Is LinkedIn worth for job searching? Two simple tips.

LinkedIn became the most popular social networking website for professionals. There are plenty of forums and discussions about usability of such social networking websites like Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo.
In my view we can divide all of these sites in group of fun or personal websites (Facebook..) and professional (LinkedIn..).
I tested both flag websites of each group and finally stick only with LinkedIn. In this article I would like to share my experience with LinkedIn.

LikendIn is great way how to stay with your former colleagues in touch but also great way for searching job. I have been offered relevant jobs not only from headhunters but also from direct employees from companies. Here are some tips for your LinkedIn profile optimization.

1. Short profile but all keywords included
Keep your profile simple. Company names and positions are enough. But never forget about keywords because employee seekers are using them to find relevant employees. By keywords I mean hard skills, soft skills, countries where you've worked or desired position.

2. Do networking
LinkedIn works on the similar logic as Google does. As much as connections (bac-links) you have, you will appear higher in search for particular keywords by employee seekers. And therefore do networking also with headhunters.

Blog income report - November 09

Another month is over and I am here with regular statistics with earnings from blogging. November was at the first sight quite bad month. Very poor results from INO and low income from direct sales. In total, earnings are sightly below $400.
But on the other side I made some new deals for direct sales which will be included in next month report. Google Adsense income is still increasing mainly due to earnings jump in new websites.
Outlook for the rest of the year. We have last month ahead and December is usually one of the worst month in terms of number of visitors. And therefore I would be happy with same results achieved in November meaning somewhere around $400.

Detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $238.11 ($230.75)
INO $85 ($165.29)
Forbes Blogs Network $5.68 ($6.17)
Direct sales $57 ($57)


Total $385.79 ($459.21)

Blog income report - October 09

Again end-month earnings statistics with my blogging activities. As you can see below not so good month at all. In total it is around $450 vs. $600 month ago. What is the reason of such a decline? Main reasons are less posting. As I stated last time that in future I want to increase posting, exactly the opposite happened. I didn't have enough time for my blogging and regular posting. And the second reason is visible in INO results. I stopped to promote INO so heavily as I did before. No promotions in posts and so on.

I am setting one main target for following months. REGULAR POSTING AND MORE POSTING.

Detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $230.75 ($225.79)
INO $165.29 ($275.49)
Forbes Blogs Network $6.17 ($3.81)
Direct sales $57 ($100)


Total $459.21 ($605.09)

Blog Income report - September 09

After two months gap I am publishing again statistics with blogging earnings. I had summer break from posting this regular income statistics. Usually during July and August are earnings on lower side and this happened also this year. Earnings ranged somewhere between $400-$500 per month.
September results shows nice rebound even vs. June. On total $605. It is one of the best results ever. Mainly due to strong CTR improvement in Adsense (I have posted in previous post about new beta blogger template and increase in CTR).
INO shows also strong numbers but it is not so good like one year ago when INO earnings reached even $700 per month due to several affiliate sales. I have decided not to use INO so aggressively as I did last year.

Generally targets for following months are quite simple. No radical changes to templates or ads programs. Just continue with regular posting more frequently than last months.

Detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $225.79 ($100.82)
INO $275.49 ($312.82)
Forbes Blogs Network $3.81 ($2.98)
Direct sales $100 ($135.7)


Total $605.09 ($552.32)

New beta blogger template and CTR

Around one month ago I have changed blogger template at my flagship blog StockWeb. I have also doubled CTR. It is amazing. And that's not all. Also bouncing rate and average time at blog have improved significantly.

Well, the previous layout had not been very friendly. But this shows how important is to think about blog design in addition to regular writing posts. Finally I have found the template which is very well Adsense adjusted of customized for other types of ads. And at the same time good sized for fast upload and easy navigation.

Tags cloud for Beta New Blogger.

Today I have decided to make small face lift to one of my blog. I really don't like tags cloud which is default in New Beta Blogger. It is really boring.

"Come on Blogger team, you should something with this! "

I have searched some hints and tips. There are clouds from 3rd party sides delivered as HTML code which you simply copy / paste as a new widget in your blogger template. But in these I don't like small labels where it comes from like Technorati or others.

