This is a true blog. My thoughts about the "Adsense Program" and similar programs from Google, Yahoo, and others will come spilling out onto this page as a "newbie" to this area. However, It will read from oldest post to newest post, so it reads like a book. Adsense refers to those mini ads on the side of the page. Most websites devoted to Adsense are complicated, and have their own agendas. Here, I will be discussing the program as I find out about it with YOUR help. In short, most website operators who use Adsense mini-ads inside their pages are doing so in order to compensate for expenses of putting together their page. There are apparently ways to optimize Adsense and similar programs. Much of this is explained by Google, some of the information you have to dig for. If you search for Adsense information pages you will find a wealth of information on the subject, but may get confused, so I'll take it slow here. The first thing you should know is to apply for Adsense (or its opposite counterpart, Adwords, to be described) you need to click on Advertising Programs just below the google search box when you go to google. Or just GO TO THIS LINK TO APPLY. You need to have a page to apply, and if you read further you will see that it may be better to start from scratch, so don't worry if you don't already have a website, you will be better off if you don't!
After applying, it takes about a day or two for Google to approve your site after making sure there is some content, and that it is not objectionable. The golden rule about Adsense is to NOT CLICK ON YOUR OWN ADS. I'll explain that later.
Todd -
Advise you keep checking problogger.net. (http://www.problogger.net) for good advise on all the issues at hand in this blog.
ALSO--you're still not sharing "link love" on any of your blogs, which sounds corny but means a lot in the "blogosphere."
Spreading link love is the currency of the blogosphere; it's what makes this little world go 'round and is the basis of social software (blogs/wikis, etc).
You have the ability to be what's called an "A-list" blogger, although there's a growing backlash against that term but whatever...it means you get a lot of readers and are a domain expert, so having that following isn't unfounded.
The key to becoming one of the top bloggers is to SHARE links, which requires you to comment on OTHER blogs, link to other people and share your audience (readership) with them. In return, they'll bring more readers to you.
Find other weather guys doing similar projects in other parts of the country. Swap ideas on what makes that particular climate special, etc...whatever. Your audience will grow as will that of the people you link to. You'll also get more exposure nationally.
Check out this link from the "father" of blogging, Microsoft's Robert Scoble:
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/02/14/tips-for-joining-the-a-list/
Posted by: Joel | February 24, 2006 at 08:50 PM
To give you an idea of what kind of a difference sharing links will make in your blogging effort, read Robert's link and then check out this graph of traffic to his blog vs. yours on Alexa.com. Your lines are in blue, his in red:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&compare_sites=http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/&y=t&q=&url=toddgross.com
Posted by: Joel | February 24, 2006 at 09:02 PM
Thanks Joel, I knew I was missing the link factor.
Posted by: Todd Gross | February 28, 2006 at 10:29 AM
yes.. I did mention problogger.net elsewhere on the page
Posted by: todd gross | March 01, 2006 at 10:50 AM