I woke up a couple of days ago and checked my AdSense stats as a part of my regular morning routine. I was shocked to find out that my earnings for the day so far were less than 10% of what they usually should be.

Was my site down? No.

Were my AdSense ads showing? Yes.

Did AdSense send me an email about my account? No.

Was it just my site? Why were the bloggers I follow not talking about this?

What happened?

As it turned out, it was just a reporting issue on Google’s side. AdSense was still tracking clicks and making me money but was having problems displaying the data in the reports. Whew. It took a while to figure it out and I was relieved when I got the official word through Google’s AdSense blog.

The research I was doing, however, did send me to an interesting new feature that Google has just launched called AdSense Known Issues. According to Google the page gives readers a “list of currently known AdSense issues and possible work-arounds. Please know that we are working as quickly as possible to resolve these issues and appreciate your patience.”

I was pleased to see that my particular issue was known and being worked on:

Reports not being updated with current data. Last Updated May 6, 2008

Issue: Reports are taking longer than usual to generate, and aren’t showing complete data for earnings, clicks, and impressions.Work-Around: None at the moment, but rest assured that this delay in reports won’t affect your earnings or payments.

Updates: Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Two weeks ago I offered free SEO advice to Supper Thyme USA. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Mark from TheLocoMono.

TheLocoMono - http://thelocomonowebsite.com

I would like to take you up on your offer for SEO advice. I have been reading your blog for some time now so I am curious to hear what you have to say. My website, TheLocoMono Website started out as a popotouri of topics and last month I simplified these topics into sub-domains so along with a remodeled design using a paid WP theme, it is starting to look a lot better, traffic is somewhat the same as it was before but more spread out across the sub-domains and main site.

I am curious to see what I can do to increase traffic to my sub-domain and/or somehow tie them into my main website. A challenge but neverless shoot for Pluto as I like to say.

–
Muchas Gracias,

Mark

My Recommendations

1) Pick Better Keywords
I like your category idea but you should pick keywords that you have a change of ranking for. As an example, look at your Just Business section. Are people really searching for “Just Business”? Use keywords that are related to the topics you are writing about but will also drive targeted traffic for you because you can get on page 1 in Google for them.

2) Use Your Pictures For SEO

Your images can not only help you rank for select keywords, they can also drive some serious traffic to your site through the Google image search. Your logo is called TLMlogo.gif and your alt tag is “Logo”. Change your pictures around so that the file name and, at the very least, alt tags are helping you with your SEO efforts.

3) Increase Your Keyword Density

If you don’t use your keywords on your page in multiple locations it will be hard to get Google to pay attention. Look at your Just Personal Finance Page. You have the key phrase Personal Finance in your title tag, in your url, and your H1 tag. Then you don’t use Personal Finance anywhere else on the page. You need to make sure that your posts mention the keywords you are trying to rank for. If your posts aren’t related to personal finance then consider changing the topic name to something that you are likely to write about in your posts (and a key phrase that is not as competitive as Personal Finance).

Good luck Mark!

Readers, what do you think about TheLocoMono’s website?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

If you run advertising on your website then you should get excited about Google Ad Manager. It’s a new service that Google has created to help web publishers manage their ad inventory and optimize it so that you make the most money for the space available. If you’re making $5 eCPM when you could be making $50 eCPM, what impact would that have on your business?

It’s exclusive at the moment and difficult to get in, however. I applied twice and never got a response. So I started pulling connections. I contacted everyone I knew at Google and one of my contacts got me on the beta this afternoon. My site serves over 1 million ad impressions every month so keeping up with it all can be very difficult. I tried installing openX but then found out that my version of MYSQL was too high for openX to handle (come on openX - get your act together). I end up running everything from an Excel spreadsheet which became very time consuming and prone to error if I didn’t triple check everything.

Enter Google Ad Manager. You can create campaigns for each section of your site, it gives you detailed reports on how each ad is performing, and you can optimize them so if private ads are pulling better than AdSense (or vice-versa) it will show the ads that bring you the most money.

When you first get access, it’s a lot to take in. There are so many features but they do a good job of giving video tutorials on how to use all the tools. I’m not much of a read the manual kind of guy and prefer to figure it out on my own but the videos are very well done and worth watching.

The one thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to create monthly campaigns. Most of my advertisers buy an exclusive ad spot for a month at a time. They essentially sponsor an entire section at a time. I bill them monthly and show the ad. Google Ad Manager allows you to sell ads by a CPM or CPC model. They also allow a CPD model (Cost per Day) but I’ve yet to figure out how to make it recurring.

