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

[Oling]

Thanks very much Steve,

Although you did not reach the set target for the Challenge, I still applaud you for taking this momentous task and showing all of us who really don't know much on how to blog and run an adsense site or blog. It did show me now that you can achieve a lot with adsense if done right. If you have money to have people write articles for you this can make you a lot of money. I mean 600.00 dollars a month times say 10 sites like that can handsomely pay you a lot.

I Remain,

Oling

[Oling]

BTW. If i make 20.00 dollars on site blog alone, I will very ecstatic! That would be something for me to do more. i mean make more blogs and sites that can generate that much.

Oling

[remodeler]

You've helped a tremendous number of people during this time. (And still are) Even if you didn't reach your own goal, you can certainly be proud of all you've accomplished. Great job Steve!

And like someone mentioned earlier, even though your Adsense isn't currently at the $100/day level, as more time goes by you'll most likely see it continue to go higher.

[Steve Crooks]

Thanks guys for your kind comments.. For anyone who has purchased my cash cow guide to Adsense wealth I have just sent you an email with details of how to download my new report on the challenge.

[bannor32]

Originally Posted by peter gibson

I built a blog for my son 6 months ago. It's a Canadian Hockey Team blog. PR 2. 70 to 90 average unique visits per day.... 12 to 16.00 per day in adsense (with a poor CTR). That blog buys some of his hockey equipment now - nice little bit of irony.

So, depending on how much you think means "making money with adsense", there is an income to be had in sports sites.

It is worth noting that most sports blogs and adsense sites have a seasonal factor to earnings. On the upside, if you pick a winning franchise you can really make a killing in affiliate sales (along with the adsense)

Peter - Did you mean $12-16 a month? I run a hockey blog and in my experience clicks pay an average of about 30 cents. At $12-16/day that would mean your son is getting 40-50 clicks a day with 70-90 unique visits. That would be a pretty darn good CTR...

[Azlan]

Great story Steve... Well, it is not $100 a day in 3 months.. but if it reach $100 a day in a year, that will definitely a good income for most of us..

the most important thing is take action...

thank you again...

[Kaye Dennan]

Hi Steve
this post interest me and looking at your your Blog, could you tell me how you got the sign up box on your Wordpress blog as I can't seem to find out how? thanks, Kaye

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

It's not often I disagree with you bgmacaw but I do on this area. I do agree that affiliate products offer even more scope for this type of sports site but there is definitely good Adsense money to be made also. I used to have a simple junky site that had Adsense on it based on a UK football team. It was just a few pages of crappy articles, not something I was proud of but it pulled in around a dollar a day in Adsense. The CPC wasn't brilliant but the visitor numbers more than made up for that.

From what I've seen affiliate products, especially eBay EPN, will make 3 to 4 times what Adsense will make in a sports niche. Plus, as you and someone else noted, the CPC is poor which is a factor that can put you at risk of smart pricing across your whole network of Adsense sites.

Another common factor that you seem to have is concentrating on a particular team. While this kind of targeting can help improve earnings, the problem here can be the team coming after you for trademark violations. Since you're in the UK and the other guy is in Canada maybe this isn't as big a problem for you. Here in the litigious US, it's inviting a "cease and desist" at the very least if not a full blown lawsuit. For example, even small local businesses and churches avoid using the term "Superbowl" in relation to anything due to the heavy handed NFL legal team.

[Steve Crooks]

There is nothing wrong with owning a fan site for a team here in the UK, at least as far as I know anyway.. I no longer own this site though, it was a while ago I had it. You do bring up some very important points about trade marks though and as always people need to do their own research into the niches especially if it involves brand names.

I know what you are saying about affiliate products but the question was originally specific to Adsense and yes, it is possible to make decent money from a sports related blog in Adsense.

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

From what I've seen affiliate products, especially eBay EPN, will make 3 to 4 times what Adsense will make in a sports niche. Plus, as you and someone else noted, the CPC is poor which is a factor that can put you at risk of smart pricing across your whole network of Adsense sites.

Another common factor that you seem to have is concentrating on a particular team. While this kind of targeting can help improve earnings, the problem here can be the team coming after you for trademark violations. Since you're in the UK and the other guy is in Canada maybe this isn't as big a problem for you. Here in the litigious US, it's inviting a "cease and desist" at the very least if not a full blown lawsuit. For example, even small local businesses and churches avoid using the term "Superbowl" in relation to anything due to the heavy handed NFL legal team.

