Fortunately, stats from analytics for a similar site in the blogging niche shows that Firefox users are now at  56.21%, while IE is only at 21.70%. Other browsers like Chrome (12.35%) and Safari are also significant, but IE still represents a big user group after Firefox.

It’s really no problem making your site or software compatible for Chrome and Safari – differences in appearance are minimal. But IE really sucks, and it varies so much from each version of IE, that it’s hard to believe it’s done by Microsoft.

Optimizing for IE is a lot of work.

However, I think it’s better for us to stick to the 80/20 rule and optimize only for 80% of IE versions, which is version 8.xx and 7.xx. All other versions can take a hike. It’s easier to ask users to just upgrade their browser or download Firefox instead

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I’ve said before that I have a new direction for 2010, which will see me moving away from information marketing, and diving head first into software application development.

Now, I can announce the project I’ve been working on for the past 4 months – BlogSell.com

BlogSell is a blog monetization & management software that gives you the tools to make more money from your existing blogs. Currently, BlogSell allows you to:

• Manage and track affiliate links
• Manage and track affiliate banners
• Sell links, banner ads, and paid reviews

And yes, it’s designed to work with WordPress blogs only for now, although integration with Blogger is a future possibility.

Since it is a hosted software (or hosted app), there is no script for you to upload and install to your own server. Everything is done centrally, but you can connect BlogSell to your own WordPress blogs using some simple plugins.

If you are a previous customer of my blogging products – WordPress Adsense System, Super Affiliate Blogger, Blog Paycheck or PLRWPVideos – then you will receive an invitation email by now to be one of the first to signup with for a ridiculously price.

For everyone else, we’ll officially open up registration once we’ve launched Version 1 at the end of March. For now, you can get more information and get access to the demo by going to www.BlogSell.com

Our first project took some time, and I learned a LOT of things in the process. All of which will help me designed even better software applications in the near future.

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Ok maybe not my absolute last, but definitely one of the last for this amount.

I’ve grown disenchanted with AdSense in recent times, and I think Google AdSense is a dying trend thanks in a big part to Google themselves. Google is now a billion dollar publicly listed corporation more interested in going after the big fish. They don’t need, or want, someone like me. Perhaps this feeling was in part to the way they brutally banned my AdWords account with no valid reason or explanation.

I’ve already sold off most of my AdSense sites and blogs, as a final “cash-out” strategy and the price was pretty good. You can earn about 10 to 15 times a site’s monthly AdSense income, which shows that a lot of people out there still want to hold on to Google AdSense for two simple reasons:

• It is truly the most hands-free “residual income” method of making money online, even today
• It’s still one of the easiest to master for newbies trying to make a buck or two online

For me though, since I’ve decided on my direction for 2010, AdSense seems to be a bad fit. At my stage right now I know that whatever effort I can put into building an AdSense site I can apply to creating software or information products that will generate a much better income, with much better satisfaction.

Of course AdSense will still be used on test concept sites etc, but for the most part, I’m done with AdSense.

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But I really want to achieve more than that, and I decided last year that the only way to move forward is to forget about information marketing. Instead, I now see information as the “icing on the cake” type of business.

It’s great and easy to do when you have already built a strong business model doing something else. But to depend on it solely is suicide. It’s the truth.

What is the problem with information marketing?

Firstly, for the sake of people who still don’t get it, “information marketing” basically involves selling in-demand “how to” information on a particular topic. People are willing to pay for that information because they perceive you as the expert who has inside information, experience and a proven method for success.

In my case, the topic has mostly been about blogging and making money online.

Information marketing has 5 serious flaws:

• It gets outdated easily – Unless you’re in an evergreen market like dating, losing weight etc, from the moment you sell your information product it’s on a downward spiral to being viewed as “old” or “outdated”.
• “Version 2” always fails to excite – Publish a successful e-book today, lots of marketers are interested in promoting it. A year later come up with version 2 and you’ll be lucky to get the same level of success. There are exceptions of course.
• Your scope is limited – You may be an expert in one field. But how many different e-books can you spin on the same topic? I know some marketers who produce tons of new e-books and membership sites on just one topic (and are successful at it), but the truth is that each of those products contain 80% the same information. If you are honest to yourself, it is not good value to your loyal customers.
• It’s not truly scalable – You are the expert. You must be the one creating the actual “information” part of the product. Sure you can have a big team to do everything else, but people buy the product because of you. It’s impossible to train your staff to become you.
• Shrinking residual income – Now, creating any information product by itself will get you some sort of residual income. But it’s always on a downward trend, refer to point number 1 and 2. The only real solution is to keep coming up with new information products.

