Road to Adsense Success

[hamburglar]

Hey guys,

I have been on this forum for the past 4 months, was on DP before. I have learnt soo much and feed off the positive atmosphere here.

But like many others I get stuck in the victim state mind and decided to change that. I am creating this thread as a journal that will start my adsense revenue from $0 and hopefully lead to something great. If not, then great lessons are learnt.

The point of this thread is to get me to take ACTION, no more wanting state.

This was insipired by Xfactor's and Internetmarketer99's threads of adsense. I have ready through their threads and find that I got stuck with questions. Questions to which the only answer lies in TRYING. There is no security.

Game plan:
After much research, I have an informative niche that has at least 3000 search's a month. It's not product but rather informative. This is going to be my test site.

Goal: To make $1 in a month. I set too many high expectations. This time it I am taking baby steps.

After this I will increase it to $2 so on and so forth.

Ultimate goal: to make $100 - $300/day, but that is far away. Patience is key.

Next step: I am going to buy a domain with the keyword and get content out.

This is my journal you can call it. If you would like to join, then go ahead. The positive atmosphere would be nice.

Time to make mistakes.!!!


Mods: If this is in the wrong area, I apologize. I thought it would be good here cause its for adsense.

[hamburglar]

Just bought my domain and going to setup wordpress and get ideas to get content going.

I forgot to apply for an adsense account. Of all the things! hehehe.

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

Just bought my domain and going to setup wordpress and get ideas to get content going.

I forgot to apply for an adsense account. Of all the things! hehehe.

Good luck! Maybe this will also inspire other new publishers
to take action.

Just be sure to do something every day for your business.

- John

[hamburglar]

Originally Posted by XFactor

Good luck! Maybe this will also inspire other new publishers
to take action.

Just be sure to do something every day for your business.

- John

Thanks John,

Honestly, it was your whole thread that inspired me.

No matter all the jewels you gave, one message that you kept repeating was: JUST GO AHEAD AND DO IT! MAKE MISTAKES!

Thank you for the inspiration.

[JakeDaly]

I wish you the best of luck, Hamburglar. I, too, have just started to build my own AdSense empire with the help of Mark(internetmarketer99) and I'm entirely committed to start earning $50/day by October 1st. I acknowledge that your $1 first-month goal is conservative on purpose but I'm afraid it's so conservative it could be deemed defeatist. Based on the 'Get to $50,000 This Month' thread awhile back by Daniel Taylor, it's best to put yourself in the mind-frame of knowing that you're going to succeed and make tons of money, you just simply have to go after it.

[hamburglar]

Originally Posted by JakeDaly

I wish you the best of luck, Hamburglar. I, too, have just started to build my own AdSense empire with the help of Mark(internetmarketer99) and I'm entirely committed to start earning $50/day by October 1st. I acknowledge that your $1 first-month goal is conservative on purpose but I'm afraid it's so conservative it could be deemed defeatist. Based on the 'Get to $50,000 This Month' thread awhile back by Daniel Taylor, it's best to put yourself in the mind-frame of knowing that you're going to succeed and make tons of money, you just simply have to go after it.

Well said,

But in the event I set a goal that is high, my expectations will never be satisfied. I know I will reach $1. It is just a mental discipline for myself to be patient and take things slowly.

I definitely do BELIEVE I will make it. I have had great success with my regular sites that have over 100 000 competition for the same keywords (after spending around $10k in seo).

I believe I can and vision that one day I will get a check for $5000 from adsense. The point is that this all starts from something. I rather be realistic/optimistic then set a high goal and be dejected down the road.

[hamburglar]

So far

1) Set up wordpress, took me soo long
2) Put up an intro article with keywords

[hamburglar]

I had another website that is ranked high for a good keyword. Get about 400 uniques/month.

I just placed my adsense on there. I hope my rank is not effected.

Site #1
Write one article by the end of today.

[jplanigan]

I understand your position on the small achievable goal. I would say though that it may be a little too low, but you need to do what works for you and what you are comfortable with.

