The Cheap Bastid» Article Tips

A reader needs some help…

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:52:53 +0000

A reader here who has posted up some articles on InfoBarrel has asked for some tips on increasing his adsense earnings.

His profile over there is… mswengel

I’ve gone ahead and took a good look at his articles and a few things jump out at me, but before I get into that I just want to say that his articles are really top notch, really great work indeed!

First off, most of his articles are just a week old so they haven’t ‘matured’ yet. I really wouldn’t get worried about article income until the articles hit at least a month old and then I’d start to analyze them.

Secondly, and I really hate to say this but I think that possibly the subject matter just doesn’t demand clicks, and more importantly the articles themselves have links in them to what the article is referring to so there’s no reason for a user to click an ad.

Thirdly in some of the articles the ads aren’t targeted at all. The Ubuntu font article for example has really no ads that a person interested in Ubuntu fonts would want to click on.

So, with that being said here’s my advice.

Target your ‘money’ keywords better, and, if the ads aren’t targeted try increasing the number of times you use that money keyword in the article.
Remove all links from within the articles, rely on ads to provide your links
Go back and look at your articles to see if your ads are appropriate to the content, if not add keywords.
Add photos with a caption, and make sure the caption has either your traffic or money keyword in it.

So that’s my advice, target keywords and remove links.

Now, with that being said I have to say this.

Some keywords just don’t get many clicks, sure, they get lots of traffic but hardly anyone ever clicks an ad for them. There’s a tool I’ve talked about in the past that you should try out. It’s called the commercial intent tool by Microsoft. Basically it’ll give you an idea of how likely a person is to click an ad from that keyword. I use it all the time, you’ll be amazed on the results you get when you use it.

Here I’ve plugged in ‘free ubuntu fonts’ as you can see, there a very high probability of no click

I did a little playing around and found this keyword.. ubuntu font package

Much better!

As you can see, we go from a .86 NON commercial intent to a .66 commercial intent. You’ll get way more clicks with this keyword in your title.

The trick is working this into your article, I’d try something like “Get a 465 ubuntu font package for free”

The user was searching for ‘ubuntu font package’ expecting to buy something, see’s your ‘free’ article, then the ad on the bottom for the free font package. Everybody wins!!

Anyone else have any advice??

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Article Writing Tips | Avoidable InfoBarrel Blunders – Part 1

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:24:44 +0000

Argh.. Now I made him mad!

Wow, I’m a fool…

There was a great SEO tool available to me and I didn’t even use it. It was staring me in the face and I missed it.

As Mr. T would say.. “I Pity the Fool!”

One of my recurring article writing tips is to use every tool the particular website allows you to use, no matter what. If it can help your article get better ranking, and thus better income then you better use it.

While doing my ‘How to post pictures on InfoBarrel articles‘ post there was a field that I didn’t even notice. To be honest it’s so unusual to see it my mind just didn’t register this jewel of an option.

I am of course talking about the Alt tag that you can apply to the pictures in your article.

And by the way, this is just one more reason that I love InfoBarrel. The multitude of options that you, as the writer, are given to make your articles shine, and earn.

Check out this screenshot..

Add an ALT tag for maximum results!

See that alternate text spot there under the image URL. Make sure you put a keyword in there that is descriptive (no need to get a keyword stuffing penalty) If it’s a motorcycle helmet, then put motorcycle helmet or some other descriptive keyword.

Now some people may say that the alt tag on pictures doesn’t really do anything, and that may well be true. But, since we’re going to this screen anyway to modify the image properties I say if it doesn’t hurt, then do it.

Take advantage of everything that InfoBarrel offers you to make money, don’t be a fool like me!!

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Article Writing Tips | Adding Photos to your InfoBarrel Articles

admin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:34:40 +0000

I absolutely love InfoBarrel. I like the way you have complete freedom in the way you can write and format your articles, and I love the way, through Google Adsense you can track every nuance of your articles performance.

