Today I just noticed I got a visit to the baby alive blog that was referred by Yahoo. So I tried searching on Yahoo for "baby alive", "where to buy"...and my blog came up on the very FIRST page - at the #4 position!
On the other hand, I then tried the same thing on Google, and now today it's not even listed at all on there. (?!) What, does this actually change this drastically from day to day everyday? I could see getting different positions in the search results from day to day, but I don't know why it will be in one day and completely out the very next. I guess you just have to take what the search engines give you, since anything you get is more than what you paid for. (In my case anyway!)
John
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
A "Good" Mystery This Time
This was a surprise to find out today: My Baby-Alive.blogspot.com blog is back in the Google listings! At the present time, a Google search of "Baby Alive", "where to buy" lists my blog on page 3 of the results, 26th out of 909 results! (Plus, a comment that I posted about it on another more established blog appears on the FIRST page!) I don't know what that was that happened last week, being knocked off and replaced by another similarly named blog...but mine is back in the listings as it stands now. Maybe merely referring to it in THIS blog actually helped.(?)
Oh well, I'm beginning to realize there's a lot to learn in this crazy but exciting little business called Internet Marketing!
John
Oh well, I'm beginning to realize there's a lot to learn in this crazy but exciting little business called Internet Marketing!
John
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Blog Experiment Is Looking Better
I guess I spoke too soon when I said my blog on Baby Alive dolls was just a waste of time. In the last week or so the traffic has really picked up, getting well over 100 hits a day often. And accordingly, the Google Adsense ads have finally begun earning a bit also. Now I already wish I had set up more blogs like that one so those earnings would have been multiplied! (I'm still a ways off that elusive $100 minimum check amount from Google.) But I can see that with a string of blogs running the Adsense ads, an actual substantial amount could be earned in that way alone. And throw in a few ClickBank or other affiliate sales here and there and things look better yet. I'd have to rate this as "interesting" to say the least! (Especially considering the fact that this can all be done at NO cost!)
The doll I listed on eBay didn't quite sell for what I had purchased it for, so that didn't turn out as well as planned. I didn't realize how plentiful they are on eBay, even though they aren't in stores, and that's what cost me. Maybe those Adsense earnings might save the deal and pick up the difference eventually. Either way, I'll chalk it up as being an educational experience. At least I've learned a thing or two more along the way by getting involved, and that's what counts.
John
The doll I listed on eBay didn't quite sell for what I had purchased it for, so that didn't turn out as well as planned. I didn't realize how plentiful they are on eBay, even though they aren't in stores, and that's what cost me. Maybe those Adsense earnings might save the deal and pick up the difference eventually. Either way, I'll chalk it up as being an educational experience. At least I've learned a thing or two more along the way by getting involved, and that's what counts.
John
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
My Seasonal Experiment
Since we're in the thick of the Christmas buying season, I got an idea for a blog experiment to try, good for practice if nothing else.
For weeks now, the Baby Alive doll has been the first thing my daughter mentions when she's asked what she wants for Christmas. Problem was, it was nowhere to be found by the time my wife and I started our toy shopping right after Thanksgiving day. (I ended up buying it from someone on eBay, since there are lots of them available there.) So I thought I'd set up a blog to list the places I found where you really can actually buy Baby Alive online. Since I'm not an affiliate for Amazon.com, or anything else that sells it, I didn't stand to earn anything from promoting these links...but I figured that whatever Google Adsense income this blog generated would be all profit. (It costs nothing to create the blog and see what happens.)
So far, however, it's been nothing but a waste of time. A whopping 20 cents of income to date, although it has only been up for about a week. It is getting some decent traffic though, without even being ranked on any search engines at all. All I've done is post 4 or 5 comments that included a link to my blog site wherever I found blog postings about the Baby Alive doll. And just by doing that I've been getting over 60 hits/day for the last few, which I think is pretty impressive.
What's disappointing though, is almost nobody is clicking on the Google ads. And I think I know why, but I'm not sure how to correct the problem. For one thing, the people that look at this are probably in a hurry and just want to quickly find what they're looking for. But the main problem is, the ads that are appearing often have nothing to do with Baby Alive dolls, even though I've mentioned Baby Alive over and over and over again thoughout the text. I've stumbled on several other sites that barely even mention the thing, but yet they feature Google ads that all have Baby Alive in their titles.(?!) How do they do that?! I understand that you can screen the ads that appear on your site to some extent, so maybe you can somehow specify the titles that you find acceptable? I don't know, but I'm sure I would be getting many, many more clicks if those Google ads were about the highly defined subject that my readers are interested in. I have to look into this more closely to see what I could do to get more appropriate ads to appear.
