Insightful Adsense Tips Worth Looking Into

--> James Colin is a guy I met a few years back on a website called shetoldme.com. He now owns several similarly themed sites including best-reviewer.com among many other things. I recently talked about him on a semi-feverishly written Goodblogs blog post where I engaged in my little hobby of analyzing website strategy and monetization.

Disclaimer: This blog post should not be intended as a matter of fact post. The opinions here are mere conjectures that may or may not help me in my quest to sustain the income generated by my blog. I am not endorsing anybody or anything for that matter. I am merely writing this for my reference.

James and I had an interesting conversation on Google Plus about how he focuses mainly on websites that rely on user generated content and promotion. He gladly gave me some tidbits and wrote about it twice - once on his blog and the other, on his other site. 

Danny on Google+

The James Colin Approach
The approach that he mentioned on his post on best-reviewer is one that I have seen done by many bloggers and most notably Indian SEO companies and some Filipinos too. This involved the extensive usage of Google Insights for Search to try and predict what people will search for on any given day. It's not that accurate but may prove to be useful when it comes to quite obvious seasonal occurrences like holidays.

Basically, you leave the fields in their default state except for  "specific date range", "country"  and "categories" which are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th boxes. You will then choose one topic from a category every day by clicking on search. The trends that appear should then be the focus of your blogging endeavors.

For his example, he set the country to United States, Specific Date Range field to the last 12 months and the category to Sports.

Second category should be United States

This is what appeared.





This was embedded on August 31, 2011. Just in case the information on the graphs have changed, here are the topics that have been mentioned:

Top Searches 

• football 100
• nfl 70
• basketball 65
• golf 60

Rising Searches

• Super Bowl 2011 +3,450%
• Miami Heat +250%
• fb +180%
• Bulls +160%

II. Choose a keyword from the list of Top Searches and Rising Searches

• Use creativity in choosing
• If a keyword is present in both categories choose it as the first keyword
• For the second keyword, again choose another keyword that appears in both. If there is none, choose anything
• In James' example he chose NBA and FOOTBALL

III. Repeat II but change Specific Date Range

• Last 90 days
• Last 30 days

He now has 3 pairs of keywords

• NBA, FOOTBALL
• GOLF, PGA
• FOOTBALL, FANTASY FOOTBALL

IV. Enter 5 keywords from the list derived in III. 
UPDATE: JC Corrected me about this, I'm posting his correction.

"In your blog post at IV. Enter 5 keywords from the list derived in III

It seems you think I got the keywords directly. No I once again picked one keyword from each list from each keywords.

For instance the first couple of words, NBA & FOOTBALL, for NBA I had two lists from which I picked one in each, that gave me NBA DRAFT and ESPN, then for FOOTBALL once again, two lists and one keyword picked from each one and that gave me FOOTBALL SCHEDULE and COLLEGE FOOTBALL

From your post it didn't seem like you got that part right."

• The following modifications in the fields apply
• Web Search
• United States
• 2004-Present
• Sports

This is what appeared in my search:

These are the results of James' query (I pasted them to avoid confusion)

• NBA & FOOTBALL: NBA DRAFT/ESPN 
• FOOTBALL SCHEDULE/COLLEGE FOOTBALL
• GOLF & PGA: GOLF COURSE/GALAXY GOLF & PGA TOUR/PGA SUPERSTORE
• FOOTBALL & FANTASY FOOTBALL: NCAA/NCAA FOOTBALL 
• RANKINGS & YAHOO FANTASY/ESPN FANTASY

• If I understood James correctly, what he wants to achieve is to write articles purely based on topics that are breaking out or Rising on Google Insights. 
• His results are quite different than mine, so feel free to visit the original post that he made.

V. Create 3 original articles every day

• Must be original and well researched. 
• "Write 500 characters minimum (that's characters not words) piece of text about those topics."
• The title must include the keyword pairings that you've made.

His sample:

TITLE: Is football better than NBA for TV?

TEXT: I watch a lot of sport on TV and yesterday I found myself asking an old buddy of mine: "what do you prefer watching? Football or NBA?"

He then came up with an interesting theory, that college football was far more superior to any ESPN match on TV because of the length of the number of players and the action.. The fact that those NBA Draft guys are so tall and the court so small make for too heavy TV action with wide angle and zooms, it gives him headaches. Instead the football schedule is very easygoing, well he ended his theory rather confusingly and we then talked about something else..

What do you think guys? Do you prefer to watch NBA or Football on your big screen TV? 