One thing that I’ve found a bit confusing about writing articles there though is the way photos are inserted into articles. There is a guide on the site, but it’s a bit difficult to find.

As you know, one of the things I adamantly recommend is making your articles pretty, making it look like you made an effort to provide quality, meaningful information to the user. It’s an easy way to build trust, and possibly get a few more clicks.

Anyway, I’m going to show you how to insert photos into your articles, and once again, the system they use is much better than anyone else’s out there.

First off, the screen I use to create content on InfoBarrel is the open ended, or blank one. I recommend you use this one too as it provides the most freedom.

So, I wrote an article now I’m ready to add some photos…

While editing or writing your article, click on the ‘Browse’ button on top
Find the photos you want and add them, make sure you put a photo title (Hint, use your keyword)
After you add all your photos you can now add them into your article.
Drag and drop each photo to where in the article you want it to be.
Then, right click on the photo and choose ‘Modify image properties’
Choose the alignment, left, right or whatever
Then, here’s the nice part. On the left side choose the size. you only need to choose the width, InfoBarrel will scale the image

Here’s some screenshots that’ll clear up any confusion you may have.

herewp content pluginsfile transfer

And that’s it, pretty simply huh?

Here’s the finished article for your viewing pleasure..

Muscle building program

Make your articles look pretty with some good photo formatting, and, make some more cash too!

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Use Adsense Channels to Track your Articles

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:42:08 +0000

One of the best things about publishing articles on sites like InfoBarrel and Xomba is that you can track each articles performance (and earnings) by setting up custom Adsense channels.

Here’s how to do it…

First log into your Adsense account, then click on the Adsense Setup tab.

Click the Adsense Setup tab

Next, click on the Channels link..

Click on channels now..

Under Adsense for Content you have ‘Custom Channels’ and ‘URL Channels’ Click on the URL channels..

Click on URL channels

And now, click on ‘Add new URL channels’..

Now click on 'Add new URL channels'

After you click on ‘Add new URL channel’ you’ll see a box, just go to your article page, copy the URL and then paste it into the box and then click add channels..

Paste the URL(s) into the box and click 'Add Channels'

And that’s it, you’re done. Make sure you go back to all your articles and get the channels setup. Google limits you to 200 custom channels so keep that in mind.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how to setup custom reports to really track your articles!

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Article Writing Tips | A startling Xomba discovery!

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:12:31 +0000

As most of you know I’ve been singing the praises of Xomba for about two months now, and, without a doubt have seen significant traffic increases because of it.

My Squidoo lenses have much greater rank because of my Xomblurbs, and, as you Squidoo users out there know, it’s easily traceable right on the Squidoo dashboard.

Now one thing I love doing is analyzing things, seeing what works best and making adjustments whenever I can to maximize the effect of whatever I do. I hate doing extra work. And, as my drill Sergeant said to me long ago…. “If you don’t plan on doing it right, plan on doing it again”

Those words ring true here, as I was analyzing the structure of the much loved Xomblurb I noticed something…

To me, they just aren’t worth doing, SEO wise. The Xombyte is much more effective.

Look at the photo below of the SEO optimization tool analysis of one of my Xomblurbs.

Argh, no description or keyword field...

As you can see the title is dead on. But there is no description tag and not keyword tag. This is terrible. So once again it’s not really worth it to kill yourself over inserting keywords into the keyword field. The keywords are probably for internal searches and have no effect on the SEO placement of the ‘blurb.

What you can’t see here is the keyword density, I was truly shocked at this. I used my target keyword 4 times in 7 lines of text. My 3 word keyword was #3 in the keyword list which is horrible.

Why is this, well that’s simple. Every Xomba page has tons of other text on it, including a listing of the most recent Xomblurbs and Xombytes, all of which have keywords in their titles as well.

Now, I’m not saying for one second the Xomblurb is useless, quite the opposite. It has it’s place as a quick and easy traffic driver. Xomba has ‘no-follow- links so you won’t get any SEO goodness from the Xomblurb, but possibly some traffic.

