I've been reading through the forums here for a few days now, and I'm thinking of making a few adsense-optimized sites. The general idea, it seems, is to take a topic that is commonly searched, and write about it. After that's done, you blend some adsense ads into the text, SEO it a bunch, and submit it to link directories? Is this a fairly accurate description of what I should be doing? Thanks, -Phil
Basicly yes. But in my opinion you should generate some interesting content first, and not worrying too much about SEO in first place. What you could do are directory submissions and other marketing technics you can find here. Because just writing about commonly searched terms does not bring you any traffic, because everything depends on keywords and SERP.
Dont just take a topic that is commonly searched, take a topic that you are interested in and feel you can produce content about on a regular basis. Earnings will follow once you produce a high quality content site
You have the basics right, but this is a long term game and you have to continuely create content and a lot of it. You need to be unique in your content and not just grab something out of an article directory. This takes time but can pay off big if done properly.
So what I'm wondering is, which would be a better investment? A blog-type site where I periodically post about a topic, or an information-type site with a bunch of articles on different topics?
You don't want to get into a lot of different targets or your traffic from the SE's is going to be minimal. Build a site or blog around a specific niche. Lets say you go with Gardening, then build a site or blog with various articles on different subjects on gardening. You need the keywords in the domain name if possible as that will cause some difference sin not only SEO but also ad targeting. Blogs are easier to get indexed, but in the end the content is really all that matters. Do a search for Joel Comm and read up on the stuff he has put out on the web. Will be very useful for you since it seems you are just starting out.