[Lucky500]

Hey Steve, great job mate.

Although you finish shy of your goal, this challenge served to teach a lot of us that with persistence and hard work we are all able to make some decent money online.

[nichemarketninja]

Originally Posted by traceye

then you need another 200 blogs all doing the same and you'll have $100 a day.

Hehe, while this is a little amusing, I totally subscribe to this principal. 280 Niche websites each earning $5-$500 a month leads to a great income of around $36000 a month for me. It took a little while, but with persistance, a good SEO strategy and some creativity, it is possible.

Cheers
Nick

[tntrader]

Promote that sign ninja.

[slwoon]

Hi Steve,

Congratulations on your courage in taking up this challenge!

Earning $20/month from Adsense from just one blog is still a dream for many Internet marketers. What you've done has opened up many new doors for many of us and I must thank you for that.

Incidentally, can you get similar good results using blogger.com compared to Wordpress? I'm personally more comfortable with the former.

John

[belod4me]

Thanks Steve, you're great! I'm a newbie to google adds, I've not even been able to make $3 since 3months from my google ads. Pls hold me by the hand,let me be your boy. Pls carry me along.

[Steve Crooks]

The main reason I wouldn't use blogger for your main blog is that you have no control over it. Blogger could pull the plug at any moment and all your hard work could be gone. Maybe a self hosted blogger might be a better idea, I haven't tried it myself though.

Originally Posted by slwoon

Hi Steve,

Congratulations on your courage in taking up this challenge!

Earning $20/month from Adsense from just one blog is still a dream for many Internet marketers. What you've done has opened up many new doors for many of us and I must thank you for that.

Incidentally, can you get similar good results using blogger.com compared to Wordpress? I'm personally more comfortable with the former.

John

[articlemaster]

Best of luck and carry on..
I hope you taste success soon

[discrat]

Originally Posted by belod4me

Thanks Steve, you're great! I'm a newbie to google adds, I've not even been able to make $3 since 3months from my google ads. Pls hold me by the hand,let me be your boy. Pls carry me along.

Uhmmm........Somebody has some issues in here

[Steve Crooks]

Let's not go there...

Originally Posted by discrat

Uhmmm........Somebody has some issues in here

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by slwoon

Incidentally, can you get similar good results using blogger.com compared to Wordpress?

Google on 'make money online' and you'll have your answer.

[pcwork]

wwwdotbusinessopportunitiesscamsdotcom

[Brawnydt]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Google on 'make money online' and you'll have your answer.

Now now, let's not disturb the Brears.

[SoundsGood]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

2. Locate a good adsense niche.

How would we know this?

Thanks.

[Goatboy]

Thank you for the information. This has been a very helpful thread and I look forward to experimenting with your method.

I do have a couple of questions about the initial keyword selection process. May I ask if there is a ratio that you look for between monthly hits and competition? In other words, say a niche receives 85 hits a day, working out to roughly 2500 hits per month with competition of 400,000. Is that too little? Is there a point under which the number of monthly hits becomes unprofitable to operate the site regardless of competition, or is that totally based on the cpc?

[Steve Crooks]

The numbers are one thing, there isn't a ratio as such and it all depends on the level of your competitor sites. Put it this way, if you had a niche which got 2500 searches a month with 400000 competition and I looked on Google search for that keyword phrase and saw the top 10 filled with Wikipedia, Amazon, Ebay, Target etc.. I would swerve it. If I saw the top 10 was filled by sites that looked like I could compete with in respect to content and off site SEO then go for it!

Originally Posted by Goatboy

Thank you for the information. This has been a very helpful thread and I look forward to experimenting with your method.

I do have a couple of questions about the initial keyword selection process. May I ask if there is a ratio that you look for between monthly hits and competition? In other words, say a niche receives 85 hits a day, working out to roughly 2500 hits per month with competition of 400,000. Is that too little? Is there a point under which the number of monthly hits becomes unprofitable to operate the site regardless of competition, or is that totally based on the cpc?

[Craig Dawber]

I tried adsense a few years ago without much success.

I might try it again as times have changed.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by Goatboy

May I ask if there is a ratio that you look for between monthly hits and competition? In other words, say a niche receives 85 hits a day, working out to roughly 2500 hits per month with competition of 400,000. Is that too little? Is there a point under which the number of monthly hits becomes unprofitable to operate the site regardless of competition, or is that totally based on the cpc?

