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In an effort to continue giving back to the community, I’m releasing my first WordPress theme–SEOsense.
What is SEOsense?
SEOsense is a WordPress theme that aims to be very lightweight. It also attempts to provide a good framework to build a theme on. It focuses on search engine optimization and AdSense placement to make this happen. I’ll go into detail about each below.
WordPress Search Engine Optimization
There’s a number of things I did to focus on SEO with this theme. First and foremost I put the content first and used CSS to arrange the layout the way I want.
This is important because the higher the content, the more importance Google gives it. When your content is above your header and navigation–it lets Google know this is the most important content.
Search engines love more content and less markup, so I’ve focused on making this as clean and minimal as possible, using CSS whenever possible to style tags.
Another thing I did with SEOsense, is I attempt to generate the best page title possible.
Every title ends with your blog name. Your blog’s description is used for your main page. A post’s title is used for a post page. With categories, the category description is used unless it’s empty–then your category title is used.
I set it up like this so you can target specific keywords easily and make changes through the WordPress backend as needed.
Pages and posts have appropriate hierarchy and repetition to let Google know what the page is about.
WordPress AdSense Optimization
This area probably could have used a little more work, but I think it’s off to a good start. I personally don’t like “optimizing” AdSense to the point where it becomes hidden and tricky–so I’ve left some things I could have added out.
What I have done is allowed a large 728×90 ad up top. On single posts pages, I’ve wrapped the content around the ad.
On the archives and category pages, however, I’ve opted to put the ads between the posts. This is done through the functions.php file with the function betweenPosts(). I’ve found this a pretty clean way of inserting content between posts that allows for easy editing.
A few other notes
It’s good to note the entire theme uses 1 image, which is for the RSS feed icon. Without this image the theme is an impressive 13KB.
If you’re going to be using the AdSense, remember to swap out my ads with your own. While I love making money on sites that aren’t mine–something about that doesn’t seem right. 
If you don’t want to use AdSense, simply remove the code and everything should snap into place as expected.
There is a link to my website on the bottom. You do not have to leave it in, but I would appreciate it.
I tried to keep all of the ad’s separated from the layout for easy updating. The ads are located in ad-top.php, ad-single.php and ad-between.php.
The CSS is setup in a way that editing styles is easy. The first part is only structure, meaning the placement of the header/sidebar/content. Everything after /** Styling **/ is styling and can be edited to your hearts content.
Also, please note I’m not a designer by trade. I can design, but I’m color deaf. I’ve done my best to create an appealing theme, but the design is only a portion of this theme. The real work goes into the placement of content. This is part of the reason I make it so easy to edit, because it’s a framework and should be built off accordingly.
This is my first WordPress theme I’ve ever released, so I’d love to hear your feedback.
Download SEOSense 0.1b
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A few weeks ago I talked about selling T-shirts on MacTips because affiliate programs weren’t performing well for me.
Even though the affiliate programs weren’t performing well, I kept trying–determined to get my first sale.
Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Banner Advertising
With Banner advertising, I saw revenue right away. Every day I saw how much I made that day. Whether I was counting clicks or impressions the revenue details were instant.
When I began affiliate marketing–I didn’t make any sales my first day. The second and third days came around but no sales were made.
I began to feel like I was loosing guaranteed banner revenue and started to get discouraged.
Finally on my fourth day I made a sale that accounted for much more than I would have made in four days worth of advertising.
Two days later I made another sale. Maybe there’s something to this affiliate marketing thing after all.
I’ve now made more in 6 days with affiliates than I would have in two weeks with advertising.
This is an exciting new area for me because it proves there are programs out there that work for my visitors–I just need to try harder.
Making Adjustments
This goes back to Test, Review, Adjust and Start Again.
Small adjustments make huge differences. Never stop experimenting and never stop pushing ways to monetize your site.
However, always remember to keep your users best interests at heart.
Users understand the need for advertising. But keep it relevant and don’t force it down their throat.
Sudden Success with Selling Shirts
While I was adjusting affiliate banners, I began testing selling t-shirts as well.
To my surprise I’ve already sold two today. While the commission is not as high as other affiliate programs–I love seeing initial success when I try something new.
This means there’s a lot of room for growth with some tweaking.
I’ll be sure to keep you updated with my progress in this area as it’s somewhat unexplored territory for me.
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I signed up for a Yahoo! Publisher account a long time ago and never really gave them a chance due to terrible performance.
At the time I attributed their lack of targeting to being new, it seems not a lot has changed:
I’m willing to let it run for a day or two and see how it performs but I’m not very optimistic about this.
I wonder how Microsoft adCenter will perform if they ever open themselves up to publishers.
Posted in Making Money - 1 Comment »
Right now I’m in an interesting position with MacTips because it’s reached the point where small changes make big impacts.
The site isn’t huge by any means but we’ve reached our first week where traffic hasn’t dipped below 4,000 pageviews per day. I’m that much closer to reaching my short-term goal of 5,000 pageviews per day.
Inconsistent Google AdSense Numbers
I have mixed thoughts about Google AdSense. On one hand it’s nice because it’s guaranteed ad dollars that actually produce a decent amount.
