Well it’s been quite a while since my last post, but that’s primarily because I’ve been concentrating on my other blog and haven’t really had the time to give Money Blogger the attention it deserves.

As a consequence, I’ve decided to put Money Blogger up for sale. With over 400 subscribers and an income of around $200 per month even when completely dormant, I’m sure that someone with the time to devote to it could make big money.

So if you’re interested in purchasing the site, please get in touch and make me an offer. If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll already know we’ve talked about how much a blog is worth on a number of occasions… but I am open to all serious offers!

I promised you some tips on getting the most out of Twitter, and here they are.

Twitter is a great tool for bloggers and can help with a wide range of blogging related issues, but if you want to get the most out of it, it’s important to use it well.

So, in no particular order, here’s a selection of Top Twitter Tips for bloggers:

• Jump right in and get involved. Twitter can be a little overwhelming if you’re new, but in order to get the most out of it, you need to participate actively. It’s very much a 2-way communication tool.
• Don’t be an idiot! It may seem obvious, but if you act like a jerk, it’s not going to help you promote your blog. Treat people with respect and build relationships, just as you would in real life.
• Use a dedicated Twitter client rather than the web site. It’s so much more convenient to have a small app running all day than to remember to visit the web site. Try Twhirl (cross platform) or Twitterific (Mac).
• Don’t think of Twitter as a micro-blogging tool, think of it more as IRC in slow motion. It’s more an extension of instant messaging than a blogging tool. Treat it like a 2-way conversation and ignore Twitter’s “What are you doing…?” line.

• Ask questions. Give advice. Participate in discussions. If what you have to say is too long for a tweet
• Don’t follow thousands of people and expect them to follow you back. They won’t. People tend to follow those who have something interesting to say, and it’s easy to spot uninteresting people. They are the ones following 10,000 people while only having 7 people following them.
• Try to find a balance between original tweets and replies. This is akin to engaging in discussions in the comments on your own blog. It shows interest in your followers and helps build community.
• Analyse what those around you are Twittering about. What’s interesting to you, what gets the most response, and what’s useful to your readers. Use this when trying to come up with new ideas for what to twitter about.
• It is possible to solely use Twitter to post automatic updates every time you post a blog entry. If you have a popular blog, this can be useful, but if you’re not using the Twitter account to participate in discussions, make it clear that this is an “updates only” account. A better solution is to use software like Twitterfeed to send new post notifications to your Twitter account, but to use the same account to actively participate in the Twitter community.
• Other sites like Twitter Karma and Twitter Local can help you find new people to follow, but be aware that these sites often ask for your Twitter username and password. Use them at your own risk.
• If the name you want on Twitter is taken, but isn’t currently in use, it’s worth checking with the Twitter team to see if you can get it anyway. If a name is inactive for 9 months and clearly not being used, they will sometimes free it up for you.
• Remember, that just because Twitter can do phone updates doesn’t mean you need to use them. If you switch this service on for all tweets, you could end up getting a lot of text messages! Personally, I have the service activated for direct (private) messages only. When combined with Twitter’s ability to send updates by text, this means I can communicate directly with my Twitter contacts when I’m out, even if I don’t have their number - and I don’t get inundated

That’s it. I hope you found some of that useful. I’d particularly like to thank @Pewari and @akaSylvia for their help compiling this list. Do feel free to add your own tips in the comments!

And of course, you’re welcome to follow me on Twitter too!

Subscribe to Money Blogger for more tips.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Wordpress 2.5.1 is out now.

According to the Wordpress blog, this update contains one important security fix and “over 70 other fixes”. Ouch.

Back at the start of the month when version 2.5 came out, I recommended holding off until at least 2.5.1 for precisely that reason.

I still don’t like the 2.5 admin interface, as it makes it more difficult to get many common tasks done, but if you do want to give it a go, 2.5.1. should be a bit more stable.

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Google has announced that it has rolled out its Ad Review Center feature to all Adsense accounts.

The Ad Review Center does exactly what the name suggests. It lets you review “placement targetted ads” - i.e. those ads that specifically target your site, rather than being contextual - and block those ads you don’t want appearing on your site.

I’ve had a chance to play with the new tool, and while it’s a welcome step in the right direction, it’s not particularly flexible.

For one thing, it doesn’t let you view ads by site. Instead, all targeted ads appear on one long page. You can filter by ad type (text, image, media, etc.), but that’s about the only control you get over the list. I can see that being an issue for people with a lot of sites and one annoying ad they want to find and block.

I’m quite sure we’ll see this feature improved and tweaked over time, and it’s a good start. Even if you’re not blocking ads, it can be a real eye opener to see which advertisers are directly targeting your site.

