6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)

[EricGiguere]

Originally Posted by XFactor

1 Adsense block not only pays more per click, but it really gives the viewer
no other choice but to click if they are truly after information on pricing
of the product they are searching for.

I'm always surprised that most AdSense publishers don't realize that the highest-paying ads are always shown in the first ad block on the page, where "first" means first in the HTML. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it: just as with the ads on search results, an internal auction is used to determine which ads get shown on a content page, and generally the ads with higher CPCs end up first in the list. All things being equal, then, the first ad (leftmost for horizontal ad units, topmost for vertical ad units) in the first ad block will pay the most per click.

John, kudos for opening up. I don't visit the forum too often (you can waste all your time here and get nothing done!) and just happened on this, so I'll be sure to point the readers of my whitehat VRE blog series to it, it fits perfectly with what I've been saying for a long time now.

Eric

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by EricGiguere

I'm always surprised that most AdSense publishers don't realize that the highest-paying ads are always shown in the first ad block on the page, where "first" means first in the HTML. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it: just as with the ads on search results, an internal auction is used to determine which ads get shown on a content page, and generally the ads with higher CPCs end up first in the list. All things being equal, then, the first ad (leftmost for horizontal ad units, topmost for vertical ad units) in the first ad block will pay the most per click.

John, kudos for opening up. I don't visit the forum too often (you can waste all your time here and get nothing done!) and just happened on this, so I'll be sure to point the readers of my whitehat VRE blog series to it, it fits perfectly with what I've been saying for a long time now.

Eric

Hi Eric,

I've been an avid reader of your blog for some time now, so
I'll return the "kudos" right back at you, thanks!

About the 1 block paying more, I didn't even realize that for over a year
when I first started.

But of course, I was scraping content and using programs like traffic
equalizer in my beginning days, when adsense was easy, so I did not
care much about details.

- John

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by XFactor

Hi Eric,

I've been an avid reader of your blog for some time now, so
I'll return the "kudos" right back at you, thanks!

About the 1 block paying more, I didn't even realize that for over a year
when I first started.

But of course, I was scraping content and using programs like traffic
equalizer in my beginning days, when adsense was easy, so I did not
care much about details.

- John

OK, I've not heard of this and I've just taken my sidebar adsense off a few sites to test this out. I've always just assumed that 2 are better than one.

Thanks for the heads up!

[EricGiguere]

Originally Posted by XFactor

I've been an avid reader of your blog for some time now, so
I'll return the "kudos" right back at you, thanks!

Thanks, glad you like it... that blog is truly a labor of love, not a moneymaker. Been so busy lately moving that I haven't updated it much, but I'll get back to a normal posting schedule shortly.

About the 1 block paying more, I didn't even realize that for over a year
when I first started.

But of course, I was scraping content and using programs like traffic
equalizer in my beginning days, when adsense was easy, so I did not
care much about details.

Yeah. In theory the single-ad units like the half-banner would give you the most bang for the buck by showing only the best-paying ad. But it doesn't give the visitor much to click on, so total earnings may be less. The only way is to find out by experimenting!

You can stack three single-ad units on top of each other and track them separately to see which ones are being clicked on, too. Looks funny, though, and that may detract. Best is to do A/B testing with two different ad units and see which performs best.

But all that takes work. I like your approach -- create some content, put an ad up, promote the site a bit, move on. Perfect for busy AdSense publishers.

Eric

[EricGiguere]

Originally Posted by peter gibson

OK, I've not heard of this and I've just taken my sidebar adsense off a few sites to test this out. I've always just assumed that 2 are better than one.

I discuss this in detail in my Uncommon AdSense ebook, but it definitely doesn't work that way. There's a concept I call the "bid gap" which refers to the gap between successive ad bids. In highly competitive niches, the bid gap will be small and there will be a lot of advertisers, giving you a lot of inventory to deal with. But as often as not you'll see one, two or three advertisers at the top paying decent money and then a big gap to the next bid. For example, say we have 3 advertisers bidding $1, $0.90 and $0.75 as the top. But then the next advertiser only bids $0.20. The first gap is $0.10, the next gap is $0.15, but the third gap (between the 3rd and 4th advertisers) is $0.55, significantly higher. Basically you have advertisers trying to "bottom feed" for impressions and cheap clicks. So if you're displaying 3 ad units of 4 ads each, chances are good that the bottom N ads out of the 12 are low-paying ads that don't make you much per click.

