An old motor bike helmet with the head of a tripod bolted on and hey presto, my DIY Headcam. And it works, here’s the first test –  

DIY Head Cam Test

And the first How To video

I’ll need to get a bit slicker but it’s something to work on.

I’ve been accepted for others but not done anything about it yet.  It’s time I had a serious think about the best way to proceed.  There are a few options.

1. Place the adverts carefully and leave them to it.

2. Design and write content to deliberately and shamelessly promote the advertisers.

3. Review various products, services giving an honest warts and all account of my experience.

Number 2 is not for me and not the impression I want folks to get from iDoStuff.  When I’m surfing for info I come across these kind of sites and immediately click off.

If I’m writing about something its going to be about my experience or based on my in depth research. I do have standards you know!

That leaves 1 and 3.  So suppliers and products I know, I’ll write about.  If I mention others it will in the context of,  ”These might be worth a look at”.

This doesn’t seem like much but if I achieve this it’ll add up to £520 in a year. It’s also an incremental target, an additional £10 per month. Adding up to £3376 per year. Subsequent years this effort will add up to – £6240 for very little additional input.

I feel it should be a realistic target although I’m sure it’s not going to easy.  I need traffic and I need good clicks. To achieve this I’ve got to put effort and time in to three areas.

1. Traffic for AdWords revenue - I need good quality content and links to it from good relevant sites. With quality content, not selling anything in particular, sites and forums tend to be willing to carry links. It’s very involving and time consuming on forums but informative. I keep getting ideas for content from the questions folks ask.

To get sites interested it a bit hit and miss so far – More work to do on this side. 

I also need to look into the world of feeds and ways of encouraging links to be passed on.

2. Content for AdWords revenue - More writing but making sure it will attract good high paying ads. These adwords need to be relevant to subject and the readers.  Before I go in to any subject in depth I’ll be looking in to what adverts and interest potential there is.

3. Format for AdWords revenue – Although I’ve done some work on this I’m sure I could do better. I might be overloading the pages at the moment. It’s hard to tell with the traffic I’ve got but as the traffic builds I’ll be able to see which placements and styles work best.

At moment half way through January 2010 I’m averaging  £6.22 .  I’ll see how I do.

With some Traffic I should eventually get some Clicks on the AdWords BIG BUT…The Adverts that AdWords is putting up don’t relate directly to the content. So they are not relevant and won’t get clicks.

The content is about “Buying Timber” <view it here> so I thought I’d get adverts from timber suppliers. I’m getting more for timber windows and joinery companies.  I needed to figure out how the AdWords are targeted.

But first, I did a check to see if there are any relevant advertisers out there. I did some searching directly on Google and found there are a few.  These are the few I want to get next to my content.

So how does Google decide which adverts to put up?

It’s keyword based, with some kind of adjustment for the the value of adverts. By this I mean, if  Google and myself can make more per click using a less frequent Keyword, then that advert will come up first.

To try and get the right AdWords up I’ve done two things.

1.   Used Section Targeting

I’m getting adverts for timber windows. This must be been picked up from a navigation link to my Sliding Sash  Window Blog. I’ve now used section targeting so the AdWords robot will put more weight on the intended page content.

To do this Ive added the following to my page template in the HTML code (to modify all the pages)

<!– google_ad_section_start –>     This placed before the text

<!– google_ad_section_end –>    This is placed after the text

There is another command that can be used.

<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>  I might add this in as well before the navigation menu

I also need to see if  I know need to but the start and end around the meta data in the header. To get that looked at.

2.  Tweaking Content

I’ve gone through the content and attempted to increase the Key-Word density. Concentrating on “Timber Merchant”.  This is tricky as I want the text to get clunky, to has to easily readable.

The crawler robots put more emphasis on Headings, bold text and italics. I’m going to have another sweep through and see what difference it makes.

So far there has been a slight improvement in the advert relevance but it’s not good enough yet. Google states it can take up to two weeks for the Section Targeting to take effect.  In the mean time I’ll keep tweaking but I’m going to need patience.

So, maybe a beginner at woodworking  will be looking for a supplier of tools and equipment. I have to find the right suppliers with the right offers and advertise them alongside my content.

