Follow me to $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months from 1 blog

[affiliated survivor]

Because a lot of readers of this thread found Steve´s blog. Visitors from this forum are untargeted traffic. Means a low CTR and can lead to smart pricing or even worse. But it did not end. 2.000 visitors a day could easily be $100.00, if there were Adsense ads on the blog.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by magentawave

I have read this entire post but obviously missed something crucial here...

And why did the $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months challenge end? Is it because of Googles rule that we aren't supposed to tell anyone how much we make from Adsense?

Thanks
Steve

I don't think the challenge has actually ended. It looks like Steve decided to add the 'who sees adsense' widget so anyone who enters via warrior, articles or whatever won't see the adsense units at all... only if they enter directly via google listings.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

I don't think the challenge has actually ended. It looks like Steve decided to add the 'who sees adsense' widget so anyone who enters via warrior, articles or whatever won't see the adsense units at all... only if they enter directly via google listings.

Well I guess I missed seeing the url for his $100 a day Adsense challenge too! Can someone please give me the url?

thank you
Steve

[magentawave]

Hey Steve,

Since you recommend the Max Banner Ads plugin, will it automatically wrap the text from our posts around the ad unit, or do we still have to mess with that?

Steve

[Nick.A]

Hi Pearson,

Why would Google have 'zapped' Steve's other domains? He has done nothing wrong. He hasn't even added AdSense to his European Cruises blog yet. So, unless he is doing something on those other domains that conflict with Google's ToS, I don't see the logic of your argument.

Originally Posted by pearsonbrown

Well I don't think Steve has done anything that Adsense would disapprove of. He is 'adding value' and that is the current mantra.

And here's a very roundabout 'proof' of my opinion.


1. Google certainly monitors this forum and will have picked up on this thread.
2. Just like the rest of us, it could have 'reverse-engineered' the information Steve gave us to work out what Steve's blog is called.
3. Unlike the rest of us, it is a domain registrar and so could work out what Steve's other domains were. It then could have 'zapped' the Adsense from those.

Since this hasn't happened, I think this proof that Steve's approach is not upsetting Adsense.

Pearson

[Nick.A]

Or display AdSense if they arrive from a search engine on the first visit and then CPA, ClickBank or other offers on subsequent visits?

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

I don't think the challenge has actually ended. It looks like Steve decided to add the 'who sees adsense' widget so anyone who enters via warrior, articles or whatever won't see the adsense units at all... only if they enter directly via google listings.

[kecuk2007]

i am newbi $0.1/day (lol) thank for share.. this tread good

[BrianTubbs]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Smart pricing is one of those things that you won't always notice unless you've found a good high paying niche.

For example, let's say you found a good legal niche with a few 100 unique search visitors a day where you were getting $7-15 a click with around 5 clicks a day. Now you put Adsense on your social personal blog where you get a lot of 'helpful', non-converting, traffic. Your Adsense there gets 1 or 2 cents a click. Suddenly, you notice that your once profitable legal blog has also gone from $7+ a click to 25 cents a click. Ouch! That's because Google will smart price your whole account, not just the site with lousy traffic.

Now, if you flip that around and you have a personal blog that gets cheap clicks already you may think your legal blog is doing great with 25 to 50 cent clicks but, in reality, you're leaving a lot of money in Google's pocket.

I'm confused by this. Does this mean we should ONLY put Adsense on our sites where we know we can get good CPC? That if we sprinkle Adsense on ALL our sites, it will bring everything down?

Update: Okay...just read through this entire thread (my eyes are glazed over now) and I think I understand "smart pricing." I had never heard of it before. Shows you what a newbie I am.

Steve, thanks for starting this tread....great stuff!

[redneo]

great thread too.. thanks for steave that share his steps with briliant idea and wonderful thinking methods.

i hope you can post some other tips for newbie like me...

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by magentawave

Well I guess I missed seeing the url for his $100 a day Adsense challenge too! Can someone please give me the url?

thank you
Steve

Steve hasn't publicised the url of the blog at this stage because he doesn't want to skew the stats. However, to keep track of what is going on you can visit the 100 challenge blog, the URL for which is contained in his signature.