I’m excited to be on the program and test it out. I only had an hour to review it before leaving the office so there’s still a lot to discover. Every entrepreneur should always be on the lookout for ways to create systems and make processes more efficient. I’m betting that Google Ad Manager will be a must have for any website owner if they plan on making money by selling advertising.

I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about the tool. Does anyone have any of their own experiences with Google Ad Manager?

Last week I offered free SEO advice for the Stratford Heights Church of God. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Keri from Supper Thyme USA.

Supper Thyme USA - http://www.supperthymeusa.com

Help Me!!!! Please!!!!!!!!

www.supperthymeusa.com

Thank you!
Keri

My Recommendations

1) Add More Text

You want to have at least 300 words of text per page if you want Google  to pick it up. Your homepage, for example, only has 150 words on it. The rest of the homepage is a combination of Javascript and Flash. While those technologies help the website look visually appearling, Google can’t read them so you need to have enough text on there to get ranked. Your inside pages should also have at least 300 words or more on them. For example, the extreme fitness meals page should have a more descriptive overview so you can rank for related keywords.

2) Improve Your Title Tags

Perhaps the most important individual thing you can do on your website to improve your chances of ranking in Google is to put your keywords in your title tag. The title tag is the area at the very top of the page, above the url field. Your visitors probably don’t notice it but Google sure does. You made the classic mistake that many website owners make in having every page title be the same. In this case your page title is “Supper Thyme USA” for all of your pages. Each page should have its own title tag and should include descriptive keywords that you are trying to rank for. The extreme fitness meals page should at the very least have Extreme Fitness Meals in the title. Use 100 characters at the most for your title.

3) Get more content

Schedule some time aside every month to write new articles and put them on your site. Make the articles relevant to your site and have them cover interesting topics. For example you could discuss the importance of a home cooked meal, how to deal with a stressful lifestyle, how to pick healthy meal options, etc. Make each article 300 words or more as well. Having the articles on your site will make you more appealing to Google, will help you rank for related keywords, and they might also get picked up by bloggers and mainstream media.

Good luck Keri! I hope the advice helps!

Readers, what do you think about Supper Thyme USA’s website?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I offered free SEO advice for Publiside. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Brian from the Stratford Heights Church of God.

Stratford Heights Church of God - http://www.shcog.com

SEO Advice - I have designed a site for my church www.shcog.com and I would love some SEO advice on it. It was created using PHP, CSS and JavaScript

Brian

My Recommendations

1) Get some links!
Right now you have a Page Rank of 1. This means that Google has recognized your website and has given it the lowest score you can receive (unless you have been penalized in which case you get a 0). If you don’t have some kind of authority in Google’s eyes then you won’t get traffic. Get Page Rank by building your links. How about asking your parishioners to link to your website or getting your Oasis Youth group on a link building campaign as a start?

2) Create more content

You want to have pages with at least 300 words of content if you want to get ranked in Google. Most of your pages do not fit this criteria. You should also consider adding new content that you can drive traffic to. A good place to start would be converting some of your sermon audios into text files. Google doesn’t pick up audio but there is a lot of information here that if you turned into articles would help drive traffic to your website.

3) Optimize around important keywords

Right now you rank on the first page for Stratford Heights Church but unless someone is specifically searching you out, they won’t find your website. You should consider which keywords will help drive more traffic. Perhaps optimizing for Middletown Church (Middletown is the city where the church is located) would get more people finding you. Once you’ve picked your keywords, put them in your title tags and make sure to use them throughout your pages.

Good luck Brian! I hope the advice helps!

Readers, what do you think about the Stratford Heights Church of God website?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I offered free SEO advice for Radical Notion. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Gail from Publiside.

Publiside - http://www.publiside.com

Hi Evan –

My site is www.publiside.com; would love to know how you think it may be better SEO’d.

Thanks,
gail

My Recommendations

1) Change your title tag

Right now your home page title tag is PUBLISIDE “Get yourself known.” You are going to rank for Publiside because it’s your domain name so take it out of your title tag. Get yourself known is also barely searched in Google’s index according to their keyword selection tool. You might rank on the first page for the term but if nobody is searching for it, who cares? “Personal public relations” and “Personal publicity” are more popular alternatives but are also more competitive. “Personal publicist”, on the other hand, is more popular than “Get yourself known” and is not very competitive to rank for. It’s a win-win because you can rank for the keyword and it will drive some traffic for you. If you are looking for more Milwaukee area clients you can add the more competitive keywords with Milwaukee in front of it to drive targeted traffic.

