Adsense Ads – A New Look

November 23, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 7 Comments
Filed under: Advertising 

A few months ago, I removed all the Google Adsense ads from this blog and some of my other sites.

Today, I decided to take a new look at how Adsense might perform on this blog.

There were a couple of reasons I removed them.

1. I could earn more from affiliate sales.

2. I didn’t like all the Get Rich Quick junk being shown in the Adsense ads on my sites.

When I put the Adsense Ads back on my blogs, today, I took a couple of steps to overcome the two items listed above.

1. I logged into Google Adsense and clicked the Adsense Setup tab. Then, I clicked on Competitive Ad Filter and entered the domains of the sites that I saw advertising my best-earning affiliate programs.

I’m sure this will be an ongoing process, but it’s not hard to do and takes little time.

2. Then, also in the Adsense Setup tab, I clicked on the Ad Review Center.

This was a new feature to me. I don’t know how long it has been available, but it was just what I was looking for.

They list a number of category filters and I selected seven of them (out of the maximum 8 that we can choose). One of the categories I filtered out of my ads was “Get Rich Quick.”

Since one of the things I keep writing about is to watch out for all these GRQ things that are all over the Internet, I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and have bunches of their ads on my pages.

So far, so good. I’ll keep watch over the types of ads that show and see what other tweaks will be necessary to show only, or at least mostly, the ads I want on my sites.

I got to thinking about this a few days ago, because – even though my affiliate marketing earnings have gone down this year – Adsense has continued to produce income on a daily basis. Not as much as I would like, granted, but I can’t earn if I don’t show the ads, can I?

I used to get a nice check from Google every month. This year, I’ve been averaging a check once every other month. I’d like to get it back to where I receive a nice check from Google every month, again.

I’ll be monitoring the performance of Adsense over the coming month or two and I’ll be tweaking ad types and placements to see if I can earn more on a regular basis.

It will be interesting to see how this works.

What about you?

How are you doing with your Adsense ads?

What have you been doing to improve the performance and therefore your income from them?

Act on your dream!

JD

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An innovative use for banner ads

May 26, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 11 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Attracting Visitors, Marketing, Promote Yourself 

Over the years, I’ve shown many thousands of banner ads on a variety of sites, including traffic exchanges.

Now, I know some of you aren’t fans of traffic exchanges and even I don’t use them as much as I used to.

When I first started marketing online, I could depend on good banners getting a pretty good click-through rate, on the order of 1% or so. That has changed over the years and now the click-through rate I’m seeing is much lower than that, even for well-designed banners.

I still use them now and then, but not to the extent I did a few years ago. In fact, I’ve pretty much given up on them until this morning.

What changed?

I was reading an article by Seth Godin that he posted on his blog a couple of days ago: On becoming a household name

Part of what he said in that blog post jumped right out and grabbed me…

Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they’ve heard of.

It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads….

On some level, I’ve felt that it was unfair to me – the affiliate – to use some banner ads, because they promoted the merchant and didn’t really help me make the sale.

When I read what Seth wrote, I realized that this may have been the purpose of the banner in the first place – to build name recognition for the merchant while I paid for the advertising.

So, how can we turn that around? How can we use banner and other graphic ads to build our own brand and name recognition?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that for a new site I’ll be unveiling soon and I can see several ways that good graphics shown on similar sites can help build awareness of my new site and hopefully bring more visitors.

Even if I never get a single click-through from those graphics, they may do their work well if they help build name awareness of the brand.

It’s not a complicated concept, just one that I hadn’t thought of since I was so focused on getting clicks that lead to sales.

Have you ever thought of banner ads from this perspective?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Get a free marketing site at Linkscout

March 26, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 17 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Downline Builders, Marketing 

I’ve been going through some pretty major changes this year and real life has interfered with some of my marketing activities.

Fortunately, I have some marketing systems that run on automatic, even when I’m tied up doing something else.

Linkscout, created by Paul Antonevich Jr., is one of those automatic systems that has worked well for me for over four years.

Unfortunately, when I resurfaced about a month ago, I found that Linkscout was down for a complete redesign, and I’d been promoting it rather broadly.

So, I’ve been watching the site pretty closely since I learned it was down. The projected date for reopening kept slipping, but I can understand that. I’m sure there’s a lot of work involved in a site that does as much as Linkscout.

