Hello All: We recently launched a new business article/resource site - International Revenue - http://www.internationalrevenue.com We are looking to attract writers and readers to the site and we would love to hear any creative thoughts the group may have on attracting those type of users. One thing that we just launched was a article writing contest - http://www.internationalrevenue.com/?page=articlecontest Any feedback or thoughts are welcome...
While the bright colors are definitely different than most business sites, the white text on darker background is extremely hard on the eyes, and I think it's going to hurt your ability to keep people there long enough to read an article, nonetheless get them wanting to come back. Maybe a paler blue with dark text would ease that. I'm also noticing a really big problem that's going to hit you if you want to get qualified business writers to submit something. Maybe I just missed it, but I don't see any kind of terms of service, what kind of rights you do or don't take when they post an article. You also don't seem to have anything letting readers/visitors know that the articles are protected in some way and they can't simply take them (unless that's your intent, in which case you have to have the writers agree to something formally to be able to do that). Jenn
Good one, i like the colors and stuff, it's flashy and in the same time it's professional. Develop your PR, some content and you will be getting good money. And GOOGLE is banning people that uses images near to ads.
Thanks for all of the feedback. On the Google banning, there are a ton of sites that have that. There are literally thousands... is it anywhere in their TOS? Any suggestions on content writers?
It's in there somewhere. The rule is that you have to have some kind of line or divider between the image and the ads I believe.
Interesting... I have read it three times and have not seen anything that mentions that. Any one else with thoughts on getting writers and readers?
I'm almost positive it falls under this section of the program policies: You're using images to draw undue attention to the ads for the purpose of increasing click-throughs. And Google has specifically 'asked' (as if not listening to Google is really an option) webmasters repeated to put a line, border, or some kind of divider between images and ads, especially when it looks to an average site visitor that the images could be a part of the ad - because it's deceptive to make them think clicking the link will bring them to a page dealing with what's in that image. Jenn
Thanks, Jenn. I had read that section but it did not specifically mention it. Like everything else with Google it is all kind of cloak and dagger. Like the section about not placing ads on pages meant for the purpose of just showing ads. There are a million pages on the web built just for this purpose.
Just don't do it, and get some kind of divider in there as soon as you can. Plenty of people have posted their messages specifically from Google telling them they have to add them. It's seriously not worth risking a ban in the future... just add a thin bar between them. It doesn't have to be a big, bright, glaring one.
I got such a message from google too even if I put the thick vertical line between images and ads. When other sites do it, it doesn't mean it complied with the rules. Google sounds like you CAN put images near ads but if you get invalid clicks from that, you will be banned.. simple
I think the fact is that if Google wants to ban you, they will just make up a reason. It really doesn't matter what you do or don't do.