Hi Goatboy

It's probably not really important to have a ratio. Even a searchphrase that has a low number of monthly searches can be profitable. I've been known to target keywords with only 2 daily searches. Why? Because there is very little competition.

Blogs can target an unlimited number of keywords via keyword articles targeting single keywords. The blog automatically takes care of giving it an individual page for the search engines to forward traffic to. Well optimized articles will get fairly good rankings. Even keywords with low monthly searchs can be profitable when you combine their effects. For example: if you have 50 posts targetting minor keywords and get top ranking for all of them and they supply two visitors per day each... that's 100 visitors per day to your website.

Hence if you have an adsense CTR (click thru rate) of 5% and average earnings of 20 cents per click then those 50 keywords will generate at least $1 per day in earnings... that's well worth targeting don't you think?

As Steve said, the most important thing is the amount, and strength of the competition. If the top 10 sites for a keyword are all sites with huge numbers of backlinks then forget it, leave the fight for another day because you ain't gonna be able to compete and VERY few searchers go past the first page because they usually find what they are looking for on that first page. Any ranking beyond page three and you will get little, if any, traffic from it.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Brawnydt

Now now, let's not disturb the Brears.

That's why I didn't link directly and, besides, he's not the only one there from Blogger.

[jspmedia]

this is fun...I signed up with your competition...

[Goatboy]

That is very helpful. I hadn't thought of Wikipedia et al as competitors. I am considering a niche that appears to receive about 8000 hits a month with a 529,000 competition. Nothing in the top 10 appears overpowering although I have yet to reconnoiter the competition's sites. I have begun working on a list of possible blog topics and I have chosen a company name for the enterprise. I expect to be ready with the articles within 4 to 6 weeks.

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

The numbers are one thing, there isn't a ratio as such and it all depends on the level of your competitor sites. Put it this way, if you had a niche which got 2500 searches a month with 400000 competition and I looked on Google search for that keyword phrase and saw the top 10 filled with Wikipedia, Amazon, Ebay, Target etc.. I would swerve it. If I saw the top 10 was filled by sites that looked like I could compete with in respect to content and off site SEO then go for it!

[thurana]

Hi Mr. Steve,

Thank you for the excellent thread here. I've learned a lot even thought I just skimmed through the content (planned to spare few days to read all in full...).

Just a quick question: I noticed that the preparation stage - finding profitable niche - is crucial to getting high result, right? But what if you've already have a blog in a 'not-so-profitable' niche that you choose out of personal interest (like mine: SuperSubConscious.com), should you just ditch it and go for the money (even though you hate the new blog's topic)?

Regards,
Thurana

[Goatboy]

So is the idea to determine my niche keywords and then pull in all of the associated keywords and long tails? As an example using Steve's blog about Wuropean Cruises, I would first target European Cruises as the main thrust of the blog, but I would also perhaps include entries about European Tours, European Camping excursions, European backpacking, etc. each as a separate blog entry or entries. If so, do you recommend concentrating on a small handful of words at first to get page rank and then slowly expanding my control of the niche?

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

Hi Goatboy


Blogs can target an unlimited number of keywords via keyword articles targeting single keywords. The blog automatically takes care of giving it an individual page for the search engines to forward traffic to. Well optimized articles will get fairly good rankings. Even keywords with low monthly searchs can be profitable when you combine their effects. For example: if you have 50 posts targetting minor keywords and get top ranking for all of them and they supply two visitors per day each... that's 100 visitors per day to your website.

[Steve Crooks]

I don't mean to be rude either but I have already answered that actually before March 31st both here, on my 100 bucks challenge blog and in the report I have just released for all customers of my cash cow guide to Adsense wealth..

Originally Posted by revpl2

OK it's now past March 31st and I don't mean to be rude but have you reached the $100/day mark?

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by Goatboy

So is the idea to determine my niche keywords and then pull in all of the associated keywords and long tails? As an example using Steve's blog about European Cruises, I would first target European Cruises as the main thrust of the blog, but I would also perhaps include entries about European Tours, European Camping excursions, European backpacking, etc. each as a separate blog entry or entries. If so, do you recommend concentrating on a small handful of words at first to get page rank and then slowly expanding my control of the niche?

Exactly. It doesn't really need to be a small handful of keywords though. My experience has been that as your rankings increase for long tail keywords related to your niche then so does your ranking for the competitive keywords. So concentrate on ranking for the related long tail keywords and in time you will automatically rank for the 'short tail' keywords (ie. your niche or sub-niche keywords).

