The genius part about this however is how Miguel Alvarez of Marketing Factor is extending his reach by offering up more chances to win the prize for things like adding him as a friend on Facebook, following him on Twitter, blogging about the contest.  Now he does have a great selection of prizes to attract people to this contest but a contest doesn’t have to be this big to be successful.

Just think of all the people out there who are dying for links to their blog, 1 free SEO lesson, invite to a private group, maybe an awesome connection.  Be creative I bet you can figure out some kind of contest that you could run that would get at least a few people to blog about you.

“What do I have to do to make $300-$400 a month from adsense?”

“How much money will I make if I’m running a political website?”

“I don’t want to spend time setting it up if I can’t project what I’m going to be making”

Now for whoever made those statements all I have to say is that YOU WILL MAKE NOTHING!!!

Ok that’s a little harsh but the point being to make money using something like adsense you have to love what your doing.  For example if your writing a blog and somebody says well for $400 a month you have to make 3-4posts per day compared to the 3-4 a week you make now.  I bet that person won’t like that and if they do it will do it just for the money their posts will lack quality and content.

You have to build your blog or site because you love what your blog or site stands for then add something like adsense just for the hell of it.  You have to have the attitude of why not throw this in and maybe I’ll make a few extra bucks on the side.

Now if you have that attitude there are a few things that will determine what adsense does for you to a point.

The click payout of your keywords: In other words what you get payed when someone clicks on the ad on your site.  This depends on a lot of things but generally the content of your site and what keywords your ads are related to.  Obviously higher click payout is better.

Click Through Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to your site that click on the ads.  Very hard to determine this rate, you really just have to find out for yourself.  Obviously content again helps it and if your ads have a good relation to your content on the site it will help.  For example my site is a place for ideas…if I can have ads that explain the patent process or how to obtain an LLC, I think that could really help my click through rate because its the next step for my users.  I found a stat that said the average click through rate ranges from %1 to %10, don’t know how accurate it is and its a big range so I guess it can’t be that far off.

Traffic: Obviously you need traffic to make money.  No traffic = No clicks.  Also is comes down to unique views of your site.  Think of someone clicking an ad on your site, if they like it they will probably bookmark it themselves not click on it every time they visit your site.

So there it is, even though all those things are what determine how much you make from adsense the real determinate will be your contribution to your site.  Remember make a blog or site because you want to do it not to make money from a service like adsense because it just doesn’t work that way.

If you do it that way making good money is very possible from adsense. People make thousands of dollars from it but far more make pennies.  But if you love what your doing I believe that you will end up making some nice revenue from it.

Now what should you write a Knol about?  How can Knol’s promote your own blog’s or websites? Well first write about anything you think you have some knowledge on. There are so many topics that have not been taken yet it is an unbelievable chance to get your name on some prime real estate.  Something that is very hard to come by in the Internet world these days.

For example look at my Knol on Ithaca College.  Its where I recently graduated from and I figured I have a pretty good idea of what the school is all about after spending 4 years there.  It’s a lot like the Wikipedia page but that’s just fine its supposed to be.

The point of writing a Knol about my school was not because I am in love with the school and I’m looking for every way to pay it back for my 4 great years there.  Writing the Knol promotes myself, by giving viewers easy access to my profile and others Knol’s I’ve written.  My profile which includes links to my websites and this blog, my other Knol’s which are about this blog and my websites.  All giving me that much more exposure in this increasingly crowded cyberspace.

Now you might be saying how much exposure can a Knol on Ithaca College really give me.  Well it all comes down to Google’s search engine ranking of Knol’s.  The rumor is that Google is giving Knol’s an extra bump in its search engine ranking, with an ultimate goal of a Knol being the first thing that comes up for the search of any topic.  Ex. Search Ithaca College, the 1st result is my Knol with all the basic info on the school, then the next result is the actual school homepage.  Now that’s exposure.

None of this will happen quickly but I suggest you get out there and write some Knol’s.  In the coming months it could prove to be a huge source of traffic to your blog or website.

Also don’t just write on anything, actually write stuff you have a decent amount of knowledge on.  The whole point of the Knol system, unlike Wikipedia, is to sort out credible sources by having personal profiles attached to each Knol.

Also other people can write a Knol on the same topic that you write about, so make it good because the best Knol’s will be the ones that get high search rankings.

Good Luck!

Check out Google Knol

- this is the process of clicking the stumble button on your toolbar and coming across articles.  When you come across a page this way and thumb it up or down your vote is given more weight because you came across the site randomly and therefore voted based on content you had never seen before.

Tip – this is the best way to drive traffic to your site however its hard to control who comes across your site.  Key is to build a core group of friends, people who are truly interested in what your doing.  Then when your site is in the system theres a higher chance that your friends will come across it and therefore thumb it up because they like the same stuff.

