Homepage – How critical is it?

Recently I came across a friend who wanted to make a good looking homepage and putting all their promotions and one of the main lead generation links only on the homepage. Since the beginning of the internet the homepage of the site has been considered the most important page of the site. Till recently, that truly was the case. Visitors entered the site mainly through the homepage; it was the main entry to the site. A good looking homepage was considered the key to the success of the site.

Fyi...visitor’s behaviors have changed; your homepage is no longer the only entry page into the site. Visitors enter from all sort of different pages and not just the homepage. Homepage is still an important page but not as critical as you might think. Look into the data provided by your web analytics tool before you start changing the homepage in a hope that once the page looks cool everything will be fine. Pretty simple process but a lot of people ignore it.

These days users don't have time to look around. Days of web surfing are long over. Users are generally looking for some specific information/product and once they find it, they come to the site, get the content/product... etc from the site and are gone from the site without checking the homepage.

Below are some of the factors that cause users to bypass the home page.
1. Search Engines – Visitors, now more than ever, rely on the search engines to find the sites or pages which are relevant to what they are looking for. Search engines link into internal pages not just home page, at least that’s the case for well search engine optimized sites.

2. Viral Marketing – Friends referring friends to internal page of the site.

3. Bookmarks – Visitors are book marking the internal pages which have content/products which interest them and then use these bookmarks to visit the site again.

4. Deep linking referrals – Other sites, blogs etc. are linking to the internal pages with content/products relevant to their content.

I am not saying that you should not have a nice homepage (people do judge the book by the cover, if they see the cover). Focusing just on the homepage is not a smart idea. Your critical promotions and conversion processes should be easily accessible from the top traffic and entry pages, if not all the pages.

As always, I would like to hear your point of view and the stories that you might be willing to share.

The 5 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

I came across this posting on http://www.smartmoney.com/. It's quite interesting to learn that millionaires are after all human.

1. "You may think I'm rich, but I don't."

A million dollars may sound like a fortune to most people, and folks with that much cash can't complain — they're richer than 90 percent of U.S. households and earn $366,000 a year, on average, putting them in the top 1 percent of taxpayers. But the club isn't so exclusive anymore. Some 10 million households have a net worth above $1 million, almost double the number in 2002. Moreover, just 8 percent of millionaires think they're "very" or "extremely" wealthy, while 19 percent don't feel rich at all. They're worried about health care, retirement and how they'll sustain their lifestyle.

Indeed, many millionaires still don't have enough for exclusive luxuries, like membership at an elite golf club, which can top $300,000 a year. While $1 million was a tidy sum three decades ago, you'd need $3.6 million for the same purchasing power today. So what does it take to feel truly rich? The magic number is $23 million.

2. "I shop at Wal-Mart..."

They may not buy the 99-cent paper towels, but millionaires know what it is to be frugal. About 80 percent say they spend with a middle-class mind-set. That means buying luxury items on sale, hunting for bargains — even clipping coupons.

3. "...but I didn't get rich by skimping on lattes."

So how do you join the millionaires' club? You could buy stocks or real estate, play the slots in Vegas — or take the most common path: running your own business. That's how half of all millionaires made their money. About a third had a professional practice or worked in the corporate world; only 3 percent inherited their wealth.

4. "I have a concierge for everything."

That hot restaurant may be booked for months — at least when Joe Nobody calls to make reservations. But many top eateries set aside tables for celebrities and A-list clientele, and that's where the personal concierge comes in. Working for retainers that range anywhere from $25 an hour to six figures a year, these modern-day butlers have the inside track on chic restaurants, spa reservations, even an early tee time at the golf club. And good concierges will scour the planet for whatever their clients want — whether it's holy water blessed personally by the Pope, rare Mexican tequila or artisanal sausages found only in northern Spain.

5. "You don't get rich by being nice."

John D. Rockefeller threatened rivals with bankruptcy if they didn't sell out to his company, Standard Oil. Bill Gates was ruthless in building Microsoft into the world's largest software firm (remember Netscape?). Indeed, many millionaires privately admit they're "bastards in business". Most millionaires share the values of their moderate-income parents. Just 12 percent say that what they want most to be remembered for is their legacy in business. Millionaires are also seemingly undaunted by failure.

More tips at http://www.smartmoney.com/

Selling your real estate

Nope. I didn't mean selling your house. Real estate in this posting refers to banner space on your site. My placement of AdSense is pretty bad, and I am not using any alternate means to rake in the bucks, as I work towards selling advertising space directly rather than through the numerous systems that are out there.

Why sell ad space directly to advertisers?

When I started this blog, I really wanted to share the little knowledge that I had and hope that in the process, I have helped you. Advertising really wasn't on my mind. People would think that doing direct advertising would take more time, but just like going through a program, it can become quite passive.

