Some of my sites bring traffic, but little AdSense income. I think keyword selection is part of the problem so I have been trying out one of the new programs that is supposed to help find profitable keywords easily. (You can do the same by hand, the software just makes it easier.) The program looks at the top bid, bid quality (multiple bids that are close to the high), number of searches, number of existing sites and KEI index (which is just a ratio of searches/existing sites). Nirvana would be a keyword that has a high bid, multiple bidders, lots of searches, and few other sites. Observations: By the time someone knows enough to write software to automate the process do you suppose the authors might have "high graded" the words themselves If there are several high bids for a word it means several advertisers agree the potential profit is worth the cost. There tend to be LOTS of sites chasing searches for those terms. Debt Consolidation would be one such term. Many advertisers clearly understand they will not have to pay their max bid for most clicks. There will be one high bidder, but the others are low. As you move down to smaller and smaller niches you reach a point where there are so few potential advertisers you may as well contact them directly yourself and cut out the middle man. It is common to see niches with lots of searches but a very low top bid. I take that to mean no one has figured out a way to make money advertising to people who do those searches. "Abraham Lincoln" is one with 10 million sites, 3,400 searches and very low bids. No doubt lots of those are kids doing homework. Now, if you had a Lincoln related product that would convert with students, it looks like a cheap adwords campaign might send you a ton of traffic (I haven't used adwords so this is just a guess.) The best chance of finding a high traffic term with little competation from other sites would seem to be a new, fad term; a band name, a celebrity, etc. However, I have to think these come and go very quickly and are probably not the words to use for a longterm steady income. None of these research tools can accurately predict clickthrough rates and that can make a lot of difference. I know from my own experience that a site with low bids can make decent money if the clickthrough is above average. There are some wild variations in traffic estimates between sources. One term I just looked at projected 100 searches on the test software, 150 for Wordtracker on the DP keyword tool, and 2,500 for Overture on the DP tool. Summary: It looks to me like the adsense game is getting mature; serious profits await those who can figure out products to sell in high traffic niches currently considered worthless.
Alot of it does come down to timing and the ability to find that golden keyword (for certain niches) but there are also thousands of niches that will generate you $5 per day. Sure $5 per day isnt too much, but for 30 pages of content, a little work. Its not bad. Then just duplicate that by 10 and you are earning $50 per day. Brad