On the other hand my numbers from day to day vary drastically. I can’t specify exact numbers, but eCPM varies by a few dollars every day. I’m not sure if this is normal–but I haven’t seen activity like this previously.
Tweaking Google AdSense
In attempt to bring some stability to my numbers I’ve began tweaking AdSense. I’m doing 2 different things currently with some initial success.
Competitive Ad Filter
The AdSense Competitive Ad Filter allows you to block certain ads from displaying on your site. For the most part this is used for blocking competitor ads, but I’ve also found this useful to block un-related ads.
Google does a good job selecting ads most of the time, but a little help never hurt anyone. In my case it’s actually helped me by bumping my eCPM up $1. I’m not sure how permanent this is however.
Note: I see Google has added a “Ad Review Center”. I just signed up–I’ll let you know how this goes.
Rich Media Ads
The other thing I’ve begun experimenting with is non-text ads. This means images/videos/flash. So far it’s doing OK but nothing amazing.
I’m going to continue tweaking AdSense as small changes like this can produce big results.
Monetizing with T-shirts
I’ve dabbled in affiliate programs but there just aren’t many good Mac related affiliate programs out there. The ones that do exist just haven’t performed very well. Infact they’ve performed awfully.
But part of being a webmaster is continually trying and improving.
I have a hunch that T-shirts will sell better than most affiliate programs I put on my site. The problem is, there aren’t any Mac related t-shirt affiliate programs. I’ve contacted the companies–they’re not interested.
I want to sell their products and they’re not interested, unbelievable!
I’ve decided to create a few t-shirts of my own and see how those sell. I’ve started a contest at MacTips for ideas with mild success.
This whole thing is a big experiment so I’ll be sure to report on my results. Nonetheless it’s not a very big investment with companies like CafePress and Zazzle doing the dirty work.
Continuous Improvement
As the title suggests, improving your site follows the basic steps of:
- Test: No sure if an idea will work? Try it.
- Review: Record and review your results.
- Adjust: Adjust your test trying new ideas.
- Go to #1: Start the whole process again.
Never stop tweaking, never stop trying new things, never stop improving.
Posted in Making Money - 3 Comments »
I’ve learned a lesson sometime throughout the past 3 weeks. It was one of those lessons that just sucks–but it happens.
Here’s the story.
About 3 weeks ago I signed up for a PayPal business account. Before I only had 1 PayPal account, but now that I was incorporating my business and getting official–I felt the need to open up another account to keep my records straight. Also, I’d like to note that it is completely acceptable to have 1 personal and 1 business (or premier) account with PayPal.
I signed up and everything was going good. I was getting the business payments switched over to my business account. The only problem was, it was a new account–and I really didn’t have a quick way of withdrawing money. With my personal account, I have a debit card–meaning I can drop by any ATM and take money directly out of my PayPal account.
So, I transfered some money over to my personal account–where I would be able to withdraw it instantly.
A few days go by, and everything is good. Then, I get an e-mail from PayPal.
Dear Brad Jasper,
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the
PayPal system. We recently identified some unusual activity on your
account:<removed_for_spammers>
For your protection, we have limited access to your account until
additional security measures can be completed. We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause.
Excellent.
To make an extremely long story short–I called PayPal at least 10 times, sent numerous faxes and e-mails–and finally, 2 weeks later, my account has been re-activated.
So what’s the lesson?
Don’t keep money in PayPal. This would have never happened with a real bank. I’ll still use PayPal–but I’ll never keep more than a small amount of money in my accounts.
(Speaking to PayPal now…)
I’ve never had a (major) problem with you before this PayPal. You’ve just turned a mildly happy customer of over 3/4 years into a customer who will gladly take his business elsewhere. I understand you need to protect your business. But you need to understand that I must protect mine. It shouldn’t take 2 weeks to get a customer’s account unfrozen. I should be able to call once and talk to somebody that can help me.
When I called for the first time, I asked if there was a way to talk to someone about exactly what happened–so I could explain everything. The guy told me no. I asked him if I was screwed. He said yes. I had nothing to hide. I provided you with plethora’s of information.
Credit cards. Bank accounts. Social security numbers. Tax ID numbers. Home addresses. School addresses. Home phone numbers. School phone numbers. Mobile phone numbers. Transaction descriptions. Credit card statements. Driving licenses. Military ID cards.
You would think that somewhere along the line, that would have been enough.
But then your support staff told me there was nothing else I could do besides wait for the “right department” to get back to me. There was no way I could speak with them over the phone. Multiple e-mails had bounced back. The most effective way to get a hold of the “right department” was via fax. In this day and age–that’s sad. And shitty customer service. Towards the end of the whole ordeal I stopped calling. I stopped e-mailing. I started faxing–because that got noticed.
I understand PayPal. I run websites for a living. I know how hard it can be living up to customers’ expectations. But here’s my hope.
I hope you’re run into the ground by a competitor. I know you have no serious threats right now–but give it time. You’ve been collecting interest off of too many people’s money for too long. I can’t wait for the day when I can say–I don’t have to use PayPal anymore, because there’s a better alternative.
Good luck. I hope you change PayPal, I really do.
I’m a little bitter, but I learned my lesson.
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