Keywords that he used were all from the 1st and set of keywords:

• Football
• NBA
• College Football
• NBA Draft
• Football Schedule

VI. Rinse repeat

• The website should have categories.
• 1 category - 3 articles each day
• Share those 3 articles on Social Media
• Google Plus
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Stumble upon
• Digg
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Do this for 27 days

VII. On the final day

• Check out Google Analytics and see the exact phrases or search queries that people are making to get to your site
• Get the top 3 queries that you have not yet written about and make a new post about them. 

My Comment on the James Colin Method

This is actually the first time I've heard of this method applied to the barest of details. I think that this is a very good guide if you want to put up a multiple user site just as James Colin has. Otherwise, you would be hard pressed to write about many topics that you may not be familiar with. Here are my concerns:

• SEO companies with news websites may be doing this already. So you're basically competing with big companies and even full time media outlets.
• I'm not so sure if I have done the queries correctly. I would have to do it again later. 
• I need to know whether this can be done with a one man operation or with a full time crew. James may be right and may be earning all those money - but why hasn't he improved it. Anyway, he mentioned that it was a theory and I don't know whether he has actually done it - or maybe I missed that part. 
• This is the second day I've written this particular post and my right eye is closing a little bit. LOL, I don't know why. So I might do this once I get better. 

FINAL WINNER for AUGUST

And the 3rd #Winner in the dannybuntu.com best blog comment contest is

Linda Wensel 

Linda recounts a very fascinating story about how she had a friend and how she made a scrapbook of all the pictures of the places that her friend wanted to see. She posted this on my blog post entitled The Gift. I think that your gift is pretty awesome Linda and one that I'm sure your friend will appreciate for a long time :)

Here's a copy of her entry:

"You are heard I had an elderly friend who had many stories to tell, but no one listened. I thought they were wonderful. She told of her days growing up 3000 away in NJ during WWII. She always said she wished she could go back just one more time before she died. A plan was forming in my mind, since I would do anything for her. Every time I went to my car, I wrote down what I could remember and would look up these places she mentioned on the web. I had friends in NJ who loved to take pictures. They photographed all the places mentioned in her stories, and sent me sand from the shore....with a shell and a crap leg in a jar. Among those photo's was the home my friend was born in and it showed the window of the room. My mother was great at scrapbooking, and before you know she was totally involved in my project....the project had now become a group of 4. I did some genealogy research and put that together also. On her birthday, mom and I presented her with the huge photo album. She couldn't speak. We gave the gift of going back to her home. She looked at that book every day there after. When she passed away, she had the book next to her side. I will never be able to give a gift like that again, and it will be in my heart that I sent someone home one last time."

Congratulations Linda! Your $5 is on its way in prizes.org.

Danny on Google+

Investing on Your Readers

The Internet is a haven of trust, honesty, candor and truth.

Alright, let that sink in.

Be it on reddit, on a blog, Yahoo, Facebook, Google Plus or what not, we can trust people on the Internet simply because it's the Internet.

Where else would you see people who would promote books, products, themes, belief systems and advocacies wholeheartedly and commit to put everything about themselves online? 


"I wrote a book about trust therefore I am trustworthy." False.

But really, nowadays, this is exactly how it looks like:

And The Winner Is....

Dain Binder is the winner in the dannybuntu.com $10 comment contest in prizes.org. But before I write a whole post about the dude, I would just like to thank all the awesome participants who all gave thought provoking answers to the challenge. Special mention goes to my dearest twitter friend @SusieKline who also participated in the contest. Rob Louie, Peter, Cheryl and Eric's participation are also very much appreciated.

The contest question was this:

"This is going to be a short comment contest 5 days only. I've been blogging for 5 years now and just about to get my very first adsense check in a few weeks. Now, it took me that much time to earn a few dollars. 5 years.... 

I must be doing something wrong right? 

Can you tell me how I can improve my blog revenue and traffic?" 

Steve Jobs Daughter, Life Compared With Gates

Traffic spikes give me goosebumps and scare the shit out of me. Like, after getting used to a certain level of regular traffic in your blogs, the rush of discovering that somebody mentioned a blog post from way, way back to oblivion and then discovering that you have way more traffic than you can handle is like, "Oh, shit. What did I write wrong this time?" Don't get me wrong though, whoever you are thanks!

By: Danny Garcia

Anyway, the offending blog post seems to have been inspired by a piece I wrote about Bill Gates donations back in 2010. The context of which is being compared with the achievements of Steve Jobs now that his life is probably flashing before him. I know I tackled the topic of Steve Jobs daughter before, but don't know how they linked to that particular blog post. Reddit is a strange creature...

