Design Update and Some Frustrations
I have been implementing OIO Publisher this week. It took quite some work, but it’s working now. Alongside I made an Advertise page to promote the various types of advertising:
- Platinum: a 468 x 60 advertisement in the header
- Gold: a 300 x 250 inline advertisement in the posts
- Silver: six 125 x 125 buttons in the sidebar
- Bronze: text links in the footer
OIO Publisher now manages these ads, including the payment process, the approval process and it monitors when ads should go up and when they should go down again. Click any of the four buttons on the Advertise screen to see the ordering and payment screen.
Hey and if you’re interested in advertising here, don’t hesitate to follow through!
Browser frustrations
I noticed that I managed to break the design in Internet Explorer 7 in the mean while. I checked with the great free service of browsershots.org to see if the design was okay in other browsers. Thankfully most browsers display the site as intended, while some show it a little different, but nothing to worry about.
But even Internet Explorer 6 looks better than IE7, which is a first to me. Usually IE6 is the culprit, to the extent that there’s even a site about urging people to upgrade: Save The Developers. This time that’s not my advice… I won’t even be able to fix it this weekend, so if you’re using IE7…sorry.
Why don’t you try FireFox or Opera? They’re both free and stick to web standards (as opposed to Microsoft, who insists on making their own standards).
I use FireFox, because it has so many great add-ons that make online life so much easier. Especially if you’re a web worker or a blogger.
Take Control In Your Own Hands With OIO Publisher
Blog monetization is not an easy subject. There are lots and lots of methods to earn a buck with your blog, but they either require a lot of energy and time from you, or they’ll cost you money through fees and revenue shares. But there’s also a different solution. It’s called OIO Publisher.
Full Control from the WordPress Admin interface
OIO Publisher is a blog monetization suite, but they most notable part is the WordPress plugin. The plugin in is a full option ad manager for banners, text links, in post ads and more and comes with full PayPal integration.
OIO Publisher lets you manage all your ads right from the WordPress admin interface. And payments for the ads are integrated. Your advertisers can pay directly from your blog using PayPal. Directly on your PayPal account (no waiting for money, or waiting to hit a payout threshold) and on your terms. That’s pretty cool huh?
Of course OIO Publisher is not entirely free. To get full access to all features you have to pay a one time payment of $37. Yes, one time. And after you paid for it, you can use it on as many of your blogs as you want. Considering all the advantages OIO Publisher gives you, it’s really a steal!
Click to continue »
Weekly Income Report - 4
Every week on I will report on the performance of this blog. Target is to give full transparency on money and hours spent and money earned. DO ask questions if things are not clear.
This report is for two weeks, since I skipped the income report last week. I was taken out by an elbow injury (bursitis), which effectively prevented me from doing any typing. So there was hardly any progress on either of my blogs.
Anyway, this week I’m back and reporting on the finances. More content is coming this week.
Key Performance Indicators
| $ 13.45 / hour | |
| $ 1.84 / hour | |
| Cumulative hours spent: | 30.25 hours |
| Cumulative result: | - $55.51 |
Money spent
Cash out this week: $37. I spent it on OIO Publisher, a blog monetization suite that’s going to help me in making money from the blog. As an ad-manager at first, but it is packed with much more options.
Actually I already owned this for my other blog, but I decided to use it here too. Once you own it, you can use it on as many (of your own) blogs as you like so technically it doesn’t cost me any money now, but for the purpose of transparent reporting I will deduct the $37 from the budget here.
Money earned
Despite the lack of page views, I actually made another $0.02 from Kontera 
This blog is living up to it’s name! It’s all still virtual, since there’s no cash flowing in yet.
Hours spent
This is for a two week span.
- Creating Content: 2.75 hours
- Post on OIO (not yet published)
- Income report
Total hours: 2.75 hours
Budget status (this week)
| Balance (start): | $ 181.49 |
| Cash In: | $ 0 |
| Cash Out: | $ 37 |
| Balance (end): | $ 144.49 |
Early Stage Strategy: Building Links
Incoming links are important for a blog. Most importantly because they drive visitors to your site, and visitors are of first and foremost importance to a blog. But besides bringing visitors, incoming links are the most important factor for getting a ranking in search engines. Search engines determine the importance of a site on many factors, but incoming links are one of the most important factors.
In this article I’m going to discuss tactics to get incoming links.
1. Get connected with others
The best way to get links, quality links, is by connecting to other bloggers and build friendships. The most powerful link to your blog is one that’s coming from a real person, endorsing your content.
There’s nothing that beats it in both quality of links and quality of new visitors. Get networking on twitter, by leaving comments and sending the odd email. Don’t spam! Everybody hates spammers!
2. Participate in blog carnivals
Blog carnivals are blogging events where one blog hosts a carnival and links to articles on other blogs that cover a similar topic. You can find an overview of all active carnivals at the Blog Carnival homepage. You need to register for a free account and you can submit your articles from that site. For almost every topic there are carnivals to be found.
My experience is that the volatility of active carnivals is quite high. Carnivals are started and discontinued all the time, some are pretty high quality where the hosting blogger really digs into the articles (expect visitors) and some are simply link farms that get hosted on seperate blog carnival blogs (expect nothing).
It takes quite some time to really sort through the carnivals and can be annoying as the user interface is not that great. But it will get you links that get picked up by the search engines and Technorati.
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Weekly Income Report - 3
Every week on I will report on the performance of this blog. Target is to give full transparency on money and hours spent and money earned. DO ask questions if things are not clear.
I put more hours into Scraping Pennies, but haven’t invested more money yet. There is a surprise income this week, although it’s only a fantasy until it hits a payout minimum. Cash flow is what I focus on. Earnings are only earnings when they hit your bank account (or paypal for that matter).
Key Performance Indicators
| $ 0 / hour | |
| $ 0.67 / hour | |
| Cumulative hours spent: | 27.5 hours |
| Cumulative result: | - $18.51 |
Money spent
No money out this week. Only hours.
Money earned
After I was surprisingly allowed in the program by Kontera, they also have the honor of earning the first pennies for Scraping Pennies. Two pennies to be exact, and with a payout minimum of $100 it’s a long way from becoming cash, and real earnings.
The same goes for the affiliate program of the SEO Book. If you apply to it, you will get $20 bonus in your account. But with a payout minimum of $50, it’s a gift that needs to be earned.
Nevertheless, there’s $20.02 in virtual earnings right now. Which would mean this site is profitable already Well in a fantasy maybe… cash is king, remember that one.
Hours spent
- Technical: 0.25 hours
- Changing redirects
- Creating Content: 7.75 hours
- Three posts, and preparation for two more
- Monetization: 0.25 hours
- Setting up accounts at the SEO Book and SEOMoz
Total hours: 8.25 hours
Budget status (this week)
| Balance (start): | $ 181.49 |
| Cash In: | $ 0 |
| Cash Out: | $ 0 |
| Balance (end): | $ 181.49 |