2) Dump the frames

Most of your content on the home page has been put in frames. The text is not being picked up by Google with the frames you are using so all the hard work that went into generating content is going to waste. Move the text into html code such as tables. You can get a similar effect and Google can recognize the text. Try to have at least 300 words of Google-recognized content on each page.

3) Get more articles

You have a section called SIDEbar (articles) which is a fantastic idea but there is only one article listed. Again, Google ranks websites first based on content so you need to have substantial content to drive traffic. Why not put up each press release that you write for your clients? How about sharing some of the articles that they have appeared in? In what other ways can you build out your articles section?

4) Non SEO Advice - Logo, contact info

People generally expect to be able to get back to the homepage of a website from inside pages. This is usually done by clicking somewhere on the top like the logo that you have prominently displayed. It’s simple enough to make that picture into a link and it will improve your site usability. Also, if your goal is to have people contact you, you need to have your contact information on every page. Right now you only show “Leader in Sports, Fitness and Author / Publishing Publicity Nationwide” at the bottom of each page. There is also no visible link on the inside pages on how to contact you such as in the sidebar. Why not include a phone number on each page or an email address where people can reach you?

Good luck Gail! I hope the advice helps!

Readers, what do you think about Publiside?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I offered free SEO advice for Dorm Room Biz. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Jonathan from Radical Notion.

Radical Notion - http://www.radicalnotion.net

Hey Evan.

I love Young Entrepreneur.com! I have literally grown up reading it and I apply it’s advice everyday.

Here is the website for the company. My business partner and myself are 25 and 26…

http://www.radicalnotion.net

Jonathan

My Recommendations

1) Build better title tags.

Your title tags (the area in blue above the URL) all have Radical Notion in them and don’t have many descriptive keywords. Chances are you’re going to rank for the keywords Radical Notion anyway, so take it out of your title tags or, at the very least, move it over to the right side of the title tags. Also, put in descriptive keywords instead of using Artists, About, and FAQ’s. You’re never going to rank for any of those keywords so replace them with 100 characters of targeted keywords you can drive traffic for.

2) Have 300+ words of content.

Google likes content. If you have it, they’ll love your site and rank you well. If you don’t have it, they won’t. You want to make sure that each of your main pages have at least 300 words of targeted content. Right now the only page with any substantial content is your FAQ page. It means more work and requires layout changes on occasion but having at least 300 words of text will greatly improve your chances of ranking in Google.

3) Get some links!

Your website has a Page Rank of 0. This either means that Google doesn’t know you exist or you have been penalized / banned. My guess in this case is the former. You should tell Google about your website as your first step. Just use Google’ free Add your URL to Google tool to submit your site. Next you want to build up your back links. The more links you have to your site the more Google will respect you. Try to focus on quality links as supposed to just quantity and get your Page Rank built up.

4) Non SEO-Advice - SEO vs. Design

SEO strategies are typically at odds with design because to rank in Google you need lots of text and website owners typically want a clean design that is picture heavy and is low on text. You need to strike a balance between the two. If you don’t like the idea of adding more text to your homepage, focus on the inside pages. Write articles that highlight what you do and will drive targeted traffic to your site.

Good luck Jonathan!

Readers, what do you think about Radical Notion?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I offered free SEO advice for myaboo. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Chris from Dorm Room Biz.

Dorm Room Biz - http://www.dorm-room-biz.com

Hi Evan,

I just saw your post on providing SEO advice to some different blogs and thought that I would submit my site, Dorm Room Biz. I think it would be a great step for my site to get some extra advice on making it better and attracting some more visitors! The site is at www.dorm-room-biz.com; please let me know what you think!!

I look forward to hearing back from you!

Thanks,

–
Chris Pund

My Recommendations

1) Continue to focus on the basics.

You’ve done a great job in using your title tags, putting your keywords in your url string, and posting frequent content that is over 200-300 words. The advantage of using a blog publishing platform like WordPress is that it automatically adjusts for most of the basic SEO components. Continue to post daily, in depth content and Google will send you more love.

2) Watch your keyword frequency.

Make sure that the keywords you use in your title are also repeated in the post itself. For example, your post on Fake it ’til you make it offers great advice for young entrepreneurs. From the post I would assume that you are trying to rank for “Fake it ’til you make it.” This key phrase is in your title, url tag, and h2 tag (great work!) but it’s not anywhere else in your actual post. You should mention the key phrase at least a few times in your content to increase your chances of ranking for it in Google. Because you have the basics down, it’s now time to get more strategic with what you write.

