I’ve run a test using the Kontera advertising for the past 60 days on various websites, which is providing some positive results. For those not familiar with Kontera, it is a contextual advertiser that provides inline real-time advertising on keywords. Here’s their official description:

A contextually relevant keyword that is discovered in real-time on a web page from within Kontera´s vast network of publishers, and is automatically turned into a link to the most relevant ad from among Kontera´s thousands of advertisers. With ContentLink™ publishers generate incremental revenue while advertisers reach their most targeted audience on a Cost-Per-Click basis.

(Kontera’s AdLink page - explains how keyword-tagged advertising works)

I’m always hesitant on using new forms of advertising, mainly because I believe it could erode the success of other advertising, such as the c/t on Google AdSense. However, I am pleased with the performance of Kontera. I have very little degradation to the c/t rates of most websites for AdSense, and normally noticed highly targeted keywords. I am also pleased with their publisher support.

You can see the ads in action at Healthy Sauna.

Here’s some of my initial results as I tested the program:

Pros:

• Appears to have no degradation of c/t for other advertising methods. This makes any income, a bonus.
• The link ads can be made to look different from normal inline links on a webpage, or almost exactly the same. The choice is yours. Making them the same will increase the c/t, but may also impact negatively on the customer experience.
• A competitor’s advertising can be blocked.
• Kontera ads can be used simultaneously with Google’s AdSense. This was verified directly through my account representative for AdSense at Google. She did stipulate that the allowance of this form of advertising is subject to change in the future.
• Kontera support will fine tune the ads appearing until a publisher is happy with the results.
• You can choose a section of the webpage for the ads to appear, otherwise, they’re liable to show up in headers, copyrights, etc. Note the locations in the diet help website, which hasn’t had its ads restricted to certain portions of the page.

Cons:

• Overall cpm rate as “advertised” by the initial contact was much lower then the actual rate has ended up being. About 1/4th of the promised cpm.
• While a competitors advertising can be blocked, it is cumbersome, requiring the publisher to go through their contact person.
• Reports are very basic.
• Ad display can be slow at times. This only has a slight impact on the page though, as the code is placed at the BOTTOM of the page… and the ads are the last thing to show.
• They tend to bunch their ads at the top of the page, in the first paragraph…. I’m not sure this is the most effective form.

I am impressed with the overall performance of this form of advertising. Publishers can expect it to increase their bottom line by at least $1 cpm for websites based heavily in content. While not a lot of money, I have not seen it negatively affect the overall earnings on any website, and have not noticed Google’s search results, or any other search results, be affected by the advertising.

In April of 2006, various milestones were reached with my web properties.

Family Tree Guide exceeded 2 million names. For any family tree website, the amount of names within it’s trees are important, as it will have a viral effect on future growth. I have consistently seen the number of people within the trees of this website grow exponentially, both by people creating new websites, and existing sites increasing their size.

We exceeded 30 new sites for 2006. While I haven’t mentioned all of them here, Judy and I have either purchased or created 30 websites in 2006, and look forward to building or buying an additional 70 more. Several of the sites we’ve built this year have already made their money back for us, and are now profitable. That’s an achievement for only 4 months!

Judy and I have posted another website designed around AdSense and unique content and articles. This time the website is devoted to the description of the diets available as well as providing some diet advice. It’s called Diet Help.

With our website, Track Your Diet, this website should go hand and hand, enabling us to expand the reach of that website into competitors keywords.

This website represents our 10th website as posted here.

Judy and I have developed another website, this one called Genealogy Books. As it’s title suggests this is an online store presenting a variety of genealogy books and genealogy software for sale.

This store is developed in partnership with Amazon, and enables us to provide results directly from their product feed. There are over 75,000 genealogy books available through this website, as well as several genealogy software products.

This website is our 11th of the year as announced here.

News on the web (The Daily Telegraph) indicates that British owned genealogy website 1837online.com is up for sale. Interesting in this article, isn’t the fact that the site is for sale, but how much they expect to make from the sale.

The article mentions that the website has revenue of 10 million pounds, and profit of 3.5 million pounds (don’t we all wish we had that kind of profit and revenue ). They expect to fetch a price of between 30-40 million pounds… or 3-4x revenue, 18-22x profit. WOW!

Hmmm… at that multiple, I might be willing to part with my genealogy websites too…

I routinely monitor various words and domains using Google Alerts. This tool enables you to allow Google to notify you by email when it comes across your keywords in a web page or a news article. I like to do it for my own domains, and for certain topics which interest me such as my last name “Partridge.” Unfortunately, over the past 24 hours I’ve received 5 blank emails for Google Alerts, all of them purportedly for the word Partridge, but no content. Obviously, even the big boys have trouble sometimes…

Millions of people suffer from depression, whether diagnosed or not. To some it is a mild form of depression, with just an occasional mood swing; to others however, it can become a disabling disease. We’ve recently commissioned the development of a site devoted to straight answers to questions about depression. This site is setup in a simple to follow format, with short articles providing informative and accurate information about the disease.

Whether you suffer or know somebody that suffers from major depression or bipolar disorder, this website can help you better understand the disease. No pictures or graphics just a straight informational help site. It is very important to stay well informed of the various types of depression and their treatments. This site is designed to provide information and support for those who suffer depression, their family and friends.