In my opinion the Xombyte is a better choice for me moving forward. It suffers from the lack of description and keyword field as well, but with it’s greater length you can pack way more content (and keywords) into it so in my opinion it’ll be more effective long term.

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The Writers Round Table | Round 2

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:48:31 +0000

Anyone have any articles they’d like to suggest for us to look at. I think it would be kind’ve selfish of me to just post my articles up.

Don’t be shy, just link up an article and give us the views and earnings as well as the publish date that way we can give you some article writing tips and possibly help you make some money online.

Anyone?

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Article Writing Tips | eHow Strategies – Part 1

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:00:35 +0000

Some article writing tips that I think might benefit those looking to make money online are the different ways to use eHow articles.

Most people just write an eHow article with eHow earnings in mind, and, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing that.

There are other ways to use eHow though, each requiring a slightly different style of writing, keywording and linking.

Lets list the 4 different types of eHow articles and what they do.

The Earner – A basic eHow article, with two well researched keywords, one for traffic and one for earnings.
The Driver – An eHow article with one or two traffic generating keywords with no regard to the keyword CPC
The Promoter – An eHow article one or two deeply targeted keywords designed to draw targeted traffic towards an affiliate link thereby increasing the chance of a sale.
The Hybrid – Jack of all trades type of article. Basically an earner type article with affiliate or other links in the resource section. To me this just confuses the reader especially if you say ‘Click this’ and ‘Click that’

Now each of these types of articles need a different strategy for it to be successful.

The Earner article is your basic type. Two keywords; one for traffic and one for earning. We’ve talked about this type before. The key thing to note about this type of article is the resource section should have no links so as to make the reader click on an ad. The best way to get a click is to publish the article, see what ads come up, and then edit the article to name the most well know advertiser. Keep in mind though that as per google you can never say ‘Click this’. You can however say ‘Visit so and so’

The next type is the driver, very simple here, get some high traffic keywords onto the article, don’t concern yourself with how much they pay, that’s not your goal. Make sure you say ‘I’ve linked blah blah in the resource section for more information on blah blah’. The key here is to get as much traffic to your article and then, in no uncertain way, tell them to visit what you have linked. With the page rank of eHow this is an incredibly effective way to get some traffic.

The Promoter is a bit more difficult. Simply put you want to draw as much TARGETED traffic as possible to the article that directly relates to whatever you’re trying to sell in the resource section. The key here is targeted so for the most part those keywords with traffic over 100k aren’t targeted. Choose three, and yes, even four word keywords deeply targeted and make sure you tell them to click on the link in the resource section. It isn’t a Google ad so you can do that.

And the final type of eHow article is the hybrid. This type tries to do a little of everything. Personally I don’t think this is very good at doing anything at all. You’re not limited to the number or articles you write and you can even write two (or more) articles using the same keyword. This type basically has two keywords like the earner type and then a few links in the resource section, either to an affiliate or maybe another site. Do yourself a favor and try to avoid this type and instead write multiple articles each designed to excel at whatever it’s trying to do.

Armed with this information you can make adjustments to existing articles to maximize your income.

Let’s assume you have an article with 200 views and $15 in earnings. Obviously you need to drive traffic here, there’s no rule that says you can’t create a few Driver articles on eHow and direct them to the other article, trust will be high since it’s the same site so you should see some results rather quickly. I know I have.

So the next time you sit down to write a new eHow article think about what your goals are with it and choose the appropriate type for the best results. If you want to drive traffic don’t beat around the bush, grab as much as you can and get it moving towards your target. If you want to sell something don’t waste your time trying to get 500 untargeted readers a day, they won’t buy a thing. Try to get 5 deeply targeted visitors a day for a better chance at a sale.

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Article Writing Tips | Avoidable Xomba Blunders – Part 1

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:00:34 +0000

This article writing tip concerns Xomba, specifically the xomblurb. For those of you who do not use Xomba (shame on you by the way) the xomblurb is a wonderful thing. It allows you to link to one of your articles and drive traffic to it, and, possibly make some adsense money as well.

