How to add ads inside posts without altering adsense codes

I've been longing to implement techniques that show ads inside blog post , but refrained from doing this because all the suggestions I had found involved changing the adsense code , even if it was just a bit and that was enough reason for me to think that I'd be violating their TOA , but the doubting tom finally took a break!

I learned the codes that let you add ads inside blog posts in the new blogger to make them more relevant without even touching the adsense codes from a kind techie friend. We will be using the if : else conditional codes to make this work. In the final outcome , you can expect ads to show in between the title and post on item pages , i.e pages other than the main page.

Login to your blogger account and on the dashboard click the "layout" button against the corresponding blog.On the layout page , click on the edit button on "blog posts" block.Check the box at the bottom that says "show ads between posts". Now choose the format and the colors for the ads that you think will work best for your blog in the "configure inline ads" or you can simply choose the blend template option for the colors. Save the changes you just made and revert back to the layout page.

On the layout page, click on the html button and download the template and save it before you start making any s to it. I had forgotten to do this and I was saved only because I tried it out on one of my lucky days.:) Check the expand widgets box at the top left. Search for this code in the html :

Once you have found it , replace it with this code:

What we did was to simply wrap the original code within a conditional if else code. Now you will need to find this code in the html

Add the exact code shown below just before it for ads to appear before the post or just after it for ads to appear after the post.You can also add the code both before and after the code as I have done.

Once you feel sure that you have made the appropriate changes , save the template. That's it! Now when you visit any of your item pages , your ads should appear between the blog title and blog post and you will not have to touch the adsense script to achieve this result. If you are tempted to experiment with different ad formats , you can do so directly from your layout page without having to modify the html any further.

Every idea has the potential to create a revolution

"Every idea has the potential to create a revolution.The choice of whether to rise or fall with it is entirely your's and you make the choice through your actions or inactions."

This post is either a worthless redundant incoherent babble or the most important action for the success of any mission irrespective of your goal. Whether it falls in the first category or the second depends on what kind of mental state you are in right now.

A few years back, I bought an ebook on adwords that costed me just around $1.81 . Obviously , I wasn't expecting it to unravel the mysteries of adwords due to it's price tag. In fact, before I purchased it ,I had already read a more popular and proven e-book on the same topic and it was my curiosity of knowing what a $1.81 e-book could reveal that a $97 e-book can't that got me to purchase it.

I wasn't surprised to find some proven keywords on a niche shared by the author that he claimed could be put on auto-pilot to bring back an ROI of 300%. That's little less than $6 for every $1.81 you spent and that's all the e-book taught me. I wasn't thrilled because although I tried to be a realist and not expect much from the book , a part of me kept whispering that this is the one you have been waiting for.

Reluctantly, I downloaded another free e-book available as a bonus , not to miss out on anything I could lay my hands on to compensate for the $1.81 disaster. The moment I read the title inside the e-book , it upset me more. The book was about procrastination , a "call to action" e-book , the kind that I had seen numerous times, but didn't know how many of them I actually read.

Having nothing better to do I kept skimming through the few pages that my bonus gift had. It told me that I didn't need to purchase his e-book , that I already knew what I needed to know to succeed.This infuriated me so much that I decided to write back to the author of the e-book after a good read of his free crap and now I was paying attention because I had to point out the gross inconsistencies in his e-book and the bonus to embarrass the author who robbed me off my $1.81.

So what did it say ?

It told me that I already knew all I needed to know , not just about adwords , but about success; That all this information is scattered and I can't associate them to form a plan because my trust has been broken by internet marketers who modify old products over and over to make it appear new ; That rather than buying new books I should write down what I know and focus on my knowledge before trying out the next best thing under the sun.

The content of the book forced me to think about all I could recollect and by the time I was done , I realized that I had collected a fortune that was worthless only because of my inaction. Perhaps because I wanted something easier or perhaps I believed strongly that these ideas can't succeed. Whatever the reason, I realized that I knew enough to start earning well that very minute and yet I was wasting my precious time treasure hunting.

