I recently went back and renamed a ton of articles on one of my content sites. The result of changing a few words has been awesome.

Search engines put a lot of value on titles. The title of an article not only peaks your readers’ interest, it also tells search engines what keywords are important.

If you search for “red convertible cars” on Google and the number one result is just titled “Cars,” you’re probably not going to click that. That’s why it’s so important for you to include your post title in the page title (what appears at the top of your browser window).

I also highly recommend signing up for a free WordTracker trial and finding out what phrases people are using to find your keywords. If you people are searching for “red convertible automobiles,” you want your title to say that instead of just “Red Convertible Cars.”

After tuning all of the article titles to phrases with higher search traffic, I saw an increase in web traffic by almost 30%. Just goes to show you what a little tweaking can do for you.

I love referral programs. Google AdSense has been running a referral program for several years now. You can make $1 per Firefox download, or as much as $100 per AdSense publisher. Now, you can make $1 for every user you convert to Google Checkout.

Google Checkout is a convenient payment system for shopping online. Checkout is comparable to eBay’s PayPal service, enabling users to easily buy items online, track orders, and configure shipping information all in one place.

The downside to the service is that not all online merchants work with Google Checkout yet. However, if you signup for a free Google Checkout account, you automatically get $10 credited to your account for whatever you wish. You can’t go wrong with a free $10.

I’m currently testing Checkout referrals on my PSP blog. I’m running a skyscraper unit to the right of the content on every page. So far, I’ve had zero conversions. However, it’s only been in place for several hours.

I’m pretty sure that Google Checkout referrals is not going to outperform a basic AdSense block. However, I also know that most people wont turn down free money.

More about making money with AdSense referrals

Link building is the most important part of developing traffic for your website. Every site starts with a little code and a bit of content. Rising to the top of the internet ladder requires networking and getting lots of incoming links.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they forget the little guy. Too often I see high-profile sites turn down affiliate requests from small startups. Obviously, you can’t accept every link request that comes your way. However, it certainly doesn’t hurt you to show some link love to smaller sites.

For example, a girl started a music blog where she posts weekly updates about Japanese music. Definitely an obscure topic, and the site barely received any traffic. I agreed to do a link exchange with her from one of my high traffic content sites. What do I get out of the deal? For one thing, the satisfaction of helping someone else succeed. And in the long run, once she has developed traffic, she will be more generous in linking back to my site.

You have to think of it as an investment. Investing your outbound links in the smaller guys can greatly benefit you in the long run.

I honestly don’t know what it is. Maybe all of the good web designers are atheists? Either way, it’s clear that a lot of churches could use some help with their website.

Here is some of the best of the worst church websites I’ve came across. From animated gifs, to decorated backgrounds and polyphonic midis, these organizations really need to convert some graphic designers.

1. The Trinity Episcopal Church has actually put some effort into their website. Unfortunately, 1/3 of the page is blank space, making this a truly hideous layout.

Orange on orange is a great idea.

2. Next is the website for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Now the site comes in both Oriental and English! The worst part is that this site was “professionally” done.

Now, with downloadable sermons.

3. Headz Up Hip Hop? What? From the site: “reaching out to the hip-hop culture with the Good News of Jesus Christ in a non-traditional atmosphere”. This one looks like the homepage for a 90’s radio station.

I guess blue and red do go together.

4. This one is my favorite - the website for the Jewish community of Komárno. Always remember the golden rule of design: Thou shalt use as much blistering yellow as possible. This site keeps getting better. They’ve embedded a WordPress blog into the bottom of their page. The best part though has to be the background music.

Jagshemash!

5. Finally, the Lutheran Church of the Master really needs some help. Besides the use of frames, the picture is downright creepy. I’m sure he’s a really nice guy, but was this really the best picture they could find?

Good thing they didn’t forget the bible quote in the left frame.

2007. “Jesus loves you. Unless you make shitty websites.”

A new CPA (cost per action) ad network, Auction Ads, has been generating a lot of buzz on the web lately. Auction Ads sounded promising, so I thought I would give it a try. After all, I have to reach my goal of beating last month’s blog earnings.

How it works
When you sign up as an Auction Ads publisher, you enter specific keywords related to your website, customize the look of the ads, and then get the code to put in your template. I figured that since Auction Ads is product based, it would work best on my gaming blog.

The ads are simple and comparable to AdSense, except they have a nice little image next to each link. Theoretically, this should improve the click through rate. The links show eBay auctions related to the keywords you defined for your website. The catch with Auction Ads is that you don’t get paid per click. The user must click on the ad and take action on the eBay auction.

I have been using an Auction Ads vertical skyscraper block next to my content for the past week. Initially, I had high hopes for the service. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a single conversion all week.

