I don't make beef jerky but I sure like to eat it. I mentioned awhile back about my two beef jerky blogs, "Best Beef Jerky" where I review jerky brands, and "Beef Jerky Diet", where I chronicle my weight loss program using jerky.

The two websites share a symbiosis. As I attract a loyal following of readers on my beef jerky review site, companies send me free samples realizing its a cheap way to get some publicity. In turn, the free jerky becomes the basis of my daily meals, a low fat, low carb diet. I lose weight, which I chronicle on the beef jerky diet site. I do make some advertising income on both sites, namely through AdSense, but it's only pennies right now. For the most part, getting free food is my income.

So today, I read this article about the guy who owns "beefjerky.com". He uses that site to sell his own brand of jerky dubbed, "Final Frontier Jerky". The article tells the story of how he managed to create a high-traffic volume site, but is not getting the big sales he thinks he should be getting. He's trying to boost the conversion rates.

One look at the website, and it's clear that the design of this thing makes it look like a content site, not an e-commerce site. E-commerce sites have a certain look and feel that tells the visitor right away that this place is selling something right here. Instead, this site looks like something that publishes information.

His other problem is the domain name. "beefjerky.com" doesn't lend itself to creating brand recognition. If "Final Frontier Jerky" is his brand name, then that's the domain name he needs to use. He can still use "beefjerky.com" as a feeder site, publishing content, perhaps through a blog, to funnel traffic from Google over to the "Final Frontier Jerky" site.

Of course, I'm also trying to compete for traffic with my two jerky sites. I'd like to find them at the top of Google for such searches like "beef jerky". I figure the more keyword focused traffic I can get, then I can justify selling ad space directly to jerky manufacturers.

I'm trying to carve out a niche where I can create value for the jerky brands, by promoting their products through reviews, and helping them sell jerky. All I know right now is that there aren't any content sites devoted to just jerky. It's a very small niche of course, a "micro-niche". But creating the top destination site for this niche could still translate into substantial revenue when it's just my wife and I that have to support. At least anyways, we'll see what I can do with it.  

On Christmas Day, I found myself with a brand new digital camera. A Canon SD880IS to be exact. The "IS" is for image stabilization.

It's got 4x optical zoom instead of the 3x that most cameras of this size has. It's also 10 megapixels and has a massize LCD display in the back.

Compare that to my old camera, a Canon SD300, with only 3x zoom, and just 4 megapixels.

But what I like about my old camera is that it's tough as nails. It's constructed from an all-steel case, compared to the all-plastic case of the SD880IS. I've dropped my old camera on the ground so many times, that the steel case is full of dents and scratches. I take it with me on my motorcycle rides, and it has survived the crashes. The painted symbols and icons on the back of the camera have all worn off.

My SD300 is quite small in dimensions, which works out perfect for a motorcyclist. I can put it in my pocket, and still have to room for my money and cell phone. This SD880IS is actually taller and longer, which doesn't sit well with me.





As I've grown older I've come to appreciate things that look beat up on the outside, but work like brand new on the inside. I like my motorcycles that way too. People give me crap about my bikes looking dirty, scratched, and dented. But they run leaner and meaner than most brand new bikes built today.

A month ago, my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Like most guys, I simply said "I don't need anything". That never goes over well with Lisa. Lisa is a traditionalist, having had parents that never divorced, a huge family that stays close, and goes to church every Sunday, Christmas is just way too important for her. Christmas is her time of the year, where she has fun baking cookies and pies, decorating the house, and going gift shopping. The idea that she can't buy me a Christmas gift is simply poppycock.

So she decided I needed a new digital camera. The one I have is already four years old, and looks beat up. I told her that there's nothing wrong with my camera. It does everything I need it to do, and I don't really need any more megapixels.

But her problem is the same as every other wife's; they have a husband who is difficult to buy for. And finally, she discovered something that she can buy me.

I hate the idea of leaving behind my trusty SD300. It's taken 8,947 photos as of this writing. I've learned all of its features, options, and settings. It's taken the photos for all of my blog postings, and documented all of my motorcycle rides.

I think what I'm going to do is use this new SD880IS for my blog work, but keep my SD300 for the motorcycle rides and vacationing. Considering how many times I've dropped my camera, I still need something that can take a beating.  

The guys at Public Records Pro have been clawing at me to add their affiliate links to my genealogy sites over the past several months. All along I've told them that I'd do it, but that it won't happen right away.

But they've been very insistent, telling me about the tons of money that I'd be making. Considering I get many other affiliate merchants writing me and calling me making the same claim, I take it with a grain of salt.

Then finally, they send me a couple bags of beef jerky, and I had to smile at the gesture.

