How the Economy is Affecting Triond and What We Can Do About It
Have you noticed that your pay per click rate is falling here on Triond? If so, don’t be too quick to place the blame on the Triond team. A lot of online content sites are losing advertising revenue due to the recent economic crisis that has now reached a global scale. Here is what we can do to see Triond and ourselves through this crisis.
It is now a widely known fact that the economic meltdown is effecting every aspect of industry, both public and private. Predictions indicate that this trend will continue for as long as another year and will be effecting the advertising revenues of most Internet based companies.
How The Economic Meltdown Will Affect Us
Triond and other user generated content sites who depend on advertiser revenues are certain to face challenges due a fall in display ad revenue. What I am talking about are the banner ads that are displayed on your article pages. These display ads and the ad links that are usually located at the bottom of the article text and above the comments section. They are what generates most, if not all, of the income that these types of sites receive.
I noticed lately that some of my older articles don’t seem to have as many ads displayed on them as there were previously. This is because the economic crisis has forced many companies to cut back on advertising and one of the ways they will be doing this is to cut back on display ads on content sites such as Triond. This trend is already being seen on sites all across the internet.
Michael Arrington writes in his article, Content Sites Bracing For 50% Revenue Slowdown published on Techcrunch, that we can expect to see “estimates of 30%-80% revenue drops over the next three months from companies that serve a variety of content (games sites, tech news, celebrity news, political news, etc.).”
He further states that after speaking to a variety of corporate venues ranging from large public companies to small blog shops and found that no one is feeling optimistic about this next fiscal quarter.
How We Can Support Triond And Ourselves
So what can we, as writers and members of the Triond community do to help keep our site from becoming one of the corporate casualties of the recent economic crisis?
One thing we can do is while we are reading articles and supporting each other in our Triond community, we should also take the time to click on the ads appearing on the article page we are reading. Most often, these ads are paid on a “pay per click” basis just like our articles. What that means is that if they don’t get clicked on, Triond doesn’t get paid.
I went through the different sites where my work is published and noticed that there are different ads for different sites and articles, especially with the Google ads at the bottom. Those are the ones that offer the greatest variety of sponsors since clicking the same ones over and over would be pointless.
Please keep in mind that you don’t want to just click on them for the sake of them or try to saturate the ads on your own pages because the sponsors can tell the difference. So don’t do this if you are not interested in the what the ad is selling of if you don’t mean to sign up.
By doing this, we can not only support and increase our own earnings, but help to support the very site that has been there for us. It may not seem like much when you are clicking that ad here and there, but consider how much it would help if we all clicked on ten ads per day, or even five. Considering how many users there must be on Triond, you can only imagine the numbers we could achieve by clicking some of the ads every day.
Another thing to keep in mind is that we cannot expect to generate all of our clicks from other members of the Triond community. Although we all enjoy reading and commenting on the wonderful articles written by our Triond friends, we need to keep in mind that in order to build a highly profitable click rate, we need to be taking steps to increase external traffic and external backlinks to our articles and to Triond sites as a whole.
Blogging
Blogging is a very effective way to do this. The problem is that not everyone has a talent for blogging. If that is the case you can look to be included on a blog maintained by someone else.
Lauren Axelrod certainly has a stellar quality blog going at Friends Revolution: On a Writing Path of Exploration. It is most worthwhile to visit this site for three reasons. Aside from the obvious reason being that her site is a joy to visit, you will also find a great example of a successful and attractive blog. Another good reason is that Lauren promotes writing from a number of Triond writers and accepts submissions for inclusion on her page.
She and I did an experiment with an older article of mine and I was amazed to find that my readership for that article jumped to over seven times the normal rate. I am including this because it illustrates how useful a good blog can be.
External Back Linking
I recently found another interesting avenue for increasing readership that I will be pursuing further. While doing research for one of my musician articles, I found a site that is devoted to musicians. I wrote to them and asked them to check out my articles. I have to confess that I merely wrote to them hoping for a few clicks.
What happened next took me by surprise. The site administrator wrote back a few days later and asked if he could include one of my articles in the Blue Review column of his ARTISTS I LOVE site. He said that if I agreed, he would be reviewing the article with a link to it, as well as one to my article profile page. It is slated to appear in the February edition on his site.
So how can I pursue this further? Well, I am going to start exploring for sites that are similar in nature to the ARTISTS I LOVE site that might be interested in linking to my articles that relate to their subject matter. That link would ideally include the title, the desciption section of the article and an additional backlink to my profile page.
