Outsourcing your work isn’t for everyone. But at some point in your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll have to decide whether or not to bring new people in. People who are just beginning in affiliate marketing generally have time to do all the things necessary to become successful.

Once you’ve started building up your portfolio, things can get pretty tight. Especially time. If you stay in this business long enough, there will come a point when you discover that you don’t have enough time to get everything you need done accomplished. When this happens, it’s time to look into outsourcing some of the chores.

For me, it was content writing. I had so many websites that I didn’t have time to write content for every one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to write. But I can only do so much. Plus, there are different types of content. For my Adsense sites, I don’t need the best content. In fact, I’d say poor content will actually convert better on an Adsense site than good content. I can get 500 to 750 word articles written for these sites for as little as $3 to $5 per article. I don’t know about you, but my time is worth a lot more than that plus these articles pay for their self rather quickly.

There are literally people willing to do anything that you can think of. And many of them will do it rather cheaply. It comes down to the value of your time plus how much more money you could make by spending the time you do have on actions that create the most money for you.

By having a lot of articles written for my sites, the time this frees up is spent on building backlinks to my sites and creating more sites, which makes me a lot more money than writing content!

Where to find outsourcing resources

There Internet is a wonderful place to find people willing to work for you. All you need to do is look.

Here are some of my favorite places to find people to outsource my work to.

DigitalPoint forums. They have a section called the Marketplace. You can find anything you want here. Content Writers, Coders, Content, eBook creation, Link building services to people who will build backinks for you and submit your articles to directories and so on. Make sure you check the iTrader reputation of the person before hiring him/her to work for you. Most other Webmaster forums also have a similar marketplace. Other sites you may want to look into are; SitePoint, Webmaster World, V7N, Warrior Forum, etc.

eLance, Rent-A-Coder, RentAFreelancer, GetAFreelancer. These are great places to find people to outsource every aspect of your affiliate marketing. From building website templates to PHP coders and people who will build you landing pages, you’ll find them here.

Need-An-Article. When I need great content, I use these people. I can get 1000 plus word articles written by native English speaking writers for as little as $12.50 and these articles are as good, or in many cases – better, than ones I have paid $30 or more for. Their research is excellent as well and most of my article request are turned around in a few days.

Craigslist – Ha! Gotcha didn’t I? Yeah, I’ve found some good freelancers on Craigslist. Several Content writers and a Coder. Look toward the bottom of the page under the heading of “Services”.  Also be sure to check out the “Gigs” section. If you want someone local, just put up a post and you should have plenty of people responding shortly.

There are tons of other places to find people to outsource your work to. For many of you, you get hung up on the cost to hire these people. I think this generally comes from lack of confidence on most peoples part. If your sites are making money, then your outsourced work will pay for itself many times over. This will free you up to create more sites or work on an area that you enjoy and let the freelancers work on the chores you hate to do or are not particularly good at.

One last bit of advice here. And you’d better take this to heart. Once you find several freelancers that you like, keep their contact info close by. These people can be invaluable to you. Also, treat them fairly in all your business dealings. If they’re good, they’ll be an asset to your business. The few bucks you’ll save by trying to screw them over isn’t worth it. A good freelancer can be like the Goose that laid the Golden egg.

Remember, you’re the Money Man, the Rainmaker, the person with the Creative Ideas. Do what you do best and let the freelancers do what they’re best at!

To you people, I’d say give it a try. Budget some money and get those time sucking jobs that are holding you back outsourced! Your bank account will thank you!

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I’d like to take this time between writing the big articles and ask my readers what they would like to know more about concerning affiliate marketing or Internet Marketing.

So if there’s been a question you need the answer to or you need some help to get over a hump, let me know, I’ll write a blog post or reply in the comments if I can help. Chances are if you’re having a problem or have a question, someone else is having it also.

Feel free to ask about any topic as long as it pertains to affiliate programs, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, search engine optimization, blogging or Adsense.

I’m no Guru, but I bet I can help most of you if you’ve reached a dead end. Just leave a comment and I’ll get started.

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These affiliate programs are in no certain order, I’m adding them as they come to me.

Ebay

There is so many ways to make money with ebay, it’s almost unreal. I’m not aware of another company with as many ways to make money with their affiliate program like you can with Ebay. Not even Amazon has as many ways. Many of us continue to make good coin with the eBay affiliate program. Now there are programs like PHPBay where you can insert ebay auctions into blogs or hard code them into any website. You can also use all the tools on the ebay publisher to customize the way you want to present ebay auctions. The different ways you can make money from Ebay is staggering. If you don’t have an account already, get one and familiarize yourself with their affiliate marketing tools.

If you would like to have an Online store selling eBay and other items, then give ProStores a look. They’re an eBay company and offer different packages for people wanting to start their own online business. They’re currently offering a one month free trial. Click here to get your free trial —> One Month Free Trial! ProStores – an eBay Company

Clickbank

Love them or hate them, the bottom line is you can make a lot of money with ClickBank. You simply have to learn to choose a product that others want and then create a site to sell this one product. The biggest mistake I see many ClickBank beginners make is they try and sell everything ClickBank has with just a few pages on a copied website. It ain’t gonna happen folks! Choose a product that you’ve used and one you like. Create a main website or blog about this one product and then build a network of smaller websites and blogs to support the main one, build links to the main site by article marketing, blog commenting on DoFollow blogs and submit the post from all your blogs to the Social Media crowd (for backlinks). Use places such as Mixx, HubPages, Squidoo and Propeller to create pages or submit articles about your one specific product. Use good quality content (with long articles that are keyword optimized) to build you main website and the traffic will come. I know it sounds like a lot of work and it is. I didn’t say this would be a list of get rich quick top affiliate programs!

