Building an AdSense Business With Free Blogs - It seems like the right moment to give back to the community for all my advice and support over the years. If you want to try your hand at the AdSense business but don't have much money to spare, this guide will help you get started. One exception to Google’s rule is that it won't approve AdSense applications for free websites. So you might give this a shot if you're low on funding for hosting yet keen to get going.
Blogs on Blogger.com
Google made AdSense available to Blogger blog owners not long after purchasing Blogger.com. Blogger is fantastic because it has a simple interface, Google and Yahoo swiftly crawl the blogs, and best of all, if you're poor—they're free. Google also likes awarding AdSense accounts to Blogger owners.
So Blogger is an excellent place to start if you want to get started with AdSense without spending much money.
But first, let me explain what an RSS feed is and how it functions before I go into detail on how to set up a Blogger site for AdSense. You can go on if you are aware of this. It's crucial to comprehend because I include this in the setup instructions.
A collection of all the most current blog entries is what an RSS feed for a blog essentially is. To stay updated on new blog entries, readers can use "RSS Aggregators" (software that repeatedly examines your RSS feed to see if there's anything new). Websites may wish to publish your RSS feed on their pages if your material is good. They now have new content to offer their customers. And everyone is aware that while constructing websites, content reigns supreme.
You can leverage the built-in RSS feed that Blogger blogs have to your advantage to drive visitors to your blog. I'll talk about that shortly, but let's start with creating the blog first.
Open a Blogger.com account.
Choose a blog topic first.
You must choose the subject matter for your blog before you start writing. Consider the talents or hobbies that you excel at. Even if you're not a mechanic, if you enjoy working on automobiles on the weekends and are skilled at them, that would be a great blog topic. Determine what you would enjoy writing about by listing your interests and talents. You must enjoy writing about it because you'll need to do so to develop the blog.
I'll say this: AdSense advertisements that pay more typically appear if you have an understanding of a business- or industry-related issue. A hobby blog, however, can also be highly successful (I speak from personal experience!).
Establish the blog
Setting up a blog just takes a few minutes once you've selected a topic. Click the "Create Your Blog Now" link on the Blogger homepage, then follow the blog wizard's instructions. There are a few points I want to make, but I won't go into depth about them because they are rather simple.
Make sure the URL for your blog contains the keywords related to your topic while choosing it first. For instance, "healthinsurance.blogspot.com," "health-insurance," "health-insurance-blog," or even "health-insurance-12345" are suitable blog addresses if you're starting one regarding health insurance. Just ensure your keywords are in the URL, as this will help people find you when they use those terms in search engines.
Additionally, be sure you choose a template with a professional appearance. When creating the blog, I advise you to simply select the first template that is plain white and appears on the list of templates. Once the blog has been created, click the "Templates" tab and pick one of the displayed prettier ones. Blogger's blog setup process doesn't show all possible templates.
The Tab for Settings.
Below is a breakdown of the key components of each settings tab.
Basic
Set your blog title to the terms you wish to appear for in the search engines under the "Basic" settings page. That will raise your ranking.
Describe the advantages of reading your blog every day in good detail. To increase traffic, you should encourage individuals to add your RSS feed to their aggregators and websites.
In response to the query "Add your Blog to our listings?" select "Yes." As a result, when you publish a new post, your blog will briefly display on Blogger's home page, allowing visitors to search for and locate it there.
Another less well-known benefit of answering "Yes" to that question is that if you answer "No," Blogger will insert "nofollow/noindex" meta-tags into the header of your blog template, preventing your site from being crawled or indexed. This, in my opinion, was done to combat what Blogger referred to as "spam blogs."
Publishing
Put "Yes" in the "Notify Weblogs" setting. Every time you publish a new blog entry, this will notify Weblogs. Weblogs is a website that tells users (and web crawlers) when new content is added to a blog. Ensure this is set to Yes if you want the snails (and visitors) to visit your pages whenever you post new material.
Formatting
You can customize this tab whatever you'd like; I set the number of postings on the home page to three to five.
