Blogger

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   Anita Haschposted 8 years ago

   Hi, Nadine hopefully you can help as you are from SA. I have a few Blogger Blogs. I have placed Adsense on all of them. I now want to place Clickbank Products on half of the blogs. Problem is that
   ???? my blogs all have a co.za instead of .com. All my adsense ads  seem to be from SA. I am pleased
   with most of them as they are all quality ads. However, I also need more traffic from the US as they have more buying power. I presume clickbank caters more for the US market. Would it be possible for me to change half of my blogs to .com and payment and stats in US Dollars, I will then add Clickbank
   to those blogs and the SA ads to the other blogs. Hope somebody can advise me.

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2. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   Bear in mind that the ads you see are not what anyone else sees.  People see ads based on their own location and interests, so your readers won't see what you see.  So people from the US would see US ads even though your domain is a .za domain.
   
   You could certainly buy .com domain names and change your blogs over to that.  You can 301 forward the co.za domain to the new .com domain (ask the people you got the domain from if you don't know how to do that). 
   
   I would be VERY wary of adding Clickbank products.  That site has such a bad reputation for poor quality products that HubPages won't allow them at all!   There are some good products on there but you have to search carefully, research and read the reviews.  You don't want to be associated with rubbish!
   
   One tip - if you have a few Blogger blogs then I'd recommend reviewing that.  When you start out, it's tempting to start a heap of blogs covering a variety of subjects - but in the long run, you will be much much wiser to pick one or two subjects and concentrate on those.   That's because blogs do much better if they are actively managed, and managing several blogs plus HubPages is spreading yourself too thin!   
   
   If you don't think you are spreading yourself too thin, then you're probably not aware of some of the things you should be doing to make each blog work. 
   
   And I do hope you've got the message that a blog can only work if it specialises in one subject.

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      Anita Haschposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Marisa. What a relief. I did not realize that in the US they
      would see ads from the US. My stats show that I have very few views
      from the US. Do I need to do something to make my blogs more visible?
      I would advertise mostly ebooks and a few other products I am interested in. Their commission is very high and they seem to have quality products as well. I really appreciate the advice I get from you and everybody else at Hubpages.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         The thing is, the fact that your domain is .co.za indicates to Google that you are aiming at the South African market, so it is less likely to include your website in search results for other countries.   So I think you are right in thinking you should switch to .com (or .net if you can't get a .com, never use any other suffixes though).  Both .com and .net are regarded as international.
         
         If you are going to advertise ebooks then do buy a copy yourself before deciding whether to promote it.  There are certainly some absolute gems on Clickbank, but the majority is dross.  Some books have very slick marketing on Clickbank but once you buy the book, you realise it's rubbish.

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            Anita Haschposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you I will do that.

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   2. 85

      viryaboposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Great advice.
      I remember you gave me a similar one about spreading oneself thin and its disadvantages. Unfortunately, by the time I got your advice, i had started off 4 blogs and 4 websites.
      
      So, i decided to concentrate on 2 blogs (each covering a specific subject), and ignore the rest. And with the websites, i just work on two, both in specific niches as well, and 'switched off' the remaining.
      
      ...And then there is HubPages!
      
      I decided to flip the other websites but don't know exactly how to go about that. I haven't had the heart to delete the 2 blogs.
      
      So yes, a "heap" of sites becomes a disadvantage.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         "I haven't had the heart to delete the two blogs".  Yes, that's what happens!    You're so enthusiastic at the start that you create five or six sites and off you go.  Then you discover the impossibility of maintaining them all - but they are all your babies and it's so hard to let go!
         
         I did eventually harden my heart and delete all but two of my sites.  It would've been better to do what you're doing - let them be, and ignore them.  They were making only a few dollars a month, but they would've continued to do that for a long time, so it would've been worth it in the end.
         
         The trouble is, I found it impossible to just let those blogs sit there!   Just knowing they existed meant I couldn't resist the temptation to drop in and add a post, or titivate the design - and they weren't earning enough to justify any time spent.  So that's why I eventually had to bite the bullet. 
         
         I did transfer some of the material over to HubPages though, which lessened the blow.
         
         As for flipping - are they making money?   If so, you could look at sites like Flippa but you need to have proof of profit, so unless they're doing well it's not worth it.

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            viryaboposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Maybe that's what i should do. Delete the blogs, get it over and done with.
            
            I may transfer some here but the funny thing is that a fair number of the posts were transferred to those blogs from here.
            
            With the websites, they barely make money anyway. A couple of pounds a month on average, so i guess they aren't worth flipping. I'll just leave them be.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Funnily enough, I'm the same - when Hubs got unFeatured, I moved them to my blogs.  I didn't move them back when I deleted the blogs, but recently I have been republishing some here - and they are getting moved straight to the niche sites, in spite of being unFeatured here previously.  So it's worth a try.
               
               If the websites aren't making money, they are not worth flipping. 
               
               People who want to buy a website are looking for a website where someone else has already done all the hard work of designing it, adding content, AND proving that the subject has earning potential.    If they can't get all those elements, then there's not much point in paying extra - they might as well go and buy a domain name and create a site from scratch themselves.
               
               Once upon a time, when having an "exact match" domain name gave a big advantage in search results, people would pay extra for a website just because of the name (like buying a wreck of a house because the land is so valuable).  But nowadays, exact match domains aren't important, and anyway there are lots of other suffixes to choose from - so if someone wants bluewidgets.com and it's taken, they can just go and buy bluewidgets.tv or bluewidgets.club instead.

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   clivewilliamsposted 8 years ago

   +1

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