Google PageRank - From Hero to Zero?

Say it ain't so, but Google has made a recent Page Rank update which helps some, hurts others. Much has been blogged about the latest updates, with John Chow recently discussing those who benefited. Several high profile bloggers have gone up to 5's and 6's. Several bloggers penalized for doing PayPerPost and other sponsored reviews went from 0's to 3's. It appears as of today, the Monetizer who once enjoyed a PR of 3 has been "Google-slapped" as they call it, right down to the 0 mark.

I take all rankings in stride, even this PR one which is quite important. Page Rank is Google's view of the importance of your website, blog or individual pages within them. While I respect Google for its search engine traffic, Adsense, Analytics, G-Mail, and other great features, this drop in rank won't defeat The Monetizer. Most likely this is due to taking on more paid reviews, but let's face it, we all want to get paid right? Recent logins to PPP have revealed more "gray opportunities" which mean they would be available but were taken. There haven't been any recent green or white opportunities, but this could simply be other bloggers quickly snatching up the work. The page rank drop could also be due to not having enough link love out in the web to satisfy Google. Either way, this just proves I will have to work harder to re-establish the rank here. Google, the Monetizer has no hard feelings. I will still make my money... Fans of the Monetizer, don't take down the posters off your walls just yet.

The Alexa traffic rank is still doing well here, as it has seemingly increased steadily for months after this blog was started (Entrecard helps a tad). As of today it's at 355,000 mark. As for the 0 rank, I realize that success doesn't come without some failures and hard work. I also refer to the old fashioned cliche, "things can only go up from here!"

(Note: If anyone shows a PageRank besides 0 for this blog, please let me know..)

Make Money with Entrecard & eBay!

Oh no, it's another Entrecard article! Well this has an interesting spin to it, in that you can actually profit from your "hard-earned" Entrecard credits. Basically there's been plenty of sales of the EC's done via the leading auction site online, eBay. Smart bloggers now realize that purchasing these otherwise free credits can help them establish their blog through cheaper advertising. Time is money as they say, and who really has the time to go around dropping their card off on 1,000's of blogs?

Check out some of these recently ended eBay auctions:


View the latest Entrecard auctions on eBay.

Apologies if the image makes the prices hard to read...But, as you can see you can make money off those "free" Entrecard credits you can accumulate by allowing others to advertise on you, or by dropping your card, or having others drop it on you! There's no word on how long these will be in demand on eBay, but advertising costs people, so why not buy it in the form of EC's? This way if someone buys a few thousand credits they can advertise on a blog like John Chow or Problogger for a fraction of the cost. While it's only for a day, that exposure can be pretty big for a new blog. One of the most successful days for me with Entrecard was the day I was on Problogger, as it brought many visitors, EC droppers and hopefully a few new readers!

The other interesting thing here is how prices vary. You see someone received $7.50 on a Buy it Now for 1,000 credits, while another sale of 2,000 credits went for just $6.50? Yet another auction for 2,000 credits reached $12.50? The average cost for 1,000 credits looks to be about $4.50 to $5 based on the higher auctions, but I think most people would take what they can get for a free online credit! Supply and demand is clearly still there for the EC's on eBay if you price them just right and promote the auctions well. Flipping them for extra money could help you purchase that domain name for your blog or other services....Or on the other hand if you're looking to advertise, you could find a low-cost EC auction on eBay. There doesn't appear to be any restriction on selling the credits, although EC itself appears to be forming its own online market to sell them amongst members too.

If you've sold EC's, or have bought them on eBay, or are considering either, or just want to weigh in on this moneymaking move, feel free to share your thoughts here.

Browsing the Coupon Code Mall

Today The Monetizer would like to take a look at a niche blog site I feel has great potential for success. CouponCodesMall.com is a site that has just what the URL says, it provides its visitors with great shopping deals online via Coupons. It's a blog set up as a website to provide anyone who drops by with the latest in online coupons and discount deals. The site includes several categories including Amazon, GoDaddy.com, BestBuy.com, Sony, MacMall Computer coupons, Jewelry and cameras. There's even a search engine on the side for Amazon Deals as well. The site is updated regularly which is helpful for attracting traffic and keeping visitors around. A recent example is "Canon Digital Camera: EXPRESS, SHOOT AND SHARE" which reviews one of the best new camera offerings from Canon.



