Impulse Blogger

Very cute wordpress theme for bloggers who want a light, vector based, every-cheery design for their wordpress. 2 columns, widgets ready and competible with all versions of wp as well as all the major browsers. Please remember not to remove the footer links!

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I was a passionate reader of John Chow’s blog up until a few months ago. It was interesting, it was teaching me how to make money online, it was nicely written with sense of evil humour and he was a good model and example of making money online for me.

But, at some point we all fall preys of greed.

Sponsored reviews are nice, and they are even nicer when you get $450 per pop, but posting about brain control vitamins, and other totally irrelevant products (that I doubt even find a buyer on a blog that focuses on making money online) is somewhat not very readers-friendly. The 125*125 banners are nice, but placing 10 (!) of them on every page, most of which are blinking and lead to dodgy website is yet again not readers friendly. Linking to everything from office chairs to lowest level MFA sites is obviously profitable but how does his blog look?

Without a doubt he earns more and more every month and appearantly adding more and more ads, as well as getting penalized by Google did not affect him all that badly. For me, reading daily on the exciting TTZ Media updates (his own ads company) as well as viewing appetizing pictures of dishes from luxurious dinners he has been invited too is again — nice, but not enough to keep an average blogger who is eager to make money online — reading daily or subscribing. Sad, it used to be my favorite blog.

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Yay, I made it to the final! My theme, ModernMagic, was nominated to lunar pages design contest, but unfortunately it hardly gets votes. The blog itself where the contest is held does not have a huge traffic however, those who post in every forum asking for votes, lead. Doh.

Eventually, like I said in the comments section already, the designer with the biggest online  family will win, not the design itself, but ain’t it always like this in such contests? Since I am more ethical in such matters and not going to beg for votes (I don’t think it’s fair in the first place even though the prize is tempting — $1000 + 5 years of hosting), I do want to ask you, however, to take part in the voting.

Please vote for the theme you like best!

Again, I am not asking to vote for me (of course votes are appreciated though!) but it would be great to see some more neutral activity in the poll by those who vote for themes they actually LIKE. Thanks in advance for your participation, the vote will only take 3 seconds of your time but will greatly to the hungry designers in 3rd world countries

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After one month of using Adsense here as an experiment, I decided to remove it, no banners, no cheap referral pronotional ads, nothing. Now my blog looks much cleaner and not only it looks cleaner, but also it earns MUCH more. Serious, here is why it earns more.

If I display 3 referal banners, say hostgator + PayPerPost + Text link Ads, I get MAYBE one sign up in 2-3 months. Maybe not, but the blinking banners are here and annoy the visitors.

If I display adsense, with current traffic I get about 5-7 clicks a day, this niche (whatever it is) turns to be very low paying so I earn between 3-5 dollars a day at best. Having such a busy advertisement-filled blog, means some more serious advertisers would not want to associate with me.  In other words, I make a few bucks a month and have a crappy looking blow.

Now, Ads were gone. ImpulseBlogger looks clean and professional and people are ready to pay higher prices for a review here. Also, having Adsese away allows me to review the highest paying products — Online Casino sites and  this means I easily could make $70 a month and that is if I am picky and only take adverts I like. If I was less picky I can easily go over $100. So… Much as I love Google, it bought me an ass-kicking monitor and loads of other pleasant stuff, I think for now I will stick to the clean look that unfortunately Google cannot provide.

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Okay, you established a blog, paid for a domain and hosting, what now? Now you can blog for your own pleasure. However, most blogger do want to cover at least the initial expenses spent on the blog, so what’s the fastest and easiest way to do it?

The answer is, get paid for reviewing products. Recently, blog advertising has became a mainstream, and for most bloggers is even the main source of revenue. While most of us don’t even know where to find an advertiser, and if we already did find one, how slim is the chance he would want to get reviewed on our blog? So, alternatively, we can sign up for programs that connect advertisers and bloggers. I’d recommend Smorty dot com, where you can get paid to blog about products and services you like. I have been working with Smorty for a few months now and I really like the way it is run. You get email notification when new campaigns are received and you choose which tasks to take and which not.

Moreover, there is a referral program that allows you to earn 5% of your referral’s revenue for life. So, not only you can get pad to blog, but also get paid to spread the word about it.

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Although I decided not to use Adsense on this blog, for most of us blogging means use of Adsense, and this is why more WordPress themes now come as “Adsense-ready”. So, here are a few small add-ons that will make your contextual monetizing process easier and faster.

Adsense Deluxe - Currently the most popular and widely-spread AdSense plug-in, that allows you to automatically insert ads’ code into your posts. Very simple to use, easy to install, runs smoothly and I am using it successfully on all my other blogs.