So yes, Steve Jobs has a daughter and it would be best if you checked out the wikipedia entry and watched the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley.

What? You want me to link to a torrent on Piratebay? Buy the movie for a couple a bucks and you have yourself entertainment and history combined. Takes you to Amazon bubba:

Good Morning Adsense!

The day started with the dark clouds of a typhoon passing on the horizon. The news agencies declared signal number 4 in the Cagayan provinces - which really is an overemphasis on their part because we normally only have up to signal number 3. My prayers go out to those in the Philippines who would be affected by this typhoon. As I write, hurricane "Irene" is also set to traverse the Eastern part of the United States. Stay safe my friends.

 By: Danny Garcia

I got this in email today and I really can't hold back my joy so I'm blogging about it:

My first Adsense 

Beyond Adsense

Right now, the only monetization avenues that my blog network is using is Adsense and a few affiliate links from some freelancing websites. See Disclosure Policy

As a blogger, the income that I'm getting from these are honestly not that substantial. I was wondering whether there are other avenues for exploration that would not make my blog appear like a roving billboard.

Sites With Potential on Flippa.com

Browsing over the listings at Flippa.com - a marketplace for buying and selling blogs, websites and such, I intend to find a few gems on the rough to complement my portfolio of slowly growing blogs and websites.

It's not an easy task though the "Refine" feature is quite handy.

Gems in the Rough
1. Uneasysilence.com - Buy it Now Price 25,000

• Founded: 2003 
• Confirmed via Wayback Machine
• Gross Monthly Revenue: Valid
• Claimed: $1,000 to $1,500 potential of $2,500 to $3,000 a month. 
• According to Hypestats: http://uneasysilence.com.hypestat.com/ = $11.92 a day 
• According to Cubestat: http://www.cubestat.com/www.uneasysilence.com = $29.51 a day
• According to SiteOutlook: http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.uneasysilence.com = $22.82 a day
• Traffic: 
• Claimed: 7,000 UV daily - 200,000 UV monthly - 300,000 PV monthly
• According to Hypestats: http://uneasysilence.com.hypestat.com/ = 3,581 UV daily
• According to Cubestat: http://www.cubestat.com/www.uneasysilence.com = 9,836 PV daily
• According to Site Outlook: http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.uneasysilence.com = 6,862 PV daily
• Compete Data: July 2011 23,927 PV

• SEO
• Keywords: "What is call barring", "esquire jenna jameson", "how to get free unlimited texting", "download after dark modules", "itunes import wmv files windows"
• Opensiteexplorer data: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.uneasysilence.com

• The first thing that I do when I look at a website is to see whether its domain turns out on Google search when I search for it. In this case, I searched for the phrase "uneasy silence" on Google and it turned up on top of the SERPs. Moreover, it has its categories listed down such that it effectively hogged half of the screen. The next results were its twitter account and youtube feed. 

Qualitative Analysis

Acquiring this website for $25,000 may be far too expensive even though the owners of the site have really spent a lot of effort in creating and maintaining it. They've obviously spent a lot of effort producing original content, SEO, promotion via social networks such as twitter, and uploading videos via youtube.com. 

Cons 

• The most troubling aspect of the site is its steadily declining traffic ever since 2010. The decline is more than 50%. Moreover, the design and layout of the site makes it look quite amateurish and bloglike. 
• Site owner failed to mention the expenses in running the site. 

Points of Action: 

• This is a very good website to acquire if one is looking into putting up a web magazine. Its general but easy to remember domain name could be highly advantageous and general enough for different niches to cater to, specially since it is a common phrase. 
• The person who will acquire this website would have to hire writers to continue putting up fresh content to drive up traffic. 
• The design of the website would also have to be altered. to accommodate a magazine theme. 
• There's still a lot to be known about its other offerings as they seem to have their own toolbar and other promotional material. All non-essential expenses related to maintaining the platform should be removed. 

Conclusion:

• At the right price, this website shows a lot of promise. As to what the right price is falls definitely well below the expected price of the site owner. It would likely fetch somewhere between $4,000 to $6,000 dollars due to its rapidly declining traffic. 

Case Study: Yehey.com

This blog entry was inspired by this Asian Institute of Management Case Study penned by Ms. Rhia Ramirez. Click Here to view the complete document. You'll find Yehey.com's history there. Please tell me if the link doesn't work. 

---

Site Profile: Yehey.com

CEO: ?

General Manager: Jay Arellano

Address: 38th Flr. Discovery Centre 25 ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center Pasig City 1605. Philippines

Administrative Contacts

Marketing (+632) 9106418 Advertising (+632) 9106411

---

Is This Awesome Enough?