Yesterday, I checked, and my marketing page at Linkscout was active, again.

It looks very different than it did the last time I saw it, but the old familiar features are there.

Unfortunately, when looking at it with fresh eyes, I realized I was still promoting a number of affiliate programs and other sites that I no longer want to promote.

So, I spent a couple of hours this morning making some changes.

I deleted some of the websites I promote – well, that’s not accurate. As with any major change, there are always bugs to be found and squashed.

Deleting websites and sponsor boxes are two things that aren’t working this morning.

I did not find a workaround for the sponsor boxes, but I did find that I could hide a website without deleting it. This worked well. So, now, I’m just showing the websites I still want to promote in 2009.

One of the beauties of Linkscout is that you can promote as many websites as you want on one page, and you can even do it for free if that’s what you want.

If you don’t already have an account at Linkscout, you can sign up for one today, at no cost.

In addition to marketing your websites, there is an affiliate marketing downline builder, where you can add your affiliate codes to the existing affiliate programs you want to promote.

I noticed that there were a couple I wanted to add, but the add affiliate programs function is not working currently. Hopefully, Paul will get that working soon.

One of the problems I noticed is that there are a lot of affiliate programs in that list that I have tested and decided not to promote, some because I tried them and found no value and some that just look like obvious wastes of time without even trying.

But, I guess that’s to be expected with most downline builders.

All I can say is be careful of what you join and promote. Your reputation is on the line.

I noticed that I was promoting 66 affiliate programs, but I cut that down to 18 this morning.

One of my mantras in 2009 is “focus.”

I find that Linkscout is an okay system for free members, but it is a much better deal for upgraded pro members.

Paul calls the pro membership an Associate or Gold account.

We all know that free services are somehow subsidized by paying members, right?

If you are a free member, your site will show some of the links of the paying member who sponsored you. With the new redesign, I’m not exactly sure how that works, but I’ll be watching it to learn more.

So, what does an Associate member get for your money?

First of all, you get a lot of advertising points that can be used to bid on keywords for your websites. That makes it easier to get your pages shown when others search by keyword.

I bid relatively highly on terms like “affiliate marketing,” “internet marketing,” and other relevant terms for what I do.

I’m happy to pay for my Associate membership on Linkscout, and, if you’re serious about marketing, I think you’ll find it to be a good value, too.

You can upgrade to an Associate membership easily.

While I can honestly say that I really like Linkscout and am happy with the results that I get, it is not perfect. Like all other systems, it has a few warts and things different individuals may not like.

On the whole, however, I like it much more than I dislike a couple of features, and I get good results.

Have you tried Linkscout? What’s your opinion?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Are traffic exchanges worth your time?

March 25, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 13 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Affiliate Funnel, Downline Builders, Soaring4Traffic, Squidoo Lenses, Traffic Exchanges 

For the last several years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time joining, using, and evaluating various ways to promote the products that enable me to earn a living as an affiliate marketer.

Among the things I’ve tried are traffic exchanges and downline builders.

I got to thinking about this earlier today as I was revising a couple of my Squidoo lenses: traffic exchanges and downline builders.

It seems that some people have strong opinions about them, both positively and negatively. Some are well-informed, others aren’t.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I think traffic exchanges have their pros and cons. I’m neither a fan, nor an opponent, of them.

Let’s look at a couple of things quickly, just to get the ball rolling.

What is a traffic exchange?

The simple answer: You look at my site and I’ll look at yours.

That may have been true a few years ago, but no longer accurately reflects the changes and innovations they have undergone.

Now, I think of them mostly as advertising sites.

I don’t try to show my websites on a traffic exchange. Instead, I try to promote myself and make an impression (hopefully positive) on the people surfing the exchanges. That’s one of the reasons I use the photo holding the steel rose. I’ve been told more than one time that it stands out.

Whether that adds to my professionalism or detracts from it is a different discussion.

Still, people remember that picture and recognize me on other sites as a result.

So, I’m promoting my personal brand.

Secondly, instead of showing my sites, I promote using fast-loading splash pages with the goal of getting someone to click the link and go to another site where we can build a relationship and maybe work together down the road.

Truthfully, I’m not doing as well at that as I should be doing.

I know what needs to be done, but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.

For the last couple of years, as Mom’s health declined and I spent more time caring for her, there were many days when I was just too tired to do anything that required much work or creative thinking.

