Form Factor
The Lumia 800 is built out of a single block of Polycarbonate plastic. Don’t let the ‘plastic’ part sway you as the handset is quite durable. It sustained quiet a few hard knocks and drops from about 2 feet without too much of scratching or any issues with functionality. The 3.7-inch, slightly raised gorilla glass display, although quite a fingerprint magnet, survived quite a bit of torture without giving in to scratches. So, in terms of durability and funky design form, the Lumia 800 is definitely high on our ranking. If the slippery shell doesn’t meet your fancy, worry not as Nokia has thrown in a rubberized case that makes it much easier to manage.

Slim and sleek
Check out our Hands-On preview for more information on the 800’s design.

Features and Performance
Interface
Powered by a 1.4GHz Scorpion processor and running the Windows Phone Mango (7.5) OS, the Lumia 800 is a seriously speedy handset. When it comes to functionality, as limited as the OS itself may be, the Lumia 800 manages to do everything it’s capable of extremely well. WP7’s stripped down; visually simplistic user interface is what keeps most of their handsets, irrespective of processing power, running quite smoothly. The Tile and Hub set up is really what makes WP7 so attractive. Unfortunately for Nokia though, this fantastic piece of hardware can’t live up to its true potential that’s curtailed by the OS. The Linpak Benchmark test we subjected it to gave us a score of 49.3 Mflops, which is impressive as far as mobile handsets go. Multi-tasking was, of course, a non-issue.

Simple and easy to mange UI
Although WP7 is a user-friendly system, like we’ve said many times before, it’s still in its nascent stage and will require a considerable amount of tweaking before it can really give Android or iOS a run for their money. The few things about the Lumia 800 we took issue with, included the fact that Nokia has decided to go Micro SIM on us and also leave out the external memory support. Like the N8, the uni-body design translates to; should your phone hang, restarting it will not be as easy as it used to be. Thankfully, the Lumia 800 functioned without any “hang-ups”. But it seems like a – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – type of sentiment is at play here.

What we also noticed with the otherwise crystal clear display was that whites usually took on a slightly yellowish tone. This was especially noticeable on websites with white backgrounds. Other than that, visibility in broad daylight from any angle was top-notch.

Media
It was quite surprising to see that Nokia missed on including any audio enhancements for the 800 and that is a major downer. Audio quality was consistent with any other high-end smartphone, but it could have surely been better with a few options to personalize the output. We did find the decibel level a tad low, especially in crowded areas. The speaker phone was also a little too low for our comfort level. The built-in FM radio was just fine and even managed to pick up signals quite well on a daily commute through the city. Nokia has pre-installed TuneIn for Internet radio options as well.

The audio quality would have been so much better with some enhancement options
Once again, we were plagued with the Zune menace, meaning we had to make sure that our videos were first compatible with the software, before it could take its own sweet time transferring to the handset. Once on the handset, the picture quality, Nokia’s Clear Black Display enriched the colors. 16Gigs of internal storage space is also quite a bit to keep media lovers fairly satisfied, even if they can’t extend it any further.

Get ready for some interesting screenshots……

How Much Money Can You Make With Google Adsense?

The sky is the limit, frankly.

But one thing about Google Adsense is that you are not likely to earn a lot of money right from the beginning.

Seriously ask yourself this question:

Would you like to be paid $4k a month? Or being paid $0 in the first month but getting a pay rise of $100 every month thereafter?

If your answer is the former, Google Adsense may not be for you.

But if your answer is the latter, that’s the kind of money Google Adsense can give you – at the minimum!

What It Takes To Make Money With Google Adsense

I’ll keep my answer short. You need to:

Step 1) Conduct keyword research
Step 2) Churn out good articles based on the right keywords
Step 3) Build SEO friendly websites
Step 4) Build links (to boost your search engine rankings)

If you are new to internet marketing, every one of these 4 steps can be a challenge to you. But trust me, each of these 4 steps are simple skills that you can learn and master. Once you’ve mastered these 4 steps, you simply have to repeat the 4 steps again and again.

Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.

For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.

The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!
Direct Methods

1. PPC Advertising Networks

Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.

The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).

The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.

List of popular CPC advertising networks:

* Google Adsense
* Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
* BidVertiser
* Chitika
* Clicksor

2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.

A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.

CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.

You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).

List of popular CPM advertising networks:

* Casale Media
* Burst Media
* Value Click
* Advertising.com
* Tribal Fusion
* Right Media

3. Direct Banner Advertising

Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.

The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.

Related links:

* How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
* Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
* Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
* Openads Ad Server
* OIO Publisher Ad Platform

4. Text Link Ads

After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.

Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.

The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.

Text link marketplaces and networks:

* DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
* Text-Link-Ads
* Text-Link-Brokers
* TNX
* LinkWorth

5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.

Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.

In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.

List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:

* Commission Junction
* ClickBank
* Azoogle Ads
* Link Share

6. Monetization Widgets

The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.

Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.

List of companies that provide monetization widgets:

* WidgetBucks
* ScratchBack
* SmartLinks

7. Sponsored Reviews

PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.

Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.

If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.

List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:

* PayPerPost
* Sponsored Reviews
* ReviewMe
* BlogVertise
* Smorty

8. RSS Feed Ads

With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.

Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.

Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.

Related links:

* Feedburner
* BidVertiser
* Pheedo

9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events

If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.

This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.

Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”

Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.

10.Premium Content

Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.

SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.

11. Private Forums

While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).

Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.

These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.