AdSense

Yeah, I know technically that adsense is not an affiliate program, but it’s still one of the easiest, if not THE easiest way to make money online.

All you have to do is pick a niche that you know something about, write good articles about every aspect of this niche, throw a 336×228 ad block at the top and a 120 or 160 adsense block in the sidebar and sit back and rake in the money. The more content and traffic you have, the more money you make. It’s really that simple!

I typically spend 20% of my time creating content and the other 80% promoting my sites, which basically means building links to them. Once you have your site SEO optimized, the most important next step is to build links, build links and then build some more links back to your site!

Many so called “guru’s” tend to make AdSense harder than it is. Some of this is because they’re trying to sell you their “Get rich quick with adsense” ebook, some of it is because they just don’t know any better.

Look people, don’t over think adsense, it’s not that hard!

Independent Affiliate Programs

Some of the biggest money being made on the Internet isn’t through the Affiliate Networks like Commission Junction or ShareASale. It’s being made through independent affiliate programs. Independent affiliate programs are in-house programs that a Merchant runs their self.

Generally, independent affiliate programs pay a higher commission since some of their money doesn’t have to go to affiliate networks. If you can drive a lot of niche specific traffic your favorite independent affiliate program, you can expect to make more than through the affiliate networks.

There are independent affiliate programs for nearly every sector of the Internet. One I like for a couple of my Outdoor related websites is GunsAmerica. Yeah, you can make money selling guns on the Internet. That’s pretty sweet! You can be your own Internet gun runner! LOL

Sometimes it takes a little more to find these independent programs, you’ll just have to search harder. Many Wedding Affiliate Programs are independent and generally pay more than their affiliate network competition. A lot of Webhosting companies have both independent affiliate programs as well as belonging to an affiliate network. Compare the payouts for each program and you’ll see most pay out more on their in-house programs.

Run Your Own Affiliate Program

Have you ever wished you had a lot of affiliate marketers pushing your product? Well you can!

When you run your own affiliate program, you split the money with the affiliates and that’s it. No one else has their hands sticking out.

This is generally the most lucrative for you plus it leaves you free to keep producing other services or products to sell.

“But I don’t have a product or service to sell” you say.

Fear not, there are places where you can have products made for you or you can buy products with Master Resell Rights, brand them with your name and then resell them under your own affiliate network.

Have you ever wondered how the big name Guru’s are able to turn out ebook after ebook or software program after software program? Simple. The hire it done.

Many use the services of eLance or RentACoder. Others have writers or developers at their fingertips. All it takes is a small investment to have someone write you a professional ebook or software program. You then can market it yourself and keep all the profits or split it with your affiliates.

Another easier and cheaper way is to buy products or services with Master Resell Rights or Private Label Rights (PLR). You can find many products and services with Master Resell Rights or Private Label Rights at websites like BestChoiceForEbooks. Once you find a product or service you like, buy it and brand it with you own name and begin marketing it.

You could even start your own store with all the ebooks, software and other products they offer.

What? How Come I Didn’t Mention Amazon.Com?

I know many of you may be wondering why I didn’t list Amazon.com in this Top Affiliate Program post.

It’s simple really.

Although I make some coin from Amazon.com as do others, it doesn’t convert as well as other programs in many instances. Every website I’ve had plus those of many affiliate marketers I know that run Amazon, have higher conversions with other affiliate programs. It takes a load of traffic to make Amazon work and many people starting out do not have the hoards of traffic needed to make Amazon pay off. And if you do have the traffic, then chances are there’s a higher paying affiliate program you could be using. Heck, even AdSense generally pays off more than Amazon.

Okay, so this is your top affiliate programs. Maybe not what you wanted to see. I know many of you wanted specific affiliate programs. But the truth is, nearly any affiliate program from the affiliate networks can be a top affiliate program if you have passion for it, believe in the product or service and are able to drive targeted traffic to your site. That’s the real “secret” behind affiliate marketing. It’s a proven fact that you’ll be able to sell a product better if you use it and love it!

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It has always been said that Internet users have short attention spans. That’s still true for the most part.

When I first started, the rule was the post should be between 250 and 500 words. I naturally write long articles as it is. So I was getting comments and email saying my post were too long. So I started trying to keep them around 500 words. That was hard for me to do!

Here are a few reasons why you should be writing long blog post:

• If you’re only interested in attracting Social traffic, stick to making those short, concise post. Most Social readers have shorter attention spans than a 3 year old, especially if they come from Digg.
• If on the other hand, you want your post to rank high in Google SERPS and bring in loads of targeted organic search traffic, you’re more likely to do it with longer keyword optimized post than shorter ones.
• You’ll naturally have more long tail keywords in your long blog post. Long tail keywords bring in more targeted organic traffic to your site.
• Looking at it from Google’s perspective, which post is more informative? A short one or long post? Google is in the business of delivering targeted relevant information to Internet searchers. Google’s algorithym searches for the most relevant and informative information on the Internet when you enter a search into the the search box. So which post do you think it will return higher in the SERPS? A 250 word post about ‘Mens Hair Loss’ or a 1400 word article?
• If you run a content rich site with Adsense, you can increase your CTR with longer post and articles. Why? Because you’ll stand a better chance of the reader losing interest and clicking on an Adsense ad. Yeah, I know, it’s a pretty underhanded Adsense trick hunh? But it works
• You may lose a few RSS subscribers who do not like long post, but you’ll also gain a few more who feel long post are more informative and detailed. They’ll see you as a detailed authority on the subject.

