ZillionBits-Its about number$ and te<h^0!0gy

A couple of months ago I asked polled readers about their Chitika eMiniMalls earnings to

find out what the average earnings were and what percentage of earnings they were

losing to auditing. A completely unscientific poll (I had to scrub the data to

remove duplicate/multiple votes) but here are the results.

Average Earnings

So how much money do Chitika publishers make, before auditing, on a monthly

basis?

• Less than $10: 4%
• $10 to $20: 14%
• $20 to $50: 14%
• $50 to $100: 9%
• $100 to $250: 12%
• $250 to $500: 18%
• $500 or more: 29%

Today we continue our series on creating an AdSense-friendly blog using WordPress. Please read Part 1 before continuing.

WordPress Installation Made Easy

After you’ve decided on your blog name, gotten the domain and setup the hosting, it’s time to actually create your blog. WordPress is written in the programming language called PHP and requires a database as well, with MySQL being the preferred (and default) choice. Advanced users can install WordPress using the detailed WordPress installation instructions on the WordPress site.

Or, if you’re lazy like I am, you can simply use cPanel and Fantastico, assuming of course you chose a hosting service that supports both. Let me walk you through a typical deployment using those tools.

Create Your Blog Home

Before you run Fantastico, you have to decide where your blog is going to be located. Is it going to be at the root of your site (www.mydomain.com), a folder within your site (www.mydomain.com/blog) or a subdomain (blog.mydomain.com)? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I mentioned using a WordPress blog that shows postings in chronological order as a way to quickly create a mini-site. I thought I’d back it up a little, though, and start by discussing what it takes to create the perfect “AdSense-ready” WordPress blog. (Much of what I say in this series applies to other blogging platforms, but everything is written specifically for and about WordPress.)

Why WordPress?

First, let’s talk about why we’re using WordPress in the first place. WordPress is the first choice for many bloggers because it’s:

• Free
• Well-supported
• Customizable
• Extensible using plugins
• Free (did I say that already?)

There are other free blogging solutions available, Blogger being the most obvious, but for ultimate flexibility it’s hard to beat WordPress. (Note that this blog you’re reading is not running WordPress, for geeky reasons, but I run other WordPress-hosted blogs like Mortgage Guide…) Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I fielded an emailed question from a reader as to which is better home for a blog: as part of the company web site (www.company.com/blog/) or as a separate domain (www.companyblog.com)? I get this question often and see it mentioned in the forums as well.

There are many factors that influence whether your blog should be part of your site or it’s own domain name including:

• Branding
• Hosting platform
• Blog application (software or hosted)
• Resources for promotion
• Resources for content production
• Purpose of the blog
• Timeframe for expected results
• Target audience

For the most part, I recommend that a blog should be a subdirectory of the main company web site. The reason for this includes branding as well as the SEO benefit of having the blog and RSS feed use the main company URL. Having a blog and feed on a web site is one of the most productive things you can do to satisfy search engines’ appetite for fresh, themed content that attracts links. Read the rest of this entry »