When it comes to making money online with a blog, one of the most popular methods is contextual advertising. Text or image ads are shown which match the content of the pages. Ads appear in small boxes. Contextual ads are often displayed to the right or left of website copy, or as blocks within sections of the text. The ads shown are related to the content of each individual page. As visitors click on these links, you make money.

Probably the largest and most used of the contextual ad programs is Google’s Adsense. Google really is a giant when it comes to the Internet, and their talents go far beyond just being a search engine. Adsense is used by many site owners to bring in a monthly income. While Google Adsense is still the king of contextual advertising, there are a few good alternatives. A good and popular example is Chitika ads.

Yesterday was one of the most exciting days in my life. I gave my first ever public speech on a blogging related topic at Cebit Bilisim Eurasia exhibition. It was titled “10 Ways of Making Money Online with Blogs” You can check the presentation at SlideShare. Unfortunately it is only in Turkish now. I will later translate it into English too.

I also make a very nice video interview with Sekit Can Gokalp,   Turkey country manager of Mixxt.You can watch the interview at OkumaSitesi.com

All in all it was a very exciting event for me. I am planning of joining more events like this in the future.

One side note; Bloghology social networking site for bloggers are growing. We requested from our current beta testers to invite their friends. If you want to become a member of this selective community, please sign up my weekly blog tips newsletter.

I always try to find out alternative ways of making money online with my blog. I discovered Rubicon Project while I was surfing on one of my friend’s blog. The project was in beta stage, but the idea was so extraordinary that I could not stop myself applying for it.

A few days later I got a confirmation letter from Rubicon Project that my blog is accepted. I installed the necessary code to my blog, and the journey started!

Rubicon Project – Master of the Ad Networks

Have you ever dreamed of having one control panel for optimizing all your ad networks? It is now possible to monitor and optimize all your ad networks within one Rubicon Project account.

I call Rubicon Project as Master of the Ad Networks because it offers direct relationship with more than 65+ ad networks, which means new income opportunities for bloggers. Adsense, Shopzilla, AdBrite, Cpx Interactive, and many more ad networks can be managed with a Rubicon Project account.

It has a simplified user interface. You can check daily reports for multiple sites within one Rubicon Project account. Rubicon Project optimizes your ads to maximize your profits.

How Much Did I Earn With Rubicon Project?

I joined Rubicon Project in March 2008, and made around $18 in the first month, mostly from Google Adsense. I expected more to come in April 2008, however monthly revenue dropped to $11, despite the fact that my readership and traffic increased compared to March.

I have been thinking about the reasons of this fluctuation since very long time. Yesterday I noticed that they also provide a live help service for registered users. I chat with their customer service, and they confirmed that they will try to understand the reasons of this fluctuation. It was an amazing experience!

For more information you may check this Ad Network Optimization

Conclusion

Rubicon Project is still in public beta period, yet it is very promising. First come, first serve. I suggest you to get your place in the project before it is too late. Unfortunately they don’t provide affiliate service at the moment. Thus please don’t worry, above links are not affiliate links, and I won’t make money when you click on them.

Article written by Yaro Starak

There are basically two types of bloggers in the world – reporters and experts – and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Information overload is a serious problem for most of the bloggers. We constantly consume information in order to keep up to date with our blogging topic. Frankly speaking, a lot of time spent consuming information is wasted time.

Therefore I decided to start a weekly post series on how to deal with information overload. I will offer you some tips on information overload every week.

How I deal with Information Overload?

Today you are free to subscribe unlimited number of RSS feeds, and spend most of your time reading the popular bloggers. However, I argue that this is a waste of your valuable time. You need to take baby steps everyday to achieve your goals.

Since the beginning I have a simple principle: Spend most of your time on creating blogging ideas, not for reading other’s blogger’s posts hours and hours.

This simple principle helped me improve my blogging significantly.This does not mean that I don’t read any RSS feed at all. I do. But I limited it to five:

• making money online (problogger, john chow, caroline middlebrook)
• copyblogger (Brain Clark)
• entrepreneurship (Yaro Starak)

I did not even read every blog post from these bloggers. I scan their headlines using my iGoogle, and only click on the ones I am interested.

iGoogle is one of the tools I regularly use to deal with information overload. If you haven’t read already, please read iGoogle – Your Blogging Command Center

RapidReader – Deal With Information Overload

Rapid Reader is a simple yet powerful tool which lets you read text on screen faster. It takes a few days to get used to it. But as you exercise, you can reach at a speed of 500 words per minute with Rapid Reader. In other words, you can read a 50 pages blogging report in 10-12 minutes. Imagine the amount of time you are saving here.

Most of the top bloggers are using programs like Rapid Reader to consume the information faster than majority of the bloggers.

You can read PDF, DOC, TXT files with RapidReader. It also lets you import the HTML files to read blog posts faster than ever.

The faster, the better! We are living in an era where the fast fish swallow big fish. I strongly suggest you to take advantage of Rapid Reader. The prices are affordable. Standard Windows version is only $29.95. Your saving is priceless.

By the way, how do you deal with information overload?