Agus Setiawan Wahyu Wibowo

What, How, Who, Why, When and Where: Google Adsense

2008-11-02T17:59:00.001-08:00

The Amazing Google Adsense Program is today towering like a Colossus in the Internet. It has helped some smart Internet Marketers to make huge amounts of money, while at the same time it is interesting to note that many new Internet Marketers and Internet Home-Based Business Entrepreneurs are receiving their first pay check from Google Adsense rather than the main affiliate program. Given below are the Asense Tips, What, How, Who, Why, When and Where of Google Adsense in a nut shell.

1. What is is Google Adsense:
Google Adsense is a program designed by Google that can generate advertising revenue for your website. Relevant Text and Image ads. targeted to your website content are delivered by Google. Additionally if you place a Google Search Box in your website, relevant text ads. are displayed when a search request is made by a website visitor. Google will pay you for all valid clicks. made by your website visitors on the ads. or search results pages. Another new addition is the Google Adsense Referrals Feature , whereby you can generate additional income by displaying Google’s Referral Buttons on your web pages.

2. How to get started with Google Adsense:
You have to apply to Google Adsense by completing an online application form at https://www.google.com/adsense. Once the application is approved, you will be able to participate. You then have to copy and paste a HTML code that is provided by Google Adsense into your web pages. The code creates relevant ads. to the content of the page. When a visitor clicks on it Google pays you.

3. Who can participate in Google Adsense:
Anyone who has a website can join the Adsense program but not adult and hate sites. You have to comply with Google's program policies. It is Free to join. Google has a massive advertiser base and they have ads. on the ready for all categories of businesses. They also have ads. ready to match different types of content sites, from a pet store site to that of a highly sophisticated technological site. Google Adsense can be used in many languages. It is also targeted geographically and hence Global business can take advantage of this and webmasters living in any part of the world can participate.

4. Why Participate in Google Adsense:
The obvious answer is to make money from home. It does not cost you anything if you have a website, so why miss the opportunity to make money from home. Google pays you monthly if your earnings reach $100.The Google Adsense checks are a blessing to a large number of newbies with low budgets eager to make money from home. Some webmasters feel that Adsense ads. can lead their visitors away from their site. This possibility is there but if you have a website with good content they will always come back.

5. When to Participate in Google Adsense:
The Adsense program is Web related and hence you must have a website to participate. Once your website is ready and the contents optimized, you can submit your application. The Adsense program is not restricted only to high page rank sites as some seem to think. Google approves most of the sites but ensures that they are of acceptable standard. Normally they are approved within 2-3 days. Once approved you can immediately participate in the Adsense program by logging into your account.

6. Where to place Google Adsense ads. in your Website.
The Adsense ads. can be placed anywhere in your web pages, but there are specific areas in your web pages that are recommended by Google which have been found to generate more clicks. According to Google and our own experience: Ads placed above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. Ads placed at the top of the page and at the left generally perform better than others. Ads at the bottom of long articles and those that are integrated or merge with the content too perform very well. Of course there are other strategies, such as creating high paying keyword content pages to suit individual sites and also generating more traffic to your site. These have to be implemented too, to ensure success.

The Google Adsense Program has come to stay. It is a great way to earn an additional income for most webmasters and a big income for some who have made the Adsense Program as the main source of income. Which ever way you look at it the Adsense Program is a happy hunting ground for all and these Adsense Tips can help you get started.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kanaga_Siva

Visitors To Go Click Crazy is What You Want?

2008-11-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

The best Adsense blog is no less than a faithful, reliable cash cow that will constantly yield significant amounts of revenue for the blogger.

But what does the best Adsense blog really look like? Here is an amazing Adsense secret that has the potential of lifting up your Adsense earnings to unprecedented levels or heights that you have never reached before. And quite likely the sort of Adsense revenues that you never dreamt about or thought possible.

In the best Adsense blog the valuable useful content that is so amazing that it causes readers to hunger for even more information, is merged with the Adsense ads in such a way that they look like one and the same thing from the same source. This means that the Adsense ads have the same color and background as the rest of the blog site. The result is that readers can easily and smoothly glide from the content to the Adsense ads without hesitation.

This is what will result in dozens and at best hundreds or even thousands of clicks taking place at your Adsense blog.
People hate to be advertised to and the main characteristic of a best Adsense blog is that that the ads do not really look like ads but more like extra links to click for more valuable information and tips.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Kyalo

15 Common Mistakes that Violate Google Adsense TOS

2008-09-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense publishers often commit common mistakes that could ban their Adsense account. Google Adsense is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are well defined terms of service to strictly adhere to when participating in the program.

On my visit through sites and forums, I daily notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.

2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad units and 3 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links. Update: Google has allowed you to run contextual advertising like Yahoo ads, Chitika etc provided the ads do not resemble Adsense ads.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.

6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.

10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.

11. Do not send your ads by email. Html formatted emails look good and allow placement of these javascript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!

12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches - Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of ‘excessive’ is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.

15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”. In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.

Update:
16. Maximum 2 referral button per product per page - With the launch of the google adsense referral program, you are allowed to put only 2 referral buttons for adsense referral, adwords referral, Google pack and Firefox with google toolbar referral. Update: This feature is closing Aug 2008.

17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads. - Several services like Chitika eminimalls allow you to place alternate urls, when a targeted paying ad cannot be displayed. This involved creating an simple html page and putting the ad to be displayed instead. Even Adsense allows an alternate url feature instead of displaying public service ads. But never use Adsense ads as alternate urls.

18. Do not confuse with adjacent images - It was a common policy to increase CTR by placing same number of images as the number of text ads, which falsely gave the impression that the text ads represented an explanation to these images. Inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads is not allowed. Make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. More.

Whenever in doubt, it is better to ask for adsense help from the learned staff of Google Adsense. They are very helpful!

Another 1O FUNDAMENTAL Adsense Tips

2008-09-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

Remember, these are FUNDAMENTALS, not insider tips. Learning them will help you get started, but they will not separate you from the crowd, so don’t spend your hard earned dollars just to have someone regurgitate the same information that your average webmaster already knows.

Tip #1: Forget About Perfect Markets.

Looking for a “hot market” and then trying to get in on the action just makes
sense, right?
Wrong. While some online markets are definitely more profitable than others, the key to
success with AdSense is not through picking one high-quality market and sticking with it - it’s about quantity.

Put simply, the more you diversify your online interests, the more money you are bound to make. Does this mean that you shouldn’t take time to do market research by checking
Overture’s search numbers, click costs, search engine competition, and affiliate programs?
No. Those are fundamental tools that you simply must use and master.
But understand that not all markets are as easy to conquer as others, and there
is honestly no rhyme, no reason, and no market research that can determine
which ones you’ll have success with.
For example, one day you may be able to reach the top-ten in a super competitive market, and the next day you may find yourself barely entering Google’s ratings. Even wide-open, non-competitive markets may be difficult to get a foothold in (rankings wise), making predicting success is difficult if not impossible.

That’s why it’s important for you to work in as many different markets as possible,
instead of analyzing which one or two might work best for you.

Chances are, if you test out ten markets, at least two or three will be profitable.
Do this every week, and odds are that you’ll be making quite a profit in no time.

Tip #2: Quantity Outweighs Quality

Unless you are extremely gifted at predicting the future, we suggest that you
heed this secret. It is based on simple math. The more opportunities you are
working with, the better you can expect the results to be.
We learned a long time ago that we cannot accurately guess which markets are
going to profitable and which are not.
Now do not misunderstand us. We do all the standard market research that we
all need to do before choosing a market.
We would investigate Overture's search numbers and cost per clicks, we'd check
on the competition, we'd make sure there were at least 2 or 3 reliable and solid
affiliate programs associated with the particular market and so forth and so on.
We were doing our homework.
But even after all the research, the investigating, there were some markets that
we were simply not able to turn a profit in.
More often than not, we noticed that this failure had nothing to do with the
competition that we faced in that market. In fact, there were some markets that
were very competitive in which we achieved very high rankings. Then, for some
reason, there were other markets that should have been a snap for us to profit in
that did not pan out at all. There were times when we couldn’t even make the top
10 for a single keyword!

So that's when we decided to employ a new methodology.
It's simple: throw enough out there and something will hit the target.
And it works.
After using this rather simple method and seeing the results, we no longer care if
a market appears to be quality market or not. Our results proved to us, at least,
that if we go into 10 markets, we can usually expect 2 or 3 of them to turn out to
be profitable winners.
Once we understood that this method, while simple, returned good results, we
continued to use it. We would put in another ten markets per week, and over
time, by doing that, week after week, we eventually built a huge network of sites,
in hundreds of different markets, all of them profitable.

Now, you can follow our suggestion and do what we have been doing or you can
work yourself to death trying to find those few “perfect” markets, which, as far as
we are concerned, actually change one week from the next.
Our method takes work. There is no way around that truism. But we have some
tips on that for you as well.

Tip #3: This is business. It is not playtime.

You might be surprised by the number of people who complain that they do not
make any significant income from their AdSense campaigns. When we ask them
how many markets they're in or how many domains they have, their answer is
usually 10 or 15 markets, and only 1 or 2 domains per market.
Here is another truth that many people do not want to face head-on. You cannot
make any money with AdSense unless you are in a lot of markets. And within
those many markets, you must have many websites if you want to really
penetrate your niche market and make the most profits from that market. In
today’s world, you need to have a lot of smaller sites.
So how can you do all of that?
Well, you cannot, unless you first address some important issues.
In order for you to accomplish all this work, you need three things:
1) Procedures
2) Achievable Goals
3) Help

PROCEDURES:

As mentioned above, in order for you to maximize your profits
and exposure, you must have a lot of websites working for you. With that being
the case, you need to have some system of generating a lot of websites and be
able to get those sites up and running in as quick a fashion as possible.
So how about an assembly line metaphor? Let’s assume you want to get into 20
markets. One way to do this would be for you to do the keyword research for all
20 markets. Then purchase your domain names. Then setup your hosting
accounts. And lastly build and upload your web pages.
Your procedure, in this case, allows you to work in a systematic, organized way
which is much more efficient than attempting to build each site, one at a time,
and one domain at a time.

ACHEIVEABLE GOALS:

Anyone who is self-employed, either full time or part
time, understands the importance of setting realistic goals and then achieving
those goals. You need to set daily, weekly, and monthly goals to keep yourself
on track and give yourself a clear picture of where you are and where you want
to go.
Your goal list is your roadmap to success.
However, each goal that you set for yourself must be achievable. Do not set your
goals so high that failure is almost assured. That sort of action will kill your selfconfidence
and cause you to lose faith in your work.
If you are just getting started out, you might set a monthly goal of 10 markets,
with 3 domains per market.
Is that too much?
How about starting with 5 markets with 2 domains per market?
You would then set weekly and daily goals to ensure that you meet (and even
exceed) the goals you set.
Without goals you can't keep score, and if you can't keep score you don't know if
you're winning or losing in business, or in life, for that matter.

HELP:
The last element that is vital to your success is help.
In order for all the work to get done, you will need to outsource as much as
possible.
This is vital. You must understand why outsourcing is so important.
Your mission is to perform a task only until you know it well enough to teach
someone else how to do it. The faster you can duplicate yourself, the faster you
can expand your business as you focus on the most profitable actions that need
to be taken. For this to work, you have to be management, not grunt.
Our entire page generation business is 100% outsourced. We have one person
who selects my markets, another does the keyword research for those markets,
and yet another who actually builds and manages all my pages.
This frees us up to concentrate on the markets that are truly profitable. It allows
us the time and the mental space to think through our next move. That freedom
to think would be greatly diminished if we had to spend the majority of our time
doing work that others can do just as well, and, in some cases, better than us.

Tip #4: Target your pages to Keyword Phrases

Regardless of the markets that you are in, the vast majority of your traffic will
come from the 3- to 5-word keyword phrases you select rather than from your 1-
and 2-word "root keyword".
If you're going into the "Birthday Cards" market, you will get more traffic from
keyword phrases like "Free Printable Birthday Cards” than from something like
“Birthday Cards”.
The secret for more traffic is to aim your website pages (title tags and content) to
keyword phrases. To find the best keyword phrases you may use
WordTracker or Overture keyword suggestion tool here:

Tip #5: Use Relevant Content Related To the Theme

There are a lot of places where you can borrow content and articles as long as
you credit the writer with a link to his/her site. The best content is an original
content, however building a huge network of sites writing articles yourself or
outsource the writing tasks to other ghostwriters is time consuming and very
expensive. We use other people articles, once combining more then one article
on a page, make the page an original page.
Below you may find a list of article directories where you can borrow articles and
content.
name Category PR

Articles Factory general 8
Articles Hub general 7
Search Guild general 7
Elib Articles shopping 6
ArticleWorld.net Free Articles general 6
Article Biz general 6
Article City general 6
Article dashboard general 6
Article Sender general 6
Best Ezines general 6
Bharatbhasha general 6
Buzzle general 6
Easy Articles general 6
eZine Articles.com general 6
eZine Plug general 6
Free Blog Articles general 6
Go Articles general 6
Hotlib Articles general 6
iSnare general 6
New List general 6
Health Guidance health-fitness 6
ArticleTrader general 5
Webmasters Cavern webmaster 5
ArticleDepot.net Free Articles general 5
Infonexus.org general 5
Free Business Articles business 5
Free SEO Articles seo 5
A1 Articles general 5
A1 Optimization general 5
Article99 general 5
Article Alley general 5
Article Beach general 5
Article Blast general 5
Article Depot.co.uk general 5
Article Fever general 5
Article Garden general 5
Article Point general 5
Article Rich general 5
Website Content Articles general 5
Articles 911 business 5
Article Sphere general 5
Article Trader general 5
Big Articles general 5
Http Articles general 5
Search Articles general 5
Search Warp general 5
Self SEO seo 5
Webmaster Articles webmaster 5
Webmasters Library webmaster 5
Website Content Articles general 5
Work On Internet webmaster 5
Wow Articles general 5
Article Hub.net general 5
Ace Articles computers 5
Articler general 5
ArticleQuery general 5
101 Articles general 4
Article Connection general 4
iReprint.info Free to Reprint Articles general 4
A1 Article Directory general 4
Featured Articles general 4
13
LABusinessJournal general 4
ArticleCat.com general 4
ArticlesAZ general 4
Article Blotter general 4
ArticleCube general 4
Article Master general 4
365 Articles general 4
Article University general 4
Amazines general 4
Answers about internet promo webmaster 4

Tip #6: Use Fewer Links

This secret revolves around mathematical probability and common sense. If you
have 25 links to other webpages on your page, and only 5 of those links are
AdSense ads that pay you, chances are pretty good that you visitors will click on
the links that do not pay you.
Having too many links that do not pay is even more damaging to your CTR than
having too much content on the page.
Placing your AdSense ads at the top will help some, but you are still going to lose
a lot of traffic by giving your visitors the option to click away via a link that doesn't
pay.
So how can you deal with this challenge?
1) You can put the non profitable links at the bottom of the page
2) Each link should open in a new browser using the html target="_blank"
tag

Tip #7: The Fewer Ads the Better

When Google raised the ad block limit from one per page, to two, and then later
to three, many marketers decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and max
out the number of ad blocks on their pages.
That was not a good idea and many of these marketers have suffered from it.
It is important for you to remember that when you publish Google AdSense ads
on your pages, Google is effectively syndicating their Adwords ads, which is a
pay-per-click advertising network.

What that means is the ads at the top of the page are there because the
advertisers for those ads are paying more (for the better placement) than the
advertisers with ads at the bottom of the page.
What this means to you is if you max out the number of ad blocks on your page,
you will go from having 4 ads to having 12 ads. This is assuming that you are
using the large rectangle ad block. The math: 4 ads per ad block and 3 blocks
equals 12 total ads.
At first glance you might consider this to be a good change, one that should be
more profitable for you, right? After all, the more ads you have available the more
chances you have of getting a click. Seems to make sense, doesn’t it?
Actually, it is not a good thing for you because it can very easily and very quickly
cut into your profits.
Why?
My tests in this matter have shown us that not only do we get fewer clicks the
more ads we have on a page, but we also earn much less for every click that we
do get.
we decided that this only makes sense.
If the top ad on your page pays you $0.50 per click, there is a very good chance
that the bottom 4 all pay less than $0.15. In essence, by increasing the number
of ads, you are trading higher-priced (higher paying) clicks for lower-priced (lower
paying) clicks.
We tested several pages of my own and decided that 4 ads is usually the golden
goose. However, this is not a hard and fast rule that must be observed at all
times. Occasionally, a 2 ad block pulls the best combination of earning-per-click
(EPC) and click-through-rate (CPC) which is exactly what you want.
My advice is if you're using more than one ad block on your page, test that same
page with just a single block and careful keep track of the results. Odds are you
will make more money by decreasing the ads.

Tip #8: Sell the Click…Carefully and Creatively

Google policy strictly forbids you from writing out, “Click on the links below”. They
do that to protect the advertisers, and to keep things fair for each advertiser.
However, if you can “suggest” that your visitors click on the links (without actually
saying it in print), your CTR will be greatly increased.

Many people have tried many methods of doing just this thing. Some have tried
using arrows and other graphics that point to their ads, in the hopes of pulling
visitors in, but, be warned, Google seriously frowns upon this type of behavior.
What they don't mind, however, is if an image appears next to your ad block, and
if that image just so happens to catch the eye, well…
More subtle, but still highly effective, is to have an unrelated image sitting next to
your ads. For example, if your page is about a particular magazine, you may
want to include a photo of the editor of that magazine next to the ads. The photo
of this editor will naturally draw the eye toward it. At the same time, Google would
not mind this photo being there because it directly relates to the content of the
ad.
Another way to “sell” the ad is to place the article below the ads and below the
fold so that the visitor does not see immediately see it. Now this is highly
aggressive and may cause trouble for you with Google, so use at your own
discretion.
If you want to be less aggressive, make sure you include plenty of resources in
the article below the ads. Keep in mind what we discussed earlier that the more
content and links the lower your CTR will be. In this case, it is very good advice
to test, test, test.
The last tip for this section is so simple and easy to use it is nearly insane. When
you write your paragraph or two of content, make sure you end the last sentence
of the last paragraph with an ellipse.
Like this …
Generally speaking, when people begin reading something they want to finish it.
By leaving them hanging with the ellipse, you are inviting them to click on the link
to read the rest of the content. It makes it appear as if the article continues on
one of the pages being linked to, and many times they will click on the link just to
get to the rest of the content.

Tip #9: Avoid the "Advertise on this site" Program

Sometimes what is good for someone else is not good for you. This is one of
those occasions.
Google's newest enhancement to their Adsense program is the “Advertise on this
site” program. We hate it, and we suggest you not use it.
Here's how it works:

By allowing "OnSite Advertiser Signup" on your sites, Google automatically
posts a link at the top of all your ads. The premise is that a potential advertiser
will visit your site, decide they want to advertise on your site, and click that
Google link to signup.
On the surface it sounds like a good idea. But when we tested it, it cost us money
to tune of a 9% drop across the board.
We're not sure what caused this but we do have my suspicions:
First, it was another link on my sites. As mentioned above, the more links you
have, the less money you make. And in this case, the only way to be paid
through this link is if someone actually fills out the form and signs up. That does
not happen very often, if ever.
The second reason we feel this “enhancement” cost us money is that the ad itself
makes my other ads look less like resources and more like ads. It's bad enough
that Google still puts that unsightly and annoying "Ads by Gooooooogle" line
across the top of your ad block, but adding another "Advertise on this site" link
right next to it really pushes it over the edge. People hate advertising when it is in
their face. What do they do? They leave. Fast.
Third, very few advertisers, at least those who are serious, are going to be willing
to agree to advertise on your site and your site alone. It is simply not good
business to be tied to one site (even if that site belongs to you) and most people
will not agree to that. We know we would never agree to participate in something
like that, something that restrictive. We can’t blame others for not wanting to do it
either.
Most of the people we have talked to have also experienced a decline in
earnings when the ad appeared on their sites. If you have it on your pages, you
should consider dropping it.
"OnSite Advertiser Signup" is activated by default at Google. Unless you tell
them you do NOT want to participate in the program, they will turn it on.
It is easy enough to check and to fix. Log in to your Adsense account and click
on the "My Account" link. Scroll down to the bottom and look for the line that
says: OnSite Advertiser Sign-Up. Make sure this says "You are not currently
subscribed to Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up". If it doesn't say that, click the "Edit"
button and unsubscribe.
Now, it may take a few days (perhaps longer) for the code to update across all of
your pages, but eventually it will vanish, and hopefully your profits will increase.

Tip #10: Get Indexed in The Search Engines.

The best way to get indexed and crawled by search engine bots is by getting
links from other websites that are already indexed in the search engines. Then
when the search engine bots will crawl the site that is pointing to your site it will
notice the link to your site and after a few days will start crawling your site and
pages.

There are a lot of ways to get links from other sites and I will mention a few
1) Link exchange with other websites that are on the same theme as your
site (link exchange done wrong can get your site ban by search engines)
2) You can submit your sites to search engine friendly directories.
3) You can write articles and submit them toy article directories
4) You can use companies that their expert is linking for example
http://www.text-link-ads.com/

There are a lot of other ways to gain links to your sites, the above are very easy
to use and implement. Of course you can outsource the link building tasks if you,
as we do!
Links is one of the most important things to get to the top of the search engines,
if done correctly.

Last Thoughts:
The key to dramatically increasing your profits through Adsense is in the
numbers. The only thing separating you from a $20 a day profit and a $200 a day
profit is the numbers. If you do more of what you are already doing, the numbers
will take of the rest.
But be intelligent about it, too. Be smarter than the next person. Set up and then
use your Procedures. Make that Goal List that we explored earlier and then
achieve those goals, one at a time. Outsource when it is the smart thing to do.
Never be afraid to ask for help.

This business is about volume. You should ask yourself as often as possible,
“How many markets are you going into this month?" Your answer to that
question, more than almost anything else, will determine your success.
Once you know how many markets you want to open in a given month, sit down
and plan out each step that must be taken in order to make that goal happen.
Use the assembly line method we spoke of earlier. Do your work in batches
rather than one site at a time. Find good people who can help you with keyword
research, website design and maintenance, and other tasks.

Seeing clicks but no revenue on your blog?

2008-08-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

Have you ever checked your reports and noticed that you have clicks reported, but no revenue?

Yes, I have. Just happen yesterday (28 August 2008). I monitoring on my first of 5 clicks but my revenue still ZERO (0).

We'd like to explain why this may happen, as we frequently receive emails and questions on our Help Forum about this issue. What you're seeing may be due to one of the following:

>> Allowed Sites setup

The Allowed Sites feature allows you to specify a list of sites where ads from your account may be displayed. If you're using this feature, you'll need to make sure that you've listed all sites where you'd like to display your AdSense ad code.To check if this is the case, log into your account and visit the 'Allowed Sites' page under your AdSense Setup tab.

If the radio button 'Allow any site to show ads for my account ' is populated, you're not being affected by this issue, and you should continue to #2 below.

However, if 'Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account' is populated, review the list of sites in the box below -- are all the sites you own listed in this box? If the answer is 'no', you won't be credited for clicks on the missing sites.

Please be sure to add all of the sites where you'd like to display your AdSense ad code.We've noticed some confusion among publishers who have entered the sites of advertisers they'd like to see on their pages into the Allowed Sites list.

Please know that this is not the case, as it's not possible to request ads for a particular page - the sites you enter into this box can only be sites where your ads can be placed.

Invalid clicksIt's possible that you have some clicks that our monitoring system has considered to be invalid. As we've mentioned before, we monitor all clicks and impressions on Google ads for any activity that may artificially drive up an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings.

Any clicks that our system considers invalid will still appear on your 'Overview' page, under the Reports tab. However, because our advertisers aren't charged for these clicks and impressions, we won't show the earnings for this activity. If you're concerned about suspicious activity in your account, we recommend reviewing your site's logs and letting us know about the situation.

Rest assured that AdSense accounts are properly credited for all clicks and impressions we consider to be valid. We'll post your finalized earnings for a given month on your 'Payment History' page during the first week of the following month. For more information about invalid clicks, please review our Help Center

Top 10 Adsense Tools

2008-08-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

I would like to jump right into the content of this article-- some of the best tools around for getting the most out of Google's Adsense campaign. First, we'll start off with the tools in order of personal preference from less useful to most useful (since there is really no good way to compare a tool-- its all in how you use it anyway).

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#10 Contextual Ads Preview/Comparison Tool

This tool is helpful in comparing AdSense ads to those of other advertisement vendors (Chitika, Yahoo). You also have the ability to customize the colors and view what ads a certain URL would be likely to display. It's a pretty solid tool when planning what type of advertisements you want to put on your page (especially if you are trying to decide which vendor to sign up with).

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#9 Blacklist

The Blacklist basically gives you a list of AdWord publishers that have very low payouts. It is a fact that ad space is valuable-- I would rather fill my ad space with 3 publishers offering $0.50 per click than 3 publishers offering 1 or 2 cents. By providing a list of provider domains to avoid, you can filter your ads and have a greater chance of having high-paying publisher ads displayed on your site. According its website, Blacklist works by:

"...providing you with list of most commonly filtered websites whose webmasters use AdWords to attract visitors for low price click so they can convert it to high price click on their own MFA (Made for AdSense) site(s). In order to STOP these type of actions going on your sites, all you need to do is to paste our specially generated list to your AdSense Setup -> Competitive Ad Filter list. Your revenue should substantially increase."

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#8 AdSense Calculator

This is one of my favorite tools-- it allows you to quickly calculate how much you can make given daily impressions, CTR, and CPC. Although it’s certainly easy to calculate the values yourself, this is a resource you can use to quickly get that info. It computes daily, monthly, and yearly data for both clicks and earnings.

From their website:

"It also serves as a tool that will allow Google AdSense users to take their current statistics and get an idea of how much they can expect to see daily, monthly and yearly. As well as those who are considering implementing AdSense on their site what results they are likely to see."

For those out there who like to speculate ("hmmm, if I had 3000 impressions and a CTR of 2% and average CPC of 30 cents, what could I make...?") this is THE tool for you-- quick, simple, and easy to use.

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#7 AdSense Sandbox

"This is a handy little utility if you would like to see what sort of Google AdSense ads are based on content or keywords. "

This tool lets you see LOTS of ads that Adsense may be displaying on a site. Why is this good? Simply put, you can look at ads that show up for your competitor's site. And why is THAT good? You can use it to help out your own ad campaign.

For example, I know Plenty of Fish (the free dating site with the ugly site design) makes a TON of money from ads. Since my site, UpHook, is in the same general category, I can look at what ads are showing up for them and see if those same sites show up on mine. If not, then I know I'm not really competing against them; and I also know that their ads are probably worth more per-click than my ads. In addition, this also gives me a list of what websites I may be competing against. And keeping an eye on one's competition is a smart move.