After finishing that not-so-boring bonus book , the first thing I did was to look at the list I had just prepared and consider each piece of information as if that was the only thing I had to make money with. By the time I was done , I could have written 8 e-books on various topics to make me enough money online to take a vacation for a year , of course I am hazarding a guess about the length of my vacation. But this time the difference was that I didn't procrastinate . I considered each idea individually and began seeing the potential in them. Before I could get excited , I started to act on them just as my free bonus mentored me and it wasn't even a day before I began to see results.

Moral of the story ? Introspect and extract what you have already learned and like me , you might surprise yourself with the realization that you are sitting on a fortune and searching for a dime. I hope you are in the right mental state and wouldn't just forget about this post after you finish reading it.

I haven't found the time to mail the author to criticize or thank him , but I know I'd send him a fat thank you check just to let him know how grateful I am for the bonus that came with his $1.81 e-book. I'd have still been searching everywhere if not for his invaluable lesson that forced me to individually look at each idea before discarding them to realize the hidden potential that could transform my life. If you were the author , then I will mail you sometime soon :-)

Speaking against injustice is the true worth of freedom

Freedom is Not for the Timid

Today , as I was working on my unfinished project of researching a community to learn whether it's suitable for an advertising campaign , I landed on a website that forced me to stop and think about freedom. The article on this thought provoking blog expounded the process that led to the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo , but there was something else that no one in their sane state can rationalize.

Legislations are formulated by the government to protect the rights of individuals in the society , but when the same legislations become oppressive and unjust then should the government still continue to practice them ? Inquiring minds want to know

Here are a few excerpts from the article that intrigued me :

She ( Terri ) was dehydrated to death under a Florida law that defines food and water as "extraordinarily medical treatment."


"Just this week, a family in Okeechobee, Florida, sent out a call for help because their daughter's husband plans to have her put to death in the same manner as Terri's."


"Your state may have the same legislation as Florida's. Some states, since Terri's death, have repealed theirs. Florida has not."


"If you would like to help repeal legislation and/or help save the lives of those threatened with such a cruel death, consider contributing and supporting the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation."

It's indeed sad that despite living in a civilized progressive society , legislations like these still continue to pull us back.By supporting to repeal the legislation I am only trying to sell myself a hope that this freedom that we enjoy isn't powerless after all. I have done what I could to support what I believe in and hopefully , by spreading the word , a few more people will be motivated to act and follow their heart.

How to form Adgroups in your Google adwords campaigns

When starting out with adwords, it might seem like a good idea to throw in as many keywords as possible under a given niche to attract more clicks , but this can do more harm to your campaigns than help you getting sales and once again , the solution lies in relevancy.

Let's suppose you are promoting a product that helps quit smoking. You can title your adgroup as "quit smoking" and you may include keywords in your campaign like ways to quit smoking, how to quit smoking , quit smoking aids, quit cigarette smoking , quit smoking help , quit smoking hypnotherapy. The list can go on forever.You may also want to include a related keyword like smoking cessation or dangers of smoking in your campaign .

However , as soon as you include these new keywords under the same adgroup , you stand the risk to dilute your campaign. This is because in all your other search terms , the two common words are "quit smoking" and using this phrase in your ad title and ads will give you immediate relevancy and google will boost your quality score thereby lowering your initial bid. But when you use the keyword "dangers of smoking" under the same adgroup , it doesn't exactly match the ad title or the ad that includes the key phrase quit smoking. This may prompt google to revisit your quality score and increase your initial bid due to the lack of relevancy in their eyes.

A person searching for dangers of smoking could be researching the harmful effects of smoking for his project in which case he will not click on your quit smoking ad that comes up for the search term dangers of smoking and that's the point google is making when increasing your bid.However, if you think it can help your campaign , you can start a new adgroup with a title that includes both the words dangers and smoking. So , it might be a better idea to start a new adgroup when including a keyword or a set of keywords that don't match the ad title , ad and the other keywords in that adgroup closely enough.

Thus, whenever forming a new adgroup for a campaign, you must remember to check whether the ad title includes a phrase that's common to all the keywords in that adgroup and whether your ad includes the same key phrase.Staying with this rule of relevancy will help you earn a better quality score for your adwords account.You may also want to checkout the other post on relevancy.

Build your Blog into a Virtual Real Estate

You don't have to be a real estate developer to profit from the real estate boom phenomenon. You can do so right from your living room and that too without the risks of investing in property. All you need to get cracking is a piece of web space we call blog. If you nurture your blog the right way , then you can get paid to blog on topics that excite you.