While the site does offer some great coupon deals, I felt it was lacking a bit in its site appearance and layout. Some may disagree with me here, but there are many web users who are visual rather than textual. You have to keep those visitors in mind with a site that offers these product deals, and consider picturing more items to attract attention to them. Get people into a buying mood. A more stylish graphic banner might also aid in conveying the site as respectable and professional online resource, but this isn't a huge deal always. I think with a banner showing happy customers or a variety of products you get potential customers more interested in what you have to offer.

The navigational bar menu is also up to the right hand side of the banner, and could use some work. It lists "HOME" "GODADDY" "CONTACT" TOP COUPONS" and "RESOURCES". I would consider listing CONTACT last rather than in the middle. I'd also consider moving TOP COUPONS to the second position and replacing the GODADDY tab. That particular tab makes very little sense as the general feel from the site I got was for products such as cameras, video games, Amazon and PC deals. Another consideration is to rename it as "WEB HOSTING", or create a "TECH DEALS" section which includes GoDaddy offers.

I also noted some grammatical errors which could shy customers away. While the Monetizer is far from perfect when it comes to blog spelling or grammar, I do my best to doublecheck all work. If CouponCodesMall wants to succeed it needs to edit entries so that a customer will feel it is a professional resource they can rely on.

With some revamping, the CouponCodesMall definitely has the potential to craft itself into a nice niche type blog site. It has the overall positive benefit of offering visitors some great deals on products around the web. Visitors and customers could be gained as subscribers or simply from the search engine traffic, and lead to profitability for the site for some time to come.

As the Twitter Tweets Twhirl...

About a week ago The Monetizer realized he had gained about 35 followers on the fun website called Twitter. Twitter is the site that poses the question "What are you doing?" then gives you a little box to type about 140 characters or less about what you're doing. These little updates you send are called "Tweets" and friends on the site interested in what you have to say become your "followers". You can post your updates by the Twitter site, IM apps, or even your cell phone. Twitter has been proposed by many internet marketers and bloggers as a great tool for promotion and getting new ideas for your blog. John Cow even proposed in a recent blog entry that it could be more up to date than RSS feeds for notifying people of your new blog posts.

While 35 followers isn't a ton (some users have 10's of thousands of followers), it's a decent enough number to make the Monetizer want to use Twitter even more. So I decided to create Twitter accounts for a few other blogs I run, just to test the waters. I also downloaded a great little app called Twhirl. This is sorta like an AIM for Twitter with many helpful extra features. It's a program you download to your PC or MAC, and then login to your Twitter account(s) through it. This way you can quickly send out a Tweet from your desktop, rather than logging into Twitter. (Note: you'll need to download a copy of Adobe AIR prior to installing Twhirl).

Another site to consider using with this is Twitterfeed.com. On this site you can register yourself, then put in your blog's RSS feed to be fed to your Twitter account. As you post a new blog entry, Twitterfeed will send that to Twitter, in essence broadcasting your new post to anybody who may see it (followers or people who see it on the timeline).

Consider getting with Twitter as these days just about everybody's doing it. It can be a powerful little promotional tool for your blog when used properly. Depending on your blog's theme, you should search on Twitter for people who may be interested in your blog. For example if you blog about baseball, try looking up "Red Sox" or "Yankees" or "MLB" on Twitter. Browse through your results for members and follow those who have updated within at least the past week. They may soon be following you, subscribing to your blog and creating a great new connection or referral source for your blog site.

Follow the Monetizer on Twitter here.

Some other useful Twitter resources to look at:

50 Ways to Use Twitter - Squidoo Lens

17 Ways You Can Use Twitter by Dosh Dosh

The Gaming of Twitter by Zac Johson

The Power of Twitter by interwebers

Twitter vs. RSS by John Cow

Why I Love Twitter by Problogger