Why bother with Adsense when you could be making more and Faster without them?

[Mike Anthony]

Been meaning to ask this question for awhile but kept putting it off . I was recently reminded of this when talking with a few Imers looking to build adsense empires.

With adsense you are basically being paid by businesses to send traffic to them. Yes Google sends you the check but ultimately the real person paying out the dollars is a business using advertising through adwords. Google gets a nice slice out of that pie and controls everything (including how much you make and whether they want you to continue making it). You don't get to set your price and terms. You are entirely at their mercy and the businesses that ultimately pay you are paying through their nose for clicks while you get pennies.

In addition to that unless you are very fortunate you work for a long time while making VERY little IN THE HOPE that once you rank a number of sites you begin to be paid by businesses for your rankings.

It strikes me that the difference between doing SEO for businesses as I do and the adsense guys isn't that huge when it comes to who pays us and why.

Its the same kind of business owners ultimately writing our paycheck.

The main difference is I work directly with the businesses that want traffic from Google in the organic listings. I set my fees. I generally get paid upfront or very soon to proving myself to the business owner. Google might influence me by where their algo makes sites rank but they can't terminate me. If I deliver results for these clients they tend to stay with me for a long time.

I have no sites to setup.
I don't have to setup most of my customers content
I can't be terminated from my entire business.
I get paid better.
I get paid faster.
I can increase my income with a few more customers.

and if I rank 20 30 sites I don't have the reward from google that my sites all get banished from the program but instead I improve my reputation among the same business owners and get more jobs.

My point?

Many people trying to make adsense fly would make more money by getting clients at $199 a month and start making it in a week to a month or two.

Sure there are guys making tens of thousands doing adsense but most of those are not doing MFAs and frankly for everyone making good money with adsense there are 100 and probably more making nothing but pennies.

So know SEO enough to rank sites and choose adsense? maybe you are just being suckers. Why not learn to go straight to the business owners themselves who pay the bills for both of us and cut out the middle man boss Google?

based on the points above adsense is a TOTAL waste for most IMers. Even Affiliate marketing is more versatile. There I said it and I can back it up because its the pure truth.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not saying that doing SEO is the only viable business model outside of adsense. I am merely comparing them because of the similarity of who is actually paying for both models - businesses looking for traffic.

[Brendan Mace]

The main reason why adsense is so attractive is because of it's simplicity. You don't need a sales page to sell products. And you don't need to convince someone that you offer worthy services.

All it takes is content creation and proper ad placement. Pretty darn easy!

I agree with you though. You can make A LOT more money by monetizing in other ways.

[outwest]

Agreed 100%
I just think most people either dont quite see the whole picture, or they dont know quite how to bypass Google as the middleman

care to expand on exactly how to begin to setup something like that

For example
i can envision instead of putting up Netflix ads for Adsense, I would just put up websites targeting movie rentals or netflix etc etc etc

and then sign up directly on Netflix as an affiliate, of course that bypasses clickbank, Adsense and everyone else

but i am sure your concept is much more involved or sophisticated. Thanks for posting this thread though

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by co2

All it takes is content creation and proper ad placement. Pretty darn easy!

I agree with you though. You can make A LOT more money by monetizing in other ways.

Content creation isn't easy unless you are just doing MFAs and there is nothing simply about waking up every morning wondering if your income will be tanked by Google because all you have are MFAs

But what good is simplicity in making money online if you are NOT making money online. Besides I see alot of people doing a whole lot of hard work with mutliple sites and on page SEO and backlinking - not so simple in reality.

I've been watching this for years on WF and there are VERY few people making any real money from adsense at least not those who create sites just for adsense. Its a busted wasteful business model for too high a percentage of people. If people put up their hours and what they make there are ton loads of people who would do better working for a dollar an hour.

[Brendan Mace]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Content creation isn't easy unless you are just doing MFAs and there is nothing simply about waking up every morning wondering if your income will be tanked by Google because all you have are MFAs

But what good is simplicity in making money online if you are NOT making money online. Besides I see alot of people doing a whole lot of har d work with mutliple sites and on page SEO and backlinking - not so simple in reality.