Wikipedia
This is a great resource for back links. Just sign up for a free and get a user name and start editing the subject pages that relate to your article. By doing this you tap into their readership and you can even leave external links at the bottom of the page. Again, the idea is to import external traffic that will not only benefit our own agendas but will expose the display ads to new readers outside the Triond circle.
Search Engine Submissions
Submit your article URLs to search engine submission sites. Unless your content page gets submitted by the site administrators, your article won’t exist as far as a search engine is concerned unless your submit it to them. A really good guideline for submitting articles to search engines and increasing your article traffic can be found in How to Drive More Traffic to Your Article by BC Doan.
Stumble Upon
I have recently begun using Stumble Upon and am highly pleased with my results. Before I actually even signed up, someone “stumbled” one of my articles. For days I was trying to figure out why this article all of a sudden began generating 18,000 to 31,000 hits a day between the clicks for that one and the ones for the articles that I had linked in it. I was amazed to learn how this site works.
When you sign up for Stumble Upon, you download a handy little toolbar much like the Triond tool bar. When you are reading an article you like, simply click the thumbs up icon in the toolbar. A little window comes up with the URL for the page already taken care of so all you have to do is select a category (which would be best) from a drop down menu and click submit.
My point here is that if we were all to start using Stumble Upon, we could have a certain power in numbers because the more votes an article gets the more often it will be stumbled. We, as Triond writers will all benefit both collectively and individually if we work together on in the Stumble Upon venue. By voting for each others work there, we will be generating a huge amount of external traffic. I am still in shock at the fact that this one article is responsible for bringing anywhere between 500 and 1,200 clicks per hour!
It is predicted that the companies that do survive this economic crunch will come out on the other side as stronger and more stable companies. So I say, let’s put a little effort into showing Triond that we care about them in return by supporting their advertisers as well as each other.
We are all part of this Triond family and I feel that it would be the right thing to do to help the whole family along with ourselves and each other. I will call it “click and care.”
Other articles by Bren Parks include:
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January 16th, 2009 at 4:43 am
really great job!
keep it up!
cheers,
January 16th, 2009 at 4:43 am
thanks for that good work packed with info.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Very, very interesting and informative article. I will try to work on the tips you provided.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:51 am
Click and Care, I like that. This is a valuable article, thanks for the info.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Interesting and useful article.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Nicely written and thought out. I will keep these thoughts in mind. Good job.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Great informative article. One point that troubles is this – are we allowed to click adds that appear on our article pages?
If we are allowed to do this, then what the heck, let’s do it!
January 16th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Thanks for sharing this much needed information. Nice work!
January 16th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I agree, I uslually ask others to check out all of triond, not just my articles, when I post a link. There is soo much good stuff here that if we can get more people aware of the site, it will be better for all.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Now that you mention it, there were only two ads on this page when I opened it…and lots of blank space..
January 16th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Great and useful article thanks for sharing this information and ideas.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Count me in, Bren. Thanks for doing your homework and sharing what you’ve learned. This is a great resource article.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I contribute because 1) I want to write 2) I want to share 3)I want to entertain… selfish of me now I see.. I`ll add 4) help the economy and in turn 5) help me earn more.. thanks for the info
January 16th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, Bren, that was very interesting and informative.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Excellent article, I have noticed less money coming in.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Thanks Bren for a very interesting article. I think it’s a good idea that we need to take action and build support for our Triond community and help it through the hard times…
January 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
GREAT and useful article!! Thanks for all the info!
January 16th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Excellent article!! Glad that someone else realizes that “click me/ click you” is like what Google calls “bounce rate”, a ‘visit’ that does nothing. What we need are buyers that, upon reading the article, click the ad-links and actually BUY or SUBSCRIBE to some service. That is why I feign away from asking people to ‘view my article and I’ll view yours’. It is not very effective in the larger picture.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Good point stickman…to sign up for them is even better. I think I will get an email address just for that purpose so my regular one won’t get gummed up with emails.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Great article and information. I never knew we was supposed to click on the ads, but now will make a point of it.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Well, not really “supposed” to in as much as expected, but it would be a good thing to do….
“Click and care”….
January 16th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Funny thing is, I’m actually doing better on triond since the start of the crisis: the pound is now weaker, which means the dollar is stronger, so I get more pound for my dollar. Yay! Of course, we’re getting less for our views, but it works out at a similar rate for me.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Interesting and well written article. This global recession is effecting more and more industries. Why would people be spamming here?? I’m so sick of read this, read that. Sorry, off topic ranting!