I WON!!!!!!!!!

Beep! Beep! Beep!
UPDATE: There are "winning fees" in Prizes.org

I won $100 today in a blog contest!
First of all, thanks to Google acquired Prizes.org for the awesome contest platform. 
Thanks to Zagg.com and Zaggdaily.com for choosing my entry. 
Thanks to the readers of dannybuntu.com. A blog is useless if you're not here guys and gals!
More importantly, thanks to God for giving me everything that I have.

How I won it?
I tried to align my thoughts with the contest holder's goal. They were promoting their Gadget screen protectors through a blog contest and I admitted firstly that I didn't have any expensive gadgets. So I tried to think of a funny blog post title and everything flowed from there. I'm a very imaginative person so the blog title I came up with was very freaky.

Backstory 
I was set back for almost the same amount yesterday so this was an awesome break for me. One of my writer's experienced problems with the payments I sent through Paypal and her kid was also sick with dengue so she couldn't withdraw the money.

The kid was also my nephew. I somewhat felt responsible for them because I was the one who introduced her to the world of freelance writing, Paypal and online banking. So I sent money the old fashioned way, by depositing it physically in a bank.

What I intend to do with the money
I guess this is proof that kindness really does get repaid :)

Again thanks to the wonderful people of Zagg.com and Zaggdaily.com for the awesome prize!




Update: Winning Fees

There's a percentage based fee imposed on winners. It's 10%
There's also a fee for the payment processor (paypal) which is %5.5.
If you are a US citizen you also have to fill up a form W-9 for taxes!

Social Networking Hooligans

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to London.

As British mainstream media struggle to keep up with the developments in London, social media companies based in the US are waging a different kind of battle on the Internet - that of protecting their services reputation as an instrument for change.

Suffice to say, that the events in London are not exactly what they  had in mind:

"Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh said: "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality."

He described some messages posted on social media sites as "really inflammatory, inaccurate" and said police would consider arresting people using Twitter in relation to incitement to violence.

BBC.Co.UK

TechCrunch was quick to rebuff the report with its own piece published on the Washington Post. 

How Blackberry, Not Twitter, Fuelled the Fire Under London's Riots.

"But while Twitter has largely been the venue of spectators to violence and is a handy public venue for journalists to observe, it would appear the non-public BlackBerry BBM messaging network has been the method of choice for organising it."

TechCrunch via Washington Post, 2011

It's idiotic to point out these online tools as well as the hapless Blackberry as the culprits responsible for what is happening in London now. It's like blaming the knife for the murder, or blaming people from talking with one another to spread an idea. 

Why I Love Klout

I used to think that Klout was for twitter eggheads and egomaniacs. People driven by how much people people think of them in terms of numbers.

This changed when someone gave me a +K. :D

Okay, stop.

Before you think that the only reason I'm writing this now is because of that fact, please take a moment to hear my deeper explanation.

[GUEST POST] Managing Commercial Real Estate Projects

There are three main types of commercial real estate: investment, retail, and office.  Which of these you deal with will ultimately determine your exact management style:

1. Investment -- property considered only as a moneymaking commodity, not used explicitly for any purpose other just ownership.  This is a basic and easily managed type of real estate: in essence, there’s only one participant, the owner.
2. Retail -- space used for shops or stores.  It’s a more complicated and challenging project to manage, as participants include owners and customers using the property for buying and selling, in addition to the owner.
3. Office -- property used primarily for business tenants.  This type of commercial real estate is also a challenging one to manage because, on top of the property’s owner, there is the company and its workers to consider.

How AirBnB Maximizes Social Media

August is going to be AirBnB month as dannybuntu.com would be focusing on one thing: getting someone to go here and book via AirBnb!

Despite the growing pains that AirBnb has been experiencing, very few have taken notice of how much it uses social media to its advantage. To its credit, AirBnB has the complete retinue:

[Guest Post] A Business Startup Mistake I Will Not Make Again

I was watching “The Social Network” movie a few days ago. It’s like the 3rd or 4th time that I have seen it now and it is still fascinating to me. One reason probably is that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg still have not fully cleared out all the “dead bodies” from the closet. There are still legal issues pending going back to when the Facebook was founded in Harvard. I often look at things from a business perspective and Mark Zuckerberg made a few mistakes that still need to be resolved – 7 years after Facebook was founded.

Dead Hard Disks Go Here

There are times when data recovery would just take too long. For some reason, some of the hard disks sort of fix themselves after a few months in "the drawer". Plug them back in and datas there.