Guide to Parsing Your Adsense Code

Posted by redDevil | 2/19/2008 12:27:00 PM | , , | 0 comments »

                                                                Many a times you get the error message when you try to edit your blog’s html that “your template could not be parsed as it is not well formatted” or “Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed” and likewise. The problem here is you are trying to add the code of your ads which contain JavaScript elements directly into your blog’s xml code through the edit html interface.

The problem is caused by incorrect dynamic interpretation of Blogger XML template when it generates the HTML webpage for the blog page that is requested, probably due to the fact that the AdSense ad code or other code is not a valid XML, coupled with the fact that some ASCII characters have special meaning and reserved functions, confusing Blogger blogging engine.


It is possible to add the adsense/adbrite code for your ads into your blog’s xml template by parsing them.

The resolution to the JavaScript based coding does not work in Blogger HTML template error can be solved by replacing special characters or symbols in the script to HTML code. Check out the list below for which ASCII characters that need to be replaced with their corresponding HTML code. Using HTML code will ensure that Blogger render the character correctly when serving the page to the viewer.

< - &lt;

> - &gt;



ie:, replace the '<' symbol in your code with the '&lt;' symbol and '>' symbol with the '&gt;' symbol.

Above two is enough to make Google AdSense works in Blogger template. For other scripts, such as AdBrite ad code, you will need to replace more characters such as those listed below.

& = &amp;

” = &quot;



You can do this easily by placing your code into a word document and using word’s find and replace option, to replace the above ASCII characters.

For example, a Google AdSense code should become looks similar to code below:

&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;&lt;!--
google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
google_ad_width = 336;
google_ad_height = 280;
google_ad_format = "336x280_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel = "";
google_color_border = "FFFFFF";
google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";
google_color_link = "000000";
google_color_text = "000000";
google_color_url = "000000";
//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
&lt;script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;


You need not worry about breaking the adsense terms of service (TOS), about altering the ad code, because once published the code looks exactly similar to the code before it was parsed. Anyone viewing the source code of your blog would exactly see it as the code that adsense gave you.


Whenever you encounter the xml error message when adding a code to your blog’s xml template, you can try this method just to ensure you code is not having a xml parsing problem. Happy Blogging!

Google Adsense – A Detailed Look

Posted by redDevil | 2/19/2008 10:54:00 AM | | 0 comments »

                                                                     Google adsense became so popular simply because it’s the most reliable method to monetize your blog today. There are many accusations regarding Google’s meager payout to the publishers relative to what it earns, but it stands that adsense is used most widely by bloggers and website owners world wide.

One good reason is that Adsense accepts bloggers into their program pretty easily. You make a blog about anything you love, provide 4-5 unique posts and then sign up for adsense, 9 out of 10 times you will be accepted. Only remember to fill in your name fully expanding the initials! Such a trivial clause, but I know at least a dozen bloggers who got rejected the first time they applied.

Google adsense pays once your earnings reaches $100, so if you are a blogger just starting out you will have to wait for some time to get your first cheque. But be patient, build up your blog day by day, the more content your blog has, the more valuable it becomes. Moreover, go blog hopping (a term meaning to bounce around reading blogs randomly), comment in other people’s blogs. This in turn makes them visit your blog, which drives up your traffic.

When you put up ads from adsense in your blog, make the ads blend in. That is, choose a layout for your ad that is similar in color to the background color of your blog. Thus you make your ads less obstructing to your readers. Otherwise you can choose to make your ads glaringly obvious by choosing a layout that stands out in your blog.

I read in a blog recently an excellent way to increase revenue from your adsense ads. One is to make your blog targeted to the more non-tech users of net. For example, I wouldn’t consciously click on the ads shown in some blogs because I know these clicks would bring in money for the blog’s owner. Sorry, but that’s the truth with people who know how adsense works. So what you can do is make your blog’s content targeted at those users who are less likely to know about the complexities of adsense, and hence will click on the ads shown alongside your posts. Thus writing a blog on mobile softwares will earn you more than those on web design, because all common netizens use a mobile, whereas the other points at the more technical people.



Next thing you can do about your ads is put them up alongside your posts, like the one shown below. They are known in general as inline ads.
 

To make your ads appear like this besides your posts, do the following steps:
  • First, from the dashboard of blogger, go to Layout. Next click edit html in the new page that comes up.
                        