January 16th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
very informative, things that I never thought about. I am glad you wrote tohis article.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Yes, that is correct. We must do something because of this massive global rate is dropping. This is an excellent article
January 16th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Excellent read with loads of helpful tips, as always. I thank you again for the Friends Revolution plug. We are getting better and better. I am trying to sift through all the wonderful pieces here to add to the blog so if anyone else has some they did a bit of help on, give me a shout.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Clicking ads unnecessarily may lead to click fraud.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I agree, but we all still click on them or they wouldn’t be there. I am just saying be aware of them and sign up where you can. It is not uncommon to have different email addresses for different things. That way, one can sort things by address when a lot of emails are involved.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
To be honest, I never really noticed the pay rate drop.
Good thing to know about the clicks.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Good points here. Thanks!
Clicked on an ad that did interest me.
God bless,
Pete
January 16th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Great article Ben, I’ll have all of this in mind.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Informative and helpful.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Excellent article very much needed information. thank you. I to am a bit leary of clicking on ads due to viruses
January 16th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Thanks, those were some really helpful tips. However, i don’t think anyone’s clicking my ads, this story (http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/The-Brave-Deed.453557) has over 50 views, but has only generated 2 cents…… please help!
January 16th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Great ideas, Bren. This is excellent information and is well written.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
“…It is not uncommon to have different email addresses for different things. That way, one can sort things by address when a lot of emails are involved.”
Huh? You lost me. I may have missed the point regarding multiple e-mail addys, unless you mean to prevent unsolicited spammers from flooding your ‘regular’ e-mail address.
If you refer to clicking ads, the ‘hit’ is recorded by IP-address, not by e-mail. Basically, any one computer can only ‘tick’ one article per 24-hour period as a ‘page impression’ or ‘page view.’ I am sure the same is true to Yahoo! adWords and ads in general. You cannot just keep ‘refreshing’ your article with ‘click’ and have it count as a unique page-view any more than clicking, closing and re-clicking any one ad on one page counts as more than just *one* unique view, per that day. This is how Google AdSence often ‘loophole-closes’ an adSence account… someone ‘clicks their own ads’ several times in one day trying to feign bona~fide views (called “page impressions” which are NOT counted as legitimate “views,” btw”) which “…corrupts the integrity of the site,” leading to being dropped from the adSense program.
Sometimes, the ads on Triond articles DO actually make sense and lead to a sale, though! On one article I saw a ‘block ad’ for hot chili-pepper sauces and clicked, -it had a “Cheech Marin” (of “Cheech & Chong” comedy group) brand hot chili-pepper sauce that I was interested in. I noted the address and where to get it, and did! -A successful use of ADS in articles.
I am *sure* that as a ‘referrer site’, Triond (and the author of that article) shared a nice ‘commission profit’ (can be as much as 10% of what I spent, so, for a $10.oo purchase Triond might get 50-cents and the author, the other 50-cents as~per the ‘50/50 contract’, etc.) from my purchase.
I’m just guessing, -I don’t know how this works but I am sure that the profits are not limited to PPC-only. There MUST be some revenue-sharing in addition to “T” getting paid to host block-ads, else ‘click my articles & I click yours’ tactics would bankrupt Triond and we’d ALL be out of a job here…
January 16th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Yes, I know about the IP address thing. What I mean is just to help organize the different kinds of email..I find that if I use the one I use for my friends for signing up for anything…it gets swamped before you know it.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
This is a very nicely written and well thought out article. You have given us a lot of valuable information.
Thank you.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I do believe clicking on the ads on your own articles is asking for trouble. I suppose clicking on ads that are on other’s articles is okay but probably not productive unless something is bought. Google’s Adsense specifically warns against clicking on ads that are on your site. This is a subject that really needs some clearing up on Triond.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Well done and wonderful info, Bren.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:16 am
we need to grow bigger as a community lol dont tell me i have to use my old website editing skills lol =) i hated that time.
Nice article keep it up bro
January 17th, 2009 at 6:37 am
You have some good tips there! I hope that crysis will end soon!
January 17th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Great article, many things I did not know.
Thanks for the helpful ideas.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:53 am
I suffer advertisement block,but ill try to look at them,thanks to your article.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:28 am
upon re-reading your comments yes, I did see that you were referring to sign-ups. (sorry!) -I’m suffering with flu or bronchial this week and everything is kinda fuzzy… (which is why I have not been writing this week..)
-thestickman
January 17th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Thanks for a good write on this subject, Bren.
I was going to raise some issues, but I see that thestickman has already said what I was going to say.
Guess it saves me some time!
)
January 17th, 2009 at 9:04 am
This is very informative! Nice Job!
January 17th, 2009 at 10:13 am
A very intelligent article Bren
January 17th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Well thought out article, chock full of usable tips.