Making money through adsense is a lot easier than making money as a service provider. Sure, you can make more money in a shorter period of time as a service provider. But you first need to convince people that you are a worthy provider.

All content creation can be outsourced. Just like all service work can be outsourced. Everything seems to cost time or money. Adsense is easy to set up if you have knowledge of the content you create. Or if you outsource the content to someone else.

Like I said, adsense may not be the best investment of your time or money. But it IS easy to set up. For that reason, it's an attractive form of monetization to some people.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by co2

Making money through adsense is a lot easier than making money as a service provider. Sure, you can make more money in a shorter period of time as a service provider. But you first need to convince people that you are a worthy provider.

.

I don't argue that its easier to setup but thats not the point. Who cares a rip if setup is easier.

Prove its easier TO MAKE MONEY not just to setup. Huge difference. Because I get people PMing me all the time with their MFA sites. they are not getting any money from them and have all kinds of issues ranking and getting traffic.

Frankly Its drop dead easy being a service provider. In SEO I don't have to convince a client of anything if I don't want to. If I am hard up for a customer I can pick a company and say to them I will move you up several pages in Google and when I do I have instant credibility. I can pre qualify them and know they have the money to pay and are used to paying advertising money. Most think it s magical the ability to move the site up.

If its so hard to be a business provider why are there WSOs FILLED with service threads being bumped? Frankly look around in this section of WF - there are more successful people offering SEO services here than anything else.

[paulgl]

Well, SEO is not instant results. And they must pay you.

Most in this mindset will pay google via adwords. Why
pay you for what may be iffy results next month?

Instant gratification.

And there would be no reason to stop doing adsense
while you undertake this endeavor anyway.

If these people swap adwords for organic search, they
will then be competing with their former competitors
who will remain in the ads.

The logic would be that sites like amazon would just
can their adwords account. But they don't.

Paul

[Brendan Mace]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

I don't argue that its easier to setup but thats not the point. Who cares a rip if setup is easier.

there are more successful people offering SEO services here than anything else.

This does not prove that 'providing a service is more popular.' I hope you're not implying that there are more Seo service providers than adsense publishers.

Anyways, the amount of people involved in a particular field of 'making money online' is irrelevant to what is the 'easiest way to make money online.'

I did not suggest that being an adsense publisher is a better course of action. My only point is that it's easier. And some people prefer to go for the easy road. Even if that means smaller profits.

Anybody can make money off adsense. If you create content and get some traffic, eventually you will get clicks. Those clicks will earn you "some money."

Not rocket science by any means. It is of course a lot harder to make significant amounts of money. For that you need to understand CPC, how to get traffic and CTR.

You claim that being a service provider is easy and then offer a pretty darn smart strategy for finding a customer. Perhaps not everyone is as clever as you Mike.

If I tried to sell my services to the community, I wouldn't even no where to start. But I installed adsense the very first day I started my attempt to make money online. All I needed was to create an account and add code. I thought I was going to make thousands of dollars a month from adsense. I didn't.

But from that learning experience I have expanded to more profitable methods.

Not the worst place to start. But definitely not an avenue I would want to be on forever.

[trustumar]

business owner can also discontinue your services any time. Your site is yours. Adsense gives passive income.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by paulgl

.

If these people swap adwords for organic search, they
will then be competing with their former competitors
who will remain in the ads.

l

Paul there are literally millions of small businesses that don't do adwords and millions more that have no idea what organic means. They are not swapping anything. The market is still wide open for small and local business SEO with companies that although having advertising budgets are not into adwords.

To your other point no one said that anyone who has a successful adsense business should drop it. My point is that a business model for people starting out its not proven itself to be a good model based on the percentage of people ho are NOT making money. Even for those not into SEO services would still be better off looking at something more lucrative than adsense. Frankly affiliate marketing is still better for most.

Originally Posted by trustumar

business owner can also discontinue your services any time. Your site is yours. Adsense gives passive income.

Individually of course but with adsense you can wake up and your entire business model is gone. Unless you suck at SEO you are not losing all your customers overnight in SEO. I am all for owning sites though but not for a business model that is dependent on another company for its income. That destroys the whole point of having your OWN site.