However, surfing the traffic exchanges was something I could do, and I actually enjoy seeing what others are promoting and then deciding for myself what I think about them – both the product or service and the person doing the promotion.

Since I still wasn’t all that sure what I wanted to promote on the traffic exchanges, I spent most of my time building downlines.

What’s a downline?

I’m not sure, but I think this term comes to us from the multi-level marketing business. Also known as MLM and network marketing.

The idea is that you get paid for making sales of your own to people who are not involved in the particular company and you get a smaller commission on sales made by the people you “sponsor” into the company.

In other words, your efforts are divided between selling products and services yourself, and building a team of others to do the same thing.

This is called leverage.

In actuality, for most of us, it becomes a time sink that does not produce the results we want.

I’m not very interested in MLMs and I only promote two of them. I’m in the process of deciding whether I want to continue with either of them and will make that decision by my birthday on July 1.

I won’t link to either of them in this post, because I don’t want to get side-tracked.

So, a downline is a group of people you have sponsored, plus the people they have sponsored, going down some number of levels as determined by the company.

Let’s move away from thinking about MLMs and downlines and turn our attention to traffic exchanges and downlines.

Do you have to build a downline in a traffic exchange?

Of course not.

You can spend your time surfing and reap the benefits of your own efforts.

Or, you can introduce others to the traffic exchanges that work best for you and help them get results, too.

I seem to be much better at introducing people and persuading them to join than I am at helping them get results. I’m not proud of this and it’s something I’m working to change.

Why spend the time and effort to sponsor someone in a traffic exchange?

There are a couple of reasons.

In most traffic exchanges, you become an affiliate and can earn commissions from any purchase made by the people you sponsor. I regularly get commissions from several traffic exchanges, and the people who sponsored me are also earning commissions based on my purchases.

In addition to monetary commissions, I also earn credits based on some percentage of the pages the people in my downline surf at that exchange. The more people in my downline and the more pages they surf, the more credits I earn.

These credits can be applied to showing websites (or preferably splash pages or squeeze pages), banner ads, and text ads.

In other words, the more people I sponsor, and the more pages all of us surf, the more advertising I can do on the site.

Of course, that applies to the people in my upline as well as any of the people in my downline. Each of us has the same opportunity to build our network of people and gain the benefit of the work we all do. When I spend time surfing, the people in my upline earn credits, too.

But, will the people who see our sites read them and click on the links?

Now, there’s the crux of the issue.

If you are showing your website or blog – especially if they take a long time to load – you’re probably wasting your time with traffic exchanges.

Years ago, that was the whole point: showing your website to someone. I’d show you my website and you’d show me yours.

That has changed over the years.

Traffic exchanges now have timers that frequently run under ten seconds, and only a few now require you to look at a site for 20 or 30 seconds before you can click on the next page.

If you have multiple links or an involved page, it will rarely be read and you can’t depend upon anyone clicking on any of your links.

Well what’s the point, then?

The days of putting up websites and/or blogs and making easy sales as an affiliate are pretty much over. Sure, you can earn some money doing it – maybe even a few hundred dollars per month – but you really can’t build a business just by doing this.

Now, you have to build a sales funnel and carefully plan your marketing activities.

Traffic exchanges no longer lead to direct sales – they are just part of the picture.

Think of a funnel.

There is a large opening at the top and a smaller opening at the bottom.

Traffic exchanges have their place at the top of the funnel. Sales take place somewhere between the top and bottom of the funnel.

The conversion percentage for any given offer you show on a traffic exchange is rather low, and can be very low for banner and text ads. So, to make it worthwhile, you have to show not just a few dozen views, but thousands per month.

That’s why most of the exchanges (all that I know of) have the option of paying to upgrade. With most upgrades, you get several hundred credits, which means that you can show your ads (splash or squeeze pages) by buying them rather than surfing for them.

Additionally, most of the traffic exchanges offer credits for sale. So, if you have an offer that converts well enough to earn a profit from it, you can theoretically buy as many credits as your budget allows and continue to grow your business until the offer no longer converts at that level. When it becomes unprofitable, it’s time to change the offer.

So, now, we’re entering a completely different type of marketing.

The savvy marketers use the traffic exchanges to introduce themselves to the surfers and offer something in exchange for a valuable item: the email address of someone who is interested in what you offer and permission to contact them using that address.

