NetMoneyFAQ Create Me A Google Ad Competition
Ben Hoffman of NetMoneyFAQ wanted to me to give you the heads up on his first blog competition.
Unlike other blog owners who just email me about their contests and ask, “Can you please tell your readers?” Ben ordered a ReviewMe review to do it. That is definitely one way to get my attention about a blog contest. Not only am I going to plug his contest, I’m going to give Ben’s blog a full review.
Create Me A Google Ad Competition
The competition at NetMoneyFAQ is really unique and I have to admit, I like it a lot. It’s the kind of evil blog contest you expect me to come up with it. All you need to do is create a Google style ad and put it on your site’s front page. The blog or website that refers NetMoneyFAQ the largest number of unique visitors will win $300US. The Google style ad that you create should be text only and use the following format:
Title: Max 25 Characters linked to http://NetMoneyFAQ.com
1st line: Max 35 Characters
2nd line: Max 35 characters
Last line: link to http://NetMoneyFAQ.com with the anchor text Internet Marketing
Here is an example of what is required:
How Pro Bloggers Get Rich
They get rich by reading
John Chow dot Com
Internet Marketing
The Ad needs to be on your site from when you enter until Sunday April 29. The winner will be the site that refers the largest number of unique visitors between Midnight (+10 GMT/Sydney time) Sunday April 15 to Midnight (+10 GMT/Sydney time) Sunday April 29.
To give everyone a fair chance, I’ve decided to exclude myself from this contest. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about competing against me for sending the most traffic. 
Recommendations To Improve NetMoneyFAQ
NetMoneyFAQ is a brand new blog (started March 23) with grand total of nine posts. The concept behind it is to show web publishers and bloggers how they can make money on the Internet. NetMoneyFAQ stated goal is to shows what types of internet marketing works and does not work. Weekly performance, including page stats and earnings, are published and analyzed against what has been done to promote the blog.
The performance of the blog so far has been terrible. The main reason for the poor performance is a lack of updates. Since opening, the blog has done 0.6 posts per day. Ben will need to step up the posting frequency if he wishes to capitalize on this review and the ad competition. What Ben has posted so has been quality stuff. Ben has done a very good job analyzing his weekly performance and have made some very good posts on generating buzz and improving site traffic and search engine ranking.
Ben has not been shy about monetizing his blog. There are a bunch of affiliate ads, Google ads and Konetera ContentLink ads. However, the ads need optimization. Ben needs to follow my Kontera tweaking guide to prevent the highlighting of his blog’s tag line.
NetMoneyFAQ runs one Google 120×600 per page. However, the location is less than idea. I recommend embedding a 300×250 ad in the post itself. This should more than triple his current click rate. In addition, I recommend Ben dump the 468 affiliate banners under each posts. Affiliate marketing is all about the presell. You can make a lot more money by doing a blog post about an affiliate deal than by running a bunch of banners on every post.
The last bit of advice I have for Ben is to make an about page. Right now, readers going to NetMoneyFAQ do not know who Ben is. A good about page will help build trust and enhance your brand.
I look forward to more updates from NetMoneyFAQ and to seeing who wins the ad competition.
- Posted in Reviews, The Net
- 42 comments what's your take?
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Yeah, he lacks and about page and a clear way to subscribe by RSS or email. I also believe it isn’t a good idea to show your alexa rank when it’s so low. Anyway, I wish Ben the best of the lucks, from a blogger who started blogging about the same topic, in the same date (but don’t have the money to buy a review from john
)
Reply to this commentIt can be tough starting off, but post frequency is the most important thing in my opinion. You need to write at LEAST one post a day, or more.
Reply to this commentThere are good tips in that review for any blog.
Reply to this commentI think creating the ad and keeping it on the front page may make his contest a bit difficult for some.
Yes, in my opinion, I don’t think this is the best contest. Hard to justify doing it…since someone with a high volume blog could waltz in and win it.
Reply to this commentGreat review and I am sure Ben Hoffman will be mighty pleased with it. And I love his evil contest. What a great idea! Thanks John.
Reply to this commentWow! $300 for the ReviewMe review and $300 in prize money! $600 is a pretty big layout for a new blog…I hope it’s well spent. I haven’t spent a cent to promote the current competition on my site…perhaps I should?
Kumiko
Reply to this commentDo it, Kumiko!
Reply to this commentYeah! That would be awsum!
Reply to this commentWell, since your first prize is $30, you should probably spend another $30 on promotion
Reply to this commentspend that dough!
Reply to this commentA little green can always grease the gears a bit
Reply to this commentsounds interesting. i’ll be sure to keep an eye on his blog.