List of popular forum software:

* vBulletin
* Simple Machines Forum
* phpBB
* Vanilla

12. Job Boards

All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger… you name it.

Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.

The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.

List of popular job board software:

* JobThread
* Web Scribe Job Board
* SimplyHired Job-o-matic
* Jobbex

13. Marketplaces

Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.

Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.

The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.

You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.

14. Paid Surveys and Polls

There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.

Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.

15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages

Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).

These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.

Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.

16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors

Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”

On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.

17. Donations

Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.

Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).

A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.

18. In-text Adverting

In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.

Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.

19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders

Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.

If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.

Ad networks that use pop-ups:

* Tribal Fusion
* PayPopup
* PopupAd
* Adversal

20. Audio Ads

Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.

The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.

21. Selling the Website

Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.

Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).

Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.

Related links:

* How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
* How To Sell A Website – How Much Is Your Website Worth?
* Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?

Indirect Methods

22. Selling an Ebook

Perhaps one of the oldest money making strategies on the web, using a website to promote a related ebook is a very efficient way to generate revenue.

You could either structure the website around the book itself, like SEOBook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did we the book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.

Related links:

* Writing an ebook for your blog
* How to sell ebooks
* Processing payments for your ebook
* How to sell digital products online
* List of ebook selling software

23. Selling a Hardcover Book

Many authors and journalists leverage their blogs or websites to sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.

While most of these people were already renowned authors before they created their website, one could also follow the other way around. Lorelle VanFossen did exactly that with her Blogging Tips book. First she built her authority on the subject via her blog, and afterwards she published the book.

List of self publishing and publishing services:

* Lulu
* Self Publishing
* iUniverse
* WordClay

24. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes

As more and more people decide to get an online presence, website templates and WordPress themes become hotter and hotter.

On this segment you have mainstream websites like TemplateMonster, as well as individual designers who decide to promote and sell their work independently.

Brian Gardner and Unique Blog Designs are two examples of websites that make money with the sales of premium and custom WordPress themes.

25. Offering Consulting and Related Services

Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the articles and information that you will share will build your profile and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to gain customers.

Chris Garrett used a similar strategy. First he created a highly influential blog on the blogging and new media niche, and afterwards he started offering consulting services to clients with related problems and needs.

26. Creating an Email List or Newsletter

Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.

Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.

Yaro Starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.

List of software to manage email newsletters:

* AWeber
* SendStudio NX
* PHP Autoresponder
* Constant Contact

27. Mentoring programs

People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.

Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.

Brian Clark leveraged the success of Copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled Teaching Sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.

28. Creating a conference around the website

If your website takes off and becomes an authority on its niche, you could create a conference around it. Depending on the size of your audience, the event could attract thousands of people, and you could make money directly from conference passes and sponsors.

Search Engine Land, for instance, created a series of conferences that visit several cities on the United States and on other countries as well. The conferences are called Search Marketing Expo, and the tickets and passes cost thousands of dollars.

Actually there are a lot of increasingly creative ways to make money and maximize on Adsense earnings that are being discovered and also being put to use every day. And what’s even more fascinating is the fact that most of these tools being used don’t cost anything. They are actually free. Here are 7 of the most effective currently being used.

a) Ways to make money from Adsense by Distributing articles through ezine and article announcement lists

Some of the most effective methods ways to make money from Adsense clicks involve the simple step of just increasing the volume of targeted traffic to a site. One of the ways of doing this is by distributing interesting content to ezine lists and article announcement lists. It is not too difficult to quickly build a list that reaches a million or so email boxes and can thus give a lot of visibility and drive tons of highly targetd traffic to your Adsense site or sites. Probably the most popular place for doing this is at Yahoo groups, but there are a few others that you can find easily by using your favorite search engine.

Success here depends on three main factors. Firstly you should be careful to join article announcement lists and ezine lists that are as relevant as possible to your subject matter and offering. Secondly your headline has to be a killer headline that will grab readers by the scruffs of their necks and force them to open your email message amongst the dozens or even hundreds of others they receive daily. It goes without saying that the content must meet the promise of your sensational headline. Anything less will cause annoyance and leave all those potential visitors to your Adsense site feeling cheated. And believe me, you don’t want to cause this sort of reaction because it is definitely not one of the ways o make money from Adsense or any other program for that matter. Thirdly, you will need the sort of resource box in all your articles that will leave most of your readers with no option but to visit your Adsense site.

Within a very short of consistently applying this technique, my daily Adsense earnings increased seven-fold.

b) Ways to make money from Adsense by Distributing free articles to high traffic article sites
Some people find the recent trends that have seen an increase in article sites surprising. I don’t. The net is primarily an information-seeking tool. Anything that will help improve the search and quality of information will greatly benefit the people making that effort.

Some of the older article directories receive very high traffic, mainly from web masters and site owners seeking quality free content for their sites. So apart from the immediate exposure these sites also guarantee plenty of future targeted traffic to your site, when folks find your articles useful enough to re-post at their sites.

The more new articles you release to these sites every week, the more targeted traffic your Adsense sites will receive. This is in fact one of the most effective ways of making money consistently from Adsense clicks. One of the reasons for this is that targeted traffic will tend to spend more time at your site or sites, and the more time they spend, the higher the chances that they will click one one of the Adsense ads posted there.

c) Ways to make money from Adsense by Using Articles And A Viral Marketing Website

Any online marketing technique that involves the use of referral marketing or viral marketing automatically has a huge chance of being a success. The net is ideal for viral marketing and in fact gives any viral marketer huge leverage. Viral marketing or referral marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. Just ask Bill Gates.