Instead of trying to make the sale directly, the goal is to have someone sign up to your mailing list. All reputable marketers who do this use some form of autoresponder service to manage the emails and comply with the CAN-SPAM laws.

When someone opts in to receiving your autoresponder series and/or newsletter and/or blog post updates via email, you now have not just one opportunity to make the sale, but multiple opportunities to build a relationship, pass along useful information, and hopefully make a few sales down the line.

If you do it right, you can meet hundreds or thousands of people who value your opinions and the information you pass along. Offer good information and many of them will look forward to hearing from you.

On the other hand, if you do nothing but sell, sell, sell and think of them in terms of email addresses with credit cards, then you’ll fail, fail, fail.

We are people and if you respect us and help us get what we are wanting, we’ll be happy to hear from you.

If you disrespect us or take us for granted or don’t do what you promised when we gave you our email address, then we’ll click on that link at the bottom of your messages and unsubscribe from your list.

So, it’s a two-way street. We’re building a relationship, and that takes time and real effort.

Also, as you know from in-person relationships, some are long-term and others are quite short. We may meet you on your splash page and get one impression, but learn to know you better on your mailing list and see a completely different person.

Perhaps we’ll grow to like you better or we may learn that you don’t offer as much as we originally expected.

Effective marketers build a list.

The people who don’t do well with traffic exchanges are those who try to do direct marketing through them.

The people who may do well are the ones who use traffic exchanges to meet new people and build a relationship over time.

I understand this and appreciate it. In fact, I’ve subscribed to hundreds of mailing lists over the last few years, and continue to subscribe to twenty or thirty that I look forward to reading. In this case, I’m also including blogs that I can subscribe to via email.

What I don’t do as well as I plan to do is to write newsletters on a regular basis and share what I have learned with others who are interested in the same things.

I’ve taken a lot of steps in moving in that direction. I have built a couple of forums that are ready for user participation. I have a couple of social networking communities in place, as well.

I have an Aweber account to manage my mailing lists and I’ve learned how to use it.

Now, I just need to focus on building my lists, and keeping each of them focused on the information I promise when someone subscribes, and providing a place where my readers can interact with me and other readers.

To do this, I’ve had to change a lot of things I was doing so I can move in the right direction.

This blog is one example. I moved it from its old site to a new domain and now it’s powered by WordPress, which makes it much easier to manage the discussions that build as you comment on what I write about.

Other examples include static websites that I’m rebuilding over time. When I first built them, I didn’t know all that I know now and they aren’t built to be part of my marketing funnel.

So, as I have time and energy, I’m converting them into sites that offer good information and each page will also be rewritten to invite the readers to respond to one offer.

It takes a lot of time and effort to do this correctly, but I’m convinced that it’s the way successful affiliate marketers, and network marketers for that matter, will continue to be successful in the future.

It’s hard enough to get someone to visit a site, let alone purchase something on the very first visit.

It’s much easier to offer free information to a first time visitor in return for subscribing to a list. Even if the conversion (subscription) ratio isn’t all that high, it’s still better than trying to sell when you first meet.

I still have a lot to learn, and even more to implement, but I’m making the effort to do so. Are you?

In some ways, bright people who are new to online marketing will have it a bit easier – if they follow the good advice that is out there. Learn how to build a marketing funnel, focus your efforts, and do what you say you’re going to do.

When someone signs up to your list, help them learn what you originally promised.

I wish I’d known that when I first started online marketing way back in the 20th century.

I’ll say this. If you don’t want to be part of the internet marketing niche, then it is probably true that traffic exchanges are a waste of time, because you’re not advertising to the right people.

If you work in a different niche, then you’ll need to find a way to attract other people who are interested in that niche. Probably the best way to do that is to build a site with information that can be found when people search on Google or other search engines.

Even if you do market to a niche for which traffic exchanges are effective, you have to remember that you have to do a lot of advertising on the traffic exchanges to get the results you want, because of the low conversion rates.

So, what do you think about downline builders and traffic exchanges?

Are they worth your time and effort?

Do you have a different, and better, approach?

I look forward to your thoughts and opinions.

Act on your dream!

JD

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I will not participate in Google’s interest-based advertising

March 13, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 36 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Opinions 

I received an email from Google about a change in their Adsense advertising program.