I am following XFactor's method. I've done a bunch of keyword research, bought a couple domains, installed WP on them, and then hit a snag with the template (which I finally got sorted out last night). I haven't been able to put much time in lately due to some personal commitments, but I have worked on one of the blogs that happens to be in a niche that I really like. I took that site from purchasing the domain, to being indexed on page one for the main keyword with 4400 monthly searches and making $1/day in under 2 weeks. If Ezine would stop being so slow to approve articles, I could get the darn thing from position 8-10 up to the top 5 and be doing much better.

This is why I think your goal is a little low. Yes it is very achievable, but maybe setting it a little higher would give you more of a drive to get things going. Not that I don't think you will. You sound motivated and I wish you the best of luck. I will be following your progress.

Patrick

[internetmarketer99]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

I had another website that is ranked high for a good keyword. Get about 400 uniques/month.

I just placed my adsense on there. I hope my rank is not effected.

Site #1
Write one article by the end of today.

Hey Hamburglar,

Placing Adsense on your site won't affect your ranking.

Great work, especially in setting goals and envisioning success!

Keep at it; regardless of your initial earnings, this is how you go from theory to success - action.

Mark

[hamburglar]

Thank you very much for the feedback guys. I have been working on it off and on.

I am going to add one article from an article directory to fill it with some good content.

Bluesense is now implemented.

Now the important part:
Unique content creation.

[homebse]

Hamburglar,
You are certainly on the right track and I want to place my bet that you will succeed.
It is taking EzineArticles about 2 weeks to get my articles approved, but I just keep putting them in the queue.
I have also submitted some to ArticleBase, GoArticles and ArticleAlley. Have had 2 day turn around from ArticleBase.
I have 4 sites up now based on John's ebook. My keywords are bouncing around on page 1 and 2 of Google. Mine are not blogs they are basic HTML built with Dreamweaver. I do have a blog that is doing pretty good with adsense but I find that I'm more of a static site person than a blog person, so I probably won't do another one that way. It is just a personal preference. Nothing wrong with making your money with a blog.
If you keep at it you WILL do better than your $1 a month goal.
I look forward to enjoying your success with you. Please keep posting your success to this thread.

[Shellaine]

I will follow your thread and hope fully you will get there which I know you can easily achieve. Actaully you putin your expectations to low. You could have aim for at least 3.00 dollars a month and then go on. this way you will be more active in fullfuling the Dream.
I am helping a friend build her adsense empire and I put my clickbank links on her site and she is making at least 60.00 per month on one site. She started last year though.

so good luck and all the best..

Thanks
Shellaine

[hamburglar]

Wow,

I greatly appreciate the support from you guys. I am truly moved. On one site I was selling leads from. So far today I have had 40 impressions on my sites.

Static site: I fought about that a lot and wanted to start a static site but the flexibility to make it expand is a feature I want. My next site, will be for a super niche product static page.

I am just trying to face my insecurity about writing. I always have trouble writing anything. Writing 300 words of valuable content seems like a huge burden. So far this is turning into an amazing adventure where I am facing my fears.

So thanks guys.

Back to work for me.

[ajparker]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

Wow,

I greatly appreciate the support from you guys. I am truly moved. On one site I was selling leads from. So far today I have had 40 impressions on my sites.

Static site: I fought about that a lot and wanted to start a static site but the flexibility to make it expand is a feature I want. My next site, will be for a super niche product static page.

I am just trying to face my insecurity about writing. I always have trouble writing anything. Writing 300 words of valuable content seems like a huge burden. So far this is turning into an amazing adventure where I am facing my fears.

So thanks guys.

Back to work for me.

Insecurity about writing - that sounds like me. I'm a perfectionist and want everything to be just right. TOO often that keeps me from making forward progress. One thing that helps me is to look at some of the really incomprehensible articles I see sometimes at some of the article sites and realize that I (hopefully) can come across better than that even if it's the middle of the night and I'm on benedryl. The other fix is to "timebox" yourself and just force yourself to produce content and produce it in a short time.

Avery

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by ajparker

Insecurity about writing - that sounds like me. I'm a perfectionist and want everything to be just right. TOO often that keeps me from making forward progress. One thing that helps me is to look at some of the really incomprehensible articles I see sometimes at some of the article sites and realize that I (hopefully) can come across better than that even if it's the middle of the night and I'm on benedryl. The other fix is to "timebox" yourself and just force yourself to produce content and produce it in a short time.

