The advertising network is made up of 20 of the “top” Entrecarders with their widgets above the fold. Each member has roughly around 20,000-30,000 page views per month.

Advertising costs $2.50/1000 page views. The owners say it is a prime condition and highly sought after since it is located directly beside the Entrecard widget. This means it should, at least in theory, contain a higher CTR than other ad placements.

Whats the problem with CMF Ads?
If you have marketed your website for any amount of time, you would know that $2.50/1000 page views is rather high, especially for run of network ads. In some areas, this may be seen as OK. However, not all page views are created equal.

1. Medicine, technology, and automotive industries generally have high CPM rates, but when you include personal, romance, and other areas the value is diluted.
2. Most traffic comes from Entrecard, a very low conversion type traffic. The traffic isn’t inherently bad, but it contains a large amount of unrelated visitors which may or may not come to the blog due to its content. This will inflate the page-views dramatically without any real benefit to your advertising efforts.
3. The huge array of differing categories makes advertising to a specific group impossible.
4. The ad space is unconventional (123×125). You have to create an ad specifically for them.
5. Advertising on blogs notoriously has a low CTR rate, which results in advertising costs being lower than traditional websites. Even in niches where $2.50/1000 page views is common, the price is cut dramatically.

Although the value of advertising changes depending on a sites category, a general run of network ad traditionally sells for $0.20-$0.50/1000 page views, which is usually for a 300×250 or 160×600 ad. Entertainment, political, and personal blogs are lucky to receive $1/1000 visitors for advertising directed specifically towards their visitors.

Honestly, you will receive a much better value for your money from other networks and through direct advertising. Even blogs like JohnChow.com sell advertising for $0.25/1000 page views ($500 for a 30 day 125×125 ad block at 2,000,000 page views). So why spend 10 times more to advertise on a blogging network which offers untargeted traffic? And to be perfectly frank, most websites within the CMF Ads network offer direct advertising at a more reasonable price.

Advertising through them just doesn’t make sense. Save your money and send it elsewhere. Don’t buy into the Entrecard hype.

With large social sites, it is common for many unknown websites to be overlooked for larger, more trusted sources. And depending on the time of day and uniqueness of the submission, the page may be left to drown in the millions of pages submitted.

What is BloggingZoom?

BloggingZoom is a different type of social voting. Although the general purpose remains the same, BloggingZoom offers a unique perspective into the blogging world.

From BloggingZoom’s About:

Blogging Zoom is a place where bloggers can share content that they and other bloggers have written. Blogging Zoom is the perfect place to go for people that are tired of the mainstream media and content. The users of Blogging Zoom determine which content is valuable and which content isn’t. ‘Zooming’ or voting positively for a post or article will give it more exposure and with enough Zooms, your content will hit the front page to be showcased to the masses.

How it works
BloggingZoom works the same way other social voting sites work. After a page is submitted, it goes into the voting process. Once a page is seen as popular it is moved to the frontpage and is considered “Published”.

On BloggingZoom, a page must receive 15 votes before it becomes published. The amount of time between submission and published is not important. The submission stays popular until other submissions push it off.

Does BloggingZoom work?

In most cases, yes. But it also depends on what you want out of the service. If you are looking for a way to receive tens-of-thousands of visitors by getting to the frontpage, you better go back to Digg or Reddit. However, if you are looking for a simple way to increase traffic, BloggingZoom is the right place.

Traffic directly from BloggingZoom after being frontpaged for a week: 20 unique visitors.

Why the low direct traffic isn’t important
The amount of direct traffic from BloggingZoom means nothing, at least in this instance. Why? Well there are two reasons.

1. I used the same title from the article on my website.
2. Traffic was much larger indirectly as a result of BloggingZoom.

1) BloggingZoom ranks high in search engines. Because of this, an article submission to the service automatically receives a high placement for its title within search engines. If you use the same title, it will be stuck below the original article. However, if you use a unique title with a unique description, the BloggingZoom article will rank well for that particular keyword phrase.