I am not going out, actively looking for advertisers and contacting people. This eventually means that I'll probably get less advertisers on this blog, but the ones that do contact me, are serious about advertising here. This form of advertising actually gives me better control over which ads I run, so you’ll never see something I don’t approve of, unless its an AdSense advertising block (which I’d love to replace as well).

I can set my own rates. I can make my advertising space cost as much or as little as I want. Direct advertising means not having to have a percentage taken off by another company. When you outsource your advertisements to pretty much any company, they will want some of the money they are bringing in for you.

There are so many advantages and disadvantages to selling your ad space directly to an advertiser, at the end of the day it's up to you to decide what's best. Some people don’t like handing payments, dealing with subscriptions, or even just dealing with potential advertisers. If you've sold advertising directly from your site, have you done well? Or didn't do so well? Let me know in the comments below. And if you are interested in purchasing advertising here, just drop me a comment and I'll contact you.

Blog Subcriptions - Bringing back more readers

RSS is supposedly the latest and greatest spam proof way to convey a message to your readers. But not everyone is used to this medium yet. You may have a very interesting blog and many readers who would like to receive updates, however they just simply don’t know what RSS is or want to bother with it.

Everyone has email, even my nephew who's 5 years old is using email, but if you were to ask him what RSS feeds he subscribes to, he’ll just look at you funny. Adding an email subscription function (such as the one on the top right hand side) for users to receive blog updates via email is a great way to increase page views. More views = more income.

Adding a subscription field to your site is made surprisingly easy by FeedBurner, a company which specifically provides blog/website email subscription services. Adding an email subscription form to your site is as easy as inserting one line of JavaScript, just as you would do for AdSense. There are many interesting functions available within FeedBurner. Give it a try. Instructions are rather simple and easy to follow. Once you're comfortable, you can always upgrade to some other email systems which offer more functions and extensions.

Adding a subscription field to this blog has definitely helped to increase page views and I would highly recommend adding one to your site as well. FeedBurner provides excellent services where you can configure email subscriptions on your site within minutes.

Check FeedBuner out, and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog for your latest money making advice!!

Make Use of the Highest Paying Keywords

You may have read the list of the highest paying keywords on my site, it's interesting to see that some keywords pay $100+ per click! However, will you be able to see any of this money yourself? I have, and you should be able too.

Firstly, it's a fact that you'll never see a profit of $100 per click credited to your AdSense account. These figures are what Google charges their advertisers in AdWords. You as a publisher or website owner will only see a smaller percentage of this. I have seen $3-4 per click, which is very good if you were to multiply them by 20 or 30 clicks per day. Traffic is king. It's the key to a higher pay out.

AdSense tries to find the highest paying keyword which is most relevant to your content. The key word here is relevance. If you run a blog about real estate for example, there is no sense in including the high-paying words such as mesothelioma; however, writing a blog entry about finding home mortgage refinancing might bring in higher paying ads. Working in the term “refinancing mortgage” priced at $113 per click would also not be a bad idea. Other blog entries on the site about “mortgage refinancing companies” relating to real estate, may also deliver high paying ads. Be creative, but always remember to stick to the main topic of your site. Without an audience, there is no one to click your ads.

The next time that you are searching for a topic for your latest blog entry, scan through the highest paying search terms, top down and pick out the first few keywords that relate to the theme of your site. Remember that we are blogging for profit, not for fun!

Highest Paying Keywords

Google provides a really great tool to search for the current CPC for keywords which can be found here. I have used this tool to compile an updated list of the current highest paying keywords. It seems that "financing" has caught up with "lawyers" in terms of highest paying keywords. I guess it's due to the US Sub prime. It’s also a bit concerning that some of the highest paying keywords are for “Asbestos Cancer”, and “Criminal Attorney”, well oh well..

Below are a few to check out (in MYR):

Write about what people are interested in!

Over the past few months, i've come to realize something interesting about my web statistics. I use Google Analytics to analyze my statistics and of the the interesting functions is the searched keywords. The top searched keywords that generated visits to my site were directly related to my content; "ebay", "blogging", etc...

But what caught my attention was that some of the other keywords has no relation at all to my site. They were search results such as "pop", "awards", "pussycat dolls" and "attorney". And I started to think what the heck is going on? Then i remembered that this was all due to one of my postings on the Top 10 Internet Searches. This has me thinking...these terms actually do drive traffic to your site. So if you're suddenly short of ideas for your blog, or are looking for some instant traffic, just try writing about something on the this list..chances are you'll get a few extra visits.

Increase your traffic by leaving comments on other blogs

Blogging is not new to everyone anymore. The best part of blogging as compared to a normal website is that you can leave a comment on a blog. A normal website seldom has this function. Blogging is a great social networking tool. What I would usually do when visiting someone's blog is to leave a comment. When doing so, the author might in return visit your blog. On another note, your blog should have the comment function enabled. So what are you waiting for? Leave a comment on my posts and I would definitely drop by your blog.