Avery

This is spot on advice. Avery you rock. And lay off the cough medicine

[hamburglar]

Just submitted an article to Ezine. Took me an hour to write a good 260 word article.

All in due time I will get there.

I used the timebox method ajparker. Thank you for sharing that.

[webguru3287]

Good to c u determined...I am also going to start building my niche websites from this weekend..

P.S CONTENT IS KING.

[hamburglar]

The 2 day mark!

I made it this far. Normally I give up when I don't see results fast, but this is a long-term commitment. So since no clicks so far, the only thing I can control is promotions and content.

I am going to launch a new site in a niche and based off a different strategy. Just testing to see how far it gets me.

[DireStraits]

Stick at it, my friend. I feel your struggle, for I'm on the same path and I also struggle with writing articles quickly, haha.

Rest assured, though - money will follow if you take action.

Although not much, I've earned around $6 within a few days over the last week from two small sites I've made and put online, with barely any backlinking - no articles as yet, and only about 3-4 pages of real content (Besides contact page and privacy policy) on each site.

I expect as I add more pages, I will be found for further long tail keywords, and as backlinks are built my site will crawl up the rankings in Google and hopefully stay put with a little maintenance.

Anyway, this is your road to success - not mine... but I just thought you might find it inspiring to hear of my (admittedly quite meager) progress so far :-)

[jplanigan]

@hawkeye_seo Here you go...

XFactor's (John):
6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)

Internetmarketer99's (Mark):
How YOU can REALLY reach $100/day + w/Adsense!

Another you might want a look at is Steve Crook's:
Follow me to $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months from 1 blog

[hamburglar]

That last one is another excellent resource. I did not find that before. I am going to reading that one tonight.

Thank you very much for that.

Originally Posted by jplanigan

@hawkeye_seo Here you go...

XFactor's (John):
6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)

Internetmarketer99's (Mark):
How YOU can REALLY reach $100/day + w/Adsense!

Another you might want a look at is Steve Crook's:
Follow me to $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months from 1 blog

[eqalias]

If you have an ok sense on where XFactor's theories are going (I'm starting to get it. For me the big hurdle is keyword research) you will make that first dollar quick, so be prepared for your next goal. My site went live 9 days ago and none of my articles are approved with Ezines yet. I have been submitting posts using Onlywire and just today I received three visitors from Digg. 2 of the 3 clicked my ads and boom, 93 cents. I've been submitting articles to 10 different directories and found a PR3 and PR4 forum in my niche that allows dofollow backlinks that I've been slowing adding quality post too. And all my pages are indexed in Google already.
It's starting to look like their theories are taking shape but I still expect it to be a couple months to see what sticks. Like both those guys stated, it's a lot of work, but it looks like it's going to pay off.

[hamburglar]

Today was a complete write-off due to catching a cold.

So in the midst of being drunk of benedryl, I read the posts above. In order for this project to succeed I need to get good content and lots of it.

More content = More market reach. Good Content = Better ranking and conversion. It is that simple.

[internetmarketer99]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

More content = More market reach. Good Content = Better ranking and conversion. It is that simple.

You just summed up what some people take a year to figure out, and many never do. You get it.

Now just add this to it and you've got all the components for reliably repeatable success:

Keyword research = ranking possibilties. Good keyword research = more realistic ranking possibilities.

Backlinking campaign = ranking growth. Sustained, diverse, quality backlinking campaign = faster, higher ranking.

Flesh it out with about 10,000 words of filler, and you've got a great WSO.

Mark

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

More content = More market reach. Good Content = Better ranking and conversion. It is that simple.

Yes, keeping this business as simple as possible is the best approach.

And never try to make your sites small on purpose. Start out with a few
pages and schedule your time to add a page per week if possible.

Of course the more sites you have, the harder it is to do this, but
there is never a perfect plan that unfolds as expected.

- John

[hamburglar]

Success!!!

I earned my first dollar. I was feeling hopeless but got it:

Clicks Page CTR Page eCPM [?] Earnings
AdSense for Content top channels 45 4 8.89% $28.35 $1.28

Next Goal: Aim to reach $4.

Its an uphill battle one dollar at a time.

