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

[XFactor]

It's been 6 months since I've posted because I had gotten
Waaaay off track from my initial goals.

I then decided to stay COMPLETELY off all marketing forums,
get back to my passion (Adsense), and implement a new
strategy to my business.

I have changed a lot of my old approaches and my opinions
on specific strategies have changed quite a bit which I'd like
to share a little with you here.

To put it in simple terms... by branching out into dozens of
sites with super-targeted niches, using Google's keyword tool
instead of wordtracker, and some other specific keyword
approaches.

... My Adsense income has almost tripled to date, reaching well
into the $300+ earnings each day.

Some Lessons Learned:

1) I have seen the light in terms of making more sites instead of
focusing on 1 big one. My health site still does well on its own,
around $100 or so daily, but it takes more maintenance than
my new strategy to go specific with keywords and niche markets.

2) I now focus EVERY website on products that can be found at
Amazon, E-bay, Wal-Mart, etc. This is probably the reason why my
income has exploded. I had no idea just how much open markets
there are in these products.

3) I now shoot only for keywords that I know can get in the top
spots for Google but with enough searches to make money.

4) Some of my most stable earners are sites with less than 30
pages.

5) I now work on 4-5 sites at a time, getting each ranked and earning
natural search engine clicks within a week.

6) Some of my sites only have 1 page of content, yet remain earning
$2 to $3 daily without any upkeep.

7) My content is always about product descriptions.

8) I still use article marketing exclusively, but do not worry about
keywords, nor do I care if my article ranks.

9) Some of my sites rank in the top 5 positions of Google, make money,
and I did no backlinking.

10) I have changed up my template that now gets 50% CTR at times,
often reaching the 75% mark (mainly due to using product-only niches).

- John

[Jimerson Farveez]

It is great, Thanks for sharing your "Some Lessons Learned" , Let us too follow that kind of things and get success...

[discrat]

Nice Solid Income x-factor....Congrats !!
That being said I hope you are diversyfing with multiple streams of Income. By the way it sounds like are you doing Affiliate Marketing since you are talking about Products from Walmart, Ebay, Amazon etc...
This is very prudent as I would in NO way totally count on Adsense. You are at the mercy of a Gloliath if you choose to do so. As this stream of Income can literally be taken away from you at anytime and at a moments notice.

At the very least you should have a backup plan where you have Autoresponders in place to implement and start building a list and selling products in case Google turns the 'switch' off on you.
Sounds cruel but it is the Google World we live in

P.S. It sounds to me with that $100 in Adsense Earnings with the Health Site you could really do sooooooooo much more in Income with Affiliate Marketing or Product creation . That must be a hell of a lot of traffic right there. You just need to capitalize off it.

[Flyingpig7]

Good to hear from you Xfactor and that you have progressed on your journey from the original site. You sound happier as well, clearly you have taken the advice given before and have monetized further.

Cheers
Keren

[Kay King]

John -

Have you changed from the layout you were using in November?

kay

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by discrat

Nice Solid Income x-factor.... I hope you are diversyfing with multiple streams of Income. By the way it sounds like are you doing Affiliate Marketing since you are talking about Products from Walmart, Ebay, Amazon etc...
This is very prudent as I would in NO way totally count on Adsense. You are at the mercy of a Gloliath if you choose to do so. As this stream of Income can literally be taken away from you at anytime and at a moments notice. Sounds cruel but it is the Google World we live in

I'll be honest, I do rely on Adsense simply because it has always been a passion
of mine to make $15,000 to $20,000 per month with it.

However, that is only online. Let's not forget that smart folks invest into other
streams of revenue, like real-estate (I plan on getting "smart" soon).

As far as my Amazon earnings, they do not do badly at all, and you are right, should
something happen with Adsense - I'm still in the game.

- John

[Texjd]

Good advice for anyone, stay out of the forums and work. I also agree that Wordtracker has become much less useful. Dropping down to subcategory level helps a lot with avoiding competition too.

My only concern is that Google owns my adsense income, they can do some wierd stuff and it has a ripple effect that makes me nervous.

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Flyingpig7

Good to hear from you Xfactor and that you have progressed on your journey from the original site. You sound happier as well, clearly you have taken the advice given before and have monetized further.

Cheers
Keren

Yes Keren, I am MUCH happier. I think the problem was trying too hard
to help people with coaching and my initial Adsense membership. That
was a bit draining and I found that it was not for me.

I did well with "Affiliate marketing" on the typical level, but hated it.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Kay King

John -

Have you changed from the layout you were using in November?

kay

Yes I have, but not too much. It's the little tweaks here and there
that have made a big difference.

I now use very high-quality headers as well, and my menu is on the
right side.

Still using 1 Adsense block under the title.

All white backgrounds (no more colors).

- John

[Saidar]

Congratulations on your success!

I can't understand how you get such huge CTR's ?? Do you mind sharing with us your adsense template? Where you put your ads etc

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Texjd

Good advice for anyone, stay out of the forums and work. I also agree that Wordtracker has become much less useful. Dropping down to subcategory level helps a lot with avoiding competition too.