When Gates was trying to play catch up on the Internet after an earlier mistake of underestimating the future importance of the net, he launched his Hotmail free email service when rivals like Yahoo already had millions of users. He decided to use a simple referral marketing technique. Every Hotmail message that went out had a brief signature at the end requesting the recipient to sign up for their free Hotmail account. Within a few short months, Hotmail had millions of users. And there are many other amazing stories which viral marketing boasts of on the net.

There is one of the very simple ways to make money from Adsense by going viral. Sign up at a leading viral marketing site. You will automatically get your own viral site. You can then use some of your articles to point people to your viral site. The way these sites work is that anybody who signs up at your site will have to visit your Adsense site if you register it at the site. So within a very short time you will be driving thousands of visitors to your Adsense site.

Find more details on this at my blog whose address you’ll find in the resource box below.

Admittedly this traffic is less targeted. Still the huge potential and possible numbers you are able to receive using this free tool more than makes up for this.

d) Ways to make money from Adsense With Your Email signature

People greatly underestimate the power and potential effectiveness of a simple email signature as one of the ways to make money online. Actually this is a viral marketing method because emails get forwarded all the time and are even copied to several other people sometimes.

Do not waste another minute. Go to all your email accounts right now and create a signature that points to your Adsense site or sites.

Writing effective email signatures is a skill that you will have to develop, but I have found that using famous quotes is more effective than a straight advertising message. Always remember that people hate to be advertised to online.

e) Ways to make money from Adsense By Asking Questions At Discussion groups

I recently had an interesting conversation with a young Internet and computer techie. He asked me whether there were quick ways to make money online by answering technical questions and helping people to solve their computer and web-related problems. My answer was that there were many discussion groups where participants would get these answers for free. I advised him that he had a better chance of making money by making use of this free advice available online rather than by trying to sell his own advice.

There are tons of online discussion groups where leading world experts will answer your questions and give you valuable insight for free. It is amazing why most people do not think of using these online forums to learn as much as they can about the most effective ways of making money from Adsense.

These forums can easily be found through you favorite search engine.

f) Ways to make money from Adsense By Bartering your online skills for valuable Adsense keywords

In the old days, before the invention of money, if somebody needed something, the first question they asked themselves was; “What is it that I already have that I can exchange for what I need? Barter trade seems to have been forgotten but it is a very powerful method of trading. More so online where people have plenty of skills but are slow to trust others enough to send them money for an item they need.

You can barter whatever it is you have, your skills, products or services, and exchange them for genuine valuable Adsense keywords. Valuable Adsense keywords are the most effective way for a small site with low traffic to earn big cash from Adsense. And you can do this barter trade on an ongoing basis so that you always have a constant supply of valuable Adsense keywords which you can use at your site or blog as one of the ways to make more money from Adsense.

g) Ways to make money from Adsense By Sending Teaser Emails

To Everybody In Your Inbox And Also To Your Opt-in Email List
Most of us receive tons of email in our inbox every day. You’ll be surprised at the huge number of people you know by simply going through your email inbox. No matter how good your spam filters are, you are also bound to be receiving more than your fare share of SPAM or unsolicited email. All this is “gold” lying in your email inbox and there are ways to make money using these emails. All you need to do to process the emails into pure gold is to send out “teaser emails about the most interesting aspects of content at your site. The whole objective of teaser emails is to get people to visit your site. For instance if I were to send out teaser email on this content here is how I would construct it

If you have questions – and I know you will – then please use the comments rather than emailing me. This will allow me to answer for everyone’s benefit and save me a lot of time. Also – please give me as much info as you can when asking questions. Don’t ask why your site is getting 2 cent clicks. I will need to know what the niche is, where your traffic is from, how much traffic, what your keywords are etc to make an informed opinion. Please try and include as much relevant info when asking for help.

Rule #1

If you are going to make money with Adsense then you build your site for that purpose. You don’t slap Adsense on an unoptimized site and expect to make much money with it.

Rule #2

Adsense works best when you drive targeted search engine traffic to your site and the visitor clicks an ad targeted to the term that the user found your site with. Or a related term.

ie. John is searching for “Adsense Tips” using a search on Google. He finds your site listed for that term. He visits and at some point he sees an Adsense ad on your site for “Adsense Tips” or “How to make money with Adsense” or “Adsense for beginners” and clicks one of the ads.

That is a targeted click. You will receive the best CPC. (cost per click or in simple terms this is the amount of money Google will pay you for the click) In this case let us say you get paid $0.50 for it.

Now Bob drops in on your site because someone (maybe you if you don’t know any better) stumbled your post on stumbleupon. Bob isn’t looking for anything – he’s just aimlessly surfing the stumble sites. He doesn’t see much that interests him but clicks on an Ad just out of curiosity. He doesn’t convert for the advertiser – why would he (but sometimes it can happen) as he is just checking things out. He spends two seconds on the advertiser’s landing page and leaves.

Bob is an untargeted click. Google will pay you $0.01 for the click.

Do not get hung up on all the variables at work here. Just understand that you want to drive as much targeted traffic to your site and avoid as much untargeted traffic as you can. You want to rank well in the search engines for as many keywords as you can that are related to your niche and you want to avoid driving traffic to your site from untargeted sources. No stumbling, digging, reddit, etc. If others do it you have no control so don’t get in a flap – it happens. Just don’t chase that traffic yourself.