3) Select Titles Carefully

Because blogging platforms optimize around the title of your posts, you want to make sure you put some research into picking which titles to use. For example, which key phrase drives more queries: fake it ’til you make it, fake it ’till you make it, fake it til you make it, or fake it until you make it? According to Google’s Keyword Tool, there actually isn’t a difference but you want to research your options before posting. Make sure to select titles that will drive targeted traffic and are popular enough to get you noticed.

4) Non SEO-Advice - Sell Direct Ads

You seem to have focused your income generation on affiliate sales and, to a minor extent, Google Ads. Direct ad sales are typically the biggest income earner for the top bloggers. At a very minimum you should put it on your Advertise page along with your sponsored posts and links section. I would also suggest going out to actively promote your blog to potential advertisers and try to get a few sponsors on board. Chances are you’ll drive a lot more money through direct sales than through your affiliate programs.

Good luck Chris!

Readers, what do you think about Dorm Room Biz?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I offered free SEO advice for WorkLoveLife. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Joseph from myaboo.

myaboo - http://www.myaboo.com

Hi evan,
Hope you’re doing great. That’s a really good initiative which I think the whole community will appreciate.

Here’s my website : http://www.myaboo.com

I’m looking forward for your valuable advice.

Kind regards,
Joseph

My Recommendations

1) Improve your title tags.

The title tag is one of the most important onsite SEO factors. Right now your homepage reads: Myaboo: Passionately Curious. Chances are you’re going to rank for Myaboo anyway so take it out of your title tag - or at least put it at the end. I doubt people are searching in any great numbers for passionately curious so try to identify keywords that your target audience is likely to type in to drive them to your site.

2) Get some permanent, original content.

Your content is great but changes all the time. It’s going to be hard for Google to pick up the content and get you ranked for it if your pages are constantly updating and there is no consistency. Also, the content is not original - you want to create at least a few pages of content that are unique to your site so that Google can index them and you can get ranked.

3) Get some links.

Your Page Rank is 0 which means that your site is either brand new, hasn’t been indexed in Google yet, or has been banned by Google. Assuming your site is new, submit it to Google’s add url tool and get people linking to you! The more quality links you can build the faster you will get picked up by Google and the other search engines.

4) Non-SEO Advice.

I would also suggest putting a description of what myaboo is on the home page. Are you trying to be the next Digg? Are you trying to be Google News? What is myaboo and why should I sign up? I also don’t even see an About page - if I missed it, it’s not prominent enough.

Good luck Joseph!

Readers, what do you think about myaboo?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

Last week I wrote about offering to give some free SEO advice to website owners looking to get more Google traffic. After an overwhelming response from our readers I took the first who sent me an email. I will answer the others in order so please be patient if I haven’t gotten to your website yet. The website we are going to look at today is WorkLoveLife.

WorkLoveLife - http://www.worklovelife.com/

Evan, I just started my site WorkLoveLife at the beginning of February. I don’t know much about SEO and I’d love some help with it.

Thanks,

Holly Hoffman
Founder, WorkLoveLife.com

My Recommendations

1) Write better title descriptions.

Right now the title tag reads WorkLoveLife - you have 100 characters and should fill it with descriptive keywords of your site. You may rank #1 for WorkLoveLife but who is searching for that term? Find relevant keywords and put them in your title tag.

2) Make your post titles permalinks.

Right now the permalink on your blog posts is the time at the bottom of the post. For example, check out your post “On Traveling Well” which is listed on the home page on the blog. You can’t click on the title of the post itself but there is a link at the bottom of the post where you show the time - 8:36 PM - which you can click on. Don’t feel badly - this is the Blogger default. Make the title of the post clickable to improve your blog’s SEO.

3) Get more links.

Right now your blog is a Page Rank 0. It’s a new blog and you’re still in the sandbox. Submit your site to various directories, get involved in online forums, and build your links from quality websites (YoungEntrepreneur is a good start!) Until you get a PageRank you won’t rank for any important keywords and the way to Page Rank is to build your links.

4) Non-SEO Advice.

I’m not exactly sure what your blog is about. If a first time visitor comes to your site they will be confused as to what they are going to learn here. I would put the About Me at the top and delete the About WorkLoveLife because it is more descriptive and welcomes visitors to the site. People also love pictures - it makes it much more personal!

Good luck Holly!

Readers, what do you think about WorkLoveLife?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!