Forum Moderators: phranque
End of Jannuary, I put AdSense on his existing web site.
eCPM far lower as at my sites, because the navigation is crowded with a mucht to large logo, much to large flags to change languages.
In my standard configuration, I use a 120x90 AdLink and 300x350 rectangle.
On his site, only place enough for 120x90 AdLink and a 234x60 half banner.
End of February the first throwback.
He said no new requests, I should remove AdSense.
I asked him, did the English version ever bring a contract.
Okay, I removed AdSense only from his German site, the English still running AdSense.
I persuaded him last Saturday to make a test with a new layout.
I tested with a clean straight forward layout and 120x90 AdLink and 300x250 rectangle.
Great improvement! eCPM is now in the average range of my own sites. CTR doubled.
I just wanted him to phone about the great success of my new design as I received an email from him caomplaning about my terrible bad layout.
there is even a guy there who discourages members from listening to my blabber about CTRs, eCPMs, ad placements etc and instead advocates buying MFAs. the sad thing is, since this guy came around, more members are actually reading and responding to his posts than to mine.
oh well... just let them be
it really gets so frustrating at times because they all seem to want the money but very-very few are willing to learn or work for it.
Amen, I know what you mean. Over the last 3 years I've been a member here, I tried to be nice and help people at WebmasterWorld, but it's useless. They want you to do it all, babysit them, give up hours and hours and hours to help them, and most are not thankful or get mad at you because they disagree when they don't "get it."
I'm surprised Jetterhoeller still is helping those people after his last thread on the subject.
it really gets so frustrating at times because they all seem to want the money but very-very few are willing to learn or work for it.
Aha! And I was moderated at WebmasterWorld recently for calling people lazy for not learning basic code!
I've given up up these days, so few are appreciative of what ones does.
I've visited several AdSense forums, and this is the best by miles; some of the others have to be seen to be believed - the clueless leading the clueless. I suspect there are many other new(ish) members sitting here quietly, reading and absorbing, and I'm sure that, like myself, they appreciate this forum as the valuable reference resource which it undoubtedly is - and that is thanks to the input from the more seasoned members. So thanks for your input, everybody, I assure you it is appreciated.
I often do website reviews for people and am blunt with my assessment of them, rarely do people take it all on board, (everyone has their little obsessions "but I LIKE flashing gifs and marquee script")
Still, I feel good for helping others (altruism is a myth) and I know others take on board what I say, even if its only a little. As well the more I help the more I learn and the better I can explain.
I would like WW to have a forum dedicated to "fix my site please" it really brings out the skills of the members, and makes a great learning curve for us all.
I know how Jettero feels, I have a friend I'm trying to help, but no metter what I tell him, he does it his way...
Remember, no good deed goes unpunished.
I tried to save someone once, had an opportunity to make from $40K-$100K making a few sales calls and write a few letters, good return on a recurring payment schedule, sign then up and you get paid until they quit.
Only needed to sign up 200 customers to get a recurring $60K revenue stream.
After 2 weeks of appearing very interested backed out and 2 years later still needs a job.
Ya know what?
I should care but I don't, gave it a shot, not wasting my time anymore.
They are still wondering why their AdSense cash cow went down the pan, and blame it on Google. Unfortunately this meant they were unable to pay the few good technical people they had and are now left with a bunch of what I call "Web 2.0 yes-men" (great for curvy borders in CSS and Javascripts for linking to the cool website of the day, useless when it comes to hard-core - or even soft-core - server-side stuff).
misery does indeed love company and bad news travels faster than good news
from time to time I have offered to give assistance to webmasters I knew i could help bigtime but they usually don't reply (even when asking for help) or just reply with doubts about your expertise
and then I buy lots and lots of domains --- and I've been doing it since 1999 and have a eye / ear for names --- but then you have to cull some of them --- i frequent a tiny name forum and offered my culls for free --- no takers --- and my culls are better than many sales in the aftermarket
reminds me of the time my bull terrier came up with puppies from a unknown source
i ran an ad in the paper trying to give them away for weeks and no calls or takers til and old man told me "Don't you know you can sell what you can't give away?"
i ran the same ad with a $30 each and the phone rang off the wall --- sold tham all within hours and could have sold many more. You should have seen the buyers - so appreciative to get those cheap puppies (and by this time they were nearly full size).
I can't decide more if Jettero is really trying to help this guy or just punish himself?
I know him since 1997. He works in a branch strongly affected by the economic situation in the German area. Many companies in this business area went bancrupt.
He is also the godfather of my older doughter and one of my first web design clients.
Without my web site, he would have been bancrupt since 5 years or so.
But he has always great ideas to ruin himself.
He rented 2004 an office for about 1000.-EUR a month. I told him work at home.
He told me about all the great events, he will perform in his new office every 2 weeks to get new customers.
1 year later, he had to give up the expensive office. 0 events performed.
But instead of working at home, he rented a smaller office one floor up for 500.-EUR a month.
I read regular a newsgroup from people in his profession. So I know much more over the overall situation in his profession than he knows.
Actual, he wears a ring of concrete as his lifebelt.
500.-EUR rent for office
75.-EUR to much for internet and telephon. I computed exactly his telephone bill. I told him to change telephone and internet provider to pay around 75 instead of 150 per month.
100.-EUR less taxes and social security to pay, if he would work at home and assign 30% of his appartment as business expenses
300.-EUR from AdSense, if his old web site would run in English and German with the new layout
With a 975.-EUR per month changed finance situation, concentrate to built up a new web site to earn around 750.-EUR per month from the new site in one year.
This was my plan to rescue his company
All what is left from my plan are around 150.-EUR from the english version of his old web site.
Unnecasary expenses for office, telephone bill make so much stress, that he has nearly no time to develop the new site.
I just wanted him to phone about the great success of my new design as I received an email from him caomplaning about my terrible bad layout.
Fair argument though. There's always a balance between branding a website and generating advertising revenue.
A succesful design for AdSense may not be his primary goal.
TJ
This was my plan to rescue his company
To be honest, some people won't appreciate what you do for them until they hit rock bottom and start dumpster diving for dinner or figure their own way out of their predicament.
Sounds like he's stressing you out so I'd divert my efforts back to my own work and wait until he snaps out of whatever denial he's currently in and recognizes your efforts for what they're worth.
That's my $0.02 and YMMV
Lots of snake oil out there and I think the best way to avoid losing customers is EDUCATE them, right up to the execs, give them a PROs and CONs of SEO sheet, preferabbly something from a 3rd party so they know you aren't just blowing smoke and I've seen a couple of good articles on the topic.