That's why reducing the number of ads shown can dramatically increase your earnings. Even if the total CTR is lower (because there aren't so many ads, more visitors are likely to leave without clicking) the earnings can be better.

But it's not a hard-and-fast rule. Try it yourself and see how it goes. If your earnings go down, not up, bring back the other ads.

Eric

[EricGiguere]

Let me also quote a relevant passage from a book I recently reviewed, The Drunkard's Walk:

What I’ve learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. For even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success. Or as the IBM pioneer Thomas Watson said, ‘If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.’

This is exactly what John's done... he took action and tried different things until he hit on something that works for him. I'm not normally a rah-rah kind of guy, but there's a lot of wisdom in that quote above.

[D3t0x]

Originally Posted by EricGiguere

Let me also quote a relevant passage from a book I recently reviewed, The Drunkard's Walk:



This is exactly what John's done... he took action and tried different things until he hit on something that works for him. I'm not normally a rah-rah kind of guy, but there's a lot of wisdom in that quote above.

Thank you, that is a very inspiring quote.

[loybond]

This may be a little misplaced, but when you guys use one big adblock, doesn't it look a little weird that it doesn't take up the whole width? How do you guys deal with this (wrap in div to center it etc)?

[Bounderby]

If you have a niche that would ideally be, e.g. hotandcold[dot]com, would the next best alternative be hotcold[dot]com? Is 'and' a superfluous word that google would ignore anyway?
It may not read well, but so long as it ranks...

[Ciara Mac Mahon]

Phhhewwwww! There is so much to learn around here, thanks to everyone for the fantastic info on this thread, I'll be adding this to my (long!) list of threads to study!

[moralde]

After reading almost all of the messages on this thread, I felt like I have some new secret in my hand to blaze my way through adsense earning. But like John said, this is actually basic knowledge that everyone should have known when they enter the adsense world.

Thanks John and all the experts who generously shared their experience here. I learned a lot. I'm gonna go now and implement this newfound information.

[azagon]

Heya Eric,

I bought your adsense uncommon book, not a bad read at all (Way better than Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets v4 - He had too much Yabba Yabba (info) IMHO).

Today I've just had my biggest adsense earnings day ever - and I owe it to this thread (Thanks to everyone who gave away solid info). I'm gonna go buy something on ebay to celebrate

Cheers

Adrian

[bay37]

Just a note: I stopped looking at SOC (in MNF). Kinda developed my own way of finding out what my "real" competition is, so there you go... I now rank for a handful of keywords that have a SOC (again, in MNF) over 3-9k. With just a domain/1 article on the homepage and zero backlinks.

I'm only using MNF for the search count feature atm, which you can easily find out for free, but since I bought the thing I figured I might as well use it for something.

MNF is still great, especially for beginners, as it's "numbers" are mostly correct and it just makes things a lot easier.

I now only go for keywords that get at least 3k "exact" searches/month.

At first I registered like 20 domains for keywords I thought were good. Then once I launched I noticed that one minisite was doing much better than the rest (most brought in around $0.40/day on average, but one of them was earning like $2-4/day without any work).

So I looked at the stats and basically the only two things that are different about that site are search count (around 6k/month) and competition (amazon-like-websites). So theres your magic formula. Now all of my domains fit that criteria.

The hardest part at the moment is writing at least 10 articles/day... I'm **** at writing so its a struggle.

All who pmed me, sorry if I havent replied yet; I'm very busy trying to take my adsense business off the ground.

Oh and so far Google nerds have killed 13 minisites of mine. Basically all the sites that had 1 article+adsense ads for content were killed off. I now make sure to launch with at least 10 pages of content.

What I like to do is go through the top 10 Google results for my target keyword and pick one thing I like from each one of the 10 websites. Then either re-write or create my own articles (for those 10 "ideas/products").

Also, I ONLY buy exactkeyword.tld domains now. The exact match boost in SERPS is amazing.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by bay37

Also, I ONLY buy exactkeyword.tld domains now. The exact match boost in SERPS is amazing.

Hey, Thanks Bay for the nice post. What do you mean .tld domains? .com, .net etc or something else? Never heard of that before :-)

Thanks!
Chucky

[bay37]

Originally Posted by Chucky

Hey, Thanks Bay for the nice post. What do you mean .tld domains? .com, .net etc or something else? Never heard of that before :-)

Thanks!
Chucky

Top level domains. I only use .com/net/org.