Say for example you have a baseball blog. You won't want to target the keyword 'baseball' simply because the amount of competition will be massive. So you focus on long tail keywords like

How to pitch like a pro
Buying cheap baseball equipment
Finding the best baseball glove
How to increase your batting power

etc, etc, etc,

Even though you are not deliberately targeting the 'baseball' keyword it will appear in your site a LOT and in time your blog will gain a reputation with search engines for being an authority site on baseball and they will therefore rank you higher for that keyword.

So expanding control of the actual niche will occur automatically as you target more and more of the long tail keywords associated with that niche.

[disketmadu]

Yes, this is very interesting topic of adsense. I aggree with all of you.

[catad83]

Interesting... I've been fallowing this since day one...

[Goatboy]

That makes perfect sense. As the long tails are filled and pull me up the rankings, I will begin to rank for other keywords, too.

I must say that this idea is much better than my own, which was to start a controversial blog in the hopes of bringing enough people to the site to get a fair number of clicks. From what I have learned from you guys controversy would probably be a bad thing since it would keep people reading rather than clicking.

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

...Even though you are not deliberately targeting the 'baseball' keyword it will appear in your site a LOT and in time your blog will gain a reputation with search engines for being an authority site on baseball and they will therefore rank you higher for that keyword.

So expanding control of the actual niche will occur automatically as you target more and more of the long tail keywords associated with that niche.

[Oscar D]

I just want to ask Steve, can you give us some stats on your website?

- How many pages is the site now? (how many articles are there?)
- Has the number of visitors increased or remained the same?

Thanks

[Steve Crooks]

Hi Oscar,

I have aroung 90 articles posted now and I am going to slowly dripfeed the other 300 or so over the next 6 months or so. I am so busy getting the Adsense bootcamp materials together that I haven't put much effort into this over the past week.

The number of visitors have remained constant over the past couple of weeks, which kind of reflects the fact that the rankings in Google are fairly static for all my target keywords. As always, I am in for the long game though..

Originally Posted by Oscar D

I just want to ask Steve, can you give us some stats on your website?

- How many pages is the site now? (how many articles are there?)
- Has the number of visitors increased or remained the same?

Thanks

[Jiimboo]

I follow this tread from the beginning. And I really love this project, but I have a doubt.
Now we know the url of this best european cruise site; so I ask myself how this kind of site can make so many visits and so many dollars a day (20$) with these contents, that graphics, that marketing.

Are there other people like me that thinks this site can't make so well?

[Steve Crooks]

Please expand on what it is that you doubt? What is wrong with the graphics, contents and marketing to make you doubt?

Originally Posted by Jiimboo

I follow this tread from the beginning. And I really love this project, but I have a doubt.
Now we know the url of this best european cruise site; so I ask myself how this kind of site can make so many visits and so many dollars a day (20$) with these contents, that graphics, that marketing.

Are there other people like me that thinks this site can't make so well?

[Jiimboo]

I think there are too many not original contents in your site.

For example, in this moment if you look the Recent Posts on right column , all come from ezinearticles:
Harwood E Woodpecker - Expert Author
John McGlade - Expert Author
Caitlina Fuller - Expert Author
....
And Google doesn't like too much not original content.


The graphic is really poor.

In every page adsense ads are too present on the page. Before I found a content I need to scroll and scroll down.

For these kind of "errors" I think this site can't make so well like you say.
I'd like to know if I'm the only that think in this way... simply this.

[Steve Crooks]

If, like you say you have followed this thread from the start then you should also know that I mentioned that the vast majority of the content I use in my blogs is 100% original. However I do also mention that I use articles from directories also if it adds something of value to the blog. You have picked up on 3 articles that I have used, I think there may be a few more but about 90% of the articles are 100% original. If Google don't like the content from directories then why have they indexed these posts and why do I get traffic from them via Google?

I am sorry the graphics don't meet your approval..

You say my Adsense ads are to prominent and you have to scroll down to read the content. Correct, why do you think that is? The balance is always difficult between user experience and Adsense income. I like to think I hit the balance just right with Adsense ads that are prominent enough to get clicks but not so in your face to take away from the value of the content.

Jiimboo, I think you are missing the whole point with your contradictory arguments. The whole point of having your Adsense ads prominent is to hopefully get a click as that is how we make money from Adsense. The whole point of having quality content is so that our visitors get some value which is exactly what Google are looking for. Combining these two components is fundamentally what makes a site successful.