[kumkum]

Congratulations on your reach of your first step...

[jplanigan]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

Success!!!

I earned my first dollar. I was feeling hopeless but got it:

Clicks Page CTR Page eCPM [?] Earnings
AdSense for Content top channels 45 4 8.89% $28.35 $1.28

Next Goal: Aim to reach $4.

Its an uphill battle one dollar at a time.

I knew $1 was too low. Way to go man, congrats!

Patrick

[hamburglar]

Keyword Analysis Technique

Coming up with a niche is a hard thing to. Looking at the vast majority of tools online, I become even more confused. Also, most tools online are built for windows platform and not apple (so I can't even purchase them).

I do my keyword research the old school way, plain ol time consuming google game.

Note: This is based on my experience and results. Yours might vary.

How do I determine keyword competition?

One word: inanchor. I read about inanchor back in 2003 on some SEO forum. It determines how many websites are using your keyword as an anchor tag. Lets think this out. Every link carries a value. The link has greater SEO value if it has your keyword as the anchor text. Hence if a lot of websites have the same anchor text then you know that market is hard to compete in.

One website had inanchor:"keyword" return 50K results. I thought this was very little. I learnt, the hardway, that this is quiet competitive. To get me on the first page it took me 6 months and a lot of hard SEO.

On the other hand, inanchor:"keyword" for another website returned only 8 results. So I optimized for that keyword and one pr4 backlink. I was on page 1 within the first week. Insane!!!

What do the results really mean?

Taking the above method in context, sometimes the numbers do lie. For example run a the query inanchor:"keyword". View all the results (top 10 listings). Analyze the top results:

1) How many backlinks does that page have?
2) What is the pagerank of that page?
3) Is it the main domain or subpage?

I have realized that if the SERP have subpages with low pr and no backlinks, then that keyword is easily to rank high for. I placed this to test with my 3rd site and voila it worked. It took me 1 month but it got there with minimal backlink effort.


Now these are my results and could vary for yourself. I hope this has helped you guys that are reading this. Remember TRY THIS FOR YOUR SELF (Like the bill-nye experiments).

[hamburglar]

I am searching through yahoo answers to find out what makes my market tick.

I have just created one new article wohoo! A total of 2 articles on my website.

My adsense for today is $.16

I also am developing another niche website related to travel. It is a bit competitive but with good content I can become dominating.

I have outsourced the articles approx about 20. I have set up 10 categories and aim to get at least 60 articles by the end of the month.

[JMartin]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

[B][COLOR="Blue"]Also, most tools online are built for windows platform and not apple (so I can't even purchase them).

I do my keyword research the old school way, plain ol time consuming google game.

Yeah, non-Mac devs suck.

Acutally, Market Samurai is built on Adobe Air (finally someone with a little tech know how), so it will run on your Mac.

Not endorsing the product or anything, just pointing it out. I know there's a 2 week trial and it's $150.

However, I honestly prefer the old way. Might be just because I'm so used to it. But I feel more flexible this way and I already have a feel for what to ignore, so the research process isn't too long—plus I enjoy it.

Good luck on your success. I love AdSense.

[masterbis]

Thank you guys. I have never profoundly inspired by any discussion in the forum, like Iam in here. I feel that I am so lucky to find this place. And in particular, I like to thanks Hamburglar for posting his journal to Adsense success, I hope all the best for you. I've been wanting to do the same path myself. Ideas loaded my head, but no single real step taken. About couple days ago, I found some very interesting fact. I was googling using one of my niche keyword, and I stunned by the fact that no.1 website is still using .blogspot.com as its domain name. I went into research for this blog, and found out that, nothing really special had been taken, except that he had hanging around for more than 2 years, and more than 20,000 website linkback to his.

I realized that time, I must do something -now or never-, coz this one is so easy to follow. No need my own hosting, no need domain. Just stick with blogspot and its monetize tab. So i started to pitch several domain name in blogspot. And I plan to make more in other different niche (to make sure, nobody gotten it 1st). Now all i need to do is to write the content, and make some link building effort all together.

Inspired more by Hamburglar' journal, I think, my baby step will start today. If only, I wish, I have faster internet connection.