Personally, I’d really like to see a much more comprehensive tool that also allows you to block contextual ads, and lets you do so by keyword. One of the major issues I’ve always had with AdSense is poor targeting, and it would be incredibly useful to be able to block irrelevant ads to make space for better targeted ones.

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Over a year ago, I wrote a post on my personal blog entitled “Why Twitter Sucks“. The post was designed to both express my dislike of Twitter, but it was also a conscious effort to get to the top of the Google search results for the phrase “twitter sucks” - which it did quite quickly.

A year ago, I wrote this about Twitter:

“You see, unless all your friends are on twitter the noise-to-signal ratio on the site is enough to make you want to go out and pull the legs off kittens to relieve the boredom.”

But something has happened in the last month that has made me want to glue the legs back onto those kittens… I’ve started using Twitter. More to the point, my friends have started using it, and that has completely changed the dynamic.

In the last few weeks, everyone seems to have started using Twitter. And when people you are genuinely interested in start using it, then it becomes useful. Because people interested in what you have to say can find you. Top bloggers like Darren Rowse and Jeremy Schoemaker have started using it, both to keep in touch with contacts, but also to promote their blogs.

I predict 2008 will be the year Twitter becomes the new Facebook - simply because it’s the service everyone else is using. If you’re not on Twitter yet and want to get the most out of your network of friends, now’s the time to join - and don’t forget to follow me. Because I’m worth it.

Next week, I’ll have some top tips on getting the most from Twitter - without annoying everyone around you in the process.

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March was a quiet month, but that’s partly because I chose to invest my time (and advertising budget) in another project. My little experiment with affiliate marketing brought in $1,095 in total, so I think it was worth it.

Anyway, down to the stats:

Subscribers:
417

Revenue:
Text-Link-Ads: $105
AdSense: $55.98
AdToll: $7.06
Other affiiliate revenue: $15
Kontara: $0.50 (woo!)
(Total: $183.54)

Costs:
Advertising: $15

As with previous months, Text-Link-Ads is my biggest earner, both on Money Blogger and across all my sites. Nothing else has come close to the revenue and simplicity of TLA, so why not give it a try.

Subscribe to Money Blogger to see how I do next month.

If you’re a Wordpress user, you probably already know that version 2.5 was released a few days ago.

I upgraded one of my blogs yesterday and I have to say that I really don’t like it.

There are a couple of potentially great new features like multiple file uploads and galleries, but the biggest changes are in the look and feel of the back end interface.

Unfortunately, the developers seem to have confused “simple design” with “simple to use”. gone are the dark blue colours that clearly define different areas of the interface. Gone is the simple two-level tabbed navigation. In its place is an almost entirely white page, which makes it quite difficult to find the features you want at a glance.

I’ve posted a couple of times with the new interface and have found that doing simple things like quickly inserting images takes longer and involves more clicks.

Annoyingly, the “Save and Continue…” button on the post page has now gone entirely, in favour of automatic saving via Javascript. Unfortunately, this means you have to physically sit and wait until Wordpress decides to save your post before you can preview your latest changes.

I’ve also found several other minor bugs and annoyances - all of which are small, but add up to make Wordpress 2.5 a frustrating experience.

If you’re thinking of upgrading, I’d hold off until at least version 2.5.1. Hopefully some of the bugs will be fixed by then.

A few weeks ago I noticed that I’d started earning regular money through affiliate links on one of my other blogs - Chocablog.

After looking into it a bit further, the reason became obvious. Easter was approaching and people were looking to buy Easter eggs online. A lot of the pages on Chocablog have good rankings for chocolate related Google searches, so people were coming in from Google and clicking through to actually buy the chocolates.

I’m very careful not to push affiliate links on Chocablog too hard because I want the site to be fun and keep the reviews we post as honest as possible. The success of the affiliate links to “buy now” on the site was something of a pleasant surprise… so I decided to try taking it a little further.

I set up a small ad campaign on Google Adwords and sent the traffic directly to my affiliate links. I know most people recommend making landing pages, but I didn’t have the time or inclination to do that for this small experiment.

To my surprise, the campaign produced results within 24 hours, so I tweaked it, refined the targeting, increased my spend and set up a campaing on Yahoo too.

By Thursday (when I switched off the campaigns), I’d spent just over $100, but made £550 (about $1100) selling Easter Eggs.

I guess the moral of this story is not to be afraid to explore opportunities when they come up. Many professional bloggers make most of their income through other related activities, rather than directly from their blogs, and this is just one example. If you’re blogging about in a parcticular niche, the chances are you know as much about that subject as anyone, so it makes sense to use that knowledge to the full.

Subscribe to Money Blogger for more ideas like this.