[BlogMonies]

I am still not clear about why Steve's AdSense account is being threatened. But I did skip a few pages! It is an awesome goal and I started blogging myself - as many people do - to make a consistent income from your online works.

With every success you make, whether they be RSS readers, analytics stats, adsense stats, affiliate income/bonuses, there is always a warm feeling. Perhaps it is the dream of one day become richer beyond your wildest dreams from passive income!?

Now, I started with my site blogmonies.com but now it has spawned multiple sites, all of which I am most interested in writing for. Even if Steve doesn't get his $100 per day goal in 3 months, as long as he is learning and making financial progress there is always light at the end of the blogging tunnel.

Well done Steve!

[Steve Crooks]

No, no, no.. My adsense account is not under threat at all. The only concern I had is the level of unnatural traffic I got, i.e. traffic that isn't interested in european cruises. This could have lead to smart pricing or worse if I hadn't thought seriously about dealing with it.

Originally Posted by BlogMonies

I am still not clear about why Steve's AdSense account is being threatened. But I did skip a few pages! It is an awesome goal and I started blogging myself - as many people do - to make a consistent income from your online works.

With every success you make, whether they be RSS readers, analytics stats, adsense stats, affiliate income/bonuses, there is always a warm feeling. Perhaps it is the dream of one day become richer beyond your wildest dreams from passive income!?

Now, I started with my site blogmonies.com but now it has spawned multiple sites, all of which I am most interested in writing for. Even if Steve doesn't get his $100 per day goal in 3 months, as long as he is learning and making financial progress there is always light at the end of the blogging tunnel.

Well done Steve!

[dogisland]

Actually according to the google adsense blog smart pricing isn't to do with CTR although they don't say specifically how the apply it.

see Inside AdSense: The facts about smart pricing

[Nick.A]

It's not just smart pricing that could reduce your AdSense earnings. If you have a high CTR that produces a low ROI for advertisers, it's the advertisers themselves that will opt out of showing their ads on your site. Once the 'big boys' have gone, all you will be left with is the advertisers that are only prepared to pay a few pennies per click. A lot of site owners (publishers) incorrectly link this reduction in income to smart pricing. Unfortunately, there is no way that a publisher can determine whether it's smart pricing that has caused the reduction in earnings or the advertisers opting out of showing their ads on the publisher's site.

[imnoob]

Can someone explain what is back link, one way link, other link, etc? Thanks.

[Steve Crooks]

A backlink is a link back to your site from a different site. A one way link is a link that goes to a site and there isn't a link back from that same site.

Originally Posted by imnoob

Can someone explain what is back link, one way link, other link, etc? Thanks.

[usfemail]

Interesting post; I have a quick question for everyone. How many sites can you have that you post adsense on without getting a warning? I have heard people say that you can only have a certain amount of sites before you get a warning letter from them.

I currently have 12 sites is that too many?

[Nick.A]

Originally Posted by usfemail

Interesting post; I have a quick question for everyone. How many sites can you have that you post adsense on without getting a warning? I have heard people say that you can only have a certain amount of sites before you get a warning letter from them.

I currently have 12 sites is that too many?

I don't see how there can be a limit. Publishers can only have one account per payee name, which means that you can only have more than one account if you form additional businesses each of which can receive payments in the business name.

https://www.google.com/adsense/suppo...uk&answer=9729

[peter gibson]

Steve, just wondering. What happens if you do get an adsense account banned for whatever reasons? I mean, to some people who truly make their living from it, that would really be a heart break. Just wondering... btw I'm still rooting for you!!

[DeanJames]

Interesting post; I have a quick question for everyone. How many sites can you have that you post adsense on without getting a warning?

There isn't a limit. Just make sure each one adheres to TOS.

I have heard people say that you can only have a certain amount of sites before you get a warning letter from them.

The people advising you this may be well intentioned but the advice is wrong.

Dean

[sena2gurl]

brilliant..self satisfactions...