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#6 Adsense Preview Tool (explorer)

This tool is very similar to the Sandbox. The difference is that you can generate a preview of what ads may be displayed on a page much easier. Rather than visiting a website, you can bring up a pop-up window full of ad samples by right clicking and selecting the preview tool from the pop-up window.

The upside: It's easy to access and gives good information (see Tool #7)

The downside: It's for Internet Explorer

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#5 Adsense Notifier (firefox)

This is an invaluable too for OC people who check adsense stats every 5 minutes. Checking adsense habitually is a painful process—its like watching grass grow. But this handy little extension makes it less of a headache. The Notifier can sit in the bottom of your browser window and displays whatever stats you want-- total clicks, daily earnings, impressions, CTR, etc. Wondering if you made any more money yet? You can find out with a quick glance. It’s highly configurable and can save you bunch of time.

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#4 Competitive Ads Filter

Now we're getting to the heavy hitters. This tool is actually part of the Adsense setup manager, so you have to already have an AdSense account to use it. You can use the ad filter to block specific ads from appearing on your pages. Simply give the filter a list of URLs and they are effectively prevented from displaying on your site/blog. This can be useful for a few reasons:

1- You can prevent competition form advertising on your site. This could directly benefit from you by helping to ensure that people stay on your site and not jump on the first ad offering the same thing your site does. Due to the targeted-advertisement nature of AdSense, if you have a service site there is a good chance that your competition will have ads showing up on your site all the time. For example, all the ads that show up on my site (free personals, etc) are for other sites offering dating and personals and matchmaking, etc. For some people this is bad-- but for others it can be a good thing.

2- You can prevent irrelevant ads from being displayed. I mentioned this in a previous blog post-- there are some cases where you want to get rid of ads that don't really correlate well with your site content. Remember, AdSense is just a software system-- it tries to determine what ads to serve up based on some site content. There is a chance that it can guess wrong. And when that happens, you can use the filter to help correct things. Have a site about dogs being cooler than cats but AdSense shows a bunch of ads about pro-cat books? Just chug the bogus cat sites into the filter and you'll be all set.

3- You can block publishers that have low-paying ads. This is helpful in making sure you get the best value for your space. Using the Blacklist tool to get a list of low-paying publishers and plugging their domains into your competitive ads filter can quite possibly earn you more money in the long run.

These are all good uses for the filter, however, there is a drawback to using this tool-- if you are trying to filter entire groups of content by using the filter, you will only see temporary results. As more sites pop up, you will likely have to keep updating the filter. This is why this tool is best suited for blocking sites that are in direct competition with yours.

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#3 Word Tracker

I know some people who swear by this tool. Although you have to sign up to get unlimited access to the service, the trial will probably give provide enough useful information for you to enhance your AdSense experience. Word Tracker pretty much tells you how often people search for a specific keyword. It can also estimate how many competing sites use those keywords. This is probably the best tool to use before deciding what content to include on your page. If there are a lot of competitors, it may be better to target one of the less-searched-for words. Chances are, you will be able to get indexed higher in a search engine for those terms as opposed to going head-to-head with the competition for the popular words.

Obviously, this can drive traffic to your site. Users are more likely to visit matches that show up within the first 2 or 3 pages of a Google search than they are to visit matches on page 87. Why not opt for being indexed in the first 1-50 matches? Sure, you will get less searches overall, but you will be much more visible.

According to their website:

"Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to their or their client's business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors."

This tool is can be used for things other than AdSense. However, it just so happens that popular search keywords are also popular AdSense keywords. Go figure.

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#2 Overture Bidding Tool

This tool gives you both suggested keywords AND sample bid amounts given a target word. Although Overture is NOT the same as AdSense, the keywords are almost the same as those suggested when signing up for an AdSense account. In addition, I've found that the bids listed are pretty darn close to those offered by AdWords publishers. Using this tool, it would be trivial to build a list of high-paying keywords that you would want to make sure you use in your content.

If you ensure that mostly high-paying ads are displayed on your site, you will be getting the most out of your ad space. Think about it-- a user isn’t going to know how much each ad is worth before they click it. They are likely to click on almost any ad that appeals to them. Why not make sure that those ads will pay the most money? Using the Overture bidding tool to get other suggested keywords is also useful-- however, be careful not to saturate your page content with a bunch of keywords. This can make your site/blog look tacky. A few here and there should be enough for the AdSense spider to throw up high-paying ads. Combined with the Blacklist, this is an excellent tool to use as an alternative to the AdWords Bidding Tool.

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#1 AdWords Bidding Tool/Traffic Estimator

This is probably the most useful tool out there. The only drawback is that you must have an AdWords account to get access to the information. I would suggest getting AdWords anyway, since it gives you a good idea of what publishers go through and what options they have when creating ads.

This bidding tool is THE resource for figuring out what keywords result in the highest paying AdSense ads. It's quite possible that all those pages and blogs that list the Top X-number of highest paying AdSense keywords use the bidding information found through AdWords or Overture. As a site/blog owner, its important to know what words you might want to emphasize in your content.

The traffic estimator will take a set of keywords and tell you the estimated average CPC based on current publisher bidding statistics. Knowing that the estimated CPC of my keywords can pull ads paying between $3 and $8 on average, I know that I am in a very good position to make money from my AdSense advertising. Although these CPCs are average values, and I'm sure Google will only show those ads on very well-performing sites, it at least lets me know what I have to look forward to when I start bringing in a larger amount of traffic.

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Honorable Mentions:

The Heat Maps

Not really a tool. But for those people who don't know, this can increase your earnings substantially-- especially if you have ads in all the wrong places.

AdsenseAccelerator

I don't really know much about this site, other than some people apparently bought the tool and use it to easily find the best keywords. I'm not big on buying stuff, so I wouldn't really use it. But if anybody is interested in trying (or has already tried) it and doesn't mind paying a few bucks, feel free to let me know if its worth the money. I’ve heard good things about it.

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Getting the most out of AdSense hinges upon your ability to optimize. Using these tools can certainly help out. If you have (or plan to have) AdSense on your site/blog then I think its a very good idea to look at some of the tools out there and try to ensure that you are utilizing your ad space in a smart way.

Choose your preference: Adsense Video or Bidvertiser

2008-08-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

In the past two days I had fun and busy watching video on YouTube and other video sites. I had viewed over 20 videos about blogging and about making money online. I just want to know how these people are doing and what kind of videos they are posting to these sites.

I came across to this video in which the owner talked about his experience in his websites using Ad placement. He made a comparison between these two ad publishing Bidvertiser and Google Adsense. In his video, he is only stating his one and a half month experience on these two ad placement.

BIDVERTISER vs. GOOGLE ADSENSE VIDEO

He has pretty good websites and had up to 300+ unique visitors per day and with pretty good interesting content. He use Bidvertiser because it tranfers money to Paypal with very low payout of just $10 compared to $100 in case of Adsense. But with Adsense he does all the optimization and read many online tutorials. Make those ads blends to the theme of his websites.

After one and a half month of using the two he notice a big difference in the total earnings for the whole period between the two. Bidvertiser only earns him $5 and feel terrible on the result. In Adsense he earns $88. What a huge difference. Why such a big difference?

His assessment:

1. Google Adsense searches your website and adds links to ad, which are related to your website content which makes more clicks on your readers.
2. Bidvertiser adds some stupid ads no one wants to click on.
3. He get $0.3 – $0.5 click per click on Adsense and $0.03 – $0.05 on Bidvertiser.
4. Bidvertiser pays 10 times less than Adsense.

BIDVERTISER OR GOOGLE ADSENSE

1. The minimum payout from BidVertiser is $10 and pays via Paypal which money transfer is much quicker.

AdSense has a minimum payout of $100 and pays via check which takes more time to reach.

2. In Bidvertiser you can choose to have links opened in a separate window. This allows users to stay on your website and users can manually approve ads.

Adsense don’t have this feature.

5. In Bidvertiser you can see a template when creating ads to see what the ad will look like. Pays bit less per click.

In AdSense you have to click on a separate link. AdSense pays more per click.

6. Bidvertiser goal is to let you make as much
as possible from your advertising space, by letting advertisers bid on
your ad space.

AdSense does not allow you this.

7. Some sites experience slow page loads with BidVertiser and sometimes displays ads not relevant to your site. Other benefit of Bidvertiser is than a site can have over showing of ads.

Adsense ads loading time is much faster. It has a rich repository of ads and always shows contextual ads on your website.

Anonymous AdSense account kill by Google

2008-08-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Exclusive Google has murdered the AdSense account run by one of the web's most influential anti-Scientology sites.

Yesterday, the search giant cut off all ads served to Enturbulation, a fledgling site dedicated to promoting activism against the Church of Scientology and all its related organizations. This could have something do with the nature of the ads Google was serving. Many of the Google-driven ads funding the anti-Scientology site were paid for by the Church of Scientology.

"While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers," read Google's letter to Enturbulation, a kind of home base for the now famous Anonymous movement. "Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we've decided to disable your account."

Of course, it's not Enturbulation's fault that Google was serving the site pro-Scientology ads. AdSense automatically chooses ads based on a site's content. And like any AdSense advertiser, the Church of Scientology has the power to ban its ads from individual domains.

Google did not respond to our requests for comment. But it should be noted that the company's new AdSense policies say that partner sites may not include "advocacy against any individual, group, or organization."

That said, Google's terms and conditions also prohibit "any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill." And this isn't always enforced. The Register, for instance, is an AdSense user, and it doesn't always champion Google's every move.

It should also be noted that the Church of Scientology wouldn't actually pay for ads posted to Enturbulation unless someone clicked on them. The question is whether the site's users would be interested in doing so. We leave that question to you.

Meanwhile, Enturbulation may lose between $400 and $500 a month in ad revenue.

Google's crackdown on Enturbulation's AdSense account follows similar actions by its YouTube subsidiary. Last month, the world's most popular video site vaporized an account run by Mark Bunker, a well-known TV journalist/anti-Scientology activist.

YouTube said it destroyed Bunker's video channel because he'd already had an account suspended for violations of site policy. But it seems this rule does not apply to the Church of Scientology.

Adsense Secrets

2008-08-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Adsense Secret # 1: Coalesce Google Ads with your Web Page

Let the border of the advertisements on your site coincide with the background color of your webpage. Let the text, title and urls in the Google Ads have the same font color as that of the font color of the contents in your web page. Ensure that you do everything possible to make the Google ads conflate with your website content.

Though it is tough to match the font size for the content of your web site with that of the advertisements, try to have the same font size to the maximum extent possible.

• Adsense Secret # 2: Make use of Images

This is one of the unique Adsense secret which is really valuable. Put up images pertaining to the theme of your web page around the ads appearing on your web site. This not only helps in integrating the content of your web page with the Google advertisements but also increases your Click Through Rate (CTR).

• Adsense Secret # 3: Place Ads at the top of your page

Putting up the ads on the top of your web page is the most treasured Adsense secret. And beware of the fact that the higher the order of the advertisement, the more is the income it would generate for every click.

• Adsense Secret # 4: CTR is Account Dependent

In case if you have multiple websites and if one website had a CTR of 15% and another has a CTR of .03%, the first thing you will have to do is to remove the webpage that has the CTR of.03% for this website may bring down your account's average CTR. This proves to be one of the imperceptible Adsense secrets.

• Adsense Secret # 5: Use Unique size for Google Ads

Yet another adsense secret is to make use of dimensions like 160*600 or 336*280 for the advertisements. Viewers tend to click on them thinking that the ad is a part of the web page.

• Adsense Secret # 6: Automate Google Ad Insertion using SSI

Automate the insertion of Google advertisements by writing scripts and inserting using SSI with the assistance of your server administrator. In the long run, this would save your time and efforts spent in the integration of Google ads with your web page.

• Adsense Secret # 7: Update and Maintain germane links

Update and maintain the sites that are faring well. While placing your ads in sites that are faring well, place them on top of all the existing ads so that the viewer who comes in would be able to see your ads first.

• Adsense Secret # 8: Add Fresh Content as often as you can

The higher the frequency of articles posted in your site, the more the traffic it drives to your web page and the higher is your page ranking.

• Adsense Secret # 9: Get to know keywords that are highly utilized and make use of them

Making the maximum use of the widely used keywords in your site is one of the unsung adsense secrets known.

• Adsense Secret # 10: Use customized layouts for Google Ads

Rectangle and skyscraper layout fare better than the other layouts and ensure that the dimensions are such that they merge well with the web content.

With the Adsense secrets revealed above, I am sure you can climb the ladder of Google Page Ranking with ease. Try and enjoy the benefits with these Adsense secrets!

Revenue $500 per month from Adsense

2008-08-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

In Adsense Help Forum have been discussed by active member about how to make $500 a month from Adsense. A member called adsenseriches shares with us about his techniques of doing so. Below is his sharing:

There are lots of people making more than $500 a month. I am one of them...
So, how is this done?

I use the wash-rinse-repeat method:

1) Wash:

a) Keyword research (tip: don't go after the high paying keywords, those are virtually impossible to get good rankings for)
b) Decide on a suitable domain name, based on the keyword(s). It's often a complete phrase, since it has less competition and it's also easier to find an available domain.
c) Create Content
d) Upload to your host.

2) Rinse:

Tell the world about your site, using various linking strategies...
a) I have already made a post about Tag & Ping on another forum.
b) You can submit your site to many directories as well.
c) Use some of your content as posts to n article directories, with a backlink in your signature)
d) Participate in forums related to your keyword/niche..just feed rinse

3)Repeat!
Do it all over again, using a new keyword/niche.

Tips to achieve such goal:
Once you got your earnings coming, use those to fund your growth. Find a cheap domain name registrar - less than $10/per year for a .com is acceptable:
www.datorsamdomains.com

Get lots of hosting accounts in order to get the sites on different IP addresses:
www.cheaphosting-1.com

7 Simple Steps Gaining Link Popularity

2008-08-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Compile by Guan Rally

Link Popularity can take more time than other methods do. However the more better your rankings and placement are in the search engines, the more traffic that you will be able to generate. Here are 7 Different ways to building link popularity today.
1. Make your web site look professional.
Having a web site that has a more professional look will attract more visitors and more individuals to your website. The more professional looking your site, the more credibility your company will gain. It is a part of human psychology. People tend to gravity towards things or people that look attractive. Therefore, make your web page attractive, and people will be attracted to it.
2. List your website in the best directories possible.
The better the directory the better your links will be. If you are in the best directory, more and more websites will love to link to your website due to the respect that some of these major directories have.
3. Ask for links from other quality sites.
You can request links from other websites, but you should only be adding links to top quality websites. Remember that the quality of the backlinks you get is much more important than the quantity of backlinks generated.
4. Create good relationship with owners of other websites.
Once you have created a good relationship with these people and/or businesses, you can ask them to put your links on their websites.

5. Remain persistent. Link popularity can take some time to work.
You have to be patient and let it happen on its own without trying to make it happen.
6. Use pay-per-click advertising as a link building tool.
Pay-per-click ads will get more traffic to your site. If your site has more traffic it is more likely that other webmasters will want to create a link to your site, especially if they feel your site is informative and appealing at the same time.
7. Establish Command.
You should make yourself an expert on your product, your service, and your field. Once you have established a higher credibility, your site will get more business. If you have more business, then your popularity will be higher, and other sites will be more willing to link to you.

Add Adsense for Feeds to your site

2008-08-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense has recently started Adsense for feeds.You will find adsense for feeds under adsense account>>adsense setup tab>>Get ads>>Adsense for feeds.

To get started, you'll want to log in to your AdSense account, then click on the Ad Settings tab. The first section is labelled "Ad Type" and you should see this:

Click on the new "AdSense for feeds unit" and select the type of Weblog program you're running out of the choices (Blogger or Movable Type/Typepad).

In the "Your AdSense code" box you'll see the code you should add to your feed, but don't do that yet. You want to create a unique channel for your RSS advertising first, so you can track impressions and click thru rate. In the middle of this same page, there's a section that lets you work with channels:

Click on "manage channels", then type in the name of the channel you want to create (I used "RSS Feed") and click "create new channel". It'll look like this:

Now, click on the "Continue to Ad Layout >>" link at the bottom of the Channels page and you'll be back to your original page, but now you can select the new channel!

Now in the "Your AdSense code" box is a bunch of obscure looking HTML that you'll want to copy and paste into your RSS template. Let's look at that part next.

If your browser supports tabs, I'd recommend that you create a new tab before you move to your Weblog configuration page, so you can flip back to the Google information with ease.

If your Movable Type configuration is like mine, you'll have a "Templates" link on the left side of the main page, which, once you click on, will reveal all your templates, including both an RSS 0.91 and RSS 1.0 index page.

Click on the first one, "index.xml", and you'll be looking at your template, which is about as scary as a file gets in the blogging world!

Somewhere in that jumble is a code section that looks like this:
<$MTEntryExcerpt encode_xml="1"$>

Position your cursor just before the </description> tag, insert a few blank lines, then back up one and paste in the code from the Google AdSense page. Click on SAVE then click on the bottom REBUILD button and you'll be able to quickly rebuild just the target file.

You'll want to do a similar thing to the "index.rdf" file too. The XML that's shown therein is a wee bit different, but the same basic technique will apply.

Now, to test it, subscribe to your RSS feed from within you favorite RSS Aggregator (I like NewsGator Online, personally). Your ads should show up pretty much instantly!
Congratulations, you now have adverts in your RSS feed. Good luck with them.

New Adsense for you - Adsense for Feed

2008-08-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

This new adsense - Adsense For Feeds - is developed in order to replace Adsense for Referral that will be ending very soon!, and take note, it will end during the last week of this month-August! However, Google Adsense had launch a new way of allowing us to increase the reach of our content while earning revenue. This means we can now use AdSense to place ads in our RSS feeds. Great news I should say.

It will sell cost-per-impression (CPM) ads directly to the largest advertisers, while the rest of our inventory will be filled with contextually targeted cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM ads. This means that more of our feed items will be sold and with higher overall revenue, than with any other feed network.

Another reasons to try AdSense for feeds:

* Receive higher CPMs and maintain a positive user experience by displaying ads specifically optimized for RSS feeds.
* View detailed stats on our feed audience, distribution, and more through FeedBurner when we set up our feeds with AdSense.
* Manage monetization for our feeds through the same account that we use to manage other AdSense properties.

When you visit the AdSense Setup tab in your account, you'll notice a new "AdSense for feeds" option. Have just done mine now, will have to wait until my ads to come through.

Everyone feels sad that Adsense for Referral is gonna be ending very soon!, and take note, it will end during the last week of this month! However, Google Adsense had lounch a new way of allowing us to increase the reach of our content while earning revenue. This means we can now use AdSense to place ads in our RSS feeds. Great news I should say.

It will sell cost-per-impression (CPM) ads directly to the largest advertisers, while the rest of our inventory will be filled with contextually targeted cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM ads. This means that more of our feed items will be sold and with higher overall revenue, than with any other feed network.

And here are few more reasons to try AdSense for feeds:

* Receive higher CPMs and maintain a positive user experience by displaying ads specifically optimized for RSS feeds.
* View detailed stats on our feed audience, distribution, and more through FeedBurner when we set up our feeds with AdSense.
* Manage monetization for our feeds through the same account that we use to manage other AdSense properties.

When you visit the AdSense Setup tab in your account, you'll notice a new "AdSense for feeds" option. Have just done mine now, will have to wait until my ads to come through.

10 Reasons to Start a Business Blog

2008-08-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

Compile by Set1aone

> Are you a blogging business owner trying to figure out the whole blogging thing?
> Have you been wondering if it’s worth your time and effort to create a blog for your own business?
> By the end of this article, you’ll understand the many benefits and will be better able to decide if blogging is right for you.

Let’s begin with a prompt definition, just so we are all on the same page. A blog is simply a content-management system that allows you to publish information onto the Internet, quickly and easily. New information is typically added in reverse-chronological format, so that the most recent posts are always up top. The blogging program does most of the technical stuff for you.

10 Reasons to Start Blogging for Your Business

That’s about as far as I’ll go into the technical definition. You’ll learn more about the inner workings if and when you decide to start a blog for your business. This purpose of this article is to give you some good reasons to make that decision. So without further ado…

1. Easy Publishing Tool

Type your post for the day. Add some hyperlinks or images with the click of your mouse. Hit the “publish” button. You’ve just updated your blog with new information, and it’s live on the Internet. Once you install the program, it really is this easy to use.

2. Search Engine Visibility

Starting a blog will not magically propel you to the top of the search engine ranks, as many people seem to believe. But with that being said, a blog has certain benefits that help with search rankings. It’s easy to publish new content for one thing, and this is key to online visibility. Also, blogs are text-rich and cleanly coded right “out of the box,” so the search engines have an easy time crawling through them and finding new information.

3. Expertise / Authority

If you as the business owner can demonstrate your expertise within your industry, people will be more inclined to purchase your products or services. By publishing quality information on a regular basis, you can more easily establish such authority. In other words, you can use blogging to position yourself as a “thought leader” in your industry.

4. Makes Your Website Sticky

Who wants to revisit a website that never updates its content? Not me. This is another area where a business blog can benefit you. If you have a wealth of useful content on your website, and that content gets updated regularly, your visitors will stick around longer. This increases the chance they will contact you, purchase from you, subscribe to your newsletter, etc.

5. Potential for Conversation

Most blogging programs come with a comment feature built in. At the bottom of each post, readers can leave comments in a box provided for that purpose. So instead of the one-way communication of a traditional website (where I talk and you listen), you now have a two-way conversation taking place. You can probably see the business-building potential of this.

6. Potential for Leads

Can you generate leads and inquiries through a blog? Sure you can. We just talked about the two-way conversations that often takes place. When people fill out that comment form, they usually include their email address. There’s a lead source right there. People will also feel like they know you after reading your blog for a while, so they’ll be more inclined to contact you directly.

7. Return Visits

Blogging programs make it easy for people to stay in touch. For example, your visitors / readers can simply subscribe to your blog’s syndication feed to receive future updates automatically. There are also programs available that can convert your posts into an email newsletter format. That way, people can sign up to receive future posts just like signing up for any other e-newsletter. It’s a handy tool that can keep people coming back over and over again.

8. Versatility / Multipurpose

I already mentioned how you can use a certain type of “plugin” to allow readers to subscribe. In reality, there is a mind-boggling array of plugins available that can do all sorts of neat things. How you use your business blog is limited only by your imagination. Use it as a news add-on to your existing website, or use it as a full-featured website with pages in addition to posts.

9. Encourages Trust

Let’s face it. Consumers naturally distrust unfamiliar companies. And who can blame them? People hear the word “corporate” and think of Enron-like characters plotting schemes that screw the little guy while lining their own pockets. It’s a harsh reality, but a reality nonetheless.

How does a blog fit into this? Well, it makes you seem like a person instead of a company, for one thing. It shows you’re not afraid to step into the spotlight and speak with people about your business and your products. This is one of the reasons people like Bill Marriott (of the hotel chain) have started blogs in recent years.

10. Dare I Say Fun?

Do you enjoy sharing information about topics you know well? Do you like to write? Are you interested in web technologies and seeing your words published live on the Internet? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, there’s a good chance you will truly enjoy blogging. Who knows … you may even become addicted.

What do you tinhk about the above slot of my preview to Start a Business Blog?

Various Adsense Tips - Sharing Tips#8

2008-08-11T01:11:00.000-07:00

We have unpacked our Adsense Equation in detail and have given numerous tips for maximising Adsense Revenue. Whilst there are occasions that Adsense doesn’t perform as well on some websites for no particular reason as others we can safely predict that if you work on each of the four areas you should see an increase in the amount of the cheque that Adsense sends you at the end of each month. Remember though that your revenue will only be as high as your weakest link - work on all elements of the equation - not just one or two.

As well as the proceeding tips there are a number of other things that might be helpful to know in using Adsense that we couldn’t find a place for in previous posts.

Millions of dollars in online sales every day. Get your share.

Outgoing Links - One theory going around is that pages with fewer outgoing links result in higher click-throughs. Give your readers fewer options of links to click on and they are more likely to click on your ads. This MAY be true, but don’t let it determine your content. My Digicam site has many outward links because it is a page that acts as a hub of information from around the web. I’ve not noticed that this makes my revenue levels suffer - in fact I suspect its because of these helpful links that people come to my site.

Using Frames - If your site uses frames I’m told you should make sure your ads are placed in the frame where you content is or else it will not provide relevant ads for your content. Thanks Greg for this tip.

Don’t click your own ads. - It might be an obvious way to get a few click throughs and increase your Adsense revenue - but Google is very clever at working out if your clicks are genuine or not. Its not hard to track IP addresses and to see patterns emerging between where clicks are coming from. It is not worth the risk of being banned from the program for a few cents per click. Especially don’t click ads from the same IP address that you check your stats from - this is asking for trouble.

Don’t encourage your readers to click on your ads. Its against the agreement that you enter into with Google. Once again they will track you down if you break these rules. I’ve seen a number of people who have been banned from Adsense for this. Let your ads speak for themselves.

Monitor your Statistics. Many adsense users check their stats all day everyday. Whilst this might be overkill (its like watching grass grow) it is useful to track what is happening at this end of your campaign. Use channels to monitor which pages are doing well and which are not. Tweak pages that are not doing well and make more pages similar to those that do.

Alternative Ads - Use alternative ads for when Adsense cannot serve ads to your page. When they cannot find a suitable ad for your page Adsense will serve you with a ‘Public Service Announcement’ (PSA). These ads may be for a good cause, but they will not relate to the content of your page and will not earn you any money. Instead Adsense allows you to nominated an alternative ad that they will serve into the position instead of the PSA. I use Amazon for this, but also have experimented with affiliate alternative ads Affiliate Sensor which I find works really well as it lets you choose from a wide range of affiliate products and still target them to your site.

That is the end of our Adsense tips for Bloggers series. Feel free to submit your own Adsense tips and strategies in comments below. You also might like to check out some of the following alternative Adsense Tips pages for more tips from around the web. You might also like to check out the the Chitika eMiniMall Ad system which I make most of my income off these days. I reviewed it here and have a series of tips for getting the most out of your eMiniMalls.

Well Placed and Designed Ads - Sharing Tips#7

2008-08-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads

The forth element of our Adsense Equation is that of having well designed and optimally placed Adsense Ads. I’ve found that ad positioning is incredibly important. I remember shifting the ads on one of my blogs a while back and being over the moon to discover the next morning that the move had doubled the click through rates that I’d had over night! Its worth doing some tweaking.

Adsense Ad placement and design is an issue that is often hotly debated in Adsense discussion forums. It seems that each Adsense user has their own strategy - some like ads that blend in, others like ads that stand out from the rest of the page. Some like ads in banner positions, others in skyscrapers, others like to put them right in the middle of content. In my experience, different strategies work on different blogs at different times. The key tip I’ll give you is to experiment. Try new positions and design and track your results. One of the best ways you can do this is by using Adsense Tracker which is an amazing tracking package for adsense which gives you much more control over what and how you track your adsense performance. It does cost to purchase the tracker but in my experience you’ll make your money back pretty quickly by using it to adapt your Adsense strategies.