[internetmarketer99]

Originally Posted by masterbis

Thank you guys. I have never profoundly inspired by any discussion in the forum, like Iam in here. I feel that I am so lucky to find this place. And in particular, I like to thanks Hamburglar for posting his journal to Adsense success, I hope all the best for you. I've been wanting to do the same path myself. Ideas loaded my head, but no single real step taken. About couple days ago, I found some very interesting fact. I was googling using one of my niche keyword, and I stunned by the fact that no.1 website is still using .blogspot.com as its domain name. I went into research for this blog, and found out that, nothing really special had been taken, except that he had hanging around for more than 2 years, and more than 20,000 website linkback to his.

I realized that time, I must do something -now or never-, coz this one is so easy to follow. No need my own hosting, no need domain. Just stick with blogspot and its monetize tab. So i started to pitch several domain name in blogspot. And I plan to make more in other different niche (to make sure, nobody gotten it 1st). Now all i need to do is to write the content, and make some link building effort all together.

Inspired more by Hamburglar' journal, I think, my baby step will start today. If only, I wish, I have faster internet connection.

Welcome to the Warrior Forum! You've got *exactly* the right attitude and realistic enthusiasm. Read through the forum, ask questions, take baby steps, read some more, ask some more, and you'll find you're on your own road to success!

Mark

[hamburglar]

I have been very sick as of late, so there are no updates except that my current site has earned me $2.68 so far this month. Past the 50% goal to $4.

The only thing is that my conversion rate is sitting at 4% or lower. Gotta find ways to increase that.

[hamburglar]

I finally feel better, after one week in lying around in bed.

My sites are up and getting a lot of traffic but no conversion into clicks so far.

Account is sitting at $2.68 this month. Bahumbug. Time to pump out more juicy content.

[HCLee]

Good luck on your adsense challenge and I'm very sure you will succeed. I could see you are very determined and that means a lot. Most of the time, people procrastinate too much and never take action. You did!

[marketseeker]

Originally Posted by hamburglar

Just bought my domain and going to setup wordpress and get ideas to get content going.

I forgot to apply for an adsense account. Of all the things! hehehe.

I've been experamenting with wp virsus static html. I have 6 sites in the test. followed the exact path as xfactor. 3 html sites were indexed and made money the first day. I'm still waiting for the wp press sites to break 100 in Google. two site did a two day dance and then cam back and site at pos. 6, 2, 5 for their keywords, not many searches, only 1600 approx. each but that's what I'm going for. Total about $10-12 per day began on the 21st of last month. I'm going to transfer the blog content to static, no more word press for me.

[hamburglar]

Update:

I have reached my goal of $4!! Yay! I am actually $5.16 something. This is exciting. I am $5 richer yay!

The key concept to making this prosper is having content. Moreover just not any content, having content that provides VALUE to the end user. That is what ultimately people want.

Just got my 20 articles for my other niche and its now time to put them to good use.

I am just not too sure about bluesense, comes of too spammy. I will have to look for other WP themes.

[Rhett]

Congrats! I too am about to launch my own Adsense campaign, and was also considering using Wordpress as the CMS instead of static html.

Be sure to let us know if you find a better layout or template! If I find one that converts well I'll be sure to pass it on.

[Steve Crooks]

Great stuff Hamburglar, the really important point that people should take from this thread is that...

1. You had a goal.
2. You set a plan of action.
3. You acted on that plan and you reached your goal.
4. Set yourself a goal that stretches you a bit more now and go for it!

[Rhett]

Back again; I was recommended (by a fellow Warrior) this free layout for Wordpress; it's supposedly based off of a recent "heat map" study done by Google for their Adsense.

Adsense and Ads Ready WordPress Theme - HeatMap Theme

[hamburglar]

Time to amp my goals:

I wanna aim for the $10 mark by the end of this month. I am half way there.

[kimmer551]

Originally Posted by jplanigan

I understand your position on the small achievable goal. I would say though that it may be a little too low, but you need to do what works for you and what you are comfortable with.

I am following XFactor's method. I've done a bunch of keyword research, bought a couple domains, installed WP on them, and then hit a snag with the template (which I finally got sorted out last night). I haven't been able to put much time in lately due to some personal commitments, but I have worked on one of the blogs that happens to be in a niche that I really like. I took that site from purchasing the domain, to being indexed on page one for the main keyword with 4400 monthly searches and making $1/day in under 2 weeks. If Ezine would stop being so slow to approve articles, I could get the darn thing from position 8-10 up to the top 5 and be doing much better.