Overall you will get both kinds of traffic – as long as the majority of your clicks come from targeted sources you will average a decent CPC. They will never all be perfect clicks. If the majority of your clicks end up coming from untargeted sources of traffic then eventually you will be smart priced and all you will see will be the 2 cent CPC. If that happens then pull Adsense off the site and leave it off until you can change the traffic source to more targeted visitors.

Now, before you all ask, yes you can get direct traffic from other blogs linking to you or from people bookmarking you. In general these people are interested in your site’s niche and probably have related niches. Whether they are targeted or not is usually not a concern as they will be readers and are not likely to click your ads anyway. You can have a million stumblers show up too as long as they don’t click your ads you will be fine. I am not telling you that you can’t have untargeted traffic – you can – you just don’t want them clicking ads. There are programs available that allow you the option to only show ads to search visitors. If your site has a lot of untargeted visitors then use them. I am too lazy to go find the links but I am sure some of my readers will supply them in the comments. If you are new here then you may as well learn this now – I yak a lot and my friends roll in to do the leg work. I encourage it because it gives them a chance to introduce themselves and they are people you should get to know – they help me, I help them and they will help you. If you have no online friends then make friends with some of mine as they will be your best resource. Just be sure to give as much as you get.

(Don’t be shy – get involved. You will notice by the abundance of comments that I belong to a growing community of like minded folks who all help each other and are far more knowledgable than any other group you will meet online. We were all beginners at one time and we don’t mind passing along our knowledge to others – take advantage of it and pay it forward when you can.)

Rule #3

Do not click your friends ads and discourage them from clicking yours. You will get banned. Google can tell when multiple clicks come from the same IP. It is un-natural and sticks out like a sore thumb. Never ever get involved with click fraud. It is not worth it and yes – you will get caught! Yes you will… you beginners had better listen to me as you are all going to try and think of a way to inflate your clicks. DON”T!!!

Rule #4

A successful Adsense site is a site that doesn’t look like an Adsense site. No splogs. It must contain legit information and serve some purpose other than simply displaying Adsense. It is against the Adsense Terms of Service to create a site for the sole purpose of slapping Adsense on it.

How you create an Adsense site for the purpose of making money with Adsense without looking like you have just created an Adsense site for the sole purpose of making money with Adsense will be discussed in the next post. (say that 5 times fast)

Rule # 5

Everything you think you know about Adsense and SEO that you read about elsewhere is crap – even if it isn’t crap. Just because some dude wrote an ebook on either subject doesn’t mean they know jack. It just means they wrote an ebook. The people you want to listen to rank on top of the search engines and don’t write books about making money online.

They make money online.

They don’t need to make money writing an ebook.

And why should you listen to me?

Because I rank on top of the search engines for just about every “make money online” keyword you can think of. Go look.

and… I’m not selling you anything.

and… I’m just a swell guy!

Why am I telling you this for free? Because I need content in order to rank on top of the search engines for even more terms and It is easy for me to write about stuff I know a lot about. I also know that only 1 in 10 of you will follow my instructions. Only 1 in 100 of you will become adept enough to knock me off my perch and when you can you won’t. You will become an ally and together we will kick more ass in more niches and make even more money. In short I want and need more friends who do what I do so that we can all help each other.

Rule # 6

The best business model I know online is to provide free information for any niche that is dominated by sites that sell the info. By providing free and legit info you will bury the competition – the traffic will come to you. And you pay for it all with… yup – Adsense.

Next post I will talk about how to set up a site, how to structure your posts, how to use adsense on the site and how to get people to click on your ads without violating Google’s terms of service.

In the meantime you should re-read rule number 6 and find a niche that meets that requirement. You can also observe how I structured this post. It is perfectly optimized for the keywords I want traffic for.

Social traffic consists of using social networks like Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, Entrecard, Forums and hundreds of other services that allow you to sign up and promote your site on them. These services are the backbone of what is known as Web 2.0 and has evolved into a newer version centered around Facebook, MySpace and the current craze – Twitter.

The general idea is to get out there and make friends online using these networks, draw them in to your site, wow them with your content and wait for the links to come pouring in from your adoring fans. As the links increase your traffic increases as more and more people find your site and in turn tell more people through the use of more links and one day you will become famous just like Darren Rowse of Problogger or failing personal fame you may still develop a hugely popular site like Engadget or the Huffington Post.

There is a certain appeal to all this – becoming popular has many advantages aside from the most obvious monetary considerations. Many people blog because they have something to say and just want an outlet for their views. Others dream of being a writer and use the net to publish their stories. Get your work out there and get discovered. Musicians and filmmakers use the net in the same way. Whatever your reason for starting a blog or website there will come a day when you say to yourself, “what is the point if no one is reading or watching or listening to my creative output?”

It is at that point that you will begin your quest to find traffic and invariably you will turn to the social networks. You will discover quite quickly that you can get social traffic fairly easily using Stumbleupon or even easier using Entrecard. Twitter might be the easiest of all. You will join forums and work at becoming an “authority” in your niche. You will make friends. They will send links. All will be wonderful… for a while.

Six months to a year down the road two things will happen – it always happens and it happens whether you have achieved a large readership or not. You wake up one day and realize that you are working like a dog and there is little to no benefit from all that work. Driving social traffic is a constant grind. If you stop posting, twittering, digging, stumbling, dropping entrecards, leaving comments on other blogs or any of the other daily chores needed to keep your name out there the traffic dries up. Moreover your health deteriorates and your friends and family are neglected as you spend hours and hours sitting in front of your computer single mindedly developing your brand. Even if you have managed to develope a few thousand RSS subscribers – something most beginners think of as a successful blogger – you will still ask yourself “is all this work worth it?”