Let me also share a few other tips that you might like to experiment with.

Blend - Most successful Adsense users seem to be taking the approach of blending their ads into the overall theme of their page. This often means making the ad’s background (and often border) the same (or similar) colour to the background of the page and making the title and URL the same as links of the rest of the page. In this way the ad does not stand out as being ‘ad-like’. Having said this I know of a few bloggers who take the opposite approach and make their ads as bright and ugly as possible in the hope of attracting the attention of their readers. I don’t subscribe to this because I think it cheapens the overall feel and look of a page.

In Content - More and more bloggers (and webmasters) are putting their ads inside the main body of their posts. In this way the ads are prominent and more likely to be seen by readers as they read your content. If your text wraps around the ads this can be quite effective. On the flipside of this argument is that you may run the risk of frustrating your readers with dominant ads. People reading content online are a fickle bunch and get easily turned off by blatant advertising.

Above the Fold - it is generally accepted that your Adsense ads should be placed towards the top of your page and be visable without your reader having to scroll down. Studies show that blog visitors stay on average for only 60 or so seconds, many without scrolling down. If you ads are hidden towards the bottom of your page you decrease the likelihood of them ever being seen let alone clicked.

Placement-4Left is Best - Google has put together a ‘heat map’ which is probably the best thing that you can look at when thinking about the positioning of your ads. You’ll see from it that they have found that ads on the left hand side of the page do much better than those on the right hand side.

Too Dominent? - The position and design of your Adsense ads needs to be balanced with the overall purposes and design of your blog. What is the priority of your blog - is it to make money or is it something else. I have a number of blogs - and place ads differently on each depending upon their purposes. For example this blog is not a commercial blog - I’m more interested in building relationships, sharing and hearing others ideas and updating those interested in what I’m doing with my life. As a result my Adsense Ads are in a less prominent banner position and are designed to fit with the overall theme of the blog. However on my Digital Photography Blog there is obviously a more commercial intent (as well as it being something of a passion and hobby). As a result I experiment with more prominent Adsense ads (usually skyscraper and within content).

I cannot stress enough how useful it is to experiment. What works on one blog doesn’t always work on another. I’ve also noticed that if you have a blog with regular and loyal readers that it is good to keep things changing as your readers tend to get used to the way your blog is and become blind to things like Adsense Ads. I notice that when I move my ads around that it often creates higher click throughs for a few days - until the blindness kicks in again. Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense is an excellent E-book written with lots of good tips on positioning your adsense ads if you’re wanting to get another person’s opinion on this topic.

Relevant Ads - Sharing Tips#6

2008-08-10T23:26:00.001-07:00

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads

The third element of our Adsense equation is that of relevant Adsense ads. It is all very well to rank high in search engines to generate high levels of traffic, but without relevant ads that relate to the content of your blog you are not likely to generate much in the way of click throughs.

Let me give you an example. Recently I was asked to help a fellow blogger who has struggling with his Adsense ads because whilst his content largely focused upon the topic of ‘health care’ - most of the ads being served to his blog were focused upon ‘blogging’. He was getting quite reasonable traffic levels and had a reasonably high paying topic (there are some good health care ads out there) but as you’d expect, people coming to a blog about health care did not click on ads for blogging software and services at a very high rate. The challenge was to get his ads reflecting the content of his blog.

Another fellow blogger had the problem of not getting ANY ads being served to his site. Instead of paying ads all he was getting was the public service ads that Adsense serves when they couldn’t find any relevant paying ads (these pay nothing).

How do you get relevant ads? Here are a few things to try.

Make sure there are ads available - My friend who didn’t get any paying ads served was focusing on a key word for which there was no or very few ads. A simple way of checking this is to do a search on Google for the key word you are targeting. If they don’t serve ads on their own search results page its an indication that such ads are scarce - if not non existent. They way we got ads on my friends blog was to experiment with other related keywords. He didn’t have to change the focus of his blog - just the way he described his topics. For example if there are no ads for ‘bed linen’ try ‘blankets’, ’sheets’, ‘quilts’ etc. Experiment with different combinations until you find something that works.

Increase your Keyword density - The more you use your keywords the more likely you are to get ads on those topics. Its not common knowledge exactly how the Adsense bot decides what ads suit your content best (if someone knows feel free to post it in comments below) but it’s a pretty safe bet that if you put you keyword in your title, at least once in your first paragraph and then scatter it throughout the rest of your page that you’ll convince the Adsense bot of what your topic is. It MAY also be helpful to include your keywords in the URL of your page (Moveable type can let you do this - ie look at the URL of this page - it incorporates my title and therefore some keywords). It MAY also be worth putting your keywords in outward links, bold, italics etc. All of these strategies also help optimise yor blog for search engines which won’t hurt either.

Examine your Sidebars, menus, header and footer - It is not just your main content that the Adsense bot searches to find the topic of your page, but also your other areas. When I looked at the healthcare blog that was getting ‘blogging’ ads I noticed that he had the word ‘blog’ in his title, three times on his sidebar and once in his footer. It was also in his URL and he also used the word quite often in his content. My recommendation was to remove the word from as many of those places as possible and to increase his health care keywords. The ads improved their relevancy almost immediately.

Stick to one topic per page - Obviously this may not be feasible on your front page - but attempt to keep each individual blog entry/post as highly targeted as possible. I’ve noticed that some people often include two or three topics in one entry - this will confuse Adsense’s bot so split them up into two entries.

Block irrelevant Ads - Sometimes despite your best intentions Google just gets it wrong and serves your ads that have nothing to do with what you write. If you’re getting some repeating irrelevant ads block them. Adsense lets you do this to quite a few sites and its easy to do. I have a number of ads blocked, some because they are philosophically not consistent with what I write about, but mainly because they just are not relevant to the topic of my blogs.

Ask Adsense - If all else fails notify Google Adsense of your issue. Of course they are busy people - but Google prides itself on being responsive to its users. I’ve emailed with queries a number of times, once on an issue of irrelevant ads, and every time I’ve had positive results from my query. You’ve got nothing to loose - shoot them an email!

If you do all of the above you SHOULD find Adsense serves you with relevant ads. In conjunction with the other elements in our equation this will contribute to increased click throughs and hopefully higher Adsense revenue. Next in this series on maximizing Adsense revenue is a post on Well Placed and Designed Adsense Ads.

Do's and Don'ts - Make Money With AdSense

2008-08-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

In addition to the general rules published by Google, you should be aware of the common sense approach to any advertising medium. In order to make money with AdSense , for example, you need to comply with the Google directive that mandates that you create web sites that sell products, not just web sites that sell Google ads. In other words, with Google, content is king. However, unless you have a website that is designed for shock value, red type fonts on a black background is going to be difficult to read. Set your general layout and appearance to blend with the theme of your web pages.

(+1)Do follow the Rules
As with any action, in order to make money with AdSense sense, you need to understand and follow the rules that have been published about using AdSense . Do take the time to read and fully comprehend what you are doing rather than wasting your time and efforts developing a web site with associated AdSense ads that is clearly in violation of the rules. Saying 'Click here to increase my AdSense revenue' is a definite no-no according to the Google rules. It is also a guaranteed way to turn off potential customers.

(+2)Do Concentrate on Content
Those publishers who make money with AdSense are the ones who take care to provide web pages that are rich in content. They make certain that the content includes keywords and synonyms for the keywords that fit the subject and that are used in the proper manner to convey information. If your web pages are those on a subject that you know a great deal about, you can compose the content yourself. If you aren't too certain about format, ask for professional help in optimizing the content.

(+3)Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew
Some people who set out to make money with AdSense have been led to believe that you can set up one web site, place a few ads and within a matter of minutes, be earning income that will allow you to quit your day job and retire to Costa Rica. The reality is usually far different. However, don't make the mistake of thinking if one web site is good, fifty would be better. Especially when you are learning the ropes, don't try to do too much at once. You will end up doing a less than satisfactory job on everything.

(-)1 Don't Reinvent the Wheel
Many good tutorials have been written about how to make money with AdSense. When you are just learning the ropes, take the time to understand why you are doing what you are doing. After you have mastered the basics, then you can tweak things to your heart's content. You can certainly find new and different ways of doing almost anything, that's what the spirit of innovation is all about, but you will probably get off to a better start if you take time to do things the standard way at least to begin with. As long as you continue to study and learn new methods, your revenue will continue to keep pace.

All of these do's and dont's about how to Make Money With AdSense are available at http://www.goodinternetmoney.com/Learn-How-To-Make-Money-With-Joel-Comm-Adsense-Secrets-4-0.php

Top 3 Secrets to Building an AdSense Empire

2008-08-07T20:59:00.001-07:00

Google AdSense is a popular source of income for many webmasters online. However, few will actually succeed in building an AdSense empire that will make them a substantial amount of money. If have been trying to increase your online income by building an AdSense empire then you should take the time to read through some of the tried and tested guidelines below that will help you earn more money from your AdSense ads.

It has become a wide spread myth that when building an AdSense empire you must only create websites that are relevant to high paying keywords. However more often than not it is the webmasters that build sites around moderately priced keywords that earn the most money from Googles' AdSense program.

For example, you might build a website under the topic of 'computers'. The mistake many people make is to create only one site dedicated to computers. It is to your advantage to publish numerous websites related to computers. To illustrate further you might create a separate site about laptops, one for computer parts like hard drives, another about computer accessories such as keyboards and the list could go on. It is the concept of more is better that will earn you the most money when building an AdSense empire.

If you are just starting out, you have to understand that there is a lot of work involved in building an AdSense empire. You will need to do things like seo optimization, tracking and testing what works and what doesn't and then repeating this process until you get the optimal amount of clicks and earnings from your sites.

Here are some guidelines to implement that will help increase your profits:
1. Keep your AdSense sites easy to navigate. Do not promote anything else on these websites.
2. Track your ad formats and placement on your webpages using the channels feature in your AdSense account. This will allow you to see what ads are being clicked and which ads need some tweaking.
3. Take your business seriously. Building an AdSense empire is a real business.
You may also want to use some of the latest tools and software to help automate the keyword selection process, create good websites and do most of the tedious seo optimization for you. It is up to you, but investing some money in the right software will turn more profit in the long run and will also help you in building an AdSense empire faster. The objective is to make profitable websites and keep making more of them all the time.
Building an AdSense empire will not happen overnight. The best way to make the most money with your AdSense business is to follow the guidelines outlined above and keep build more and more websites.

In the last two years John Robert, through much trial and error has finally uncovered the secrets to building a lasting adsense empire. Learn how you can become a successful Adsense webmaster and get your free Adsense Income Blueprint by visiting Explosive Online Profits

Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You

2008-08-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

Based on Margaret Locher article, published in the November 26, 2007 issue of CIO Insider. We need pay attention to item 2 where she discusses the importance and usefulness of blogs in research:
________________________

Professional librarians and researchers will tell you that the Web has many unexplored opportunities for finding more information on business topics. Pursue these six techniques to improve your research results:

1. Use Search Engines and Wikipedia to Find Quality Research Sources
Search engines are a good place to begin. It makes sense to start at search sites like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com, and to see if there’s an article on Wikipedia. But use them to carry you to better places.

“Wikipedia itself is very hit or miss,” says Ann Cullen, an adjunct professor at Simmons College’s library science program and curriculum services librarian at Harvard Business School's Baker Library. “I have seen Wikipedia entries that shocked me because of what was not included. And others blew me away because they were so good.” Cullen adds that “Wikipedia is an excellent avenue for finding other resources, but Wikipedia itself should not be the source.”

Other search engines like GeniusFind and Beaucoup categorize topic-specific databases such as network solutions and software platforms, making them a good place to start.

2. Search Blogs for Specialized Experts Who Sift Through the Web for You
Blogs and forums are online homes for subject experts. One way to use Google as a jumping-off place is to perform a keyword search using its Blog Search function.

Blogs are a fantastic way to see what your colleagues around the world are thinking about on any given topic, from supply chain management to any kind of system implementation. But go in with eyes wide open: Google often brings you to sites that want to sell you something.

“It’s hard to separate ‘selling’ from trend discussion and learning,” says Jessamyn West, technology librarian and international speaker, who has a popular library blog (www.librarian.net) that keeps library professionals up to date on research and technology trends.

But again, Google isn’t the only search engine that allows you to move efficiently through blogs. Cullen at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library says, “The best blog search I’ve seen, which breaks it out by categories, is QuackTrack.” QuackTrack is a large browsable blog index, listing more than 11,000 blogs under technology and its subcategories.

If you can sift through the selling, a blog is a great way to get information, West says. Technorati, a site that aggregates user-generated content like blogs, has a popularity index for its material that is a good way to gauge how reliable the information you’re reading is. Cullen says, “If you can move through the noise on blogs, depending on the subject they might be a great way to get insight on what people are thinking.”

Blogs also save you time. “If you find people who blog on your topic, then they will link to other valuable and relevant sites. Then you don’t have to read 100 blogs, but you read the blog of the guy who reads 100 blogs,” says West.

Anther website that helps locate blogs is Blogdigger.

If you find a blog you like, subscribe to its RSS feed so you are alerted to updates. Checking to see how many subscribers or comments a blog has is another way to determine how much to trust what the blogger says.

Reading the comments can be as valuable as reading the blog itself. Blogs create an environment for dialog, so it isn’t just the author’s thoughts that are worth reading.

To that end, finding forums of real people's discussions is a great way to learn about trends and hot topics, as well as to get feedback on a specific software or company. For example, Cullen points to Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, which is a forum for business innovation conversations, broken down by topic and industry. Vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft have user forums. And users have their own forums, for subjects like extreme programming and software quality assurance.

3. Study Business School Websites
Academic institutions share their knowledge online. If you locate a school with a good MBA program, one that has incorporated technology elements into its curriculum, you can read the information being released by the students or professors. “Academics are often the only people publishing statistics on business technology,” West says. “And if they are into a particular technology topic, they are likely to blog about it.”

You can use Google to look for business school websites and their library branches; there are more than 200 of these universities and associations, and more than 200 MBA blogs. Each site has different research resources. Cullen also directs Harvard MBA students to BizSeer, a free online database of academic business literature (that also allows you to search business schools).

Or, pick a business school and look at its library’s electronic resources page. For example, Harvard’s Baker Library has a website page that links to professional researchers, such as New York Public Library’s Express Research Service which charges a fee for research.

“Many of the research databases that a business school has will be resources that companies use,” Cullen says. “At Harvard Business School, the resources we select are often the resources our students will be using in their jobs.”

What's Trustworthy Online?
How do you know what information you can trust online? Here are five tips from a research librarian:

1. The URL domain: If a URL ends in .edu, .gov or .org, you can bet the information you’ll find there is primary. Primary sources are more authoritative than secondary sources.

2. Website audience size and reach. This is especially true for blogs. The more people who link to it or subscribe to it, the more you can trust it.

3. Membership ranks. For trade associations, check out what companies are listed as members. Big names that you recognize will tell you the association is reputable.

4. Source materials. Think about Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is not trustworthy because it is written by anyone, not necessarily an expert, and includes articles by contributors with an agenda. Scroll to the bottom of the entry and go to the links that are cited under References. The more references (ideally to news articles or books), the more trustworthy the wiki entry.

5. Quality of links and listed resources. Generally, the more primary the information, the better. But you’re busy. So look for a good aggregator of firsthand information. For example, a blog might cite a book that cites a white paper. You can’t necessarily trust the blog, or even the book. And the white paper is the result of months of research.

If you can access that raw research itself, that’s the most perfect source of information, but “the white paper is where a CIO should go, not to the research,” says technology librarian Jessamyn West. “Half the trick of being CIO is finding good, secondary cultivators of primary sources.”

4. Find Statistical Data on Government Sources
Government sites publish public data. They may not have cutting-edge information on your topic of choice, but government sites are great for hard data and statistics, both current and historical.

Try the index at FedStats, or The Library of Congress’s Business Reference Services research center on science, technology and business. If you’re interested in greening your IT shop, check out the energy statistics on the Energy Information Administration's website.

And if you are searching for career or trend information, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a wealth of it. Career Guide to Industries, and Overview of Statistics by Industry or Occupation are good places to check out.

5. Research Trade Groups and Online Publications for Current Topics, Best Practices
Trade magazines and trade associations update you on current trends in professional thinking. They also are great for research in hot topics. (CIO.com fits into this category.)

Associations are communities where people come together to share their ideas and problems. Cullen says that not only are associations and publications great resources for a business researcher, but their trade shows are often invaluable as well. If you are unable to attend, check out the show’s website for the topics that are being discussed to stay abreast of what’s on people’s minds. Ideally, the site will have downloadable material you can browse.

Try groups like the Business Technology Association. An example of a more narrowly focused group is the 1394 Trade Association, composed of companies and executives who are interested in supporting an IEEE standard for consumer electronics systems. Such groups can help your own research agenda.

To find others, go to the Business.com search site and select the industry you are interested in and then click on associations. You can also search at the Union of International Associations and the American Society of Association Executives’ Gateway to Industry Associations.

6. Visit the Library for More Research Sources and Online Data
Libraries and professional services organizations are trained to help researchers. You should consider visiting the physical library, or at least the webpage for your local library or for the library at a top business school.

It may sound archaic. But libraries, especially in larger urban areas, have access to subscription databases that contain a wealth of trustworthy information that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere (and unable to access without free use of the library’s subscription).

Popular research databases like OneSource, Hoover’s, Standard & Poor’s and Data Monitor are excellent business information hubs. Print news aggregators like Factiva and LexisNexis allow you to perform keyword searches on business publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Harvard Business Review—three great publications for current business information.

If you’re overwhelmed, enlist the help of a real live librarian. If you’re short on time, visit Digital Librarian, a directory of online resources that are organized by topic. Virtual Library is a subject-specific catalog that is maintained by experts in each respective field.

While these sites are useful, nothing can replace a face-to-face interaction, says West. “Websites that organize information have very little in common with what you get when you talk to a real librarian.” She says, “They're both useful but I would never say, "If you don't have time to see a real librarian, go to a website and look through links." I'd tell you to visit one of the 24/7 reference sites where you can talk live to a real librarian.”

If you have the budget or need help preparing a report or presentation, consider enlisting the services of professional researchers, says Cullen.

If you are researching to improve your career, or you are interested in long-term tracking of particular business or technology topics, you should set aside time to research online. But you have to be strategic about your research approach or you can get overwhelmed, says Cullen. Generally, “it’s good to take an interest in research as part of your job,” she says, “because your competitors are doing it, so you too should keep as up to date as possible with public knowledge and opinion.”

Margaret Locher is a freelance writer who has a master’s degree in library science.

Let's get traffic for your blog

2008-08-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am here try make a compilation from many source, it may add by you as a real blogger.

1. Use lists.
2. Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
4. Break news.
5. Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
8. Announce news.
9. Write short, pithy posts.
10. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.

11. Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
12. Write long, definitive posts.
13. Write about your kids.
14. Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
17. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
18. Coin a term or two.
19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
20. Answer your email.
21. Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
22. Be anonymous.
23. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
24. Post your photos on flickr.
25. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
26. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
29. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
32. Write about Google.
33. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
34. Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
36. Run no ads.
37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
38. Write about blogging.
39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
42. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
43. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
44. Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
47. Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
48. Be patient.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
50. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
52. Write in English.
53. Better, write in Chinese.
54. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
55. Don't be boring.
56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.

Would you mind sharing your personal tips to us in the comments below?

The Secrets Behind Setting Up Your Adsense

2008-08-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

Adsense Secret #1

Color Blending is making your adsense match your content. Visitors have developed ad-blindness to adsense unless you make it seem part of the adsense content. Instead of having a border around the adsense, make sure it doesn't stand out too much on your adsense website.
If you website uses a lot of borders to separate content then maybe using a border for you ad will actually look better. If so then add a border. However most of the time having the adsense inside of content to where it looks like it is a part of the actual content is the best place to put it.

Adsense Secret #2

Adsense Tracking is how the adsense pros earn big with google adsense. What does tracking have to do with adsense? Everything! When you track your ads you start to find out what ads are actually performing and earning you money and what ads are not.
Think about it. If you could "fire" the ads that aren't making you any money and replace them with ones that will, you will be increase your profits. Tracking allows you to do this.

Adsense Secret #3

Adsense Positioning is another crucial step to increasing your adsense profits. But what areas are the best? Simple. Here is a heat map on the best performing adsense positions.
John Long is the webmaster behind TestingAdsense.com, a site that offers a free 5 day course on getting started with Google Adsense.
Article Source: Ezine Articles

Top Google AdSense Tricks to Boost Your Ad Revenue

2008-08-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

Since its creation, Google AdSense has created a new and easy way for many webmasters to earn money from their websites. There are many webmasters who make a living from AdSense alone, but there are also many who spend a lot of time trying to figure out the magic Google AdSense trick to earn more from their ads. Finding these Google AdSense tricks might seem like a difficult task but it is definitely not impossible.

Often times just putting the AdSense code on your site is not enough if you are attempting to use AdSense as your only source of income. One of the most important Google AdSense tricks is to experiment with a lot of different ad formats, placement and choice of keywords.
You should use the different formats to make sure your AdSense ads blend with your web pages. Google provides you different palettes to try font colors, backgrounds and borders. There is no point in placing an ad on the page which does not blend with your site because it will likely not be clicked by any of your visitors.

You should also take care when placing your AdSense ads. If you read through Google help on AdSense, you will find many tested Google AdSense tricks one of which is the heat maps suggesting the best locations for your adverts. It is a proven fact that, one place the visitors look first on the site is the top left position. Since this is the place that will have the visitor's attention, it definitely helps to place your AdSense ads there.
Another great Google AdSense trick is to place the ads on high traffic pages. You will be able to discover the pages with the most traffic on your site by looking at the logs or even your Google Analytics account, which gives you a page by page report of visitors that come and go from your site.

Whatever topic your site deals with, you should take care to build pages around this specific topic and include your keywords in the content as many times as possible without it becoming redundant. This is perhaps the best Google AdSense trick to assure that the ads placed on your page, are relevant and useful to the visitors on your site.
Yet another important Google AdSense trick that is often ignored by most webmasters is the AdSense preview tool. Google provides an excellent tool to help you preview the ads that appear on your page. This tool allows you to see the sample ads and formats, preview colors on your page, check the destination of the ads and even see how people in other countries will see your ads.

Besides using the above Google AdSense tricks, it is also vital to have a focus on what you want to accomplish. No matter how busy you are, you should always set aside some time to test your AdSense ads in order to improve your CTR. No matter what the experts say, following the basics is really the trick to getting the most from AdSense.

In the last two years John Robert, through much trial and error has finally uncovered the hidden Google AdSense tricks. Learn how you can become a successful AdSense webmaster and get your free AdSense Income Blueprint by visiting Explosive Online Profits

10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog

2008-08-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

Only 1 out of every 100 readers of this post are likely to interact with it by leaving a comment…

Below I’ll outline 10 ways you can increase the participation rate in the comments section on your blog.

Jakob Nielsen’s latest study finds that 90% of online community users are lurkers (read or observe without contributing) with only 9% of users contributing ‘a little’ and 1% actively contributing.

So 1% of your blog’s users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributers.

The study isn’t just on blogging so the actual numbers could be more or less than these and would no doubt vary from site to site anyway - but the principle is true. The vast majority of readers leave a blog without leaving a comment or contributing to it in any way (and some bloggers like it like this and switch comments off - read more on whether to have comments on or off here and the up and downsides of comments on blogs here).

To some extent this is just the way it is and we probably need to just get used to it - however when it comes to comments there are some ways to encourage more interactivity on your blog:

10 Ways to Increase Comment Numbers on Your Blog

1. Invite Comments - I notice that when I specifically invite comments that people leave them in higher numbers than when I don’t. To some degree this confuses me as most of my readers know that they can leave comments on any post - but I guess inviting a comment triggers a response to some extent. Also keep in mind that new readers that are unfamiliar with blogging don’t always know about comments or how to use them - invitations to participate in well laid out and easy to use comments systems are good for helping them participate.

2. Ask Questions - Including specific questions in posts definitely helps get higher numbers of comments. I find that when I include questions in my headings that it is a particularly effective way of getting a response from readers as you set a question in their mind from the first moments of your post.

3. Be Open Ended - If you say everything there is to say on a topic you’re less likely to get others adding their opinions because you’ll have covered what they might have added. While you don’t want to purposely leave too many things unsaid there is an art to writing open ended posts that leaves room for your readers to be experts also.

4. Interact with comments left - If you’re not willing to use your own comments section why would your readers? If someone leaves a comment interact with them. This gets harder as your blog grows but it’s particularly important in the early days of your blog as it shows your readers that their comments are valued, it creates a culture of interactivity and gives the impression to other readers that your comments section is an active place that you as the blogger value. As the activity in your comments section grows you may find you need to be slightly less active in it as readers will start to take over on answering questions and creating community - however don’t completely ignore your comment threads.

5. Set Boundaries - I noticed that shortly after I set the rules for my comments section (with a comments policy) that my comment numbers jumped up a little. I’m not sure if it was just a coincidence or whether readers responded to knowing what was and wasn’t acceptable. It’s just a theory but I think a well managed and moderated comments section that is free of spam and that deals with well with people stepping out of line is an attractive thing to readers. I personally don’t mind people expressing different opinions to one another in comments but when I sense things are getting a little out of hand and too personal I often step in to attempt to bring some order to the situation (I rarely delete non spam comments). I find that people have responded to this and that comment threads generally stay constructive as a result.

6. Be humble - I find that readers respond very well to posts that show your own weaknesses, failings and the gaps in your own knowledge rather than those posts where you come across as knowing everything there is to know on a topic. People are attracted to humility and are more likely to respond to it than a post written in a tone of someone who might harshly respond to their comments.

7. Be gracious - Related to humility is grace. There are times where you as the blogger will get something wrong in your posts. It might be spelling or grammar, it could be the crux of your argument or some other aspect of your blogging. When a someone leaves a comment that shows your failing it’s very easy to respond harshly in a defensive manner. We’ve all seen the flaming that can ensue. While it’s not easy - a graceful approach to comments where you admit where you are wrong and others is right can bring out the lurkers and make them feel a little safer in leaving comments.

8. Be controversial? - I put a question mark after this one because it doesn’t always work (and I personally avoid it as much as I can these days) - but there’s nothing like controversy to get people commenting on your blog. Of course with controversy comes other consequences - one of which is the risk of putting off less vocal members of your readership.

9. ‘Reward’ Comments - There are many ways of acknowledging and ‘rewarding’ good comments that range from simply including a ‘good comment’ remark through to highlighting them in other posts that you write. Drawing attention to your readers who use comments well affirms them but also draws attention of other readers to good use of your comments section.