Most MFAS are worth zero without adsense revenue and thats owned by google so the feeling of ownership is an illusion. Incidentally SEO services can have nearly the same level of passivity. In both you have to be non passive to rank a site but to keep it you need a little maintenance - same thing after you rank a site for a customer.

[outwest]

I would say being a SEO provider takes a lot of knowledge, years of knowledge, ideally, of SEO

but that doesnt stop a lot of guys out there with a few months knowledge of SEO going out and selling their "expert" services. Even with more than a year in the game of SEO, I feel nowhere near qualified to sell SEO services. But perhaps I am selling myself short. I did manage to triple my online buss for my beach resort the family owns, and the resort now ranks 1, or 2 for all the popular terms (much to the irritation of my fellow resort owners )

[Loloy Diango]

What's with the argument? Why not do both - publish content monetized with AdSense and provide SEO services at the same time?

If both makes us money, what's preventing us from doing both?

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by co2

This does not prove that 'providing a service is more popular.' I hope you're not implying that there are more Seo service providers than adsense publishers.

Nope but I am indicating that there are more people making quicker money with services compared to the MASSES that have MFAs and have not made any money to speak of at least from what I see on WF and the experiences of those who PM me about their adsense sites.

Anyways, the amount of people involved in a particular field of 'making money online' is irrelevant to what is the 'easiest way to make money online.'

Didn't say anything about popular by itself. I stated successful - that IS about making money

My only point is that it's easier. And some people prefer to go for the easy road. Even if that means smaller profits.

Easier for making money? I think thats a myth. Easier to setup and get started but not making money? I've conceded that point but I don't know that it matters. So I DO understand your point but I am talking about the newbie starting out and adsense as a business model.

The fact that you can set up a site drop adsense code on it and be ready to roll means nothing. You still have to rank the site. You still have to learn SEO and get good at it. Theres STILL a learning curve. It still takes work but people are led to believe they have accomplished something and are off to a start in business when they don't have one yet. Its just code they have put on the page - nothing more. Adsense merely gives you the illusion that you have begun.

So in many respects to me the easy to setup and easy to make money are two different things. the first is true and the second seems to me to be a myth.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Loloy Diango

If both makes us money, what's preventing us from doing both?

Fair enough but thats not where most people live though. It s hard enough for them to get going with one business model much less pursue two. So the premise of the Op is given one model adsense seems to be a very poor one for most people and I think keeps them away from success with better business models. Not just SEO service models by the way but affiliate marketing and creating sites that have more depth that can be monetized with other sources of advertising revenue.

I flat out ask people and very few tell me yeah its worked out well for them. There are of course exceptions but even in the case of those the people who say yes it is working for me have a site that works by itself not merely as an adsense site. Lets face it creating MFAs is a flat out lousy business model filled with all kinds of pitfalls. ANy business where you create a business just so one company can pay you with little other value to any other company or monetization has fail and disaster written all over it.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by Loloy Diango

What's with the argument? Why not do both - publish content monetized with AdSense and provide SEO services at the same time?

If both makes us money, what's preventing us from doing both?

Remember that famous movie "trading Places" Eddie murphy with Jamie lee curtis in the Bahamas with Dan Akroid at the end of the movie

Whats for lunch Lobster or cracked crab? Can we have both? BOTH IT IS, .................

[trustumar]

I myself have been providing seo services in the past. Now i have moved to adsense because

1. Adsense is simple and easier to manage. You just have to get targeted traffic (buyers), when someone click on ads you earn $$$ and paid.
2. It has the best payment options for the people outside US. Adsense even pay through western union.
3. When you know what is working for you just rinse and repeat, $$$ will come automatically.

As a service provider.

1. It takes time to get clients.
2. You spend a lot of time communicating and preparing reports. More clients, more hassle.
3. Sometimes you are not paid.
4. They can discontinue you any time.

Yes, adsense model has some cons and is not a perfect model but still it is the best for me and many others i think.

[martyJames]

Agree totally - for all the effort of ranking adsense sites you could get a MUCH better ROI and return on time through selling your own products /seo service/lead gen sites etc

[Loloy Diango]

Originally Posted by outwest

Whats for lunch Lobster or cracked crab? Can we have both? BOTH IT IS, .................

Hahaha! That is correct, outwest!

