FreshBucks - making money tips and "how-to" guidelines

The 1028x768 Pixels Method

2009-01-07T04:20:00.000-08:00

Hello there,

in my last article about Adsense i talk about something called 1028x768 Method, this is just a method i use for my websites because it is the most used screen resolution (i use wide screen resolution, not this one...but i used 1024x768 for 5 years) check this stadistics i took from wikipedia.org:

Resolution	% of Internet Users
Higher than 1024×768	38%
1024×768	48%
800×600	8%
Lower than 800×600	<>
Unknown	6%

so you must be thinking "how can i take advantage of this information?" for web designing is it a great source of information because you can learn to place the most important information in the top of your website, and rezise photos, re size your texts and the placements of ads too!

I suggest you to read this article:

What are the benefits?

Reduce headlines from three lines to two. They will be much better read.
Use more text emphasis such as bolding and bullets, to allow readers to scan more effectively.
Very importantly – raise your calls to action from the bottom to insure they are visible at first glance. To minimize any possible impact on people who keep screens less then full size, avoid using the far right side of the screen for these calls to action.
You may be able to add an additional call to action such as a newsletter signup form or third party advertisement (ugh).
Trust icons may find a place.
Photos which were scaled too small at 760 to be beneficial may now make sense.
Branding elements may be made more visible to increase their impact

PPC: "how to make money with adsense"

2009-01-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

A lot of people keep asking me about how to make money with adsense

What's Adsense?

Adsense is a Pay Per Click Program from Google (and it represents the 90% of their earnings). It started in 2000 and now is the biggest advertising program in the web.

What do i need to make money with this program?

basically ANYONE in the world can join to Adsense, just go to the Homepage and signup, the process is really simple and fast!

I am a Member now, What's Next?

PPC (PayPerClick) means we need to get people to click on our ads, but not yourself!! What you have to do now is to find a spot inside your website where you wanna put the ads on but you must research first! check this image:

We need to think that people don't have the same resolution in their screens, or they use different browsers, the 1024x768 Method is a good one, but in everycase is better to put Ads in places where people CAN really see them (otherwise how would they click on them?..) The following image help us to know which are the best zones to put our Adsense banners or Text Links into our website.
If you aren't familiar with these structures i think you should try some good keywords out there and check the ad structures for other's websites! take these examples:

Powerfulways of making money with Adsense

Gmail and Adsense get better deals

An spanish online newspaper full of ads

Haha i am going to fullfill my website with ads! WRONG!!!!!

many people think that's the only way to fill your pockets with cash and they are wrong. What's better? it's all relative. Let's analize an example:

Matt is an Amateur Golfist and he wants to make a blog about Golf and Golf Accessories but he thinks that people who loves golf isn't a lot compared to people who searches for Porn, and he is totally Correct, so, he goes to Google Trends (here is the article where i talk about it)
So he finds that he is totally correct (here you have the comparison). But he still thinks is too hard to make money while writing about Golf and it's Accessories and he wants to know how much he can earn tru each Click (i will talk more about this tool later) so he goes and tries for the Google Adwords Keyword tool and he finds out this!!

Google tell us the approx. amount of searches and the advertising competition of golf and porn keywords.

But i think google is not telling us the truth so i query at google.com "Porn" and when i recieve the results i don't see a single Adwords Advertising! what!?

Ok, let me explain this, first, Google Do Not Work With Adult related topics such as Porn, but there are many Adult Advertising Networks over there!!! But let's face it, If you are a porn advertiser how much would you pay for a keyword such as Porn, i work with this everyday and sometimes you just get 0.01 per click, or less or no more than 0.026 per click.

If you search for Golf on google you will see many advertisers and i think that is going to pay a lot better than Porn because it has less searches and many advertisers, this means more competition and less people buying so the price for each click will be a little higher than Porn. I've read out there than the minimum some guy earns with Golfs are 0.026, which is the higher i get using Porn.

But in some cases (like attorneys, traveling, flights, etc) if you do some little research you will find there are keywords that pays you like 1 dollar per click, so, it's your choice, to work a little and get that single click a day (or more!!) or get another porn blog like millions of other people and try to get 100 clicks of 10 cents each (depending of where they come from, USA traffic pays more than Chinese).

You just have to do what you think it's good for you, be fresh, and enjoy your work, try to see if what you like has an reasonable amount of advertisers and traffic and you will reach your objective, remember when using PPC than it is important to get that click and make it valuable for people, so they don't forget your website (like it happens with porn websites) if you do it right you will get great conversions (a percentage of the people who visits your website and clicks on the ads) and remember, do not spam, it's stupid and you will fail!

sorry if i miss something, if i did so please leave a comment!

Having Your Very Own Blog Without Paying a Dime

2009-01-06T22:07:00.001-08:00

Hi there folks!

in addittion to my last article i forgot to talk about Blogs so i'm going to give you the best options on Free Blog Hostings.

let's pretend i am a journalist and, of course, i love to write articles about things that happens in the world but i do not know ANYTHING about internet (bad!!!) and about how to get my own website and a personal blog, ok, don't panic! these days Content Mangament Systems (CMS) are the best option if you need to insert content into a website without messing with the HTML or anything else. There are many many many options on the web but i'm going to show you the ones i like the most:

Wordpress: Easy to use, totally Free of installing on our very own server or in their (yes, they give you free blogs right here!) and while running it yourself you can install several Themes, Plugins, and more! really usefull.
Blog.com: they just host free blogs, no ads, no paying free, totally free but they give services if you need it, also a very good option!
LiveJournal: I love this one but it's kinda tricky to use, totally customizable (HTML + CSS), no Ads, another good option.
Blogger.com (aka Blogspot.com): The Google's option. You just need to log in with your Google Account and that's it, you can register as much blogs as you need, No Ads, totally customizable, Fast, Reliable, but if you wanna tell google what you do, it's you option.

