Blogs are one of the most effective ways to communicate with a vast amount of people around the world. It is also a prime focus for individuals to promote and market their business.

Starting a blog isn’t very difficult, all you really need are a couple of thoughts and a computer connected to the internet. The hard part is to get strangers to read your blog and to get them to keep coming back for more. Most blogs are doomed to fail because they are not treated like any other marketing campaign. You need to plan a blog like you would a business and put yourself in a position to succeed.

Here are a few tips to make your blog successful:

Make sure you have a reason for starting a blog. There a many reasons why a blog would be beneficial to you, but successful blogs are a benefit to the people that read them. And that is what’s going to keep online surfers coming back. This will attract consumers, reduce your costs, and improve your reputation and media coverage.

The key to getting your blog recognized in search engines are the keywords and phrases you choose to emphasize. Blogs will take the text you have written and store it onto a database and send that information through templates which generates the blog we read in the search engine.

The reason many blogs fail is because of failure to upkeep. You need to structure your blogs so people can find the content they are looking for. Think of it like a filing cabinet. A reader doesn’t want to look everywhere for a specific question, make it easy and efficient for them to find their answers. Also, if you make the decision to blog, keep it up. Don’t make you posts random or sporadic, make sure you are consistent when you blog. It doesn’t matter if it’s once a week or once a month. Be consistent!

Blogs are a way to communicate and it’s very important for bloggers to socialize around the Web. Respond to comments made about your blogs and look for other websites and link them to yours. Comment on other people’s blogs and become a name around the internet and as an expert in your field. You will also be able to track the hits on your blog and the more you contribute, the more your blog will continue to grow, and your business will continue to grow.

Once you have your blog in full force and everything is going well; don’t be afraid to promote your success. Getting people to take time out of their day to read your work is not an easy thing to do. Do not be afraid to flaunt your positive reputation as a blogger, especially to other businesses. This can be key to expanding your services to different sectors and opening new doors.

It is important that your blog serves a purpose, not just to promote your business. Use your years of experience to help people and it will all come back around to help your business. Not only is this a chance to market yourself, but the networking, learning and opportunity will pay many dividends in the end.

If you are someone who is looking forward to increase traffic on your website, then you have hit the right space. With the current recessive economy, the responsiveness to the customer’s expectations is greater than ever. We have carefully formulated some concrete steps that the online businesses can take in order to increase website traffic.

Update the content regularly

Websites that are poorly maintained and badly designed are usually unsuccessful in drawing traffic. Hence it is important to keep the content updated frequently so as to attract the target audience. The site must be as user-friendly as possible so that the users do not have to aimlessly wander on your site for the information they need. The customers today are easily bored and hence there has to be some interactivity on the site in order to capture their interest. If you do no happen to be good with writing, then you can hire professional writers to post articles on your website. Simple product descriptions are boring and that’s where the copywriters need to add some spice with their write-ups.

Eliminate the errors

Try and be as professional as you can when it comes to the content on your website. Go over the entire site for all the grammatical or syntax errors apart from editing it for spelling. Bad grammar would immediately put off the customers and send them looking for a better site that offers goods and services in a professional way.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation is the best ways to gather free website traffic. In the world of internet, search engine placements are playing an important role and getting a good search engine ranking improves the website sales by attracting target audience and traffic exchange. The SEO services can range from the very basic prize to highly elaborate packages; hence it is important to know what you want before hand.

Offline Advertising

Many a times, printing business cards and leaving them on restaurants and cyber cafes can increase the amount of target audience on the site. The webmasters can try to increase the visibility of the site by telling other about it and asking people to leave their feedback on the site. They can also consider leaving flyers or create advertisements on the car windows or even sport in a bumper sticker.

I have been using Google AdSense to monetize my blogs and websites for as long as I remember. In fact it was the first method I ever tried (I made a whooping $15 on my first month… back in 2005). Over the years I migrated to other methods (e.g., direct sponsors and affiliate marketing), which made AdSense become merely an inventory filler. I was still making around $1,000 monthly from it, but whenever I could I would use other methods over it.

Then some months ago I started noticing an upward trend on the CPC of my sites, and I figured that I should give AdSense another try. I started applying some tricks here and there, and the next month I made over $3,000 with it (that is combining all my sites). I was pleasantly surprised, and I decided to keep using it actively on some sites.

In this article I want to share with you the tips and tricks I used to triple my AdSense earnings in one month.