Originally Posted by Jiimboo

I think there are too many not original contents in your site.

For example, in this moment if you look the Recent Posts on right column , all come from ezinearticles:
Harwood E Woodpecker - Expert Author
John McGlade - Expert Author
Caitlina Fuller - Expert Author
....
And Google doesn't like too much not original content.


The graphic is really poor.

In every page adsense ads are too present on the page. Before I found a content I need to scroll and scroll down.

For these kind of "errors" I think this site can't make so well like you say.
I'd like to know if I'm the only that think in this way... simply this.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Jiimboo

I think there are too many not original contents in your site.

This isn't a huge problem. There are some differences of opinion I have with the way Steve is handling content but that's not one of them.

Originally Posted by Jiimboo

The graphic is really poor.

He actually has too many graphics, IMO. I almost never use graphics on an Adsense site, with the possible exception of a very plain banner graphic.

Originally Posted by Jiimboo

In every page adsense ads are too present on the page. Before I found a content I need to scroll and scroll down.

The advertising is supposed to be the star of the show. That's how you make money with Adsense. Burying it below content or in a sidebar is a good way to earn AdCENTS.

[Julia Andersson]

Hey Steve

Just visitied your blog and noticed that you have earned a google pagerank of 2... congratulations Good feeling when google recognises your efforts and rewards them like that. Even if it doesn't mean that much it still feels like a pat on the back from the masters of the internet!

I'm really proud of myself at the moment too. The blog that I started a few weeks ago now has three articles... the first time I have EVER used a blog as an actual blog. I've got several other blogs, but they are all basically used as static sites and only contain one post. So I'm proud of myself for taking the step to actually use a blog as a blog... I know all the advantages of a blog, how the search engines are able to differentiate between posts and rank each one individually, how seo friendly they are, how convenient to update etc etc... but I just never acted on the knowledge before.

I might note that the blog is doing quite well also. According to awstats the blog received a total of 83 visitors for March and has already had 105 uniques for April which means my average is around 10 unique visitors per day, but the overall visits is 250 for the month so I've got lots of people coming back (though some of those visits will be myself working on the blog of course). I am receiving about six spam comments per day but I always moderate comments anyway. The post with the review of the automated blog posting software has resulted in three sales of the software (US$21) so that's great too.

[Sell]

I'm following this thread to see how it works out, hopefully it does! Good luck too everybody!

[tom clark]

Hi Steve-

i am considering purchasing your report. Are you still offering one free website design? Up until now all I have done is affiliate marketing, but your thread has inspired me to want to try an adsense site as well.

[RedHat39]

Well I, as many others who have posted in this thread and on Steve's progress blog, think Steve did a great job with this project and has proven to us all that presistence and taking action does pay off.

So what if it didn't get to the $100/day mark? Maybe it will someday - who knows...

But for most of us getting a consistent $20/day from one blog would inspire us to create 5, 10, or even 20 more just like it.

Thanks again Steve for such a great thread and keeping us all informed on the progress.

[FrontpageContent]

$20/day from one blog is not too shabby, just rinse and repeat

I build massive unique content sites and find a lot of my traffic through long tails, using this technique I do not need as many backlinks to get decent traffic.

[Steve Crooks]

I am Tom, I have decided to keep this offer open to new buyers of my guide for a while longer. All buyers of the cash cow guide to Adsense wealth will also get the $100 a day challenge report.

This report gives the background to the challenge including my own personal thoughts and insights into the structure of the European cruises blog. Where and how I conducted my research into the niche. It basically condenses this thread into a report plus all my insights..

Originally Posted by tom clark

Hi Steve-

i am considering purchasing your report. Are you still offering one free website design? Up until now all I have done is affiliate marketing, but your thread has inspired me to want to try an adsense site as well.

[Goatboy]

I have two questions.

First. What is the advantage of using the blog as a static site? Is it better for selling things? (Maybe a product like an eBook on European Cruises).

Second. Is there an advantage to allowing comments? I had considered simply not allowing any so I wouldn't have to bother with moderating them.

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

...I've got several other blogs, but they are all basically used as static sites and only contain one post. So I'm proud of myself for taking the step to actually use a blog as a blog...

...I am receiving about six spam comments per day but I always moderate comments anyway. The post with the review of the automated blog posting software has resulted in three sales of the software (US$21) so that's great too.