Whatever brings in the money would be cool.

That's exactly what I'm doing right now. I run an article writing service, the money I make providing this service I use to set up and then rank sites that are monetized with AdSense, the money I earn from AdSense I then use to build more AdSense sites or develop/rank my existing ones.

When there's a slump in writing gigs, I have AdSense money coming in, when there's a slump in AdSense earnings, I get new writing assignments.

[bitriot]

I like adsense because I am not on the hook to anyone. No Boss. No clients. No expectations beyond my own. Part of IM for me is removing stress from my life.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by trustumar

1. Adsense is simple and easier to manage. You just have to get targeted traffic (buyers), when someone click on ads you earn $$$ and paid.
2. It has the best payment options for the people outside US. Adsense even pay through western union.
3. When you know what is working for you just rinse and repeat, $$$ will come automatically.

I won't argue with 2 but thats not something most care about. 1 and 3 is pretty much the standard lines with adsense as a model but it doesn't really pan out for people. on #1 you still have to ranks sites to get traffic to get a click so you have to learn SEO and work on your site like any other SEO based business. No magic clicks. on Number #3 you still have to rank sites. No magic bullet. I can rinse and repeat my SEO skills on any sites as well. In fact any business model on the internet can use that cliche "rinse and repeat".

1. It takes time to get clients.
2. You spend a lot of time communicating and preparing reports. More clients, more hassle.
3. Sometimes you are not paid.
4. They can discontinue you any time.

break it down for me though because I am not getting the disadvantages. Look how that stacks up with adsense.

1) It takes time to rank a site and then get some clicks from adsense. You have do that all on your own dime and time with no payments in the HOPE it will pay off.
2) Would adsense people mind some communication with a customer if it ensured they were making money faster? You do realize that the reason you would have communication (reports are drop dead easy. there are software packages out there that give them in a click of a button) is because you have a PAYING customer?
3) is just not true since most SEOs get paid upfront. Don't know why you created your SEO business differently
4) Google can discontinue your adsense at any time, change their policies , and change their payouts without asking you anything.

So once gain seems to me Adsense comes up short on the merits.

Originally Posted by bitriot

I like adsense because I am not on the hook to anyone. No Boss. No clients. No expectations beyond my own. Part of IM for me is removing stress from my life.

That point I can get in terms of not having to answer to anyone personally but besides the personal aspect of answering to someone Google DOES own your business model and you are on the hook to them. You may not answer to them in actual personal communication but you do answer to them for the existence of your business. I'm my own boss though. Punch my own clock and run the show. Business customers don't care about what you are doing if they see results pushing them up to the top of results. Thats all they care about and thats what I should do anyway.

[Rukshan]

Originally Posted by trustumar

I myself have been providing seo services in the past. Now i have moved to adsense because

1. Adsense is simple and easier to manage. You just have to get targeted traffic (buyers), when someone click on ads you earn $$$ and paid.
2. It has the best payment options for the people outside US. Adsense even pay through western union.
3. When you know what is working for you just rinse and repeat, $$$ will come automatically.

As a service provider.

1. It takes time to get clients.
2. You spend a lot of time communicating and preparing reports. More clients, more hassle.
3. Sometimes you are not paid.
4. They can discontinue you any time.

Yes, adsense model has some cons and is not a perfect model but still it is the best for me and many others i think.

What will happen if adsense ban your account? I prefer to keep both these systems to make money online.

[michael scott]

mike, your post is straight on but this only applies to people who own sites that receives qualified traffic from google. Say if I wanted to approach a company directly, I would need to prove to them that the traffic coming in to my site from my keywords are very likely to convert for them, not a million long tail keywords that has a very small potential of conversion or even irrelevant content. That's why some smart advertisers go as far as blocking some sites from showing their ads.

[trustumar]

Originally Posted by Rukshan

What will happen if adsense ban your account? I prefer to keep both these systems to make money online.

There are more chances a business owner discontinue your services than adsense ban you.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by michael scott

mike, your post is straight on but this only applies to people who own sites that receives qualified traffic from google. Say if I wanted to approach a company directly, I would need to prove to them that the traffic coming in to my site from my keywords are very likely to convert for them, not a million long tail keywords that has a very small potential of conversion or even irrelevant content.

