Adsense veterans - can you give some tips?

[priyankeshu]

My original plan:
I was planning to create blogs and websites to be able to reach target of modest $10 a day. Using mostly adsense, amazon and clickbank.


Till now i have created around 10 websites on technology, health and travel. They combined get around 400 impressions everyday.

But the income does not increase than $1 a day. Its been a long time that i have been working on this thing but i never made more than $30 in a single month. It is now becoming a bit frustrating.


Is it because i have chosen wrong niches OR is it because i should increase traffic.

Adsense is becoming hopeless day by day. I am still determined to work but im in debt so i have kind of pressure built up on me.

Any ideas on what i should do to reach $10 a day?
Till now i have written almost more than 1000 articles all over including hubpages one of my tech blogs and health and travel related websites.

But $10 a day is still unreached.

I was also thinking of doing article writing as a service and make money but then i think why not articles for myself so that it increases income in long run.


Three or four years back i could have managed doing all this work and even more, but now because of anxiety and health issues i can't think of putting efforts into something that does nt build a passive income for me.


Should i stick with Adsense or it would be better to venture out into offering services?

[yukon]

You need traffic, for Adsense!

You also need great content that will keep that traffic coming back for more.

The downside of repeat traffic is they will become Ad blind after a while.

The upside of repeat traffic is, they will come back because they liked the content, they will also share your site with friends (links, email, social...).

Make sure your content is worth the visit for the readers.

Keep your external link count low.

Participate in niche related forums. I get 1/2 my traffic from forums.

If you go with forum traffic, build the trust before you build the backlinks, you'll get a steady flow of traffic for the long haul.

Example, one niche forum I belong to I have over 3,000 forum post, they are not spam, I take the time to help other members with a question just like this comment here (I hope it helps ).

Last but not least...

Make sure you really enjoy the niche that you target. If the niche you have now isn't all that fun I suggest you find somethng that is more interesting then find a way to monetize the site (you can have both If you do the research upfront).

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by priyankeshu

My original plan:
I was planning to create blogs and websites to be able to reach target of modest $10 a day. Using mostly adsense, amazon and clickbank.

Stop using Amazon and clickbank. I was using different affiliate links on my site together with adsense and they where not earning that much so when I removed all the other affiliate links the adsense earnings went up 50%.

Also try to use different colours and ad placements to see what works the best for you.

There are people that say that this link colour or that link colour is the best but you could be surprised what works for you. I found black to work best so far but there is till many other colours and combinations I want to try out.

Maybe if you let us know your site you can get more accurate advice.

[inter123]

Aplogies for pointing out the obvious but if you have written over 1000 articles and for the return something is seriously not right. As suggested already focus on one means of monetisation and rather then putting all three on one go.

It might be an idea to go with Adsense and see how it pans out. Optimse the ads to get the maximum possible click through. The article directory listed in sig file of poster above is a good example of decent adsene placement.

With 400 impressions you should be making more lot more then the current situation. There are some niches that just do not convert usually because the ads are not relevant.

Originally Posted by priyankeshu

Till now i have written almost more than 1000 articles all over including hubpages one of my tech blogs and health and travel related websites.

But $10 a day is still unreached.

[webmedia]

Drive traffic.

[Condorr]

Are you ranking for the keywords that you pick?

If not, you have two options:
1) Pick an easier keyword to target. allintitle results can give you a rough estimate on the competitiveness of the keyword.
2) Improve your backlinking strategy

If you are ranking, then you can look at your Click Through Rate (CTR). A low CTR can mean there is some improvement to be made by improving ad placement.

[rising_sun]

you have to draw traffic. so think easily as common user
Pick an easier keyword to target.
Improve your backlinking strategy.

[JoshuaG]

You could try to optimize your sites better.

1 - The large rectangle and leader board are statistically the best converting ad units so try to add them.

2 - Make your ad units match the color of your website.

3 - Try to use keywords to trigger more relevant ads.

[Bryan V]

It seems doing a little reading around these forums could help you a lot. If you have done 1,000 articles and get 400 visitors a day and aren't having results, something is really wrong.

If you are using all of these methods to monetize my first thought is that your site and your traffic are both not well targeted.

It also makes me think that you haven't done the research on your topics/keywords before you started writing.

More traffic will do you no good if it is not targeted. You need BUYING KEYWORDS. If your visitor doesn't end up spending money down the line, you make no money. (They may spend it on a physical or information product to solve their problem)

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Just pick ONE method of monetization unless you really know what you're doing.

In my experience there have been VERY few (if any) niches I have found in which it made sense to show adsense as well as amazon and clickbank. If it's a product you want to promote on amazon, CPC is usually low for adsense, and you can't buy the physical product on clickbank, or some conflict like that.

If it's adsense, make sure advertisers are spending money on that keyword (and that their ads are relevant to what your reader wants!!!). Use the google keyword tool to tell you. Double check at spyfu.

If it's Amazon, you can make sure people are actually buying that item (if it has reviews, or if it's on amazon's bestseller lists is a good indication).

If it's clickbank, a good indication is how long that product has been around, the product's gravity, if people are spending PPC money on it, etc.

There are more ways to find out if people are spending money on things--google it. Search the warriorforum to find out the details.

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Figure out EXACTLY what your traffic wants and give them EXACTLY what they need. If you aren't sure of either of those, you can still make money, but conversions will be lower or non existent.

How are you getting your 400/day traffic? You didn't mention this so it's hard to help without round n' about answers.

Think about what your traffic needs. If they arrived through a search engine term like "lcd tv", "acne", or maybe "foot fungus", it's likely too general or these users are just trying to research, and not really buy anything yet from clickbank/amazon. However if they're searching for "get rid of acne" or "foot fungus removal" you know EXACTLY what their problem is and what they want to do about it. And also, if it's with adsense, and your reader still wants to learn more, you'll probably get curious clicks on related ads. If your page is optimized for a high CPC word you will be able to earn.

If your traffic arrived through an ezine article about Oak furniture vs. particle board, then send them to your furniture site, they may buy something. But someone searching for that kind of information probably still has a lot to learn before spending hundreds of dollars (while your tracking cookie expires).

Or let's say you have a site about weight loss and post in weight loss forums for signature traffic. What are you posting? Does it make sense? Will the reader trust you enough to click the sig? Does your sig show promise to the audience that they will get what they're looking for?

And once they arrive at your site, how are you showing them how to lose weight? Exercise, magic pills, surgery? Was the thread about any of those--exercise, magic pills, surgery? or were they looking to do Master Cleanse or something entirely different? Maybe your audience (people reading that thread) doesn't know what they want, but the site you send them to sells some really expensive product they can't possibly be committed to buy yet.

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If you have time to write 1,000 articles, I would imagine you should have time to learn how do things right first. I also see that you're part of the War Room (of which I am not). If I can learn from just the free section, you should have that + more.

The lowest traffic sites I have still have adsense clicks of 5%-40%. Usually 5, 10, 15 visitors will still provide a click if the site was well targeted.

Lastly, if you're in debt and new to internet marketing, it can be tough. I would suggest getting some sort of definite income (another job) while learning how to do IM. "Success is buried under a pile of failures." But learn from the failure, and do it on terms in which your health isn't on the line.

The pressure can be a big killer, and can make failure even tougher. There are SO many tasks that may require learning and patience that it may not fit your desired timeline.

This is all making some assumptions based on what you originally posted, so sorry if this all comes out the wrong way . Hope it helped.. even if just a little. Alright.. sleepy time.