Using Google Analtyics With Your Adsense Account...

If you are not a regular reader of this blog, let me preface this post by explaining that the vast majority of my earnings come from Google Adsense on my IrishViews.com photo web site...

It has been a long time coming, but finally, Google have now integrated Analytics with Adsense...

This was being rolled out on an ongoing basis - but I think that majority of Adsense accounts should now have an option to link their Adsense account to an Analytics account. If you have not done so recently, then login to your Adsense account and check if you have this option!

I only have a few days worth of data to look at so far, but provided this tracking is fairly accurate (which I think it probably is), I can say without reservation that it is...

FANTASTIC!

This really does change everything...

You'll now be able to see how much was made from each search term, traffic source, and pages on your site:-



This is fantastic!

e.g.

You might find that:-

People searching for "Wallpaper" give half the eCPM as people searching for "Desktop Backgrounds"

Traffic from live.com is much better than traffic from google.com

Page A gives much better returns than Page B on your site (OK - you could already do this using channels in your Adsense account - but now it is even easier)..

You'll now be able to concentrate your time more on what does work and less on what doesn't!

As always, if anyone else has any experience with any of these things, then please leave a comment!


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Why Blogging Sucks!

Nearing the end of 2008, it is time for a re-appraisal of what is working for me and what is not working for me with regard to my rather limited spare time.

Here is a screen shot from Google Analytics of the traffic for this blog, since I started it(roughly 18 months ago):-


(Most of the referring traffic is from Entrecard - which is of notoriously poor quality).

Here is a summary of approximately how much money my blog has earned me directly during that time:-

ZERO!

I certainly don't update this blog every day, but if I was to add up all the time I had spent on it so far, I think I would break down and cry! :-(

I think, in short - if you have a lot of spare time on your hands, and you really love blogging, then by all means give it a shot. But if you think that it is an easy path to riches then you are sadly mistaken...

NB - one of the main aims of this blog was to bring traffic to http://www.irishviews.com/, at which I have had a small amount of success. But compared to the amount of traffic that I get from other sources with much less effort, it cannot be called an unmitigated success!

Are there too many blogs?

Am I clogging up the internet with yet more garbage that practically no-one wants to read?

The answer to both above questions is, I think - Yes!

*Disclaimer* - I don't know everything, and am very far from being one of the best bloggers - but I still maintain that there are far easier ways to make money (online and offline)...

If anyone else has had similar experiences with blogs (or disagrees completely with me) - please leave a comment!

Thanks!

PS...

This post is inspired by the following from Andy Beard :-

http://andybeard.eu/2007/10/why-blogs-suck.html


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Wealthy Affiliate University

Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that I am not a fraud. I do not pretend that you *need* to sign up to anything just because I get an affiliate commission from it.

The only affiliate thing that I have really promoted so far is



I have been a member now for 3 months.

While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, *if* you are not already an experienced marketer, *and* have enough spare time on your hands to put into action most of the guidance provided on the site, then I am 100% sure that you will find it good value for money.

Having said that, I have now cancelled my membership!

"Ha! - Hypocrite." I hear you say...

Let me explain....

I have a full time job, and numerous other commitments.

Before I joined, I knew it was going to be extremely difficult to devote much time to it. But it was a case of 'I have to just do it, try my best, and stop putting it off indefinitely'...

Unfortunately, after 3 months - I have STILL not found the time to implement 10% of the stuff that I know I need to implement to make a half decent stab at affiliate marketing.

Maybe you will join and then end up cancelling your membership for similar reasons. But you won't know what you are missing unless you give it a try, and in the worst case scenario - the most money you will be out is $39!

If anyone does want to give it a try - You can sign up through my affiliate link for which I will be extremely grateful (be sure to let us know if you do so!).

Thanks!

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Gratuitous Money Shots (Sterling / GBP / UK / British Money)

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Google Sitelinks

Google Sitelinks are real boon that will definitely bring you extra visitors:-


After I did a 301 redirect from ni-photos.jmcwd.com to irishviews.com - my sitelinks disappeared for a while - but now appear to have come back.

Just don't ask me exactly how to get them (another part of the Google algorithm that is shrouded in secrecy...)

Now I just hope that my images start to come back in 'Google Image Search' fairly soon...

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Photo Related Earnings - November 2008

A much shorter report this month, as my earnings were so small they are hardly worth reporting!

My November 2008 Adsense Earnings plummeted to $296 ! (Was $745 Last Month).

How did I manage this?

I finally got round to moving my main photos web site to its own domain.

i.e. all my photos were at ni-photos.jmcwd.com, and I moved them to http://www.irishviews.com.

I am fairly sure I followed the correct procedures, using a '301 redirect' etc. My 'Web' search results have not suffered noticeably, but the big problem is that all my images have disappeared from 'Google Image Search' which accounted for approx 50% of my traffic.

After making numerous inquiries, I am now resigned to just sitting back and waiting for my images to eventually reappear. But if it takes as long as it does for new images on my web site to get picked up - I'll be lucky if it is back to normal in 5 months! It does seem odd that Google would allow their image search to do something completely different from their web search (not to mention something completely illogical).

Earnings from other sources are, predictably, also not worth reporting this month!

The conundrum here is as follows...

On the one hand, you should spend more of your time doing stuff that works, and less time doing stuff that doesn't. But on the other hand, you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket...

One last point.. At least a small part of the drop in revenue can maybe be explained by advertisers tightening their belts because of the world wide recession. If anyone else has experienced an unexplained drop in revenue in November 2008 - please leave a comment below!

Thanks.

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