Adsense Realities for New Publishers
The following is a guest post by Leo Dimilo.
“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Lots of it fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” Tom Peters, Management Guru.
The idea is simple. Create a ton of small niche sites that focus on long tail easy-to-rank-for keywords, slap some adsense on them and add a few backlinks to boot and make money online passively with adsense. And it works.
But the real question isn’t whether it works but how long before it will work…if you are new. For a blogger, fledgling marketer, or work at home mom hoping to get rich quick (or make a little more than a few bucks a month) there seems to be nothing more ideal than to build adsense sites. I mean, who else doesn’t like passive income?
In this article, I intend to explore the realities of this internet strategy for you green horns who have entertained monetizing your sites with adsense and have dreamed of making 1k, 2k, or even 5k a month with adsense. I can do this because I have done it before, know what to expect (and what not to expect) and understand the various pitfalls along the way.
Can you make money with adsense?
The short answer is yes, adsense is still a very viable way to make money online. Don’t believe the haters. The ones that claim that CPM is less than $5 as an industry average are the same ones who clearly don’t know what they are doing. They are either:
- Not targeting the right keywords
- Not testing the ad placement
- …but most likely, they are not doing both…
Pitfall #1- Placing Adsense on Social Trafficked Websites
Adsense is a funny creature in that it rewards websites with high click through and conversion rates and punishes sites with poor CTR’s. The reality is that social websites tend to be visited by people with no other intention than to be entertained. This is in stark contrast to someone looking for a solution to an immediate problem.
Think of it like this-
You are sick and looking for a home remedy to cure a common cold. Do you search the blogosphere for a solution or do you do a simple search query for something like “home remedies for a cold?” Chances are you will do the latter because you are looking for an immediate solution to your problem and trust Google enough to give it to you….
So, you click on the first two or three websites. On one of the websites, you see a google ad that promises to “cure your cold with this old wive’s remedy”. You click on it. What are the chances that you will buy? What would be the chances that you would buy if you were simply cruising around looking at cool stuff without that in mind?
Pitfall #2- Keyword Research
The biggest obstacle that a green adsense marketer will make is to not do keyword research. Keyword research is pivotal to your success. If you can figure out what keywords are being bid on competitively AND what keywords are actually achievable in terms of reaching the top 10 in the search results, you will make money online.
And it isn’t just about going after the highest CPC keywords either. The days of the $50 click through because your site is about mesothelioma are over. The better rule of thumb is to go after keywords that average $1 a click or more and get a bit of traffic in search.
Keyword research isn’t the defining moment for an adsense publisher though. Search results in keyword research tools are hit and miss and a keyword that looks like it could get a lot of traffic sometimes is nothing more than a mirage.
Now, I am not going to turn this article into a how-to guide to do keyword research. If I did so, this already long-ish article would turn into an e-book. However, there are plenty of very good guides on keyword research and the good news is that it won’t take much to actually know enough to get started.
The higher the CPC, the more money you will make….or will you?
Most new adsense publishers enter the contextual ad world with the idea that if they can create content for high paying advertisers, that they will get the most bang for their buck. But there are some inherent issues with this. The biggest issue to this philosophy is that google rewards the highest paying ads to the publishers that convert well and pay out on a lower scale to those that don’t. And it isn’t just about going after the highest CPC keywords either. The better rule of thumb is to go after keywords that average $1 a click or more and get a bit of traffic in search.
Pitfall #3 Testing is Crucial to Understanding How Things Work (or the 80/20 rule)
Whenever someone asks me how to become a successful adsense publisher, if I am going to be honest with them, I tell them that it is a hit and miss affair. Not every site will make you money. In fact, most sites won’t make a significant income. However, there are strategies that you can implement that will help you figure out what works and what doesn’t.
In fact, if I could give one piece of advice, it would be to test markets before you run in rough shod.
Doing one-off page testing on websites that already have trust rank and authority- Most of the time, if I am entering a market, I will test the waters of the market. This is done by using some web2.0 properties that are ranking in the search engines already, such as hubpages, infobarrel, squidoo, etc….
These sites already are trusted by google, will rank out of the box and can give you a good impression on traffic potential and conversion potential. They will give you a clearer indicator as to whether you can rank quickly for a keyword or whether you should move on to lower hanging fruit.
Since most of these sites do ad sharing (you get a cut of the adsense clicks), you can also get a good indicator of how responsive the keyword is in terms of click through’s. And all the while, you will make a little money on the side.
I say “little” because that is what it is. Just to give you an idea of what you could potentially earn, 100 “hubs” typically bring in about $100 a month, with most of those hubs not making any money or getting any traffic whatsoever.
But the real money isn’t building hubs….it is identifying profitable markets in regards to contextual ads.
Websites like ezinearticles are also good because they rank well for long tail keywords quickly.
Watch what your competitors are doing…at times replicate their strategy- I actually talk about this in my article marketing guide. If you have found a long tail keyword that pays well and gives good CPC and you find web2.0 properties on the first page, chances are good, that you will be able to rank for it with a few backlinks. Sites like ezinearticles, wetpaint, squidoo, and hubpages all are good indicators that ranking for them will be easy….
So there you have it. You can make money with Adsense. The rub is that you have to figure out what and why sites rank and figure out a marketing strategy to make your site more visible to TARGETED traffic.
Targeted Traffic is the key here though. You want traffic that comes to your page looking for a particular solution for an immediate problem they are having. If you page doesn’t offer that or if the traffic going there isn’t targeted, then plastering your site with adsense won’t do a thing.
Leo Dimilo has been earning a living online for over a decade utilizing internet marketing strategies and testing techniques and theories involving marketing in general. He is a marketer, first and foremost. The internet just happens to be his media of choice.
Tags: AdSense, Leo Dimilo
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[...] The easiest, but not always most lucrative, method is of course, slapping Google Adsense on your site (or some equivalent, though there’s not much in the way of equivalent choices). Related posts: Adsense Realities for New Publishers [...]