The stats
Impressions:2538
Clicks: 19
Referrals: 0
Conversions: 0
Earnings: $0.00

I can’t exactly give Auction Ads a thumbs down yet, since I don’t know what the payout is like. However, unless they pay $10.00 for one conversion, I am not impressed.

I will give it some more time though. Auction Ads is only a week old, so naturally they will improve over time. Give it a try and see if it works for you.

I have discovered a little secret to drive your blog’s post views up. This is not so much a secret though, as it is a simple technique. I started using this technique last month, and now - according to G analytics - readers are now spending several minutes on my blog at a time. Continue reading Make your blog posts POP

One of the steps on my quest to explore new ad networks this month was to become a ReviewMe blogger. ReviewMe is a service that connects bloggers to advertisers, and allows people to purchase website reviews from other blogs.

How it works: All of the publisher blogs are listed by category, Technorati rank, Alexa traffic, and estimated RSS subscribers. People can search these listings and purchase a review from a blog of their choosing. Obviously, a review from a higher ranked blog is going to cost more than a low ranked one. However, ReviewMe recently gave bloggers the ability to define the price of a review from their blog.

Now, you can finally get your website reviewed by Ontora. The best part is that you get to define the rules - the length, what you want to emphasize, etc. I will be sure to include many search-engine-friendly links to your site in the review.

The normal cost of a review from Ontora is $50. However, as an incentive for you to order a review now, I am taking 20% off the price - now it only costs $40 for me to review your site. Since ReviewMe takes half of that, I only make $20 a review. A permanent post with several links to your website from a PR4 blog will definitely benefit you in the long run.

Get reviewed by Ontora Web Marketing

Washed up, college drop out, with no skills and no future? The internet needs you!

Despite the fact that February is typically the market’s slowest month of the year, February was a great month for me. Here is my total earnings report for last month. This includes the three blogs that I’m currently working to monetize.

Revenue Sources
AdSense - $58.65
Text-Link-Ads Referrals - $25.00
Text-Link-Ads - $4.30
Total Revenue: $87.95

$87.95 a month is a fair amount, considering this is a part-time hobby. Times that by 12, and I’m making about $1,055.40 a year.

AdSense was my biggest money maker last month. I don’t expect this to always be the case. As you’ll notice, I received a check for $25.00 simply for referring a new publisher to Text-Link-Ads. That’s a huge chunk of my earnings, so you can definitely see the importance of referrals.

The other thing you’ll notice is that there are only two main sources: AdSense and Text-Link-Ads. I will using a variety of other ad networks in the following months.

February was not my best month though. I’ve done better, particularly in the summer months. The good news is that this is just the beginning. My blog network is gaining velocity fast, so stay tuned, internet.

Want to get my latest updates, tips and tricks? Join me on my quest to take over the internet and subscribe to Ontora’s full RSS feed.

What’s a name worth? Apparently, fourteen million dollars. During the dot-com bubble, domain names were being sold at enormously inflated prices. However, this trend continues today, especially in the past couple years. So what domain names have been bought for the most money? Presenting - the 10 most expensive domain names ever sold.

1. Sex.com - $14,000,000 - Sold to Escom LLC on January 19, 2005
Today: A sponsored directory with advertisements for porn sites.

2. Business.com - $7,500,000 - Purchased by eCompanies in 1999
Today: A business directory organized by category.

3. Diamond.com - $7,500,000 - Private sale to Ice.com on May 19, 2006
Today: Online jewelry store.

4. Beer.com - $7,000,000 - Bought buy a commercial beer company in 2004
Today: A portal for the beer drinker’s lifestyle.

5. Casino.com - $5,500,000 - Sold to a private interest in 2003
Today: Domain squat with sponsored links to gambling websites.

6. Korea.com - $5,000,000 - Purchased by True Net, Korea’s largest internet service provider, in January 2000
Today: News and travel information for South Korea.

7. AsSeenOnTV.com - $5,000,000 - Bought by a marketing company in January 2000
Today: Original website that sells items featured on TV.

8. Shop.com - $3,500,000 - Sold to Altura Int., an internet real estate group
Today: Online retail store that includes products from multiple vendors.

9. AltaVista.com - $3,300,000 - Bought by Compaq for their new search engine in 1999
Today: A search portal powered by Yahoo!

10. Vodka.com - $3,000,000 Purchased by Russian Starndard in December 2006
Today: Redirects to Russian Standard Vodka’s website.

Domain names that almost made the list:
Loans.com ($3,000,000), Wine.com ($2,900,000), CreditCards.com ($2,750,000), Tom.com ($2,500,000), Autos.com ($2,200,000).

The ironic part is that most of these domain names never took off. What would you pay for a name? How much do you think Google.com - or digg.com - would go for today?

Numbers are based on sales reports and estimates from DNJournal.com and various news sources.