If you are a content creator and love to share what you learn with other internet enthusiasts, then you can get paid to blog about your favorite topics. The good news is that even as you blog for money , you get to choose what you want to write about. So who pays you for your blogging adventures ?

Smorty is a service that connects advertisers with content creators. Many advertisers want publisher's opinion about their sites or services. If they offer a valued service , then it helps to spread the word. However, there are a few prerequisites for your blog to qualify for smorty. Your blog must be at least three months old and have pages indexed in major search engines like Google and Yahoo. It must not deal in violence , hatred or adult content and the blog should be active with at least 2 posts per week.

Once these criteria are met , you can register at Smorty and blog for money. Smorty boasts of advertisers from a wide range of niches. You can choose to review the ones that fall under your niche. You don't have to offer a biased opinion about any advertiser you wish to review. It's always your prerogative whether or not you want to review an advertiser.This let's you share your honest opinion about the site.

If you want to get your site reviewed by publishers then you can advertise on blogs at Smorty that have been screened and grouped based on their quality, rankings and traffic.You can also make money by referring other publishers to Smorty. You get paid 5% commission of the total payments made to bloggers you refer to their site for as long as they continue to blog.

Initially, the amount you get paid to blog may not thrill you , but as your blog expands and gains popularity , the value of your blog will rise and so will the advertisers seeking a piece of your web space. When you are starting out , you have to keep the bigger picture in mind to motivate yourself as you blog for money . With consistent and sincere efforts your investments will appreciate and become a real virtual asset.

How to pick the Best ecommerce software for your Online Store

Choosing the best ecommerce software for your online store can often become a game of Russian Roulette . While investing in the right shopping cart can significantly improve your sales figures, installing the wrong one can eat into your profit margins.How do you balance between price and efficiency ?

An efficient shopping cart doesn't just give your customer the freedom to browse around your site uninhibited and make the right purchase decisions , it often converts them into repeat buyers due to the ease of shopping from your store. This in turn positively reflects on your sales stats.

The most important criteria to consider while researching for a remotely hosted shopping cart software are :

• Easy to set up and use - The installation process should be smooth.
  
• Free Tech support - There is nothing like getting help right when you need it , especially for merchandising solutions.
• Secure shopping cart and Fraud protection - This is imperative for the trustworthiness of your site. The ecommerce software must've SSL security to ensure secure transactions so that your customers feel protected while shopping at your site.
  
• Payment gateways - It must accept major credit cards , report real-time payments and allow you to create your own payment options.
• Affordability - The software should provide options with features from basic to enterprise level.
• Comprehensive Sales and traffic reports - It's essential to analyze the sales and accordingly improve and optimize your site for better performance.
  
• Optimized for Search engines - The software must be search engine friendly and updated with the latest search engine developments.

From my researches , I found Ashop shopping cart software very reasonably priced for the features it offers to it's clients. In addition to satisfying the above criteria , it offers many other features that your online store may or may not need depending on the size of your business. Accordingly, you can choose their light plan that allows you to list 50 products or Ashop plus plan that lets you list unlimited products. To get an overview of the features available with each plan visit the Ashop shopping cart website.

You can test the Ashop ecommerce software for 10 days trial period for free without divulging your credit card details during this period. After 10 days if you aren't satisfied with the performance of the ecommerce software , then you can continue to research , but I daresay that Ashop's shopping cart will impress you.

Making sense of Google adwords and Relevance

Advertising with Google adwords is not just about writing the perfect ad and shelling out top dollars to acquire the 1st position on the page. It's more about peeping into the minds of your potential consumers and connecting with them by thinking like them. Even if you manage to write a great ad and make the highest bids, your ads can slip down the slots if it doesn't attract enough interest from the visitors.

To stay among the top four , your ad must receive enough clicks. The number of clicks your ad receives tells Google whether or not the traffic thinks your ad is relevant to the keywords they are searching for.If you have a high click through rate (CTR ) ,Google will reward you with a higher ad position or lower cost per click. So to reach the top slot , you don't necessarily have to be the highest bidder. With a quality ad , you can start at the 5th position and still manage to reach the 2nd or 3rd position without spending as much.