  •  Before you edit your blog’s html, backup that template by clicking the download full template link, and saving the template in your pc.
  •  Now check “expand widget templates” located just above your blog’s html.
                        

  • Then search for the line in the new Blogger template HTML code in the text box (Use Ctrl+F to search):

                                  <data:post.body/>


                                                       OR

                        <p><data:post.body/></p>


  • Now above that line in your blog’s html, add the following lines along with your parsed adsense code (click here to learn how to parse your adsense code)

                                       <div style="float: left">
                                           Your Parsed Adsense code here
                                       </div>


Done! Save your template and see how ads now appear alongside your posts. This would result in a higher click thorugh rate for your ads and hence more income. :)

You can also change the ‘left’ within the ‘div’ tag to right to make your ads appear to the right of your blog’s post. By posting in the above position your ads appear right below your posts header in line with your post’s content. To make the ads appear just above the footer of your post, paste the above codes just below the <data:post.body/> tag in your blog’s html.

You can add your parsed adsense code to different part of your blog’s html to blend it in with your layout. Just remember to download and save your blog’s html before you start to edit it.

Monetize Your Blog

Posted by redDevil | 2/17/2008 10:31:00 PM | | 0 comments »










Blog- An Intro

Posted by redDevil | 2/17/2008 10:27:00 PM | , | 0 comments »

Getting traffic is where you have to put the work into your blog. But how do you know how many people visit your site? For that use the feed providing site, Feedburner.com.
Go to Feedburner and paste your blog URL in the “burn a new feed box”.


Feeds are an excellent way for your site’s readers to know about updates in your site without actually visiting your site. After you burn your URL in with Feedburner, you will be taken to your account where you can do a lot of things with your feed. You can optimize your feed, make a headline animator that you can post in your profiles in myspace and hi5 etc. All these methods are provided with appropriate tutorials.


In order to get your site’s day to day statistics you have to add a Feedburner code to your blog html. That will be provided by Feedburner, just browse through all the features of Feedburner and choose that you feels appropriate. To add any code to your blog’s html, go to your blogger dashboard, choose “layout” and then choose “edit html”. Check “expand widget templates”. Now you can see your blog’s html code. You can paste html codes between the and tags. Be sure to download and save your blog’s template so that you may have a backup if you go wrong while editing your blog’s html.


Once you add feedburner’s code into your blog html, you will start seeing your blog’s visitor’s count and much more in your Feedburner main page.

 

You can also avail the service of free sites like sitemeter to monitor your site’s traffic.

Sitemeter is pretty good, but feedburner provides the additional functionality of providing feeds to your blog. I recommend using both at the same time. Use sitemeter to show of your site's hits in your blog page and feedburner for detailed statistics.

Making Your Ads Bring Money

Posted by redDevil | 2/06/2008 10:30:00 PM | , , , | 0 comments »





                                                                 Anyone would like to have such an earnings page. Well, let me tell you, the secret is as simple as anything else you try to achieve, "Work Hard, Don't Give up".

You look at your blog and see all the ads you have put in. Now what you need is some clicks in these ads. DON’T go for the easy method of logging into different pc’s and clicking the ads or ask your friends to do the clicks for you. You may be lulled into believing it may just work, but Google don’t want to give their money just like that, right?

Google monitor all the ads setup with an algorithm, that reports back sudden rise in clicks on ads, specific ad clicks from the same IP address consecutively and much more. Once they find an ad that is suspicious, they place a flag on it and wait for the action to be repeated, aka invalid clicks. Once they are pretty sure, you are using invalid methods to generate the clicks, they just ban your account. All the revenue you have saved until then will be lost.

Furthermore, your IP address as well as Google account will be blacklisted and you will be prohibited from taking part in the adsense program again. You don’t want all that to happen, do you? There are also click exchange groups available in loads throughout Yahoo Messenger, Orkut Communities etc. But the best and safest method will be to keep out of all those things. You may get lucky once or twice but not on a regular basis.


Then how do you get those precious clicks? The one thing you need is visitors to your blog. Advertise your blog wherever you can, tell your friends, put them up in social networking sites like Orkut, hi5, myspace, Facebook with attractive captions. Word of mouth advertising as well emails declaring your new blog. You are bound to get at least 50 visitors to your blog soon.