[Matt Johnson]

bay37,

Congrats on your success so far!

So basically you are disregarding SOC and just analyzing the top 10 pages for shopping sites (Amazon, Nextag, etc)? Usually I find that keyword phrases that have a high search count and match this criteria, have positions 1-3 taken by VERY strong sites with the shopping sites further down.

Are you just aiming for the front page or for top spot?

Also, are you using static sites or WordPress?

I love WP and am skilled enough to customize it in pretty much any way I want, but updating plugins and backing up databases on 40+ sites is not my idea of fun. Thinking I might have to checkout XSitePro....

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by loybond

This may be a little misplaced, but when you guys use one big adblock, doesn't it look a little weird that it doesn't take up the whole width? How do you guys deal with this (wrap in div to center it etc)?

When I say the big ad block, I only use the 336 X 280

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by bay37

Just a note: I stopped looking at SOC (in MNF). Kinda developed my own way of finding out what my "real" competition is, so there you go... I now rank for a handful of keywords that have a SOC (again, in MNF) over 3-9k. With just a domain/1 article on the homepage and zero backlinks.

I'm only using MNF for the search count feature atm, which you can easily find out for free, but since I bought the thing I figured I might as well use it for something.

MNF is still great, especially for beginners, as it's "numbers" are mostly correct and it just makes things a lot easier.

I now only go for keywords that get at least 3k "exact" searches/month.

At first I registered like 20 domains for keywords I thought were good. Then once I launched I noticed that one minisite was doing much better than the rest (most brought in around $0.40/day on average, but one of them was earning like $2-4/day without any work).

So I looked at the stats and basically the only two things that are different about that site are search count (around 6k/month) and competition (amazon-like-websites). So theres your magic formula. Now all of my domains fit that criteria.

The hardest part at the moment is writing at least 10 articles/day... I'm **** at writing so its a struggle.

All who pmed me, sorry if I havent replied yet; I'm very busy trying to take my adsense business off the ground.

Oh and so far Google nerds have killed 13 minisites of mine. Basically all the sites that had 1 article+adsense ads for content were killed off. I now make sure to launch with at least 10 pages of content.

What I like to do is go through the top 10 Google results for my target keyword and pick one thing I like from each one of the 10 websites. Then either re-write or create my own articles (for those 10 "ideas/products").

Also, I ONLY buy exactkeyword.tld domains now. The exact match boost in SERPS is amazing.

Great way to think outside the box, I like it! And yes, any keyword
tool should only be used as a guide.

Like anyone's advice, the think I don't like to see is my word taken
as gospel. Everything that I help with should only be used as guidance.

This business can work under hundreds of variables, all of them
different.

- John

[dv8]

Originally Posted by bay37

Top level domains. I only use .com/net/org.

So if the keyword.com/.net/.org is NOT available you avoid the niche?

I only ask because I have found that most times it is not available. So I always just add a word.

Side note: I bought a .info domain the other day and put up a site. More of a testing sort of thing. I'm curious if .info's can rank well....they are only 89 cents.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by dv8

Side note: I bought a .info domain the other day and put up a site. More of a testing sort of thing. I'm curious if .info's can rank well....they are only 89 cents.

They can but it will depend on the competition. If the .com/.net/.org are parked by some domain name speculator and you build a good SEO'ed site you'll be in position #1 with your .info quite often. But, if the .com is a 10 year old authority site for that keyword, you probably won't have a good chance.

[D3t0x]

Just an update from my previous post - My earnings are up to $2 a day and climbing from that 32 cents post. Also my CTR is upwards to 25%. WOO! .

2/14 sites are on the first page, hopefully moving to the first position soon.

One thing that I have noticed though is that my two .net domains do not even come up at all in the top 500 results in the SERPs. Yet all the .com's come up.

I am wondering if .net has less authority then .com's? Or is this just a coincidence?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by dv8

So if the keyword.com/.net/.org is NOT available you avoid the niche?

I only ask because I have found that most times it is not available. So I always just add a word.

Side note: I bought a .info domain the other day and put up a site. More of a testing sort of thing. I'm curious if .info's can rank well....they are only 89 cents.

Personally, I would never throw away a good niche because the keyword
only is not available.

