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My First $100 With Adsense: Worth It?

Discussion in 'AdSense' started by gtull1, Mar 23, 2008.

  1. #1
    I broke $100 with Adsense today. $100.03 to be exact. I began using Adsense about two months ago.

    I got into this "stuff" for a challenge. I was wondering if I could make a site. I knew nothing about it, so I started reading. After I learned how to make a site (yes, all of mine are crappy lol), my next goal was to make money with it. From my own experience I knew that people like to click Google ads sometimes. I did before I got into this, and I still do. I figured that Adsense may be the way to go, so I jumped into it.

    I was wondering how much I have spent so far to make this $100. Let's see:

    1- About $90 for one year's hosting.
    2- Aound $400 for Dreamweaver.
    3- About $100 on DP with paid blog reviews, stumbles, directory listings, etc.
    4- I have pobably spent about 240 hours (conservative figure) on this over the last 4 months. My real take home salary is about $60 per hour. That comes out to $14,400. Let' discount that by 75% since I am really doing this for a fun challenge. That places my time at $3,600.
    5- So my total expenses stands at about $4,190 (discounted from $14,990). So my profit is a negative $4,090.

    What have I learned so far? I have learned that maybe 1% of us will actually make it online. 99% of us can make a few bucks, but we are lacking what the 1% has. That 1% has knowledge/ skills/ abilities that we don't, and they will never share it with us. Sure, guys like Shoe or John will say to "create great content and work your butt off", but the vast majority of us won't get to where they are, or anywhere close. They will not really help us, and why should they?

    I like a few of the friends that I have made here at DP. For that alone, this journey has been worth it. There really are some good people here. For any of you that haven't really gotten to know anyone here, I highly suggest that you find someone to look up to and start bugging the pizz out of them until they become your friend. Some of those 1%ers lurk here, and I want to know them.

    Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I completed my challenge, and I have had so much fun in doing it. I would gladly pay double for the fun and knowledge that I have learned over the last few months.

    :cool:

    Edit: I forgot that I also spent about $60 on domains. lol
     
    gtull1, Mar 23, 2008 IP
    jasonsc, mantor and The Stealthy One like this.
  2. gingimaster

    gingimaster Well-Known Member

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    #2
    You can't really compare it to your "real" salary as you probably kept your job and worked on your site after your regular working hours.
    so you're account isn't very true.
    You've made 100$ in 2 months which is a lot more then what i did in my first two.
    Most of your expenses are one time expenses (dreamweaver), you paid hosting and domains for at least a year.
    So relax, next month you'll do better, just don't quit your job yet ;)

    Congrats and good luck mate
     
    gingimaster, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  3. gtull1

    gtull1 Guest

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    #3
    That's why I discounted my salary by 75%. This is an important factor to consider though. I have seen folks talk about making a killing in adsense. When you factor in the fact that they spend 100 hours a week at it, it places things in perspective. Time is money.

    Yes, many of he expenses are one time ones.

    I really don't care how much I lost. I had a blast doing it.

    Nope, not quitting my day job any time soon. lolol

    :p


     
    gtull1, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  4. trixs

    trixs Peon

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    #4
    Well you have made a lot more than me lol - My first site I did for another reason and ended up putting adsense on it. Unfortunately it doesn't make more than .05 a click and rarely gets any clicks. So I have been doing this for 6 months and have less than $100. I have learned a lot though!
     
    trixs, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  5. nethelp

    nethelp Peon

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    #5
    I made 280 usd in the first month, I have many websites and lot's of traffic on some of them. I didn't know that I can make money from adsense, a friend hook me up and then I was amazed and I'm still thinking today how much money I lost in the past.
    I focus now on quality content, niches targeted!
     
    nethelp, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  6. shamess

    shamess Well-Known Member

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    #6
    People thinking AdSense is the only way to go is the reason why you didn't do so good. Sell adverts direct to people instead; go to websites that are relevant to yours, shoot them an email and ask if they'd like you advertise with you. Make up a figure; around $20 a month for a start up site with a few visitors, and then increase it, obviously. You'll make far more money that way, and you feel better about yourself since you generated the adverts yourself! You have more control over who's being linked to on your website.
     
    shamess, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  7. Dreads

    Dreads Well-Known Member

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    #7
    Congratz :D
    take a picture of the check and send it to shoemoney lol
     
    Dreads, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  8. gtull1

    gtull1 Guest

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    #8
    The most traffic I ever got was on a DUMB "sexy girl" blogger blog. The ctr was AMAZING! But then I got scared that G was going to ban me.

    Other than that, my traffic is horrible. I really haven't figured that out. A DP friend here told me that one of my sites has really good seo (he is an seo pro), yet it doesn't get any real traffic. You can't do anything without traffic.

