SEOly Blog

Dollarade is a CPALead like company that employs a slightly different method for users to complete surveys or offers. The benefit of Dollarade’s gateway is that it only covers the Flash content of your website; this is perfect for tv or movie streaming websites.  It allows your visitors to navigate around your website; they can actually see your content without needing to complete a survey.  Additionally, the Dollarade gateway will tend to get a higher conversion ratio for the same survey because the user will know that a working video exists on your webpage; whereas with CPALead, they may see a video under your gateway, but they do not know that it works.  I have previously compared CPALead revenue against CPM and popup revenue on the same website; the results were an over 500% increase in revenue when CPALead was implemented.  I have done a similar comparison of CPALead against Dollarade on the same website:

It is interesting to see that Dollarade ended up generated better revenue overall due to a higher conversion ratio; it is likely that this is because Dollarade uses a slightly different method than CPALead to encourage users to complete offers.  Please note that even though Dollarade did generate more revenue per thousand visitors, it was only a slight increase; you should experiment between these two networks yourself to see if your results vary.  Also, Dollarade’s greatest strength (only covering Flash content) is also its weakness.  If you have a movie or tv streaming website with links to other sources (Supernova, WiseVid, etc.), your visitors will simply be able to click on these links without completing a survey offer.  You may need to rework part of your website, so that you are able to implement Dollarade to its full capacity.

Posted in Advertising, CPA, Domains
Tags: CPA, CPALead, Dollarade

There is clearly a bias regarding search engines giving the webpage that exists (aka is indexed) first a boost in the search engine rankings.  Another way to look at this ranking factor is as the age of a webpage.  An older webpage is given more authority by search engines, like Google.   By being the first or one of the first to post  regarding a new upcoming topic or keyword phase, that webpage is given an advantage over a webpage that is posted a week or a month later.  When a new keyword phase first comes about, there are a few webpages in existence referencing or mentioning it.  As word starts to get around, there is a huge influx of new webpages that are created that will target this keyword phase; then the amount of webpages that are created drops down and stabilizes to a constant level, until a new fade or popularity occurs and repeats the same process. 

If you are one of the lucky and few people who first post and provide information regarding this keyword phase, your webpage will have a distinct advantage over all of the webpages that target that keyword phase.  I have seen instances where a website with little authority or age itself and a moderately aged review post with no links pointing toward it and little on page optimization outranks a well optimized and linked to post on a more authoritative domain. 

The first review post had little going for it aside from being one of the first to write a review prior to the huge spike of posts that followed.  The second website posted their review after this spike and likely ranked for this keyword phase because of their quality on page optimization, links, and the authority of the website.  In addition to the benefits provided by search engines, being the first to post also give other advantages.  When that huge spike occurs and even after as the topic dies down, people that write about it will be more likely to cite and/or link to your webpage because of its age and the visibility of it in search engines. 

Better visibility in search engines essentially means that the higher you rank for a keyword phase, the more likely people will be to link to you simply because you rank for that phase.  Granted having quality content helps increase the chances of people linking to you, even if you content is sub par compared to other websites in the rankings, people will still link to the higher ranked website more often than not.  The benefits of being the first to post are important with regards to search engine rankings and linking.  Instead of trying to catch up with all of the runaway popular keyword phrases, try to be one of the first to post about a new up and coming topic.

Posted in Google, Links, Search Engines, SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

According to The Rubicon Project, CPM ad rates have risen 38% from the 1st to the 2nd quarter of 2009. Some niche’s CPM rates rose considerable more; music websites saw 270% rise in rates compared to the first quarter of 2009. This substantial rise in this niche can be attributed to The MTV Movie Awards (There was hype regarding Eminem’s encounter with the pantless Sacha Baron Cohen), the death of Michael Jackson, and ongoing tours by artists like Beyonce. On the other hand, some industries took a hit to their CPM rates; publishers in the travel industry took a 36% drop in their CPM ad rates.  This can be attributed to consumer’s fear of the H1N1 virus and the current state of the economy.  It appears that overall, CPM ad rates have finally exited the downward spiral that they were stuck in and are now are back on the rise.  Publishers can expect future growth regarding ad rates as the future is no longer as bleak as it once was.

Posted in Advertising, CPM

I first mentioned CPALead months ago when it was a newer CPA program within the industry.  Since then, CPALead has distinguished themselves as an excellent choice for webmasters when they are considering CPA advertising.  For example, I just started to use CPALead on a watch tv online niche website, and the earnings have skyrocketed even though it is currently the tv off season. I have left my CPM ads and Adversal in page popups on the main pages and implemented CPALead on the episode pages.

Not only does the addition of CPA advertising dramatically increase the website’s profit, but the average CPM increases substantially.  Instead of making ~$1.18 / 1,000 page views, this website is making $7.30 / 1,000 page views.  This means that when this tv series starts up again with their new season I will be earning thousands of dollars per month instead of hundreds per month.  Over a 500% increase in profit margin can be seen after the implementation of CPALead on this website.  Note that the profit from CPA ads is a lot bouncier and more variable on a daily basis compared to CPM ads; this website earned anywhere from $20 to $75 from CPALead depending on the day.  Acknowledge that daily profits may be more variable when using CPA ads, but for this website average profit saw a considerable increase.  Does this mean that you should use CPALead on all of your websites?  Absolutely not; CPALead works fantastic on some websites, but on others it may even drop your net profit and CPM.  If you do plan on implementing CPALead or other CPA advertising methods, I strongly encourage you to track your CPM and profit over the period of a week or month, so that you can see if CPALead (You loss nothing by signing up under my referral code) is the right thing for your website.

Posted in Advertising, CPA, CPM, Pop-Ups
Tags: ads, Advertising, CPA, CPALead

In order to compare search engine ranking factors, one must choose a seo testing grounds environment.  These different seo testing grounds vary greatly and the ability to attribute change to a ranking factor’s level of significance also has a spread of reliabilities.  This post was inspired by choosing your seo testing grounds, and it my variation of what the search engine testing ground models currently are.  These seo testing ground models can briefly be summarized as the following:

1. The “real” testing ground: This is the serps for a key phrase or key phrases that is actually searched for by people; webmasters are constantly doing promotion work on the websites that rank for these search terms.  There is a lot of noise and competition within this testing ground and attributing change to a seo ranking factor has a low level of reliability.
2. The “semi-real” testing ground: This is the serps for the search terms that contain real words with meaning, but all of the terms are rarely, if ever, combined (ex. red coconut technology).  This seo testing grounds provides an environment of real websites to rank against.  These real websites do provide the link addition and search history parameters that replicate the “real” testing ground to a point.
3. The “semi-virgin” testing ground: This is the serps for nonsense key phrases that are no longer optimized for.  Old seo contests are perfect candidates for this realm, such as seraphim proudleduck or nigritude ultramarine.  These testing grounds are quite useful, but they do not provide the semantic relevance or other algorithm parameters that define real serps.
4. The “virgin” testing ground: This is the serps of a keyword that has no results in any search engine serps prior to the test.  New or existing websites are used in this tests and different factors can easily be compared in this environment.  The seo expert performing the test completely controls this testing ground and the parameters of each website involved.  This is the furthest from the “real” testing ground as one can get as link addition, semantic relevance, and search history do not exist.

These are the variety of seo testing grounds that exist.  Each of these testing environments has their benefits and disadvantages.  The level of noise and competition within this testing grounds clearly has an effect upon the reliabilities of the results.  Before engaging in search engine optimization testing, pick your testing ground carefully and acknowledge the live and controlled factors within each environment.

Posted in Search Engines, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Testing
Tags: seo testing, seo testing grounds