To this end I’ve been looking at various Affiliate networks and I’ve signed up to a couple.

Note of Caution: The terms and conditions need a good read through. I spotted a point about an inactivity charge. If the adverts don’t work then after six months I’ll have to start paying the affiliate network a monthly charge.

However I have total confidence that this will work out well. There’s no point bothering otherwise. It gives me a stick as well as a carrot to make sure it works.

I’ll be doing some more research, picking some affiliate programs and adding them in.  With careful monitoring and adjustments planned I’ll be learning a lot as I proceed.

So far I’ve got a two pronged strategy.

First – Organic “Google” search traffic. I’ve read up about optimising pages to improve search.  I’ve done a bit of that. Including:

• Giving the pages individual titles.
• I’ve still got to add tags in to meta data. 
• The Site-map has been and submitted to Google Webmaster
• The text is written with consideration to possible Keywords
• There’s a few inbound links already in place

Second – I’ll be changing my profiles on forums and spending some time chipping into threads when I’ve got something useful to contribute. I’m going to be looking for like minded folks where we share common interests and could share links. 

I’ve yet to get my head round feeds, twitter, facebook etc. but I’ll be getting around to it.

It might seem like a simple thing to do, I dare say it is now I know how to do it. Getting to that stage however involves getting to grips with the very basics of CSS scripting.

There’s a million and one tutorials out there but non I can find address the needs of novice like me. I think they are mostly written by experts who assume your vocabulary is the same as theirs.  I found my self skipping around having to research particular words used in different contexts.

If I can remember what its like for a beginner when I’m an expert. I should have a go at a tutorial.

In the mean time I’ll just jot down how I got the adwords to be positioned correctly.

I had a  problem positioning  the Adwords banner it in the header.  

I eventually defined a new “div” (that’s a division or as I like to think of it a “box”) this is done on the CSS style sheet. Using the code:

#header_ad1 {
 background-color: #99F;
 height: 60px;
 width: 468px;
 position: absolute;
 top: 15px;
 right: 0px;

The HTML page then calls the division up with the code:

<div id=”header_ad1″>_______</div>

And then I put the Adwords in the “box”  (where the line is)

Simple really!  After 4 hr’s research. 

Dream weaver can automate the code creation and addition to CSS Style sheet.  Making the right choices is a mystery though, unless you know what its actually doing.

Well, widget ready seems to mean widgets can be added to the side bar using a simple click and drag interface.  If it’s not “Widget Ready” widgets can still be added by adding code to the .PHP files.  The theme I’m using isn’t widget ready so, for now, I’ll leave the subject of widgets. When I’ve delved in to the .PHP I’ll come back to it.

AdWord Ready   - The theme I’ve got has AdWords already displayed. Always on the lefthand sidebar, on single posts there’s a box in actual text, on the home page there’s a “Link Unit” etc.  AdWords came up as soon as I activated the theme.

Something to change straight away. The AdSense Publisher ID used is the theme designers so any revenue will go straight to the designer not myself.  

A quick look at how the AdWords are included -

1. Each AdWords position in the blog has its own .PHP file . These files includes the code that AdSense generates when you create an advert. For more about the code check out Google AdSense.  Note: AdWords is for advertisers, AdSense is for Publishers.
2. PHP section files call up the AdSense PHP File
3. The PHP page files then calls up the PHP section – you then have a page with AdWords displayed.

The AdWords are mentioned in the CSS stylesheet but only with the instruction to add a margin at the bottom.

For me to have my own AdSense adverts with revenue coming to me, I had two options.

1.  Just change the Publisher ID code in the AdSense .PHP files. The Adword format would not change but the revenue would come to me.

2. Create new adverts through AdSense to match my revised theme. The procedure in AdSense generates a few lines of code that can be copied and pasted in to the relevant AdSense .PHP  files.

I went for the second option and soon had it sorted. I just had to make sure the new Adverts where the same size as the old ones.

Now I’m at a stage where I’m happy, for now, with the look and function of the blog.  It’s time to get a few pages sorted on the Web Site.