10. Make it Easy to Comment - I leave a lot of comments on a lot of blogs each week - but there is one situation where I rarely leave a comment - even if the post deserves it - blogs that require me to login before making a comment. Maybe I’m lazy (actually there’s no maybe about it) or maybe there’s something inside me that worries about giving out my personal details - but when I see a comments section that requires registration I almost always (95% or more of the time) leave the blog without leaving the comment that I want to make. While I totally understand the temptation to require registration for comments (combatting spam in most cases) something inside me resists participating in such comments sections. Registration is a hurdle you put in front of your readers that some will be willing to leap but that others will balk at (the same is often said about other comments section requirements that go beyond the basics). Keep your comments section as simple and as easy to use as possible.

So - what do you think? How have you increased the levels of comments on your blog (had to ask)?

Bloggers are in it for Money - Survey: 46%

2008-08-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

Jim Kukral is releasing information from the BlogKits Survey of bloggers that he did a while back over at ReveNews and finds that 36% of blogger maintain blogs primarily because they like to write.

There’s nothing too profound in that - but the other categories show the increasing focus upon money that bloggers have with 28% saying ‘It’s fun and I can maybe earn a buck while I’m at it ‘ and a further 18% saying ‘to make money’. So that’s a grand total of 46% of bloggers who blog with money on their minds.

Of course this survey was done at BlogKits which is a blog advertising program so we should expect that a certain percentage of respondents would be interested in blogging for money. So whilst we probably can’t say 48% of ALL bloggers do so with money as a motivation (although it makes a nice headline) I think the figures do represent an increased focus upon commercial blogging for many.

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How do you Make Money from Your Blog?

2008-08-06T18:53:00.001-07:00

Time for a quick reader survey. I’m sitting here at FOOA and have heard a few presentations today highlighting different ways bloggers make money and how advertisers can target blog readers. These have been from companies like BlogAds, PayPerPost and Federated Media.

It strikes me that these three models are quite varied - but that they only scratch the surface in the different metthods that bloggers are using to make money from their blogs.

So here is my question:

How do you monetize your blog?

What ad networks, affiliate programs, review programs etc do you use?

Feel free to mention the specific services that you use and even give us a review of them if you’d like.

You must take a not that there is Do's and Don'ts - Make Money With AdSense.

YES, everybody knows that Bloggers are in it for Money - Survey: 46%

Would you mind sharing your tips and suggestion to monetize your blog?

10 Reasons to Self Host Your Own Blog

2008-08-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Since I am a blogger, I like reading other people blogs to keep abreast of current issues. There are some very nice, informative and well written free hosted blogs I have come across in the blogosphere. These blogs get decent amount of traffic (visible from the site counter). But I feel that these blogs can do better if they were self hosted. These are the reasons why those self hosted blogs gets more love than free hosted blogs.

1. Gain more Respect - If you have a free hosted blog, people would think that you are just dabbling in blogging. You probably just want to use your blog to pass time instead of staying idle doing nothing. But if you have a self hosted blog, people would know that you are a serious blogger and you have a passion for blogging.

2. Encourage Commenting - Commenting on blogspot can be a pain at times. You cannot enter your email address to receive your comment replies by email. Depending on the blog, you need to have a gmail address to comment on the blog.

3. Unlimited Email accounts - Not all hosting companies, but some provide unlimited email accounts.

4. Get Affiliate program approval - Affiliate programs like Azoogle, Sharesale requires you to have a website to be accepted into the program. Sharesale wants a proof that you have a website by requiring you to register with your website email address i.e. username@yoursite.com.

5. Include other scripts - On a self hosted blog, you can also include a forum on your blog to be interactive with your readers. You can also include an e-store on your blog to sell items.

6. Advertising Credit - Some hosting companies give free Google Adwords, Yahoo search and MSN adcenter credit to promote your blog.

7. Ability to Backup your blog - You have the ability to back up your blog and store it in your email address or on your computer. It would be devastating if you lose all your blog posts because your free hosting company went out of business. There have been many horror stories like that.

8. Better SEO (Wordpress) - You can use plugins to SEO your blog. You can use plugins like All-in-One SEO to SEO each post, link checker to check for dead links i.e. links that are not working.

9. Unlimited Amount of Pages (Wordpress) - You can also add unlimited amount of pages on wordpress as long as the allocated bandwidth from your host permits it. This is good especially if you want to chronicle about a topic. So you will have www.yoursblog.com/chronicle1/chronicle2/……chronicle end/

10. Selling Rights - After blogging for a while and you are tired or you have an emergency, you can sell your blog. On a free hosted blog, you have the ownership rights to the post only. The domain doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the free host. But on a self hosted blog, you have the ownership rights of the blog which includes the domain and the post. Sell your blog, earn money, and use the money how it suits you.

Do you know Adsense Revenue illustration? - Sharing Tips #3

2008-08-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

There are many factors that impact the level of revenue generated from a blog using the Google Adsense program. Books have been written explaining expert strategies for Adsense - However for the purposes of this series we’ve boiled it all down into four elements that we believe impact your Adsense earning capacity the most. Speaking in general terms here is a simple equation that illustrates how the factors each contribute to Adsense Revenue.

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

Its not Rocket Science. Each of the above four elements contribute directly to the total revenue that your Adsense Ads will produce. Don’t just work on one of them though because if any one is weak it will hold your potential earnings back. Lets break each factor down….

Traffic Levels - The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them. As I examine the statistics provided by Adsense that report my daily earnings I notice that my earnings in the past 8 months have increased considerably as my total page impressions have increased. For example earlier in the week when Slashdot linked up to this post I had an influx of 50,000 visitors in 24 hours to my blog - it doesn’t take a genius to work out what this did to my Adsense earnings that day! Work on increasing your traffic levels and you should see an increase in your Adsense Revenue.

High Paying Ads - Once again I’m stating the obvious, but if the content you provide on your blog attracts high paying ads you’re going to do significantly better. For example it has been documented that the PVR Blog is doing pretty well when it comes to high Adsense earnings - the secret of its success is partly due to it being served with ads that are high paying. The topic of the PVR blog is, as you’d expect, PVR technology including TiVo, Replay TV etc. This is cutting edge technology and therefore advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to get their products and services out there! In comparison if a person was to start a blog on ‘toothpicks’ I suspect the ads are not likely to pay very much. It would take very high traffic levels to earn as much from a toothpick blog as it would the PVR blog.

Relevant Ads - A second reason the PVR Blog is successful is that it servers relevant ads. To put it simply people looking for information on PVR technology are confronted by Adsense ads for PVR technology. I recently visited a blog that was having trouble getting relevant ads - they had a blog on Tourist destinations in Australia - but unfortunately they were getting Adsense ads for remote control cars. You can guess what their revenue was like. Increase the relevancy of your Ads to your content and you are one step closer to increasing your Adsense revenue.

Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads - One of the coolest things about the Adsense program is that they give you freedom in choosing the best position and color scheme for your ads. Just like in the wider world of advertising - positioning is a key element to an ads success. A Billboard positioned on a road where no one drives is not likely to get the same results as one positioned on a busy intersection. The position and design of your Adsense Ads is critical - if they are out of site they’ll never get clicked on.

Bringing them Together - The above four elements are in many ways pretty obvious when spelt out like this - the challenge comes to improving each to optimize Adsense revenue.

Your revenue will only grow as high as the weakest one of these factors on your blog. For example if you have high paying, relevant, well designed and positioned ads but no traffic you’ll not do well. Likewise if you have high traffic, high paying and relevant ads but they are poorly designed an in a position where they’ll never be seen - you’ll waste all your other hard work. Its not enough to work on one element.

How do we improve each? In the next four posts we’ll examine each area in turn and suggest a number of ways that you might try tweaking them to increase your revenue.

Is your blog suitable for Adsense? - Sharing Tips #2

2008-08-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

Is your blog suitable for Adsense? - Before you rush into signing up for Adsense expecting it to earn you a million dollars it is worth asking the question of whether Adsense is the right revenue strategy for your blog. By no means is it the only option - you might like to check out this tip on other ways of making money from blogging.

Whilst there are some amazing success stories about earning big dollars with Adsense out there, it is worth taking a realistic look at some cold hard truths about the Adsense program.
Google does not accept every site that applies to the Adsense program.

* Google Adsense Program Policies indicate that the content of sites must not contain things like excessive profanity, pornography, illicit drugs etc. Basically your blog needs to have content that is reasonably ‘family friendly’.

* Also in their policy document is a reference to them not normally accepting pages of a personal nature. This is the topic of discussion in many Adsense forums and is obviously open to different interpretations. Many (if not most) blogs are personal in nature - however to maximize your chances of approval by Adsense a blog should be targeted on a particular topic/s. For example whilst this blog is often personal in nature - most of my individual posts (pages) focus on very specific themes which are repeated throughout the blog. update - this may have changed recently with Blogger now allowing blogger blogs to use Adsense.
* Sites accepted into the Adsense program are also required to be easily navigable, have an adequate quantity of text based content (don’t apply if you’ve been blogging a week) and be written in English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, or Spanish. They may not to have excessive advertising or other contextual/competing advertising.
* Whilst not stated in the Adsense Policy document, many also believe that sites accepted into the program also need to have reasonable levels of traffic. If your blog is new, it may be worth waiting a few weeks or months before applying to build up traffic and content levels. Others speculate that a professionally designed, well-organized and privately hosted blog has a better chance of being accepted. The more professional and successful your blog appears the more likely it is to be accepted by Adsense.

If still in doubt after reading Google Adsense Program Policies you can email Google for clarification or just apply and see how you go.

Of course, acceptance by Google into the Adsense program does not guarantee your success. The fact remains that certain blogs will always be more successful than others at generating income.

Future posts in this series will focus upon strategies and tips for increasing your revenue but it should be stated here that the most successful sites are generally sites with very high traffic levels and/or content that is directly related to a particular product or service (the more targeted and niche-like the better).

It is also worth saying that Adsense works best on pages with lots of text content. It only reads text in determining ads, not images so make sure you have enough relevant content.

How do you make money from the Google Adsense Program? - Sharing Tips #1

2008-08-04T02:44:00.001-07:00

This review just another tips that I got from Prologger. The very generous share the tips for getting more money from Google adsense. Would you mind sharing the tips for Google adsense with us?

I have been asked this question so many times in the past few weeks that I thought I should write something on the topic. It seems increasingly bloggers want to try to cover their hosting and ISP costs with some revenue from their blog - and increasingly they’re doing it and are able to make a few (or quite a lot) dollars on the side. Many are turning to Google’s Adsense program.

Whilst the agreement you sign with Google stresses that you are not allowed to give specific information about your earnings from the program I can say that I’m glad I’ve signed up because its well and truly covered my costs - and then some. In fact I think its quite feasible to expect that Adsense coupled with other strategies for making money from Blogging could quite easily generate a decent living. It takes time and hard work, but I think its very doable.

So how do Prologger said to make money from Google Adsense? Let me share some AdSense Tips that have helped me.

This will be the first in a series of posts on this topic. Let me say up front I’m no expert - there are a lot of people out there making a lot more money than I am using Adsense - however most of them are not telling their secrets - well not for free anyway. I’ve got no secrets to hide and am willing to share what I’ve learnt since I signed up for the program just 3 months ago. If you want a REAL expert’s opinion on Adsense I’d recommend buying Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense E-Book. Joel earns $15,000 per month from Adsense and has some good things to share.

I know some bloggers are put off or offended by the idea of making money from blogging so I’ll try not to let these posts dominate my blog - however if you are not interested in the topic, simply skip over these posts.

I am going to assume a few things in this series to cut down the amount of introductory comments I have to make. Here is what I am assuming:

* You have a blog. Whilst most of the following tips will apply to other types of websites I run Adsense on blogs and will speak from that experience.
* You have (or will) read a basic overview of Adsense and have some understanding of what it is.
* You have(or will) read the program policies as outlined by Google. These give details of site eligibility, ad placements and other requirements for using the system.

Enough introductory comments - lets get stuck into the Adsense Tips for Bloggers!

Google Adsense Ads with Titles in Italics

2008-07-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

A DigitalPoint thread where some site owners have observed such ads on their sites.

Google Adsense is well known for inspiring a buzz whenever they test new formats and features in their Adsense ads. This time webmasters are observing that the titles of the ads are in italics.

I don’t think Italics titles will help get more clicks as it will break your blending with the content text. But on the other hand it might just provide that subtle difference (among multiple similar text links) which might attract a click. So maybe they want to test that out.

Google Adsense RSS shown at Feedburner Feeds!

2008-07-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

Feedburner has confirmed that Google Adsense advertising is being integrated in Feedburner feeds and that should increase the income generated from feed advertising. The entry of Google Adsense in the lucrative, yet underutilized feed advertising space will surely increase advertiser competition to target your feed readers.

Our feed supports advertising by Feedburner Ad network program for over a year, and is even featured in the Feedburner Computing & Technology Channel. But inspite of over 15000 RSS feed readers, the money earned via feed advertising is very little. Its great that this news came in just when I had decided to remove these low paying ads.

The main cause of low earnings is that inspite of enabling ads on all articles, the ad fill rate is very poor and most articles have no ads. Getting high paying advertisers might be a problem here. Though high CPM rates ($7-$10 CPM) are common, it seems the daily budgets are limited and scattered over the huge feedburner network of publishers, the ad fill becomes poor even with the highest of daily budgets.

Adsense for feeds is not a new initiative though, and in fact it has been tested in 2005 earlier with limited success (and some of those signup links still work!). We had also applied then, but the queue was too long and were not accepted. Now Feedburner says AdSense for feeds will be released to a small group of publishers.

The great part about this news is that though the premium CPM ads will continue to be sold, there will be the added bonus of contextually targeted ads from Google Adsense that will fill up the remainder of their inventory! Now that should fill up all those empty ad spaces. There will be no problem of ad fill any longer as there is always the huge inventory of Google Adwords advertisers to fall upon.

Feedburner also lets you place Feedburner Network Ads on your website, and you can fall back upon Adsense ads in case of lack of ad fill. Now a complete integration of Feedburner and Adsense in feeds will let anyone place Google Adsense ads in their feeds and also let advertisers directly target your feed.

It will be interesting to watch the events unfold. I believe Google has taken a giant leap in feed advertising and will surely revolutionize the way in which you can earn money from your feeds.

Google Adsense Testing New Ad Fonts

2008-07-31T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is how the Adsense fonts usually look like.

Google Adsense seems to be testing various font family types on our site. Instead of the usual arial font type which appears by default, I checked different pages and found ad units displaying various font types. I managed to catch a few snapshots.

And here are the different variations spotted on the same ad unit within 5 minutes. Can you identify the fonts?

Though matching site fonts to adsense fonts is a standard strategy to increase adsense CTR, there is no end to strange Adsense ads that we spotted over the years. You can check out more ads with 2×2 ads, favicons, no titles, titles in italics and no “Ads by Google” and interactive keywords.

Google Adsense Interactive Widgets Ads

2008-07-31T19:25:00.000-07:00

If you click the smaller images, they display in the larger image format on top of the widget and the ad title and text changes. The small arrows allow you to scroll across to more images. There are 4 link clickable areas - the logo on top, the larger image, the underlined url link at the bottom and the main title bold link. The Ads by Google link takes you to the Ad feedback page. Anyway they look much better than the Google Gadget ads.

It is interesting to see these Google Adsense widgets. It is a different variation with lot of click areas. Since this ad belongs to a tour site, the ad is nicely used to easily display different images with better interaction and only when the visitor is genuinely interested, will he click through. The CTR would be interesting to note, but the visits will be definitely well targeted from the advertiser point of view.

Google adsense usually runs limited tests and ad unit variation on select websites. Recently they were testing different font types in ads on our site. We have spotted several strange Adsense ads over the years like ads with 2×2 ads, favicons, no titles, titles in italics and no “Ads by Google” and interactive keywords.

How to Remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense

2008-07-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

Google adsense has become a very popular tool for making money from your site by showing advertisements. But sometimes you see PSA - better known as Public Service Ads on your pages. These ads are displayed because adsense has not been able to find suitable ads for your page. Without commiting these 15 Adsense mistakes, here are some ways to remove PSA.
Why Public Service Ads are bad?

* Most important fact is that there are no payments for clicks on PSA’s. So even if you have a good CTR (click thorugh ratio), it is of no use.
* It spoils the look of your site. Lets say you decided to place a big 160×600 vertical banner on your site and no ad showed, the PSA ads will have big monocolour fonts since one big ad wil be shown instead of 5 ads there, which looks bad to the surfer.

How to remove Public Service Ads?

* Develop sufficient good content with keywords on your webpage related to the topic of interest. Google is a great fan of good content websites.
* Ensure that META tags like ‘title’ & ‘description’ and the headings tags like h1, h2 etc. have content which matches the rest of your site. They are main ways google judges your pages content.
* Add specific keywords in your text which will help the google bot to determine and understand the content of your website. Repeat related keywords which will better help to understand site content. Do not fill your page with simlar keywords, it might work against your favour.

* Try to keep the entire website focussed on a particular theme, so that even if the content on a particular page is lesser, the ads wil show.
* Do not place multiple ad units if there are not suffcient ads to display on all of them. Also Google TOS do not allow placing more than 3 ad units on a page.
* Use section targeting - you can target an ad unit to a specific section of your blog, as well as block out irrelevant sections like navigational links. Useful to get more targeted ads.

Is your site Still showing Public Service Ads?

* Google may take time to crawl your site. Although most of the times the ads show immediately, at times it takes upto 48-72 hours for google to assess the content of newly created webpage. This usually occurs if your site has not been indexed before by Google. The time is reduced on newer pages of a site already running adsense. Google claims the ads will get better and more focussed to your pages with time.
* Your page may contain objectionable content. This may be against Google Adsense policies. If you feel your page has no such content, then look for any objectionable keywords or phrases which may be present accidentaly. Removing such content can cause PSA’s to dissapear.
* Your site maybe using a robots.txt file, which will may not be properly set up and prevent the AdSense crawler from crawling your web pages. Add the following two lines to the top of your robots.txt file:User-agent: Mediapartners-Google* Disallow:
* Frames may occasionaly cause difficult in indexing your page. Always remember to tick the Framed page checkbox from the Ad layout code page when generating your ad code. Similarly IFRAME’s also prevent effective indexing and cause PSA’s
* There may not be any ads configured to show in your region. Lets say that these ads may be working in United States, but maybe showing PSA is Zambia. This is because Google Adwords payers can select regions where to display their ads, where they believe their target surfers are. After all why should an eye surgeon in US want to promote his service in Zambia? Try using the Google Adsense Preview Tool (works on IE only) which helps to determine probable ads in different regions.
* Recheck your Adsense code was inserted properly on your webpage. Do no attempt to modify the code in any way, as it is against their terms of service. Adsense gives enough options to cutomisethe ad colours and sizes to suit your site. USe only the official code available from their site.
* Remove session ID’s from urls - they changes every time a different user views a page, and the URL will not be in the indexed everytime.
* Reduce your filter blocked urls. This feature is in place to allow you to block competitors ads from showing on your pages. If you block too many such urls, there may not be any advertisers left to display ads.
* Use the Google Adsense Sandbox tool Simply enter the URL or keywords in the box below, and you will see up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords.

Official ways to hide Public Service Ads (PSA)

* Suggest as altenate colour to display instead of your PSA. This will show an empty space with the background colour you suggest.
* Suggest an alternate ad to display instead of your PSA. Your ad will show in that space instead of the PSA if their is insufficient content.
* Place a collapsible ad. This ad will collapse and not show any PSA at all.

15 Effective Tips to Increase Google Adsense CTR

2008-07-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

How to make more money with Google Adsense? Get more clicks on ads. We all want to increase Google Adsense CTR i.e. click through ratio, because the higher times the surfer clicks the Adsense ad, higher is the payout to you. So here are 15 effective ways to improve your Adsense CTR.
How to increase Google Adsense CTR?

* Post Adsense ads them on text rich pages and make sure that Adsense had a bunch of keywords to work with. Getting Higher paying keywords is better of course.
* Get rid of public service ads, which pay you nothing for your efforts. Here are some ways to avoid getting PSA’s.
* Avoid titles like the approved ‘Sponsored Links’ and ‘Advertisements’ above the Adsense ads. Why do you want to tell the world they are ads when google already puts ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with them. These two terms are the only ones allowed by Google TOS. Any other terms will get your account terminated. Remember to avoid these 15 Adsense mistakes.
* Use section targeting - you can target an ad unit to a specific section of your blog, as well as block out irrelevant sections like navigational links. Useful to get more targeted ads.

What is the best Google Adsense Placement for CTR?

* Place Ads above the fold, i.e. you dont have to scroll down to see the ads. Moreover it loads before your entire page does. The more the visibility, the more chances a reader will click the ad.

Best Placement for Google Adsense
* Provide some free space around ads so that they stand out and users know where to find them. Dont clutter up the ads inside your content.
* Experiment by changing the location of advertisements. Track them by channels to see which location works. Sometimes unusual locations can can do wonders for your CTR. Google Adsense support provides some good ideas for better blending

Google Adsense Placement
* Many experienced Adsense users have reported better CTR with vertical ads rather than the horizontal ones. But that really depends on your site structure.
* Usually it is recommended to place towers on your right, as users tend to use the mouse to scroll the bar on the right side wiht a higher chance to see your ads. Some have reported doubling CTR’s by placing towers to the left rather than the right, as people have got bored of seeing ads on the right, it has something to do with the sidedness of the brain which I do not understand and there is a tendency to read from left to the right.
* Many sites will have small ads in the top right hand corner, as they claim it is the first place where the eye sees.
* An excellent article on Eyetracking - What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes helps to tell you where users actually see first and in what order.
* Forums are tricky becasue they have a different kind of navigation, readership and participation. Here are some ad placements suggested by Google which work best for forums

Best Google Adsense Link Colors to get higher CTR?
Google Adsense for Forums
* Match the colors of your ads with the colour scheme of your site. Blending with your sites color profile helps to identify them not as ads, but as links similar to those of your site. The more the AdSense looks like part of your site, the higher CTR you will get. You can also match the Adsense fonts with your website font design for great results.
* Blend ads with your page - remove the borders by having a similar color as your background helps to show ads as being part of your site. Do not blend text or the ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with your background color as it is against Google TOS (Google does not like hidden text!). However, such blending may not work for you always due to banner blindness. Neither do they see the ads, not do they click on them. So sometimes a bold contrasting ad may work better depending on your website design.
* Experiment by changing the colors, background of advertisements. You have to find out what works best for your site, not others. You can also rotate Adsense colors to reduce ad blindness.

I hope these tips help to get your Adsense CTR up by at least 100% if not more. Good luck and make more money!

Google Adsense Advertising on Yahoo! Search

2008-07-29T22:40:00.000-07:00

In a new deal, Google has given Yahoo! the access to use Google’s Adsense search and contextual advertising technology and now Yahoo! will display Google ads alongside its own natural search results in the U.S. and Canada.

Yahoo! can also serve contextually targeted ads on its U.S. and Canadian web properties as well as on its current publisher partner sites, though Yahoo will continue to operate its own search engine, web properties and advertising services. Yahoo! and Google also agreed to enable interoperability between their instant messaging services which will bring broader communication to users.

The Yahoo Press release says its very beneficial

Yahoo! believes that this agreement will enable the Company to better monetize Yahoo!’s search inventory in the United States and Canada. At current monetization rates, this is an approximately $800 million annual revenue opportunity. In the first 12 months following implementation, Yahoo! expects the agreement to generate an estimated $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow. The agreement will enhance Yahoo!’s ability to achieve its goal to grow operating cash flow significantly, while at the same time providing flexibility to continue to invest in ongoing initiatives such as algorithmic search innovation and search and display advertising platforms.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO says this deal is good for competition.

It may seem counterintuitive that doing a deal with a competitor would improve our competitive position. But as search and display continue their convergence, it puts Yahoo! in a better position to innovate and compete aggressively with Google and others for ad dollars. It also offers advertisers more choice and publishers gain better distribution and monetization to grow their business.
The official Google blog clarifies that

- This is not a merger
- This does not remove a competitor from the playing field.
- This does not prevent Yahoo! from making similar arrangements with others.
- This does not increase Google’s share of search traffic.
- This does not let Google raise prices for advertisers.

Earlier Microsoft failed to buy out Yahoo! and the battle of internet giants continues in the lucrative advertising space. Who will finally win… time will tell.

Cuil Search Engine Challenges Google

2008-07-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

A new search engine called Cuil launched today and claims to index over 120 billion web pages. Sporting the same clean look with no advertising, Cuil challenges the biggest search engine Google in the search engine game.

Google says the first Google index in 1998 had 26 million pages, by 2000 they crossed the billion mark and now Google is indexing over a trillion pages! Considering a new search engine indexes 120 billion pages is impressive indeed. But will it deliver the accurate and in depth search results that Google is famous for. With Ex-Googlers behind Cuil, it surely promises to be a good search tool.

I tried to test some sample keywords and Cuil crashed… “Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.” Like all first day releases, the peak traffic is difficult to bear by most servers, especially when you are out to challenge Google.

Google Adsense Interactive Widgets Ads

2008-07-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense is testing again and a new Google Adsense ad widget format was spotted which promises to be more interactive, with scrollable photos and looks much less like an advertisement.

Technotip reported these strange Adsense widgets. I visited the site myself and spotted this 728×90px Leaderboard ad unit.

And another one 300×250px ad unit in the sidebar.

If you click the smaller images, they display in the larger image format on top of the widget and the ad title and text changes. The small arrows allow you to scroll across to more images. There are 4 link clickable areas - the logo on top, the larger image, the underlined url link at the bottom and the main title bold link. The Ads by Google link takes you to the Ad feedback page. Anyway they look much better than the Google Gadget ads.

It is interesting to see these Google Adsense widgets. It is a different variation with lot of click areas. Since this ad belongs to a tour site, the ad is nicely used to easily display different images with better interaction and only when the visitor is genuinely interested, will he click through. The CTR would be interesting to note, but the visits will be definitely well targeted from the advertiser point of view.

Google adsense usually runs limited tests and ad unit variation on select websites. Recently they were testing different font types in ads on our site. We have spotted several strange Adsense ads over the years like ads with 2×2 ads, favicons, no titles, titles in italics and no “Ads by Google” and interactive keywords.

Google Adsense...:)

2008-07-29T02:36:00.000-07:00

Here's an all about Google letter. It didn't start out that way, but when my fingers got typing that's what flowed out of them.

My brain could have had something to do with it too. But not a lot. It's still quite muddled from being ill.

Hope you find this stuff below useful.

1. Google Adsense stuff

I've heard that Google have been getting tough on Adsense sites recently, investigating sites displaying Adsense and removing ones which don't meet the criteria.

You see, what's happening is that people are getting approved for one site, then adding the code to other sites they own.

That's fine by Google as long as the new sites have nothing wrong with them/don't break Google's small print.

Well some of that small print is mighty small and two friends have written to me this week to say their sites have been banned in the past 7 days.

Why?

Well both for the same reason. They both put a lot of work into building new content sites and put the Adsense ads up on almost every page.

But it was obvious that the sites had no purpose other than displaying the Adsense code.

They didn't try to get subscribers to their ezines, they didn't promote affiliate programs, etc.

All they did was have good quality targeted content + Adsense.

