Earning Money

I completely disappeared for quite a few days without giving my readers any idea of where I was going and when I would return. Because of that, I saw a slight drop in my stats and that’s something that as a web earner, you never want to do. So, this post is going to be one of those posts where I give you advice on what not to do after I already have made the mistake. And it is based off of something that I really did realize from taking the unexpected break.

There is nothing wrong with taking a short break every once in a while to focus on yourself, to rejuvinate, to recover, to whatever you want to call it. The one thing, though, is the length of time. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take month long breaks like John Cow did. But, what they did that I did not do was tell my readers that I was disappearing. That is the fault in it and that is what I have to learn to fix. There are times when I get so overwhelmed with school, my guitar, and friends, that I forget to post. But, the thing that I need to remember and other bloggers need to remember is that this IS a business. Your blog is a business even if it is a passion.

I spent some time today as I was planning this blog post to try and determine what sorts of things I think I should do if I ever want to take another break, whether it is long or short. One of the first things that I realized I needed to do is set aside about three or four blog posts to have set up just in case I can’t get time to sit down and type. One weekend, I just need to sit down, type a few posts, save them as drafts and when the time comes that I can’t post or I just want to take a break, put them on auto-post and voila, I am done.

Another thing that I can do is take the time out to e-mail some of my friends and invite them to write a guest blog post. I am sure that if I offered a few links to them in the post as well as an intro, they’d be more than willing to write a guest post or two. I know that if I were to get an e-mail asking for a guest blog post, I’d write one for the individual. The point is, you are hoping to find another few posts that you can time stamp and by doing this, you are ensuring that your blog is updated when you are ‘disappearing.’ But, like I wrote once before, don’t rely entirely on guest blog posts. People are there to read your content, not others.

One final thing that you really ought to do when you are going to disappear is have all of your private advertisers prepped for your disappearance. For instance, if you are going away for a month and during that month, someone’s ad needs to be added because they have been added to a ‘list’ of pre-paid advertisers, they will be incredibly upset if their ad is not added the SECOND the day starts. So, one thing that you may want to do is let people know that you are going to be disappearing. You can either give your current advertiser a nice little deal that gives them until when you get back or you just tell the private advertiser that they will only have to pay for half the month. My advice, though, would be to get someone you know to update your advertisers for you (if you trust them) when the time comes.

Disappearing can sometimes be an unavoidable thing. We intend on getting something done and then - for whatever reason - we just disappear. To prevent against your blog deteriorating, just ensure that you do a few things to prepare for the disappearing act. Write a few posts for time stamp, get some guest blog posts, and also get your advertisers prepped for the period of time that you will be away. We’re entitled to have some time to ourselves; however, as long as we are writing and trying to make money from this, we need to ensure that we keep things consistent. So, I just wanted to apologize for disappearing and I’m back.

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If you are a regular Adsense user like I am, chances are, you have seen that there has been a slow increase in earnings. Perhaps I am being a bit premature with this post, but I can’t remember ever making quite as much as I have in this month than in any other month and it makes me wonder what is going on. I have a few theories, but my primary one falls back on the belief that Google is beginning to feel threatened and to ensure they keep a strong market, they are offering more to us.

One thing that I know about Google is that they are not dumb. You don’t make a huge company like that if you are dumb. Because of that, they can take and give and chances are, they are not going to really have anything but success. However, they have made some mistakes recently. Their war on link sellers hurt them, I think. Their removing a lot of the clickable areas on the ad hurt them. Their altering the affiliate program hurt them. And I think they are getting nervous.

Their nerves might be coming with the potential purchase of Yahoo! by Microsoft. Although Yahoo! turned the deal down, if Microsoft comes back with an even higher bid, what that will do is really give Microsoft the possibility of gaining a stronger search engine, but above all, they might really be able to push out their Adsense/Adwords equivalent, whatever the hybrid may be. Since Google makes so much money from that, they don’t want to lose their market share to another company, especially Microsoft.

The way I see it and I think the way Google sees it, they want to try and keep us publishers where we are. They lost Digg months ago. John Chow left. Other publishers have left. I have wanted to leave numerous times. Although I am small time, if a ton of us small timers leave, that’s a loss in money for Google. But, what it really does to Google’s market is that we go elsewhere. By us going elsewhere, more advertisers go there as well and Google loses even more. So, Google really might be feeling a bit threatened.

Companies make mistakes. The ability to adapt and learn from it is what makes a company stronger. If Google learns from their mistakes and ensures that they don’t get in the way, they may be able to stay strong. But, if Microsoft does buy Yahoo!, it could mean some very dangerous months for Google. I know that I would go over and try the new hybrid ad program put out by Microsoft/Yahoo!. And, if I know Microsoft, they will be very aggressive, very fast, very hard. So, is Google feeling threatened? I bet. And I bet they are giving us more money to keep us around. I’m not complaining though!

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