For this to happen , relevancy is of utmost importance. It's only when the traffic senses a relation between the keywords they type and your ad that they will click on it. This is why it's important for you to use the keywords in the title as well as in the ad itself. When you have the exact search term in your ad, Google shows it as bold thereby increasing it's chances of being clicked.

Your work doesn't end there though. Once the visitor has clicked on your ad , they must be taken to a page that has exactly what is promised in the ad. If your ad talks about "a vacation in Venice" but the landing page sells a bike instead , then the customer wouldn't think twice before moving on and you'd still be paying as much for the traffic you just lost. Hence, it's vital that not just your ad title and advertisement , but the product you are promoting is equally relevant to the search term and to each other.

Make Money using Paypal Referral Program

If you are a paypal user , you can passively make money using paypal referral program by bringing in new business to paypal. You'd think that being a paypal account holder since last seven years this should be a common knowledge and yes it is , but I never explored their merchant referral bonus program beyond a casual glance until recently when a friend of mine reported that he earned more than a fortune from merchant's who registered with paypal from his referral logo.All he did was to put the paypal logo code on a high traffic website and forget about it.

So here's what you have to do to make money using paypal referral program - Login into your paypal account and click on the "Referrals" button at the bottom of the page. Once on the page , you will see your referral link, banner code and even a promotional email. You have to add the code to your website's html.

When a merchant signs up for a paypal business or premier account from your link , you will earn 0.5% of the merchant's revenue upto $1000 per year per merchant via the paypal referral program. Considering that people use paypal for most of their internet transactions once they discover how convenient it is to transfer funds digitally using paypal, you may earn more than you expect to earn for a simple referral logo.

If you do a good job of recommending the benefits of using paypal over credit card , then you'd probably have a better crack at this free paypal money. Just don't forget to add your paypal referral link when you mention paypal and if you want to make money using paypal referral program but don't have a paypal account yet , then I wouldn't complain if you register using my paypal referral link :)

How to make money on Ebay

When you are starting out as a seller at ebay , initially you may find it difficult to make money on ebay for your auctions may not attract as many bids as you would like them to because buyers generally look for sellers with 10 feedbacks or more. A good way to establish yourself quickly as a credible seller is to sell items that are already doing well on Ebay.

One of the best ways to do this is by staring with promoting branded products that are already household names and known to the customers. With a little research on Ebay , you can find out the popularity of a product. The things you must include in your research are 1) Number of Auctions in a category 2) Number of sales from those auctions 3) Average number of bids per auction 4) average sales price.Once you have this information available , you will be in a better position to know what to sell.

Another good way to determine what products will help you make money on ebay is monitoring the interest of your buyers or buyers who bought products similar to the ones you are promoting. By studying the feedback history of a buyer , you may discover a trend in your buyer's purchases which may help you figure out what to sell to them.

If you selling a physical product , you'll have to find a way to ship the product to your buyer. You can use the services of Salehoo for shipping your products. Salehoo is an established company with a membership of over 30,000. If you feel intimidated by the idea of having to pay for shipping , then you can start out with digital info products that can be instantly downloaded by your buyers.Once you start getting sales and positive feedbacks, you can expect many of these buyers to become repeat customers and make you more money on ebay.

How to use Google Trends for Keyword Research

Google Trends is a service from Google Labs that reflects what keywords people are searching on a daily basis.When you search for a keyword , Google trends will show you not only the search volume for that keyword , but also the news volume and sync it with the search volume.

Below the graphs , you can see which cities , countries or languages made the most searches for that search term. If you want to refine your search, you can switch time periods and regions in the lower left boxes below the graphs. This lets you know exactly when the searches peaked. For example you can study the graphs of a search term during a month and mark the peaks. Once you establish a pattern for the peaks for a search term you can use the knowledge in your marketing campaigns. If you are advertising a product , then you can sync your campaigns with the peaks for that search term.

Google trends also allows you to perform comparative searches. You can search for two or more search terms separated by commas and study their comparative graphs. If you try this for two separate niches , you can find out which one is more popular. You can also use this function to compare the popularity of two products. The best way to use the knowledge of Google trends in your marketing efforts is to select keywords with high search volumes but low pay per click bids.