2) Since BloggingZoom is used by fellow bloggers, you know they are social media freaks. After the page became popular, a large amount of Stumbles came out of nowhere, or so I thought. The page was actually stumbled by fellow BloggingZoom members which resulted in several thousand pageviews.

BloggingZoom uses nofollow
If you’ve taken a look at BloggingZoom’s pages, by now you know they use the nofollow attribute. This means, if you are simply looking for a way to increase your link juice, you simply aren’t doing it right. BloggingZoom is not a way to increase your link juice directly. However, BloggingZoom is a gateway to linkjuice.

How is it a gateway to linkjuice? As mentioned earlier, BloggingZoom is primarily used by bloggers. If a blogger sees the page as interesting or groundbreaking, they will link to it, stumble it, and possibly digg it.

What type of site works well with BloggingZoom?

The majority of website submissions come from sites about blogging or SEO. However, other types of sites are welcome. Like other social media, entertainment and news related sites work particularly well, including sports.

Short and Sweet

Looking for a list of reasons why to use it?

1. BloggingZoom shows up in search engines, users click through to your site.
2. BloggingZoom members use StumbleUpon, they’l stumble your page if they like it.
3. It helps with internet branding.
4. Any amount of traffic helps small websites.
5. BloggingZoom is a community for bloggers. If they like your page, they might link to it.

If you write an interesting or newsworthy post, submit it to BloggingZoom. You’ll need to write a 350 word description and a unique title. But you have nothing to lose and only visitors to gain.

The problem though, is SezWho could be much more. Realistically, they collect data from websites with the SezWho plugin installed. The amount of data they collect includes blog post titles, URLs, and ratings along with the comments associated with them. The potential the service could offer is great.

However, there lies the problem. SezWho’s service begins and ends with offering ratings and RSS feeds for users. The real use of the service is questionable other than seeing your own ratings for posts and comments.

Problems with SezWho

1. No directory of blogs that have SezWho installed.
2. No top commentators list.
3. Responses take forever on suggestions within their forum.
4. No real “goal” to be found on their website.
5. The plugin lacks features, any real changes to the features must be done internally.
6. Can’t merge accounts.
7. No “real” value to blog owners to have it installed.
8. No “real” features available.
9. No top voted posts.
10. Lack of communication.

Many of these problems could be solved by releasing an API and having a larger staff or an involved community. Getting the community involved is always a great way to help expand a service and its support group.

With a service like SezWho, the community should be involved from the start. What features the community wants is only part of it. The real involvement is getting them to use the service and become active within it. Give them something to come back for and use consistently. Allow the commentators to compete against each other and the ability to find more blogs to comment and rate by having a directory and top commentators list.

As we all know, SezWho only works if both the commentator and blog owner is involved. If a blog does not have the service installed the commentator does not benefit. Because of this, the blog owner must also benefit. By having a directory which includes all SezWho blogs, a top rated blogs list, an updated blog posts list, or some other way to involve blog owners would give blog owners and authors a greater reason to use SezWho than the current setup.

Please SezWho, get your act together; you could be much more with a little creativity. The data your system holds has amazing ability, use it. Your users will love you for it and so will your pocket book.

At first glance BlogBurst looks like an amazing blog utility, but lets look a bit deeper, shall we?

What is the potential traffic?
Tens of thousands of page views, viewing the article that is. Generally 100 views or less daily will see an article, around 1-4% CTR to your blog.

How hard is it to get accepted?
The older your site and the more posts the better. BlogBurst specifically states they want blogs that have at least one quality post per week, so make sure your blog is updated regularly. They also put a high emphasis on full RSS feed, grammar, and certain niche sites. Posts should be between 100-400 words. You’ll know their decision within generally 48 hours.

How much will you earn?
BlogBurst pays its top 100 blogs from their leaderboard each quarter. The leaderboard is determined by headline impressions. The top blog will receive $1,500 and the 100th blog will receive $50.

