The database problem is fixed, so I should be going back to the front end to get the rest of the functionality built. Here's an ethical issue - when there's less than 10% of the original code left, can I change the licence information to read "based on"? After all, anyone downloading the original package expecting the custom work we've just done is going to get a nasty shock.
And a new wizzley page: Since the hatchery gained a twitter account and a Unicreatures hatchery over the last few days, I thought I'd also add it to wizzley for a few more hits.
My next project? Tweaking the blog templates to swap the Adsense under each post for a Project Wonderful ad - it's a better position for advertisers, so it's only fair it goes to the advertisers who support the blog.
ETA: Adding the Project Wonderful banner was surprising painless - all I need to do now is work out how on the template how to count how many times it shows on the page and cut it down by a few so it isn't so overpowering.
This blog is being used as my live testbed, so apologies if it looks a bit odd during testing today.
ETA AGAIN: YES! There is a tag for it! Now I just have the other four blogs to do. It won't improve revenue, but hopefully it will give the advertisers a bit more exposure.
Showing posts with label Project Wonderful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Project Wonderful. Show all posts
Friday, 6 January 2012
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Project Wonderful and Networked Ads
Since the last post was a bit of a downer I thought I'd close on an up-note for 2011.
A quick update on the spammer: We reported them to our hoster for DOS who took a look at the logs and banned him. I was very impressed with the speed this occurred: many virtual jaffas to the tech team at Hostingzoom.
So with that good news, on to the subject of this blog. I tried to switch from Google Adsense to Project Wonderful on a few of my blogs (and a couple I admin) earlier this year. I made a basic mistake and believed that each domain and sub-site had to have it's own ad, which broke the traffic down to a level where no individual site could get enough to keep the ad box active.
Project Wonderful has a solution to this: creating a networked ad. You can set your ad in an iframe and then add the iframe to the sites they have approved. This requires a few tweaks at the PW backend, including submitting the iframe URL for their robot.
As far as I can tell the process is:
1) Get your site approved
2) Create the ad. Don't activate it.
3) Create an iframe holding page on one of the approved websites.
4) On the edit screen, under Name and Location look at the box at the bottom("URL to ad box code") and out the iframe URL in it.
5) Put the ad code on the iframe, and the iframe on the websites.
6) Activate your adbox.
The only drawback using this method is that the stats only shown which of your pages called the iframe, not where a user visited from. If you have stat tracking of your own on these sites anyway (e.g. statcounter), that's not a problem. It also makes it easy to see if any sites start staying above the limit on their own, so you can customise advertising for them.
I'm testing this with a 468 banner on four sites, but might add more sites to the network if it takes off - or more adboxes to the range. Since all the sites were under by one or two unique visitors on average, this should aggregate the visitors, making bids more valuable, and keep the ad visible.
It's early stages yet, but initial indications are promising, and the agreggate traffic is over the required level. It seems like a good way to make some ad revenue from newer sites, ones with niche markets, or fluctuating traffic.
Overall I am optimistic. If it works, it will be a very good way to start the New Year!
A quick update on the spammer: We reported them to our hoster for DOS who took a look at the logs and banned him. I was very impressed with the speed this occurred: many virtual jaffas to the tech team at Hostingzoom.
So with that good news, on to the subject of this blog. I tried to switch from Google Adsense to Project Wonderful on a few of my blogs (and a couple I admin) earlier this year. I made a basic mistake and believed that each domain and sub-site had to have it's own ad, which broke the traffic down to a level where no individual site could get enough to keep the ad box active.
Project Wonderful has a solution to this: creating a networked ad. You can set your ad in an iframe and then add the iframe to the sites they have approved. This requires a few tweaks at the PW backend, including submitting the iframe URL for their robot.
As far as I can tell the process is:
1) Get your site approved
2) Create the ad. Don't activate it.
3) Create an iframe holding page on one of the approved websites.
4) On the edit screen, under Name and Location look at the box at the bottom("URL to ad box code") and out the iframe URL in it.
5) Put the ad code on the iframe, and the iframe on the websites.
6) Activate your adbox.
The only drawback using this method is that the stats only shown which of your pages called the iframe, not where a user visited from. If you have stat tracking of your own on these sites anyway (e.g. statcounter), that's not a problem. It also makes it easy to see if any sites start staying above the limit on their own, so you can customise advertising for them.
I'm testing this with a 468 banner on four sites, but might add more sites to the network if it takes off - or more adboxes to the range. Since all the sites were under by one or two unique visitors on average, this should aggregate the visitors, making bids more valuable, and keep the ad visible.
It's early stages yet, but initial indications are promising, and the agreggate traffic is over the required level. It seems like a good way to make some ad revenue from newer sites, ones with niche markets, or fluctuating traffic.
Overall I am optimistic. If it works, it will be a very good way to start the New Year!