Reply to this commentThat is a big leap to take for such a young blog… I would have waited till I had a good 50 posts or so before splasing out on a promotion like this…
Reply to this commentI would think that building up traffic would be more important that posts myself. Though the two are closely related
Reply to this commentI think this competition is flawed - by making the winner the site that sends the most traffic, he is excluding all those with smaller blogs from having any desire to enter.
Reply to this commentAbsolutely! I decided not enter because I know there’ll be bigger sites that will easily drive more traffic there than me! The rich get richer….
I think a reverse traffic competition would be more interesting to watch…see who can send the least traffic!
Kumiko
Reply to this commentxo
Now we’re talkin’!
Reply to this commentIf this was the case, I could see the ad promotion: ”Don’t click on the ad - Virus!”
Reply to this commentNow I think that that is an excellent marketing idea!
John.. so you think you have the most traffic hey? *wink*
Reply to this commentI think the big sites won’t bother to enter the competition because 300$ is almost nothing to them(except for greedy evil John
).
Reply to this commentOh and about the site, I think he should disable the comment moderation feature. It hinders discussion in blog posts. Instead he should use a spam filter like Akismet or something, doing it by hand is really a tiresome work once his site gets bigger.
True, I don’t know that $300 is big money for JC either, but it all adds up!
Reply to this commentHi Gary
I am actually not moderating comments, they get published every 15 minutes, its a caching/performance feature of Community Server.
Reply to this commentI wish him luck with his blog, but taking advice from someone who starts a blog purely to blog about Internet marketing is like taking financial advice from someone who is learning about shares/property/tax as he goes.
Everyone seems to be starting blogs about Internet marketing these days but how many actually run REAL 7/8 figure Internet businesses for a living?
I do, but I can’t really think of many more that do, and that’s the problem with blogs like these. Don’t get me wrong, I hope Ben succeeds, but the blog about Internet marketing/making money online has already been done to death.
A niche topic = success with blogging
Reply to this commentSo true! People have got to put that spin on it, like Kumiko!
Reply to this commentWell said Mitch.
Reply to this commentIt is certainly a clever idea, but, as others have said, the idea is flawed. In addition, without the web credentials (i.e. any past successes that we know about), why waste our time with him? If his blog was more then brand new and started to develop a following, it would be more likely that people would participate.
One to watch for cleverness, though.
Reply to this commentSeems to me this is the future of ReviewMe and others of its type. Not just a review of a product or service but a guaranteed blog post about other blogs. Funny I hadn’t considered it before but it makes sense. With all the blog contests going on right now they are becoming white noise. Always good to try something new.
Reply to this commentAfter a quick read of his blog and advice. It doesn’t seem like he follows his own advice. For example, in his posts about blog length he talks about not making posts too long. Then below it, he’s got a huge post on Google Analytics!
About the traffic contest, maybe a better solution would be a ratio, like traffic driven to his site divided by the referring site’s traffic? That would level the playing field.
Reply to this commentyeah a ratio would probably even it out a bit for all the little peoples
Reply to this commentI don’t see how that’s possible..
Reply to this commentHey, I have an idea! Why don’t you divide traffic stats with hits and one with the best average takes the prize!
Reply to this commentNow that’s a good idea Alex
Reply to this commentJohn and everyone thanks for the review and the comments, it’s great to get the perspective of other readers, along with their suggestions.
I over this week and coming months I have some great posts planned, I hope you will drop back regularly to see if there is something of interest.
Reply to this commentI’ll definitely pay a visit from time to time; it would be real interesting to see how things develop from here on.
Reply to this commentWith John actually sitting out from this competition, it’s anybody’s game now (thanks for the kind gesture, JC) LOL.
Reply to this commenti would have waited until i had at least 40 posts to create that kind of tournament, because you wont get many visitors to stay if you dont have alot of info on your site.
Reply to this commentTell him to use grammar and spell checker. His site is impossible to read with the mass amounts of mistakes in the text. I tried struggling through the posts you recommend, but it is all things I have seen before or things that are common knowledge to everyone else.
Reply to this commentI just think the site is horrendous to begin with. My site is brand new It started February 21st. I’ve already received a technorati rating of 30,000 and shot down to a 400,000 alexa ranking. I feel thats good others may say eh you suck. But I’ve been working my little buns off on what I’ve got and blogs that do the same niche I do and just expect to get rich off of it and think they are going to teach. I’m teaching people about how to monetize their site yes but I’m teaching it on a learning experience. It’s about trial and error what has been working and hasn’t worked for me. And he puts some shame in my pockets
Reply to this commentyeah it seems as though he started the contest kinda early eh?
Reply to this commentI agree. If you’re going to spend money to drive a lot of people to your blog, you should definitely do it when they have a reason to come back.
blabEditor
Reply to this commentWould have to be a Powerhouse to win that.
Reply to this comment