Finally I found very naturally looking tags cloud for beta blogger. I repeat Beta because it doesn't work with old classic blogger templates. Here is the guide how to set up tags cloud for new blogger. And additionally tool how to determine RGB color format from HEX. This you will need for playing with colors in you tags cloud.

Blog Income Report - June 09

In total it was good month and we can see again month to month increase. But this time it had been mainly because of big affiliate sale in INO. Google Adsense was very disappointing this time. I can see two reasons for that. First, low number of visitors. Traffic went down as a reflection of less published posts. Ans second is redesign of my blogger template. It went wider and can see lower CTR in my Adsense account. I will follow this and perhaps switch to previous blogger template design.
Another point which I would like to mention is that I can finally see results from other websites which were launched 2 or 3 months ago. Now it is only few dollars but the good point is that there are now more money making websites.

Detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $100.82 ($207.62)
INO $312.82 ($169,82)
Forbes Blogs Network $2.98 ($5.88)
Direct sales $135.7 ($135)
Amazon Associates $0 ($0)
Commisson Junction $0 (12)


Total $552.32 ($530.32)

Blog Income Report - May

May was generally successful month. You remember last time I have announced new websites and one of them (www.emergingindex.com) has received Google PR 2 within 1 month. This is very good result.

About blogging incomes. Strong results from Adsense, INO. New direct sales. And I have started to use Commission junction with $12 as a initial results. Altogether $530 as a total earnings. Great!!!

Detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $207.62 ($146.89)
INO $169,82 ($73.28)
Forbes Blogs Network $5.88 ($2.2)
Direct sales $135 ($115)
Amazon Associates $0 ($0.88)
Commisson Junction $12 (-)


Total $530.32 ($338.25)

Blog Income Report - April.

I would start summary for last month with words..."Not a good one at all". As you can see significant drop on all sources. I was thinking about the reason. Well my flagship blog get lower Google PR around 2 months ago and was thing that it is because of lower traffic. But traffic remains the same as I had with Google PR 4. CTR also the same but commission went down. Also I played a little bit with INO ads which reflected in one straight week without any earnings from INO. I will definitely look at this and probably used previous INO ads.

In April I have bought several domains and started new web sites and blogs. The strategy is clear, not to be dependent only on one blog site. I mean right now all my incomes come from one flagship blog.

New websites which I have launched during April are mixture of finance and health care web sites.

www.emergingindex.com - This website will be used for regular blogging for topics from emerging stock markets.

www.pyorrhea.info - The website about Periodontitis. You can find tips how to prevent your teeth and gums from Periodontitis and tartar and also tips for dental hygiene.



And Here are detailed statistics:

Google Adsense $146.89 ($250)
INO $73.28 ($182.1)
Forbes Blogs Network $2.2 ($11.5)
Direct sales $115 ($115)
Amazon Associates $0.88 ($0)

Total $338.25 ($558.6)

How to increase CTR to 20% !!??!

Recently I have read very interesting article about arbitrage with Google Adsense and Google Adwords. The whole business is based on usage of both programs.

And simply you are winning if all your paid traffic gained from Adwords costs you less than what you get from Adsense.

You can try to play with this but there are some rules which can help you to be profitable.

- First, you shouldn't pay more than 5 cents for one Adwords click.
- Second rule is that you should achieve at least 10% CTR with your Adsense ads.

This second rule made me quite surprise. I really don't know anybody with such a big conversion. If you google a little bit you can find that on average publishers can make around 4-5%. With very good Adsense optimization maybe 7-8%. But in the article about arbitrage was written that it is highly recommended to be somewhere between 10% - 20% CTR to be profitable.

In this respect I welcome any tips how to improve CTR to this amazing number...

Blog Income Report - March

As I pointed out in previous post Forbes Blogs Business Network is gaining steam. And this is also reflected into the last earnings report for March. Here are the numbers:

Here are detailed statistics:
Google Adsense $250 ($193.17)
INO $182.1 ($375.53)
Forbes Blogs Network $11.5 ($9.11)
Direct sales $115 ($115)
Amazon Associates $0 ($0)

Total $558.6 ($692.81)

Forbes Financial Blogs Network.