2. Send To

- this is a handy toolbar function that allows you to easily send a site to any of your friends.  However it may cause a decrease in the weight of a thumbs up if you received the site via the “send to” button.  This makes sense because it tries to eliminate the ability to mass send a particular site and abuse the system if you happen to have a ton of friends.

Tip – it takes more time and is not as convenient but if you want to get your site out there use the message function on your stumble homepage and directly message each of your friends asking them to look at the site.  Maybe even ask them to find the site via Google to help your search engine status out as well.  If you’ve developed a core group of friends with similar interests you should get a decent response from most of them and hopefully a handful of reviews and thumb-ups.  I think this method works best for launching a new site or if you just have an amazing post, not something to do everyday.

3. Your Domain

- Don’t submit the same domain over and over again as your thumbs up will have less weight over time. Example – submitting every blog post you make.  Also this helps to limit the ability for good friends on the site to continuously stumble each others work.

Tip – Try and submit only your best work, the stuff you think will generate a bunch of thumb-ups.  Also if you are just starting a blog, DO submit all of your work.  Point being your work probably isn’t going to be seen at all if you don’t submit it.  Even if your decreasing your stumble weight by doing so hopefully you’ll attract a handful of readers to your blog and over time you can slowly decrease how much work you submit.  Goal being you don’t submit anything but your readers end up submitting all your work.  I’ve done this and even as my submissions for my own blog lost value they were still generating 100-150 views from stumble, not so shabby.

I must stress that none of this is proven but from my experience with stumbleupon these are the biggest trends that I have noticed and I think they are true to some extent.

Also remember to just use the site all the time.  The more you give back to the community the more it will give to you.

What is does is when a person leaves a comment is finds that persons last blog post (if they have one) and posts their linked title underneath the comment.

For example here is a comment I left on the plugins site:

Jared (1 comments.) Says: July 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

This is a useful plugin because it gives back to people who spend the time to comment on your posts.  It gives incentive to leave comments which is essential to having a great blog because without peoples reactions and add-ins to your thoughts the idea dies.

So I would recommend taking the times to download and install this great plugin.

You can get it here along with some more info at Commentluv

How to Change the World, Duct Tape Marketing, and Seth Godin are just a few of my favorite blogs to follow.

Take some time and go through the list, look at different blogs and look at their archives.  If you spend a little time on it you’ll be sure to find some great ones to follow that will really be able to help you in whatever your pursuit might be.

See the list HERE

Read “How To Piss off eHow Users, If You’re eHow” on his blog Zaggededge.com

There’s also a nice follow-up letter to eHow in his next post at Zaggededge.com

Does anyone have other stories like this?  Things that may be small but are really annoying in the end from these large websites/companies.

I think it’s pretty ridiculous that companies like this will do something like that just so they can send you some emails that you will probably never read anyway.  It’s a simple thing for them to fix but I doubt that they really care because its easier not to fix.  Maybe this hasn’t been brought to their attention before, but I doubt that. We’ll see if this fixes anything or if they ignore their users, the reason their site has any useful information on it in the first place.

Give is a broad term. You can give tangible tools and information to help build a business. Or a motivational story that inspires someone to try an idea. You can give a laugh. You can give food for thought. You can give debate. You can give of yourself, and if you’re interesting enough, people will come back for more. Below, some examples of entrepreneurs who do this:

Find out what blogs at WSJ.com

1. Sign up for Digg! Make a profile and do it right. Add a picture, give some information about yourself.  Add links to other profiles you have and to your websites. This all gives you more credibility to other users.

2. Use Digg.  Browse through the stories Digg the ones you like and leave comments.  All your stats will be tracked in your profile so users will see if you actually are contributing to the community or if your just trying to get attention for your stuff.

3. Make friends.  Friend the people who’s stories you like.  Try to find the big users on DIgg and friend them.  The goal is to establish as many mutual friends as you can.

4. Listen to your shouts.  Your friends will send you shouts when they submit stories, they will be asking you to look at their story and Digg it.  Check out what they send and Digg and comment on the ones you like.

5. Submit your stuff to Digg. The title is all important make sure its something that will catch some attention.

6. Send shouts to all your friends asking them to Digg your article. This is where having a ton of mutual friends comes in handy.

7. Make it easy for people on your site to Digg your stuff.  Have a Digg button next to or at the bottom of every post.

8. Not only will your friends visit your site but if your article gets a good amount of Diggs the traffic will only increase from there as your article moves up on the site.

That about does it. All of this takes a little work and can’t be done overnight. But if you want to use the service to its full potential start using it.  Raise your status on the site then in a couple weeks you will be able to drive traffic very effectively to your site with every article you submit.

Here’s my profile on Digg.  Add me as a friend!