Comments
Unless your blog topic is extremely contentious and you anticipate receiving many flames, allow comments (people lashing out at you for what you have to say). Allowing comments keeps your site fresh and updated even when you aren't contributing to it, which benefits the search engines.
Normally, I don't impose any restrictions on who can comment.
Because the content is javascript-based, don't display the comments in a pop-up window, which will restrict crawlers from accessing it.
Enable comment moderation so that you must approve each comment posted before it goes live if you're worried that people might flame you but still want to accept comments.
Set the Comment Notification Address to your email address if you want to be notified whenever a comment is made.
Archiving
If you post every day, set your archiving to daily; if you only post occasionally, set it to weekly. The best action is to post daily if you can, as this provides search engines with more unique sites to crawl and index. Unique content increases blog traffic and increases AdSense ad clicks (I'll get to integrating your AdSense into the template shortly).
Enable post pages so that each post will still have its separate page even if numerous postings show on the same archive page if you don't perform a daily archive (and possibly even if you do). If you have post pages enabled, having several posts on one archive page is not negative because they all work together to create a new, special page for your blog.
RSS Feed
Enable the site feed without a doubt. You might allow comprehensive descriptions if your posts are frequently very brief. However, if your posts are lengthy (I advise), disable the full feed and utilize the short feed spread. This is why:
If you include the entire post in your RSS feed, readers won't need to return to your blog because they've already read it in its entirety. A lack of blog readers results in fewer ad clicks. Since "AdSense For Feeds" is still in beta testing and not yet available to all publishers, you still need to encourage readers to visit the blog for the time being.
If people can just read a portion of the blog post, they will need to visit your blog to read the entire article. Making sure that your title and the first 255 characters (about the first 50 words) grab the reader's attention can help you prepare for this. Utilize the first 50 words to entice readers to continue reading.
Additionally, you don't want to give away the farm by displaying the entire message if your RSS feed is on websites. By allowing websites to use your feed, you can gain clicks on the blog entries in that feed and drive traffic to your website, increasing your AdSense revenue.
Therefore, compose lengthy entries and make the title and the first 50 words count by setting the "Descriptions" to Short.
The Tab for Templates
If you haven't previously chosen a suitable template from the list, select one that you like and is appropriate for your topic by clicking the "Pick New" link under the templates tab.
If you don't already have an AdSense account, you can apply for one by clicking the "AdSense" link on this blog rather than going to Google.com. How fervently Google desires Blogger blog owners to utilize AdSense on their websites:
It's now time to paste your AdSense code into your template. If you haven't already, click the "Edit Current" link.
Your template can be built up using one of two techniques. The following will help you get the most clicks:
1) Locate the part in the template that resembles this:
Start here using #main to get the blog's main column content.
div class="main">
div class="main2"
2) After the second div> tag, paste your AdSense code for a 336x280 huge rectangle. For best results, make sure the colors of the AdSense are formatted to match the backdrop of your blog.
3) Alternatively, locate the following code in the template if you want to display a second 336x280 block below the list of posts:
<xmp>
Put the AdSense code between
the first and the tag
tag.
To ensure that the AdSense blocks are properly displayed and have not interfered with the template's aesthetic, click the "Preview" button. Click "Save Template Changes" if everything is correct.
If you choose a different template using the "Pick New" link after making modifications to one, your changes will be lost, and you will need to add the AdSense code to the new template again.
Create a Profile
After setting up your blog, you should also set up your profile. Click the "Back to Dashboard" option at the top of the browser window to accomplish this. Once there, select "Edit Profile" from the list of links in the right-hand column.
Unless you have a compelling reason not to, check the "Share my Profile" and "Show my Real name" boxes; having this information available on your site allows readers to realize that you are a genuine person and not some faceless anonymity, which fosters trust. Your blog will automatically display your profile.
You can choose "Show my email address" if you don't mind people emailing you.
Check that your new blog is selected before clicking "Select blogs to display."
You can use the Photo URL to direct users to a specific image on a website. Again, doing this increases reader trust and makes you seem more approachable and genuine. If you don't have a website or a picture of yourself online, I'll be happy to host it for free on one of my servers. Sticky-mail me, and we'll work something out. One small way I try to give back to the Webmasterworld community.