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
A new lens, a book launch, a new ebook and a busy week
A new lens went up:
This is a reworking of the 2009 lens about Lens Companions. After I looked at the lens companions lens I realised just how out of date it was, and that the URL was no longer appropriate either. So I created a new lens for these ebooks. It has also replaced the blog as the Ciamar Price homepage on Smashwords, as squidoo has a higher pagerank so will send more visitors to the ebooks, but also because any visitors to the lens mean that I get a small share of royalties. It also has a Paypal "coffee jar", largely because a few readers get very suspicious about anything free and want to know the catch.
For the original lens I plan to write an ebook about lens creation and tips and use the lens for that, along with a few other people's titles, rather than waste the work and URL.
To celebrate the new lens, and as if I didn't have enough on with a book launch tomorrow (just in case you'd somehow managed to avoid hearing about it), I've just released another ebook.
The Great Western Railway is a rewrite of the original lulu title. It is currently working its way through Smashwords processing and distribution to flag up any formatting issues that I need to correct.
If you want an advance look, the ebook can be found here:
I'm also investigating an issue with Project Wonderful that will affect blogs that have erratic traffic, like some of mine, but I want one more piece of test data before blogging that.
This is a reworking of the 2009 lens about Lens Companions. After I looked at the lens companions lens I realised just how out of date it was, and that the URL was no longer appropriate either. So I created a new lens for these ebooks. It has also replaced the blog as the Ciamar Price homepage on Smashwords, as squidoo has a higher pagerank so will send more visitors to the ebooks, but also because any visitors to the lens mean that I get a small share of royalties. It also has a Paypal "coffee jar", largely because a few readers get very suspicious about anything free and want to know the catch.
For the original lens I plan to write an ebook about lens creation and tips and use the lens for that, along with a few other people's titles, rather than waste the work and URL.
To celebrate the new lens, and as if I didn't have enough on with a book launch tomorrow (just in case you'd somehow managed to avoid hearing about it), I've just released another ebook.
The Great Western Railway is a rewrite of the original lulu title. It is currently working its way through Smashwords processing and distribution to flag up any formatting issues that I need to correct.
If you want an advance look, the ebook can be found here:
I'm also investigating an issue with Project Wonderful that will affect blogs that have erratic traffic, like some of mine, but I want one more piece of test data before blogging that.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Project Wonderful Part 2
Assessing the effects of advertising on Project Wonderful. If you've been following the blog you might remember my odd results from last time. I've run the test for more times. Each time my page views stayed static, but the number of downloads? See for yourself:
You can click for a larger image. Yellow indicates the period an ad was live. The blue line shows the page the ad links directly to. The others show linked products.
Exactly the same number of people hit the page, but in each case they were statistically more likely to download. Also, following shortly after the main bump, there was a smaller rise in the number of people who downloaded associated products. The two middle increases are smaller. These two tests were run with button ads (117px x 30px), while the others used banners. I'd need to run a few more tests before I can see if there is a correlation between ad size and likelihood of downloads, but right now it looks like it.
This was with a free ebook on Smashwords, so the next test is to try this again with a commercial product.
The other thing I have done is to try it as a publisher. The Stephen and Matilda blog now has ads served by Project Wonderful. My assessment? It's easy to set up and editing your ad is simple. They also take Paypal. It takes a few days to get approved, unlike the signup for adsense, but then they are more selective.
A small side benefit I didn't expect is the metrics. Tracking how many people view an adbox, and where in the world they come from, also means tracking site visitors. One of its best features is that you can display your own ads in the adbox if no one else bids, making it easy to co-ordinate a campaign across multiple sites.
We've submitted a second blog to them and, if the results are promising, you might find them serving the ads on here.
You can click for a larger image. Yellow indicates the period an ad was live. The blue line shows the page the ad links directly to. The others show linked products.
Exactly the same number of people hit the page, but in each case they were statistically more likely to download. Also, following shortly after the main bump, there was a smaller rise in the number of people who downloaded associated products. The two middle increases are smaller. These two tests were run with button ads (117px x 30px), while the others used banners. I'd need to run a few more tests before I can see if there is a correlation between ad size and likelihood of downloads, but right now it looks like it.
This was with a free ebook on Smashwords, so the next test is to try this again with a commercial product.
The other thing I have done is to try it as a publisher. The Stephen and Matilda blog now has ads served by Project Wonderful. My assessment? It's easy to set up and editing your ad is simple. They also take Paypal. It takes a few days to get approved, unlike the signup for adsense, but then they are more selective.
A small side benefit I didn't expect is the metrics. Tracking how many people view an adbox, and where in the world they come from, also means tracking site visitors. One of its best features is that you can display your own ads in the adbox if no one else bids, making it easy to co-ordinate a campaign across multiple sites.
We've submitted a second blog to them and, if the results are promising, you might find them serving the ads on here.
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