I’d been trying to learn as much as I could (stalking the blogosphere) I supposed, but never having the courage to really start beyond setting up an account at WordPress.com. I still am not confident if I can get back to it, edit my content, etc….just paranoid…I might be putting out something I might regret later. But, I’m getting there. Everytime I come back to your sight, I get a little boost to get that blog rolling…soon I hope.

Thanks for the nuggets-of wisdom I pick up along the way. Even the responses here are really helpful, making me feel I’m not the only one drifting in the sea of ignorance…ha! ha!…at least without the arrogance. I hope I can anchor my ship any moment now. You are a beacon of light.

I’m hopeless…I can’t even get the feed to work, but I’ll be following you in your trip. Let me know if Philippines is in your list in the future.

I’ve just started monetizing my site with AdSense but I’m taking it slooowly. I believe that monetizing too soon could jeopardize some standing with search engines. Not only that - but schemes like AdSense depend on traffic. Unless you have decent traffic, you can’t really expect to make much money with this.

Another great Affiliate broker is Clickbank. It pays high commissions, and selling through them can be pretty lucrative. The only drawback is having to buy each product first - I won’t advertise anything I can’t stand by.

I used Google Analytics to monitor my stats but not to it’s full potential. There’s so much you can do with it but I’ve never sat down and learned. I don’t pay much attention to backlinks but I suppose I should. As for seeing what keywords people are using to find my site, I can do that with Analytics but check out http://www.103bees.com for more in-depth reporting.

Lee I’m afraid I’m not the person to ask since I really don’t know much about Wordpress. I’m pretty sure there’s a plug-in that makes adding Adsense really easy but I haven’t installed it because I don’t want Adsense on this site. None of my other sites use Wordpress so it’s just a matter of cutting and pasting the code and it works fine. Do a search for ‘Adsense Wordpress plugin’ or go over to the Wordpress forums and ask around. But I’m not sure Adsense allow gambling sites to participate so you might want to check that. Sorry I can’t help more… I’m still learning too. I’m trying to work out how to add a Google map to my site so take heart in the fact that you’re not the only one struggling with Wordpress.

Dave good job with the link sales. As far as approaching businesses directly I wonder if your site’s topic is too broad. The sites that have worked for me so far are extremely targeted. I’m not sure I’d be able to find sponsers for Travoholic.com (a site similar to yours in target audience) but I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble with my London site because it’s targeted to a lcoation and a specific audience. So if you don’t have much success at first, try narrowing your focus a bit or look to build some niche sites.

I’ve made the most from direct ad sales, and been lucky enough to have the advertisers approach me in those situations, which speaks to the value of having a clear (up front) way for people to contact you through your website(s).

I have only started to approach some companies about sponsoring my site before leaving on a RTW trip, however I’ve gotten no responses. I think I’m aiming too high.

Kirsty, further to you email I have began my quest to develop my own site. Before I can scratch the surface of what I want to do there is loads to learn. So, I’m posting again on my old pokerbackpacker.com site and using it to learn the basics, before I move on to (hopefully) better things.

I have basically fallen flat on my face at the first hurdle. As I have the blog up and running, I have jumped straight in at the monetising section while I continue to brainstorm my other ideas.

I’ve tried to the mot basic of things - add Adsense to my wordpress blog. I have got the code I need from Adsense, I just have no idea how to get it on my site. I have attempted the following 2 things:

1. I opened {view} {source} and pasted the html where I want it to appear. I save the file, but there is no change on the site. When I go back to notepad, the code i pasted and saved doesnt show up!? Someone mention uploading the file to my server, but I have no idea what that even is!!!

2. Pasting the adsense code into the wp-theme files. This is not even worth trying because for some reason I deleted all my theme files ages ago (bugger).

The main problem I think stems from the fact that a really helpful guy from the WN forums (Neale) helped me set this blog up. All I did was set up the wordpress account, chose a theme, and update the blog posts. He did the rest, even putting the Full Tilt poker banner on the blog.

If he can do this (i assume without even accessing the admin part of wordpress) how come I’m struggling.

Sorry, I am such a novice

What do you think, have you noticed any difference in how fast your sites rise in pagerank in relation to how much ad space is on them?

Supremely excellent article by the way, I’m gonna set up a link directory soon under webjourneyman.com. I’m going to have 5 chief directories: Making, Marketing, Maintaining, Monitoring and Monetising and I know just what articles I’m gonna link to first

Do you monitor the visitors to your site? Where they come from and/or what they read on your site? If they came from search engines, how do you see what words they used to search with? Do you monitor backlinks?

I’m not sure what maintenance would entail on a website since I barely have one, perhaps you can tell me. What are the routine (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) tasks that go with owning and operating a website?