What constitutes a long post?

The way I look at it is, anything over 1000 words is a long post. I know some who say 700 to 800 words is a long post, but a 1000+ word blog post is much better, especially if it’s keyword optimized.

Long post are also more detailed. Instead of making some short-to-the-point sentences, you can take your time and go into more details with your post.

Tips For Optimizing Your Blog for Long Post

If you’re worried about losing your RSS subscribers to long post, here are a few tips that will help you keep them interested and to optimize your long post.

• Use the H3 tag to break up your long post into sections. Properly constructed H3 headings also add SEO benefits to your long post.
• Use bullets and numbers to break up list or for making points
• Use blockquotes when quoting others or for highlighting a resource
• Use Bold, Italics and Colored Text to get your point across and to break up your long post.
• Not all of your long post have to be a War and Peace novels. Just the really important post you want to expand on and the ones you want top rankings for. It’s okay to mix short post with long post. I’ve done this same thing here on AffiliateWatcher.Com

Still not convinced that long Blog post are better?

Take a look at the thumbnail picture below (click it to enlarge the picture). It’s a screenshot I did of a search for “How To Monetize A Blog With Adsense.” I posted it Monday morning and when I got home that afternoon, I was sitting at the #2 spot for that keyword term.

I jumped over some pretty big names to get to the #2 spot with nothing more than a 1400 word post about how to monetize a blog with Adsense. The only reason the B2evolution network outranks my post with their little generic post is because they have more backlinks to that page. It would be rather easy to outrank them and take that #1 spot away with fewer backlinks because my post has more weight than theirs.

Fortunately for me, this happens a lot with my long blog post. Whether or not it’s on this blog or one of my other ones. Long optimized blog post rank better! I no longer ask; how long a blog post should be, I just start writing and stop when I’m done!

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These illusions are quickly shattered when they see their Adsense accounts with .05 and .20 cents per click and a CTR of 1%. It doesn’t take the newbie blogger long to realize that their dream of living of off Adsense income isn’t a reality.

Is Adsense Still a Good Choice For Monetizing Blogs?

The quick and easy answer is Yes and No. In order for Adsense to be a viable option to monetize a blog, you need large amounts of traffic. And not any old traffic will work!

Many bloggers love to talk about Social Media and they spend a good amount of time writing articles and submitting them to the popular Social Networks like Digg and StumbleUpon in order to bring the masses of Social Networkers to their site. While this may increase traffic to a blog, it rarely translates into clicks on their Adsense ads.

Why Social Traffic Isn’t Good For Adsense

If you’re one of these bloggers who’s chasing traffic from Social sites and still wondering why your Adsense account is empty, listen up, I’m fixing to let you in on a little secret.

Social traffic doesn’t convert for squat. Of course, you already knew that didn’t you!

Why?

Because people who use the Social networks are pretty ‘Net savvy and they don’t click ads. They read blogs more for entertainment purposes than they do for the informational value. Sure, they may read a post about whether or not Adsense is still a good choice for monetizing blogs, but if there’s an Ad block on how to monetize a blog with Adsense next to the post, they aren’t likely to click on it.

Another reason Adsense is a poor choice for Social blogs is because the Click Through Rate (CTR) will be in the dumps. This will cause  your Adsense ads to be Smart Priced.

This is how it works. Google Adsense works of off the principle that a targeted Internet searcher is more valuable to the advertisers than a browser just clicking around the Internet.

So when your Social Network browser comes to your site, Google does not consider this a targeted user. If the advertiser is paying $2 per click, and a Social Network user comes to your Social blog about making money on the Internet and actually does click on a Adsense ad, you’ll receive a lower per click price than if that user had went to Google and typed in “how to make money online” and came to your blog and clicked an Adsense ad about ‘how to make money online’. Google considers this targeted traffic and will pay you the most for this type of Internet users. 

Why Organic Traffic Pays Off With Adsense

Stop and think about this one for a minute.  When an Internet user is searching for some knowledge, they want it and they want it yesterday! Many of us will not stop searching the Internet until we find the useful information we need. We’ll click on this or that, we’re frantic searchers and we need that information!

Let’s say you’re bills are piling up because gas is at $4 a gallon and food prices are skyrocketing. You need some debt relief. So you go on over to Google and type in ‘debt relief’. You then click on the first result that promises you quick and painless debt relief. After you browse the site for a few minutes, you realize this site can not answer your questions and you’ll have to go elsewhere. There’s an Adsense ad block to the upper left with an add about instant debt relief. Hmmm, that’s just what you need right now, instant debt relief.

What do you do?

Click the Adsense ad promising instant debt relief or hit the back button a half dozen times to get back to the Google SERPS page?

Yeah, me too. I’ll hit the Adsense link every time if it will lead me to what I’m looking for.

And you know what?

The Webmaster or blog owner gets the maximum payout for your click because you found his site by searching for the term ‘debt relief’.

If I had gone to his site looking for ‘Ways To Make Money Online”and then clicked the same ad, chances are good he would not have received the maximum payout for that click. That’s why you’ll see some of your Adsense ads paying out .20 cents for one click and the next it gives you $2. It’s all about how the Internet user got to your site.

So What Type Of Blogs Are Best For Adsense?

It’s not really what type of blog is best for Adsense, the question should be “What type of traffic is best for Adsense?”