Nothing is set in stone. There are no search engine rules that say "sorry,
but you can't rank for this keyword because there are no keyword-only
domains available, better luck next time..."

Instead, go for it. You may not rank as fast, but if you have to get a
domain with an extra keyword and submit a few more articles, so what?

You are going to be working every day anyways, so go for it and see
what the results will be.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

They can but it will depend on the competition. If the .com/.net/.org are parked by some domain name speculator and you build a good SEO'ed site you'll be in position #1 with your .info quite often. But, if the .com is a 10 year old authority site for that keyword, you probably won't have a good chance.

Also a good point, however I have also experienced good, solid earnings
from just sitting between the #4 and lower positions below huge authority
sites.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by D3t0x

Just an update from my previous post - My earnings are up to $2 a day and climbing from that 32 cents post. Also my CTR is upwards to 25%. WOO! .

2/14 sites are on the first page, hopefully moving to the first position soon.

I love it, great job!

- John

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by bay37

Top level domains. I only use .com/net/org.

Ok got it, thanks!

[bay37]

Originally Posted by dv8

So if the keyword.com/.net/.org is NOT available you avoid the niche?

I only ask because I have found that most times it is not available. So I always just add a word.

Side note: I bought a .info domain the other day and put up a site. More of a testing sort of thing. I'm curious if .info's can rank well....they are only 89 cents.

Yeah I normally avoid the niche. Plenty of great niches out there, no need to break my own balls trying to rank without a good domain. That is just my opinion.

I also avoid .info's. Although I have seen quite a few .info's ranking high on page one.

Just as a side note, I haven't really done much to get my sites to the top spots. I'm mostly between positions 6 to 14 (no backlinks done). Shouldn't be difficult to reach top 5 for most keywords once I get around to it.

[Riposte]

Originally Posted by D3t0x

One thing that I have noticed though is that my two .net domains do not even come up at all in the top 500 results in the SERPs. Yet all the .com's come up.

I am wondering if .net has less authority then .com's? Or is this just a coincidence?

Does anyone have any input on this? Has anyone gotten a .net or .org domain on the first page with little to no backlinks?

I've been trying this for a while now with very little success, and I'd rather not have to spend any more money than I need to.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by Riposte

Does anyone have any input on this? Has anyone gotten a .net or .org domain on the first page with little to no backlinks?

I've been trying this for a while now with very little success, and I'd rather not have to spend any more money than I need to.

Yes. com/net/org are all equally good. No difference whatsoever.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Riposte

Does anyone have any input on this? Has anyone gotten a .net or .org domain on the first page with little to no backlinks?

Yes, and .info's and Blogger blogs. It all depends on the amount of competition in the niche and the work you're willing to put in promoting the site.

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by bay37

Yes. com/net/org are all equally good. No difference whatsoever.

What he said.

[ChrisBa]

They are equally good - however some people think that com's are the only way to go, if those people are potential visitors - you want to have a .com

[nobluff]

Originally Posted by XFactor

I like using seperate domains. Very important for the 1 main keyword you
are going after. The domain should have this keyword.

A basic strategy, but one that I did not realize until late last year.

- John

Hi John,

I have two questions:

1. Do you only use .com domains? or would do you try others, specifically .info.
Just read futher and saw you answered this already, for others interested he uses mainly .com but does have some .orgs.

2. You mention and example of "air mattresses for sale". I want to know if you personally have a limit to how long your domain name is? For instance if "air mattresses for sale in new york" is a well searched phrase, and is available, would you still take it?

Thanks for the tips.

Regards,

John.

[Andrew Maule]

Just wanted to say I'm also trying this and see the huge potential Got a keyword only .com with a Godaddy coupon, total invest so far: $7.60 or so. Wrote a few posts, submitted an article, made 10 high PR backlinks, we'll see how it goes... will definitely be scaling this to the sky if it works !

[ChrisBa]

I'm curious what your revenue would be like if you swapped out adsense for related cpa offers

[Loloy Diango]

Originally Posted by ChrisBa

I'm curious what your revenue would be like if you swapped out adsense for related cpa offers

I'm interested in this too. But how about having Adsense and related CPA offers on the site?

[Pravir]

If I get a niche and the keyword only domain is not available shall I go with hyphen . Like keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com

Does it make any difference if I put hyphen in between to get the domain.

Any views ??

