general traffic levels of the website and on the click through rate (CTR) and the cost per click (CPC).

Additional CPC advertising networks include: Yahoo Publisher Network (YPI), BidVertiser, Chitika and Clicksor. CPM advertising networks (Cost Per Mille) operate in the same manner as PPC networks except that you get paid according to the number of impressions that the ads displayed on your site will generate.  Some CPM networks include: Casale Media, Burst Media, Value Click, Tribal Fusion and Right Media.  There are also text link ads, affiliate programs like Amazon or LinkShare and ads sold to individual advertisers that can generate monthly income to your site.

There are also indirect methods that can generate income for a blog.  Selling an e-book, for example, is one of the oldest moneymaking strategies on the internet.  You can also sell hardcover books on your website which many authors and journalists do.  A news feed is a very important indirect method of earning money online.  RSS (Real Simple Syndication) requires a feed reader such as Google Reader.  Create feeds so that your readers can subscribe to them.  If you add new content often, each time you do so, the feed will promote it and thus draw more traffic to your site.  RSS feeds do not rely on bookmarking and they automatically keep your content fresh and new.

Apart from blogging, I spend most of my time revealing the secrets of search engines. I have quite a lot of SEO customers who are willing to rank high on their desired keywords especially on Google.  I must admit, this is the most difficult challenge I have ever taken in my business life. Especially nowadays it is much more difficult than before to rank high on Google. Throughout the time I found a way to crack Google’s ranking algorithm, which is ever changing.

We know that Google uses about 200 ranking factors to determine the position of a web page in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). However, Google does not reveal the list of ranking factors and how exactly they are weighted.

Which factors are important to Google when ranking a web site?

Google revealed some factors that affect the position of a web page in Google’s search results in the past:

1. the presence of a keyword in the HTML title tag
2. the presence of a keyword in the HTML body copy
3. keywords in bold typeface
4. keywords in header tags
5. the presence of a keyword in anchor text in links to a page
6. the PageRank of a page (the actual PageRank, not the toolbar PageRank)
7. the PageRank of the entire domain
8. the loading speed of the web site

These eight factors are amongst the 200 factors that Google uses to rank a website. However, it does not make sense to add your search terms to every element on your website. It’s also important that the density or frequency of the search term in the web page elements is correct. If a search term appears in every possible element on a page, it is possible that Google will penalize the page.

How Can You Crack Google’s Ever-Changing Secret Ranking Algorithm?

Actually it is a lot easier then you might think. The web pages that are listed on Google’s first result page for your search terms obviously have all the ranking elements that are needed to get a top 10 position on Google for that search term. If you want to be listed for the same search term, it is better to analyze the top ranked pages. Here are some of the questions to be asked when analyzing those pages:

• In which page elements do they use the search term?
• How many links do the top ranked pages have?
• How many of these links contain the search term?
• How often should you use the search term in the different web page elements and the links?

Analyzing the top 10 pages will help you to greatly improve the rankings of your own web pages for your search terms. I use IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer to  analyze the top 10 ranked pages and my customers  web pages. IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer analyzes all elements of the top 10 ranked pages and it compares the results to your own web page. It will tell you exactly how to change your own pages so that they will be listed on Google’s first result page. Good luck!

Aweber Email Autoresponder is one of my favorite tools for making money online with my blog. You can literally boost your website traffic and make more sales with email marketing from Aweber.  Idea is simple, yet brilliant; build an email list, send regular newsletters including your affiliate programs and links, and make sales. With Aweber you almost guarantee to make more sales gradually through the time. You may read my previous review to get more information about Aweber: Aweber Review

I signed up for Aweber Email marketing and it normal charges 19$/month. The good news is now you can sign up as low as $1 and try this extraordinary mailing service for a month. Sign up for Aweber for 1$ for the first month and do try your hand into Email marketing. Email marketing is valuable as it’s your list which can make real money for you through the time.

Do you also use an email autoresponder for email marketing? Are you using Aweber autoresponder for your Email marketing? Please share your experience with Aweber as comment to this blog post. Maybe I can learn some of its features which I haven’t used so far.

Money, money and money… Whenever we want to do something big, we always think it’s going to cost us a fortune. So, we dig a grave to bury our dreams without ever thinking about doing some research that whether our dreams of making our small business a huge success is possible in limited budget or not.

One thing that causes small businesses to fail is that small businesses don’t work on creating their corporate identity. Without creating a top quality logo, you can’t build your business image and, hence, your marketing efforts will only waste your time and money.

Corporate Identity, Social Media and Graphic Design are Connected:

Your logo design helps you create your identity. When you use online social media to promote your business, your campaigns won’t be effective without an attractive logo.

Yes, your logo design plays an important role in giving your business a credible look. If it’s not attractive, your business won’t look attractive. As social media is a free way of promoting your business globally, you still won’t get much benefit.

Secondly, even if you manage to drive traffic to your site through your social media campaigns, you will only enjoy high conversion if your website design is attractive and professional.

Hence, corporate identity, social media and your website or graphic design are connected and they all work together to make your business successful.

Let’s Talk About Them in Detail:

Corporate Identity:

To create your corporate identity in a professional way, you need a professionally designed logo. In order to understand the importance of this small piece of design, let’s look at all big brands. For example: Nike, Toyota, Target, Adidas, etc. They all have a logo and these businesses are easily recognized by their logos.

Luckily, in today’s tough competition, custom logo design prices are not high. You can now get a top quality logo at a fraction of the cost.

Long gone are the days when logos cost thousands of dollars.

So, before you start promoting your business, go ahead and get a top quality custom logo design to represent your business professionally worldwide.

Social Media:

After creating your corporate identity, you may start your marketing campaigns. Today, online social media is a powerful way of promoting your business. When you create your accounts on different sites, you can display your logo design on all different pages. This way, your market will begin to know about your business and recognize your logo.

If your logo design is of low-quality, the chances are, you will be perceived as a low-quality business and people won’t take much interest in you. So, start marketing on social media after you create your corporate identity in an effective way.

Graphic Design:

Now, it’s time you drive traffic to your site from social media. However, you won’t enjoy a good conversion rate if the graphic design of your website is not attractive. So, this is something you need to work on. Make sure your website looks attractive and your logo is prominent on all pages.

Just like logos, getting your website designed is not expensive these days. When you pay to create an attractive website, think of your payment as an investment which will eventually pay off and help you increase your sales and grow your business.

The bottom line is… Uncle Sam never told us that Corporate Identity, Social Media and Graphic Design work together to make your business a huge success. The best part is… You can achieve success even if your budget is limited.

This is a guest post by Ben Johnson from logoinn.com