Here is a brief excerpt from it:

We’re writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site’s privacy policies. You’ll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category….

I am totally opposed to this.

In the past, I have really liked Google Adsense, and one of the main reasons is that they analyze the pages with ads and try to serve the most relevant ads that match that content.

I don’t think they put cookies on visitors to those pages, but I’m not certain of this. In fact, I really didn’t think about this until they emailed me about this new interest-based advertising.

Now, however, they will be tracking visitor browsing and I don’t want to be a part of it.

In the past, Google had a mantra of “Do no evil.”

I think they’ve just crossed to the dark side.

I went to my Google Adsense account and opted out of this. I do not want to show any of their ads based on user interest categories.

I don’t care if it means I’ll earn less money from them.

There have been times when I’ve depended upon the money I make from their ads on my sites and I’ve always been happy to deposit their checks.

As long as I have a way to opt out of this new method of advertising they’re going to use, I’ll continue showing Adsense ads on my sites.

If they ever make it mandatory, I’ll close my Adsense account and remove their ads off all my websites, no matter how much money I’ll lose.

I am totally opposed to this and will not participate in their interest-based advertising.

Bad Google!

Act on your dream!

JD

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Instant Banner Creator Review

December 14, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 14 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Poll, Traffic Exchanges, Web Services 

Right at the start, I want to say that I absolutely hate all the hype and commotion surrounding product launches in the Internet marketing field. I subscribe to lots of blogs, mailing lists, and follow quite a few marketers on Twitter. Today, I’ve been inundated with messages for Instant Banner Creator.

To be honest, I was prepared not to like it, but I thought I should check it out to see for myself.

The main reason I chose to do this, instead of just ignoring it, is because I respect the owners, John Merrick and Soren Jordansen. Soren has gone out of his way to answer questions I had a few years ago and he has always been responsive to my questions and suggestions. I’ve earned a bit of money promoting his traffic exchange, Dragon Surf, over the years, too.

Instant Banner Creator Review

Yes, you can use Instant Banner Creator for free, but there are some advantages to upgrading. When you first sign up, you’ll see several OTO pages (one-time offers). The first offers a life-time membership (at a pretty good price if you’re going to be using this tool a lot). The others offer discounted memberships.

Once you get inside the site, everything is well laid out and easy to use.

Tutorials

Instant Banner Creator offers two sets of tutorials. You can choose to watch video tutorials or download a written tutorial with screenshots in PDF format.

I did not watch or read either tutorial before starting, but I’ll download the PDF version right after posting this review.

Creating a banner

As you may know, I live in an area where I’m surrounded by broadband Internet access about three or four miles away, but I’m still on a very slow dialup connection. I was expecting a frustrating experience.

When I clicked the link to create a banner, I got what I was expecting.

The first time, I had to endure an excruciatingly-slow download of the available banner templates. I’m sure it is much faster if you have broadband, but I went and did something else for 10 or 15 minutes while the graphics loaded.

Once they were cached in my browser, however, the system was nice and responsive.

On many sites, when I’m downloading lots of graphics, the servers time out and the pages don’t load. There were no timeouts nor errors when using this tool.

I was disappointed with the quality of the banner templates. Most of them are dull and uninspiring, even most of the templates that can only be used by upgraded members.

Another thing that I did not like was the fact that the graphics don’t show their exact height and width, something that I think would be very important.

I didn’t find a banner template that I liked, so I went into the do it yourself section and created a simple two-toned gradient graphic template and used that as the basis for creating my first banner using this system.

I didn’t see any clipart I liked, so all I did was add some text to the banner.

The text editor offers lots of fonts, and you can easily select the size and color of the text you want to use.

If you don’t have the tools for working with graphics and/or you don’t have the talent and experience, I think you’ll find this tool to be pretty easy to use.

For my first banner, I used a large font to show the name of the product, and a smaller font for the call to action.

When adding the text to the graphic, I did not see any tools to help space things properly on the template, i.e., I didn’t see any tools for centering one on the other. So, i just eyeballed it and centered them approximately.

The programs I normally use (Photoshop and TypeStyler) offer precise alignment tools, but perhaps for most uses you really don’t have to be that accurate.

After placing the text on the template, I could drag it around until I was satisfied with the placement and then click a button to have it added to the graphic. There is one level of undo if you don’t like it.