Wordtracker was like one of these Ex's that you can't stand to be with, but
for some reason you go back for more.

I now use the Google Tool for all of my work, but with Micro Niche Finder.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Saidar

Congratulations on your success!

I can't understand how you get such huge CTR's ?? Do you mind sharing with us your adsense template? Where you put your ads etc

Nothing crazy, like always: 1 Adsense block above the content.

The trick is the niche itself - people searching for products and product
prices/deals just love to click.

I've been working smarter, not harder.

- John

[discrat]

Originally Posted by XFactor

I'll be honest, I do rely on Adsense simply because it has always been a passion
of mine to make $15,000 to $20,000 per month with it.

However, that is only online. Let's not forget that smart folks invest into other
streams of revenue, like real-estate (I plan on getting "smart" soon).

As far as my Amazon earnings, they do not do badly at all, and you are right, should
something happen with Adsense - I'm still in the game.

- John

Thats great x-factor !! Glad to hear about Amazon. Honestly, if there was NO history of Google banning people from Adsense with NO really credible reason to do so, I would totally concentrate on it too. I also have a Passion for it but realize it is just not good to put all the eggs in one basket.

[wizlor]

hi John

Care to share what kind of traffic building methods you using for your sites?

Thanks

-woon

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by wizlor

hi John

Care to share what kind of traffic building methods you using for your sites?

Thanks

-woon

99% free search engine traffic, with some from article directories.

- John

[wizlor]

Originally Posted by XFactor

99% free search engine traffic, with some from article directories.

- John

So the backlink methods you using are article submissions, web directory submission, forum, blog comments?

[jspmedia]

nicely done...how many sites you have now? when do you put your adsense when you create new site?

[jlaw6402]

John, thanks for the Some Lessons Learned list, I learned a thing or two. One of my biggest problems was I picked KWs there were way too hard. I've fixed that now.

[ezimedia]

HI

John... thanks for the thread and your posts do you have a blog or newsletter..

Tom

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by wizlor

So the backlink methods you using are article submissions, web directory submission, forum, blog comments?

No, just article marketing to about 5 different article directories.

But I do not need many articles to keep my sites ranked. Some sites
are ranked for my chosen keywords with just 1 article submitted, others
do not have any articles submitted.

I really dove into the low-hanging-fruit method and it's a gem.

I'll never go back.

- John

[YoYoPro]

I was always wondering what happened to you, it's good to hear that your still around in the background making a sweet killing with Adsense.

Sometimes it's posts like these that you need to really motivate you. For that, I thank you!

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by YoYoPro

I was always wondering what happened to you, it's good to hear that your still around in the background making a sweet killing with Adsense.

Sometimes it's posts like these that you need to really motivate you. For that, I thank you!

If you followed my posts from the other forum, I'm actually 6-7 months
behind my goal.

I wanted to be at this mark by December of 2008, but got sidetracked
with affiliate marketing trends and some coaching.

But that only stressed me out, so I will not be doing that again.

- John

[LadyL08]

Do you use WordPress or static sites?

[Evita]

Originally Posted by XFactor

{SNIP}

2) I now focus EVERY website on products that can be found at
Amazon, E-bay, Wal-Mart, etc. This is probably the reason why my
income has exploded. I had no idea just how much open markets
there are in these products.

- John

Hey, good to see you around, John.

What does that mean? You run adsense on these sites or Amazon etc.?


Evita

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Hey, John! Glad to see you back. Good to hear that you've increased your earnings, too. Let me know if you need any help with anything, particularly if you're putting together your own product. You know I've got expertise there.

[msalada]

Nice work! How many searches do you look for when you are doing KW research? How many competing sites do you consider too many. I like your strategy. I find easier to keep working if I am not always working on the same topic everyday.

~Marj

[YoYoPro]

Was going to add:

I think the smart thing about this approach John is the fact that if god forbidding something did happen to Adsense, the fact that you have these sites focused around products you could always replace the ads with the direct sales of these products.

It's in my opinion the second best option to diversifying your income sources. You have a viable backup in case something goes haywire!

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by jspmedia

nicely done...how many sites you have now? when do you put your adsense when you create new site?

I have 30+ websites.

Adsense code goes on immediately.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by LadyL08

Do you use WordPress or static sites?

Static sites only, Xsitepro (Still using Version 1)

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by YoYoPro

Was going to add:

I think the smart thing about this approach John is the fact that if god forbidding something did happen to Adsense, the fact that you have these sites focused around products you could always replace the ads with the direct sales of these products.

It's in my opinion the second best option to diversifying your income sources. You have a viable backup in case something goes haywire!

Bingo!

- John

[Irene Houston]

That's great news and thanks for sharing. It seems your message for success is loud and clear... we need to focus on what we enjoy doing and not be distracted by too many 'bright shiny objects'.

You seem to have figured out what is important to you and made it work.

Good luck!

