If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll now I don’t believe any blogger will get rich from Adsense alone - not unless you’re getting thousands and thousands of visitors everyday anyway (and lets face it 95% of us aren’t). But it is a component to any blog monetization strategy that we should all take seriously.

I recently found a rather splendid little resource courtesy of our friends over at No Heat - the guide to tech that’s too cool - that should help you to better understand the money you earn from Adsense. Essentially No heat found this charting tool provided by Digital Point Solutions that allows you to upload your Adsense reports to be converted into line charts. This way you can better interpret the performance of your account, particularly useful once you start to include multiple Adsense channels and ad formats. Check out the example they provide:

So without further ado, get yourself over there and check it out. It’s completely free so everyone say a big thanks to Digital Point Solutions. Oh and No Heat, keep it up, as ever I realise each time I visit your blog that I don’t visit often enough.
PS if you get a bit lost, they have an FAQ page.

Not so long ago I started to find my post comments were getting targeted by spammers. This was nothing too disastrous at the time as I have the excellent Akismet plugin installed on all my blogs. So far Akismet has yet to let anything through, well at least not that I’ve noticed yet anyway.

However I was reading a tech blog recently (sorry blogger, I’ve lost your link) where the post described how blocking spam comments is not enough as spammers are not only filling your comments up with rubbish, but they also use up your bandwidth each month. This isn’t much of a problem for me at the minute as my hosting package covers my bandwidth with ample spare. However, I’ve recently started to see my traffic increasing substantially and with that so has the number of spam attempts. This still isn’t a major problem, but rather more of an annoyance.

The blog post mentioned another spam plugin, designed to work alongside Akismet (and others) that is supposed to stop the spammers from even accessing your site in the first place. The plugin is called Bad Behaviour and I pretty much installed it straight away. The only problem is, it doesn’t seem to have done anything for me. If anything the volume of spam comments has only increased. I’m interested to hear of anyone else who has used Bad Behaviour and found it worked, maybe I’ve got a few settings wrong..?

It’s not all doom and gloom though, I do take some solace in the names the spammers use in their comments. Some of the classics are:

Hermes, Grigoris, Draffiela, Prokopios, Theodosios, Arsenios, Agapios and my own personal favourite….. which came in yesterday…

Adolfo Crump.

Now who comes up with a name like that..? (apologies if you are an Adolfo Crump)

Happy blogging.

I found a fantastic quote recently about procrastination - you know, when you defer something until later, like making a decision..

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Theodore Roosevelt

Why is this important for internet or small business marketers? Because it emphasises the importance of taking action. Marketing requires a continuous drip feed approach to develop momentum, therefore making decisions and taking action regularly is very important.

The next time you put off a decision until tomorrow, just remember those wise words from Teddy.

A little while ago I wrote a post about how to write an effective online sales letter. I was talking about the benefits of a short vs a long sales letter and posed a question to Aurelius Tjin (of Unstoppable Marketing fame) which to my great pleasure he answered recently - check it out.

Aurelius is one of 3 Australians writing extremely high quality blogs that I consider essential reading for anyone wanting to get along in the internet marketing game. So in order to say thanks for the knowledge I’ve picked up from Aurelius and co, here’s a short review of each. I strongly recommend you check out their blogs and products.

Aurelius Tjin - The Unstopable Internet Marketing Blog

Aurelius is a blogger that just keeps on giving. I’ve taken huge amounts of inspiration from his work and I’m always impressed by the sheer volume of free and incredibly useful info he gives away. So much so that he’s even managed to convince me to buy a few of his more modestly priced information products - nice marketing there Aurelius.

I would suggest anyone looking to grow their online business add Aurelius to their feed reader. At the moment I see he is promoting a product on article marketing which looks pretty good (no affiliate scheme here so Aurelius, donations welcome via the ‘Buy me a coffee’ button…)

Darren Rowse - Problogger

Darren’s ProBlogger blog probably needs no introduction. If there is one blog every wannabe professional blogger should visit, it’s this one. Highly regarded in the blogosphere, Darren basically writes about making a living from blogging. He’s been at the game since 2002 (the very early days) although ProBlogger launched in 2004. Essentially he defines his blog as “dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium”. Nice work Darren.

I have to say the new video posts are really fantastic, what a great way to bring your blog to life. Check out Darren’s most recent video that gives you a tour of his office.

Yaro Starak - Entrepreneurs Journey

Yaro’s another long time blogger, writing primarily about his experiences online i.e. the Entrepreneurs Journey. I’ve recently come across Yaro’s paid for Blog Mastermind programme and his also a free report called the Blogging Blueprint which any aspiring professional blogger, either established or newbie would benefit from. I especially like Yaro’s ‘pillar content’ initiative. Check out Yaro’s writring and programme here. And you might also want to check out about the biggest hair in the blogosphere.

So there you go, three Aussie super bloggers. I’m sure there are many more noteworthy bloggers from the land of Kangaroos, exceptional sportsmen and boomerangs. If you know of any please add their details in the comments and I’ll check themn out.

In fact here’s an offer.

If you’re an Aussie blogger and feel you are really adding value to the blogosphere, drop me a line or post a comment. I will happily write a review and post it up using your keywords, after all, if you are adding value it’s only right you get some more traffic!