[usfemail]

Thanks Dean for your response. I was getting nervous because I had too many sites on my adsense account.

Have a great day everyone!!

[junaidb]

Good luck Steve...will be following your progress daily....

[affiliated survivor]

About smart pricing: You can put no more than 15 Adsense ads on a page. But Google of course wants to sell more than 15 ads for a given keyword. Let´s assume Google sells 30 ads. The first 15 cost $2-$0.25 per click. Number 16-30 something from $0.24-$0.01. Since one is only allowed to use 15 ads on a page, who gets the expensive ones and who gets the cheap ones. Since Google is in it for the money, one could assume that webpages with the most visitors and the best CTR get the expensive ones. The reason why a webpage has a low CTR probably lies in less targeted traffic. Websites with targeted traffic make Google more money and get the best ads. Advertisers that pay little for their ads get little, get the pages with low quality traffic. Like in real life: The more you pay, the more you get.
That´s my idea of Google´s pricing strategy.

[axileon]

hey .. how's your adsense site going along?

[JulienH]

Hey Steve, thanks for all the great information in this thread, I'm subscribing to it.

Jul

[maxhomebits]

I think you are spot on with your Google Adsense pricing views, how else does Google make billions of dollers every year. It's just the reality of the online marketing machine, the money goes where the money is!

[jonathanparham]

It seems there are so many tools for backlinks, management, social bookmarking etc. What would you recommend. firepow or bookmarking demon or both?

[Nick.A]

Originally Posted by affiliated survivor

About smart pricing: You can put no more than 15 Adsense ads on a page. But Google of course wants to sell more than 15 ads for a given keyword. Let´s assume Google sells 30 ads. The first 15 cost $2-$0.25 per click. Number 16-30 something from $0.24-$0.01. Since one is only allowed to use 15 ads on a page, who gets the expensive ones and who gets the cheap ones. Since Google is in it for the money, one could assume that webpages with the most visitors and the best CTR get the expensive ones. The reason why a webpage has a low CTR probably lies in less targeted traffic. Websites with targeted traffic make Google more money and get the best ads. Advertisers that pay little for their ads get little, get the pages with low quality traffic. Like in real life: The more you pay, the more you get.
That´s my idea of Google´s pricing strategy.

Hi Affiliated Survivor,

I am not sure how you arrived at the 15 ads per page figure but, in reality, you can have many more than that. On any page, you can display: 3 AdSense content units + 3 link units + 2 search boxes + 1 video unit (if available in your language). I am not suggesting that is what you should do, but that is the maximum allowed.

The content units will display a number of ads according to the size of the unit that has been chosen. However, these units also have scroll buttons to display additional ads. I just went over to one of my sites and scrolled through all the ads in a single unit -- there were 20. So, you could easily have 60 ads on a page from the content units alone. Likewise, the number of links displayed in a link unit also depends on the size of the link unit chosen.

Smart Pricing is not related to CTR; it's conversion that counts. If you have a high traffic site and a high CTR but a poor conversion rate for the advertisers, that's when Smart Pricing kicks in. Low CTR and high conversion rate will not get your site/account Smart Priced -- in fact, you might earn a healthy sum from each click. High conversion is, of course, dependent on the quality of the traffic arriving at your site, i.e. how targeted your visitors are to your content and the ads they see on your site.

[Steve Crooks]

I do you use both firepow and bookmarking demon. Firepow is fantastic for doing everything from adding content to promotion all under one roof and bookmarking demon is awesome for doing social bookmarking with some extra features like pinging etc..

Originally Posted by jonathanparham

It seems there are so many tools for backlinks, management, social bookmarking etc. What would you recommend. firepow or bookmarking demon or both?

[jonathanparham]

Steve

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

I do you use both firepow and bookmarking demon. Firepow is fantastic for doing everything from adding content to promotion all under one roof and bookmarking demon is awesome for doing social bookmarking with some extra features like pinging etc..