[Magy]

Hello, it's me... again

I have now my website online. (the first one, the second will be online today) First article live in an article directory with a link to the website with the main keyword.

My question is, it is good to write more articles to get more link with the keywords if they are published in the same site, i mean, Google will see more strengh for my keyword with ten articles from the same site than just one? I know that i must have a lot of backlinks from differents websites but it works with just one?

In France, we have a lot of articles directory but not with high PR like ezinearticles (and i write in french, so i can't use ezine ), so, what is the best way, write differents articles and publish in differents articles directory, or everything on the better only?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Pravir

If I get a niche and the keyword only domain is not available shall I go with hyphen . Like keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com

Does it make any difference if I put hyphen in between to get the domain.

Any views ??

Try it and see. I personally do not use hyphens, but again, that is
not based on any type of testing.

Create your own tests. Make a few domains with hypens and a few
without.

Let us know how it turned out.

- John

[JWT]

Hi to all,

I have just been reading a post about how Google are now supposedly badly penalising product review type sites that get traffic using PPC. Does anybody have any thoughts about whether Google will carry this over into the searched listings?

John.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by JWT

Hi to all,

I have just been reading a post about how Google are now supposedly badly penalising product review type sites that get traffic using PPC. Does anybody have any thoughts about whether Google will carry this over into the searched listings?

John.

It's mostly re-bills, diet, online money, workout guides and similar that are getting slapped.

My mini sites have pretty good info on them. I actually enjoy this because most of my sites contain clear info describing actual products that people have been using every day for years and years.

[EricGiguere]

One suggestion for you folks is to add Google Analytics tracking code to your AdSense pages. It's very easy to do (see my blog). Like John, I don't spend a lot of time looking at my traffic stats, but on occasion I find one of my sites is doing particulalrly well and I want to figure out why. Having the tracking in place makes it easy to go back for those cases and do some analysis.

Eric

[ChrisBa]

Originally Posted by bay37

It's mostly re-bills, diet, online money, workout guides and similar that are getting slapped.

My mini sites have pretty good info on them. I actually enjoy this because most of my sites contain clear info describing actual products that people have been using every day for years and years.

x2 - google is going after shady/scammy offers

as long as your sites offer reasonable content and your not scammy you should be fine

[JWT]

Is this course available yet or have I missed it?

[AdvancedSamurai]

com/net/org are all equally good. No difference whatsoever.

What about other domains like .me, .tv, and other country domains? How do they rank?
I mean, if the content is in English.

[Jeremy123]

just use .com, keep it simple

the way to rank is to find high demand and low competition and get backlinks.

seo is not complicated

guess the course is delayed again, it is worth the wait

[JWT]

Oh good. I wasn't sure if it had come and gone or not yet arrived 'cause am unable to click on the link for it on Xfactor's comments.

[Jeremy123]

the price will go up soon

Adsense Masters Course - Adsense Masters Course

[iblbuilder]

Great advice. I would also add that backlinks should be one way, and that relevance, athough a factor is not key. links from relevant pages with anchor text keywords are great, but one from a non relevant page is good, so don't spend your life only looking for relevance.

Originally Posted by Jeremy123

just use .com, keep it simple

the way to rank is to find high demand and low competition and get backlinks.

seo is not complicated

guess the course is delayed again, it is worth the wait

[lonniewa2]

Originally Posted by Riposte

Does anyone have any input on this? Has anyone gotten a .net or .org domain on the first page with little to no backlinks?

I've been trying this for a while now with very little success, and I'd rather not have to spend any more money than I need to.

I have a .org domain on page 1 in the 10 spot. Two article got me to the first page.

[Marigold]

Originally Posted by XFactor

Yep, I do maintain my sites, always submitting articles now and again
for those that drop.

Eventually, however, you will start getting traffic from searches not
related to your main keyword - fun stuff!

About article marketing, yes I'll pop in a keyword or two, but I do not
stress over it.

And no, NEVER put in your site's main keyword into those articles, only
have your main keyword in the anchor text (I covered this already a
few pages back).

- John

Suppose I want to get the first three position for my 10 something keyword/category.
It will be a huge boost for my traffic.
What do I do?
I have a one year old site with my main keyword in the second position.
But I also want to be there for my other related keywords.
I have not tried article marketing.
So if I do article marketing do I back link with my related keyword as anchored text?
Marigold