What is the SEO value?
None. At least not directly. BlogBurst publishers use a javascript widget to show articles. This means search engines won’t give link juice to the original blog author. On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt either. Since it is javascript you won’t be punished for duplicate content if your post makes it to a major media outlet.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var BLOGBURST_WIDGET_ID = “xxxxxxx”;
var BLOGBURST_TRACKING_CODE = “”;
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://api.blogburst.com/v1.0/WidgetDeliveryProxy.js”></script>

Indirectly, the SEO value is amazing. The more eyes that view a post the better. If your post is picked up, you have the potential of tens-of-thousands of eye balls glaring at your post. A few of them might own blogs. They might also click-through to your website and link to it.

Conclusion

BlogBurst is a quality service offered to bloggers and has the potential to offer thousands of visitors along with cold cash. To a blogger the amount of visitors available through this program is absolutely amazing.

Sign up if you meet the guidelines above. You won’t regret it.

Here are some of the features as stated by Elite by Design:

• If you are looking to make money from your blog via ad placement
• If you are looking for a fresh theme in the wordpress marketplace
• If you want a clean, ordered coding structure
• If you are in need of a clean theme to suit all of your wordpress needs

The blog really is good for making money via ad placement. The design comes with several areas which can easily be dedicated to advertising:

Like all bloggers you are probably wanting your RSS feed count to grow. Elite by Design comes built-in with a prominent location for RSS subscribers:

What About Customization?

Elite by Design is easily customizable. And although the original site features a text-only title, yours can easily include a logo with your blogs name.

Each upper field is also customizable. The “featured design” can easily be changed to a featured article, anything is possible.

Conclusion

The Elite by Design Theme is highly recommended. Usually themes of this quality can run from $200 to $500, sometimes more depending on the design company.

With Elite by Design you have three choices to choose from:

Single use with a credit link to the author: $65

Single use without a credit link to the author: $100

Multiple use (No resale): $175

With the last article of Looking at Affiliates, I thought I would give an overview of what each affiliate has to offer.

Overview of all affiliates mentioned:
MoreNiche – Small selection, but good payouts and good referral program.
Amazon – Tons to offer, small commission but trusted brand. Must use country-specific websites.
DealDotCom – Can’t review products, one product per day. Referral program.
PayDotCom – Decent sized selection, referral program.
WidgetBucks – Good signup bonus, CPM and PPA sucks.
NeverBlueAds – Good selection. Mostly only pays to US and Canada but also has some selection for other english speaking questions. Has some to offer to other developed countries.
Merchant affiliates – Large selections, can sell basically anything. Trusted brands. Direct affiliating has a higher payout.

Well, this ends the series “Looking at Affiliates”. I just wanted to go through a few of the most talked about affiliates currently. I’ll post more about affiliates as they come along.

The great news about affiliate marketing is the ever growing importance we as webmasters are playing. Merchants are slowly moving towards direct affiliate programs, especially the large corporate sites. In the coming years we will see the trend expand and finally trickle down to the smallest of businesses–allowing for a much broader affiliate choice than today.

Until then, here are some large corporations with direct affiliate programs you might have missed:

• Walmart
• Overstock
• Circuit City

Large companies with third-party affiliate programs:

• Apple (iTunes only as far as I can tell)
• Best Buy
• Dell
• Harrods
• John Lewis
• Karstadt
• Kays
• Laura Ashley
• Marks & Spencer
• Procter & Gamble
• Vodafone

Most companies using third-party programs can easily be found on Commission Junction (serving most of US/Canada) or Zanox (serving most of Europe). If not, they probably aren’t offering an affiliate program just yet.. In this case, contact their sales department and ask why they aren’t taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to increase sales.

NeverBlueAds has been around for sometime, but was discontinued and finally re-launched last year. The program itself might seem overwhelming at first. Before registration is complete, you must wait for a phone call confirmation from a representative within the following 48 hours. The representative will ask what your website is about, how you plan on using NeverBlueAds and possibly about your traffic situation. The phone call takes only a few minutes and you will be ready to display the ads right after the phone call is finished.