And that question is an easy one to answer. It’s organic search traffic. Plain and simple.

Now having said that, you’ll see that many of the so called Social media blogs do not rank well for anything of value.

Ever see John Chow or some of the other popular social bloggers rank in the top 10 for terms like “how to make money with Adsense?”No, you don’t. That’s one of the biggest reasons you don’t see Adsense on their sites. They can’t bring in the organic search traffic they need to convert browsers into ad clickers and their social traffic sure as hell won’t click the ads. So they end up with a crappy CTR and get Smart Priced. The few clicks they do get, Adsense pays out a few cents here and there. Then the Social bloggers will proclaim to the masses about how Adsense doesn’t work any longer!

Adsense Can Be a Steady Income Producer For Blogs and Websites That Pull In Organic Traffic

This is the real secret to Adsense and how to make it pay the most for every click. If you have a blog or website that ranks well for a number of keywords and your pages are optimized to bring in targeted search traffic, you’ll do well with Adsense.

Your blog doesn’t have to be a custom made WordPress blog nor does it have to be fancy. In fact, you can start with one of these Adsense optimized themes. It does have to be SEO optimized with lots of backlinks to rank well for your keywords.

Forget about the Social traffic and getting your post Dugg and Stumbled. Sure, it’s nice to see all that traffic, but why bother when you know it’s not going to convert plus it’s going to ruin your CTR. And to top it off, it will get you Smart Priced with Google Adsense.

Go after the money. And in this case, the money is in ranking well for your keywords and driving crowds of targeted organic search traffic to your blog or website.

Your blog or website should cover one subject, such as ‘debt relief’. Don’t try to make a blog or website cover everything under the sun. Each page of your website should have an article or post covering one keyword.

For example, if you had a blog over the main keyword of ‘debt relief’, then you’d probably want your interior pages targeting keywords such as ‘bankruptcy’, ‘debt consolidation’, ‘how to pay off your bills early’ or ‘debt consolidation loans’.

While you’re at it, make sure your blog or website is optimized for Adsense. Don’t cover every page in Adsense ads. The top paying ad block is normally a 350 block at the top. You might also want a Tower block in the sidebar, but that’s where I’d stop.

In the past, I put those little Adsense link blocks on my sites, but have always done poorly with them. I’d rather someone click on one of the Adsense ads in the body so I’ll make more money per click. That’s why I’ve started putting only two Adsense ads on my content sites. More ads normally dilute your per click payout.

To wrap this up, if you want to make money with Adsense, forget about those cool social blogs, go with a keyword targeted blog or website. SEO optimize it, build backlinks to make it rank well for your chosen keywords and then sit back and watch the Adsense money roll in. You can still monetize a blog with AdSense, you just have to go about it wisely.

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Update to the Update! Currently I can not recommend the Build A Niche Store program to my readers. Here’s why. Google has been deindexing many BANS sites, mine included. They apparently do not like the fact that this is a script that auto generates web pages with affiliate links on them (the ebay ads). However, Yahoo and Bing seem to still be ranking these sites and I’m still making money with them, but not near as much as I was when they were indexed in the top pages of Google.

If you’re looking for a legitimate way to create an eBay store where you can sell real products, I recommend Pro Stores. Currently they’re giving a free month trial for you to try it out. Use this link for your free trial – One Month Free Trial! ProStores – an eBay Company

Since I wrote the Build A Niche Store Review, I’ve had quite a few emails asking me to give everyone an update on how my Build A Niche Store‘s are doing, what techniques are working, which one’s aren’t, etc. I can say that the Build A Niche Store is still working for me, but a few of my sites have cooled off.

Currently I have 19 Build A Niche Store sites. These sites range from 11 pages up to over 40 pages. It all depends on the niche and how many categories ebay has for them.

Some of the first stores I built have dropped a little in the rankings as I’ve slowed down adding new content to them during December and January.

Last month my best performing Build A Niche Store did over $150 in commissions while the least performing store did just over $15. Sadly, this poor performer was a store I thought would be a great niche, but as it turns out, it’s a very competitive craft niche. This means I’m going to have to work very hard at building quality backlinks to this store to get it boosted in the rankings.

I didn’t follow my own advice when choosing this niche. It just “came to me” one night and I quickly looked up how many searches were being done for this particular niche and thought “Geez, this would make a great Build A Niche Store site.” The problem is, had I researched it a little further I would have found that the Niche has a lot of freebie websites out there giving away many of the same craft products I’m trying to sell on my BANS site plus many of these sites were built back in the late 90′s and early 2000′s by hobby Webmasters. This means they have their age working for them not to mention hundreds of old backlinks pointing toward them. DO YOUR RESEARCH!

On a very happy note, a few nights ago one of my sites turned in a $84 commission on one sale! That’s the best commission I’ve ever received from any of my Build A Niche Store sites.

Ways I’m Promoting My Build A Niche Store Sites

I’m promoting my Build A Niche Store sites just like I have any other website that I’ve owned or worked on. I’m building links slowly so they look natural. I’m using all of the Social Networking sites plus participating in forums that relate to the BANS sites I have.

One of the most effective techniques that I’ve used is buying advertising on other sites. You know the old adage of “It takes money to make money?” Well, I’m here to tell you that it works for BANS sites just as well. I’ve bought banner ads on several forums and other sites relevant to several of my Build A Niche Store sites.

I haven’t done much promoting through PPC. Most of the paid traffic has come through advertising on other sites.