Why? Because at some point everyone wants to be compensated for all that work. You may say now that you are just doing it because you like to “write” or you just need an outlet to release your opinions and I believe you. The problem is that you will not be satisfied just writing or opinionating if no one is reading your output. You will get sucked into the social traffic cycle and find out that it is work. And when you work that hard you will eventually want a monetary reward for it – in one form or another. Having 10,000 readers coming and reading just wont cut it if a book deal doesn’t materialize. Or you can’t make money from advertisers. Or JV (joint venture) offers don’t show up. No matter what your reason for blogging at some point you are going to want a reward for it and the more work you put into it the more return on time invested will be expected.

And that is the problem – you wont get a return from social traffic. They don’t spend money – they don’t click ads and the advertisers are no longer supplying inventory to social sites as that fact has become known. Today.com claims 10 million page views a month. That is fairly significant traffic. So why don’t we see the big advertisers on this site? Where are the finance/credit/bank advertisements? The auto company ads? The big brand names? What we see are ads for dating sites. And Adsense.

The advertisers are not coming to this domain in spite of the traffic. Today.com has had to find a means to monetize this site using affiliate marketing platforms which they are currently rolling out. Adsense does not perform well as the sub-domains are not targeted for premium CPC (cost per click) and are smart priced. They get pennies per click from adsense and the CTR is dismal at best. Today.com is a successful domain based on traffic but like many others online they have found out that all traffic is not equal. The majority of this domains traffic comes from social networks and social traffic does not convert well – meaning they can’t make much profit from it.

If you are reading this then chances are you have a site yourself and you spend a fair amount of time reading blogs and surfing the net. You are social traffic. When was the last time you bought something on a friends site? Or clicked on an Ad? You don’t do it often if at all and neither do all the other social bloggers and social network users. You are here to read. You are online looking for information and not looking to buy something.

Search engine traffic is quite different. Most people use the search engines – Google by far – when they need to find something. You don’t go to Today.com when you want tickets to a Broadway musical or are looking for a hotel in New York. You use Google. You have a purpose in mind and that usually entails buying something or at the least you need specific information about a specific thing. Search traffic is targeted and whether you are trying to make money online or just want readers, search traffic is the traffic you want because it consists of people looking specifically for what you are offering.

If you have a humor blog for no other reason than just to entertain then why not target people looking for humor blogs? The easiest way to do that is to rank number 1 in Google for the term “humor blog”. On average 2400 people a month will find your site. If you rank for more related keywords like “humorous photos”, “Humor writer”, “humor”, “funny pics”, “funny stories” etc then you will eventually have thousands of daily visitors to your site. And this is the best part – you can post when you want or not at all and the same traffic will show up every day. Moreover you will never have to spend 1 minute commenting on other blogs or stumbling or dropping entrecards or doing any of the other chores involved in social marketing. And the icing on the cake – your search traffic will click your ads. They will read your humorous post and because they found you while searching for humor they are likely going to click on those ads that point them to other humorous sites. They don’t care if they make you money or not – they are not bloggers. They are civilians looking for something and will click anything that leads them to their goal.

The process for obtaining search traffic is actually very simple but it does take work and most of all patience. It can also be done in conjunction with social traffic. The problem is 99% of bloggers only chase social traffic and completely shut the door on search traffic right from the get go. This doesn’t have to be and I will show you how to optimize for the search engines using some basic SEO techniques that will pay off hugely by the time you wane on social traffic. You can use social networks for immediate traffic while building your site for long term search traffic. If you don’t achieve search traffic then you will eventually burn out and all the social traffic in the world will not change that fact.

SEO Basics that must be used in order to drive search traffic to your blog are as follows;

You must use your keyword in your URL.

You must use your keyword in your Blog Title.

You must use your keywords in your Post Titles.

You must use your keywords and related terms in your post content.

You will get the best search results by only posting one post per page unless all your posts are related to the same keywords.

If using Adsense then always stick to one post per page.

If using photos then your keywords should be used in the alt tags.

You must use html for the bulk of your pages content. (plain old text)

These simple little steps are all you need to do to optimize your site for the search engines. You will get indexed for your keywords and ranked well. How high you get ranked depends on the competition. If there is little competition you could achieve top ranking doing little else. (Many of you experience some Google traffic for long tail keywords. This is because you used a term in your content that has little competition and Google found your site when someone searched for that term – unfortunately these terms don’t often provide much traffic) If there is a lot of competition then you will need backlinks pointing to your site using your keyword in the anchored text of the link pointing to you. That is all that is required to dominate any keyword online. Simple yes. In practice the hard part will be obtaining all the anchored backlinks needed to dominate a competitive keyword but following my on-site advice will make this task much easier – especially if you use social networks.