1. I added units to my Big Websites

Daily Blog Tips and Daily Writing Tips are my largest websites in terms of traffic. They are getting close to one million monthly page views (combined). Despite that I was not using AdSense on them, mainly because the direct sponsorship model was working relatively well.

Some months ago I decided to load some AdSense units on the sites, however, and the results were very positive. Around 70% of the boost I generated to my earnings came from these two sites. At the same time I managed to keep the other monetization methods working fine, and no reader ever complained about the new ads (more on that later).

Even if your blog is already making money with direct sponsors and affiliate marketing, therefore, you could still manage to increment your earnings by strategically adding some AdSense units.

2. I added units to my Small Websites

As many webmasters do, I have a bunch of small websites scattered around the web. Some are on free hosted platforms like Blogger, and others are self hosted sites that I abandoned along the way. Most of these sites still get traffic, however. Not much, but combined the numbers get decent.

I figured that adding AdSense units to all these sites could yield some money, and I was right. The main reason is that, since these are abandoned sites and don’t have loyal visitors, I can place the units very aggressively. The result was a very high CTR (Click-through rate), which compensates the small traffic levels.

Don’t underestimate the earning potential of small websites, especially if you are willing to place AdSense units aggressively.

3. I used the Large Units

If you want to make money with AdSense you’ll inevitably need to use one of these units: the 336×280 large rectangle, the 300×250 rectangle, the 120×600 large skyscraper or the 728×90 leaderboard.

Whenever I tried to use smaller units the results were disappointing. Even if I positioned them aggressively the CTR was just too low.

All four units mentioned above can produce good results, but the best performing one is by far the 336×280 large rectangle, and that is the one I used to boost my earnings.

4. I placed the Units above the Fold

My first trial was to place the 336×280 large rectangle between the post and the comments section of my blogs. The results were OK. I then decided to try placing them below the post titles for one week, and the CTR skyrocketed. In fact I still need to find a placement/unit combination that will beat placing a 336×280 unit below post titles.

I knew this rule, but I guess I needed to test and get confirmation. The rule is: if you want to make money with Google AdSense, you must place your units above the fold.

5. I Focused on Organic Traffic

My main concern with adding a large AdSense unit right below my post titles was that some of the loyal readers could get annoyed with it. At the same time I knew that loyal readers become ad blind quite fast, and that the bulk of my money would come from organic visitors (i.e., people coming via search engines to my posts).

To solve this problem I decided to display the large rectangle only on posts older than seven days (using the Why Do Work WordPress plugin). It worked like a charm, as loyal readers don’t even notice the ad units when they are browsing through my recent posts, and organic visitors almost always see the ads because they usually land on posts older than seven days.

6. I started using AdSense for Search

I was not sure how much money I would be able to make with AdSense for Search, but I was not happy with the search results provided by WordPress, so I decided to give it a shot anyway.

Currently I am making around $60 monthly with AdSense for Search. It is not much, but if you sum it over one year we are talking about $720. On top of that the search results are as relevant as you’ll get, so it is a win win situation.

7. I started using AdSense for Feeds

Another AdSense product I decided to try was the AdSense for Feeds one. I opted to display the ads below my feed items (you can also place them on top, but this would be too intrusive in my opinion). The results here were pretty good, both in terms of CTR and earnings.

You obviously need a large RSS subscriber base to make this work, but I am guessing that even with a couple thousand subscribers you could already make $100 monthly from feed ads.

8. I played around with section targeting

Section targeting is an AdSense feature that allows you to suggest specific sections of your site that should be used when matching ads. You can read more about it here.

I found that on niche and small websites section targeting can help a lot. Often times Google was displaying unrelated ads on these sites because there weren’t enough pages. After using section targeting I managed to increase the relevancy of the ads and consequently the CTRs.

9. I tested with Different Colors and Fonts

If you enabled both image and text ads on your units you should be able to customize the colors and fonts. I did some testing with both of these factors, and it helped to increase the numbers. Nothing dramatic, but it was definitely worth my time.

You just need to track your CTR for a couple of weeks. Then change the color or font and track it for another week, seeing if you can beat the original CTR. If you can, keep the new format. If you the performance decreased, try a new color or font and track the CTR for another week, until you find the optimal combination.

On my sites the best results came from making the ad units merge with the look of the site, but on some sites contrasting colors perform better, so testing is a must.