AdSense Widget for Wordpress Sidebar - This plug-in adds AdSense to your Wordpress sidebar in the form of a widget. Especially recommended to those who often switch themes and use widgets to play around with sidebar’s content position.

Shylock AdSense - Easy integration of AdSense ads into your WordPress. Basically it’s a simple addition to WP that has one pretty good feature — you can set particular ads into blog posts which are more than X days old.

AdMan - Integrates ads directly inside your posts. If you ask me, this plug-in is nothing special, however it’s compatible with Adsense itself.
AdSense Manager - This plug-in’s name is well summed up by its title. Use the latest version only, as older versions had some issues with the AdSense terms and conditions.

AdRotator - This plug in is a perfect savior for blogs with a lot returning visitors / traffic. and solves the ad blindness problem. It rotates your AdSense ads, and combines them with other advertising programs, banners, Adbrite.

AdSense Attachment - Display extra content, like images, in a new page together with AdSense ads. I have not found any proof of it being compatible with Adsense TOS, if anyone knows otherwise, please advice.

Google Ad Wrap - This nice plug-in show Google spider — in other words, what content on your blog is really important. It may help with targeting for the right keywords and understanding Adsense’s inside mechanism better.

Adsense Inline - another plugin that makes inserting AdSense into your blog posts really easy. It makes no difference from Adsense Delux (in my opinion) however every developer deserves his glory.

Author Adsense - Often used on forums and joint communities — this plug-in splits revenue between several blog authors on the same blog, inserting different publishers’ code into same ads slots.

AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System - Same as the plug-in mentioned above, only show, additionally to all, revenue in real time.
Adsense Earnings Wordpress Plugin - Control Adsense from your WordPres panel. Suitable for those who are too lazy to log in to their Google Adsense page, yet not lazy enough to install this plug in.

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Today, more and more people prefer to shop online — it saves time and money. No traffic jams, no hours of roaming from one store to another. No need to pay extra only because the store you buy from is located in a city mall. In fact, shopping online is much easier and no wonder that so many people around the Globe switch to Internet shopping method.

Last year, over Xmas holidays time, New Yorkers spend online more than they spent offline, buying presents, decorations and souvenirs. Seems like no body wants to spend money of parking, gasoline and most important — a lot of time. This is why shopping networks such as eBay.com and Amazon.com are one of the leading and most visited websites today on the Internet.

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Quite a while ago I took the Adsense down from Nowg.Net website, and now I decided not to plae ANY ads on impulse blogger dot com. It’s not like I don’t want these meastly few dollars that clicks might potentially bring, but…

A. I want to be able to say anything I want on this blog regardless what Google’s moral executive will think about me.

B. I don’t see a point in it. While even my ever successful blog — toptut.com brings a few dollars a day, I can only assume that having 10 times less traffic would mean 10 times less revenue, which means what, 20 cents a day? 30? Having their annoying banners promoting God knows what just does not worth it.

C. Simple calculation. Assuming at the very best this blog will bring 30 cents a day from clicks, after 30 days it could come to 9 dollars. It’s enough to cover the expensive hosting fees (we are 1337 and hosting with hostgator.com) but not enoug to “bring revenue”. Hence, I might consiver taking 1-2 reviews a month, as long as they are relevant — who cares, and this will put more in my pocket yet will keep the readers happy and away from “sky crappers”.

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Artists from all over the world join DeviantArt.com — a place where they can freely upload their artworks, photography and poems, as well as share their free resources with other designers. Recent addition on their service, as a part of overall DA’s promotion, also allows anyone to sale their artworks as prints, canvases, magnets, mugs and calendars. This means you can upload your photos and start selling instantly, is it not great? Not really.

While you are eligible to put online practically any crap and hope it would sell, the profit artist makes is 10%. Yes, imagine 10 percents from a 2$ postcard, how many would buy it (standard delivery to European countries is over 11$!) and this rough estimation of profits will not bring you closer to financing all your dreams.

For a one time fee of 29$, you can start selling with similar conditions (the only difference is the faster approval) and receive 50% off your sales. Is it better? Yes and no. On the one hand, Deviant Art is rather overpriced, so 50% from a relatively big canvas will come down to 100$, but the question remains, will someone buy YOUR art for these crazy money, while there are tons of original artworks out there not to mention the enormous competition inside DA itself.

From my personal experience, as both artist and buyer, when it comes to selling your art, the only party to benefit from it directly is DA itself. Customers pay crazy money, artists get a measly share, and between 50% and 90% lands in middle man’s pocket. That’s what I call — promoting higher values!

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