Now, the trick is to keep them coming back. That’s where the content as well layout of your blog comes in. If you post something that is useful to others, they will take a interest in your blog. Encourage your visitors with a caption in your blog to “Bookmark this Blog” by pressing ctrl+D. This way, if they want to come back to your blog all they have to do is go to the Bookmarks/ Favourites tab in their browser.


Be patient. Find communities in Orkut and other social networking sites relating to your blog and post your blog links in them. I generated huge number of clicks to my site by posting replies to software requests in a community in Orkut, just because my blog provided free softwares.

Another interesting method to generate traffic is by answering questions in Yahoo! Answers. It’s a community where yahoo users all over can ask questions about any subject and other users can answer them. There is also a points system. Choose the topic relative to your blog’s topic and start answering questions.

It’s a great method, don’t spam there, just provide sensible answers to questions related to your blog and post a link to your blog along with your answer or give your blog as the source. It will be wise to use a yahoo id other than your main one for this because you have a 50% chance of getting banned from your id just because you answered a question not according to their TOS (terms of service). I faced the same horrible situation a while back when my yahoo id of over 3 years got banned. Believe me when I say, it’s an awful situation.

Now you want to monitor how many people visit your site. Read more about it here.

Making Money With Google Adsense

Posted by redDevil | 2/06/2008 10:18:00 PM | , , , | 0 comments »

                                                          Approximately there are about 30 million blogger around the world making money from adsense and since its introduction in 2003; it has been the biggest revenue generator for Google. So how can it benefit your blog?

The good thing about adsense is that it is easy to get enrolled in their program and once enrolled, you can put your ads in any number of ads/blogs. So once you have a blog setup and 4-5 quality posts in your blog, you can go then straight to Google Adsense Website and signup for their adsense program.

You will have to provide details like your postal address, phone number and the URL of your blog. Your blog URL is the web address that points specifically to your blog (like blogname.blogspot.com). You have to provide your postal address because Google allows your cash to be send by post only. Also you have to earn a minimum of $ 100 for your check to be sent by Google.

Also once your revenue reaches $ 50, Google will send you a PIN number via ordinary mail to the address you have provided. You have to enter that PIN into your adsense page after you receive. This is just to check your postal address.

All this will happen in its own time, but what you have to focus now is on getting your Google adsense code setup properly.

                  After you signup with adsense, login to your adsense home page with your username and password (you can use your gmail username and password for it too). You will have to submit a tax information to Google. It will shown as a “Payments on Hold” link as shown below.

 

If you are not based in US, all you have to do is declare you have no connection with US regarding your blog’s revenue making, and all will be well.


After you login to your adsense account, in order to get the code for your ads, go to the “Adsense setup” tab.

 

There click adsense for content. Now you will be asked to choose a template for your ad. Choose some palette (aka color combination) that best fits your blog layout. You can add a channel to a specific ad. This is to distinguish between different ads you may place on different sites. Once you choose a channel for your ad, all the revenue and stats for that ad will be shown under that channel name.

Channels are an effective of managing stats for different ads you may place and to monitor their click through rates. So choose different channels for ads that you place in entirely different places or with a different size.

The rectangular ads of size 300x250 have been known to produce the highest revenue among ads, but it may be a trifle too big for most of the blogs. So choose a small enough ad that fits into your overall blog image. Use your imagination lavishly!

After you fill in all the fields required for your ad, you will be taken to a page with your ad code in it. Click on the ad code box and the whole text will be highlighted. Right click, copy (or ctrl+c), now login to your blogger account.

Once you are in the dashboard area, click layout beneath your blogger name.

 


In the new page, you will be under the tab “page elements”, click “add a page element”. A new box will pop up showing a list of options.

These all are widgets (or utilities) that you can add to your blog. Choose “Html/JavaScript” from that box for adding ads. In the new page, right click>paste your code into the main box and give a suitable heading for your ad if you feel so. Click submit. Your ad is now on your Blog. Feel done, huh? Not quite yet.


Ok, now you have all the ads setup in your blog. How to earn revenue from them? It’ s the most important and difficult part. Read more about making your ads work HERE.

Monetizing Your Blog

Posted by redDevil | 2/06/2008 10:17:00 PM | , | 0 comments »

Once you have made some posts in blogger, you are ready to monetize your site. Now there are several ways to do it. It depends on the amount of work you are ready to put in and the way you want to do it.

