My dog made $2.05 on the internet!

Ha ha! Sounds good? Well not really. The title of this blog may cause you to think “If her DOG can do it I SURE can!” Well you can…but $2.05 aint gonna do much!

I was explaining previously that I had constructed a site to check out if I could make any money using Google Affiliate Network (GAN). In case you forgot I took the advice of other bloggers and made a site I was passionate about. My dogs! (doxiedogstore.com)

• The first step was to create a few pages with content that I had personal experience with. I’m not much of a writer, in fact If I’m honest about it I’M TERRIBLE! But I muddled through and did the best I could.

• The second step was to find ads that went with my content. I would recommend you look at ads first, it can help give you ideas for the content in the first place! I was able to find some, even doxie dog related so it worked out.

• The third step was to try and get traffic without really doing anything. I’m all about doing nothing for a bit. You do have to sometimes. I added tracking to my google analytics for the pages and waited. People were slowly trickling in! I seem to have been able to get myself ranked in yahoo with content and simple html know-how. And even better, average time spent on the site is 10 mins! Not bad for “waiting to see”.

I added google adsense to the pages as well. That’s how my dog made $2.05. People came, read my pages and then sometimes click on a google ad. They certainly click on the ads more then they do for the GAN banners. GAN doesn’t pay until someone buys something….not just “click” on the ad. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll have to add more content of course. But things have been a bit hectic lately. I will do it, after-all if my dog can make $2.05 without really trying to promote herself…..

Share A Sale

It’s been awhile since I posted. It’s been a busy month despite the recession.

Previously I wrote about Google Affiliate Network (GAN) as a possible revenue of income. Personally I find it a bust. During my experience I ran into a maddening road block which turned out to point me to a new resource.

After spending time linking products to my site with GAN, creating images and content I received an email from GAN. One of the merchants (one I was linking to) pulled out! SHYTE! I had to go back through the site, find each link to that merchants item and change it (or find a similar merchant with products that went with my content).

That same merchant who pulled out also emailed me. They told me about their success with a different program which they wanted to share with me.

This affiliate program has over 2000 merchants participating (they also have new exciting banners available).

Although their interface isn’t as nice as GAN it’s worth checking out!

Google Affiliate Network – Part 2

A few posts back I had talked about signing up for “google affiliates network”. I’m not sure how many days ago that was but it feels like a lifetime.

Originally I just put a couple of affiliate ads up on my main website. Random links actually, just put there to see if anyone would scroll down far enough to click on it (lazy).

I decided that wasn’t really a good enough test. I promised to let people know if it was worth it and I didn’t put the work into it! (shame shame on me)

So – What have I done?

• I decided that what I needed was a site that I could get ranked in what they call “organic” search results. How? Well I have to have a site that TALKS to people – give information, have some value. That’s what they say blogging is all about – and this age of social networking.

• I also decided I needed to target the affiliate ads I put on the site. So the site has a general “theme” and the ads are related to that theme.

• I wanted to target something I knew about – or was passionate about because unless I wanted to pay a ghost writer then I was on my own.

• I wanted to target a “theme” that had advertisers (in the google network) and that were products I found useful or have myself (or was offered at an amazing price)

• I need a new domain name in case I wanted to promote it other then in search engines organic results

• I had to create some basic content to get started – but I know it takes time so I have to keep adding new content that is useful.

Nothing I talk about is anything new. People have been saying it forever but I decided I had to play my own “Myth-Buster”.

So I promise to put in the actual work, add Google Analytics so I could share the results and see what happens.

By the way the site is doxiedogstore.com a simple simple html site (one anyone with basic html knowledge can do). I hear blogs work just as well if not better. I went with html so I could use one main website for my google affiliate account (You have to be approved by domain name – so I am “pointing” this new domain to a folder of my main site). If you’re looking for a free blog for your website try wordpress.com or wordpress.org

OR OF COURSE Blogger.com

As always… I’ll let you know what I learn or if I rank this Myth BUSTED!

Google Affiliate Network

I’m sure you all know about google adsense. For those of you who don’t know you can find out more at this LINK

Basically Adsense allows you to place google ads on your website’s pages in order to earn money depending on the clicks they get. Some people seem to do well with them. I don’t. I had ads up for the last month and earned all of $4. Yippy~

Then I found out about Google Affilate Network. You have to apply, and have your own website and agree to certain terms (such as not bidding on companies keywords) but once you are approved you have a large list of affiliates to join.

The network provides you with banners (or text links) which earns you a % if people purchase any items at the links store. It also inserts cookies so it can track your “click” sometimes upto 90 days. So if 45 days later, a person makes a purchase I can still earn a commission. Some commissions for affiliates are upto 25% (a heck of alot more then amazons offering of all of 4%)

They have a great selection of banners (see example above) for each advertiser. They also have a pretty nice reporting section. It shows the number of impressions the ad displayed, the number of times the ad was clicked…as well as, of course, the sales you make. They pay out by check (or transfers to US bank accounts).

I just added it myself this weekend. No sales yet but a few click throughs so who knows, maybe in 24 days

Adsense for Domains

This weekend, as I was reading through others blogs, I saw someone mention adsense for domains by google.

Over the years (like most of us) I have collected some domains that I thought were good. It is hard to find a good one these days! I had about 7 that were unused.

usedcarsgta.com
usedcarsgta.ca
usedcarsgta.net
usedcarsgta.info
stonersguideto.ca
immigrationlawyercanada.ca
howtoguides.ca

Only 3 have been approved yet ( I just set it up last night ) but they say it can take up to 48hrs.

So far it made all of 10 cents! *LOL* I’ll let you know if it turns into a good money maker.