I downloaded a theme that was close to what I need and dived in to the CSS to make the changes.  The CSS only changes the size and appearance of the various elements. To have full control over what actually ends up on the screen will take changes to the .php files.

I should point out that Ive been working on it “live” with no back-ups or safety measures in place. This means if I cock-up I’ll be stuffed. The only precaution I’m taking is to just modify one line in the CSS at a time.

To explain what I’ve done so far an image will be useful. So here it is (first image post)

he he – that’s worked

So this what I’ve done, remember all the changes I’ve made are in stylesheet.css.  This is accessed from the dashboard – Appearance – Editor.

1. Change the Header Background. The Header section of the stylesheet calls up a graphic. The Graphics are located in an image sub directory of the  theme. Using the CPanel file manger I downloaded and then modified it in photoshop. After up-loading the new graphic (just plain white), the revision shows up when the blog is viewed.
2. The Head text was now white and therefore invisible. To change this I had to find where the colour is specified in the stylesheet and change the Hexidecimal colour reference to black. It took some locating the right “Header H1″ reference but after some trial and error I cracked it.  For more on the hex codes I found the Wikipedia Web Colors article useful.
3. In in similar why to changing the Header Graphic, I changed the background to the main body. This graphic repeats down the page to give the two coloured columns. You can see on the Graphic above, It doesn’t quite match the text column widths, a later adjustment sorted this out.
4. In the Sidebar section of the stylesheet I eventually found the right colour reference to change the text to white.
5. Adjusting the column widths was tricky as the positioning of them relates to each other.  This again took me much trial and error.  I eventually cracked it when I realised the Sidebars are defined initially as the same size but  this is overridden further down the stylesheet with specifications for ”sidebar left and side bar right”. It took some tweaking to get the Left side bar a tighter fit for the AdWord size.
6. Padding and Margins needed looking at to get the text sitting well in the columns. Something it took some research to get my head round. PADDING – is space on the inside, just like traditional margins on a sheet of paper, MARGIN- is space on the outside, like a picture frame around a painting.  E’ it’s a Topsy turvy world.

By this time I was coming to the conclusion that the CSS Stylesheet for the free theme I had downloaded was very messy. I’m sure it could be tidied up and simplified.

My advise on this would be – “Find a well coded theme to start learning on”

However I’ve got it looking close to what I’m after and no doubt I’ll tweak it more some other time. Or I might even start again using my advise from above.

What’s a Theme? The theme defines how the blog looks, its the page design that then calls up the content from the entries made in the database.  That’s the first bit I had to learn.

There’s more than one page design. The actual number of page types can vary according to the theme. Each page is made up from sections (or areas) that are called up. e.g. Header, content, comments, side bar, footer. The pages and sections of pages are defined in .php files

Each section (or area) is made up with some common elements e.g. Text styles, colours. These elements are defined in Style Sheets. The style sheets are .css files

So to change the overall look – I need to start at the lowest level and work my way up

1. .css stylesheets, will change appearances all the way up
2. .php sections, will change the content of sections (or areas)
3. .php templates (pages), will change how the .php sections are put together to make a page

So it looks like I’ve got to get a good grasp of CSS and PHP. This is not going to be easy!

There are however, alternatives

1. There are loads of free themes available to download
2. There are themes available to purchase
3. There are designers out there who will put a bespoke theme together

I had a look at some of the free themes, they are easy to download as zip file then open up through the Wordpress dashboard.  Of the five I’ve looked at two came up with errors, when it’s free you take your chance. There is one I quite like that says it’s optimised for SEO and AdWords. 

Before I look at buying or commissioning a theme I’m going to have play at customising this. Two goals in mind, getting the right look for my blog and learning some of the programming involved.

Before I dive into it using the theme editor on Wordpress I’ll investigate what off-line options are available.

Update:  I’ve had a good look round and found a few options.

Highly Recomended – www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/ This is free on-line generator . I really wish I had found this a few days ago. In fact I might give it ago as the code for Theme I’m working on seems to be all over the place.

www.artisteer.com Downloadable 1month free trial software

www.themedreamer.com This is plugin for Dreamweaver so Themes can be worked on easily with WYSIWIG.