Publish Your Own eZine Without A Website

Publishing an ezine just got easier with the invention of blogs. Now ezine publishers can easily post past issues of the ezine on a blog and do not have to maintain a website for that purpose.

Publishing an eZine without a website is certainly possible since you really only need to be able to send your newsletter to your readers using email. However, most publishers like to post the past issues of the newsletters and this is usually done on a website. Also, in text email you cannot embed AdSense ads and other revenue generating items. In the HTML format of the website you are able to do this to develop some potential for revenue.

Also, the website gives you a location where you can post a form for new subscribers to complete for entry into your database. Having a web site is definitely an advantage in publishing an eZine, but it is not absolutely necessary.

A new concept that has recently developed is to use a blog to post past issues of the newsletters so people can read them in HTML format.

Let’s discuss a blog and blogging. Blog is short for web log. It is an online journal or newsletter that is published by someone on the Internet for public reading.

The largest blog site on the Internet is www.blogger.com. This site started in 1999 and was purchased by Google in 2002. The site on the Internet that keeps statistics on the traffic for every site on the Internet is called www.alexa.com. www.blogger.com always ranked very high on Alexa since it is so popular and has so much traffic.

Traffic to your site is the major factor for the success or failure of your site. Your site’s position on Google or Yahoo search engines for your key words will make or break you. Having your newsletter on Blogger helps since the Google spiders check the blogs quickly when new information is posted. This will give you much quicker exposure to the search engines than posting your newsletters to your own website.

Boomer eZine made a decision to continue to post copies of the newsletter on both the Boomer eZine web site and also on the Boomer eZine blog on http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.

There are some great advantages of using a blog for the archives of your eZine:

1. It is free.
2. You do not have to worry about setting up a website.
3. Publishing on a blog is very quick and easy.
4. You can include AdSense or affiliate advertising on your blog to generate revenue.
5. Setting up AdSense ads on Blogger is much easier than setting them up on your own website.
6. Readers can leave comments about your issues and interact with you.
7. Search engines see your new content faster than on your own website.

Since AdSense is such an important part of this program, I recommend that you join it first and then set up your blog.

AdSense is a Google program that you set up on your web pages. It reads the content of the page and automatically places ads on the page that match the page’s theme or content. When a reader clicks on an AdSense ad on your page and makes a purchase, you receive a commission on the sale. All you have to do is allow the AdSense program on your pages and Google does the rest. It is an ingenious system and one that has revolutionized advertising on the Internet. If you are not already a member of AdSense, you can join it at https://www.google.com/adsense.

Once you have set up your account, go to www.blogger.com and follow the three easy steps on the page. Once you open an account, you will name your blog, and then choose a template. There are several templates to choose from which is the hardest part of the set up. Don’t get too concerned about the template since you can change it whenever you want to.

Now you can set up the blog for your eZine. (You can have multiple blogs in your account). However, I would recommend that you create a blog about your thoughts and experiences while you are planning your eZine launch and make daily entries in that blog. This will give you experience on how to maintain a blog. I think you will have fun doing it. Just remember that the world sees your information in the blog so don’t give away any confidential information about your new eZine.

Affiliate Alternatives - Google Adsense Program

Google Adsense is an alternative to affiliate programs for webmasters to make money online. This article tells you more about Google Adsense and how to use Google Adsense to make money.

Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort.

However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs.

Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engine's clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue.

An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.

A Healthy Alternative or Supplement Google's Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results.

This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Google's spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the website's content. While the Google's Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.

The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage.

If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral. The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity.

A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the website's color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.

The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don't fit well into the overall website design. sample modified to match sites color scheme: http://www.hospital-software.com (scroll to the bottom)

Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors. sample of poorly targeted ads: http://www.real-estate-supply.com

Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless. sample of effective Adsense program: http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom) http://www.small-business-software.net (scroll to the bottom)

Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems.as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has not implemented any way to track multiple sites that serve ads (changed recently); they simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day.

Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click.

Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.

With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser. Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on the website.

Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website. Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs don't exist that target the sites content.

Give it a Try Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters.

Consider supplementing content and see what happens.