One problem with Triond users clicking on ads is that Google may be well aware who is posting on Triond sites as well as clicking on ads. This can all probably be tracked via IP addresses. For example, people have been banned because of both posting and clicking on ads. on their article pages because the IP address told the tale. This is considered click fraud. If Google can track who is posting, as well as clicking, I could see a similar scenario taking place here–but, as you say, if an ad truly interests you, this wouldn’t necessarily be fraud–as long as this activity doesn’t breach the writer contract with Triond.
Your tips on Wikipedia are sound. What a good idea!
I will be checking out the article you linked to.
Thanks for these helpful tips and for your perceptive comments about not being too quick to blame Triond for the current state of affairs.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Very informative and carefully laid out.
Good Job!
AC
January 17th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Very informative article.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Good info and timely insights, Bren.
Whilst reading that part of ad clicks and related things you mentioned, I sort of reacted above my mental norm. Thankfully, thestickman and Athlyn have greatly touched these often sensitive issues of ad clicks, Google adsense, etc.
Otherwise, I’ll be checking out too some of your suggested links. Thanks Bren.
Tel
January 18th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Greatly informative article, Bren.
I would not recommend clicking on ads, just to increase the revenue that you are earning, because it can result in Triond losing the sponsor’s account entirely. If this happens, then it would damage Triond’s reputation and we all will lose money.
The best thing that any of us can do, is to drive more external traffic to Triond and ours and others articles. The eyeballs viewing our pages will increase the possibilities that someone that is sincerely interested in clicking on an ad lending to a purchase or a subscription to something.
Advertisers and ad brokers have a perceived expectation concerning ads placed on popular and not-so-popular sites. May be only 1-out-of-100 viewers will visit a sponsor’s web site, but if that one viewer purchases something or joins something or signs up for something, then the visit was a legitimate click and that is what advertisers desire.
I would “Strongly” suggest re-reading Triond’s users terms and guidelines regarding clicking on your on ads or ads found on the site in which you write for. Also, contact Triond regarding this issue and proceed with Triond’s recommendations. We do not want Triond to lose its ability to generate advertising revenue, just because good-spirited, Triond members clicked on ad, because they wanted to help Triond (and, honestly themselves, too) by clicking on ads, which lead to click-fraud in the worse case situation.
The rest of the article contains very sound ideas and suggestions.
God Bless,
Nelson Doyle
January 18th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Correction:
“The *MORE* eyeballs viewing our pages will increase the possibilities that someone that is sincerely interested in clicking on an ad lending to a purchase or a subscription to something.”
Sincerely,
Nelson Doyle
January 18th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
great article bren
January 18th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Thanks for the nice article.
January 18th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I have to agree with Nelson. I really enjoyed this article and it was full of lots of good information, but I would be careful about clicking ads unless you have a genuine interest in an item. This is monitored and can cause problems. Of course if there is an item you want to check out, so much the better for Triond and us.
Take care & G♥d bless
January 18th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Suggesting others to click ads is against the rules of every ad program like Adsense.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Good article with timely information we all need. I have to agree about being careful on clicking on ads. Only click if it is something you are interested in.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Good suggestion on Wikipedia. Thanks
January 18th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
You can also Buzz up articles on yahoo. Just another suggestion. I have to agree with Nelson though. We don’t want phony clicks on ads because that would end up hurting Triond and us. And it is dishonest and unethical. It is stealing. But your tips on driving readership in is top notch. I didn’t know about Wikipedia and had no idea the power of stumbleupon. We should be “stumbling” and “buzzing” each others works, but clicking on ads is a bad idea. Leave that to the consumers.
Great article though and keep it up.
January 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Wonderful article, I have stumbled some articles, however, due to technological problems, I tend to have trouble oftentimes submitting articles and it becomes a hit or miss situation with me. I wish I could stumble more articles though – I wonder if there is a simple solution I’m missing?
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 am
Great article with lots of valuable information. Thanks!
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Great article. Thanks for the reminders.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Very informative…thanks! I now know why the rates HAVE been going down…
-Fresh Writing
April 17th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Good piece I had noticed a drop not a surprise. some good advvice without going down the line of spamming as so many do.
June 27th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I joined in Triond a couple of years or so, stayed for quite a while without submitting and it´s only now when I see my views and comments increasing, although slowly. It´s since I took submitting as a job rather than a pastime. I haven´t received any payment yet, but I hope I will on one day soon. Obviously, I don´t think this is going to pay my bills, but it´s so pleasant to get paid for something I love doing! Thanks for sharing.