Depression Help

The above website is our 9th website of the year, and as you can see, we have fallen short of our goal of 2 sites a week. Or have we??? I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to post here lately, but expect a deluge of posts from me about new websites, and updates to old ones in the next week or so.

Amazing how a simple statement such as “my growing scheme of buying and building websites that have nothing to do with genealogy” hints to some that I while I diversify my websites I might wish to divest of mine and Judy’s genealogy websites. The answer is quite simply, NO!

I have had three legitimate requests to purchase one or more of my genealogy websites over the past couple of weeks. All of those making the requests, have also read this blog. Coincidental? I don’t think so. Legitimate? Yes, in each case I’m aware of the individuals making the request; and am assured they would buy the websites if I would offer them up for sale.

So to save any other readers some time… No. I’m not selling my genealogy websites!

When you browse the web and view a website, how many ads are too many ads? As a website developer, and an avid user of the web, I use to struggle with how many ads to place on any particular website. I don’t anymore. My experience has shown that a user is willing to put up with only enough ads as to make the content for the website worthless to them. If you place too many ads on a web page the user simply closes their browser, or advances to another site. See ya!

Obviously that’s not acceptable to the developer or user side of me. So to find balance I strive to do several things to minimize the ad clutter, yet maximize the profit.

1. Popups.
   I rarely use popups/popunders. There is a growing segment of the online world that detest popups and popunders. Advertisers still love them however. Simply put, people are more likely to see the message using a popup then they will from a regular ad. My rule of thumb is, only use a popup or popunder when I offer a paid membership version of the site to my visitors. That way, those truly upset about the popups can pay their own way.
2. Content.
   Place all ads within the content of the page, especially if you wish to encourage c/t’s for advertisers such as Google and Yahoo. But spread them out. If you’re going to have an ad at the top, then have an ad on the side or place an ad box into the content towards the top. Don’t be afraid to use additional ads on the page, especially if you have a very long page. But users should generally, never see more then 2 ads at once, and preferably, only 1.
3. Blend or Contrast.
   Either blend the ad into the web page, or make sure the ad contrasts with the web page (so that it stands out and can be seen). I’ve used both, and both work. What doesn’t seem to work is a mix of the two.
4. Leaderboards.
   Use leaderboard ads to increase your income. A leaderboard ad is a 728×90 pixel image that is meant to run across the top of your website page, or near the top. A good ad company can mix these ads in with a 468×60 ad (if ones in the larger size are not available.)
5. Compare.
   Get yourself a Yahoo and a Google account. Not just one or the other. Try similar ads for each company for 7 days. Then compare the results. I have found that Yahoo works really well on some websites, while not doing well at all on others. When it does work though, it almost always out performs Google. Note to non-US readers, the Yahoo account is presently only open to US citizens while in Beta, but you can still join AdSense.
6. Banners.
   Expand beyond text links. They’re not always the best producers of income, especially for a large site. If you have a high value community website, try joining some of the ad companies that provide image advertising, such as ValueClick, FastClick, Burst, Casale Media, etc. If using Google ads, allow image ads to show.
7. Self Advertising.
   Use a portion of your advertisement webspace to advertise yourself. One of the most effective ways I know to increase traffic on one of my websites is to refer traffic from a much larger website I already own.
8. Rich Media.
   Allow rich media ads if available. Rich media ads are the type of ad that often gets a users attention, or annoys the heck out of them. I actually enjoy these ads the most, as I never know what to expect…. like an automobile ad that drives the car off the page… uhmm…. one of these on a page is enough. Don’t overkill.
9. Track.
   Keep accurate track of c/t percentages and cpm results, and check them daily. Knowing what is working, and what doesn’t is of utmost importance.
10. Experiment.
    Finally, make sure you are constantly testing and experimenting add placement, types of ads, ad companies. Never sit back on your laurels, unless you think you’re making enough already.

While this is a simple list of 10 items I find particularly useful when developing a website, it’s by no means complete or extensive. I have many tools that I use, many subtle tricks, and some bona-fide bone head ideas I can warn you about. But that’ll have to wait until a later post.

A new website, and first of February was purchased today. It’s called AltRoad - Home & Garden Tools Collection. This website is an AWS site featuring home and garden tools. Since Judy has been hard at work on several garden sites, such as Garden Notes, and Garden Herbs, we felt this site was worth the $30 purchase price, and would fit in well with our theme. For those that don’t know, AWS stands for Amazon Web Services.

One of the the nice features of a well developed AWS is the ability to directly link to products on the AWS site from other websites. For instance, if Judy were to write an article on mulching, she could feature the Flowtron LE-900 (The Ultimate Mulcher). Now, if I actually had leaves falling in my yard, I might think about buying myself that, but with over one acre of almost all grass, I’m much more in need of lawn tractors. So in this case, the AWS setup allows me to link to both a category page, and an actual article.

That should give you an idea of not only how we’ll be using the Home & Garden Tools Collection to enhance our garden websites, but also some ideas of future sites in our array of websites that will deal with home and automotive tools.