Now, I’m not saying that I will never create an information products again. Rest assured, I have mastered the art and I will create them from time to time. However, it’s not going to my bread and butter.

So then what will?

I’ve decided to move towards creating software applications. Not just any type of software, but specifically web marketing software.

After searching my soul for the truth, I realize if I want to move forwards, software is the answer. It’s the only way to keep moving forward, make improvements, and still achieve ever-growing residual income.

It’s the only real solution to grow an Internet marketing company exponentially. It’s also the most profitable option in the long run.

Sure, there are many players in the software game. Just as there are many players in the information marketing game. But I have an edge here that is unique to me, which no one else has. What this “edge” is I rather not say until it’s proven.

I am pretty confident that I can be successful in launching at least two profitable software applications within this year. This is the year that I need to breakthrough to the next level.

I will do it.

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If you understand Bahasa Malaysia, you will know that the ad is advertising prostitution, using Google’s content network. Yet the actual site itself is a rather dodgy MLM program, highly likely to be a scam.

How can an ad like this one not violate their terms of service? Don’t they actually have a support staff who understands BM doing quality control?

Perhaps the AdWords robot support team just haven’t been updated with the latest software patch and language module. They are full of so full of shit that they don’t even know they stink.

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That simply means that the first affiliate to get a click on his link will embed the cookie to the potential customer’s computer, and get commissions for an eventual sale. If the same person later clicks on your affiliate link and signs up, you get nothing because you were not the first affiliate.

I hate this concept, and here’s why:

• It encourages and rewards non-personal mass marketers (and spammers)
• It’s totally unfair to the guy who put in serious effort to “get the sale”

Imagine if you’re a real estate agent for a while. You find the potential buyer, show him around the house, convince him that it’s the dream home he’s been looking for. He decides to buy it – though your efforts – but the actual commission goes to the guy who put in a spam flyer about that house into the buyer’s mailbox.

 The argument is simple: The guy who “closed” the sale should get the reward. Not the guys who blasted his affiliate link to every corner of the Internet.

Even if you write a great review about the product (Aweber for example), continuously recommend it on your site etc, you’re not getting all the commissions that you should. Some of your visitors clicked on an Aweber affiliate link somewhere else before out of curiosity, but they were not interested. It was you who showed them why they should get an Aweber account, you sold it to them.

For example: On my Aweber review page I offer a bonus to whoever signs up from my affiliate link on that site. Almost 40% of the people who email me to claim the bonus swear that they clicked on my link and signed up – yet it doesn’t show in my affiliate earnings.

I have to ask them to contact Aweber and manually adjust the commission back to me, which most are willing to do. Without this sort of manual intervention, 40% of sales from that page, based on my effort and content, goes to someone else. Someone who “got the click first” but never actually “sold” the product.

The lesson: Check if the product you’re promoting works on a first-cookie or “last-cookie” basis. If it works on a first-cookie-gets-the-sale basis, you need to offer a bonus so that people who bought from your affiliate link will get back to you, and you can manually reverse the commissions into your account. It’s a little bit more effort, but it pays.

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So the word “ban” usually implies that I did something terribly wrong, right? Well actually, I really don’t understand exactly what I did, even till today. Let’s go back to that stupid anonymous email I got from Google AdWords:

Dear advertiser,

We are writing to let you know that your Google AdWords account has been disabled due to one or more serious violations of our advertising policies related to Landing Page and Site Quality.  As a result, your ads will no longer run through the Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in the future.  Please note that future accounts you open will also be disabled.

As part of our commitment to making the AdWords experience safe and effective for our users and our advertisers, we routinely review the landing pages that our advertisers promote through our search and content networks.  If we find that an advertiser has submitted a landing page that egregiously violates our policies, we reserve the right to take immediate account-level action.