Well anyways, I decided to run their search boxes on State Archives and Birth Certificates. Those two sites had search boxes for Footnote and World Vital Records, and those particular programs really weren't the best fit for these websites. These websites were originally tailored to work with Ancestry.com, but since Ancestry.com decided it didn't want traffic from these sites anymore, I had to make do with Footnote and World Vital Records.

So far, the search boxes for Public Records Pro is showing some really good numbers. These numbers are along the lines of the Ancestry.com program back in the old days. But I'll condition that by saying I haven't yet tried running this affiliate program on Interment or CousinConnect.

Because Public Records Pro is so heavily focused on vital records, it naturally fits very well with my series of feeder sites. I also have it running on Death Records, Marriage Database, and Death Certificates. All of those sites are perfect matches for this affiliate program. That explains the great performance data I'm seeing thus far. But is it truly a great fit for Interment, or CousinConnect?

And, I've only been running this program for about 10 days now.

And I'm just starting to see refunds come in. I'm not sure how long it takes for the "latency" to fully realize itself. I expect more refunds to trickle in over the next several days, and once the sales/refund cycle reaches its peak, only then will I know where my earnings-per-click truly stands.

I'm actually late to the dinner table with Public Records Pro. Most of my genealogy affiliate marketing colleagues have been running their links and search boxes for several months now. Let me know what kind of performance data you're seeing, if you're running this program.  

Here's the latest on my local blogging experiment "Menifee 24/7".

I launched that blog just over four years ago, as an experiment to see how well I can monetize an audience limited to a geographic area. In this case, it's my hometown, Menifee, CA.

Menifee is a small town by Southern California standards. About 60,000 people. Many people here still know each other, and still wave hello to you when they see you at the grocery store. Menifee 24/7 covers news stories specific to this town that the newspapers usually consider too small or too detailed to cover. I've managed to build a decent sized audience of about 20,000 to 30,000 visitors per month.

Advertising is Difficult

While I've been running Google Adsense on Menifee 24/7 for quite some time, it doesn't really monetize all that well. Most of the ads that show up are real estate focused.

I have a good sized percentage of repeat visitors, and those visitors don't want to click on ads. It's the incoming Google traffic that tend to click on ads anyways.

I had hoped to sell CPM based banner ads to local merchants, such as the pizza shop, the real estate agent, the child care center, and businesses like that. But the problem is that these businesses are all accustomed to advertising in the newspaper and through junk mailers. They don't give a website like mine any thought.

And the local business owners don't have ad banners. I'd have to make them for them.

I've attended the local Chamber of Commerce's monthly mixers, and spoke to business owners about advertising online. They all sound open to the idea, but when I follow up with them, it's a different story.

Part of the problem is these local businesses don't know how to measure the ROI on advertising. When they buy an ad in the newspaper, even then they don't know. What they do know is that the newspaper reaches 100,000 households across the greater area, but they don't know if they're getting any business out of it. So if you ask them to buy space on a website, you're asking them to venture deeper into the unknown. That's why they're gun shy about advertising online.

The truth is the ROI of online advertising is much more measurable that the newspaper, or even television. We have a local television news channel here, that does get ads from local businesses, but the television station is so small, it can't afford Neilsen Ratings. So, it can't offer any ROI metrics to its customers. Yet, those customers are still buying airtime from them.

I can sell online ads to these local businesses if I spend the time to get know the business owners personally. If I build up a trust with them, they'll spend the money just on the fact that they know me personally. I've actually been able to sell advertising to a real estate agent just on this facet alone.

But I can't spend my time becoming buddies with every business owner in town.

So, I've resigned myself to just letting Google AdSense run on this space, and have kinda throttled down the time I spend on Menifee 24/7. Maybe my goal is to sell it off, and make some decent money that way.  

This blog "In Your Web" was originally conceived to publish articles about making money from publishing websites, but over the years it's morphed from one focus to another.

The main reason for that is because I can't seem to consistently publish new material for this blog. And that, of course, is my problem with maintaining focus as a blogger.

Making money publishing websites is something I continue to do, and continue to earn enough to keep me self-employed. But talking about the subject is a different matter. There are far too many other web-gurus who seem to command more attention than myself. So, I'll let them continue.

So today, I'm refocus this blog on a subject that I'm far more interested in....

...myself.

That is, I'm just going to about what I'm doing in my day to day publishing duties. Most of what I do is routine, repetitive stuff, and I won't bore you with that. I'll just note the more interesting stuff.

New Blogger Template

I've also been playing around with various blogger templates available for free. I've always designed my own templates from scratch, but I'm getting burned out on that. It takes too much time.

But in using this particular template (with the black & blue leafy image at the top), I'm noticing some quirkiness. I managed to fix a few things, but I continue to find more little bugs that bother me.