It has been long since I joined Forbes Blogs Network. It is kind of partnership with Forbes that includes advertising program and also your posts will be hosted directly on Forbes page dedicated to blogs.

More details about network you can find HERE.

To be honest I was complaining about the network. As preliminary announced CPM rates were well behind reality. Also "Sold inventories" (percentage when ads are displayed) were somewhere around 20-30%.

But now I can see progress with sold inventories. Last 2 months It is close to 90%!!!.

That's why I am trying to highlight this program. If you have some experience with FBN I will be glad for any comments.

Blog Income Report - February

Last month I set goal $500 but this has been exceeded significantly. On total blog income reached $692. I didn't have time for posting but still earnings and traffic grew. Still most of the income comes from my one flagship blog. My plan is to extent blog earnings also to other blogs and not to be dependent only on one website.

As you can see nothing new in terms of income source. Still leading sources are INO and Google Adsense. In INO I had 2 referral sales and some commission from free stuff.

For next month I am putting target to stay above $500.

Here are detailed statistics:
Google Adsense $193.17 ($238.59)
INO $375.53 ($210.53)
Forbes Blogs Network $9.11 ($2.13)
Direct sales $115 ($154.7)
Amazon Associates $0 ($1.49)

Total $692.81 ($607.44)

Blog Income report - January.

Let's start with general evaluation. This has been the second best month ever. The best blog income month was July due to huge one time commission from referral sales through INO.
This time I see at both major money makers, Google Adsense and INO.

In January I have no new direct ads sales and one of 12 months paid subscriber has expired. Therefore if no new customer in February there will be decline in direct ads sales amount.

With results for January I am very pleased and surprised. Because I am actually out of office and posting very rarely compare to the average.

Let's make at least $500 in next month. This is a target for February.


Here are detailed statistics:
Google Adsense $238.59 ($189.12)
INO $210.53 ($152.85)
Forbes Blogs Network $2.13 ($3.47)
Direct sales $154.7 ($154.7)
Amazon Associates $1.49 ($1.62)

Total $607.44 ($501.76)

Add Meta Tags to Blogger/Blogspot blogs.

For one of my blog I make an experiment. I want to see difference in SEO and SERP with and without meta tags. There are many discussion all over the web but mostly people say "adding meta tags can even hurt your web site". But on the other hand mostly web sites at first page of Google seaches come with meta tags. At least I made right now quick test.

If you want to generate meta tags automatically you can use Meta Tags generator. It has one bug. After it generates meta tags for your keywords, title, description you have to add slash ( / ) at the end of each meta code. See example below.


<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>testing meta tags</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="this is for the test of meta tags">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="ALL">
</HEAD>


And after your manual correction should look like this


<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>testing meta tags</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="this is for the test of meta tags"/>
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="ALL"/>
</HEAD>

Now you should not have any problem to copy and paste your HTML code with meta tags into your blogspot / blogger blog in LAYOUT - EDIT HTML. Please remember that meta tags must be in HEAD section. It means between <HEAD> and </HEAD>

Blog Income report - December.

Last month of 2009 is over and here are my blog income results. The good thing is that earnings are still growing. Even in December which is generally considered as a bad for blogging. Especially when you are blogging about finance, stock markets where is really poor activity during this month.

Total earnings closed above magical level of $500. Google Adsense is number one of my earnings. The leading position is either Adsense or INO. The biggest decline is with Forbes Blog Network. This month Forbes brought $3.47 down from $12.01.

I am more that happy with the results for December. Especially when my posting was on the downside. My expected earnings range had been somewhere between $400 - $450. For the new year I have one target. I want to stay regularly above $500.


Here are detailed statistics:
Google Adsense $189.12 ($141.50)
INO $152.85 ($248.25)
Forbes Blogs Network $3.47 ($12.01)
Direct sales $154.7 ($96.4)
Amazon Associates $1.62 ($1.59)

Total $501.76 ($499.75)