Article Marketing is by far and away my best FREE* advertising to date. If you’re not using a service like Article Marketer to submit your articles to hundreds of places on the Internet, then you’re leaving a lot of traffic on the table.

It’s so damn funny to hear “Guru’s” say article marketing is dead and does not work any longer. Good for them, it means that there’s a tad bit less competition out there! Meanwhile my BANS sites are gaining backlinks and traffic!

*I say “FREE” because you can submit your articles to many directories manually for free. I prefer to pay a few bucks to Article Marketer and automate the process by sending one article to hundreds of places. You gotta work smart!

I’ve also went to DigitalPoint forums and paid someone to manually submit some of my BANS stores to Internet Directories. This has resulted in some nice backlinks as well. Eventually I’ll have all my stores in the free directories then I’ll start focusing on using some paid directories for more authority backlinks.

As I stated above, some of the Social Networking sites are sending good traffic to my sites. You’ll be surprised at how many old ladies use StumbleUpon!

Future Plans For My Build A Niche Store’s

Honestly I believe that I’m building stores faster than I can promote them properly. That’s okay because I can always come back and work on them later. There’s no problem in letting these stores sit and age for a while.

Speaking of aging, I’ve began buying expired domains and just uploading a BANS site to them, changing the colors and adding a header graphic and letting them sit until I can get back to promoting them and SEO’ing the pages. This is working damn good actually! If you have any domains parked somewhere, bring them out of moth balls and add a BANS site to them.

What Hasn’t Worked So Well On My BANS Sites

Unfortunately, Adsense has really sucked on these sites. While some have spikes in CTR, most of the CTR’s are lower than 3%. When your CTR starts averaging less than 3%, it can pull down all your Adsense sites due to Smart Pricing.

I’ve actually started pulling Adsense off of many of my Build A Niche Store sites. Now I do have to tell you that all my Adsense ads are at the lower left sidebar. This is a poor place to put Adsense on any site, so I’m not blaming Adsense entirely.

The reason that they are there is because I also use either affiliate programs and/or Clickbank products on the right side. These have been a big boost to the overall income of my BANS sites. They pay a helluva lot more than Adsense. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that Adsense ads on a BANS site is a poor move.

If you just have to have some type of pay per click advertising, check out these Adsense alternatives.

Build A Niche Store Project Summary

Okay, while most of my sites aren’t doing as well as I hoped (don’t we all have high hopes for our websites?), at the end of the day they’re still making money. They’re paying for their domains and hosting and some are doing much, much better than that. I have a few niche’s that aren’t paying off as I’d hoped. Having said that, I have some small Niches I thought would be ugly ducklings turn out to be beautiful cash generating Princesses!

Some of the first stores I built will be coming out of the Sandbox in the next month or so. So be watching for an update as my older sites start kicking SERP tail.

Also, I’ve had some really nice surprises with the PHPBay wordpress plugin. I’ll give you an update on that in the next day or so.

Don’t Forget The Special Report Bonus

The Special Report “How To Maximize Profits With Ebay Affiliate Programs” is still being offered when buying your BANS program through this site. Read my Build A Niche Store Review for the details. It has many more techniques and tactics for building profitable BANS sites.

If you haven’t looked over the features of the Build A Niche Store program, click here to see them now.

Build A Niche Store – Update

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I’m not sure why that post is so popular, but it still brings in a lot of traffic.

This post will be about how to get your Google Adsense Account unbanned!

First off, let my start by saying that if your Google Adsense Account was banned because you violated the Google Adsense Terms Of Service (TOS), your up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Chances are you’ll not get your Adsense account unbanned.

However, if you feel the Google Adsense gang unfairly banned your account, here are 5 simple steps to follow that may help you get it unbanned. (this means you have read the Adsense TOS and have determined without a doubt you did not violate their terms)

Remember, most bans come from an automated machine. Something went wrong and it caused a Red flag to pop up at G Headquarters. Your goal now is to to have a human review it.

1. Try and determine why your account was banned.  This is important because you need to know what happened before you can gather evidence. Google will not always tell you and many times they’ll tell you it’s because of “Invalid Clicks” which can mean anything under the moon. I’ve heard of accounts being banned because of a sudden increase in clicks due to a site hitting the front page of Digg and because a previous owner of a domain had his Adsense account banned.
2. Contact the Google Adsense team and be nice about it. If you’re email starts with “You Jerks at Google Banned My Account For No Good Reason,” then you’ll not likely get it unbanned before Hell freezes over. Your emails should be very nice and non-judgemental. Assume it was an honest mistake by Google, because it may very well have been.
3. Provide Proof Of Your Innocence.If you have a good idea of why your Adsense was banned, offer to give it to Google. This could be everything from server logs, a letter from the webhost or a WhoIs file. Be nice and politely show Google where they went wrong.
4. Have some patience.The folks at Adsense won’t be tripping over their self to get to your case. I’d be sending follow up emails every other day or so and checking on the status of the human review. Remember to keep them nice and polite. You may also want to keep offering to give them evidence. Try and show you really want to help in the investigation.
5. Persistence pays off. If you give up only after an email or two, then chances are you may never hear from them again. Stay with the follow up emails! Eventually they’ll get tired of you and either give you a Yea or Nay. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil!

There is no guarantee that these tips will help. But if you’re going to fight to get your account reinstated, this is the way to begin.

I can’t stress this enough, read the damn Adsense TOS before you cry about getting banned. After you get your account banned is not the time to familiarize yourself with the Google Adsense TOS.

You’ll be surprised at the type of things you account can be banned for. I’m always amazed at people in the forums who’ve had their account banned because of something they did that was against the TOS. Then they proceed to tell everyone they “didn’t know.”