Thanks for the answer. I've been following your challenge and combining knowledge from your thread and refining the process in a ebook I purchased. Very helpful. I'm basically trying to get my pages indexed quickly.
I guess it's cheaper and safer to do it manually, but it seems as though there's alot of tools to take out repetitive tasks.

[adizolt]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

I recieved an email today from somebody who purchased my "cash cow guide to adsense wealth". He wanted me to show him how it is possible to make a $100 a day from adsense from just 1 blog. Not one to shirk away from a challenge, I have decided to show everyone exactly how I will:

1. Take a brand new wordpress blog on a brand new domain
2. Locate a good adsense niche.
3. Conduct some keyword research for my blog theme, article titles and keywords.
4. Find a good WP theme
5. Create some good content for the blog.
6. Make sure my on site SEO is good.
7. Promote my blog properly.
8. Maintain the blog, testing and tracking.

My goal is to have this blog earning at least $100 per day in adsense income in just 3 months time! I want to do this to prove that you do not have to spew up hundreds of rubbish "Made For Adsense" (MFA) sites to make money from adsense. I want to prove that you can do it with a potent mix of:

1. Quality content
2. Some basic on site and off site SEO
3. ACTION!

So, I predict by March 31st 2009 I will be earning $100 per day from this blog.

I will:

1. Endeavour to update this thread every few days with what I am doing or have done to the blog.
2. Any income reports.
3. Use screenshots where possible for proof.
4. Show the niche I am targeting.
5. Answer any questions people may have.
6. Be investing a small amount of money in content creation.

I will not:

1. Reveal the domain name. (It could seriously skew the results if I did)
2. Lie about the income, if the blog flops I will show you (I am confident it won't however).
3. Desert this thread half way through.

My next post will demonstrate the process I go through to find a good niche.

Excelent post Steve. Thank you !

[Gunter Eibl]

Hi Steve,

10 pages already with I don't know how many posts in this thread! I hardly can read everything here. How about making a short summary post about the status, what has been done, what has been achieved and what's next?

Thanks!

Gunter

[affiliated survivor]

@Nick A.

Sure there are more possibilities than 15. But the link units are only related to the keyword of the page and the search boxes can be anything.

Yes the content units have scroll buttons. But it does not matter if there are 15 or more ads. It´s like the search pages. Who pays the most, gets the best spot. For Adsense publishers who´s websites do not have the best spots, or no good spots at all, this means they get the lower paying ads.

Smart pricing is not about CTR. But a low CTR has a reason. If Google would say smart pricing is about CTR, they would encourage people to manipulate the system, turning them into a danger for their advertisers.
About conversion: Do you really believe that it is possible for someone, advertising on the content network and his ads being on may be thousands of websites, to check the conversions from every website? How much time would this cost and how much work would this be?

[affiliated survivor]

@ axileon "How is your adsense site going?"

I don´t know if you meant me, since I mentioned my site in the beginning of this thread.
In December I made $7.64. In January I made so far $37,42 and 82 Eurocent from Ebay commisssions. I got a few more pages indexed, therefore the increase. I only use the very least competitive ones. With keywords like this in most cases being indexed is enough to get listed on the first page. Unfortunately I used up most of them now. For much more rankings I have to increase my PR. (now PR1) Another problem with this method is that now I have all kind of traffic. It is very difficult to sell anything to such a variated public. My CTR is still about 10%.

As I see it with selecting a narrow niche and make a website on that niche it is quite difficult to get much traffic. The easy keywords are used up quick and than you have to do a lot of SEO, hoping your site will appear some day in the serps. That´s why you often see websites with a high PR but nevertheless hardly any traffic. (In January I had 1449 visitors so far with only 42 backlinks. Most of them from articles I published, a few blogcomments and a few minor search engines that picked up my RSS feed. In fact more or less only low quality backlinks)
I´m thinking about making some kind of an article directory. Only that I write the articles myself. An article directory is a very, very broad subject. I could use the very easiest keywords from many niches. If there is only one easy keyword in a niche, I only write 1 article. Instead of making a whole website for that niche. In an article directory this looks normal. This way I can go on making new webpages for ever and generate 100-200 visitors every day.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by Gunter Eibl

Hi Steve,

10 pages already with I don't know how many posts in this thread! I hardly can read everything here. How about making a short summary post about the status, what has been done, what has been achieved and what's next?