The instructions below will guide you through the first steps of configuring Adsense Manager 3.x. If you are upgrading from a previous version of AdSense Manager, you can skip these instructions.
Getting Ready
Before you can do anything else, you will first need to set yourself up with an AdSense account and install the AdSense Manager plugin.
1.
You can also use Adpinion, AdRoll, AdBrite, Commission Junction, HTML Code, ShoppingAds and WidgetBucks. Once you’ve created your account your provider will give you some “Ad Code” to paste into your site. Keep this window open for later: you’ll need to be able to paste this code into AdSense Manager once installed.
2. Download AdSense Manager v3.x
Take the downloaded file, unzip and copy the /adsense-manager/ directory into your WordPress plugins directory at /wp-content/plugins/. After this is done you should have a folder at /wp-content/plugins/adsense-manager/ containing all the plugin’s files. To activate the plugin, simply go to your WordPress dashboard » Plugins and click ‘Activate’.
Upgrading for Previous Versions
If you’re upgrading from a previous 1.x / 2.x version of AdSense Manager simply copy the /adsense-manager/ directory from the downloaded .zip file into /wp-content/plugins/. This will replace the previous version with the new files. AdSense Manager will handle the upgrade of settings/etc. automatically when you next access the WordPress dashboard and show a notice if it succeeds.
Setting Up Adsense Manager
Previously you had to input your Google AdSense ID manually when setting up AdSense Manager, but this is now updated automatically when you import code. If you go to Options » Adsense Manager, you will find the following instructions for importing your first Ad Unit:
1.
2. Create a new ad unit using your network’s ad online management system.
3. Copy the ad code generated (Edit » Copy, from within your browser)
4. Go to Manage » Ad Units and paste the code into the box
5. Click Import to New Ad Unit»
Below here are the settings for Be Nice! a method for supporting development by donating a % of your Ad space and Alternate Ads to raise funds for AdSense Manager. All ads are hand-selected and family friendly, and the income generated in this way allows me to dedicate time that would be otherwise spent on a bar job.
Just enter a % value indicating the proportion of ads you wish to use to support us. If you enter 0 only your own ads will be shown (no hard feelings but please consider donating instead).
Creating Ads
All creating and editing of Ad Units is done on the Manage » Ad Units page in your WordPress Dashboard.
The simplest way to ad new Ad Units to AdSense Manager is by importing Ad Code from your network. To do this simply go to your ad network’s management page, choose your ad settings, and copy the code that is generated. This can be pasted directly into the box at the bottom-left of the Manage » Ad Unit page.

Blogging tools are designed to be easy to use. They generally don’t provide all the advanced features of a complex content management system, but rather do one task — publishing a blog — very well. To this end, they can help you:

• Create posts. Since the purpose of a blog is to be able to post new text or information to the site frequently, creating posts should be quick and easy.
• Upload pictures and multimedia. Many blogs go beyond text to include photos, video, or audio.
• Display posts to visitors. A blogging platform can make it easy for readers to view your posts and to comment on them.
• Moderate. While it’s typical to allow visitors to post comments to a blog, different platforms provide varying levels of help to weed out inappropriate contributions.
• Publish RSS feeds. RSS feeds allow more Internet-savvy users to subscribe to your blog.
• Configure the appearance and layout. Tools vary widely in the degree to which they allow you to configure your blog, and the methods they offer to do this.
• Find support. Not every blogging tool offers the same degree of support: while some offer personalized assistance, others have forums where you can find answers to your questions.
• Host your blog. While some blogging software lives on your own server, others are hosted by the vendor.
• Get stats on your blog. Reporting features will help you see how many people are visiting your blog, and which posts are most popular.

What type of functionality should you expect in each of these areas? Some features are fairly common to all blogging tools, while others are more specialized. Below, we’ll walk through the typical features, and then show you some criteria you can use to evaluate whether a particular blogging tool is right for your organization. For specifics on the seven blogging tools we reviewed,

The procedure for creating a blog post is fairly standard across blogging platforms: simply type in a title and the text you want to appear below it. Formatting options can vary from tool to tool, however; while many blogging platforms provide easy-to-use tools that allow you to create bold text, italics, larger font sizes, and more, not every tool offers these. In this case, you’ll need to use HTML to format your text.

Formatting tools themselves also vary — while some allow you to change text color and fonts as you like, others limit you to a particular set of styles defined for the site. When choosing a blogging tool, consider your needs: if you’ll be pasting text from Microsoft Word or another word-processing program, make sure that the blogging platform can strip out extra formatting that might otherwise interfere with online formatting and RSS feeds (more about RSS feeds in a moment).

Once you’ve written and formatted your post, the blogging software will add a date and publish it to a Web page with a click of a button. Some platforms also allow you to preview your post before you make it live, or to save a draft of it.

Uploading Pictures and Multimedia

While you can publish pictures to your blog using a variety of tools, some platforms make it easier than others. A few allow you to upload images easily in a single step, while others require you to upload images separately and then add them to a post afterwards.

Some tools also automatically size and optimize images, while others require that you do this using another tool (like Adobe Photoshop). If you don’t resize photos, you risk having huge image file sizes, creating long download times for your users and monopolizing your bandwidth. Even if a blogging tool automatically resizes images, find out if it allows you to specify the dimension and alignment of your pictures on a post.

Any blogging tool will allow you to link to video or audio files already posted on the Web. If you plan to use this type of multimedia frequently, however, look for a tool that will let you upload multimedia files or even embed multimedia in a post to let your users view or listen without leaving your site. Embedding is generally done by posting a chunk of code provided by a third-party tool (like YouTube ); if you’d like to do this, look for a tool that allows you to include JavaScript in posts.

Displaying Posts to Visitors

Blog layouts tend to be fairly standard, without much variation between platforms. There are a few factors to consider, though, when making a final selection:

• Navigation. Organizing your posts into categories can help visitors find and sort through previous posts. Not all tools support this, however.
• Excerpts. Some tools offer the option to show excerpts (rather than entire posts) on a blog’s landing page.
• Front-end usability. If your blog is likely to be visited by people unfamiliar with blog conventions, the links on your blogs should be intuitive. What does the visitor need to click on to view comments? How can they find a permanent URL for a post? Is the permanent URL easy to understand, or just a mess of numbers? Can you tailor these features to your needs?