Now you might think there's nothing wrong with building a site like that, but Google just doesn't like it when it comes to Adsense.

One friend sent me the letter Google sent him. Here's part of what Google had to say:

"Ads may not be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant."

______________________________________

Ok, so seeing that having quality content isn't enough, what can you do to make sure your own Adsense sites don't fall foul of the rules?

______________________________________

Well what you have to do is give your sites an extra purpose.

Here are a few ways of doing that:

# also display some affiliate links on the pages, and include an affiliate graphic or two.

# perhaps run a news ticker. You can get good ones from a number of sources, but one of the best is http://www.moreover.com which
has newsfeeds covering a huge variety of niches.

# link to authority sites on the subject, even though they're probably not linking back to you.

# start an ezine and have a subscribe box displayed prominently on each page.

# if your site is about online business/marketing give away a free ebook or two. But make sure they're quality one's you can customize with your affiliate links so that you stand a chance
of profiting from them.

# have a poll running on your site. I use a good one from One Minute Poll

If I were you I'd do all of them.

2. Google Adwords Traffic:

One way of GUARANTEEING plenty of visitors from Google is by buying Adwords.

If you do it right you can make a fabulous income. If you do it wrong, you'll be well out of pocket.

Recommended Adwords Resources ->

Chris Carpenter's GoogleCash ebook, which details how Chris makes a living from Adwords. An excellent resource.

I'm a big user of Google Adwords to promote my many mini sites. And it's now made easier because of the help I get from using GoogleCash and AdWords Analyzer. Read the page listed below to
follow this strategy (it works).

http://www.ozemedia.com/google-adwords.htm

3. Google and blogging...

Google is still ranking frequently updated Blogs very high. And having your own blog (and keeping it to the theme of your main site) could be a great way of getting more traffic.

To learn how to do it well I'd like to recommend you read James Maduk's Blogging Secrets which is a really good multimedia ebook. Very tasty.

Like his excellent Google course "How to Get Ranked #1 On Google" it's a combination of Audio / Video / Whiteboard Training and Screen Captures. (plus you get 4 Hours of bonus audio
interviews from his private E-learning sessions.

If you're thinking of blogging for profit you need to read this first.

4. More Google Stuff...

Your commercially oriented sites probably took a rankings kick in the guts in the last Google update.

Don't worry, you're not alone. This site lets you enter the main keywords for your site and see how many other sites with the same keyword phrase have dropped in rankings.

Not really useful, but interesting.

http://www.scroogle.org/

More useful - in fact a MUST READ if you're at all interested in learning more about how and why Google's latest update is affecting your sites - is a detailed online report "A Statistical and Experimental Analysis of Google's Florida Update" written by Leslie Rohde who developed that marvelous ranking software Optilink.

There's no charge to read it, though Leslie could easily have packaged it up into a "special report" and sold it.

When you've done with reading it though, I seriously suggest taking a look at Optilink.

Leslie is one of the most knowledgeable search engine people around, and the Optilink software works a treat.
_______________________

Looks like an Adsense competitor is on the way early in 2004 http://www.quigo.com/adsonar.htm

Overtures efforts in this field are in beta, with some major sites already running content matched Overture advertising, (and rumors that it's going to be opened up to all of us) and Commission Junction have got a contextual advertising/content matching solution in the works - though unlike Adsense it's very unlikely
to offer pay per click.

You can get more on Overture's Content Match here and while you're there you might want to consider advertising on them. I've had an account there for years now and get tons of traffic to my mini sites. A friend of mine, Paul Manuel, wrote a free report
detailing how he makes a great living from his Overture advertising. you can get it here.

Ok, one last Google thing: Trackmeat.

It's no cost software that saves you logging into Adsense 50 times a day to check how your commissions are doing.

Once you install it and click "Go" it minimizes right away, and your AdSense income will update down in the taskbar and system tray at intervals set by you.

It also works for Commission Junction.

(note: I haven't used this software, so I'm not recommending it, just informing you that it exists)

About the author:
Phil Wiley is the author of the best selling book Mini Site Profits www.minisiteprofits.comand writes the free weekly Letter from Phil at www.ozemedia.com

Winning the (r) Google AdSense War

2008-07-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

Some owners of content sites are earning four and even five-figure incomes per month selling "nothing." They're doing this by selling their targeted traffic to other websites through Google's AdSense program.

If you're not familiar with (r) AdSense, it's where (r)Google pays website owners ("publishers") to run ads on their sites. Google accepts paid ads from advertisers, and then shares this revenue with the publishers who allow these ads to be displayed on their sites. They pay based upon clicks generated from the publishers' sites.

Many publishers have discovered that running Google AdSense ads is more lucrative, and less trouble, than marketing their own products or services. So an entire industry has sprang up around monetizing websites using AdSense and other pay-per-click programs.

The "industry" is mature enough that seminars are even held that teach how to best monetize your content sites. You can read more about it at: http://WillieCrawford.com

Since MOST people I've communicated with aren't earning four or five-figure incomes per month, let's examine how you increase your chances of earning these amounts.

First of all, your website has to be on a topic (a niche) where people are spending lots of money. There are niches where advertisers often spend $40 - $50 per click... just to get visitors to their websites. Obviously, these visitors buy "things" on these websites that make it worthwhile to pay that much for the traffic.

In case you're wondering what keywords any "sane" marketer would spend $50 on a single click for, read on...

Certain visitors to websites, that later convert to customers, could literally be worth thousands, even millions, to marketers. These marketers know the lifetime value of their visitors, and have the conversion rates calculated! Markets where customers can be this lucrative include legal/lawsuits, medical, higher education, real estate, new and used vehicles, investments, travel, and products offering residual income. There are many others.

I actually have a list of over 9000 keywords that I consult when building a new site, or optimizing an existing site. Doesn't it makes perfect sense to create sites that attract visitors with a high value-per-visitor?

You can grab a copy of my list along with a few personal notes on how to monetize these high-value keywords at: http://9000TopPayingKeywords.com

The keywords on the list above range from 93 cents to $108 per click. There ARE higher priced keywords but you probably don't want to focus on them since the competition can be incredibly cutthroat. There are niches where your competitors will actually sabotage your efforts. Money does that to some people :-)

It makes economic sense to build a site around topics where people are actually spending money already.

It makes sense to target a market where people have money to spend - and they expect to spend it on products similar to yours. In that sense, you can even set up site designed to generate traffic for governmental agencies, foundations, charities, etc. It's all about getting in front of the traffic and then re-directing that traffic to those willing to pay for it.

When setting up content sites, it's important that you not violate the terms-of-service at the pay-per-click management firm that you plan on using. For example, Google actually tells you that you should not build sites just for their AdSense program. Yet, they need sites to display their customers' ads in order for their program to work.

It's a delicate balancing act. Google wants to deliver relevant clicks to their customers. They know that traffic coming from "junky" or "spammy" sites may not convert as well for their customers. This would lower their customers ROI, and lead to many unhappy customers. This would drive Google's customers to their ever-growing competitors.

Google wants webmasters that have quality, targeted traffic to run AdSense Ads. When you set up a free blog on Google's Blogger.com they even have the AdSense invitation "programmed" into the signup process.

So how DO you win the Google AdSense War and get your share of that multi-billion dollar advertisers' revenue stream? You build high-quality content sites that focus on niches where people are spending money. It's as simple as that. You let those already doing it teach you what works best - it's a easy as that!

About the author:
Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing
techniques to thousands of successful Internet
entrepreneurs since late-1996. Grab a free copy of
his comprehensive, 20-Lesson Internet Marketing
Success Course now at: http://WillieCrawford.com

Tips for maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenues

2008-07-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

Despite what you may hear, the Google AdSense program is not for everyone. There are some types of web sites that do poorly no matter how hard the owners try, and there are others that should be doing well but the webmaster simply isn’t putting in the effort to make things happen.
Here are some tips to make AdSense work better for you. If you do them all and you’re still not having any luck, then you just might be running one of those sites that don’t make money

1. Determine if your visitors are “in the mood”

Like I mentioned at the top of this article, some web sites just don’t work with pay-per-click programs.
The best performing sites fall into one of these categories:

• Sites where users go and expect to buy something while they are there. E-commerce sites fit the bill here..
• Sites where users go to find specific information on something that they want to buy now. Music and video review sites, vacation information sites, resume building sites, etc. You don’t have to actually be selling these types of things; your site can just be a mecca for information pertaining to these things. Then, when the visitor comes to read your content, they are more likely to click on your ads.

• Sites where people who have disposable income and a credit card like to visit. This includes sites with money management, investing and lifestyle content.

• Sites that draw a large amount of new users every day. Free coupon sites and “How to” sites are good examples.
• Sites where people go who expect to read ads. Classified ads and shopping comparison sites fit into this category.

2. Make sure that your visitors don’t feel that you just want to grab their money

Give them plenty of relevant and well-written content. If writing isn’t your best skill then hire someone to do it for you. Good content brings steady traffic and steady traffic pays the bills.

3. Play by the rules

Google has some very specific Terms of Service (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) for participating in their AdSense program. Learn those rules and follow them so you don’t lose all of your investment by getting shut out.

4. Use the tools that Google gives you

Google gives you tools for determining the best keywords for your site, measuring ad performance, and setting up different ad “channels” for fine-tuning ad results. These guys and girls are the 800 lb. Gorillas in the Pay-Per-Click market. They didn’t build these tools just to keep their programmers busy. Take advantage of their knowledge for they are very big and you are not!

5. Tweak, fine-tune and then tweak again

You should never be happy with your AdSense performance. If it’s good, then you need to make it great. If it’s great then you need to make it amazing. If it’s amazing then you need to take it to the UPS club. The UPS club? Google sends all checks over $10,000 per month to the webmaster via UPS overnight delivery. Now there’s a club that I wouldn’t mind belonging to.

6. Get more traffic

No matter how much traffic you have, you need more. More eyeballs translate to more clicks. Even if you’re only pulling a 2% click-through. That’s a lot of clicks when you have thousands of visitors each day.

7. Experiment with new keywords

New keywords can bring new ads and new eyeballs along with it. Set up some new pages on your site and experiment with different content. Once you get something that’s working then refer back to Tip # 5.

You can see results in near real time when you use Google’s AdWords. Don’t be afraid to be different. If something that everyone else is doing doesn’t work for you, then invent something that does work and get it on your site.

About the author:
Diane provides marketing and internet profit tips.
For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense.deeljeabiz.com
Email : deeljeabiz@gmail.com

What is Google Adsense?

2008-07-29T00:22:00.000-07:00

A Google program for site and blog owners to generate income from their business or personal web site or blog. It consists in placing contextual Adwords ads on one’s site and share revenue with Google.

One of the most well-known and popular advertising networks on the internet, Google’s AdSense offers its users a way to monetize their sites through both ad links and the Google search feature. Its main draw is that the advertisements it offers are targeted to fit the content of the page on which they appear and the search terms that are entered into the search field.

How To Join?

First and foremost, you MUST have a blog/website. Your blog must not be empty as the Google team will check on your website before approving your application to become a publisher. Please create at least 5 to 6 posts before applying to become a publisher.

To become an AdSense publisher, prospective users must complete a short online application on their website. Click Sign Up Now to go to the sign up page. Fill up the form and submit.

After 2-3 days, AdSense will process the application and reach a decision on whether to support the site or sites, as AdSense will support multiple sites for only one user. You will receive approval letter through e-mail.

After they accept, users simply need to log on, select which type of ads they wish to display, and customize their options. Have a try!

Technorati Profile

Top 10 SEO tips

2008-07-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

I’m a big fan of simplicity when it comes to SEO. I am not into following every latest trend or trick. I think far too much detracts from the most important part of blogging - writing.

Therefore, when I work with my bloggers, I keep it simple.

TOP 10 SEO TIPS:

1. Set out strong categories. It’s a very basic step, but often not considered effectively.

* Keep it simple
* Research - know your top search terms, and compare like searches
* Emphasize your keywords, even if it requires repetitiveness (like celebrity names or show names used in various ways)
* Organize - I have moved towards using category hierarchies on almost all our b5 blogs in order to increase the number of categories for SEO while also maximizing navigation ease for the readers

2. Name your images. This populates greater keywords into the post, and also promotes Google Image traffic
* image-name-01.jpg where "-" is a space and numbers are used for multiple images
* "Image Description Text" in Title / Alt Text areas
3. Use effective titles. Short, with strongest keywords first.
4. Use text effects (bold or header code) - also good for readers on longer posts
5. Use bullets and other lists, when appropriate - they tend to lean towards search friendly phrases
6. Use tags - both general tags (which lend themselves well to general searches) and specific tags. As many as appropriate.
7. Promote yourself - use services such as Digg, Reddit or Stumbleupon, as well as forum participation, to promote your post.
8. Participate on other blogs - leave useful comments on other sites. In many cases, this becomes a link back, and in best cases, will lend to those authors noticing you and linking to you in future
9. Watch your text length - don’t let images or video clips live on their own. Describe them in enough text for search engines to appropriately identify your posts.
10. Use Pages to summarize and link to important posts

* Depending on your setup, these can be more optimally positioned for SEO as they will usually be blog-name/page-title.
* Effective pages will give you the opportunity to highlight your most popular content - to link to many posts on your site. Examples include Top 10 lists, Popular Post excerpts, TV Spoilers, Celebrity Biographies

SEO does not have to be complicated. The best SEO tips are things you can do every day to make your site better.

At b5, I can skip past one important area (posting regularly), because of our contract & topic areas, but for many sites, this should not be overlooked.

Let's get traffic jam from Technorati

2008-07-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

First time, you open Technorati page, you'll notice that it works like Google. It get traffic and redirect it to blogs. That's ok and cool, so you can get a huge income of visitors through this portal. But... you are getting exactly 0 visitors! Do you know why? Ok, you don't and also you want to get traffic from Technorati; but there's somethings to accomplish. Here's the simple steps to follow to drive a load of traffic from Technorati.

First our aim is to have +200 visitor from this site as its' Alexa rank is 448, so it has a lot of traffic and it must drive so :)

1. Be favorited and authorized!
Ok be favorited is known, you must get your blog favorited by other users.
Note, that not all users have blogs and many users use Technorati to check the latest posts in their favorite blogs. So 100 fan, means 100 reader in Feedburner.
That's good but how to do that? (isn't hard!)
* Favorite 50 blog per day (they may favorite back)
* Add Technorati Favorite button to your blog
* Exchange favs in forums or chat rooms :)
If you do that daily you should have an additional 20 fan every day. So keep the work for a month or two until you get 1000 (1000 is so much, 100 is good)
What's Technorati authority? It's the number of blogs linking to you, despite their authority or rank. Try to get external link, you'll get it up!

2. Technorati Top searches keywords
If you want some traffic from Technorati, then you won't write about anything. Technorati gives you some hints, here's how. Go to Technorati popular page. You'll find their, top 100 popular blogs by fan, Top 100 popular blog by authority and top 15 searched keywords.
Don't know Technorati top searched keywords? Do you?
The top searched keyword on Technorati is news, sound cool? no? People are searching for news, but that keyword isn't clear. Any news? There's many kind of news, so what will you talk about. Never mind, but whenever you post tag your article with news! As people search it :-)
There's also other strangehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.quote.gif keywords like Dawn Yang! Does this have any meaning for you. What's Dawn Yang? Ok according to Google Dawn Tang is a girl that blogs. But why poeple search for it. Ok you have to investigate!

3. Link to other blogs!
Yes link so much to other Technorati blogs. Technorati will give you back traffic. Don't try to link to top 10 or 100 technorati blogs like Tech Crunch or Gizmodo, this won't give you traffic, because people links to them too much and your link will be passed in short time.
However to get traffic you need to include from 20 to 40 links to other blogs. Then you'll get as few as 10 or 15 from Technorati, that's because people aren't interested so much on Backlinkers blogs!
Here's some blog of my choice: Google Blog, Reader Blog, Gmail Blog.

Mobile Ads

2008-07-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

The mobile phone may be small, but I sure is going to be the next big thing for advertising company. Mobile phone has become the most ubiquitous device that stays with us all the time, it is the best tool to reach consumer.

Do you know how many people have a mobile phone imagine you start to put your ads in this mobile phone?

The three major internet based providers - Microsoft, Google and Yahoo - consider the mobile advertising service as a lucrative investment that can possibly increase their revenue even more than the online advertising.

The search engine gorilla is starving again now is launches Google ads for to mobile devices.
Google’s new Mobile Ads system delivers two short lines of text and a third line containing a destination URL to mobile phones and wireless PDAs.
For the advertisers the Mobile Ads appears only for local business or services like phone number in front of mobile users this way can impulse purchases.

Sucess by getting Advertising

2008-07-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

Advertising to get success is very important for your business. If you are lucky is working fine and naturally. When people talking about your product or service, they are interested and your business takes off. But, sometimes is not always like that. For that reason you need take action, to pro-actively put your own advertising into motion if you want to avoid disappointment. What you need to do is investment from your side, probably in terms of money and also in terms of time. So how you advertising get success?

Your advertising get success is depending different options you going to used to successes.

The return on investment of your advertising success can only increase when is awareness of your solution in the market that ‘s mean a additional subscriber to boots your sales revenue. How we can achieve that without to many efforts and to maximize your gains. Well is depending what you are selling; and the mean time you’ll need to compare the different options available to you in the market. They can be very expensive or free.

My advice for advertising get success is start with the free option to learn how the market reacting. For example you are on the mailing list of an newsletter, you’ll know how it arrives regularly in your inbox, with information that is of interest to you. Because you signed up for it as it corresponded to your needs or interests and the subscriber probably had you confirm once again that you really wanted it. When you find an ezine that corresponds to what you are selling, you are more chance to find by association an audience that is immediately interested in about your products or services. Only after that, you can choose between paying for an advertising or writing an article where the ezine editor will include the link back to your website for free.

It is the most popular system in Internet Marketing. You can also write informative articles for sites like ezines articles for your advertising to get success. Make sure you bring a good valued information for your subscriber. And when you pay it is for the “pay-per-click” campaign from companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN that allow you to get instant exposure to a market that’s looking for your keywords. If the name you suggests, you pay when someone clicks on your ad. Make sure you write your ad according to a keyword that is related to your blog, or website because it is only that way for your Advertising to get success.

What are about the market well you can also put out press releases if you have newsworthy information. There are same to ezine marketing, in that editors will have a critical eye as to what is good news and what is not. The customer looking for good quality information’s, they don’t have time to figure out what your message is about.

My advertise keep it short, sharp and they will see quick relevance and page rank, this the way your advertising get success.
Source: Jon Claude

Money Ads Secrets

2008-07-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

Money Ads Secrets, find a best way to make money with ads is take time sometimes very depressing. Even you write a good article for your readers and link to great ads and you waiting they buy from you, thing like that doesn’t work anymore. You need to go behind the lines and constantly chasing the best keyword for your articles and same time sign up with the best affiliate program. Don’t worry if some affiliate program don’t want you sign with them but I am sure you can find a lot of they want to sign up with you, so keep looking for the best one.
Before let’s talking about how I manage my campaign ads and how you can make money with ads without to much effort.

Keep ads space
If you want to sale some ads in your blog find a good place for the ads somewhere people can quickly see your ads and click on it.For that a grey chunk of space with the phrase “advertising here” catch eyes of the future advertiser this thing is fine but and the same time don’t make tens ads because it is to much…
For example I am a big football fan and every Saturday I follow my team so I post video about my team link with some football products.

Pictures Ads
In this business some guru say “ads as pictures are not good thing” this is a completely rubbish, if you make money with that strategy why not use them.
For example Amazon or All Posters especially for some blogs they talk about holiday or favourites books. Just explain to them how it made you feel or what you learned from it. Then link to the ad for that book.
Includes are a simple piece of HTML code that you can use on your Web pages to place ads, menus, pictures or just about anything you want
This is some money ads secrets idea but you can find more strategies like Google search box, products review to increase your ads revenues.
Source: Jon Claude

What's an Ad revenue sharing Website need to know

2008-07-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of my "How to make money with Squidoo", a lens in which I'm aiming to rich the top 100 with it, so I'm publishing it into various parts so far.
The first part describe what's an ad revenue sharing website. What's the advantages of joining an Ad revenue sharing websites and what are the drawbacks or doing so.
In the next article, I'm going to list the best of the Ad revenue sharing websites.

Blogging is very popular those days. More than 50 millions blogs are up and running on the web. However managing a blog isn't that ease. You are not just the writer, but the editor-in-chief, you are the advertiser, the responsible of communication between writer (you) and reader, moderator of emails and comments, you promote your blog yourself, you maintain it all on your own. This will need extra time and knowledge than a simple writer.

Thus a solution was provider for writer, that don't want to enter the world of blogging. Ad revenue sharing website, it's the most known and famous solution to quickly publish your page and start making money online. An ad revenue sharing website, is a website that shares its' ads revenue with users. You can look on samples of ad revenue sharing website.
But what are the advantages of ad revenue sharing websites?

* No need for knowledge on blogging and internet secrets, just write.
* No need to design, to integrate widgets.. all is near you.
* No need to get a high Page Rank, the website already have it.
* Easy promotion of your pages.

So why 10 million chose to create a blog?

* Revenue are shared
* Some restrictions on what you write and publish
* Not completely free on design and widgets
* You still attached to the website

Heh?! Interested? Here you go, is among the best and most popular of those websites. You can sign up for an account, it's free and easy to use.
Already a blogger? is also a solution to maximize your earnings, improve your page rank and boost your traffic.

10 Businesses You Can Start For $500 Or Less!

2008-07-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

Long time statistics have shown that 9 out of 10 new businesses fail in their first year. Lack of planning and financial ruin is one of the most common causes. Starting small is a way to insure minimal risk in new business. The founder of Dell computers was a college dropout on a shoe-string budget who started his business out of his garage. One in three computers sold today is a Dell.

The following is a list of just some of the businesses you can start for $500 or less.

1. Housekeeping - Requirements/ household cleaners, mop, broom, vacuum, towels, bucket, business cards - approximate cost $150.
Molly Maids is a multi-million dollar business started with a broom, a mop, and quality and reliable service. I can guarantee you that the CEO of Molly Maids doesn't clean houses any longer.

2. Gardening or landscaping - Requirements/ mower, edger, blower, rake, shovel, clippers, business cards - approximate cost $450.
Some education won't hurt you here, but even without it, how much money did you make mowing the neighbors yard when you were young?

3. Internet sales - Requirements/ computer - approximate cost $500.
It's likely you already have a computer at home so this just might be the cheapest and easiest business to start. It has been estimated that by the year 2020, nearly all retail purchases will be done over the World Wide Web. Getting on the bandwagon now may set you up for a prosperous internet business in the near future. Look into working with "drop ship" companies to avoid up front expense and storage fees.

4. Mobile food service - Requirements/ business cards - approximate cost $30.
With a half hour lunch break, employees at many companies have little time to leave work and order lunch. Providing a morning menu for lunchtime delivery can be helpful to these people and provide a good source of income for you. Your job? Call in the order, pick it up, and deliver it; for a fee of course. Delivering 15 lunches to one company at $3 to $5 profit apiece can add up quick. Or how about a hot dog cart at special events?

5. Pool service - Requirements/ pool cleaning supplies, start-up chemicals, brush, net, hose, business cards - Approximate cost $400.
States with warmer climates have many homes with swimming pools needing weekly care. Service to numerous homes in the same area can net you a small fortune. Business cards on the door or mailbox lets the homeowner know you are available. It may take some time to get a solid clientele, but be patient; established pool service routes can be very valuable if and when you decide to call it quits.

6. Consulting service - Requirements/ know-how, business cards - Approximate cost $30.
What do you know that might be of monetary value to others? Sell your smarts!

7. Delivery service - Requirements/ the car, scooter, or bicycle you may already have/ business cards - Approximate cost $30.
A great business within large city limits. Corporations, small businesses, restaurants, etc. may be in need of delivery services. Whether it is paper documents, payrolls, food, or other items, delivery services can be a steady and profitable business.

8. Painter - Requirements/ brushes, rollers, edger's, towels, tarps, business cards - Approximate cost $200.
Visit local hardware stores to let them know you are available for work and will purchase paint through their stores. Their referrals may keep you busy for months at a time.

9. Handyman - Requirements/ basic tools, business cards - Approximate cost $500.
Depending on they type of jobs you acquire in this business, a contractors license may eventually be required. Check with your local and state government offices to determine at what point you will need one.

10. Daycare - Requirements/ toys, educational materials, bedding, a safe and clean home, love - Approximate cost $300.
This business requires patience and child care experience. If you care for more than three children at one time, it's likely you will be required to be licensed. Check with your local and state government offices for restrictions and requirements.

Most of these business start-up ideas will require an additional two items you likely already have; an automobile and a telephone. But otherwise, they are super simple and easy to start new businesses suitable for nearly anyone wanting to become self-employed.

The key to having a successful business is to do what you would enjoy doing anyway. Make a list of the things you like to do and follow that with an extended list of ways to make money in a related business. Be creative with your business idea, there are many more options available for you than you probably realize!

Learn more about starting a business at

Carol Denbow is a business start-up expert and the author of several on-line publications and books including "Are You Ready to Be Your Own Boss?" a 144 page, easy-to-read and comprehend business start-up book. See more about Carol and starting a business at

Article Source:

Analyze Adsense data using Google Adsense tools to

2008-07-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have always dreamed of an Advanced Google Adsense analyzer; but as you know; Google is the hugest search engine; but you won't find what you need! So where can I find
Knol will solve the problem? Perhaps; I searched today for the term "Adsense" in knol [http://knol.google.com/], to see people activity on Google Wiki and found a cool guy that have some application for Google Adsense.
Those application will help you analyze your Adsense data. Really fantastic!

First of all; is it free? No, but oh yes! It's free to use it; only if you earnings are less than $100 a month. If so, then you'll have $1200 a year, so $50 doesn't sucks? No?
For beginners they have a free license!

Ok here's a graph from this Adsense toolThis graph will be look so good for your blog? Be different, don't you? Download it now! [http://www.metalgrass.com/adsenselog/index.html]

Choose ONE...Pro Blogger or Amateur Blogger?

2008-07-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well. To me, it’s easy to be an amateur. If you do a mistake, people may be just ignoring you. If a pro blogger make a mistake, it will be a big news around the blogger world. But there a pro and cons to be a pro blogger. Pro blogger is easy to monetized their blogs.

They may got a lot of people ready to sponsor them or put their ad on a pro blogger blogs. But to be a pro blogger, you need to write consistently and regularly. I’m just an amateur blogger. I’m just blogging here when i got free time. I’m not really good in English. But I’ll improve it through reading and practice.

Blog for money or just a hobby? Some people blogging for money. For me? Not all for money.I just got a few dollar from this blog. Not much. I got almost 400 visitor per day. That why i’m just an amateur. It’s almost 2 years now. Blogging just make me happy. It’s can release stress and tense.