And if you can’t get you Adsense account unbanned, you can always use one of your other Adsense accounts…right?

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Smart pricing as Google calls it, was allegedly an attempt to increase “value” for advertisers. From what I can tell, no one can tell exactly how “Smart Pricing” works. From the discussions on many of the forums lately, Adsense revenues are falling further and further for site owners.

Yesterday I was reviewing my Adsense revenue, which by the way is down across all my sites, and notice there was one ad that received 10 clicks. I got 26 cents for those 10 clicks. Not 26 cents per click, 26 cents for all those clicks! That comes out to a whopping 2.6 cents per click for that ad!

As far as I can tell, and many other website owners as well, Smart Pricing is an excuse for Google to keep more of your money.

Adsense Alternatives To Help Boost Your Website or Blog Earnings

Here’s quick rundown of some alternatives for replacing Adsense on your site.

• AdBrite - AdBrite advertises that it serves 727 million impressions to 33,534 sites. The income is a 75/25 split in the site owners favor.
• Advertising.Com – They have a wide range of advertisers to choose from. They have CPA and CPC programs with a net 15 payout.
• AzoogleAds- Azoogle has many companies to choose from with many different ways you can apply those ads. This is a popular Affiliate Network for credit card offers, debt relief, car loans and insurance offers.
• BidClix- This is a model where advertisers bid for the highest placement. BidClix advertise that they serve over 30 million ads a day for their advertisers. They pay every 15 days.
• Bidvertiser- Bidvertiser serves up ads that look like Adsense ads (as does many of these other companies).  They also will pay your through PayPal, which I like!
• Burst!- Burst has over 4200 specialty content websites currently on over 400 channels. Some of their recent advertisers include John Deere, Weight Watchers, Vonage and State Farm just to name a few.
• Chitika – Let’s face it, they have the best looking contextual ads on the Web. But a wise publisher will do their research before joining up. Read the Internet Marketing forums and ask questions.
• Claxon- Claxon pays on the 15th and the 30 or 31st of every month. At one time Claxon payed 85% of the gross. I’m not sure if that’s still the case since they were bought by Human Ingenuity International. You’ll have to contact them or join their program.
• IntelliTxt- Another inline text contextual advertiser. They advertise that they serve over 250 million user-initiated video ads per month.
• Kontera- Kontera offers inline text ads. Personally, I’d do more research on them before joining. They advertise that they’ll get back to you within 5 business days of submitting your application, but it took them over 2 weeks to get back to me the fist time and they denied 5 of my sites. Oh yeah, the denial email was a form letter that said they denied my claim because my “site” was offline (remember, I submitted 5, not 1). Ummm…yeah. So I recently submitted them under Joel Comm’s link and its been nearly 3 weeks and I haven’t heard a peep. They don’t seem to be real big on answering emails or applications!
• Miva- They offer pay-per-click ads (resembles Adsense ads) along with inline-pay-per-click ads.
• MSN Adcenter- Another Adsense type contextual program from the good people at MSN.
• TribalFusion- TribalFusion says it serves up 19 Billion impression…yes, that’s Billions as in starts with a “B” plus some of the highest payouts on the Web. They pay 55% of ad revenue with a $50 minimum. You’ll have to wait 45 days for you money though.
• ValueClick - They pay by the 25th of each month for the previous months clicks. They also pay by PayPal.
• YPN- This is Yahoo’s version of Adsense. Trustworthy and their ad blocks resemble Adsense.

Okay, there you go. 15 alternatives to Adsense. Sure, there are other advertisers who you can sign up with, but these 15 seem to be the big players in the industry.

 Many site owners have got complacent and have failed to test other Contextual Advertising Programs. (myself included) I’m sure we’re leaving money on the table. It’s time we all put Adsense aside and tried out some of these other networks.

Also, you need to know that I’m only an affiliate for a few of these companies and I’m certainly not an expert on any one of them. I’ve provided the link to their sites so you can do your own research to find your Adsense alternative!

If you’ve tried any of these networks, let me know how they worked for you!

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Let’s face it, Adsense is the simplest affiliate marketing program there is. (although technically Adsense is not an affiliate marketing program, but don’t tell anyone)

The easiest way to incorporate Adsense into your site is an Adsense Ready WordPress Theme. I use a variety of WordPress Themes for Adsense. The one I choose depends on the type of blog I running. I’ve compiled this Ultimate List of Adsense Ready WordPress Themes for your enjoyment. I have to be honest and say the idea for this list came about when I saw Dosh Dosh’s list of 17 Adsense Ready WordPress Themes and realized I had those plus a few more in my folders and bookmarks. I just didn’t realize how long it would take to put this list together!

Even though I say it’s the “Ultimate List” we both know it’s not. 5 minutes from now someone else will come out with one. Also, if you know PHP or use the Adsense-Deluxe Plugin, you can turn just about any WordPress Theme into an Adsense ready blog.

If you want to learn advanced Adsense strategies, I highly recommend “Desktop Adsense Cash Machine”. I learned many good tips and tactics that increased my adsense earnings by double on most of my sites. And if you haven’t yet, take a look at “The Next Internet Millionaire“. This reality based show will be sure to teach you some Adsense tactics that the Guru’s keep under wraps.