If you care to check out this little blog experiment of mine, it can be found at: www.baby-alive.blogspot.com (While it lasts, anyway...I've made it a pretty seasonal thing.)
The other mystery I've found with this blog is how it's been treated by Google itself. I submitted it to Google, and after about 3 days it already appeared in Google's listings if you searched for "Baby Alive", "where to buy". In fact, it was appearing on the 3rd page of results, at about 28th overall in the 400 or so results at the time. Pretty impressive...but then things got weird. The next day I checked the same search and found that I had been replaced in the exact place in the results by another blog of the same name, except for having "-xx" added to the end of the name. So I guess it was generated by some sort of spam blog creator of some kind, because it only linked directly to one of those multiple link websites that has no real content, just links to other websites. I even reported it to Blogger.com, and before long it was no longer appearing to be a valid URL. But my biggest question is, how did this other mystery blog not only replace me in the exact same position in the search results, but also have mine REMOVED from Google completely?!? I suppose I could pose the question to Google, but I doubt I would get much of a reply. At least Blogger took my report seriously and acted on it.
I guess the only way I'll make any money at all off of the whole Baby Alive craze is by using good old eBay itself. When I found a pretty good deal on there to buy for my daughter, I also bought an extra one for myself to turn around and sell! I just listed it the other day and then put a link to it on the Baby Alive blog, too. Already have a few bids with several more days to go. (eBay...what would I do without you?!)
John
For weeks now, the Baby Alive doll has been the first thing my daughter mentions when she's asked what she wants for Christmas. Problem was, it was nowhere to be found by the time my wife and I started our toy shopping right after Thanksgiving day. (I ended up buying it from someone on eBay, since there are lots of them available there.) So I thought I'd set up a blog to list the places I found where you really can actually buy Baby Alive online. Since I'm not an affiliate for Amazon.com, or anything else that sells it, I didn't stand to earn anything from promoting these links...but I figured that whatever Google Adsense income this blog generated would be all profit. (It costs nothing to create the blog and see what happens.)
So far, however, it's been nothing but a waste of time. A whopping 20 cents of income to date, although it has only been up for about a week. It is getting some decent traffic though, without even being ranked on any search engines at all. All I've done is post 4 or 5 comments that included a link to my blog site wherever I found blog postings about the Baby Alive doll. And just by doing that I've been getting over 60 hits/day for the last few, which I think is pretty impressive.
What's disappointing though, is almost nobody is clicking on the Google ads. And I think I know why, but I'm not sure how to correct the problem. For one thing, the people that look at this are probably in a hurry and just want to quickly find what they're looking for. But the main problem is, the ads that are appearing often have nothing to do with Baby Alive dolls, even though I've mentioned Baby Alive over and over and over again thoughout the text. I've stumbled on several other sites that barely even mention the thing, but yet they feature Google ads that all have Baby Alive in their titles.(?!) How do they do that?! I understand that you can screen the ads that appear on your site to some extent, so maybe you can somehow specify the titles that you find acceptable? I don't know, but I'm sure I would be getting many, many more clicks if those Google ads were about the highly defined subject that my readers are interested in. I have to look into this more closely to see what I could do to get more appropriate ads to appear.
If you care to check out this little blog experiment of mine, it can be found at: www.baby-alive.blogspot.com (While it lasts, anyway...I've made it a pretty seasonal thing.)
The other mystery I've found with this blog is how it's been treated by Google itself. I submitted it to Google, and after about 3 days it already appeared in Google's listings if you searched for "Baby Alive", "where to buy". In fact, it was appearing on the 3rd page of results, at about 28th overall in the 400 or so results at the time. Pretty impressive...but then things got weird. The next day I checked the same search and found that I had been replaced in the exact place in the results by another blog of the same name, except for having "-xx" added to the end of the name. So I guess it was generated by some sort of spam blog creator of some kind, because it only linked directly to one of those multiple link websites that has no real content, just links to other websites. I even reported it to Blogger.com, and before long it was no longer appearing to be a valid URL. But my biggest question is, how did this other mystery blog not only replace me in the exact same position in the search results, but also have mine REMOVED from Google completely?!? I suppose I could pose the question to Google, but I doubt I would get much of a reply. At least Blogger took my report seriously and acted on it.
I guess the only way I'll make any money at all off of the whole Baby Alive craze is by using good old eBay itself. When I found a pretty good deal on there to buy for my daughter, I also bought an extra one for myself to turn around and sell! I just listed it the other day and then put a link to it on the Baby Alive blog, too. Already have a few bids with several more days to go. (eBay...what would I do without you?!)
John
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