Good point Mike. thing is though I really would question how many people get really good conversion even for adsense from those kinds of keywords as well. Back when the farmer update went through I gave some MFA guys some links and they ranked top two but were surprised there was no traffic (freebie - didn't do any keyword research for them).

Now what Yukon does to me is a more sensible model even though he is into adsense because he has repeat visitors and works his site's advantages. The sites he talks about have value besides adsense but I just don't know many people making a real business out of strictly MFAs

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by trustumar

There are more chances a business owner discontinue your services than adsense ban you.

The only way they are even remotely comparable is if you have one customer and even then you can regain a customer. When Google says goodbye to your adsense account thats it - you are out of business.

This is a kind of a weak point for adsense. Just as you can lose some income by losing a client you can lose income from adsense by a site dropping in ranking temporarily. Same effect and even more likely than losing a customer outright that you have been ranking.

[BigNorm]

Because I'm lazy.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

The only way they are even remotely comparable is if you have one customer and even then you can regain a customer. When Google says goodbye to your adsense account thats it - you are out of business.

This is a kind of a weak point for adsense. Just as you can lose some income by losing a client you can lose income from adsense by a site dropping in ranking temporarily. Same effect and even more likely than losing a customer outright that you have been ranking.

But if google bans your account, lets assume you have ONE acct most do
you are sh*t out of luck. All money due is cancelled. Those blogs urls? cant be used far as I know for ANY other adsense accts I believe they flag all the urls you were running adsense on, would be easy to do. So you are basically screwed if you were making thousands per month

with SEO buss sure a client can get mad at you but you are spreading your risk one client could fire you, but ALL OF THEM would never fire you, and one is easily replaced

[kiwiviktor81]

This might sound silly, but I use AdSense as a baseline for the absolute minimum that any given site might make. So if a site makes $50/month with AdSense, I might figure that the sales potential of that one site is worth $100/month or more. This lets me know when it's time to pursue other monetisation methods.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Content creation isn't easy unless you are just doing MFAs and there is nothing simply about waking up every morning wondering if your income will be tanked by Google because all you have are MFAs

But what good is simplicity in making money online if you are NOT making money online. Besides I see alot of people doing a whole lot of hard work with mutliple sites and on page SEO and backlinking - not so simple in reality.

I've been watching this for years on WF and there are VERY few people making any real money from adsense at least not those who create sites just for adsense. Its a busted wasteful business model for too high a percentage of people. If people put up their hours and what they make there are ton loads of people who would do better working for a dollar an hour.

Crap effort returns crap results, no matter what the business model. Every model ever mentioned here in this forum is a "busted wasteful business model" for most of the people here, including doing seo for business.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by Rukshan

What will happen if adsense ban your account? I prefer to keep both these systems to make money online.

You plug in a different kind of revenue generator. Duh, lol. What happens if Google bans one of your client's sites after you do some work for them? Can you say lawsuit? Or worse, possible violence?

There are no perfect business models. Every one has pluses and minuses, risks and rewards. The best one to do is the one that appeals to you. I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out than go around trying to get people to hire me as their seo guy. I work for myself so I don't have a boss...I certainly don't want 20 of them.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by paulgl

And there would be no reason to stop doing adsense
while you undertake this endeavor anyway.

Exactly.

I'm a service provider who is investing a large part of my profits into building big sites and monetizing with Adsense. It works very well for me. Mostly because I build about half of the sites with a view to sell them within 3-5 months.

Honestly, building highly profitable Adsense sites is the easiest way to make money I have found so far. It doesn't take a lot of time and the profits from selling these sites are huge.

I see building such sites as my "medium term" investment strategy. It's not a long term business for me, but it's just so lucrative at the moment that I can't say no.

[JoshuaG]

Rich Dad Poor Dad Anyone?

The reason Adsense is good is because your websites are assets that will continue to generate revenue with little maintenance for the long term.

They allow you to leverage your time to create more assets.

A service based business requires more maintenance and more time. And if you stop offering your service, you stop making money.

Service's will always make more in the short term, but its not about how much the business makes, its about how much the individual makes.

