Running your own ad server can open up a lot of possibilities when it comes to delivering ads on your blog or across multiple blogs. If your looking to centralize management of your ads, create a unique offering, cut down on ad blindness, then running an ad server is the way to go.

An easy ad server to install and operate is OpenAds, formally known as PHPAdsNew. The software is freely available and most unix based hosting services offer it as part of their administrative control panel.

Installing the software is pretty straight forward. However, getting a handle on how to load up advertisers, create advertising zones for your blog, and then map ad inventory up to ad zones can be a little bit of a learning curve.

Fortunately, the software comes with a good bit of documentation. It’s entirely possible to install the ad server and get it setup without any prior knowledge of how it works. However, if you can find the talent, I recommend hiring the initial setup out to someone who knows how to do it and then copy what they’ve done.

There are a few draw backs to running your own ad server though, like concerns about server up time and on-going software maintenance. If you don’t want to be concerned about maintaining software updates, or keeping servers online, then an alternative solution is Google’s Ad Manager.

Google provides an ad server that’s very similar in concept to OpenAds called Google Ad Manager. The service is extremely simple to use and it comes with Google style tutorials to help walk you through the getting started process.

Because the service is provided by Google, you shouldn’t have to worry about software or servers and you get reporting on click-thru rates.

I’m still using OpenAds, but I have created an account with Google Ad Manager and I plan to try it out on a few websites to see how I like it. For now, I can tell you that it is easy to navigate and understand. Having the OpenAds experience under my belt has helped me, but I honestly believe that you can setup and account and get started without any prior knowledge.

The main reason you might want to try the Google Ad Manager on is because you won’t have install or maintain any extra hardware or software and if you don’t like the service or you discover you have special requirements, then you can always transition off of it later.

Streamlining,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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Recently I came across yet another spam blog trackback in my moderated blog comments. I’ve tried to ignore these as they’ve continued to increase. But enough is enough and now I’m looking at ways to simplify the abuse reporting process.

There are two simple steps you can take to hit a splogger where it hurts. You can report them to their web hosting provider, and you can report them to Google.

The host will most likely suspend the splogger’s account until they remove the content or they may terminate their account entirely. For the most part, this is simply a short term deterrent because they can always re-establish their site with a new hosting company. But it gets the point across.

In most cases Google AdSense is used on spam blogs. If you report AdSense policy violations to Google they will suspend the splogger’s AdSense account.

Which approach you take is entirely up to you. In my opinion, having someone’s hosting account suspended is a lot less aggressive than having their AdSense account suspended. You might want to assess the degree of the offense before you decide which approach is best.

If the spam blog was their first attempt at experimenting with the idea of generating revenue then at least they can take the hosting suspension as a lesson and decide to move on to something more productive.

However, if you hit them at the AdSense level then they’ll be affected on a broader scale because it could get their whole AdSense account banned. To me this is much more aggressive and it depends on the situation to determine which route you may want to go.

If you want to take both routes then I recommend reporting the site to Google first, wait for their ads to come down and then report them to their host and get the entire site taken down.

To me this is the full meal deal of fighting sploggers, but just keep in mind that it’s going to take your own valuable time to step through the process and depending on the number of spam trackbacks you get, it might take more time than it’s worth.

That said, I recommend you use a combination of form letters and software to cut down on the time spent in the communication process.

Here is a simple email template that I used recently to request that a host remove my original content from a splogger site:

- - -
A website on your server is stealing my blog content. This site is scrapping my original content for their spam blog.

[Insert Offending Spam Blog URL Here]

Please have them remove the content from their site. The original content can be found here if you need to verify ownership.

[Insert Your Original Content URL Here]

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
- - -

This simple email received an immediate response and the host took the website down immediately. The communication does not have to be complicated or lengthy. Hosts and Google know what’s going on and all you have to do is provide them with the basic details and they will follow their own processes to handle the problem quickly.

I’m currently using this form letter along with macro software that lets me assign short cuts to just about anything. I assigned a short cut to this form letter and when I type in a key phrase the letter appears and I complete the url sections and send it off to be handled. Overall the process takes under thirty seconds and I’m done.

If you’re using a PC, I recommend using a text macro tool like PhraseExpress. It’s inexpensive and you can use it to create macros for starting applications, pasting blocks or text, form letters, website addresses, you name it. If you use a Mac, then I recommend TextExpander. It’s basically the same type of application, but it’s made for the Mac OS. I use TextExpander for email signatures, social networking greetings, support responses, blogging code snippets, and now splogger form letters.

Combine the form letter with either one of these macro tools and you’ll be able to gain an edge on spam bloggers and protect yourself from content theft.

What tools do you use?

Splog smashing,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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At the March WordCamp Dallas 2008 conference I was introduced to a new analytics package from Layered Technologies called Woopra. The tool offers realtime stats tracking and historical reporting of visitor traffic on your blog or website.

Currently Woopra is in beta and usage is by invitation only. But, fortunately as an attendee of WordCamp, I received an invitation and have the privilege of getting to use Woopra before the general public.

So I thought I’d give you an inside look so you can be ready when they finally open things up.

Woopra departs from the standard linear analytics reporting that you currently get most of the shelf analytic tools by putting all the information you care about in one executive dashboard.