Tips Untuk Mendapatkan Traffic Blog

2008-07-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

1. Tinggalkan jejak blog kamu di blog lain dengan memberikan komentar. Salah satu cara untuk melakukan hal ini adalah dengan memasang widget MyBlogLog dan mengunjungi blog dari orang-orang yang telah mengunjungi blog kamu.
2. Tidak ada suatu hal yang dapat mendatangkan traffic dalam jangka waktu yang lama selain nilai tambah. Pertimbangkan untuk menulis artikel berdasarkan fakta dan sumber yang terpercaya, atau menjelaskan bagaimana sesuatu hal itu bisa terjadi. Suatu hal yang bermanfatat tinggi akan mendapatkan link dan akan dimasukkan dalam daftar del.icio.us, yang mana lebih baik ketimbang masuk ke dalam halaman depan digg.

3. Informasikan kepada berbagai search engine dan situs-situs direktori artikel seperti Technorati (dengan menggunakan fitur ping) ketika blog kamu memiliki artikel baru atau menambahkan fitur-fitur lain. Langkah ini akan memastikan blog kamu akan mendapat traffic yang maksimum dari situs-situs layanan tersebut.
4. Kemudahan/Kesederhanaan. Fokuskan perhatian terhadap isu-isu penting yang kamu kuasai. Hal ini mungkin adalah sesuatu yang sangat sukar untuk dicerna oleh orang awam dan sangat sulit untuk mereka implementasikan. Tugasmulah sebagai sang ahli untuk membuatnya lebih sederhana dan mudah untuk dicerna oleh orang lain dengan caramu sendiri dan dengan gaya yang enak sehingga dapat diterima dengan baik. Fakta di lapangan mengatakan bahwa, artikel yang sederhana akan muncul lebih dulu sebelum artikel yang lebih berat di hasil pencarian search engine. Besar kemungkinan hal inilah yang mendasari peningkatan traffic dari sebuah blog, orang-orang mencari dan menginginkan bantuan atau penjelasan mengenai sesuatu hal yang ada di blog kamu.
5. Ciptakan sesuatu hal yang bisa diperdebatkan. Tulisan yang sering menarik minat orang lain untuk berkomentar, mengeluarkan pendapatnya, contohnya mungkin tulisan mengenai politik, coba tulis dalam bentuk humor, menggelitik, tajam.
6. Tips/panduan/saran/petunjuk/nasehat yang sederhana dan berguna. Hal ini memungkinkan untuk meningkatkan jumlah page views blog kamu.
7. Ikutkan artikel kamu ke blog carnivals, sesuaikan dengan topik yang tersedia.
8. Newsgroups.
9. Ciptakan sebuah desain template baru. Hal ini bukan hanya akan membuat blog kamu lebih terlihat menarik bagi pembaca reguler, tetapi kamu juga dapat memasukkannya ke beberapa CSS gallery untuk ditampilkan di sana. Hal ini akan membuat kamu terkenal dan akan menghasilkan banyak traffic bagi blog kamu dan backlink dari situs-situs tersebut dan blog yang memakai template hasil kreasi kamu.
10. Ikut serta secara aktif dalam berbagai percakapan, baik forum ataupun newsgroup atau memberikan komentar pada blog yang terkait. Mulailah percakapan dari blog kamu sendiri. Jangan hanya menerbitkan artikel dan membiarkannya begitu saja, rangkul audiens, berikan pertanyaan atau jawaban.
11. Berikan komentar pada berbagai blog, tulis hal-hal yang bermanfaat dan jalinlah hubungan baik dengan siapa saja, dapatkan teman sebanyak mungkin.
12. Kamu harus aktif untuk menciptakan atau mendatangkan traffic. Saya selalu memberikan komentar di blog lain yang terkait dengan topik blog Saya, dan Saya meninggalkan link dari blog Saya sebagai signature pada berbagai forum. Sebarkan kata-kata yang menjelaskan tentang blog kamu dan ini bisanya menarik pembaca.
13. Jalan-jalan dan melihat-lihat MyBlogLog, pasti blog kamu akan mendapatkan pengunjung. Juga usahakan semaksimal mungkin untuk bergabung pada berbagai komunitas yang terkait dengan topik blog kamu.
14. Tips terbaik untuk mendapatangkan traffic adalah secara offline dengan memasukkan URL blog kamu pada berbagai daftar, semisal kartu nama, kop surat, pamflet/selebaran. Bahkan Saya membuat stiker yang bertuliskan URL blog Saya di kendaraan Saya.
15. Baca sebanyak mungkin blog orang lain. Tinggalkan trackbacks. Pastikan blog kamu teroptimasi oleh search engine. Saya rekomendasikan social bookmarking seperti digg (baik untuk mendapatkan ide baru maupun mendapatkan traffic).
16. Tinggalkan komentar pada blog lain. Jika kamu udah membaca artikelnya, maka tinggal memberikan komentar yang isinya setuju atau tidak setuju mengenai tulisan tersebut, kamu harus meninggalkan link ke situs kamu, kalau udah kamu lakukan, maka kamu hampir mendpatkan traffic ke blog kamu melalui komentarmu.
17. Posting artikel 3 s/d 5 kali per hari. Gunakan layanan ping seperti pingomatic atau konfigurasi blog kamu untuk melakukan ping pada beberapa layanan ping. Jalin hubungan dengan pembacamu. Buatlah suatu polling, berikan pertanyaan, sediakan quiz, aplikasi, dan lain-lain. Buatlah agar mereka mau untuk berkunjung kembali ke blog kamu, dan juga agar mereka mau merekomendasikan blog kamu kepada kenalan mereka yang lain.
18. Komunitas. Hanya satu kata namun memiliki arti sangat penting bila dikaitkan dengan dunia blogger. Ukuran yang pas dan masuk akal untuk kegiatan blog adalah semangat komunitas yang blogger miliki. Membangun komunitas blog akan membawa faedah berupa peningkatan traffic blog kamu. Pertanyaannya, “bagaimana caranya untuk memulai?” Respon yang paling hangat untuk membangun traffic selalu berkisar pada “SEO, situs social bookmarking, dan komentar pada blog” tetapi kesemua itu dapat disederhanakan yaitu “menjadi bagian suatu komunitas”. Cara termudah untuk menyemai blog kamu adalah menyemainya pada komunitas yang sudah ada. Tetapi cara satu-satunya untuk melakukan hal itu adalah menjadi bagian dari komunitas kamu sendiri.
19. Lensa Squidoo adalah cara bagus untuk membangun/mandapatkan traffic. Dengan menggunakan lensa, kamu dapat membangun komunitas sendiri, termasuk beberapa halaman populer komunitas lainnya. Memasukkan blog kamu ke dalam daftar komunitas adalah metode bagus untuk meningkatkan/mendapatkan traffic.
20. Artikel yang telah ditulis berdasarkan keyword yang telah diteliti dengan baik dan diterima oleh EzineArticles cenderung mendapatkan posisi tinggi di Google untuk kategori pencarian keyword tersebut.
21. Jika kamu dapat menyisihkan sedikit waktu untuk mendesain template blog kamu, Saya merekomendasikan untuk memasukkan situs kamu ke portal desain template bukan hanya untuk mendapatkan tambahan traffic tteaptetapi juga untuk membangun komunitas tambahan bagi blog kamu.
22. Libatkan diri kamu kedalam komunitas “MySpace-Like”. Saya membagi pemikiran Saya di forum, ciptakan grup untuk niche yang sesuai topik blog kamu.
23. Setiap orang pasti tahu bahwa situs-situs social bookmarking seperti digg, del.icio.us, dll mendatangkan banyak traffic. Tetapi sekarang Saya memasukkan beberapa artikel ke blogg-buzz.com.
24. Ikut berpartisipasi kedalam Yahoo Answers dan LinkedIn Answers dimana kamu dapat mendemonstrasikan kemahiran kamu, hubungkan dengan keyword yang relevan dan tinggalkan URL kamu di sana.
25. Jadi yang pertama dalam menulis artikel mengenai “Sepuluh Blog Terbaik” yang memiliki kesamaan niche/topik dengan blog kamu.
26. Ikut berpartisipasi dalam forum adalah cara terbaik untuk mendapatkan pembaca setia. Baik memancing orang lain dengan link pada bagian signature atau mem-posting nasehat dan tips yang baik dan berguna akan memberikan blog kamu banyak traffic dengan kualitas tinggi, yang hasil akhirnya adalah pengunjung yang setia dan rela untuk kembali ke blog kamu.
27. Trik sederhana yang sudah Saya gunakan untuk meningkatkan traffic blog Saya adalah dengan ikut berpartisipasi dalam proyek tulisan grup.
28. Jangan lupakan arsip artikel kamu. Buatlah sebuah posting artikel yang isinya adalah kumpulan dari beberapa artikel kamu yang banyak diminati orang lain, dan kalau perlu masukkan juga data-data lain yang didapatkan dari penelitian secara offline baik wawancara, observasi, dll.
29. Buat suatu tulisan yang sifatnya kontroversial, maksud Saya adalah jangan membuat artikel yang kontroversial hanya untuk mendapatkan traffic.
30. Temukan blog yang menurutmu sangat bagus yang topiknya sesuai/sama dengan blog kamu dan hubungi pemiliknya. Perkenalkan dirimu dan kirimkan link blog kamu. Hal ini dapat membantu mereka untuk menemukan blog kamu, membacanya dan mungkin memberikan kamu link di blog mereka.

Selamat Pagi, Anda Kena PHK! (2)

2008-07-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

Selamat Pagi, Anda Kena PHK! (2)

Seorang Chief Operating Officer sebuah perusahaan ternama dunia hari itu datang kekantornya yang megah tepat jam 7 pagi. Sang pemilik perusahaan memasuki ruang kerjanya tak lama kemudian. Setelah berbasa-basi sedikit, beliau berujar;”My friend,” katanya. ”Aku bangga dengan hasil kerjamu selama ini,” lanjutnya. Sang CEO tentu saja bahagia mendengar pujian bossnya itu. ”Namun,” lanjut si boss. Kali ini, hati CEO itu mulai dihinggapi tanda tanya besar. ”Para stakeholders kita menginginkan untuk menggantikanmu dengan seseorang yang lebih baik…..” Saat itu juga, pagi yang cerah seakan-akan berubah menjadi gelap gulita sambil sesekali dikilati cahaya dari bunyi petir dan gelegar halilintar yang membuat jiwa bergetar. Sang CEO hanya bisa terpana. Seolah tidak percaya pada apa yang baru saja didengarnya. Seandainya, berita itu tidak ditujukan kepada CEO yang sedang kita bicarakan itu. Melainkan kepada anda. What are you going to do?

Boleh jadi anda mengira bahwa percakapan diatas itu sekedar rekaan belaka. Tapi, jika anda mengikuti perkembangan dunia bisnis internasional akhir-akhir ini; anda akan menemukan bahwa pembicaraan semacam itu sungguh-sungguh terjadi didunia nyata. ’Korbannya’? Banyak. Mulai dari orang nomor satu di bank terkemuka. Pemimpin perusahaan farmasi tercanggih. Hingga raksasa minuman berbahan dasar kopi yang aroma ketenarannya sampai kesini. Bahasa politik boleh mengatakannya dengan halus, semisal; pensiun dini atau golden shake hand. Tetapi, dalam bahasa kita; itu tidak beda dengan tiga huruf mengerikan bernama P. Dan H. Dan K. Sounds familiar, right? Yes, that PHK.

Anda tentu masih ingat kisah tragis legendaris yang menimpa kapal pesiar Titanic yang tenggelam pada tanggal 14 April 1912. Peristiwa itu diperkirakan menelan 1,500 korban jiwa. Para ahli mempercayai bahwa faktor utama yang menyebabkan banyaknya jumlah korban jiwa bukanlah semata-mata tenggelamnya kapal tersebut, melainkan; kurangnya jumlah sekoci yang ada dikapal itu dibandingkan dengan jumlah penumpang yang ada. Mereka begitu yakin bahwa Titanic tidak bisa tenggelam. Jadi, mengapa harus menyediakan sekoci? Konon, ketika perisiwa itu terjadi; sesungguhnya masih banyak waktu untuk melakukan penyelamatan. Namun, karena jumlah sekoci penyelamat hanya sedikit, hanya sebagian kecil saja yang bisa diselamatkan.

Dalam kehidupan kerja pun kita sering berpikir seperti itu. Kita begitu yakin bahwa kapal yang kita gunakan untuk mengarungi samudera dunia kerja ini tidak akan tenggelam. Sehingga kita tidak merasa penting untuk memiliki sekoci. Tetapi, berapa banyak sudah perusahaan yang gulung tikar dan kemudian tenggelam seperti halnya Titanic? Jika kita boleh berkata tanpa sensor, sesungguhnya dunia kerja kita lebih beresiko daripada Titanic. Apa yang terjadi pada Titanic adalah musibah bagi semua penumpang. Semua orang menghadapi masalah yang sama. Sebab; orang baik tidak ditendang keluar dari kapal. Tetapi, dalam sebuah perusahaan; sudah sering terjadi seorang karyawan ditendang keluar dari bahtera perusahaan semudah itu. Seperti peristiwa yang menimpa sang CEO diatas itu.

Jika itu bisa terjadi kepada pimpinan puncak sebuah perusahaan; maka tidak heran jika bisa dengan sangat gampangnya menimpa karyawan-karyawan dilevel lainnya. Ya. Tentu saja. Anda sudah tahu itu. Bahkan mungkin sudah banyak teman anda yang terkena PHK juga. Sayangnya, saat ini pun kita masih begitu yakinnya untuk mengatakan bahwa kita tidak akan mengalami nasib seperti itu. Sungguh, tidak ada yang menjaminnya. Sebab, bagaimanapun juga itu bisa menimpa siapa saja. Karyawan yang jelek. Karyawan yang bagus. Karyawan dilevel manapun juga. Direktur? Sudah banyak direktur yang terkena PHK juga, bukan?

Seseorang menganggap saya ini terlampau pesimis dalam memandang masa depan pekerjaan. Saya bilang;”Ada bedanya antara sikap pesimis dengan sikap antisipatif. Seseorang yang pesimis, memandang dari sisi negatif, dan dia tidak melakukan apa-apa untuk mempersiapkan dirinya, kecuali memelihara perasaan was-was. Sedangkan, orang yang antisipatif, memandang sebuah resiko secara rasional dan proporsional. Lalu dia mempersiapkan diri untuk menghadapi situasi sulit jika terjadi sewaktu-waktu.”

PHK adalah resiko kita sehari-hari. Kita tidak perlu terlampau percaya diri dengan mengatakan bahwa hal itu tidak akan pernah terjadi pada kita. Atau sebaliknya terlalu takut jika mengalaminya. Sebab, selama kita ’mempersiapkan diri kita untuk menghadapi kemungkinan itu,’ maka yakinlah bahwa masa depan kita akan baik-baik saja. Paling tidak, kita tidak terlampau syok, jika itu benar-benar terjadi. Dan yang lebih penting dari itu adalah; memulai mempersiapkan ’sekoci’ itu dari saat ini. Sekoci yang selalu siap digunakan jika sewaktu-waktu kita membutuhkannya.

Begitu beragamnya reaksi orang ketika terjadi PHK. Ada yang panik. Ada yang biasa-biasa saja. Ada pula yang senang alang kepalang. Ada orang yang mendapatkan ’golden shake hand’ tetapi hatinya miris dan menghadapi dunia didepannya dengan tatapan pesimis. Ada yang mendapatkan uang pesangon sekedar sesuai dengan peraturan yang tertuang dalam undang-undang; namun, memandang masa depannya dengan antusias dan optimis. Mengapa sikap mereka bisa beda begitu ya? Ternyata, orang-orang yang sudah ’mempersiapkan’ dirinya untuk situasi sulit seperti itu lebih bisa menghadapi kenyataan itu. Mereka melihat sisi terangnya. Dan mereka menemukan bahwa; itu bukanlah akhir dari segala-galanya.

Beberapa waktu lalu saya mendapatkan email dari seorang teman yang mengalami ’perlakuan’ kurang patut diperusahaan. Menyimak kompleksnya permasalahan yang dihadapinya, tidaklah mudah untuk meresponnya. Tetapi, tepat sehari sebelum saya menerima email itu, saya bertemu dengan seorang sahabat lama. Bagi saya, beliau bukan sekedar sahabat; melainkan juga seorang mentor. Puncak karir beliau adalah Direktur Pengembangan Bisnis pada sebuah perusahaan multinasional dengan pengalaman kerja 20 tahun.

Dia bangga dengan pencapaiannya. Dan dia tahu kualitas dirinya yang tinggi. Namun, suatu ketika perusahaan memintanya untuk menduduki sebuah jabatan lain. Jabatan itu levelnya bukan Direktur, melainkan manager biasa. Jelas, orang ini diturunkan pangkatnya. Dan yang lebih menarik lagi adalah: posisi baru yang harus dipegangnya adalah sebuah posisi yang sebelumnya berada langsung dibawah kepemimpinannya. Sedangkan posisi direktur kini diduduki oleh orang lain. Itu terjadi tahun 2002. Dan orang itu - dengan segala kualitas diri yang dimilikinya - ketika bertemu dengan saya kemarin; menjadi orang yang lebih berhasil dari sebelumnya. Ini menunjukkan bahwa emas tetaplah emas, meskipun terbenam dalam tanah berlumpur.

Saya sendiri mempunyai prinsip pribadi yang berbunyi; ’bersiap-siap seolah akan terkena phk besok pagi.’ Dengan prinsip itu, sedari sekarang saya mulai mempersiapkan diri untuk menghadapinya. Saya belajar banyak hal hari ini, supaya besok bisa menjaga diri. Jika besok pagi saya mendapatkan phk itu, sekurang-kurangnya secara mental saya sudah menjadi lebih siap. Sehingga, bebannya mungkin akan menjadi lebih ringan. Apakah anda juga demikian?

Hore,
Hari Baru!
Dadang Kadarusman
http://dkadarusman.blogspot. com/
http://www.dadangkadarusman. com/

Catatan Kaki:
Jika kita berani menaiki sebuah kapal pesiar, maka pasti itu karena kita yakin bahwa kapal itu akan sampai dengan selamat ketempat tujuan. Namun, pasti kita akan merindukan sebuah sekoci jika sesuatu yang tidak diharapkan terjadi.

Selamat Pagi, Anda Kena PHK!

2008-07-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Seorang Chief Operating Officer sebuah perusahaan ternama dunia hari itu datang kekantornya yang megah tepat jam 7 pagi. Sang pemilik perusahaan memasuki ruang kerjanya tak lama kemudian. Setelah berbasa-basi sedikit, beliau berujar;"My friend," katanya. "Aku bangga dengan hasil kerjamu selama ini," lanjutnya. Sang CEO tentu saja bahagia mendengar pujian bossnya itu. "Namun," lanjut si boss. Kali ini, hati CEO itu mulai dihinggapi tanda tanya besar. "Para stakeholders kita menginginkan untuk menggantikanmu dengan seseorang yang lebih baik....." Saat itu juga, pagi yang cerah seakan-akan berubah menjadi gelap gulita sambil sesekali dikilati cahaya dari bunyi petir dan gelegar halilintar yang membuat jiwa bergetar. Sang CEO hanya bisa terpana. Seolah tidak percaya pada apa yang baru saja didengarnya. Seandainya, berita itu tidak ditujukan kepada CEO yang sedang kita bicarakan itu. Melainkan kepada anda. What are you going to do.

Ada cerita nyata dari Moderator Komunitas Minyak Indonesia, Pak Budhi:

Begini cerita beliau...

Tahun 2003 saya kena PHK karena kegiatan perusahaan yang menurun. Saya
terima keputusan perusahaan tersebut dan menerima pesangon yang sekarang
sudah berubah menjadi rumah di Bekasi. Hm... pikir saya, kapan lagi nih
punya rumah impian tanpa mengajukan KPR ke Bank. Beberapa bulan sesudahnya,
saya diterima di perusahaan sejenis yang memberikan 2X salary perusahaan
lama. Alhamdulillah.... keluarga senang, perusahaan juga senang.

Jadi memang benar, PHK dapat terjadi setiap saat. Tinggal kita mempersiapkan
diri secara baik untuk menghadapi hal ini.

Membuat Read more di Blogspot

2008-07-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

Sebagaimana kita ketahui bahwa Blogspot tidak menyediakan fasilitas read more atau page break dalam penulisan post. Namun, bukan berarti kita tidak bisa membuatnya sendiri, bahkan kita bisa menggantnya dengan tulisan Baca Selengapnya, Detail, Read More, dsb. Inilah uniknya blogspot (blogger), kita bisa edit template bawaan, yang penting kita mau sedikit bersusah-susah mengedit code HTML.

Untuk membuat read more di blogspot caranya sebagai berikut :
1. Sign in dengan user id anda.
2. Klik menu Layout
3. Pilih Edit HTML More…
4. Kemudian beri tanda centang pada Expand Template Widget
5. Sisipkan kode berikut sebelum atau setelah ]]> :

6. Selanjutnya cari

, kemudian selipkan kode berikut sesudah tag tadi:

Baca Selengkapnya....

7. Kemudian simpan pengaturan.
8. Setelah itu coba buat post baru, lalu klik Edit HTML.
9. Sisipkan kode berikut pada bagian yang ingin dipotong :

dan pada akhir post tuliskan kode :

10. Apabila terdapat kode lebih dari satu di akhir post, hapus kode yang lain dan sisakan satu kode saja. Apabila di akhir post terdapat kode lebih dari satu akan menyebabkan post tidak terpotong, alias tetap tampil penuh.

Selamat mencoba !!!

Seminar “Tambang Dolar di Bisnis Internet”

2008-07-04T01:40:00.001-07:00

Seminar “Tambang Dolar di Bisnis Internet”
June 29th, 2008

Seminar “Tambang Dolar di Bisnis Internet” (judul masih tentatif) adalah bagian pertama dari rangkaian acara CosaAranda.Net di Jakarta. Sebagai event pembuka, diharapkan seminar ini dapat membuka mata para peserta yang hadir mengenai besarnya potensi bisnis di internet. Toh sampai sekarang sudah terbukti, dari muda hingga tua, banyak yang sudah sukses mendulang dolar di bisnis internet.

Berikut ini garis besar materi yang diseminarkan:

* Pengenalan bisnis internet
* Berjualan produk di internet
* Menghasilkan uang dari situs atau blog
* Memahami cara kerja search engine
* Pengenalan SEO
* Sharing dengan pelaku bisnis internet yang sudah sukses (tentatif)

Acara ini cocok bagi pemula yang ingin mengenal maupun mendalami konsep dasar dari bisnis internet itu sendiri. Masing-masing peserta nantinya juga akan mendapatkan bonus CD yang berisikan ebook-ebook pelengkap materi seminar.

Detil pelaksanaannya:

Waktu: Minggu, 31 Agustus 2008, pukul 09.00 - selesai
Tempat: Hotel Ciputra Jakarta
Biaya:
- Rp 175.000,- / org (s.d 20 Juli 2008) terbatas 100 org pertama
- Rp 275.000,-/ org (promo daftar 4 gratis 1 berlaku 21 Juli s.d 10 Agustus 2008 )

Untuk pendaftaran, silahkan hubungi Lia di 085219916562 / (021) 92901952 / (021) 54376266.

Text Links Help Build Site Relevance

2008-07-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

On the road to achieving prominent search engine placement, many webmasters are stuck in that SEO fork in road when it comes to building relevant site content. The chief concern is whether to focus on building page content or incoming links. There are many arguments for both sides when discussing building content versus link building campaigns, but from a practical stand point, shouldn’t the primary concern be aimed towards gaining prominent placement on the search engines using any legitimate means available?

Relevancy is the number 1 aspect of your website when viewed through the eyes of the search engine. The amount of relevant incoming links to your site is how Google determines and awards PageRank. In addition to having relevant organic content on your pages, incorporating link building into your SEO strategy is not only valuable, but prudent as well.

The argument regarding link building is which method works better and will deliver the highest PR value. For those who are new to the use of site linking there are 2 methods of link building: one way links, and reciprocal links.

One way linking building is exactly what its name says: Links point to your site from another domain or site on the Internet. Google and other search engines consider one way or incoming links as an indication of the value or importance of your site’s content. Incoming links can target your site’s home page, specific pages, or both. A perfect example of the use of an incoming link is a trackback or comment about your site, or a page on your site that is the result from a discussion or comment on an Internet forum or blog site.

Reciprocal links or link exchanges are created when 2 sites link to one another. There are no requirements for this link building relationship other than both sites continue linking to each other in order to maintain the reciprocal relationship. The downside to using reciprocal links is that relevancy is not required in order to create the linking relationship. Google and other search engines favor links that are rich in relevancy over generic reciprocal links. It is possible however to build relevant reciprocal links.

The next concern webmasters face is where they can obtain relevant links for their website. There are quite many options available online, some in the form of paid software and others offer linking services. The method in which you choose should be investigated thoroughly before including it into your site, and above all, remember that your link building campaign should be based on relevancy.

[Need Comment] Orang Kreatif

2008-06-27T01:41:00.000-07:00

Orang kreatif lebih suka menjauhi keluh-kesah.

Karena, baginya mengeluh adalah cikal bakal matinya kreatifitas.
>>>> Berarti orang yang seringkali berkeluh kesah besar kemungkinan bahwa orang tsb kurang (atau blas tidak) kreatif.

Orang kreatif akan selalu memandang kegagalan dari sisi positif, karena kegagalan baginya adalah proses pencapaian kesuksesan.

>>>> Berarti lagi, orang yang selalu memandang kegagalan hanya dari sisi negatif (menyalahkan pihak lain, hanya bisa mengkritik tapi minim solusi) hampir bisa dipastikan bukan orang kreatif.

Betul gak?
Sorry kalau kurang berkenan buat rekan2.
Ini komentar saya pribadi atas suatu pernyataan.

[Tips Trik] Rekreasi

2008-06-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

Merasa kecapekan? Sama.

Merasa kekurangan waktu? Sama juga.

Letih, gelisah, seperti ada beban berat di kepala? Sama.

Kelelahan fisik bisa diatasi dengan tidur nyenyak (olahraga dikit, push-up push-up, lalu tidur).

Kelelahan pikiran, nah ini yang perlu ekstra pemulihannya. Kebanyakan keletihan diakibatkan beban pikiran.

-Saya perlu berwisata.

Kebanyakan orang berwisata untuk mengembalikan kesegaran pikiran. Setiap hari libur, tempat wisata penuh dengan orang-orang yang ingin menghilangkan kepenatan. Anehnya, setelah liburan penatnya tidak hilang!

Apa yang salah?

Mari kita definisikan kembali rekreasi. Re-kreasi artinya penciptaan kembali. Apa yang di rekreasi? Diri kita! Dan ini berarti adalah fisik, jiwa, dan ruh.