A person offering services is not likely to make more money over time then the person who is collecting assets and leveraging their time to make more of them...and if they do it right, they might even end up doing less work.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

A person offering services is not likely to make more money over time then the person who is collecting assets and leveraging their time to make more of them.

Yeah, I figured that out the hard way. This is exactly why I got into building websites and selling them as a side-business. It's simple, it pays good, and is very easy to scale.

Services helped me get to the point where I could invest $500 into a new site without worrying too much about finances. Now we build 2-3 large sites/week as well as do client work.

[Midir]

You could replace adsense, but there is only so much time in the day. It all comes down to time. There is just not enough time in the day to write content, manage and create new websites, perform seo, and then also trying to do your own adsense. You have to outsource certain aspects, and in a way adsense is like outsourcing your ads. This sorta idealogy applies to click bank and amazon sites too. You could actually try and sell your own products, but then you have to find a time to produce them.

On the other hand, I agree that once you have some sites up it might be a good idea to look into adsense alternatives. You might make more money.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by bnetwork

Exactly.

I'm a service provider who is investing a large part of my profits into building big sites and monetizing with Adsense. It works very well for me. Mostly because I build about half of the sites with a view to sell them within 3-5 months.

Honestly, building highly profitable Adsense sites is the easiest way to make money I have found so far. It doesn't take a lot of time and the profits from selling these sites are huge.

I see building such sites as my "medium term" investment strategy. It's not a long term business for me, but it's just so lucrative at the moment that I can't say no.

how do you backlink? those sites

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by outwest

how do you backlink? those sites

Oh man I wrote such a long post about it just a couple days ago right here on WF... it's in my sig.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by bnetwork

Oh man I wrote such a long post about it just a couple days ago right here on WF... it's in my sig.

ya sorry i noticed that I am reading it now thanks

[CreativeFlair]

I think there are pros and cons to your method just as there are pros and cons to any method of making money.

I personally use Adsense because it allows me to get passive income. That's the biggest selling point for me. Once the site is up and making money, I can just leave it and add an article or guest post every so often.

I do have a mixture of both SEO clients and Adsense, but it's mainly because I think it's important to diversify income streams (I also have a few other things going on).

[outwest]

Curiously bnetwork. you say blast the new site with 1000 social bookmarks. Do you outsource this? if so , is that fiver gigs?

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

You plug in a different kind of revenue generator. Duh, lol. What happens if Google bans one of your client's sites after you do some work for them? Can you say lawsuit? Or worse, possible violence?

LOL. WHo would be your clients? the Mafia. thats absurd and of course you are assuming that you are stupid enough to run your SEO campaign in a way that would get your sites banned

I work for myself so I don't have a boss...I certainly don't want 20 of them.

again if your sites are built for adsense you have a boss no matter how you think otherwise. Its Google. Worse they are a boss that can freeze your account, Change how much they pay you whenever they want and all the rules whenever they want.

Now you are right about every model having its downfalls but some just have more than others and building your sites to suit one potential customer (Google adsense) and no one else is filled with many obvious problems.

[Bambu]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

B
based on the points above adsense is a TOTAL waste for most IMers. There I said it and I can back it up because its the pure truth.

Your OP sounds like flame bait, but I will still bite. (What the hell is pure truth by the way?)

I find these threads amusing... My way is better! No, my way is better! Let it be... There is more than one way to skin a cat. There are plenty of people killing it with Adsense, PPC, social, SEO service work, content, graphics, email lists, etc, etc. And lots of people still trying to find their way.

I am doing more than just fine with Adsense and I work 1-2 hours a day on my projects. I accept that I am beholden to Google, but my hope is that I can keep one step ahead of the algorithm changes to keep my sites ranking. This is no different for you and your clients. You need to stay ahead of Google to keep your client's sites ranking.

Dealing with clients has its own challenges, they become your boss and your still dependent on Google's good graces to rank their sites, keep your clients happy, and keep their fees rolling in. So now you have two entities you have to keep happy.

Not all IMers have the tools, skills, and/or where with all to do SEO service work for a living.

You mention the average IMer in your OP. Why don't we compare the average IMer with the average SEO service provider? I am willing to bet that there isn't much of a difference in each of their incomes or business stability.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

They allow you to leverage your time to create more assets.