Continue and complete the remaining fields. Remember the "About Me" field since your blog pages display it. Use that description to position yourself as an authority on the subject of your blog. People want to read professional opinions from sources they can rely on. You have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in this box!
When finished, save your profile.
Gaining Readership for Your Blog
Once your blog is set up correctly, spend about a week creating one or two excellent educational posts daily. It pays to write some quality pieces first because you don't want to advertise an empty site.
By selecting the "Posting" tab, you can make a post to the blog. Ensure your title is catchy and includes the keywords most pertinent to the topic. Try to make your title at least begin with the keywords you want people to find you for when they search for, for instance, "create blue widgets" if your post is going to be about how to build blue widgets from scratch. "Build blue widgets from scratch," for instance. The search engines can distinguish the keywords from the remainder of the title thanks to the dashes.
Don't be startled if you receive some traffic and AdSense clicks before starting your advertising. You might receive some stray traffic from individuals searching for blogs on Blogger, and your posts appear in the list of "most recent posts."
Make Submissions to Blog Directories
You should submit your site's RSS feed to as many blog directories as possible to increase traffic. The top Google search result for "RSS submission site" currently provides 55 directories where you can submit your feed.
Your RSS feed for a Blogger blog is always your blog's URL plus "/atom.xml." For instance, if the URL of your blog is
http://myblog.blogspot.com/
The URL of your RSS feed is: http://myblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml
This is crucial since it will get your blog recognized by users looking for information and material for their websites and the search engines' attention.
All of this will lead to your website receiving inbound links. Your title must contain the keywords you want your blog homepage to rank for in the search engines because most people will use it as the link text for a link to your site. A very effective strategy for rising rankings is to have inbound links containing the keywords you want to rank for. Because of this, I have blogs that show up on the first page of search results for my keywords (some even in the first or second position).
However, you don't want to wait around until the links start to accumulate. You wish to...
Link Exchanges With Affiliate Sites
I also exchange links with web admins who run websites about related subjects to aid in the ranking of my blog. I look for them using the search terms I want to rank for. You can write to the web admins of the top 20 to 50 results directly if the blog category is not a competitive, commercial category to ask if they would be willing to swap links with you.
Searching for "link:[http://www.yourcompetitor.com/]" will reveal who connects to the top websites for your keywords if it's a more competitive commercial sector. This will display a list of URLs that lead to your rivals' websites. Write to the web admins of those linking sites and ask whether they would also be willing to exchange links with you.
Make care to personalize your link exchange request when you send it. Mention something positive about the website's design and explain why you believe a link to your blog would be beneficial. Before emailing the webmaster, you may even take it further and post a link to their website. Because of this, you may say, “I've already included a link to your site on my blog and wanted to see whether you felt that my blog was a good match for a link back from your site." Take the initiative; it's a kind gesture that increases the number of links you receive. Of course, you can simply remove their connection if they disagree.
If they agree to a link exchange, be careful to ask them to link to your website using the search terms you want to be found for. For instance, make sure they use the link text "Home Made Widgets" if you want your site to score highly for that search term.
You can manually add the webmaster's link and descriptive text to your blog by altering your template. I attempt to position it below the archive links in the left or right-hand column. Change your template accordingly, then check for the following code:
Finally, add this after the links:
Enter the information once you establish a new link exchange with a webmaster.
code right above the new link and description
tag.
You will need more links to rank well the more competitive your blog topic is. However, if your postings are insightful, funny, and humorous when appropriate, people will link to you without asking, increasing your site’s traffic. Increased traffic translates into increased AdSense earnings.
Concluding Remarks
I hope this guide will enable some of you to work with AdSense for the first time and are on a tight budget to start earning money from your blogs on Blogger.
Making quality informative posts requires time and work, but if you've figured out how to do it successfully once, you can do it again and again until you've had enough success to start hosting your blogs at their domain name rather than "yourblog.blogger.com." That is also possible with Blogger, but we will cover that in another topic.
I wish you success!