Apakah ketika kita berwisata ketiga hal yaitu fisik, jiwa, dan ruh kita mendapatkan energi baru? Jangan-jangan karena macet menuju tempat wisata justru membuat fisik kita makin ambruk. Jangan-jangan karena membawa beban pikiran pekerjaan kita, maka wisata kita hanya menghadirkan fisik bersama keluarga, namun tanpa hadirnya hati kita. Jangan-jangan karena cara kita bersenang-senang saat wisata, justru ruh kita makin layu. Akibatnya setelah wisata semua makin penat dan letih.

Banyak orang menganggap saat senggang sebagai saat berwisata, atau beristirahat. Sesungguhnya saat senggang adalah saat kita menjadi diri kita (karena sebelumnya kita menjadi manusia yang disuruh-suruh keadaan). Siapa diri kita sesungguhnya? Ialah diri yang kita rumuskan dalam tujuan-tujuan kita.

Coba evaluasi tujuan diri Anda dalam 7 bidang kehidupan berikut ini:
1. Spiritual
2. Cinta
3. Mental
4. Fisik
5. Karir
6. Finansial
7. Sosial

Sebenarnya yang menyebabkan keletihan berkepanjangan adalah karena ada tujuan di salah satu bidang tersebut yang terus-menerus diabaikan. Saat berwisata dengan keluarga, mungkin tujuan ¡cinta¢ yang mendasarinya (Anda ingin keluarga yang saling mencintai). Jadi wisata tersebut hanya meraih satu bidang saja. Kalau Anda kreatif, mungkin bisa menggabungkan cinta dengan fisik, misalnya berenang dengan anak-anak. Fisik bugar, kebersamaan dapat.

Saat senggang yang kita punyai semestinya untuk meraih lebih banyak bidang kehidupan.

Saat saya gelisah, seringkali sembuh dengan banyak mengaji, membaca kitab suci. Ini juga bentuk rekreasi (spiritual).

Kegiatan kecil seperti mengantar bayi berkeliling dengan sepeda roda tiga juga merupakan rekreasi (cinta).

Ketika saya main-main membuat produk baru, inipun rekreasi (karir).

Pergi belanja buku bersama anak adalah rekreasi (cinta), dan membaca buku adalah rekreasi pula (mental).

Ketika Anda mengurus keuangan dengan budgeting atau baca buku kiat menambah penghasilan, itupun rekreasi (finansial).

Kita penat karena kurang rekreasi. Lebih tepatnya karena kita sering hanya rekreasi pada sebagian kecil bidang kehidupan kita.

- Yuk kita berekreasi lebih menyeluruh!

[Tips Trik] 6 Saran Menjual Diri Lewat Portofolio

2008-06-25T18:25:00.001-07:00

6 Saran Menjual Diri Lewat Portofolio

Mungkin saat Anda berencana melamar kerja atau menawarkan jasa untuk menangani suatu proyek, Anda diminta untuk mengirimkan portofolio diri atau karya Anda. Anda mungkin masih bingung dengan portofolio itu sendiri.

Nah, agar Anda tidakbingung lagi Anda mesti tahu bahwa portofolio merupakan kumpulan karya-karya terbaik yang telah Anda buat dalam waktu tertentu. Saat ini bisa jadi portofolio merupakan elemen terpenting dalam melamar pekerjaan atau menawarkan jasa Anda.

Terutama bagi Anda dengan pendidikan dan pengalaman kerja yang erat dengan seni. Seperti misalnya desain grafis, arsitektur, dan fotografi. Bidang jurnalistik juga bisa Anda buat dalam portfolio dengan membuat kliping tulisan dan prestasi Anda.

Sedangkan isi portofolio bisa disusun berdasarkan tugas-tugas yang sudah Anda buat selama Anda bekerja. Ingat, dalam membuat portofolio Anda tidak boleh sembarangan. Karena, portofolio mempunyai pengaruh yang cukup besar dalam melamar pekerjaan maupun menawarkan jasa tersebut.

Terpenting yang harus Anda ketahui adalah portofolio berfungsi sebagai ajang 'menjual diri'. Portofolio juga bisa menunjukkan karakter dan kemampuan Anda yang sesungguhnya.

Nah, berikut 6 saran bagi Anda dalam membuat portofolio. Anda simak!

Pilihlah karya terbaik yang Anda miliki yang sekaligus mewakili selera pribadi Anda. Untuk itu, Anda harus selektif memilih karya-karya yang anda miliki. Jangan sekalipun Anda menyertakan hasil karya yang Anda sendiri sadar bahwa karya itu tidak begitu bagus.

Karya yang Anda pilih harus dapat menunjukkan spesialisasi Anda. Misalkan, Anda berpengalaman di bidang fotografi fashion, maka tonjolkan foto-foto fashion ketimbang foto-foto still life. Jika Anda piawai dalam desain interior kantor maka tonjolkan karya desain interior terbaik Anda.

Bisa juga Anda sertakan keterangan gambar dengan memuat tanggal dibuat dan sedikit penjelasan tentang karya Anda. Misalnya kapan dan dalam rangka apa Anda membuat karya tersebut.

Jangan sekalipun Anda menyertakan hasil karya teman atau orang lain di dalam portofolio Anda. Jika orang yang karyanya Anda bajak itu tahu, Anda akan berurusan panjang dengannya. Anda akan dikenakan tuduhan telah melanggar HAKI (Hak Atas Kekayaan Intelektual). Biar bagaimanapun lebih aman menyertakan karya asli pribadi.

Gunakan format kertas yang tidak terlalu besar. Karena kertas yang besar selain boros, juga akan menyulitkan jika Anda harus melakukan presentasi atas karya-karya Anda. Lebih baik Anda gunakan kertas A4, walaupun Anda membuat portofolio arsitektur maupun seni rupa.

Untuk warna dasar Anda bebas memilih sesuai selera Anda. Tetapi agar lebih jelas mungkin Anda bisa memilih hitam sebagai warna dasar hasil karya-karya Anda.

Moga-moga artikel di atas bermanfaat bagi Anda. Kenali dan cobalah! Sukses untuk Anda
!

7 KIAT MENINGKATKAN KECERDASAN EMOSIONAL (EQ) DI KANTOR

2008-06-25T18:21:00.000-07:00

7 KIAT MENINGKATKAN KECERDASAN EMOSIONAL (EQ) DI KANTOR

Emosi adalah hal begitu saja terjadi dalam hidup Anda. Anda menganggap bahwa perasaan marah, takut, sedih, senang, benci, cinta, antusias, bosan, dan sebagainya adalah akibat dari atau hanya sekedar respon Anda terhadap berbagai peristiwa yang terjadi pada Anda

Membahas soal emosi maka sangat kait eratannya dengan kecerdasan emosi itu sendiri dimana merupakan kemampuan seseorang untuk memotivasi diri sendiri, bertahan menghadap frustasi, mengendalikan dorongan hati (kegembiraan, kesedihan, kemarahan, dan lain-lain) dan tidak melebih-lebihkan kesenangan, mengatur suasana hati dan mampu mengendalikan stres.

Kecerdasan emosional juga mencakup kesadaran diri dan kendali dorongan hati, ketekunan, semangat dan motivasi diri dan kendali dorongan hati, ketekunan, semangat dan motivasi diri, empati dan kecakapan sosial. Ketrampilan yang berkaitan dengan kecerdasan emosi antara lain misalnya kemampuan untuk memahami orang lain, kepemimpinan, kemampuan membina hubungan dengan orang lain, kemampuan berkomunikasi, kerjasama tim, membentuk citra diri positif, memotivasi dan memberi inspirasi dan sebagainya.

Nah, agar kecerdasan emosional Anda terjaga dengan baik, berikut 7 ketrampilan yang harus Anda perhatikan dan tak ada salahnya Anda coba:

* Mengenali emosi diri
Ketrampilan ini meliputi kemampuan Anda untuk mengidentifikasi apa yang sesungguhnya Anda rasakan. Setiap kali suatu emosi tertentu muncul dalam pikiran, Anda harus dapat menangkap pesan apa yang ingin disampaikan. Berikut adalah beberapa contoh pesan dari emosi: takut, sakit hati, marah, frustasi, kecewa, rasa bersalah, kesepian.

* Melepaskan emosi negatif
Ketrampilan ini berkaitan dengan kemampuan Anda untuk memahami dampak dari emosi negatif terhadap diri Anda. Sebagai contoh keinginan untuk memperbaiki situasi ataupun memenuhi target pekerjaan yang membuat Anda mudah marah ataupun frustasi seringkali justru merusak hubungan Anda dengan bawahan maupun atasan serta dapat menyebabkan stres. Jadi, selama Anda dikendalikan oleh emosi negatif Anda justru Anda tidak bisa mencapai potensi terbaik dari diri Anda. Solusinya, lepaskan emosi negatif melalui teknik pendayagunaan pikiran bawah sadar sehingga Anda maupun orang-orang di sekitar Anda tidak menerima dampak negatif dari emosi negatif yang muncul.

* Mengelola emosi diri sendiri
Anda jangan pernah menganggap emosi negatif atau positif itu baik atau buruk. Emosi adalah sekedar sinyal bagi kita untuk melakukan tindakan untuk mengatasi penyebab munculnya perasaan itu. Jadi emosi adalah awal bukan hasil akhir dari kejadian atau peristiwa. Kemampuan kita untuk mengendalikan dan mengelola emosi dapat membantu Anda mencapai kesuksesan.

Ada beberapa langkah dalam mengelola emosi diri sendiri, yaitu: pertama adalah menghargai emosi dan menyadari dukungannya kepada Anda.

Kedua berusaha mengetahui pesan yang disampaikan emosi, dan meyakini bahwa kita pernah berhasil menangani emosi ini sebelumnya. Ketiga adalah dengan bergembira kita mengambil tindakan untuk menanganinya. Kemampuan kita mengelola emosi adalah bentuk pengendalian diri yang paling penting dalam manajemen diri, karena kitalah sesungguhnya yang mengendalikan emosi atau perasaan kita, bukan sebaliknya.

* Memotivasi diri sendiri
Menata emosi sebagai alat untuk mencapai tujuan merupakan hal yang sangat penting dalam kaitan untuk memberi perhatian, untuk memotivasi diri sendiri dan menguasai diri sendiri, dan untuk berkreasi. Kendali diri emosional--menahan diri terhadap kepuasan dan mengendalikan dorongan hati--adalah landasan keberhasilan dalam berbagai bidang.
Ketrampilan memotivasi diri memungkinkan terwujudnya kinerja yang tinggi dalam segala bidang. Orang-orang yang memiliki ketrampilan ini cenderung jauh lebih produktif dan efektif dalam hal apapun yang mereka kerjakan.

* Mengenali emosi orang lain
Mengenali emosi orang lain berarti kita memiliki empati terhadap apa yang dirasakan orang lain. Penguasaan ketrampilan ini membuat kita lebih efektif dalam berkomunikasi dengan orang lain. Inilah yang disebut sebagai komunikasi empatik. Berusaha mengerti terlebih dahulu sebelum dimengerti. Ketrampilan ini merupakan dasar dalam berhubungan dengan manusia secara efektif.

* Mengelola emosi orang lain
Jika ketrampilan mengenali emosi orang lain merupakan dasar dalam berhubungan antar pribadi, maka ketrampilan mengelola emosi orang lain merupakan pilar dalam membina hubungan dengan orang lain. Manusia adalah makhluk emosional. Semua hubungan sebagian besar dibangun atas dasar emosi yang muncul dari interaksi antar manusia.

Ketrampilan mengelola emosi orang lain merupakan kemampuan yang dahsyat jika kita dapat mengoptimalkannya. Sehingga kita mampu membangun hubungan antar pribadi yang kokoh dan berkelanjutan. Dalam dunia industri hubungan antar korporasi atau organisasi sebenarnya dibangun atas hubungan antar individu. Semakin tinggi kemampuan individu dalam organisasi untuk mengelola emosi orang lain.

* Memotivasi orang lain
Ketrampilan memotivasi orang lain adalah kelanjutan dari ketrampilan mengenali dan mengelola emosi orang lain. Ketrampilan ini adalah bentuk lain dari kemampuan kepemimpinan, yaitu kemampuan menginspirasi, mempengaruhi dan memotivasi orang lain untuk mencapai tujuan bersama. Hal ini erat kaitannya dengan kemampuan membangun kerja sama tim yang tangguh dan andal.

Jadi, sesungguhnya ketujuh ketrampilan ini merupakan langkah-langkah yang berurutan. Anda tidak dapat memotivasi diri sendiri kalau Anda tidak dapat mengenali dan mengelola emosi diri sendiri. Setelah Anda memiliki kemampuan dalam memotivasi diri, barulah kita dapat memotivasi orang lain.

Musik merangsang Gairah Kerja

2008-06-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Musik dan Gairah Kerja

Anda pasti sudah sering mendengar trend para pasangan muda masa kini, di mana para calon orang tua ramai-ramai memperdengarkan musik klasik bagi bayi yang sedang dikandung. Sebagaimana telah dibuktikan oleh para ahli yang telah melakukan penelitian selama bertahun-tahun, musik klasik ternyata mampu merangsang perkembangan otak bayi/anak. Tidak hanya saat di dalam kandungan, para anak balita yang diperdengarklan musik klasik secara klinis telah terbukti lebih kreatif dari anak yang tidak mendengarkan musik. Maju beberapa tahun, kita juga sering dengar betapa destruktifnya efek musik bagi anak muda (sebagaimana kasus anak muda yang terpicu melakukan bunuh diri atau pembunuhan setelah mendengarkan satu jenis musik tertentu).

Musik memang memiliki efek beraneka-ragam, tapi baik-buruknya efek musik tersebut bisa kita kendalikan. Agaknya hal inilah yang menjadi patokan bagi para ahli psikologi di Amerika Serikat saat mereka menemukan sebuah metode khusus penggunaan musik untuk berbagai kepentingan di setiap sektor kehidupan mereka. Mereka bahkan membuat sebuah inovasi yang cukup mengejutkan, menggunakan musik di kantor-kantor untuk meningkatkan performa kerja karyawan mereka. Rasanya hal ini mungkin terdengar agak janggal di Inodonesia, namun di luar negeri saat ini hal itu sudah menjadi sebuah pemandangan yang biasa. Apa yang menyebabkan hal ini?

Musik dapat merangsang salah satu bagian otak kita untuk bekerja sesuai dengan jenis musik tersebut. Sebagai contoh, musik dengan irama sedikit keras dan cepat (misalnya rock) dapat memacu otak kita untuk bekerja atau tampil lebih bersemangat. Ada beberapa restoran yang pernah menggunakan musik ini dalam mengiringi para pelanggan yang sedang makan, dan hasilnya mereka makan lebih cepat dan omset restoran tersebut meningkat karena jumlah pelanggan yang lebih banyak. Sayangnya jenis musik ini tidak terlalu efektif saat digunakan di perkantoran (terutama bila dilakukan terus-menerus), hal ini dikarenakan keterbatasan energi yang dimiliki manusia. Pada saat energinya menurun, maka performa kerjanya pun ikut menurun. Musik yang berirama menenangkan (seperti musik klasik dan sejenisnya) terbukti mampu secara optimal meningkatkan performa kerja kerja seseorang. Sebenarnya lagu-lagu dengan irama slow juga mampu melakukan hal yang sama, namun sering kali jenis ini mampu membius pendengarnya sampai sedemikian rupa sehingga memperlambat kerja (sesuai dengan mood lagunya).

Raih Kesuksesan Setelah Gagal!

2008-06-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Sebenarnya kalimat tersebut lebih merupakan kalimat sugestif untuk menyuntikkan semangat bagi mereka yang baru saja mengalami kegagalan. Pada dasarnya kegagalan memang bisa saja menjadi sebuah kesuksesan. Tapi tentu saja jika Anda atau siapapun yang mengalami kegagalan mau bangkit untuk meraih sukses. Kalau setelah gagal cuma tersedu-sedu merenungi nasib ya sama aja boong! Kesuksesan malah makin menjauh!

So, bagi Anda yang baru saja gagal, nggak perlu sedih berlarut-larut. Agar kegagalan berubah menjadi kesuksesan, coba deh simak kiat berikut ini:
- Bersikap positif terhadap kegagalan Ingatlah, bahwa kegagalan bukan sesuatu yang harus ditakuti.
Tanpa adanya sikap positif Anda akan semakin stres setelah gagal. Anda seakan kehilangan energi untuk bangkit kembali karena selalu dibayang-bayangi takut gagal. Dengan bersikap positif anda mampu memandang suatu kegagalan sebagai peristiwa hidup yang harus dialami. Dengan demikian, mental Anda akan semakin kuat. Percayalah Anda dapat mengambil hikmah dari sebuah kegagalan.

- Cari penyebab kegagalan Coba Anda renungi, apa yang menyebabkan Anda gagal?
Secara umum, ada dua faktor utama penyebab kegagalan, yaitu faktor internal dan eksternal. Faktor internal adalah faktor yang berasal dari dalam diri Anda sendiri. Mungkin Anda kurang memiliki semangat dan motivasi dalam mengerjakan sesuatu. Atau mungkin Anda tidak disiplin dan ceroboh dalam bekerja. Nah kalau Anda menyadari penyebab kegagalan internal ini, Anda harus merubahnya. Ingat, sukses atau tidaknya Anda dimulai dari dari dalam diri sendiri. Jika Anda bisa memotivasi diri sendiri, selanjutnya Anda akan lebih ringan melangkah. Sedangkan faktor eksternal adalah faktor penyebab di luar diri sendiri. Misalnya, kurang dukungan dari orang-orang terdekat, persaingan yang terlalu ketat, atau kurangnya fasilitas.

- Atasi kegagalan Setelah Anda mengetahui apa penyebab kegagalan Anda, cobalah untuk mengatasinya.
Tidak perlu sekaligus mengatasi semua penyebab kegagalan, lebih baik Anda lakukan secara bertahap tetapi pasti. Usahakan untuk memprioritaskan penyebab utama, kemudian disusul penyebab lainnya. Untuk itu, catatlah hal-hal yang sering membuat Anda gagal, apakah faktor internal atau eksternal. Ingat, jangan sekalipun mencari 'kambing hitam' penyebab kegagalan Anda.

- Gali kekuatan diri Selain mencari penyebab kegagalan, catatlah apa saja kekuatan dan potensi diri Anda, baik yang tersembunyi maupun yang nampak. Kemudian cobalah gunakan kekuatan dan potensi Anda secara maksimal. Galilah potensi-potensi tersembunyi Anda yang masih bisa dikembangkan. Jika Anda bisa mengembangkan potensi dengan baik, percaya deh sukses nggak akan jauh-jauh dari Anda.

- Tangkap peluang Jangan hanya diam merutuki nasib. Anda harus lebih jeli menangkap peluang atau kesempatan. Ingat, Anda tidak akan pernah mendapatkan kesempatan itu jika Anda sendiri tidak pernah berusaha mencarinya. Begitu Anda tau ada peluang, tangkaplah peluang tersebut, jangan tunggu sampai besok.

- Trial and error Untuk meraih kesuksesan, Anda perlu melakukan trial and error. Hal ini merupakan salah satu tolok ukur untuk menggapai kesuksesan. Tinggal sejauh mana kita mau dan berani mencoba kembali kegagalan itu. Sebelum mencoba lagi, pikirkan masak-masak langkah yang akan ditempuh. Kalau pun terjadi kesalahan kembali, jangan ragu-ragu melakukan perbaikan dan terus mencoba sampai Anda berhasil mengatasinya. Kunci utama trial and error adalah kerja keras dan tetap semangat.

Nah dengan demikian, Anda telah berdamai dengan kegagalan. Sehingga kegagalan bukan lagi momok yang menakutkan. Melainkan sesuatu yang harus dihadapi dan dilawan agar kegagalan itu tidak menggerogoti hidup Anda. Good luck..!

[Biografi] Ali Sadikin (1927-2008)

2008-06-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

Selasa, 10 Juni 2008

Mantan Gubernur DKI Jakarta Ali Sadikin, yang akrab dipanggil dengan Bang Ali, meninggal dunia dalam usia 82 tahun, Selasa 20 Mei 2008 pukul 17.30 WIB di RS Gleneagles, Singapura. Letnan Jenderal TNI KKO-AL (Purn), itu meninggal setelah dirawat selama sebulan di RS tersebut.

Letnan Jenderal TNI KKO AL (Purn) H Ali Sadikin (Bang Ali) menerima tanda kehormatan Bintang Mahaputera Adipradana karena dinilai berjasa luar biasa terhadap negara dan bangsa, khususnya mengembangkan Kota Jakarta sebagai Kota Metropolitan. Presiden Soekarno mengangkat putera bangsa kelahiran Sumedang, 7 Juli 1927 ini sebagai Gubernur Jakarta lantaran dianggap kopig alias keras kepala. Dia berhasil sebagai pemimpin justru karena pembawaannya yang keras itu.

Ia juga termasuk salah seorang penggagas pembangunan Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Pendiri Taman Ismail Marzuki, Taman Impian Jaya Ancol, Pekan Raya Jakarta, Gelanggang Mahasiswa, Gelanggang Remaja, Pusat Perfilman Usmar Ismail serta berbagai bangunan bersejarah seperti Museum Fatahillah, Museum Tekstil, Museum Keramik, Museum Wayang serta mengembalikan fungsi gedung-gedung bersejarah, seperti Gedung Juang 1945 dan Gedung Sumpah Pemuda.

Penyematan Bintang Penghargaan dilaksanakan pada Kamis pagi, 14 Agustus 2003 di Istana Negara. Peristiwa itu mengingatkannya pada peristiwa 37 tahun lalu. Tahun 1966, ia berdiri di depan Presiden Soekarno dalam upacara pelantikan Gubernur Jakarta. Kamis kemarin, ia berdiri di depan putri Bung Karno yang bernama Megawati Soekarnoputri dalam suatu upacara yang khidmat selama 20 menit untuk menerima Bintang Mahaputra Adipradana. Istana Negara adalah tempat yang tidak pernah diinjaknya setelah ia dijuluki oleh para pemimpin Orde Baru sebagai pembangkang.

Ia datang ke Istana Negara bersama istrinya, Linda Mangaan, dan putra bungsunya, Yasser Umarsyah (14).

Setelah upacara, ia menerima ucapan selamat berupa tempel pipi dari Megawati. Tempel pipi juga diberikan oleh mantan Gubernur DKI Jakarta Surjadi Soedirdja, mantan Menteri Negara Peranan Wanita Sulasikin Murpratomo, artis film Christine Hakim, dan kelima putranya yang hadir.

Selama upacara berlangsung, Ali Sadikin disediakan kursi untuk duduk, tetapi ia tetap berdiri. Seusai upacara, Megawati mempertanyakan kesehatannya. Ali Sadikin mengatakan, kakinya tidak bisa tahan berdiri lama. Puluhan wartawan kemudian mengelilinginya. Sekali-sekali istrinya memberikan air putih. Suara Ali Sadikin di depan para wartawan masih lantang.

"Bapak sekarang sudah 77 tahun sehingga sering lupa pada banyak hal. Tapi kalau bicara soal negara, Jakarta, dan perjuangan untuk rakyat, masih sangat cemerlang," ujar putra sulung Ali Sadikin, Boy Bernadi Sadikin, tentang ayahnya.

Bang Ali, demikian ia akrab disapa, tidak menyangka mendapat tanda kehormatan Bintang Mahaputra Adipradana. Ia mendapat informasi bahwa ia dinilai patut menjadi tokoh simbol bagai pembinaan budaya dan pariwisata. "Saya heran karena saya bukan budayawan. Tapi, katanya, saya berhasil membangun Jakarta sebagai kota budaya dan kota pariwisata," ujar pria kelahiran Sumedang tanggal 7 Juli 1927 itu.

Gayanya memimpin Bang Ali dinilai cocok dengan kondisi Ibu Kota yang semrawut dan memerlukan kedisiplinan. Ternyata pilihan Soekarno tidak salah. Jenderal Angkatan Laut ini mampu menyulap Jakarta dari sekadar sebagai pusat pemerintahan menjadi pusat perdagangan sekaligus industri.

Sikap keras orang Sumedang, Jawa Barat, ini bukan cuma ditujukan kepada aparatnya yang tidak berdisiplin. Ketika memimpin Jakarta selama 10 tahun, ia juga dikenal kuat dalam mempertahankan prinsip. "Sebagai gubernur, saya harus melindungi dan menyejahterakan rakyat. Itu prinsip saya," katanya.

Caranya? Inilah yang mengundang kontroversi. Ia membuat gebrakan dengan melegalisasi perjudian. Untuk mengisi pundi anggaran daerah, Ali juga nekat mengizinkan bar dan panti pijat. Yang penting baginya, ada dana untuk membuat mulus jalan-jalan di seluruh Jakarta. Kritik keras yang datang dari para ulama tidak didengarnya.

Soal ijin perjudian tidak terlepas dari minimnya anggaran Pemda dalam upaya membangun Jakarta. Pada saat pertama kali menjabat, Bang Ali membuat rencana program pembangunan Jakarta. Saat itu dibutuhkan uang banyak untuk melakukan pembangun demi kesejahteraan masyarakat. Sedangkan anggaran Jakarta yang tersedia hanya Rp 66 juta, sementara jumlah penduduk sekitar 3,4 juta jiwa. Padahal pemerintah kolonial Belanda dulu hanya menyiapkan kota ini untuk menampung 600 sampai 800 ribu orang. Lalu, ia mengumpulkan seluruh unsur pimpinan daerah dan menjelaskan bahwa Jakarta butuh duit sangat besar.

Bang Ali bertanya ke mereka, "Saudara-saudara ini dapat berapa, sih, penghasilan dari judi? Akan saya ganti, malah bisa lebih tinggi." Mereka tidak bisa melawan. Sebab, uang dapat, tanggung jawab juga lepas. Nah, waktu itu ada empat tempat judi yang dijaga tentara. Lalu staf saya langsung mengatur, semua duit dari judi langsung masuk ke rekening bank. Dari judi ini setahun dapat sekitar Rp 40 miliar.

Selain judi, Ali Sadikin juga membuka tempat hirusan dan melegalisasi pelacuran. Namun ia mengatakan upaya itu sebagai bagian dari melayani masyarakat. Karena itu, ia berani membuka judi, steam bath, dan klub-klub, terutama untuk orang asing. Kalau habis bekerja, mereka biasanya tak mau pulang dulu, tapi pergi ke klub untuk minum kopi, setelah itu baru pulang. Pembukaan klub-klub itu dilakukan untuk melayani masyarakat kelompok ini.

Sedangkan pelacuran, karena dulu setiap menjelang malam di Jakarta bertebaran "becak komplet". Maksudnya, di dalam ada pelacurnya. Si tukang becak itulah yang menjadi makelarnya. Daripada berkeliaran dan meresahkan warga Jakarta, maka dibuatlah lokalisasi di Kramat Tunggak. Dulu, tanah yang digunakan untuk tempat pelacuran itu sudah dibeli. Anehnya, kok sekarang masyarakat yang datang belakangan menuntut ganti rugi. Itu berarti arsip bukti aset-aset Pemda itu lenyap entah ke mana sekarang.

