It’s always fun when you see your site popping up in Google’s search results. I remember the first time I saw WallerBlog come up on the first page of a Google search. It felt like I was legitimate, I had proved myself, I was successful. It’s a bit of an ego trip.

Anyways…I was doing some keyword research today. I went over to Shoemoney’s SERPs tool and found out it was down. No good. It’s a great tool. You type in your site and a keyword and this tool will tell give you the position that Google is currently listing your site for that keyword.

Since Shoe’s tool was down, I went digging for something comparable that I could use for some keyword research. Low and behold, I came across SeoDigger. SeoDigger spits out a list of keywords for which your site ranks high enough to be in Google Top 20.

Here are my results:

Check that out, number 1 for my name (that’s always good) and number 1 for “nerds making money”

I guess that proves it. I am a nerd making money!

I made over $4,500 profit from Market Leverage last month!

If you run out to Google and you search for ways to get quick traffic to your affiliate offers, you’ll no doubt find the ‘Gurus’ that tell you that PPC is king. They’ll tell you to generate a list of keywords and create several ad groups centered around groups of 50 or so keywords. They’ll give you numbers and show you how to calculate the maximum CPC that you should bid. Then they’ll tell you to split test ads and focus on getting your click through rate up. They’ll also tell you to avoid the content networks and CPM ads like the plague. “Oh, they don’t convert well.” “You’re just throwing your money out the window.” You know what?

It’s all a bunch of baloney!

These marketing gurus either don’t know what they’re talking about (possible) or they aren’t telling the whole story (more likely.) There are 2 sources of affiliate traffic that you can’t live without. These are sources that I’ve seen very few talk about. Want to know what they are? Would you believe that some of the best sources of traffic for your affiliate offers are the very things that marking ‘gurus’ tell you to avoid -  ads run on content networds (e.g. AdSense) and CPM banners. Don’t believe me?

(Click on the image for a better view)

Notice a little jump in there? Look at how my earnings increased on 8/17. That’s right when I started tapping into these sources. Think about this…

Ads On The Content Network

Ads on the content network are dirt cheap. You don’t have to worry about quality score and click through rates. That means that you can literally get clicks for $0.05! The only way you’ll pull that off in search is if you have a super quality score.

Also, you’ll usually get 10x more impressions on the content network. Even if a term doesn’t get a large number of searches, there could be thousands of relevant sites out there that your ad could be displayed on. Even with a low click through rate, you’ll generally get more traffic than you would with search.

CPM Banners

CPM Banners are a different kind of animal. The main concern of PPC ads (making sure you get quality clicks) doesn’t apply here. The whole point is to get as many clicks as you possibly can per 1,000 views. With an effective banner, you can get clicks for $0.01 or even less! Now, your traffic may not be as high of quality, but your getting 10 clicks for the price of one (compared to a cheap PPC campaign)

Using CPM banners I’ve run campaigns that have a 5,000% ROI! How’s that for a return?

If you’re doing any kind of affiliate marketing, you should always consider running CPM banners and content network campaigns. I can almost guarantee that your earnings will increase!

Try Market Leverage I’ve Made Over $3,000 profit this month!

This is the first real monthly earnings report since this blog was resurrected at the beginning of this month from an 8 month hiatus. Year to date income for WallerBlog dot Com has averaged $47.03/month. Blog income for May was down from the YTD average, but has increased from April’s $34.13.

Total Blog Income for May 2008: $37.32

Here is the breakdown:

• PayPerPost: $20.00
• Private Ad Sales: $7.00
• Google AdSense: $5.40
• TNX.net: $4.92
• Grand Total: $37.72

Blog income has decreased since the beginning of the year. This is primarily due to Google’s PageRank update. My blog went from a PR 3 to a PR 0. This has effectively killed all income from Text-Link-Ads and LinkWorth. Before this month LinkWorth was my biggest money maker. That loss has been mitigated by the addition of PayPerPost.

Traffic Stats

Traffic this month is up to 1,294 page views from 608 visitors. The top traffic sources were:

• Google: 138
• Direct: 119
• StumbleUpon: 125
• Entrecard: 95

As usual the big G was the top referrer. The biggest surprise though was the 125 visitors from StumbleUpon. The Blogging Tips Carnival was Stumbled and received more traffic than any other post this month.

Determination is the key

Determination is the only thing that will make your small blog a success. Determination to write good content, determination to research monetization opportunities and determination to network to drive traffic to your blog. This month I am determined to work to gain quality backlinks in order to gain more green on my PagerRank. This will give me many more opportunities to increase this blog’s income and get me closer to my goal of earning a full-time living via the internet.