Realtime stats are displayed as they happen and additional analytic reports can be created from historical data. It’s possible to jump from keyword searches to top referring sites and actually get a sense of how they relate.

Installing Woopra was simple. If you’ve ever pasted a line of code into your website or uploaded a plugin to your WordPress blog, then you can install Woopra in a matter of minutes.

Here are the steps I took to get it installed as well as some screen shots of Woopra in action. I’ll try to include a video later to give you a walk through of how the software works.

After creating an account on the Woopra website, I added my blog. The Woopra site then provided me with a site ID and a WordPress plugin. I downloaded Woopra’s WordPress plugin, installed it on my blog, activated it, and then entered my site ID in the plugin settings.

Once that was done, Woopra began collecting stats about my visitor traffic, much like Google Analytics or StatCounter would do.

The next step was to install the desktop client so that I could see realtime stats.

The Woopra site has reporting in the browser, but it’s not realtime unless you want to click the refresh button on your browser every five seconds.

Having access to statistics from the Woopra website is a nice option if you’re away from your desktop client, but it’s not as much fun as the desktop version.

There is a Windows version of the desktop client and Mac version. Both require Java to be installed on the system before you can install Woopra.

Since I use a MacBook so I downloaded the OSX client installer from Woopra and the Java 1.6 Runtime from Apple.

After installing Java 1.6 I found that I couldn’t install Woopra because, I still needed to change the Java preferences on the Mac. Once I did that I installed Woopra without issues.

Once the desktop client was running, I logged in just as I would have on the Woopra website and the client instantly began giving me statistics on my visitor traffic.

I was able to see when someone entered my site, what pages they visited, how long they were there, where they came from, what keywords they used to find my blog, and a whole range of other information all without changing a single screen.

It was absolutely amazing! I had never seen anything close to this before. As people came and went on my blog, I could see all my important stats in one place like some sort of rocket powered Wall Street stock ticker.

If you’ve used Google Analytics, you know how much of an improvement it is over some of the other solutions for web analytics.

But, you also know that your stats are delayed by a day because Google doesn’t report your number realtime. You also know that you still have to dig for important information.

Even though Google lets you build your own dashboard, it’s really still very linear information because you have to drill down two or three pages to get to the information you want and you don’t really have a side by side comparison of information to get any real sense of what the information means.

Woopra changes all that by giving you realtime stats, historical reporting, and side by side data comparisons. I promise I’ll show you all of this in upcoming articles and videos. Screen shots are nice, but seeing Woopra in action really demonstrates the power of the tool.

Up until this point, the information has been very hard to extract from log files, and off the shelf analytics software. I can’t wait till Woopra goes live. It’s the only analytics service I’ve seen that I would want to pay for.

What about you? What analytics software are you using? Could you gain a competitive edge from realtime statistics?

Amazed,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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If you are trying to decide which eBook cover program to buy or you need a program that makes retail box images for you then save your money because here is a free resource that does the same thing as those expensive photoshop addons.

I don’t remember how I found it but the site is called 3d-pack.com and it is an online box generator that can make an ebook cover, cd box, dvd box, and a 3D dvd box. The 3D box is still in beta, but then just about everything is labeled beta these days.

The final result from this site is pretty good. It might take you a little bit of “tweaking” to get the exact look and feel that you want. But I have used the paid for photoshop templates before and they require some trial and error as well. So for the price tag of zero dollars, it’s not a bad deal.

If you are still interested in using a professional grade tool then consider using the one I use to create ebook covers. It is simple to use and it comes with complete tutorials to show you how to use everything. The package includes the ability to make ezine covers, ebook covers, vhs tapes, membership cards, report covers, gift boxes, box sets which is good for different types of sites.

I know some people think these things are cheezy or that they may have been over used, but when used properly they can add an attractive element to the page and give the buyer at a sense that there is something tangible behind the buy now button.

So there you go. Two very useful tools on a Friday night.

Bargain hunting,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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Here are two extremely useful tools that I am using in 2008 to help manage the information and media content I am producing and consuming.

Anarchy Media Player - for adding video to your WordPress blog posts. This WordPress plug-in is extremely easy to install and use. I just uploaded the player folder to my WordPress plug-in folder and activated it. Now when I link to a video the player is automatically inserted for me when the blog post is viewed. I can control the styling and placement and I don’t have to hassle with the code

“Anarchy Media Player 2.0 for WordPress, WordPressMu and Standalone Javascript will play any simple href link to mp3, flv, Quicktime mov, mp4, m4v, m4a, m4b, 3gp as well as Windows wmv, avi and asf files, in the appropriate player on your web page. The WordPress versions also add buttons to the Rich Text Editor for embedding Flash swf and Director dcr movies as well as YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, DailyMotion, Revver, Metacafe, MySpace, Apple iTunes iMix, and GoEar players.”

SendMeRSS.com - for keeping up with your most important sources of information. I use this RSS to Email service to put important blog feeds in my email.

I know there are other ways of doing this same thing with feedblitz, feedburner, etc, but SendMeRSS works on any feed so you can pull all your feeds into something like Google Reader and then only get email updates when there are new items added to that feed. Or, you can use it to watch affiliate program notices, spy on competitors, you name it.

To keep things focused I am only using it on feeds I really want to hear from and not just the ones I am “following” in my feed reader. It helps me stay on top of new information without the information overload.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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