Ketika Sutiyoso berniat mengikuti langkah yang ditempuh Bang Ali, ternyata respon masyarakat berbeda. Banyak masyarakat yang menentang rencana Bang Yos. Menurut Bang Ali, situasi sekarang rakyatnya sudah lain. Sekarang kenyataannya sudah rusak akibat politik dan segala macam. Sehingga masyarakat makin tidak terkendali. DPRD dulu lain dengan sekarang. Sekarang juga ada LSM dan segala macam.

Wataknya yang keras masih tergambar pada kerutan-kerutan wajah Ali Sadikin, yang kini berusia 75 tahun. Kondisi fisiknya mulai lemah. Ia tidak bisa lagi berolahraga angkat besi, kegemarannya. Pendengarannya pun mulai menurun. Bahkan sekarang ia perlu memakai alat bantu dengar di telinga. Kata dokternya, berkurangnya fungsi pendengarannya berkaitan dengan penyakit ginjalnya.

Ali Sadikin memang baru saja dirawat di rumah sakit militer di Ghuang Zhou, Cina, selama tujuh bulan karena penyakit yang dideritanya. Ia bisa pulang setelah mendapat cangkokan ginjal, tapi berat tubuhnya berkurang 25 kilogram.

Yang tidak pernah surut adalah semangatnya. Apalagi bila berbicara tentang Jakarta. Dia tak lelah menjelaskan dengan runtut dan detail berbagai program yang dijalankannya selama dua periode menjabat Gubernur Jakarta. Saat menerima tugas sebagai gubemur pada 1966, inflasi mencapai 600 persen. Sarana pendidikan, kesehatan, pasar, dan tempat ibadah jumlahnya tidak mencukupi untuk melayani masyarakat Jakarta. Sedangkan anggaran yang ada hanya Rp 66 juta.

Pada akhir masa jabatannya tahun 1977, dia meninggalkan uang di kas daerah sebesar Rp 89,5 miliar. Juga, jalan-jalan yang mulus, penambahan ratusan sarana pendidikan dan kesehatan, terminal bus, dan pasar. Ali Sadikin juga mewariskan sejumlah bangunan penting seperti Taman Ismail Marzuki bagi para seniman, dan sebuah gelanggang mahasiswa di daerah Kuningan.

Ketika disinggung ia memiliki andil dalam pembangunan Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ali Sadikin meluruskan bahwa, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) berdiri karena gagasannya bersama dengan Ny Tien Soeharto (almarhumah). "Kalau tidak ada beliau, TMII tidak lengkap. Beliau bisa memerintahkan tiap provinsi membangun paviliun di tempat itu. Itu jasa Ibu Tien," katanya.

Sementara kawasan Ancol berasal dari gagasan Bung Karno, orang yang sangat dihormati dan disayangi. Taman Ismail Marzuki berdiri untuk mengenang Ismail Marzuki yang merupakan seniman dan pahlawan. Kebun Binatang adalah salah satu tempat konsentrasi pariwisata.

Sayang, ketika Kota Jakarta genap berusia 475 tahun, tepatnya pada 22 Juni lalu, sebagian besar gedung itu telantar atau berubah fungsi. Sebagian areal gelanggang mahasiswa tersebut disulap menjadi pertokoan. Harapan untuk menjadikan Pusat Perfiliman Usmar Ismail sebagai Hollywood-nya Indonesia pun tak terwujud.

Perubahan Jakarta saat ini membuatnya merasa dikhianati. Berbagai fasilitas untuk rakyat yang sudah dibangunnya ternyata tidak dipelihara, ada yang rusah, bahkan sebagian ditukar-guling (ruilslag). Menurut pandangannya, para penggantinya sebagai Gubernur Jakarta tidak ada yang menambah fasilitas untuk rakyat.

Gelanggang Mahasiswa Soemantri Brodjonegoro di Jalan H.R.Rasuna Said yang dimaksudkan para mahasiswa mempunyai tempat untuk kumpul-kumpul, sekarang malah diganti menjadi pertokoan. Lalu gelanggang remaja di Bulungan malah disewakan untuk swasta. Gedung Perfilman Usmar Ismail di Kuningan yang diproyeksikan menjadi pusat film semacam Hollywood di Amerika Serikat, sekarang tanahnya di-ruilslag. Dulu di tiap kecamatan juga ada balai rakyat yang bisa dipakai untuk hajatan, olahraga, dan segala macam, tetapi sekarang entah ke mana.

Meskipun kecewa terhadap kinerja Gubernur Jakarta sesudahnya, Bang Ali tidak mau melakukan penilaian itu sebagai kesalahan pribadi. Sebab, kepemimpinan seorang gubernur itu ditunjang oleh perangkat dan aparat pemerintahan.

Nasib Sutiyoso saat ini dianggapnya hampir sama dengan waktu pertama ia menjadi gubernur tahun 1966. Tetapi keadaan sekarang bukan cuma ekonomi yang bangkrut. Semuanya hancur, termasuk juga moralnya. Dulu menurutnya, koruptornya masih bisa dihitung dengan jari. Sekarang, sudh membengkak berkali lipat.

Melihat kondisi saat ini, Bang Ali teringat ramalan Ronggowarsito. Sekarang ini sudah zaman edan. Kita tidak punya tokoh untuk dicontoh, karena semuanya edan. Di samping itu, aparat juga kurang tegas. Hal ini kemungkinan karena gaji pegawai negeri itu paling cukup untuk 10 hari. Padahal, pada zaman ia memimpin dulu, gaji anggota DPRD ditentukan setidaknya 80 persen dari gaji DPR pusat.

Menangani Ibu Kota menurutnya perlu penanganan serius dan berkelanjutan. Namun hal ini tidak berarti seorang gubernur harus menjabat hingga dua kali masa jabatan. Yang penting, menurutnya, harus ada program jangka panjang, misalnya untuk 20 tahun. Selain itu, pengganti gubernur yang menjabat itu nantinya tidak sok-sokan dengan terus menggagas idenya sendiri, seolah-olah ide gubernur lama itu salah dan hanya ia sendiri yang punya ide yang benar. Mereka harus meneruskan program itu. Membina kota itu bukan membina keluarga yang bisa beberapa tahun saja.

Di tingkat nasional pun sebetulnya juga harus ada program jangka panjang. Sehingga siapa pun yang jadi presiden mempunyai pegangan. Masalah yang ada sekarang ini adalah tidak adanya program jangka panjang berskala nasional. Program pembangunan jangka panjang praktis hancur setelah Indonesia dilanda krisis ekonomi sejak tahun 1997. Perumusan program jangka panjang masih terus diupayakan dan masih menjadi wacana yang belum sampai pada solusi.

Dulu Bang Ali menjabat Gubernur DKI Jakarta sampai dua periode (1966-1977). Satu tahun pertama digunakan untuk menentukan dasar-dasar pembangunan. Baru pada tahun kedua bisa menjalankan visi, misi, dan program yang telah dibuat. Kebetulan pada sat itu dirinya tidak terbawa intensitas politik nasional, jadi bisa konsentrasi pada program. Tokoh-tokoh politik nasional sendiri saat itu perhatiannya sibuk menjatuhkan Soekarno dari kursi presiden.

Selama masa Orde Baru, Gubernur DKI kebanyakan berasal dari militer atau militer yang sudah pensiun. Hal ini dijelaskannya karena kekuasaan Orde Baru itu adalah kekuasaan tentara dan Golkar. Maka bukan hanya DKI saja melainkan banyak bupati dan gubemur di berbagai propinsi di Indonesia berasal dari tentara dan Golkar. Angkatan Darat pun menjadi alat kekuasaan. Tapi menurutnya itu bukanlah kesalahan institusi Angkatan Darat. Ini adalah masalah politik. Kesalahan ada pada mantan Presiden Soeharto.

Ia juga bertanya, siapa yang melakukan perebutan kekuasaan dari Orde Lama ke Orde Baru? Tapi, sekarang apa ada masyarakat yang menuntut Soeharto untuk diadili? Yang dituntut hanya korupsi yayasan. Padahal yang dituntut korupsi itu hanya sebesar Rp 1,2 triliun. Jumlah itu termasuk kecil jika dibandingkan dengan utang nasional yang mencapai ratusan triliun rupiah. Belum lagi utang swasta yang banyak sekali.

Sebagai ibukota yang dikelilingi kota-kota di sekitarnya, Pemerintah DKI perlu melakukan kerja sama dalam mengatasi masalah yang saling berkaitan dengan tetangganya. Masalah yang sering muncul di DKI adalah banjir kiriman dari Bogor. Jika DKI terjadi banjir, maka gubernur tidak bisa disalahkan begitu saja. Apalagi, banjir tersebut bukan karena tingginya curah hujan di Jakarta melainkan kiriman dari wilayah yang lebih tinggi dan menyalurkan air sungai ke Jakarta.

Pada zaman Belanda terdapat sekitar 200 waduk untuk menampung air yang letaknya di Bekasi, Bogor, dan Tangerang. Sekarang sebagian besar sudah diuruk untuk pembangunan realestat oleh bupati-bupati di wilayah itu. Tidak lagi ada koordinasi antar pimpinan daerah.

Hal tersebut juga berlaku bagi penanganan masalah sampah. Tangerang dan Bekasi tidak mau menampung sampah dari Jakarta. Padahal hidupnya Bekasi karena pengaruh dan perkembangan Jakarta. Adanya pabrik segala macam itu karena Jakarta telah penuh dengan pembangunan, maka terus merembet ke sana. Anggaran pendapatan di Bogor, Bekasi dan Tangerang sangat besar, melampaui kota-kota lain. Itu pun karena terimbas perekonomian di Jakarta. Kalau malam hari orang Jakarta tinggal di sana dan membayar pajak tanah dan rumah untuk ketiga daerah itu.

Solusinya, antara Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, dan Bekasi (Jabotabek) itu harusnya dibuat sebuah lembaga tersendiri, dipimpin oleh seorang yang mungkin setingkat menteri. Tugasnya menyelamatkan lingkungan kehidupan. Dulu waktu Bang Ali memimpin Jakarta sudah dicoba dilembagakan, tapi baru tahap semacam kantor perwakilan di Jakarta.

Sebagai mantan perwira tinggi marinir, Ali Sadikin mengaku cukup prihatin dengan kemampuan dan kondisi Tentara Nasional Indonesia saat ini. Asrama tempat tinggal prajurit amat parah. Sementara sumbangan dari Presiden Megawati untuk asrama dipersoalkan. Ia menanyakan, apa sih sebenarnya maunya DPR itu. Bukan cuma kesejahteraan tentara yang turun, peralatan TNI pun sekarang kurang sekali. Kemampuan TNI sekarang sudah tertinggal dari Singapura dan Malaysia. “Apakah kita tidak malu?” tanyanya.

Penghargaan Bintang Mahaputra Adipradana diperolehnya bukan karena ia sering bertemu Megawati. Justru ia terakhir kali bertemu Mega ketika masih menjadi wakil presiden. Sedangkan pertemuan dengan suami Mega, Taufiq Kiemas, terjadi ketika Taufik datang menjenguknya. Kesempatan itu digunakan untuk membicarakan nasib tahanan politik dari Angkatan Laut yang jumlahnya sekitar 300 orang. Sebagai ketua tim advokasi tahanan politik Angkatan Laut, Ali minta nama mereka direhabilitasi, karena mereka ditahan belasan tahun tanpa diadili.

Hasil pembicaraan itu dianggapnya ada kemajuan. Ada beberapa nama yang berhasil direhabilitasi, tetapi belum semuanya. Mereka itu, menurutnya, bukan PKI. “Tetapi ada pengkhianatan dan dibikin-bikin dan memang ada perintah dari atasan saat itu agar dihabiskan sejumlah orang sekian banyak. Ini yang saya perhatikan. Saya tidak ingin membawa dosa kalau saya mati. Ini kalau tidak diselesaikan, akan sampai ke anak cucu. Ini suatu kejahatan yang bukan main," demikian pidato tidak resmi Bang Ali.

Ia juga berbicara tentang nasib nama Bung Karno yang namanya belum dipulihkan karena ada beberapa Ketetapan MPRS XXXIII Tahun 1967 yang tidak dicabut. "Seperti nasib Bung Karno sekarang, DPR lepas tangan. Katanya ini enmalig, apa itu enmalig. Padahal, dalam Ketetapan MPRS dikatakan pemerintah harus menyelesaikan secara hukum.”

Menilai kehidupan saat ini yang dianggap mulai stabil, Bang Ali justru mempertanyakannya. “Apanya yang stabil? Hidup rakyat itu bukan semata-mata politik, tapi ekonominya. Dolar turun, tetapi harga kok naik terus. Orang saling bunuh, perampokan segala macam, itu karena mereka lapar.”

Untuk itu, ia meminta pemerintah lebih memperhatikan persoalan rakyat di bawah. "Sekarang berat. Negaranya dalam keadaan susah. Para politikus bertengkar terus, tidak memikirkan rakyat. Nafsunya untuk mendapatkan kekayaan begitu hebat. Lihat pegawai negeri ABRI itu (maksudnya TNI sekarang-Red), gajinya berapa? Mungkin hanya cukup untuk makan lima hari, seperti kalian wartawan. Sementara itu, beberapa orang lainnya mendapatkan penghasilan puluhan juta," ujarnya.

Bagaimana hubungan Bang Ali dengan keluarga Bung Kamo? Dengan bangga Bang Ali menanyakan, siapa yang membangun rumah untuk Megawati, Guruh, atau Sukmawati? Ia juga menjawab pertanyaan itu bahwa Pemda DKI lah yang membuat rumah mereka di Cempaka Putih, Jakarta Pusat. Juga izin pemilikan pompa bensin. Semua itu dilakukan ketika ia masih menjabat Gubernur DKI. Guruh Soekarnoputra pun mendapat bagian. Pemberian itu dimaksudkan sebagai bekal hidup anak mantan presiden. Ia pun membandingkan dengan anak mantan Presiden Soeharto yang sekarang punya ratusan perusahaan.

Meskipun pada waktu Presiden Soeharto berkuasa ia pernah dicekal, namun hal itu tak jadi halangan untuk menjalin tali silaturahmi. Misalnya, lebaran tahun 2001 ia datang ke rumahnya. Pada saat itu ada Ali Alatas (bekas Menteri Luar Negeri). Karena waktu itu Pak Harto sudah tidak bisa bicara, jadinya dua Ali yang ngobrol (Ali Sadikin dan Ali Alatas). Setelah itu mereka makan hidangan Lebaran.

Pencekalan itu ternyata tidak membuatnya sakit hati. Ia ikhlas, malah mengaku untung dicekal. Karena pencekalan itu anak, istri, dan dirinya sendiri tidak bisa ke luar negeri, malah bisa menghemat. Selama hidupnya, ia belum pernah bersama anak-anak rekreasi ke luar negeri. Di dalam negeri pun hanya sekali, itu pun ke Bali.

Pengalaman, ketokohan, dan kematangannya sebenarnya merupakan modal besar baginya untuk dapat mendirikan salah satu partai politik atau bergabung dengan partai politik yang sudah ada. Namun, ia tidak mau melakukan itu. Tawaran dari partai politik tidak hanya satu tapi beberapa kali datang dari partai berbeda. Namun ia menolak itu semua dengan alasan ingin mandiri.

Lain parpol lain pula dengan Petisi 50, forum diskusi kritis yang dibidaninya tahun 1980 yang menyebabkannya dicekal pemerintahan Orde Baru. Sebagai pendiri Petisi 50, Bang Ali berminat mengadakan diskusi lagi. Menurutnya, misi Petisi 50 adalah mengajarkan demokrasi yang sebenarnya yaitu untuk memperbaiki nasib bangsa. Bukan untuk jadi presiden.

Ketika ditanyakan, siapa kira-kira yang pantas menjadi presiden setelah Pemilu 2004, dengan lugas ia menjawab, “Nurcholish Madjid (sambil mengacungkan jempol).” Menurutnya, sosok Cak Nur adalah yang terbersih dan paling memiliki harapan untuk perbaikan masa depan bangsa di antara calon presiden lainnya. Bang Ali memandang positif ketika Cak Nur mengeluarkan pernyataan pembubarkan HMI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam). Karena kenyataannya yang korupsi banyak orang HMI.

Sejak tahun 1959 hingga 1977, Ali Sadikin memegang beberapa jabatan seperti Deputi Kepala Staf Angkatan Laut, Menteri Perhubungan Laut Kabinet Kerja, Menteri Koordinator Kompartemen Maritim/Menteri Perhubungan Laut Kabinet Dwikora dan Kabinet Dwikora yang disempurnakan, dan terakhir Gubernur Jakarta selama 11 tahun.

Setelah tahun 1977, namanya menjadi populer karena menjadi tokoh Petisi 50 yang menentang secara terbuka pemerintahan rezim Soeharto. Ia dicekal, tetapi tidak pernah dipenjara atau diajukan ke pengadilan.

Selama empat tahun terakhir ini ia tidak banyak melakukan kegiatan fisik, termasuk menghindari datang ke resepsi-resepsi atau ceramah-ceramah. "Ini perintah dokter dan saya berdisiplin terhadap menu makanan. Untuk datang ke acara seperti di istana ini, sebenarnya saya juga tidak diperbolehkan. Maka sebaiknya saya tidak diundang lagi ke sini," ujarnya.

Kegiatan terakhir yang banyak dilakukan adalah mengkliping koran dan menggarisi kalimat-kalimat di artikel koran dengan stabilo. Sampai kini setiap pagi ia masih terus membaca paling tidak 30 koran.

Akan tetapi, kegembiraan yang dimiliki Ali Sadikin ialah kebersamaannya setiap saat dengan putra bungsunya, yaitu Yasser Umarsyah Sadikin, murid kelas dua SMP Global Bintaro. Ini hadiah dari Tuhan yang tiada taranya

Papa Baca Keras-Keras Ya Pa, Supaya Jessica Bisa Denger

2008-06-25T01:36:00.000-07:00

"Papa Baca Keras-Keras Ya Pa, Supaya Jessica Bisa Denger"

Pada suatu malam Budi, seorang eksekutif sukses, seperti biasanya sibuk memperhatikan berkas-berkas pekerjaan kantor yang dibawanya pulang ke rumah, karena keesokan harinya ada rapat umum yang sangat penting dengan para pemegang saham.

Ketika ia sedang asyik menyeleksi dokumen kantor tersebut, Putrinya Jessica datang mendekatinya, berdiri tepat disampingnya, sambil memegang buku cerita baru.
Buku itu bergambar seorang peri kecil yang imut, sangat menarik perhatian Jessica,

"Pa liat"! Jessica berusaha menarik perhatian ayahnya.

Budi menengok ke arahnya, sambil menurunkan kacamatanya, kalimat yang keluar hanyalah kalimat basa-basi "Wah,. buku baru ya Jes?"

"Ya papa" Jessica berseri-seri karena merasa ada tanggapan dari ayahnya.

"Bacain Jessi dong Pa" pinta Jessica lembut

"Wah papa sedang sibuk sekali, jangan sekarang deh" sanggah Budi dengan cepat.

Lalu ia segera mengalihkan perhatiannya pada kertas-kertas yang berserakkan didepannya, dengan serius.
Jessica bengong sejenak, namun ia belum menyerah. Dengan suara lembut dan sedikit manja ia kembali merayu
"pa, mama bilang papa mau baca untuk Jessi"

Budi mulai agak kesal, "Jes papa sibuk, sekarang Jessi suruh mama baca ya"

"Pa, mama cibuk terus, papa liat gambarnya lucu-lucu"

"Lain kali Jessica, sana ! papa lagi banyak kerjaan" Budi berusaha memusatkan perhatiannya pada lembar-lembar kertas tadi, menit demi menit berlalu, Jessica menarik nafas panjang dan tetap disitu, berdiri ditempatnya penuh harap, dan tiba-tiba ia mulai lagi.
"Pa,.. gambarnya bagus, papa pasti suka"

"Jessica, PAPA BILANG, LAIN KALI!!" kata Budi membentaknya dengan keras.

Kali ini Budi berhasil, semangat Jessica kecil terkulai, hampir menangis , matanya berkaca-kaca dan ia bergeser menjauhi ayahnya
"Iya pa,. lain kali ya pa?"

Ia masih sempat mendekati ayahnya dan sambil menyentuh lembut tangan ayahnya ia menaruh buku cerita di pangkuan sang Ayah.
"Pa kalau papa ada waktu, papa baca keras-keras ya pa, supaya Jessica bisa denger".

Hari demi hari telah berlalu, tanpa terasa dua pekan telah berlalu namun permintaan Jessica kecil tidak pernah terpenuhi, buku cerita Peri Imut, belum pernah dibacakan bagi dirinya.
Hingga suatu sore terdengar suara hentakan keras "Buukk!!" beberapa tetangga melaporkan dengan histeris bahwa Jessica kecil terlindas kendaraan seorang pemuda mabuk yang melajukan kendaraannya dengan kencang didepan rumah Budi.

Tubuh Jessica mungil terhentak beberapa meter, dalam keadaan yang begitu panik ambulance didatangkan secepatnya.
Selama perjalanan menuju rumah sakit, Jessica kecil sempat berkata dengan begitu lirih
"Jessi takut Pa, Jessi takut Ma, Jessi sayang papa mama"

Darah segar terus keluar dari mulutnya hingga ia tidak tertolong lagi ketika sesampainya di rumah sakit terdekat.

Kejadian hari itu begitu mengguncangkan hati nurani Budi, Tidak ada lagi waktu tersisa untuk memenuhi sebuah janji.
Kini yang ada hanyalah penyesalan.
Permintaan sang buah hati yang sangat sederhana.. pun tidak terpenuhi.

Masih segar terbayang dalam ingatan budi tangan mungil anaknya yang memohon kepadanya untuk membacakan sebuah cerita, kini sentuhan itu terasa sangat berarti sekali

"...papa baca keras-keras ya Pa, supaya Jessica bisa denger" kata-kata Jessi terngiang-ngiang kembali.

Sore itu setelah segalanya telah berlalu, yang tersisa hanya keheningan dan kesunyian hati, canda dan riang Jessica kecil tidak akan terdengar lagi, Budi mulai membuka buku cerita peri imut yang diambilnya perlahan dari onggokan mainan Jessica di pojok ruangan.
Bukunya sudah tidak baru lagi, sampulnya sudah usang dan koyak. Beberapa coretan tak berbentuk menghiasi lembar-lembar halamannya seperti sebuah kenangan indah dari Jessica kecil.

Budi menguatkan hati, dengan mata yang berkaca-kaca ia membuka halaman pertama dan membacanya dengan suara keras, tampak sekali ia berusaha membacanya dengan keras, Ia terus membacanya dengan keras-keras halaman demi halaman, dengan berlinang air mata.

"Jessi dengar papa baca ya" selang beberapa kata,.. hatinya memohon lagi

"Jessi papa mohon ampun nak"
"papa sayang Jessi"

Seakan setiap kata dalam bacaan itu begitu menggores lubuk hatinya, tak kuasa menahan itu Budi bersujut dan menangis memohon satu kesempatan lagi untuk mencintai.

Seseorang yang mengasihi selalu mengalikan kesenangan dan membagi kesedihan kita, Ia selalu memberi PERHATIAN kepada kita karena ia peduli kepada kita.

ADAKAH "PERHATIAN TERBAIK" ITU BEGITU MAHAL BAGI MEREKA ?

BERILAH "PERHATIAN TERBAIK" WALAUPUN ITU HANYA SEKALI

Bukankah Kesempatan untuk memberi perhatian kepada orang-orang yang kita cintai itu sangat berharga ?

DO IT NOW

Berilah "PERHATIAN TERBAIK" bagi mereka yang kita cintai.

LAKUKAN SEKARANG !! KARENA HANYA ADA SATU KESEMPATAN UNTUK MEMPERHATIKAN DENGAN HATI KITA

Save the World by Your Hand

2008-06-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

Tak ada yang sepele dalam menyelamatkan lingkungan hidup. Sekecil
apapun kontribusi kita, manfaatnya pasti dirasakan kita semua. Banyak
sekali yang dapat kita lakukan sehari-hari untuk meringankan beban
bumi dan meningkatkan kualitas hidup sesama.

Semoga saja panduan singkat ini bisa menyebar ke semua kalangan.

Tentunya, jangan lupa untuk terus mencari, mengembangkan, dan
menerapkan berbagai informasi mengenai penyelamatan lingkungan hidup
di Indonesia.

Sedikit aksi, kurangi banyak sampah!

1. Kurangi Sampah -- Bawa tas kain sendiri saat berbelanja untuk
menghindari penggunaan tas plastik dan tas kertas. Hindari membeli dan
membuat produk dengan kemasan berlebihan, dan yang menggunakan styrofoam.

2. Gunakan Kembali – Gunakan kembali botol dan wadah kemasan
produk untuk penyimpanan daripada membeli baru. Jangan membuang barang
yang masih layak digunakan, berikanlah kepada yang membutuhkannya.

3. Daur ulang – Pilah sampah rumah tangga Anda. Sampah basah dapat
dijadikan kompos tanaman. Tempatkan sampah kertas, plastik, dan botol
gelas yang telah dipilah di tempat terpisah dan persilahkan pemulung
mengambilnya untuk di daur ulang.

4. Pastikan agar 3 prinsip di atas diterapkan di rumah, sekolah,
kantor, tempat ibadah dan tempat berdagang. untuk mengurangi jumlah
sampah yang sampai ke tempat pembuangan akhir.

5. Dorong pemerintah membuat kebijakan dan fasilitas pengelolaan
sampah berdasarkan 3 prinsip di atas dan melibatkan masyarakat dan
komunitas pemulung.

Sedikit aksi, selamatkan banyak air!

1. Biasakan hemat air saat mencuci pakaian, peralatan makan,
menyiram tanaman, mencuci kendaraan bermotor. Jangan biarkan air
mengalir terus saat menggosok gigi, mencuci rambut dan menyabuni
tubuh. Matikan keran dan buka kembali saat Anda membutuhkannya.

2. Kurangi penggunaan bahan kimia yang semakin mencemari perairan,
seperti deterjen, pembersih lantai, pestisida, dll. Jangan membuang
sampah dan limbah ke sungai, laut, danau, pantai, dll.

3. Pastikan agar sekolah, kantor, tempat ibadah dan tempat
berdagang menerapkan penghematan air dan memasang kakus yang
membedakan volume air siram untuk buang air kecil dan air besar.
Pastikan bangunan rumah, kantor, dan sekolah memiliki sumur resapan
yang memungkinkan air hujan masuk ke dalam tanah.

4. Dukung kampanye penyelamatan sumber daya air Indonesia! Klik
untuk memahami kondisi kritis sumber daya air di Indonesia serta
pentingnya pengelolaan air untuk semua orang tanpa kecuali. Kunjungi
sungai, danau, laut terdekat dan pahami pentingnya air bagi kehidupan
semua mahkluk.

Turun tangan selamatkan lingkungan ternyata ringan!