The program offers a wide selection of advertising, ranging from automotive to travel to technology and computers. There really is something for everybody. When selecting a campaign you are shown the average network earnings along with network EPC and if you are able to incentivize the product; which can be a great help when deciding what to choose.

NeverBlueAds allows for different types of promotion: web, email, paid search, and even downloadable software. Although not all are accepted by specific merchants.

Merchants choose how much is paid and what action must be made. The merchant also chooses what countries are allowed (generally only Canada and USA are).

Like other affiliate programs, you also receive credit for referring others. Although the commission rate is smaller, 2% or $2 (your choice), NeverBlueAds is still relatively unknown towards smaller publishers, so the commission is easier to come by than a place like DealDotCom or WidgetBucks. The referral must be from North America, UK, Australia, New Zealand and part of the extreme Southeast Asia in order to receive credit.

Conclusion

If your site receives mostly Canadian and United States traffic, you might as well give NeverBlueAds a try. If not, you can still sign up and check out what they have to offer. It isn’t a total loss for foreign visitors.

WidgetBucks has been around the blogosphere the past few months as the next big thing. What thing however, is still being decided.

WidgetBucks offers a few ways to “rake” in the money:

1. Widgets. Basically an affiliate program, but with less of a selection and more of a craphole. You don’t get to choose exactly what ads are chosen, but you do get to select the category. Oh, but you don’t get to choose when the affiliate ad is chosen. More details of its crappyness below.
2. CPM ads. Just like any other CPM program. You select the category (or you can let WidgetBucks bot crawl your site) and you earn money for every thousand visitors. The problem? You don’t get to choose whether these are the affiliate ads are shown. There’s also an annoying timer that changes what ad is shown every 1 to 10 seconds. It’s also flash.
3. Referrals. The best thing that WidgetBucks has done. You get money every time someone signs up through you. So please, sign up through me. Another good thing? You get $25 for signing up. The bad? They won’t pay you until you reach $50. The ugly? Their ads.

Alright, so their ads aren’t entirely ugly… just annoying. 1-10 second flash images changing across the screen. Sure, it might catch the eye of the annoyed visitor, but they will barely be able to see what is actually going on. Actually buying the item is a whole other story.

So lets refresh, shall we?

The good: They will pay you $25 just for signing up. You also get the chance to refer your friends for more money.
The bad: They won’t pay you until you reach $50, which can be impossible for smaller bloggers and might take much more time compared to other affiliates/cpm programs.
The ugly: The ads. They are flash, ever changing and can annoy the visitors. 1-10 second frame changes is too fast for visitors to actually see, realize what they are, then read and finally click through. Hell, even their referral ads change every few seconds.

Conclusion

I don’t recommend it, but if you are willing to try, might as well sign up now. Maybe you’ll have better luck with the CPM ads or sales. Who knows? Maybe someone will get lucky.

[edit]Rumor is that WidgetBucks is doing away with the $25 signup. So if you want to join, join now![/edit]

PayDotCom has been around for sometime now and was once thought to be a rival of ClickBank. Although it hasn’t quite reached that status, PayDotCom still has a great referral program that is often overlooked.

Their referral program has a great selection including:

• Business to Business
• Computing & Internet
• Fun & Entertainment
• Health & Fitness
• Home & Family
• Marketing & Ads
• Money & Employment
• Society & Culture
• Sports & Recreation

Each selection is made of sub-categories, so it’s easy to drill down to the file you the category you need. But if that isn’t for you, they have a nifty search available to easily find products:

The best thing about PayDotCom is their commission rates. Generally commission is between 20% and 50%, but on some occassions it is as much as 100% (for subscription services). A great thing to have with affiliates.

Is PayDotCom for you?
Well, only you know that… and if you don’t, then you might as well test it. PayDotCom’s large inventory should be enough for just about any website.

How to join
To join, just click PayDotCom affiliate marketing. Joining is extremely quick, so it won’t waste much of your time. Once you are in, you are free to advertise as many products as you want. Happy affiliate marketing!