One way is to put up ads relating to your blog’s content in your blog from ad providing agencies like Google Adsense, and when visitors to your site click on these ads you will get a part of the revenue that Google gets. They don’t tell us exactly how much percentage we would get, but depending on your blog’s traffic you could start earning from $.25 per valid click.

For more on Google Adsense go to Making Money with Google Adsense .

For more ad based revenue, I would also recommend Widgetbucks, but after a very promising start with as much as $.50 per click, Widgetbucks reduced their click detecting region to US/ Canada. So in case your blog mainly have US/ Canada traffic, Widgetbucks is a very good option.


There are also ad publishing sites like bidvertiser.com and adbrite.com. I have tried them in my other blog, but the pay was meager, so scrapped them soon. The other thing you don’t want your site to be full of ads that could do away with your visitors. If you are looking for a revenue generating option as soon as you put up some posts in your blog, Google Adsense is probably the best option.


Next method is to sign up with sponsored review providing sites. The problem here is these sites usually look at your site’s traffic as an index, so unless your blog is up and running with some niche visitors, you may end up getting very little from these sites.


With these, after you sign up, you will be put up with offers to write reviews of other websites in your blog. You have to include a link to the reviewed site in your post. After you submit the URL of your post to the review website, you will be paid for your review.


Now, there are two of these review revenue services I have found interesting. ReviewMe clicked for me very well and I am yet trying to earn more with Sponsoredreviews. You can learn more about ReviewMe here and SponsoredReviews here.

Adding Posts to Your Blog

Posted by redDevil | 2/06/2008 10:13:00 PM | , | 0 comments »

                                            Posts are the content you add to your blog. After you signup and login to your blogger account at Blogger, you will be taken to a dashboard where you will be shown all your blogs and various options beneath it.

If you are a good writer and know well about the subject, you can type the content yourself in a word editor like MS Word and post using blogger. Otherwise, you could go for the option of collecting information from all over the web about your topic and arranging it in a sequential manner in your blog. Whichever you choose, make the posts in your blog in an orderly manner. Remember to slow down once in a while on the quest for money; patience is a virtue you will need in monetizing your blog.

To add post to a blog of yours, you can click the “New Post” link beneath your blog. To view and edit posts you have already published; click the “Manage posts” link beneath your blog. We will come to other options in own time.

When you click “New Post” you will be taken to a page like shown below. Here you can add the content of your blog and some tweaks to your post. Type in or copy/paste, then add some labels to your blog. A label describes a word or a group of words regarding the main topic of your post so that in the future if you want to group the posts in your blog, you will just have to click the label name on your “Manage Posts” page. Also labels allow your users to view posts coming under the same topic, all in one page.

While posting in blogger, you can add images as well as videos to your post using the options there. Also, a little bit of html would come in handy, if you want links to appear in your post to other sites.


For example, if you want your users to download something from an URL you know, you need not type in the whole address in your post. You can use the html tag “anchor”. There is an excellent option in blogger for this. In the post editor where you type (or paste) your blog content into, alongside the bold, italics, alignment option, there is an option to add a link. It’s a green pic, just point your mouse above, and it will show “add a link”. To make it work, select a text that you want to appear as the link. Say, for example, “DOWNLOAD HERE”, now click add a link option. A window will come up asking you to enter the URL. Paste the address of the website to which you want to link to.


Now see what happens. The “DOWNLOAD HERE” is highlighted which means it points to another webpage. This way you can link to other pages within your blog as well to other sites on the web. You can also align the text in your post. Lot of options are provided by blogger in the toolbar. Make use of them.

Technical Jargons on Making a Blog

Posted by redDevil | 2/03/2008 10:32:00 PM | , | 0 comments »

                                           Now, let’s take a look at the technical aspects of making your own blog. I am taking for granted here that you know what internet is and know how to go to a web address with an URL (like yahoo.com) via internet explorer etc al. Just the basic computer know-how is all you need.

For a blog, you need a custom domain (a domain is a web address like google.com) and some space to publish your blog. Fortunately there are loads of free blogging platforms out there for you to choose from. The famous and more reliable ones among them are, Blogger, and Wordpress.

Wordpress has good reliability, but the problem is it doesn’t allow monetizing your blog that well. So if you are trying to make some good cash from your blog, Go to blogger, which is a free blog hosting website from Google, and sign up.

