Rethinking Chitika // November 27th, 2005

Chitika, the company I signed up with to display advertisements on my websites, recently changed the way they serve their banners. This is in an effort to minimize what they call curiosity clicks, or click-thru�s that do not lead to sale conversions on the merchant�s side.

Because of this change, I am rethinking if I should continue to use their service. There are several reasons for this; first is the mere fact Chitika modified their ads because the merchants were not happy with the results they were receiving. I do not see why I have to see a decrease in my clickthrough rate because the merchant�s website fails to convert the sale. What a reader does on that site is out of my control, but I did send them to the merchant�s site, so I should be compensated accordingly.
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Separate Blog // November 15th, 2005

I have moved my personal blog over to blog.juliogarcia.org. I always get annoyed when people mix in personal issues or topics in their main blog so that is why I am over there as well. I will try to export my previous archives into that blog later today.
update: no, it’s not. I deleted it.

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Google Additions // November 14th, 2005

I have added Google’s Analytics and also signed up for Google’s AdSense program.

The Analytics program just launched on November 13th and provides “all the features you’d expect from a high-end web analytics offering, and provides timesaving AdWords integration features.”

I just added the tracking code today, but the first reports are not available for the first 12 hours. The administration area provides several levels of reporting including “Marketing Optimization” and “Content Optimization”. Just from looking at the administration it is already ahead of other tracking software such as Site Meter and Stat Counter. If you have a site and would like more depth to visitor tracking, sign up with Analytics.

Like I already said, I signed up for Google’s AdSense program this weekend. I am still waiting to hear back to see if my site was approved. I don’t see why I would not be, but you never know. I am interested in seeing what returns I make, but from what I hear, the AdSense returns are not as good as Chitika’s program. And that is not a bold statement because I have made some money from Chitika in the short time I have used their program, which is crazy since this blog gets very little traffic.

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More on New Blog Efforts // November 14th, 2005

This whole idea to attempt to blog full-time, honestly, came out of nowhere about two weeks ago. I was designing a new interface for this site wondering what exactly I was going to focus my efforts on. Nothing really came to mind. Then it hit me while reading several sites about blogging full-time, examining my visitor statistics, and Chitika revenue reports.
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A New Blog Direction // November 10th, 2005

With this new blog layout I should finally announce that I will begin take a new direction with my weblog. In the days, weeks, and months to come, I will be blogging about my efforts and experiments to increase not only my blog ranking but blog income as well. The primary reason I am doing this is, quite simply, because I want to make money for myself from blogging and to let others truly know what methods do and do not work so they can do the same.

It is about time I admit that I have no dream job. I never have. I merely have a dream situation. And that situation has always been the same, it is one where the working part of my life solely pays the bills and expenses so that I can do the things I want in life, so I can enjoy my life more, like we all should. Minimize the stress and maximize the enjoyment in life.

By using blogs and blogging to bring in supplemental income and enjoyment/satisfaction through interaction and informing will, hopefully, allow me more time and energy, to enjoy my life like I have always wanted.

I do have to say, for better or worse, that my ultimate goal of this new directions is to able to blog full-time and never work again for someone else. I assure you, I am not fooling myself by any means, I do not expect that this one (read: hint) blog will make me enough money to live off of. I should say that I am surprised that one would even think I would consider that as a plan. You will have to stick around to see what I mean.

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