My criteria for a WordPress Adsense Theme is:

1. Easy to use – I don’t want to spend hours upon hours modifying a theme. I don’t know PHP or CSS so I need a simple plug-n-play theme.
2. Easy on the eyes- You don’t want an ugly WordPress Theme! I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but an ugly theme will cost you money!
3. Widget Compatible- A WordPress Theme for Adsense should be widget compatible, although some in the list are not. Not that I will use them, but I prefer to have that option if I find myself wanting to use a widget.
4. Optimized Adsense Placement – Preferably the WordPress Themeyou choose will already have the Adsense blocks placed in the theme and all you have to do is ad your AdsensePublisher ID code. Not all the themes that are listed are like that. The ones that aren’t designed that way are still easy to set up by adding your code to the PHP files. All you have to do is replace the developers Adsense Code with yours. It’s easier than it sounds.
5. SEO Friendly- I want organic traffic! The WordPress Themes in the Ultimate List are SEO Optimized and Friendly or they are darn near close!
6. Customizable- You don’t want your blog to look like everyone’s else. While not all of the WordPress Themes listed are easily customized, many are and that goes a long way in my book (remember when I said that I didn’t know PHP or CSS?)

The pictures of the themes are either from the developers website or taken from screen shots of blogs running these WordPress themes.

If you use any of these WordPress Themes, please visit the developers website and donate some green to their tip jars (if they have them) and always link back to their site. Also, should you have technical problems with any theme on this page, (although I can cut and paste with the best of them ) go to their website for help, I’m not a techie and I won’t be able to help you.

Some of these WordPress Themes require you open a file and replace existing Adsense Pub-ID with your own. If you don’t know how to do that, here’s a quick tutorial on how to add your Publisher ID to an Adsense Ready WordPress Theme.

Also, some of these Adsense Ready WordPress Themes walk a fine line in the grey area concerning Google Adsense TOS. Always check with the Google Adsense folks about any concerns you have with any theme, whether they are these or not. And always save your emails from them!

#1 – Ad Flex Blog & Niche Themes

Website | Download

AdFlex WordPress Theme Review

I use this theme on several of my blogs. It’s my favorite theme for Adsense because it is so customizable. In fact, I don’t know of another Adsense ready WordPress Theme that is more customizable than Ad Flex.

In addition to that, this baby comes SEO ready!

This theme has Ad Links at the top and an ad block above the content and an ad block below the content. In the screen shot of the blog above, the blog owner used the 468 x 60 ad block, but I’ve used all sizes. I’ve also used other affiliate program codes in the ad blocks (for example, Azoogle ad code) and all have shown up wonderfully.

While the screen shot above doesn’t show it, you can also put pictures above the Adsense. Whoa there buddy, I know what you’re thinking “It’s against Adsense TOS to put pictures next to Adsense ads”Well, not exactly. I have several websites and blogs with pics near Adsense ads. What Adsense doesn’t want for example, let’s say, images of cell phones next to Adsense ads about cell phones so that the surfer thinks he’s clicking on a link to a particular cell phone. In other words, don’t try and fool a surfer into clicking on an adsense ad.

I have a travel site using this WordPress Theme and have put images of tropical get-a-ways and other vacation looking pictures next to Adsense ads. I then followed up with the folks at Google Adsense to ensure that these were not in violation of the Adsense TOS. I received a reply that they were acceptable. The neat thing is, if you’re concerned about the Adsense TOS, you can turn the pictures off and on with a simple tick in a check box in the WordPress dashboard.

Neat. But that is how this whole theme is. Everything is so easy. If you don’t want certain items such as the Category section to show up in the Nav bar on the left side, just check “NO” in the field. Want the Nav bar on the right? No problem, there’s an option for that.

Here are some other features you get with this theme.

• Meta tag description that is based on the content of the page
• Non duplicate content prevention feature
• Adsense Banner Management
• Blocking Cookie
• Theme can be switched between wide and narrow
• Approximately 150 controllable features

Try this them with some of your blogs. You’ll be amazed at the results!

#2 AdsMinded Adsense Theme

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AdsMinded WordPress Theme Review

I use the AdsMinded theme on 2 of my blogs. This is a great WordPress theme for Adsense with high CTR due to the adlinks at the top. Tip: If you’re not taking advantage of adlinks, you’re losing money!

This theme is SEO optimized plus you can customize the layout and ad placement several ways. On one of my blogs, I left out the 2nd column with the Adsense ads on the main page. They’re only visible once a surfer clicks through to read the entire post. Also, there are several other areas where you may put other affiliate codes from other companies. This really maximizes your earnings potential!

This 3 column layout comes with an optional square ad placement on top of the sidebars. It comes with some very useful WordPress plugins.

You can get this WordPress Theme in a narrow or wide version.

#3 Merah Putih

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Merah Putih WordPress Theme Review

This is a nice clean and simple WordPress Theme I found. It needs some customizing, such as a logo in the upper left corner if you want one and you have to insert your Adsensepublisher ID into the sidebar.php, header.php file and single.php file which is pretty easy to do. All you do is open the PHP files with an editor like Notepad ++ and replace the existing Adsense Publisher ID’s with you own, save the files and upload them to your template folder or modify them in the Theme Editor of the Dashboard and BAM, you’re off and running. It takes me about the same amount of time to do it as it did to type this.

I’m a sucker for clean and simple WordPress themes such as this one. I like the ad placements and an added bonus is that once a surfer clicks on an article heading, the article page has the 300×250 Adsense block in the upper left of the article. That’s the sweet spot and heat maps provided by Googlestates this is the best place to put an adblock in an article.

The side bar has a 300×250 and a 160×600 ad block plus an adlink block at the top of the pages.