Moderating

Once your post is live, it’s common to allow your readers to comment on it. While most comments are likely to be relevant and thoughtful, there may be a few inappropriate ones. If you allow comments, you’ll want to be able to keep an eye on them and intervene when necessary: therefore, make sure your blogging tool allows you to approve comments before they appear on your blog and delete unwanted contributions when necessary.

It’s also helpful to require posters to register or to submit their email address with a post. If your blog gets a large volume of comments, you may want to look for a tool that allows you to search and filter all comments, ban posts that include a particular keyword, or ban a poster by IP address.

While it will take some time before your blog builds a large following, those who do eventually get a fair amount of traffic may also encounter problems with comment spam — completely off-topic comments (generally ads) that are automatically posted. While the previously mentioned features will help combat spam, additional tools will also require users to verify that they are humans and not spambots by transcribing a wiggly set of letters (also known as a CAPTCHA); others automatically filter out spam-like comments in a method similar to email spam filters.

Publishing RSS Feeds

One popular blog feature, particularly among more Web-savvy users, is the ability to “subscribe” to blog content via RSS. RSS allows people with the appropriate software to gather the content from many blogs so they can read it all together in one place. Providing RSS access to your blog will make it more useful — and appear more professional — to your audience.

All tools provide RSS support of some sort, but check to see if you can set it up without HTML ability. There are also a number of different types of RSS formats; if, however, you’d like to provide a specific one, or multiple, check on the formats that are supported.

Configuring the Appearance and Layout

The degree to which you can configure your blog’s appearance — and how you can do this — varies widely between blogging platforms. While some limit you to a few templates, others allow you to tailor everything to your exact needs.

Begin by considering the configuration method. While some tools allow you to set up a blog without HTML, a blogging platform that allows you to use it will give you more control. If you are versed in HTML — or can hire someone who is — check to see if straightforward knowledge of HTML will be enough to configure a given tool, or whether you’ll need PHP, Perl, or even to learn a whole new tool-specific coding language.

Once you have chosen a configuration method, evaluate how much control you need. There’s a lot to consider here:

• Templates. If you can set up a blog quickly using a template that defines the layout and colors, how many choices do you have, and how professional are they?
• Logos. Can you upload your organization’s logo? This is a surprisingly rare feature.
• Vendor branding. Do you need to show vendor branding — and if so, how prominently is it displayed?
• Sidebars. Most blogs have a sidebar that can include information about your organization and links to your Web site or to other blogs. To what degree — and how easily — can you edit sidebar content?
• Fonts and colors. Can you tailor text and colors on your blog to match an existing Web site or organizational branding?
• Domain. Can the blog use your organization’s domain (for example, www.eBOX99.com )?
• Widgets. Can you add in widgets — pieces of code written by third parties that allow extra functionality — like polls or images from photo-sharing site flickr?
• Layout updates. To what degree will the platform allow you to modify templates to create a custom layout or to match your Web site?
• Customization. Can you customize every single page, message, and element to create a completely tailored blog?

Support

If you run into problems with configuration or posting, you’ll want to know where find help. The good news is that most tools have thorough and friendly documentation. Some offer technical-support phone lines or email support desks, while others have active user communities, where you can post your questions to user forums and find code to add functionality, known as plug-ins, to your site.

Hosting Services

Consider where the code for your blogging software will actually live. If you would like a lot of control over your blog, you may want a tool that you can install on your Web site’s server or hosting service via code files that you upload and configure.

If you’d like a less complicated option, you may opt for a hosted tool — software that sits on the vendor’s server but that you can access over the Web. If you’d like a fair amount of control without installing one of these tools yourself, another option is to find a host that has the blog tool you would like to use pre-installed. (Note that some tools are much more widely pre-installed than others.)

If you plan to upload a lot of multimedia files (images, video, or audio), or you expect a large readership, you will need to consider the amount of bandwidth you can use. Bandwidth is calculated by multiplying the size of each file by the number of times it is viewed. For instance, allowing 10,000 users to view a document that is 100 KB will require 1 GB of bandwidth. If you are using a hosted blog tool, it may have a maximum amount of bandwidth you are allowed to use without incurring extra charges. If you have installed a blog tool on your own server, the bandwidth will be defined by your Web site host.

Reporting

You’ll likely want to know how many people are visiting your blog, and which posts are the most popular. Reporting for most tools is surprisingly weak, but a few will tell you the most-visited pages and posts on your blog If you want detailed reports, look for a tool that will allow you to download your raw log files for analysis. If worse comes to worst, most blogging tools will allow you to use a third-party package, like Google Analytics or Site Meter, for stats.

What about Trackbacks?

Some blogs also come with a trackback feature, which allows other bloggers to automatically alert your site when they’ve linked to your post. This feature was not noted as a priority by any of our advisors, and therefore wasn’t included in our reviews. In our opinion, Trackbacks are better suited to individuals who are trying to become well-known bloggers than they are to nonprofit organizations.

How to Choose

There are many variables to consider when selecting your blogging tool. What are the key considerations?

Consider whether you need more than a simple blogging tool.