When I was done, I saved the new banner. At that point, the system told me the link I’d need to use to show the banner somewhere. Graphics can be stored on their site or downloaded to your computer and uploaded to wherever you want to store them. The benefit of storing them on their system is you don’t have to FTP the files around or pay for the bandwidth.

I chose to leave the banner on their site.

The system then gives the option of linking to a target destination, and, since they offer an affiliate program, I chose to link to my affiliate page. When I entered the URL and clicked the appropriate button, their system gave the complete link for showing the graphic and linking to the destination page.

I choose to open off-site links in a new window or tab, so I added the target code to the HTML they provided.

Now, it’s a simple matter of copying and pasting that code anywhere I can put HTML.

Like so:

I think you’ll agree that I’m no artist. Even though I have the professional tools and have been doing graphics for over 20 years, I don’t have the artistic and design talent to make the eye-popping graphics that a professional artist can produce.

Still, in just a few minutes, I think I have a serviceable banner and it is hosted and ready to go.

The banner graphic they host on their site after I saved it does not look like the banner shown above. On their site, the text is centered more-or-less and not truncated on the right as it shows here. I downloaded the graphic and it still looks right. Hmmm. I wonder if this is a problem with the CSS design for this blog. I don’t think it is, because the other banner shown a few paragraphs lower looks fine. Let me test that. I’ll get back to this later, in the comments. This center column should be wide enough for a standard 468×60 banner.

I think anyone with a modicum of talent can produce banners that get the point across, but if you want the best, hire an artist to create them for you.

While I’m unimpressed with the banner templates, I give the system for creating and hosting them a big thumbs up. I think just about anyone can work with this system and create banners you can use just about anywhere.

Of course, I’ve just scratched the surface of what this system can do. You can upload your own templates and clip art and use the system to create a new banner with different text. So, even free members aren’t limited by what’s available.

I decided to try creating a button.

Creating a button

Again, there was a very long wait while the template graphics loaded in my browser window. Once they were cached, everything sped up, again.

This time, I liked some of the graphics, especially some of the templates that are available only to upgraded members.

I’ve already described the process for banners, and it works pretty much the same for buttons.

Here’s a button I put together in a few minutes. It’s hosted on their system.

It’s not great, but it’s not bad, either.

Again, an artist could do much better, and many talented amateurs could, too. Here’s an example of one of the banners an artist designed for promoting the site:



For the rest of us, Instant Banner Creator does a good job of creating and hosting the graphics we need.

I’m giving the button creator a big thumbs up, too.

Headers and Footers

I didn’t have much more time for looking at this and decided to see what the header graphics look like. These header (and footer) graphics can be used as part of your template for creating websites, and I’m sure they can be used on most blogs, too.

Again, there was an excruciatingly long wait as the header graphics loaded. Once, again, however, when they were cached, everything sped right back up.

I played with a header, but didn’t save one.

One thing that is a big difference between the banners and the headers is that I loved most of the headers. They are beautiful. I think that’s one of the best parts of the system, out of the parts I had time to look at.

Even the free headers were very nice.

If all you want to do is create a header and footer for a new website, that would be reason enough to join and use this system.

Animated Banners and Peel Away Ads

I did not try the animated banner or peel away ad creators.

While finishing this review, I did start loading the large peel away templates, and most of the ones I looked at are beautiful, in stark contrast to the very low-quality banner templates.

I do plan to give the peel away ads a try when I have more time. When I do, I’ll talk about it in the comments to this post.

Conclusion: Thumbs Up

Yes, there was a lot of hype about this all day, and yes there are several OTO pages to go through, but I believe this system is sound and very useful. Toss in free hosting and bandwidth, and what do you have to lose?

If you plan to use this system a lot, pay close attention to the OTOs, because you can save a lot of money over what you’d have to pay with a regular monthly subscription.

Of course, I’m using my affiliate links to link to the Instant Banner Creator and I’ll earn a commission should you decide to upgrade. You can, too.

Unlike many of the tools I’ve looked at over the last few years, I feel good about recommending this service to you. Free or upgraded, it offers a valuable service to its members, and the owners are honorable, reliable, and helpful.

I have no doubt that Soren and John will be adding more features to this site over the coming months.

Hopefully, they’ll add some better banner templates, especially since that’s part of the site’s name.