#4 SEO Adsense

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SEO Adsense WordPress Theme Review

This is another clean and simple Adsense Ready WordPress Theme. I like this theme for my review type sites. It’s laid out very well and Adsense code is easily added. This theme loads quickly and is designed to accept three ad blocks and one ad link per page, the maximum allowed by Google Adsense TOS. You can also use Google Adsense for search for some additional income.

The advantage of this WordPress theme in my opinion is that it is SEO optimized out of the gate. The title and H1 tags contain most of the information. Category pages carry the category name as the title and on post pages, the post name is carried as the title.

The Adsense code is in three files with this theme. The header.php, the sidebar php and the footer.php files. You also have the advantage of using Google Adsensefor search in the searchform.php

Sometimes less is more when you’re trying to get surfers to click on ads. With that being said, SEO Adsense gives you a great advantage over other WordPress Themes when it comes to the layout and ease of using Adsense to it’s maximum potential.

#5 WP Colors

Website | Download – (the creators ask you download this theme from their site)

WP Colors WordPress Them Review

This is a snazzy looking 2 column theme for WordPress plus it’s Adsense ready and is widget compatible. This WordPress theme is also SEO optimizedand ready to rock once you’ve added your Adsense Publishers ID.

One of my main gripes of other “Adsense Ready” themes is that the sidebar info comes before the main content info in the source code. This is not the case with WP Colors. They’ve coded this theme so that the main content info is read by a Search engine BEFORE the sidebar info!

There is a 728×90 block at the top of the theme below the header image and a 120×600 tower in the sidebar plus a 300×250 box at the top of the sidebar.

Personally, I’d like to see that banner be a 468×60 at the top of the post and a adlink at the top, but hey, with a WordPress Theme that looks this good and is easy to use, you can’t complain about much!

#6 030106 WordPress Theme

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030106 WordPress Theme Review

Okay, this is a mystery WordPress Theme. It has a number for a name! Call it what you want, I call it a high CTR Adsense ready WordPress Theme!

I love this theme for my tech review sites. Very professional looking and good-to-go right out of the box. You can use your Adsense Publisher ID or any number of other ad codes with this template (for example; YPN, Chitika, Azoogle, etc)

This WordPress themehas a place for a adlink banner at the top, a 300×250 box at the top of the sidebar and a tower in the sidebar as well as a place for a smaller box ad toward the bottom.

The single post pages has a place for a box ad at the bottom of the article. I’ve used these boxes for a pre-sell on offers after the article to snag some high paying commissions.

#7 Problogger Clean WordPress Theme

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Problogger Clean WordPress Theme Review

This 3 column WordPress theme reminds me of my #4 WordPress theme, SEO Adsense. However, there are differences.

This WordPress themehas a feature called the Adsense Click Safety (so you don’t click your own ads while working on your blog). Some have had concerns that this may violate Google Adsense TOS. Click here to read Googles reply to the developers question.

I haven’t used this theme in a while on my blogs. I did have some problems early on but I got my blog to work with this theme (don’t ask me how because I don’t remember!). I’ve since changed themes on that blog. Anyhow, just be forwarned that they were having some problems with this theme and I’m not sure they have them all worked out.

#8 MW WordPress Theme

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MW WordPress Theme Review

I absolutely love the name of this WordPress Theme. MW. MW stands for “Monetizing the Web”. That get’s a big “Hell Yeah” from me! Trust me, you can certainly monetize the web with this Adsense Ready WordPress Theme!

This is a 2 column, fixed width, left navigation WordPress Theme with a load of options.

This theme has a banner at the top with a 468 banner between the content about halfway down the page. You also have several options for Adsense and other code for different affiliate programs.

This is just a slick, easy to use Adsense Ready WordPress Theme with a professional look. Give it a try.

#9 Adsense Theme

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Adsense Theme For WordPress Review

This is a smooth, quick loading theme with Adsense blocks in all the right places. Very user friendly and it has basic SEO features. There are no images which contributes to its fast loading times.

I haven’t used this theme as much as some of the others (hey, so many blog ideas, so little time) but when I did use it, I liked it.

To get you Adsense Publisher ID to work with this theme, you’ll need to add your ID to the header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php. Not a problem. If you don’t know how to do this, there are instructions with most themes. It’s quite easy. All you need is an editor like Notepad ++.

Note: I’ve not used the following WordPress Themes so I can’t comment on them.

#10 Blue Sense WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#11 Citrus Sense WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#12 Adsense Ready WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#13 TypoXP Reloaded WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#14 Connection with Adsense WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#15 Almost Spring SEO with Adsense Ads

Website | Download

#16 Bubbles Adsense Theme (comes in 4 colors)

Website | Download

#17 Blix with Adsense WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#18 Elite Circle WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#19 Adsense Bogpod WordPress Theme

Website | Download

#20 Tigopedia Reloaded WordPress Theme

(there’s also the Tigopedia original but I won’t count that one)

Website | Download

#21 Simple Corners

(this one seems to be down right now or my bookmark is bad, when I click to their site, I see a message from their host with a “suspended” message) I’m going to leave it up in case they are just short on their bandwidth.

#22 Adsense Ready K2 Theme

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#23 Rockin Newspaper Red WordPress Theme

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24. Activate WordPress Theme

Website | Download

Okay, I give up! That’s all the Adsense Ready WordPress Themes I have or could find. I hope you enjoy them and again, don’t forget to throw a bone to the developers!

I’ll try and keep this list updated, so check back when you’re looking for a good Adsense Ready WordPress Theme!

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