Thanks!

Gunter

Hi Gunter

If you're looking for the updates on Steve's blog then just visit the '$100 challenge' link in his signature file. That's where he is putting the nitty gritty stuff. Presumably so that his progress reports don't get lost in all the posts in here... I mean, just look at it, there are now over 10 pages. That's a lot of pages for folks to sort through for his posts.

[Steve Crooks]

Yes, thats right Julia, when a thread gets this big it starts to get very difficult to manage everything related to the main topic.

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

Hi Gunter

If you're looking for the updates on Steve's blog then just visit the '$100 challenge' link in his signature file. That's where he is putting the nitty gritty stuff. Presumably so that his progress reports don't get lost in all the posts in here... I mean, just look at it, there are now over 10 pages. That's a lot of pages for folks to sort through for his posts.

[Oling]

Since most of you guys are talking about smart pricing, here's what is happenning to one of my site. I previously got between .75 cents to 6.92 per click and now i only getting below 1.00 dollar per click. I do get more than 2.00 dollars per click sometimes but not as often as it used to be. Note: the site I am talking about is not in my signature.
My question now is... is this smart pricing?


Thanks
Oling

[Oling]

Steve,
I don't know if this okay with you to ask it here so don't answer if tis not. My question is can you use an old domain name that is active and live but poorly designed and then take the word press blog theme in place? I am talking about a site that is about 75 to 120 pages already.

Thanks

[Steve Crooks]

Unfortunately there is no way to know for sure. All we do know is that smart pricing is being used but as always google plays its cards very close to its chest and whether your account is smart priced or not is difficult to say for sure. I have yet to read a definitive answer as to what causes smart pricing.

Originally Posted by Oling

Since most of you guys are talking about smart pricing, here's what is happenning to one of my site. I previously got between .75 cents to 6.92 per click and now i only getting below 1.00 dollar per click. I do get more than 2.00 dollars per click sometimes but not as often as it used to be. Note: the site I am talking about is not in my signature.
My question now is... is this smart pricing?


Thanks
Oling

[Steve Crooks]

Hi Oling, of course you can ask and in fact it is a really good question. What you have to remember here and it is really important, is that your old domain is indexed for a bunch of urls. If you changed now to a wordpress blog, these would probably disappear and be lost forever.

Personally, I would leave the site as it is but totally redesign the look of it. I would keep the content as it is also but if the site has good potential then add more to it and think about monetization. You have an advantage that you are not starting from scratch. Also, you could always create a blog as an extra to the site you already have.

Originally Posted by Oling

Steve,
I don't know if this okay with you to ask it here so don't answer if tis not. My question is can you use an old domain name that is active and live but poorly designed and then take the word press blog theme in place? I am talking about a site that is about 75 to 120 pages already.

Thanks

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Oling

Since most of you guys are talking about smart pricing, here's what is happenning to one of my site. I previously got between .75 cents to 6.92 per click and now i only getting below 1.00 dollar per click. I do get more than 2.00 dollars per click sometimes but not as often as it used to be. Note: the site I am talking about is not in my signature.
My question now is... is this smart pricing?

Probably not. What's more likely is an advertiser who was overspending on Adwords was operating in your niche and now has either gone broke or wised up.

Another possibility is that you were getting traffic on a particularly good paying keyword. Somewhere along the way something you changed on your site, like the title or article on the index page, or something off-site, like a competitor grabbing this traffic with their own SEO campaign and curtailed this higher paying traffic.

[Oling]

Thanks very much Steve. Now i have a better understandingon what to do with this particular site.

Thanks
Oling

[Oling]

Thanks BGMCAW,
I think that make sense and might probably the reason and not smart pricing... hopefully not..

thanks again,
Oling

[bat55w]

Wow,

This is a great thread and I applaud you Steve for taking on this challenge. I am not just a newbie, I am a brand newbie. There is a lot of lingo in this thread that I am not familiar with. Is there a glossary somewhere? Sometimes when you are new, the terminology can make everything soud too complex.

