Since a few weeks I’m noticing AdChoices on more websites every day. They are the for a longer time, but now I’m noticing them because they bore me. AdChoices is some kind of AdSense displaying ads based on your surfing behavior. It shows ads related to websites you visited before or search terms you used in Google search. Unfortunately for the AdSense publishers the ads are not relevant any more to the website content.

AdChoices

Why AdChoices doesn’t work (for me)

Although it might work for a certain public for me I don’t think it will ever work. Last week I ordered a GoPro HERO camera. A very nice and compact HD camera that can be used in ‘hard’ conditions. Under water, in the air, outer space,…

As I said, I ordered it, I bought one, I have one and I don’t need a second one. Every site with AdChoices is showing me ads for the GoPro HERO.

Beside the fact that I’m not interested in buying another camera, displaying 3 times the same ad isn’t pretty smart. I was downloading FileZilla, trying to sell me some web hosting would have been more appropriate.

Why we don’t like AdChoices

Not only it is displaying ads I’m not interested in it also violates our privacy. Imagine: you’re looking for a new job, you check your private mails from time to time at your office desk. The next day you’re searching some information related to your job (together with a college or your boss) and all you see is ads about new job opportunities, not relevant to the content of the page you’re visiting.

Giving a surprise party will become impossible with AdChoices!

Beside the privacy issue, the revenue of the publishers will lower. I’m not going to click on ads of a camera when I’m looking for a ftp client. These ads are irrelevant and at that time I’m not interested in them.

Update: Still bored by AdChoices

Everyone who wants to make money online finds out that affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn some extra bucks. The problem most affiliate marketeers have to face is finding a good affiliate marketing niche. By focusing on a niche it is easier to optimize your website or blog for specific traffic from search engines. A good niche for affiliate marketing is a niche with a few competitors and a great revenue. If it’s possible to get 5 posts of your blog on the first page for a certain keyword in Google you’re on your way to earn some money.

How to find a good niche for affiliate marketing?

Finding a niche isn’t easy. You need to be able to write good articles on your blog. If you don’t know anything about the subject it will be very hard to write good content. Pick some subjects of your interest. Don’t pick one, but several subjects to get started. Begin with quantity, then select by quality. Starting with one topic could work but it’s a risk. After a month (at least) evaluate, adapt the sites, drop niches and experiment with new affiliate marketing niches.

That’s the best way to find profitable affiliate marketing niches!

A few weeks ago I posted about van-de-wereld.com. A domain I used to try some Search Engine Optimization stuff.

The goal was to get some pictures in the Google image search results. The website is optimized for three phrases: “mooiste man van de wereld” (prettiest man in the world), “rijkste man van de wereld” (richest man in the world), “slimste mens van de wereld” (smartest man in the world).

To stand a bit out of the crowd of rich an famous people I took a monkey, a camera and some accessories. The photo shoot and search engine optimization results can be found below.

Results

Google image results for "mooiste man van de wereld"

Google image results for "rijkste man van de wereld"

Google image results for "slimste mens van de wereld"

Conclusion

Choosing a good domain name is very, I mean very, important when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. It’s obvious that the content of the website needs to relevant too. After only a few days the pictures popped up in Google image search. A few weeks later they are still there. So far no issues with the sandbox. I’ll post an update from time to time to see what happens to the website and the pictures in the future.

All web developers know it: making a wonderful website is one thing, getting it on a descent rank in the search engines is another. It’s obvious that being a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist and not being able to get high ranked with your own site in google isn’t good for your business. Since the competition for ranking high with terms like “seo” is enormous other tactics should be used to get seen as a SEO specialist.

To prove his skills as a search engine optimization expert a Belgian man tries to declare himself the most beautiful man in the world or in dutch: “mooiste man van de wereld“. The goal: getting on top of the google search results for this search query. The competition for this phrase is average and the idea is funny, a combination that could lead to success.

As mentioned before the site is optimized for a phrase with average competition. To get the pages high on the results several white search engine optimization tactics are used. The first and most important is the domain name ‘van-de-wereld.com’ (in english ‘of-the-world’). This domain leaves lots of options using subdomains, like ‘http://mooiste-man.van-de-wereld.com’. Domain and file names have a huge effect on ranking, no one is going to buy the domain ‘grass-for-sale.com’ to sell cars. This is why it’s so important to search engines, if you want to fool a search engine by buying a domain name that contains a popular search phrase but has nothing to do with your product you’re fooling yourself.

The ‘van-de-wereld.com’ website runs on WordPress with URL optimizing and some SEO plugins. WordPress by itself is very search engine friendly and thus a fast way to get an optimized site up and running. When articles are posted to the blog on a regular base search engines will get interested. They like fresh content!

Unlike many web designers think incoming links are not everything. To get his site on top of the results only one, yes only one incoming link was placed on the low ranked portal site http://www.321start.be (owned by the creator of the ‘van-de-wereld.com’ himself). This doesn’t mean linking doesn’t matter but it is to often overestimated.

The result is clear: the tactic worked. With a google pagerank of 0 the site had a position 3 in the search results after a month. After getting in the results it’s important to stay there and as long as you’re not on the first place try to do better. Fresh content is the key.

Why are we telling this story on techible.net? Very easy, as the owner of van-de-wereld.com I wanted an extra incoming link! You see, I do care about linking.

At this moment the content of the website is relevant to what people expect to find. Articles about known good looking people. A next step could be becoming the ‘mooiste man van de wereld’ myself, or maybe the richest. That would be fun, or would that be to narcissistic?

1. A clock. If I want to know the time I’ll take a look at the system clock. What’s the use of an extra clock on a website? Countdown timers are acceptable.
2. A splash aka intro page. This is definitely not done. It’s annoying and very stupid in terms of search engine optimization.
3. Mouse following things. Why should I want to have a train of stupid bullets following my mouse cursor? I have chosen the cursor I want for my operating system, leave it alone. Anyone knows what’s exciting about an eye following a mouse pointer? Me neither.
4. Malfunctionning dynamic menu’s. What’s the use of a menu with subitems that disappear before you can reach them with your cursor? Please give me more than a 5 milliseconds delay to move my cursor!
5. Incomplete lists. When you promise to give a list of five items do it!