Ask Salomon

For those of you who don’t know what a Google Custom Search is or how to implement it on your blog keep reading.

I’ve inserted a Google Custom Search engine on Ask Salomon a will share the process with you.

Example of an Integrated Google Custom Search Engine

Currently I’m using a Google Custom Search Engine and you can see it on the top right hand corner of Ask Salomon.

Making a search will bring you to my Search Results page.
Here is an example of a search for “Adwords”. As you can see, the result is delivered to the visitors below the Adsense ads.
To change where your adsense ads will appear. The choices are “top” , “bottom” , “top+bottom” . You’ll read more about that below.

Set up a Google Custom Search on a Wordpress blog

1. Create a New Page

This is the page where the results of the search queries will be displayed. As you can see in in the image, I’ve called my new page “Search Results” . After you have created your page, copy its url somewhere (maybe a notepad file) for later use.

2. Create Your Google Custom Search Engine

Visit the Google Custom Search Engine homepage and click on the “Create a Custom Search Engine” tab.

Give your Search Engine a name. I named mine AskSalomon Search Engine
Enter a description. I named mine Search Engine for AskSalomon
Enter your keywords. Just to play a little I entered “contest, money, blog, webmaster”
Select “Only Sites I Select”. This is very important unless you want to achieve something else, but that’s another tutorial

Sites to search: I entered ” www.asksalomon.com/* ” , so it can cover the blog completely.
Select “Select Standard Edition”
Read the Terms of Service and agree.
Click Next

Now is the time for testing the search engine you just created. I entered “contest money” as a search string.

3. Look and Feel for Your Search Engine

Now click on the “Look and Feel” link on top of the control panel.
Choose the colors according to your pages design.

Customize your Search Results page.

4. Set up Adsense for Search

Click on the “Make Money” link on top.
Select ” I already have an Adsense Account” .
Enter your e-mail zip code, phone and location.

Now your custom search engine is connected to your Adsense account, so it’s time to create a custom channel. I’ve used “Ask Salomon Custom Search” as my channel name, so I can easily track the performance of my custom search engine from my Adsense Dashboard.

5. Insert the Code on Your Blog

Click on the “Code” Link on top on the control panel.
Select iframe.
Do not select Overlay. If you do you will not be able to run ads in your page results.
Remember that url you saved in step one? Now is the time to use it, so paste it on the field below.
Decide where you want your ads to show. I selected “Top and Bottom”.

Time to copy the first code and paste it where you want your search box to appear. In my case I pasted on the sidebar. After that, copy the second code and keep reading ….

Now open the page “Search Results” you created in step one.
Paste the code and Save the page.

That’s it! You have a Google Custom Search Engine in your blog.

Adios

Copyright © 2008 Ask Salomon

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Our Friends from the BevyHost Forum just started a Contest that will pay $30 to the Contest winner.

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Webmaster Tutorial Contest
Written by BevyHost Forum Admin: 

We are going to start a series of contests and want to make the first one about Webmaster Tutorials.

Here is the deal.
The best Webmaster Tutorial written and submitted to our forum within the next 7 days wins $30.

Requirements
The Tutorials must be Unique. We will check for duplicates and take legal actions against copyright infringement.
The Tutorials must be posted not later than the 24th of February.
The tutorials must be relevant to the categories listed on this forum.
The tutorials must be submitted to the correct category of the forum.
Do not forget to post a link to your post/tutorial on this thread, so we can all read and enjoy it. You won’t win unless we read your post

Please submit your tutorials with:
Title
Website link (Link to your website!!!!) (Optional)

Choosing the Winner:
We will pick out the top 5 tutorials and put a poll on this thread.
The winner of the poll will be the winner of the contest and will receive the $30 by PayPal.

Extra Notes:
There is not limit to the quantity of tutorials you can submit.
We will not accept more tutorials for this contest after the 24th of February at 11:00pm (GTM +1).
The 25th of February we will make a poll on this thread with the 5 top tutorials.
The tutorial leading the poll by the 29th of February at 11:00pm (GTM +1) will also be the winner of the contest and will receive $30 transferred by PayPal on the 1st of March.

Go on and start writing!, you know you want to…

Good Luck Everyone
BevyHost

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So guys, stop complaining about your lack of money and post your Tutorials in the BevyHost Forum. Those $30 may be yours in a few days

Adios

Copyright © 2008 Ask Salomon

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Using feeds is very important if you own a blog or a podcast. A feed is basically a way for people to read or hear what you have to say faster through their home computer. It is basically a way for readers to easily know when you updated something in your blog. So a feed is a great way to keep in touch with your readers and hopefully in the future they will purchase goods from you. Through simple communication you can be in touch with your readers. Marketing really depends on the communication that takes place with the marketer and client. If you have bad communication, it will look bad in the eyes of the potential client. You want that person to feel more comfortable about knowing that the person that they are buying from is a good seller.

So how exactly do you create a feed that your readers will enjoy?
First you must choose a service that will create a feed for you. I personally prefer Feedburner over all other services that offer feeds. Their service is real good for marketers and have many options that you can choose to customize your feed. All it takes to run a Feedburner feed is an email address and a blog that is currently running. After you do all that the process is a lot easier. The feed automatically updates when you create a new post in your blog without you having to do it manually. So you can save lots of time compared to other services. You also have options to place adsense advertising in your feeds so you could be making some extra dollars that way. There are many different ways to make your feed more successful just by following a few tips. I’ll write about that later

There are some feed owners that pay no attention to their feeds and most of them stop caring about them as the time passes. Those owners probably don’t know that the reader will see that the website owner does not care about giving them the best feed and they will react negatively. So that is why I recommend that you try to keep your feeds up to date at all times and to not keep them sitting, because your readers will see that. You also need to let your current readers know that you have a feed on your blog by using one of the many widgets that feedburner has available for you to promote your feed.

I hope this post gives you some motivation to fine tune your feeds for your readers. You can see my feeds here

Adios

Copyright © 2008 Ask Salomon

Do not forget to Subscribe to my Feeds to read more.

BevyHost Webmaster Forum

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