Tag: advertising

Amazon.com top sellers

Amazon.com
Amazon.com

I always have fun looking at stats for my various websites.

The other day, after receiving another gift card from Amazon Associates (I get a small percentage from every item ordered through one of my websites), I thought I’d check into what people are buying via my websites/Amazon store.

Most of the items have only been purchased once but a few have risen to the top as “best sellers.”

And in case you’re wondering — Amazon is actually not my #1 way of bringing in a little extra cash from my blogs. Right now it’s affiliate ads for Leo Babauta’s and Joshua Becker’s e-books.

I’ve been averaging $15 or so each month recommending their two books (which I do highly recommend), where as Amazon typically only brings in a couple extra dollars a month.

Do you use Amazon Associate ads/links on your blog?

What are your top sellers?

Ever been surprised by something someone purchased through your links? (Darren Rowse actually had a fun post about this last week — he beat me to publication — doh!)

For your information

When I offer a link to products on Amazon.com and you click on the link and buy a product, I make money.

I also make money from any other ads on my site (primarily those you click on and make a purchase).

When I write a reviews on books, movies, music etc. I may have been given a copy of the product before the review — I’ll disclose that on any such reviews.

Just thought I’d let you know.

The MasterCard commercial you’ll never see

Amount spent each year in Europe and the United States on pet food: $17 billion

Cost per year to achieve basic health and nutrition for the entire world: $13 billion

Amount spent on perfumes each year: $12 billion

Clean water for all the world: $9 billion

Amount spent on cosmetics in the US: $8 billion

Basic education for the world’s children: $6 billion

Total amount the US spends on Christmas each year: $450 billion (or 16 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Initial cost of the US Government bailout of failing financial institutions: $700 billion (or 25 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Coming to grips with the alarming disconnects of our consumerist society: Priceless

HT:The Seminal

Adding some revenue (hopefully)

Teabass (aka Andrew Nesbitt) (no not Seabass or C-Bass) shared a great little bit of WordPress love/help/code today on his blog.

Of course you’ve probably all realized that there are some ads on both my blog, and Laurie’s blog. You may have ignored them all the time — and that’s OK (well sorta ;-)). We’ve added these ads in hopes to at least cover the cost of our webhosting ($150 a year) and if possible, help pay off some of our debt (see the ongoing battle on the lower right hand column).

Anyways, we’ve attempted to do this as non-intrusive as possible while still making the ads visible enough and attractive enough that you’d want to click on them from time to time. Different ads mean different money — i.e. clicking on a Google ad might give us one-cent or maybe even 17-cents (depending on the advertiser). Clicking on an Amazon ad doesn’t give us anything – but if you purchase something from Amazon after clicking on our ads – we get a percentage of the sale.

So why do you care?

Well if you’re a regular reader, you probably won’t noticed we’ve added Andrew’s new code and thus more advertising to our blog posts. You won’t likely notice, because you probably read all the blog posts within 30 days of their original posting. However, for folks who might find a blog post via Google (say something that I wrote back in January about Justin Farmer) — then they’ll notice a new Google ad on each blog post that’s older than 30 days.

It was super simple to add and while I’d love to give you the code here — you can go right to the source for all the details.

So that’s that. Keep reading (and clicking/buying) and let me know if you’ve found other creative ways to build your revenue stream on your blog or website.

Ron English :: anti-advertising

From the artist, Ron English:

It’s great to be a criminal, right? You’re in pretty good company. It’s hard to explain to your kids, because they think that if you break the law you go to jail and you’re a criminal. But if you take out a history book, a lot of the people on the forefronts of social movements were considered criminals. We’re just ahead of the curve. Maybe the bad guy is the one who owns and puts up all the billboards all over the neighborhood, selling people malt liquor and cigarettes.

What ad would you change to make people think?

What advertising drives you nuts?

Are you OK with the current rate of consumption/consumerism?

If not, are you doing anything about it?

Happy Birthday Laurie!

Today is Laurie’s 25th Birthday (for a third time :-)). As part of her celebration she took the day off and is enjoying some pampering at the spa today. I planed to take her to dinner tonight to California Pizza Kitchen but last night she mentioned she may prefer Johnny Carino’s instead. Either is fine with me. Just look forward to spending the evening with her.

On the topic of birthdays, saw this video today that gave me a chuckle. It’s been said that the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach – I guess it may be through his coffee mug too. But have no fear – I know all of you are concerned – I’m not using this video to suggest I got Laurie a cup of coffee for her birthday (although that might not be a bad idea ;-)).