Microsoft+Yahoo vs Google

The big news that rocked both the business and technology worlds was Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo for 44.6 billion. You'd have to believe this could make MSFT a serious competitor now for Google. It makes good sense, as Yahoo and Microsoft are the two other major search engines. Microsoft had lost ground to Google which seems to be like the Berkshire Hathaway of internet stocks. Google basically encompasses so many functions and features it's mindblowing. Now it will be interesting to see how Microsoft merges its programs with those of Yahoo. For example sites like MyBlogLog are already owned by Yahoo. Then you have the search engines themselves, Yahoo's website hosting plans, advertising program (similar to Google's).

Speaking of Google, I received an interesting email earlier (not from Google) which discusses how Adsense publishers are reporting mixed results lately. Some publishers are seeing a serious downturn in earnings while others have seen an upswing. What I've noticed is interesting. Organic search engine traffic has been moving up for several of my blogs and click pricing has been lower. But I've still done well due to all the new traffic. The email mentioned that this drop in earnings could be directly related to advertisers pulling back on spending which is due to economic worries.

So it's a tough call with Adsense, but it still continues to be a top earner for many. I still agree with John Chow's guiding advice, to find as many monetization sources as you can for your blog or site. It might be nice to enjoy earnings from something like Amazon or an Affiliate sale while you're waiting for Adsense to increase.

The Winner of 777 EC's is...

Drumroll please..We have a winner in the first ever contest here at The Monetizer blog. This is the contest to giveaway 777 Entrecard credits to one lucky winner. And the winner is...

Laura Williams Musings!

Congrats to Laura, you'll be hearing from me to receive your 777 credits with Entrecard!

Thanks to all otherwho hentered! Here's some link love for those of you I could provide links for! If you're listed below without a link and want a link to your blog, just drop me a line here, or contact me: monetizer[at]myway[dot]com


SEO Rob - Increase Online Traffic
C-Squared
Evelester - DillyDesigns.com
Zoran
Jaklang
Laura Williams' Musings
indoconsoles
br3adman (clint) - PromoMaker
asif - Youth Cocktail
sarah rebecca - This is Not My Bag of Sunshine
emiliana - Bizpreneur Blog

(If your name/link is not listed above and you entered, please contact)

Congrats again to Laura, don't spend all those 777 EC's in one place! (Well actually you will have to spend them through EntreCard)

(Note: The first winner drawn didn't seem to have Entrecard or a real blog entry...So a winner was drawn randomly for a second time at MathGoodies.com)

Monetize with Net Audio Ads

To all money makers you have just today and tomorrow to sign up for the innovative new advertising program from PayPerPlay. With this new program you don't need to get clicks to make money from your website or blog. Instead you will insert code to serve up audio ads from Net Audio Ads and will be payed for the times your ads play. The audio ads are relevant and play for 5 seconds, meaning this program gives you a 100% conversion rate for site visitors. It can't get much easier than that to profit from your blog or site!

Signing up to become an affiliate before February 1, 2008 is especially imperative. PayPerPlay will not be offering its free affiliate program after this date, so make sure to take advantage of it in the next few days. After February 1, the program will only offer money in a "host only" capacity, meaning you can only profit from placing ads on your site and not from referring new members.

There's three tiers by which the Net Audio Ads affiliate program will pay you:

Tier 1 - Get paid for ads on your site. And/or

Tier 2 - Get paid on ads served on the websites of those that you personally refer, and

Tier 3: Get paid on ads served on the websites of those that your direct referrals refer.

Don't let a money making opportunity slip away in the coming days. Become an affiliate with Net Audio Ads prior to February 1, 2008 so you can start to really monetize your website or blog!

Should You Game Entrecard?

I like Entrecard and what it can do to help a blog out, but I'm a bit perplexed over one aspect. The Monetizer is trying to figure out why bloggers will spend an entire day trying to game Entrecard. I've recommended the widget and still continue to recommend it to bloggers. I recently helped a friend who was looking to get his blog going and Entrtecard was one of the first things I had him sign up for and set up. He was impressed at how fast his stats have risen, and I explained it's the EC card droppers. It's a nice traffic boost for a blog and a good free advertising method. But you've also probably noticed there's blogs on EC that cost way too many credits for a day spot on them. I respect all bloggers doing their thing and trying to get noticed. It's really too bad for those people that are forking out tons of credits for overpriced blog ad space. It really forces you to do your research or just gamble on an ad spot. That said, there is the possibility that you can spend 20 credits and get a better deal than 350 would with some blogs.

My recommendation to those that are trying to game Entrecard is that you're really wasting time and efforts by doing that. I'm not saying don't use Entrecard or that it doesn't help. But shoot to get your blog into the search engines if you want to realize more traffic and increase monetization. Once you start finding keywords to target and start getting traffic to those posts, you'll feel much better and won't be working as hard afterwards. Wouldn't you rather be able to make money off things like Adsense while sleeping, instead of spending your day trying to get into the "Most Popular" section on Entrecard?

With that said, why game Entrecard when you can easily enter the "Hit 777 EC's With the Monetizer" contest here? You'll spend minimal time and effort to win 777 credits which can help advertise your blog all over the place!