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content, and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted. Further, advertising certain types of sites will lead to immediate account disabling.  These types of sites include, but are not limited to:

1. Sites that charge users or collect personal information in exchange for a product that is never delivered
2. Sites that charge for “free” software
3. Sites that trick users into paying for fake or poor-quality content
4. Sites that charge users for information that makes unrealistic promises of financial or personal gain
5. Sites that install malware software on a visitor’s computer

Please note that this action is related to sites that have recently been advertised through your account.  In a review of your account history, we found that your account had submitted a least one site that egregiously violated our advertising policies.  Although you may have removed these sites since our latest review, advertisers that have a history of promoting these types of sites are still subject to account-level disabling.

So that was it. After six bloody years using AdWords and trying to keep up with all their ever changing Terms and Conditions, and never getting ANY campaigned banned or slapped, I was just cut loose.

Banned for life. Email didn’t even contain my name.

The thing is, I wasn’t even promoting any affiliate stuff, just three of my own sites: Death of a Blogger, Host Commando and PLR WP Videos.

The “Death of a Blogger” site was getting a good 28% optin conversion from AdWords traffic. The PLR Videos site was getting a good overall sales conversion of 3%++ and it was very profitable too.

My ads were all getting good CTR, my landing page scores was between 7 to 10. I never got any ads disabled or any warning from Google previously, for six years.

So basically even though I wrote good ads and promoted stuff people wanted, with results to prove it, Google thinks otherwise.

Did I go against some of their terms and conditions? Well I don’t know because they are so vague and subjective.

And the worst part, they selectively applied their bans. Any product I was promoting when I got banned, you’ll still see a lot of people promoting similar ones via AdWords.

After trying to get in touch with a human being (with a name) and failing, I finally decided I’m done with AdWords. In fact I’m done with any Google product that required me to be in business with them. That’s why although I got approved for the Google Affiliate Network, I completely ignored it.

Won’t they just do the same thing to me later? Ban me for life, treat me like a rabid unwanted dog? All three responses I got from them were the same vague, canned answers that never really told me exactly what they found so offensive with my ads that they had to slap a lifetime ban.

Actually I’m not alone. Apparently more than 15,000 direct marketers got similar emails, all of them banned for life. If you’re not banned by AdWords yet, it’s probably just a matter of time.

Well, if Google prefers to treat human beings like machines with no human touch at all, sooner or later they will only be doing business with machines. Right now, I hate them.

Ok, rant is over. Life moves on. Screw Google.

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A lot of people have been making money with Google AdSense since well… the beginning of time. However around 2007 AdSense made a lot of changes to their program and their payout has been decreasing since. Maybe Google decided to keep more money for themselves, after all they never really let you know how much you’re supposed to be paid.

Watch the Google trend: http://www.google.com/trends?q=adsense 

Yes you can still make money from Google AdSense, but it’s definitely not as lucrative as it used to be. Yet strangely enough, it’s still one of the easiest ways to make your first few cents online. The problem is that it can stay at “just a few cents daily” if you’re not sure of what you’re doing, and it’s not going to make you a millionaire either.

I think you can make your own conclusions on this one. Is AdSense on it’s way out slowly, or do we need more time to judge?

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My Buzz profile is here: http://www.google.com/profiles/gobala

Add me… please? I beg you

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I am one of the four featured speakers, which include (left to right) Shuth from WangCyber, Irfan Khairi from RahsiaInternet and SmartZul from SmartUsaha. Malaysia Internet Summit also includes several expert panelists:

• Vince Tan – www.vincetan.com
• Sabri Saifulsham – www.saifulsham.com
• Ammar Zahar – www.ammarzahar.com
• Labanon – www.majalahim.com
• Amirol Zulkifli – www.mohdamirol.com
• And others..

This seminar is predominantly in Bahasa Melayu but some speakers and panelists will of course speak both English and BM. Here’s why I recommend that you attend Malaysia Internet Summit:

• At RM397 (amount changed and unformed at the moment) it’s one of the most affordable events in Malaysia
• You’ll meet some of the top Internet marketing minds in Malaysia
• You’ll get to network and get useful business contacts
• Of course, you’ll learn valuable marketing secrets

I strongly recommend that you grab your seats now to qualify for early bird pricing.

More info: Malaysia Internet Summit

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