This is why I think your goal is a little low. Yes it is very achievable, but maybe setting it a little higher would give you more of a drive to get things going. Not that I don't think you will. You sound motivated and I wish you the best of luck. I will be following your progress.

Patrick

So which adsense template do you have working for you? I have BlueSense. I have a template working for a couple of days, I did not doing any tracking, found I was getting clicks, and BAM! Lost all of my data, so I am looking for a decent adsense template!

[kimmer551]

I just downloaded the Heatmap theme, perhaps a better choice, we will see. Wish you lots of luck!

[sluggo]

This is a very interesting thread. Hopefully it will help and motivate me.

I am somewhat computer illiterate, but have figured out how to place Wordpress on my domains and have found a site with 12 specific Adsense themes. The template has Adsense placed on the top and right side of the page...apparently two of the best places for Adsense.

I am not here to advertise for someone else, but these have been very effective for me. The designer is Mark Mason. I am not going to provide the link, but if you "google" nicheadsensethemes, I am sure you will find the link.

Good luck!

Sluggo

[hamburglar]

I greatly appreciate all the above posters sending me their support.

I also cannot believe internetmarketer, Xfactor and Steve Crooks followed this thread.

Definitely means a lot.

[hamburglar]

In the past 2 weeks, I have gone from excited to calm to dead. Dead in the sense of trying to push through the downtimes.

I have gotten around $6 now in my adsense and am working towards more. I bought MNF and started 3 more sites to play around with.

I am now facing what the other 98% IM's get stuck in. (Fear, procrastination etc...) On one end, deep down inside I feel I can do this. But when I see slow results I get dejected from moving forward. The risk of failing or I would like to call fear of failing. I see this everywhere and with everyone. Some people on this forum can admit to this bravely and some cannot. The point is that fear of failing does exist. Failing in the measurement of monetary value. The dreams we get sold about auto-pilot money making etc...

Here's the catch to get through this. JUST PUSH THROUGH. You will fail. Its part of life. But no matter what you have to keep going. Anything I have done has never panned out the way it should. But in hindsight, I needed to go through them to learn a better way. Yea yea, I know you think this is all jazzed up and what not, but trust me on this. You just have to push through it.

I am in the midst of my low state right now. Nothing is working, trying to make something out of nothing, staying positive and burning out. It happens.
Deep down I know this will work, I just have to be patience. Things always balance out.

So I hope this post gives you some insight on what you will face. Nothing is done within a day, watch any Tony Robbins video and you will see that things take time. Heck it took him 10 years I think or so.

My friends don't let the fear control you, I hope this post helps you push through your fears as it is mine.

Regards.

[latinoman231982]

Great Thread Hamburglar

I too have posted my success so far on this forum, and i too felt times when I felt i was fighting a losing battle. But each day, pennies turned into more pennies, then a dollar into dollars.

Now im inbetween 32-40 dollars daily, in a period of 2 months, and just by reading what you have posted in this thread I know you will make something of this. And that goes for anyone, doing anything. Stick at it, and you will get there.FACT.

Good luck buddy, i see you on the other side

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by latinoman231982

Great Thread Hamburglar

I too have posted my success so far on this forum, and i too felt times when I felt i was fighting a losing battle. But each day, pennies turned into more pennies, then a dollar into dollars.

Now im inbetween 32-40 dollars daily, in a period of 2 months, and just by reading what you have posted in this thread I know you will make something of this. And that goes for anyone, doing anything. Stick at it, and you will get there.FACT.

Good luck buddy, i see you on the other side

I would like to add 2 things:

1) Look at every site you make as nothing but SEEDS. These seeds
take time, caring, and food to grow. Some seeds will sprout early,
some late, others not at all. Some will die, and the few that thrive
are the ones that will pay your bills.

2) And second, when my forum is up soon I will have sections for
these types of threads so a large group of you who are at the same
level can build camaraderie and motivate each other.

Plus a $10/day section, $20/day section, etc.

- John