You make probably the best argument so far for Adsense but it still doesn't really work logically. in the real world Assets on the internet are not made just by time but money. Generate cash and you can generate those assets much quicker and the kind of assets that can do other things besides Adsense. I think most people would prefer to make the money quicker and use it to grow their business. Adsense is not a good model for that.

A service based business requires more maintenance and more time. And if you stop offering your service, you stop making money.

this is an adsense myth. Leave a site that is making you good cash with adsense and do no work on it and it will slip in the rankings eventually especially now with Google making significant changes to the content part of their algo every few months. A customers site that I rank and they pay a monthly fee to maintain comes up to almost the same level of passivity as keeping my own site ranked. Passivity is a complete myth. No business is going to continue to make really good money for you if you leave your assets totally alone. Pocket change? Sure but a site that derives good income? No such thing as passivity.

Service's will always make more in the short term, but its not about how much the business makes, its about how much the individual makes.

The sooner the individual has more cash to grow his business the more the individual will make.

A person offering services is not likely to make more money over time then the person who is collecting assets and leveraging their time to make more of them...and if they do it right, they might even end up doing less work.

Abolute adsense Myth. MFAS are no great asset. Sorry I have seen too many of them. If you build more than MFAs to put adsense on then it takes a WHOLE LOT of work, a concept, updating , thinking about your business and getting repeat traffic. The only people who view MFAs s assets are those buying into the adsense myth. AN internet asset is not a domain, with spun content with mostly worthless information designed only for the searcher to click to another site to find what they actually want.

A real internet asset has repeat visitors and something of value to keep recurring traffic. Hard work and Money gets that and getting sooner making money helps the newbie have that cash to build such sites. Of course anyone doing work online should have their own web properties but good ones with repeat traffic and I can afford to develop those because I make cash up front with services rather than working for nothing with adsense in the misguided hope that its going to deliver me passive income.

[bnetwork]

I've read some of Mike's previous posts and I like them... I think he uses the "flame bait" approach for a reason. Good marketing.

based on the points above adsense is a TOTAL waste for most IMers. There I said it and I can back it up because its the pure truth.

But seriously now... every blanket statement like the one above is total bs. There is no best business model, no best approach or one best way to do things. Sharing what works for you is great, but trying to prove to any (already successful) individual that his business plan isn't working is beyond silly. Think about it for a minute. Not everyone here is a clueless newbie.

Good thread, would read again.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bambu

LOL. I am sure you have amassed a sizable population of Adsense publishers and did A/B studies on their income using both models...

Yep. they are right here at WF and many of them PM me SEO questions. Because I have had that I bet I actually know more adsense publishers than you do. MY A/B test is the amount of people not making any money from adsense compared to those who do.

For many people, it might be hard to find an advertiser for a site that gets 500 national or international visitors a month wanting to read about dog collars. For those people, Adsense may make more sense than going your route.

Thanks you just proved my point. 500 visitors a month will make you pennies in conversions for most keywords. Adsense hopers spend hours upon hours in keyword research to find enough of those low traffic keywords to make multiple sites and often find even then the conversions are paying them pennies.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Paul there are literally millions of small businesses that don't do adwords and millions more that have no idea what organic means. They are not swapping anything.

Not a bad conversation....

But I would beg to differ. There may be millions of small businesses, but
the vast majority would not give a hoot about being found in SERPS
or use adwords. They would do google maps, and are probably already
on them if they have an established brick and mortar biz. And
local ads in newspapers, phone books, mailers, is where they
probably advertise, not adwords.

Adwords and people looking for organic search results are probably
ones that are selling something online. Be it a product, or info.

So for instant sales, adwords can't be beat. And you said you
are targeting the people who do adwords already.

Paul

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by bnetwork

But seriously now... every blanket statement like the one above is total bs. There is no best business model, no best approach or one best way to do things.

Its only BS if you don't read. the Op says it clearly. There is no blanket statement that adsense works for no one. Its says specifically most. Anyone denying that most people do not make good money from adsense is fibbing or hasn't looked around.