    I think the truth is that the net is ruled by porn. If you are into that, it's easy to get traffic. If you're not, you have to be a real pro to get any numbers. Or just get lucky.
     
    gtull1, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  9. Xphic

    Xphic Active Member

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    #9
    $90 for yearly hosting?

    Why pay by year anyways? Or did it take a year?

    $400 dollars for dreamweaver? There is a few open source applications that gets the job done

    240 hours?

    I think you are doing something wrong tbh. Are those the sites in the in your sig?
     
    Xphic, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  10. shamess

    shamess Well-Known Member

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    #10
    Well, you're going about it all wrong. The Internet was never designed to make money, it was to get information across. Pick something that you love - my blog is about the Debian operating system - and blog about that. You'll learn more about your area of choice, and then people will start to recognise you as someone who knows what they're talking about. Eventually, it may take a few months or years even, people will start linking to you because you're an expert in that field.

    If you really like what you're doing, then if you're not making money it really doesn't matter since you're just having fun.
     
    shamess, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  11. shamess

    shamess Well-Known Member

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    #11
    I agree with this too. Whilst it's cheaper to pay per year usually, you were ripped off a little there.

    I guess dreamweaver was a necessary expense for someone that it's a coder. In future, it'd be cheaper to just start a Wordpress blog, or use a CMS like Mambo or something :)
     
    shamess, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  12. Xphic

    Xphic Active Member

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    #12
    if his site are those blogspots, then notepad would even be fine
     
    Xphic, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  13. jon32000

    jon32000 Active Member

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    #13
    dont put so much time into you website stick with ur day job this should be a hobby
     
    jon32000, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  14. cheapez

    cheapez Active Member

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    #14
    it doesn't worth it, I spend more than $400 and work on my site for more than a year now, but I only make $140 back from Adsense and ~$140 from advertisers. I continue to work, because I love being a webmaster, I enjoy the work and I believe things will get better over time.
     
    cheapez, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  15. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #15
    He is definitely not a pro if he says stuff like that. :)
     
    mightyb, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  16. Xphic

    Xphic Active Member

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    #16
    60 bucks for domains?

    where did you go? if you paid more then $8.41 a domain you got ripped off. And hopefully you didn't buy them with your host

    hopefully you bought good domain too

    Not like .info or .biz or something like Green-light-lasers.com
     
    Xphic, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  17. Valkerie

    Valkerie Well-Known Member

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    #17
    IF - my traffic holds steady, I'll get that $100 check next month.

    I agree about the fun factor. I have old sites that were never monetized or worked much and all the mistakes that I've made in the past two months make me wonder how I made a dime.

    All you can do is try to improve your site's traffic, pick better keywords:D, and keep plugging along.

    If it's doable, I'm sure one of us bright people will find the method.

    Best of luck,

    Valkerie
     
    Valkerie, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  18. gtull1

    gtull1 Guest

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    #18
    Selling adverts is a cool idea. I have that planned for one site, if I can get some freaking traffic to it.

    I bought a 1 year host plan. I knew NOTHING when I did that. I wanted a host, and not just a free blog, because my original goal was to learn how to make a site, not a blog.

    Knowing what I know now, everyone should stick to a free Blogger blog until they really get good at this. Spending ANY money, until you really know what you are doing, is a waste.

    Yes, I spent at least 240 hours over the last 4 months. Research alone was over 100. Learning how to use Dreamweaver was a ton. Writing unique content for 200+ pages was WAY over 100. I am being very conservative with the 240 hours.

    I haven't gone about anything wrong. This was a challenge that I gave myself. I did 90% of it bass-ackwards, but that's part of the process. Less than 1% of us will nail this thing, and I am likely not one of those. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have changed anything about what I did. The puzzle was a blast to partially solve, and I am very grateful for the experience.

    No, the blog in my sig is a few days old. Another test of mine (probably the 20th test lol). I do love lasers by the way.

    I am passionate about the subject of all of my sites. On one of them (the "big" $ maker lol), it is a site about my heritage. On 2 others, it is about my profession. On two more, it is about my favorite hobbies.

    The internet is about $ by the way. Info is power, and all power comes at a price. If $ doesn't make the internet flow, I sure as hell don't know what does.

    :O)
     
    gtull1, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  19. gtull1

    gtull1 Guest

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    #19
    I doubt that you would want to tell him that. You don't even know what site I am speaking of. This friend is one of the top seo gurus @ DP.
     
    gtull1, Mar 23, 2008 IP
  20. Xphic

    Xphic Active Member

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    #20
    Then mention his name ;)

    __________
    If you new nothing before, than you can say if the $100 was worth it right? And the majority starts out bad

    I made threads on DP and other forums and asked a whole lot of questions. Which gave me an edge

    1. It's quicker than me learning by myself
    2. They share the do's and dont's
    And there are other reasons as well
     
    Xphic, Mar 23, 2008 IP