Are you looking for a tool that will help you manage a number of different blogs? Will an editor need to approve posts from multiple authors? Will your blog support a closed community where only a specific group of people can view and comment? Do you want to combine your blog with discussion groups, so that the comments have more structure than a simple list? Will the blog be an integrated part of a Web site built from scratch? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you’ll likely want to look at not just the straightforward tools included in this report, but also at more powerful blogging and community tools, such as Drupal, Joomla, and others.

Decide whether you need to tailor the blog’s appearance.

Should your blog display your logo or match your organization’s colors and fonts? Does it need to blend in seamlessly with the look of your Web site? Or are you just hoping to get something professional-looking up quickly? Can you choose the look of your blog from a selection of templates?

Determine if someone with technical skills will be available to set up the blog.

Do you have a staff member, consultant, or volunteer who can upload files via FTP? Get your blog up and running with HTML and CSS? If that’s just alphabet soup to you, and no external help is available, you’ll need to look for a vendor-hosted tool (like WordPress.com or TypePad) that can be set up without coding, rather than one that is installed on your own server.

Weigh control and integration versus ease of getting started.

If flexibility, control, and the ability to integrate your blog with an existing Web site are top priorities, you’ll likely want to use a tool that you can install on your own server, such as WordPress.org, ExpressionEngine, or Textpattern. If getting started quickly and easily is more important, you’ll likely want to use a hosted tool like WordPress.com or TypePad.

Consider the technical expertise of the people who will be posting.

Are the people who will be using the blog novices requiring something straightforward? If so, look for software that makes it easy to post and to upload pictures in one step. If your users are comfortable around technology and even around a little HTML, pretty much any of the blogging tools mentioned in this article will work for posting.

Decide on other critical features.

If you expect to have a high volume of comments, then you should seek out moderation functionality. Is it important to be able to display posts by category? To show only excerpts (rather than entire posts) on your blog’s main page? To be able to embed multimedia files via JavaScript?

Blogger

If you have some basic HTML skills and are looking for a free and user-friendly tool, Blogger is a great choice. It’s easy to create posts, upload photos in a single step, and customize the HTML to exactly match your Web site. It also offers an easy set-up process to show your blog at your own domain (www.yourorg.org/blog) rather than at Blogger’s (organization.blogspot.com). If you’re not able to muck around with at least a little technical stuff, however, there are better choices — by default, Blogger includes a prominent navigation bar that shows the Blogger logo and random links to other blogs, which you’ll need technical chops to remove. It also doesn’t support categories.                            LiveJournal

LiveJournal is, at its core, a community collaboration tool that allows you to form networks of “friends” and blogs online. While it’s often used to create simple blogs, the tool isn’t the best in its realm, especially in comparison to some of the free tools (LiveJournal costs about $2 a month). It’s not very intuitive to set up, and the less-than-professional-looking templates are difficult to modify, even with advanced coding skills. If you’re looking for a tool to create an organizational blog, there are better choices.                                               TypePad

If you’re looking to get started quickly but flesh out your blog’s look and functionality over time, TypePad may be the tool for you. It’s also the only option among the tools reviewed that will allow you to display your organization’s logo without using HTML. Easy-to-use tools allow you to tailor all colors, fonts, and images through the site, or update the site HTML through a (rather complex) set of templates. Even technical novices will be able to post text and photos with ease. Starting at $4.95 a month and ranging up to $14.95 a month for complete customization, it’s the most expensive of the hosted tools we reviewed.

WordPress.com (Hosted)

The hosted version of WordPress offers a limited number of professional-looking templates that allow you to easily get your blog up and running in just a few minutes. While this version is free, you can’t customize anything beyond the template, meaning there’s no option available to tailor colors, fonts, domain name, or logo. The comment moderation functionality is great, however, the tool easily supports categories, and it allows you to show excerpts rather than full posts on the first page of your blog.                                       WordPress.org (Installed)

Of all the tools we reviewed that require installation, WordPress was the easiest to get up and running, and is frequently offered pre-installed or as an easy install by hosting companies. This might make it worth a look for even those without experience installing software on a server. Those with HTML skills and a little PHP knowledge can completely customize their blog setup. Other than that, WordPress’s installed version is similar to the hosted version- both offer great comment moderation functionality and support for both categories and excerpts. Free and open source.                                                                                                                Movable Type

Movable Type is a perfectly respectable blogging tool. However, at $199 or more (depending on the number of licenses needed) for a one-time purchase, it doesn’t compare well to its free brethren. It’s the most difficult to install, one of the more difficult ones to configure, and doesn’t have many extra features to make up for it’s cost. Its inability to toggle between HTML and rich text versions of posts is particularly annoying. ExpressionEngine

ExpressionEngine is a flexible, powerful tool that is targeted at more tech-savvy bloggers. It’s relatively easy to install and configure, and you can tailor settings at a very detailed level. You’ll need an understanding of HTML to format posts. Beyond the scope of this report, it offers sophisticated support for a community of bloggers. Both a free and paid version are available. The paid plan includes unlimited technical support for a one-time licensing fee of $99.95 (for nonprofits), plus $19.95 per year for access to the latest updates. TextPattern

Also targeted at more tech-savvy bloggers, and similar in concept to ExpressionEngine, TextPattern is a flexible, powerful blogging tool you install on your own servers. It’s particularly easy to configure the look of your blog via HTML, as TextPattern’s interface includes wizards to build all the custom syntax you’ll need to reference posts. Technical novices may be intimidated by the post formatting interface, which includes a set of simple but custom formatting tags (for example, you need to put asterisks around text to bold it). The tool is somewhat limited by its documentation, which is not as clear as other tools’. Free and open source.