Posted on Nov 3, 2008
Google Trends is a very useful tool for evaluating how a keyword is currently performing with regards to it’s previous number of searches. It can be used to verify that a specific keyword searches are remaining constant, growing, or falling. If you then relate this information to your websites performance with regards to this keyword, you can correlate whether your website is increasing, decreasing, or stable in its ranking. Simply have an increasing number of visitors directed to your website from a certain keyword does not mean you are ranking better for that keyword. If the Google trend for that keyword is greater than your keyword trend, that means you are in fact losing ranking and performing worse. For example, if you have a keyword that is generating an average of 100 visits per day in the month of October and in the month of November you get an average of a 200 visits per day, if the Google Trends graph shows an increase from 1.00 (no change) to 1.50 (50% increase), then your website has effectively gained ranking for this keyword during this time period. This is just one method of using Google Trends as a webmaster; there are many alternative uses that is has.
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Posted on Nov 2, 2008
StatCounter is a free live updating website tracker that provide basic information about users of your website. StatCounter is great in that I have never experienced a period of downtime with them. They give you the option to make the counter invisible, so you do not have to show your visitors your stats if you do not want to. StatCounter is excellent for comparing general trends over a period of time, whether that be hourly, weekly, monthly, etc. If you opt for the free version of StatCounter their information regarding length of visits, referrer, exit pages, etc. really lacks as they only keep log sizes of 500. For most website owners this extremely limiting. You can however, upgrade and increase your log size for a price, but I feel that there are other sources that can provide these services for free. Basically, StatCounter is reliable, fast, accurate and useful for seeing trends, but lacks in other areas unless you are willing to upgrade.
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Posted on Nov 1, 2008
Adversal is an excellent option for many publishers to monetize their websites compared to Adsense image or text ads. They are unique from other ad services in that their popups are inpage and they pay per impression. Many CPM networks only pay per UV (unique visitor) per 24 hour period. Adversal on the other hand pays per PV (page view). If you have a site that gets 10,000 UV and 50,000 PV per day, and are getting $0.80 CPM (Adversals minimum) and the same CPM via another ad service, you would make $40, 5 times more using Adversal. Adversal’s inpage popups are very appealing to me as they are much less intrusive to visitors. I set my Adversal inpage popups to only show twice per 30 minute user session. In reality though poups, even inpage popups, can be a hassle and drive visitors away from your site. I feel that 2 ads per 30 minute session is a reasonable amount to generate a significant amount of revenue, but also maintain visitor loyalty and visitor’s enjoyment of stay. There is an excellent way to combine conventional CPM advertising along with Adversal, so that you maintain minimal hassle to visitors but create an optimal level of revenue from visitors.
Combining regular CPM networks with Adversal can lead to a great increase in profit from your sites. I have doubled and even tripled the revenue on some of my websites by applying Adversal and CPM networks without any adverse affects to my bounce rate or length of visit. This all sounds great, but getting into the Adversal publisher network can be challenging. It all depends on your niche, percent of traffic that comes from North America, and the quality of your site. If you get rejected by Adversal, try applying with another website of a different niche. You can always add sites into your account after you are accepted. I encourage you to try out Adversal in combination with conventional CPM networks.
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