I suggest you to try and experiment with all of themI
I always use wordpress but mostly because i run my own server and it is faster for me to have wordpress there. For the wordpress installation you just need a MySQL Database (if you use Godaddy and you don't know how to create a MySQL DDBB Click Here and Here if you need to know how to install wordpress on DreamHost).

Feel free to write comments, questions!

Creating a New Website: Where, Why, How Much $$$, Free Options!

2009-01-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

This a very good point to start with because most people don't know the options you can find out there in the internet.

Before buying a host for our precious little business we need to think about where to host it, so we have several options but i will tell you about Godaddy and Dreamhost.

Godaddy: Good, quick, Fast, Reliable, Regular Customer Support. Good for newbies with not much knowledge, the user interfaze sucks but you easily get used to it. It's the cheapest i could get, they even give discounts if you buy a domain name and 2 months of hosting for 10 dollars (i think)
DreamHost: I think this is the best hosting you can ever find out there, the customer support is very good, they interfaze is really simple and easy to use and it has a lot features. But it cost 99 bucks a year.

Here you have a good comparison for these two host services

But let's pretend you don't have a dime and you don't want to pay for webhosting. If you search at google you will find many here you have a list of all i could find

I would rather start with a free website host and see if it worth it, if not just switch to godaddy, it's really cheap, 10 bucks for 2 months and the domain name, it's a good one.

All you need will be MySQL (databases to put info, needed for wordpress, joomla, bbpress, etc) and a good amount of gigas to use but don't worry they have it all!

Google's Tools: Trends! Learn About Google's Traffic!

2009-01-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

Google Trends is a powerful tool to learn an aprox. amount of traffic for a desired Keyword and to compare Keywords.

Let's pretend Mike wants to start a music website and he likes Rock but he thinks that maybe it's better to give more importance to Pop music because he thinks it has more audience (or more traffic) than Rock then he goes to google trends and find this:

so, now he knows that Rock (Blue line) has an enourmous amount of traffic than Pop (Red line), so maybe he will reconsider this and he will put more effort on creating Rock based media content to attract more people who likes Rock Music, or to create a website to for both styles and try to reach both audiences.

Be aware of the reports in the bottom of the results. They talk about where the most of the searches come from, you can sort them by country city and language.

The A, B, C, D, etc; tags tell you if some newspaper talked about something related and if it had some effect on the amount of searched queries.

Often People Says things like "the more traffic, the better" but it all depends of each case. In this one, we need people to buy music from anywhere in the world, it doesnt matter if they are in the USA or Europe (cuz shipping does all the work) but what if we had an Insurance Company? we need people from an specific city, state, country.

First Steps While Creating an Online Business:

2009-01-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

Many people wants to create online business and they fear of it's consecuences like if they were to lose something big if the business does not makes the amount of desired revenue or not revenue at all. This depends of the size of the business you want to create, but i think we cannot fly if we don't have an airplane.,i mean, starting from scratch and paying just a few bucks (or nothing) is the best way to develop your website.
Don't say you cannot do things and think you will need a coder and a graphic designer, and an attorney, a writer (blogger), an accounting manager, just think you are capable of starting and then, if you need, get help but lately has been a lot of Open Source Softwares (100% free of use and modify) that allows you to create websites in a few minutes (i will talk later about this) like Wordpress or Joomla! (in case you wanna do yourself a blog) and BBpress and PhpBB (Forums and Communities). Let's say you don't have the knowledge to install these things? well, if you check the wordpress website they allow you to create a blog for free, and if you search a little bit, you will find free options for forums, blogs, if you search, you will find!
Do it today! people commonly does this mistake, leave things for tomorrow. If you have an idea grab a pen and paper (or just go to start -> Execute -> notepad) and write your idea, I bought a blackboard, for example. And think a lot about it, make diagrams, make plans, think (we will talk more about this later ;)). It's hard to develop an idea, but if you do it right, you will make it!! But remember, it takes time to develop an idea!
Start with something Easy (if this is the first time you developed an idea). Yeah, we are not all Coders or Graphic designers so we might need to get one for our future proyects, or to maintain ours. But if you are new it's better to start with something easy and work it out yourself while saving money for "Big" proyects, we cannot try something we arent capable of doing but you can also try to get help from some friend who is a coder or a web designer, or get a partner who is a coder and work together (but you divide 50/50 the income).
Make something you like!! Of course this is going to make easier your job, you will not get stressed so much as doing something you don't like!! but i have to admit that sometimes we do stuff we don't like because they do more money that what we like but our ideas are originals and can make your business to be better than others! be Fresh! Innovate!

Introduction:

2009-01-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

Hi there!

this is the first time i write a blog talking about this. I never tried before because i always wanted to keep it like a secret and i didn't wanted to make it public but internet is here to stay and people needs to have a chance to do what others people do, i don't want to have that "capitalist" way of thinking so, that's why i'm starting this blog. What i am going to write here are reviews of affiliate programs, ads networds, advertising revenue campaigns, reports, how to monetize your website (or blog, or whatever), and even more things. Hope somebody reads this and what's most important to make Questions. You must be thinking something like "who are you?" "what makes you capable of explaining all these stuff?" well... ok, i have to be honest, i am not a student (i hardly finished highschool), i don't have a career, but i have knowledge and Experience, and what's more important: Monetized Websites than gives me a constant income while i work and while i DON'T work. So i think that makes me capable of explaining such things but anyway the important is to reach the information we need and make it work for us and that's exactly what i want you to obtain.