Monkey see, monkey do - We all learn by seeing - Case study, shall we?

[xTrav]

Greetings,

I have been trying to figure out all of this affiliate marketing stuff for several years now. So I have come to the obvious conclusion that I am currently stuck in the 'information overload' phase. Not knowing where to start due to way too many options as well as misinformation is a very cruel thing to experience in life.

So how does one actually get started one 1 thing after being stuck for so long? Well, for me, I decided today that I am going to go with an Adsense site. Why? Because I am a regular reader of Pat Flynn's: Smart Passive Income blog and he seems to be doing pretty good with his Adsense site. In his last monthly income report, he stated that his main Adsense site made $2,170.15 for the month of November.

If you have not seen or heard of the site in question, it is a site about Security Guard Training and the url is: SECURITY GUARD TRAINING HEADQUARTERS - Your Center for Security Guard Training

Personal disclaimer: I am only posting this because I feel that Pat would not mind. He openly posts his income reports every month for the world to see as well as has countless links to his Security Guard Training site. This is the only reason that I feel comfortable doing this since it is a site that he has openly talked about so much on his own terms.

The main reason that I am writing this post is that I want to do somewhat of a case study on his site. This is how I learn the best.

So let's start with some of my own observations about the site...

The site is laid out in a very simple form. Nothing fancy or flashy. It's clean and uncluttered. The articles seem to be very keyword targeted, yet they are all very simplistic articles. I do notice that he is doing an email capture by giving away the free ebook. Does anyone have any idea of why he is doing this? What does he do with that email list? I don't see any other security guard related incomes on his monthly reports...

Anyways, I want to pick this site apart and find out why it is so successful? A lot of the people who own Adsense sites claim that the only way they are making $1,000 or more a month is from owning multiple sites. But Pat seems to be making $2,000 a month just from this 1 site? Why is his 1 site so successful?

This is why I made this post. Let's break his site down and figure this out together. Shall we?


Thanks,
Trav

[Matt Red]

Since i'm a follower of the spi blog, i can chime in a little.

But to be completely honest, if you go to spi he literally outlines everything he does.. Check it out here:

Niche Site Duel: I’ve Been Challenged…and I Accept | The Smart Passive Income Blog

Basically, he nailed the keyword research and SEO down hard, so he was set up for success before he even started. Then he just tested ad placement/colors/setting etc. to maximize his income.

[xTrav]

Thanks for the info Red. I was aware of the Niche Site Duel Challenge and have read it before...but maybe I missed something and need to go back and reread it.

Anyways, one thing that intrigues me the most is the header of his site. It is very plain and not very fancy. I have also noticed this on tons of other adsense sites. In wordpress it gives you the option to turn text headings on or off. It seems that most of the adsense sites I see have only text headers instead of some nicely designed header graphic. Is there a reason for this? Does it have something to do with making your website more seo friendly for the google spiders to crawl?

Trav

[yukon]

Originally Posted by xTrav

Thanks for the info Red. I was aware of the Niche Site Duel Challenge and have read it before...but maybe I missed something and need to go back and reread it.

Anyways, one thing that intrigues me the most is the header of his site. It is very plain and not very fancy. I have also noticed this on tons of other adsense sites. In wordpress it gives you the option to turn text headings on or off. It seems that most of the adsense sites I see have only text headers instead of some nicely designed header graphic. Is there a reason for this? Does it have something to do with making your website more seo friendly for the google spiders to crawl?

Trav

It's about keeping things simple for a better CTR.

[Sharyn Sheldon]

Hi Trav,

I've seen the Niche Site Duel too. Pat is amazing.

The main things you should be concerned about with AdSense sites are:
- your keywords
- your SEO
- traffic
- click-through-rate

The keyword part is all about finding good keywords that you can rank on. I love Market Samurai for this, but I'm sure others have their own favorites.

The SEO you'll find info on all over the place. Optimize your pages for your keywords in all the tags and content.

Traffic? Well, that's your biggest challenge. No AdSense site is going to make much money unless you have a ton of traffic. If you can keep building hundreds of pages, all optimized for good keywords, you've got half the battle won. The other half is just building different types of links (eg YouTube, articles, forums, blogs, etc) and moving up the ranks.

CTR is the part you seem to be focusing on. You'll have to test what works for your market. Some visitors like ads that stand out, others like them looking like they're part of the content. Some like big bold headers, others don't. Notice I said "visitors". This isn't about what you like, it's about what gets you the highest click-through. You'll have to run tests on different set ups.

I'm sure I've missed other tactics, so hopefully more people will chime in.

Good luck!

Sharyn