Unfortunately, despite the wonderful potential of the xomblurb some people, myself included, have not used it correctly, or more specifically, have made a terrible mistake with it.

Consider the following xomblurb (one of my first)

Huh? Same article name and description!

You see the problem here. I just copied the article title and first paragraph into the xomblurb page. This is a big mistake.

Consider this, somebody types ‘best bbq pit’ into google, now which do you think will be listed first.

The 50 word xombyte with an Alexa rank of 2900
The 500 word eHow article with a rank of 400

Exactly, the eHow article will place much higher in the search engine results and that means your xomblurb is wasted since it’ll place much lower. I should’ve targeted a different keyword, changed the title and wrote a new description.

So for the xomblurb one of the most important article writing tips is to target a different keyword and change the text a bit. You efforts will be rewarded.

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Article Performance Results

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:40:14 +0000

Over the last few days I’ve been really studying my articles to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Although I’m not going to come out and say which categories are making money (gotta have some secrets you know…) it is quite obvious where I should direct my efforts this month.

eHow doesn’t give you much in the way of tools to use when it comes to analyzing your article performance. What you do have is the earnings page, just click on the month and start sorting by different columns. You should see some trends show up, such as popular categories, common action words and so on. I highly suggest you use this one tool.

One thing I did notice is I’ve actually achieved an 80% sucess rate with my eHow articles, by that I mean only 20% of my articles are non-earners.

Not counting this months articles (9), at the end of February I had 125 articles published with 106 of them earning money.

A breakdown by month

In November I published 5 articles, all 5 are earners.
In December I published 33 articles, all 33 are earners.
In January 55 articles were published 43 are earners, 12 losers there..
February saw 22 articles published 15 are earners, 7 losers
And in March so far I published 9 articles with 2 earning, 7 not earning.

This is proof positive that article aging is indeed a reality, it also seems to me that it takes three months for full aging to take place.

Now that big surge in earnings I experienced a few weeks ago is clearly a result of my January articles starting to ‘age’ , this should continue this month and quite down in a few week. Looks to be a dismal April though, I only published 22 articles last month

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with everyone, especially those new folks who may be a bit concerned with their earnings. It takes time, so keep writing and also keep in mind that the articles you write this month will really start to earn 3 months from now. Look at it this way, write a bunch of articles now and get a free weekend getaway in June.

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Article Writing Tips | Bukisa Meta Tags Analysis

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:50:09 +0000

This article writing tip concerns Bukisa. I used the SEO tool to analyze the article page meta tags. If you remember our analysis of an eHow page you’ll see that a Bukisa page is slightly different, however, the difference is in fact significant.

You can view the article I’m looking at here.

Very interesting..

Take a look at the screenshot above. As you can see the title and description are near perfect. This differs from eHow in that an eHow article does NOT have a description field, instead it reads the first part of your article.

Take some time and craft your description in your Bukisa article. Keep the length under 200 characters and try to use each of your keywords once.

The body is pretty straight forward and the same as an eHow article.

One item of importance though is the keyword field. If you remember eHow articles do NOT have a keyword field, it’s on the publish page, but it doesn’t show up as a keyword field.

On a Bukisa page the keyword field matters, so populate it with your keywords, don’t be shy about it either. Go for at least 4 keywords.

Now if you view the actual HTML of the page (go to the article, right click on the page and choose ‘view page source’) and search for H1, you’ll see that it is indeed the title. Unfortunately the H2 tag is ‘Leave a comment..’ on the bottom, there is also no H3 tag available to use.

Argh...

Interesting stuff. A Bukisa article is actually a bit easier to keyword properly than an eHow article. the Bukisa page rank is still much lower than eHow so in my opinion it’s a wash. Either way, pay attention to your title, description and keyword areas and you should rank well with a 3 or 4 word keyword.

For more article writing tips just click on the ‘article tips’ category on the right.

If you’re interested in joining Bukisa and making money by writing articles you can use my referral link here and help support this site.

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