I've been making money from Adsense for the past 3 years and have hit both the highs and lows before. I've reach $100 per day before (using tedious greyhat methods) and have hit a low $5 per day (When Google changes algorithm). Yeah, I almost gave up Adsense at one point. Today, I'm back to just $600+ per month and after playing with black, grey and white hats, I came to some conclusions. I want to play a fair game with Google now and so I'm building my Adsense earnings properly with time-tested techniques. Trust me, I'll reach my $1000 per month by June and $2000 per month by end of this year. Here's what I discovered and if you should follow my advice, you should have no problems reaching a good $10 per day (which I think that's a basic target that I read from most people in this forum): Content is king - Heed this advice, friends. Content IS king. Google loves content and if your website keeps giving content they gotta love you. Big website wins - When I say big website, I mean at least 100 pages of content. It should be built slowly from 10-20 pages, adding 1-2 new pages every week. I have a website that boasts a good 300+ pages of content and that is earning me $4-$5 per day. Don't be afraid of PLR - I use both original and PLR content for all my websites. There is not specific ratio between original and PLR content. I have one site with 100+ pages where 80+ pages are PLR and only 20+ pages are original and that site is still earning me a good $5-$8 per day. The key here is to make sure that all the content related to each other. It short, make it themed. Put Adsense blocks at the upper fold - This shouldn't be new to you. You ought to have a 728 x 90 block near the top, a 336 x 280 in the content and a 120 x 600 side block for EVERY page. That covers pretty much a lot. Blend your adsense to the webpage - Nothing new here. You should understand this. All your Adsense links should be blue - People are used to clicking on the blue link so don't change them unless you have personally tested to show that other color works for you. Participate in Ad Revenue sharing forums - This is mostly forgotten. Digital point is one of them. There are many other forums that allow ad revenue sharing. I had days where I receive 'unknown' $3 or $5 click out of nowhere. My guess is that it is from the ad revenue sharing forums like Digitial point. Don't miss this. Ignore the high paying keywords - Trust me, they will NEVER work. Stop aiming for those $20 per click keywords. People selling and offering these keyword lists are worthless. Why? Just run a competition check and you will see 20,000,000 competing sites for that keyword. Are you going to try that? Volume counts - Don't worry with lower paying keywords. You can slowly build it up. Volume counts in the end. You can get paid a measly $0.10 per click but if that is a well search keyword, you can get 10-20 clicks of $0.10 each, which still represents a good $2 for that keyword. Never stop the SEO game - SEO is crucial if you want to win the Adsense game. So, always do these everyday: Find good keywords (ie. high search, low competition), write and submit articles, build backlinks legally and naturally, etc. Do it everyday, and you will see the fruits. Lastly, remember that Adsense is just another monetization tool for all of us. For me I love to monetize via Adsense because I only care about CTR. I don't have to be concerned with salesletter conversion, landing page CTR, etc. My visitors just click and I make money, easiest money ever. Hope that this helps.
Thank you for this post, I read it from start to finish and you list some great advice. What sort of websites do you own?
Maybe this a shocker to some of you BUT you can just drop a blog, no content besides a stupid text, 3 pictures and still - Adsense WONT ban you. Last 3 years i've reported lots of sites just like these ones and only 1 got adsense DISABLE - not a webmaster banned, they just disable adsense from one of HIS blogs. Guess what? I have a huge list of reported sites and 99% of them still make cash every single day, just like that. Adsense is just not a fair game. And google knows it better then we all do. Shameful.
Well said my friend. Its good reminder that and an inspiration to never give up even at times its hard and tough to continue pounding the keys. Thanks JulieV
This has been a very interesting and very helpful. I have 4 sites each with over 200 plus pages the biggest is over 700 hundred I have just recently change one of the ads of my products pages to them a 200x200 square tex only. Those sites are up in money about 70% since then. They had a 798x90 tex on them before and the average click was about 15 cents now the average click is up to 45 cents. Less clicks but more earnings it seem that the small ads pay more. I am getting about 5 click a day less but making more figure that one out.
agree with most - i too run BIG sites, and have much more success than when i am playing around with small sites. BUT big sties definitely take up more time and dedication - thats why do something of your interest. It helps
nice article when we already understand the several points. I'm sure many people would benefit in reading this with each points more detailled, with examples and nice picture, the post would be much more longer, a dozen pages or more in an ebook.
Unique and interesting content will get people to link to you which ultimately make you money. Having said that, content is great, but LINKS ARE KING, trust me! Hmm... what to say here. I have a niche site with one single page of text that makes the same money. Many of my sites make much more than $4 per day and not one single one is over 15 pages except my blog. All my efforts went into link building, so I'll say it again: Select the right niche and remember that LINKS ARE KING! PLR is private label rights material. It is sold to lots of people with the understanding that it is best to re-write it somewhat before using it on your own websites/blogs. TomG.
I understand what you say here. You can also try that with single page. However, not many people here can expertly researched the right keywords to rank, nor many people are experts in getting backlinks. I observed that having a big website somehow ensure longevity of the website in the search engine rankings. I don't know why but it seems like it. My 300+ pages website has been in top 10 rankings for many of the keywords. Yeah, maybe one day I should try going for a one page adsense.
I guess I should mention that my single page site has been up there since 2003 when it was last updated Anyway, on to your points. You say that the really large website gets ranked with minimal promotion? That's interesting, if true could be a plus. Longevity for me has never been linked to how many pages a site has. Maybe when you get up there in page count it helps somehow? Don't know, I have no experience to prove or disprove this. Here's my main problem with your advice. You never know when you will strike gold so you need to explore lots of niches to find a few really good ones. Once you find them, you can expand them and your income will really explode. If you pick a niche and spend the time necessary to build a 300 page site, you will be missing lots of opportunities AND if the niche you selected is wrong, you would have spent tons of effort for $4/day? That's certainly not worth it IMO. Do you see my point? Your method should be prefaced by a simple acid test for a niche's potential. I use free sites to try a new niche out. If it does not work, I move on. I hope my points will add to the information in your OP. TomG.
Some good tips here. Nothing new to me though. Have you ever used PPC to drive traffic to your best converting adsense pages?
Whatever floats your boat and works for you. I do just fine NOT using Blue links and not creating 100 page websites. The formula is simple: Traffic + Placement/Layout + Limited Number of Ad Blocks + Quality Niche full of advertisers willing to spend = MONEY!
Hey, good points you've made down here. If you have a single page that has been ranked since 2003, you've found a niche/keyword that literally had no one interested in competing! (Or maybe you have a lot of good backlinks!) My experience shows that big website works because it covers a larger area of a selected niche. Yes, you are right in saying that I may miss other opportunities but then I believe that there is a lot of money made even in the sub-niche. Yes, it's still a trial and error but then it that page still stays in the search engines. Oh yes, I forget to add why I only achieve only $4+/day for a 300+ pages website: I just add pages to the website and I didn't bother promoting each pages. That niche was just accidental because I just add PLR content week after week from a supplier. That is why I discovered that big websites do make it well in Adsense. I cannot imagine how much money I will be earning if I start promoting each page. Plus, I believe in showing Google that I am building a WEBSITE, rather than a single page site. That, I believe, is also ensures longevity because it seems like Google tend to show big website's results in their top 10 results. You have a good approach: Test our the market and build the specific page for that keyword. (I like it and I want to try that out one day) My approach is: Dominate the market and branch out to the specific sub-niches. Both works well, I believe. Good discussion with you, tommy.