Also, I am dissappointed that you have not continued to make this a $100/day challenge. To someone like me, that is everything since I don't want to put in the work to make $1/day. Its just not worth it. I hope you reconsider.

[Kay King]

What are you talking about? If you read this thread you'll find the process has been continued on Steve's blog with detailed instructions.

You are the one that needs to "reconsider" as a blog that earns $25 a day or $50 a day or $80 day is also pretty valuable online real estate.

In fact, spending a few hours to create a blog that reliably makes $1-10 a day month after month isn't all that bad if you build a bunch of them. But it's easier to say "it's too much trouble" and do nothing.

Problem is - you get nothing when you do that.

kay

[Nick.A]

Originally Posted by affiliated survivor

@Nick A.

About conversion: Do you really believe that it is possible for someone, advertising on the content network and his ads being on may be thousands of websites, to check the conversions from every website? How much time would this cost and how much work would this be?

Well, there are many tools available to AdWords advertisers to help them determine how their ads are performing on the content network, including conversion. If you're a serious AdWords advertiser, you would make the time to do the job properly. If you don't, your advertising budget will be rapidly depleted and you will be history. Advertisers that simply turn on the content network and hope for the best don't last long. Do you think an advertiser will be prepared to pay several dollars a click for his ad to appear on a MFA site? I don't think so.

[bat55w]

Kay,

I think you misunderstood the intent of my statement. Steve changed the challenge from $100/day to 2000 visitors/day. That is what I was disappointed about. Having now read the blog I see that he has changed his mind and so the point is moot.

As far as the money, you need to look at it from a newbie perspective. There is only so much time in the day to do work and I want to make it count. Steve is building a much larger/ more time consuming blog. If I were to take this on it would take me much longer since I have to learn all of the basics. That is why I asked about the glossary. To me that effort is not worth it if the results are poor. I can spend my time on other pursuits and make more money. On the other hand, I agree that if I could build a blog in a couple of hours and make $1/day, that is something worth looking at, especially for a first timer. From what I have seen in this thread, that is not too easy. But I am new, so if you have some examples to show me I would be very interested. I do want to learn this technique. I would be interested in someone showing me the url's to their blogs that make money.

Originally Posted by Kay King

What are you talking about? If you read this thread you'll find the process has been continued on Steve's blog with detailed instructions.

You are the one that needs to "reconsider" as a blog that earns $25 a day or $50 a day or $80 day is also pretty valuable online real estate.

In fact, spending a few hours to create a blog that reliably makes $1-10 a day month after month isn't all that bad if you build a bunch of them. But it's easier to say "it's too much trouble" and do nothing.

Problem is - you get nothing when you do that.

kay

[affiliated survivor]

@ Nick A.
Which tool are you referring too. I only know of tools that can tell you which keywords converted, but not from which website they were coming. I also never heard of people doing this.
Sure they do not want their ads on MFA sites, but that´s Google´s job to prevent it. There are so many people with some kind of MFA sites, like autoblogs with Adsense on it, why do the advertisers not remove their ads from these sites. If it would be that easy there wouldn´t even be MFA sites. Google knows where clicks come from, from the pub-id. But they do not share this information with their advertisers, as far as I know.

[DeanJames]

On the other hand, I agree that if I could build a blog in a couple of hours and make $1/day, that is something worth looking at, especially for a first timer.

Do not dismiss the power of building sites that make a relatively small amount of money as a pursuit only for beginners. The truth is you can accomplish the same objective and do things totally differently to somebody else. One person may work on and build a couple of sites to make $100 a day and another may build 100 sites and pull in $100 a day average. Both methods can and do work. All you need to do is work out the ROI for the time and money you employ vs what you have outlined as an achievable goal for that site/s. If you are a beginner I would recommend you get your feet wet first with a smaller site/spend less time on it and then use that data to ramp things up when you have done a few by picking out your best performers and setting a higher objective monetarily.

Dean