Sharing what works for you is great, but trying to prove to any (already successful) individual that his business plan isn't working is beyond silly. Think about it for a minute. Not everyone here is a clueless newbie.

Good thread, would read again.

Well you are right. Not everyone is a clueless newb therefore they know that someone posting that they are successful in adsense doesn't mean that they are. For one people have totally different ideas about what success is and some think they have a successful business because they make $300 a month. For another people rarely like to say they have failed at something.

So whose right and whose wrong doesn't come down to testimonials in an open forum. It comes down to making the case and showing the logic behind a model. If not someone will always figure they solve the issue by anonymously claiming they are making money - happens like that all the time (and either side can do that). Generally though if a business model has real logical flaws it really doesn't make good money for most of the people getting into it. Adsense doesn't make good money for the majority of people getting into it so sorry its a candidate for that general rule.

As for the thread being flame bait. No its not. Did I know that some people invested in adsense would disagree with it? Yes but not presenting your position on something because some people will get upset at it and call it flame bait would amount to them censoring others positions.

I wrote what I wrote because more than any other model I get people who are not making it in IM contacting me for help who are relying on adsense and because the problems with adsense are all over this board in several threads every week.

[Lucid]

CO2 said it well in the very first response: simplicity. You put in a bit of code and you're in business. Google or whatever other service you use handles the delivery of ads. There's a huge potential inventory of ads. They'll maximize their returns which means it maximizes yours. Most who use Adsense as a means of monetizing don't think about Google getting their share, at least in my opinion. But I think it's a good trade-off for everything I mentioned. They do provide a service.

As for making money in other ways, nothing prevents site owners to do so and many very likely do. I think most people are simply content with doing thing the easy way. It's hard to find clients and you have to deal with them. There's also competitors. In my mind, the SEO market is over-saturated. The pie is being sliced up in very small pieces. Too many saying they'll do SEO for the number who want/need it. Most don't even know how to sell it properly. I agree with outwest: too many in the game who shouldn't be.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

I wrote what I wrote because more than any other model I get people who are not making it in IM contacting me for help who are relying on adsense and because the problems with adsense are all over this board in several threads every week.

Or maybe it's because Adsense is so very simple to set up and most people really don't care about actually running a business. They just want quick monies.

See what I don't understand is why you think that someone who can't make money with Adsense would succeed in running a SEO service?

Adsense is really easy to me. I also have over 300 regular SEO clients at the moment. I work hard. I'm sure you do too. Most people don't.

Saying that a person with a few failed MFAs can successfully run a business that requires hard work, persistence, great customer service, marketing, accountability and many other skills... is just a little out there IMO.

[CleanMountainLiving]

I Like the discussion...

Gotta agree, there is no right and wrong, whatever works for YOU is the answer. Unfortunately, most people don't even get to the point of creating a true business for themselves or to the point of understanding what really works for them.

I like both. Upfront, though, I haven't had a great deal of success with Adsense.

But that's my fault, because of the effort it takes to get to the point to have results...I know, proves Mike's point!

So, at this point, I'm a mixture of both world's discussed here.

I'm actively working on work for "local" clients. I've got a model that is scaleable, duplicable, and ALREADY WORKING FOR ME.

This model gives me money now, and monthly, with minimal WORK on my part.

Oh, and for the records, all of the sites in my "local" model are MY domains. I don't work on other peoples sites or rank other peoples sites...only mine.

Like I said, this is already working for me, revenue coming in regularly.

And, while not as successful, financially, as my "local" model, I'm building a portfolio of assets that make money "passively"...adsense, affiliate, etc.

Combined, it works for me...

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Its only BS if you don't read. the Op says it clearly. There is no blanket statement that adsense works for no one.

I quoted it before and I'll do it again:

based on the points above adsense is a TOTAL waste for most IMers. There I said it and I can back it up because its the pure truth.

That's a blanket statement.

Here's what I said:

There is no best business model, no best approach or one best way to do things.

Therefore I disagree with your statement that "based on the points above adsense is a TOTAL waste for most IMers". Because (IMO and from exprience) Adsense is easier than getting and keeping regular SEO clients (for most IMers).

Both are only opinions though. One is yours, the other one is mine. Lets agree to disagree, I have to get back to work.

Good chat, thanks!