Give Instant Banner Creator a try and let me know what you think.

Do you like it, dislike it, or prefer another tool or software?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Tip Jars Part Two

November 16, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 31 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Musings, Web Services 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about tip jars since I wrote What do you think about tip jars on websites? back in September.

As I wrote in my last comment on that thread, I leave tips on some very useful sites, such as thefluffanutta’s SquidUtils.com. He provides an outstanding service for Squidoo lensmasters and I’m happy to leave him a tip when I think about it.

I’m going to leave the PayPal donate button in the right column of this blog, whether or not it gets used.

On the other hand, I removed the TopSpots list yesterday.

After two months, with thousands of visitors and no nibbles, I simply deleted it. *Poof!*

I’ll still use that service to advertise this blog on other blogs I like, but won’t be offering it here.

In general, I don’t like to have paid links on my sites, and this was the only one where I was doing anything like that. So, even though I was playing by all the rules I know, it never felt comfortable for me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with TopSpots, but it just doesn’t feel like a good fit here.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Healthy Coffee House – Murphy, North Carolina, USA – Save on drinks and overnight stays

January 21, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Comments Off
Filed under: Advertising, Nice Offers, Western North Carolina 

Healthy Coffee House (Murphy, NC US)

Come visit the Healthy Coffee House, Bed & Breakfast, and Bakery.

Have a drink on us!

Buy one, get one free any drink in the Healthy Coffee House.

Stay one night, second night half price.

Free wireless internet service.

Expires: This coupon expires on January 24, 2009.

Restrictions: One coupon per week per customer

Click the “Get Details” link below. You will go a new page where you can have the required coupon e-mailed to you instantly. Then print out the coupon and redeem at:

Healthy Coffee House
215 Peachtree ST
Murphy, NC 28906, USA

Questions on this offer?

Contact: Healthy Coffee House via Phone: 828-837-1515

Get Details and Money-Saving Coupon

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Creating a better link to your Merchant Circle business listing

October 3, 2007 by John Dilbeck · Comments Off
Filed under: Advertising, Business Networking, Marketing, Merchant Circle 

So, once you get your listing set up on Merchant Circle, what else can you do to increase the likelihood of being found by a potential customer?

(Is your business listed at Merchant Circle? If not, you can create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! – MerchantCircle.com.)

First, tell people how to find you here.

For example, my listing is located at:

http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Dilbeck.Marketing.828-837-2901

I’ve used the custom URL feature to shorten this link to:

http://member.merchantcircle.com/dilbeckmarketing

This custom URL is much easier to pass along, put on business cards, and show in your advertising.

You can create your own custom URL by logging into your MerchantCircle account and then clicking Listing Configuration in the left column. When you click it, several other options will be displayed below that heading. Click Manage Links and then enter what you want in your Custom URL edit box.

You should be careful when you do this if you plan to advertise this URL. Make sure it is something that describes your business and is something you can live with for the next few years.

Remember, if you change this at any time, all advertising you previously did using your former custom URL will be wasted.

This is something you want to think about before implementing. Don’t do something hastily that you’ll regret later.

Also, while you are there, you can enter up to four links to other websites and blogs. Just enter the name and URL of the link and Save. If you have less than four saved links, it will automatically create a new empty listing. Add as many as you want – up to four – and save each time. In a couple of minutes, you’ll have additional backlinks to your websites and blogs from a highly-ranked and high-traffic site.

After you enter what you want in your custom URL box and/or link boxes, don’t forget to save it.

Act on your dream!

JD

Tags:

Is your business listed on Merchant Circle?

October 3, 2007 by John Dilbeck · Comments Off
Filed under: Advertising, Blogging, Business Networking, Communities, Marketing, Merchant Circle 

First, if you’re not listing your business on MerchantCircle, why not?


MerchantCircle.com - Free online business listings

Create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! – MerchantCircle.com

Truly, even if you are not a highly skilled web designer or webmaster, you can use the tools provided by MerchantCircle to promote your business and the products and services you offer. It won’t take days, weeks, or months, either! You can get started in a few hours and can continue promoting your business as long as you want through posting to your blog, creating coupons, and publishing newsletters.

This is the kind of business promotion that every owner or manager of a small business should jump onto. It’s free, effective, and easy to use. What’s the downside?

Act on your dream!

JD

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