Once you sign up you will be asked to provide a title as well as an address for your blog. Choose a title that best conveys the topic of your blog and similarly the address. It would be like “yourblogname.blogspot.com”. Here too, choose a suggestive yet short address, because you want your readers to remember your blog address so that they can find you again.

Like the fact that mobiwares.blogspot.com is better than mobilesoftwares4u.blogspot.com. Also you will have to choose a template for your blog. It’s of utmost that you choose a good looking template for your blog so that it appears attractive. Choose something with light colors from the many preview templates that blogger provides you with. After you setup your blog, you can change to a more custom template.

You could also search in the internet for custom templates that best suits your blog theme and which appears pleasant for you. Pray choose a template which wont be an eyesore to your readers as readers are the strength of any blog. If you want to keep your readers coming back ,keep your blog simple and attractive.

Now, you will be faced with the problem of adding content to your blog.

Topic for your Blog

Posted by redDevil | 2/03/2008 10:26:00 PM | , | 0 comments »

                                         If you want to monetize your blog, that is, you want your blog to be a source of income for you, let me tell you first hand, it’s not easy work as you may expect. You got to have a passion for what you are writing in your blog. You should not jump on to a subject for your blog. You should visualize yourself 12 months from now and still be having the passion to get on with your blog. It should not be like that diary writing that you often wished you had continued but never took off.

Always remember,
“Winners never quit and Quitters never win”

Before starting a blog, you should decide on the topic of your blog. That is what should be the content of your blog? It after all, decides how successful your blog will be. You may choose to write about your passions and daily life. But remember, you want other people to read your blog and get interested in it. Only then, will you get visitors or traffic to your blog. Monetizing your blog depends largely on the amount of traffic your blog holds. So you see, making money from a blog ultimately comes down to what you choose as the blog’s topic.

Sure, if you are a good writer, even if you post your reactions about current events, you will get a good amount of readers. But what you won’t get is traffic from search engines, because so few people search Google for “a current even readable blog”. Also, you don’t want to choose a wide subject so that you end touching this and that. In effect, choose something you are comfortable with, yet would arouse an interest in an unknown reader.

In short you should choose a topic with the following key factors;
(1) You know the topic
(2) You like the topic
(3) There is an audience for the topic
(4) The topic has a business value
(5) You can supply new content or add value to existing content
(6) Your topic is not a dead end topic; you can keep the content fresh
(7) You can build a community with the topic

Some useful topics for a blog are listed below; you can take it as a guide or choose your own subject,
Computer programming, cooking tips, astrological predictions, old question paper banks, campus interview papers, softwares for mobiles, your collection of striking ads.

Many of the above have a few hundred blogs listed about them, but if you know what you are writing about, you are sure to get traffic. So choose well.

What is a Blog?

Posted by redDevil | 2/01/2008 10:47:00 PM | | 0 comments »

                          A blog in its simplest terms is a website that anyone can setup to post whatever they feel like. Technically all that may not be true, but to a newcomer to the world of blogosphere, that should convey what a blog is. It’s a place where you can post whatever you feel like, about your day-to-day life, your passions, your opinions, your reactions, all in all anything you want to share. Blog is a short form for a Web Log. Wikipedia defines a blog as,

"A blog is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”

Blogs started appearing in the form of online diaries from as early as 1994, but they gained in popularity by the 21st century and by latest estimate of Technorati, a blog search site as well community, there are 112 million blog all around. The blogosphere, as they say, is huge.

So what do you gain by starting a blog? Well, it’s a place to express yourself or else make some money online. It can be a mix of both, but more on that later in this blog. But, the important thing is, you control what should be the content of your blog. You can make your blog an interactive corner where you post what you like and people in their own way may appreciate or criticize what you do. In turn, you can monetize your blog so that it can become a useful addition to your income.

I have had a lot of people tell me that blogs are boring and it just won’t work out for them. Let me tell you first of all, there is nothing like a boring life, and likewise, a blog is a voice of your own to the world. How can it be classified as boring? Haven’t you always wished for some secluded corner in this world to let out whatever you can’t otherwise? That’s what, essentially, a blog is for.


If you need an outlet for your imaginations, an additional source of income or a new passion, hook onto blogging. You will love it.

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