[jspmedia]

when you search product for new site, how many search # per month you go after?
any tips on how you search products? using top search from amazon, ebay?

[Heman Patel]

Great job man. How many unique visitors do you get on a site on average?

[lonniewa2]

Hi John,

I've created three websites and one is ranked on page 1 at the number five position but so far this month I have mad about 13 dollars with about a 10 ctr using wordpress blogs.

Just wondering do you have a course that you sale so that I can pick it up? I am always looking for good information that is using the same strategy that I am using.

Which article directories you are submitting too?

According to the Google keywords tools what is the avg CPC for exact match keywords that you decide go after?

thanks,

Lonnie

[FredJones]

Great job done there! Congratulations.

One can hope to keep earning with virtually no work if the site is made and targeted properly, with adsense - that is the beauty of it!

Wonder what made you hate affiliate programs though...

Keep up the good job.

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Evita

Hey, good to see you around, John.

What does that mean? You run adsense on these sites or Amazon etc.?


Evita

Hi Evita, good to see you too!

I run my structure the same as before, 1 adsense block with the content
underneath, but the content now links to amazon products.

- John

[Loloy Diango]

Originally Posted by XFactor

2) I now focus EVERY website on products that can be found at
Amazon, E-bay, Wal-Mart, etc. This is probably the reason why my
income has exploded. I had no idea just how much open markets
there are in these products.

Great work, John! Gratz on making consistent income from Adsense.

Do you build websites that review Amazon, Ebay, etc. products? Or do you build ecommerce-type static sites?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by jspmedia

when you search product for new site, how many search # per month you go after?
any tips on how you search products? using top search from amazon, ebay?

Well the more the better obviously, but I've got a few successful sites that
only get about 900 searches per month. They only make a couple of dollars
daily, but it's stable - I'm #1 in Google for the main keyword.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by jspmedia

when you search product for new site, how many search # per month you go after?
any tips on how you search products? using top search from amazon, ebay?

Products are everywhere. I do like to browse Amazon and other similar sites.

Today I went to Walmart to buy some beach stuff, and ended up writing down about
50 niche product ideas to sort through.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Heman Patel

Great job man. How many unique visitors do you get on a site on average?

Some sites only get about 50 or so visitors a day, even less. Others get hundreds.

Just depends on the niche, the keywords, etc.

- John

[peter gibson]

John, good to see you back. I gotta say - being a semi successful affiliate marketer I can SO relate to adsense being a passion. Adsense is actually the reason I entered into IM. Lately I've been sideracked with affiliate marketing which has proven to be OK for me, but the one thing I've always wanted to do was achieve results like yours with adsense. So my hat is not only off to your success, I've thrown it down and kicked it a few times.

A few questions... how/ where/ what do you do to find the time to maintain 30 sites - moreover how did you manage to get all the sites ranking enough to get adsense traffic? There had to be SEO work involved and that takes an enormous amount of time for me. Also, my prefered platform is Wordpress, but I assume you have to provide fresh content on your sites. If so, do you outsource articles and SEO or do it yourself?

One more question, most people around these parts swear by Wordpress, is there any reason/ advantage to using Xsitepro over Wordpress?

Anyway bro, nice job, and if the beer function were still around on this forum, I'd be sending you a few. Cheers!

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by peter gibson

John, good to see you back. I gotta say - being a semi successful affiliate marketer I can SO relate to adsense being a passion. Adsense is actually the reason I entered into IM. Lately I've been sideracked with affiliate marketing which has proven to be OK for me, but the one thing I've always wanted to do was achieve results like yours with adsense. So my hat is not only off to your success, I've thrown it down and kicked it a few times.

A few questions... how/ where/ what do you do to find the time to maintain 30 sites - moreover how did you manage to get all the sites ranking enough to get adsense traffic? There had to be SEO work involved and that takes an enormous amount of time for me. Also, my prefered platform is Wordpress, but I assume you have to provide fresh content on your sites. If so, do you outsource articles and SEO or do it yourself?

One more question, most people around these parts swear by Wordpress, is there any reason/ advantage to using Xsitepro over Wordpress?

Anyway bro, nice job, and if the beer function were still around on this forum, I'd be sending you a few. Cheers!

SEO is very easy. Like I said, it is all in the main keyword you go for.

I've got sites with only 1 home page of real content that sit on the front page
of Google, and get $2 to $3 per day.

And I did absolutely nothing else but have my main keyword in the domain,
title, etc.

About what sitebuilder you use, I hate blogs. I do not like using wordpress at all.

I'm an XsitePro guy, always have been, always will I guess (unless I needed to
start a blog for personal reasons.

It's all the same - whatever you enjoy working with. In the end they are all just
pages online.

- John

[Steve Crooks]

That's really interesting stuff John.. I know you say that affiliate marketing stressed you out but the tactics you describe are the backbone of some of my most successful affiliate sites. I have never tried any A/B comparisons between Adsense and affiliate on these type of product sites to see which monetisation technique earns more income but I was wondering whether you have?

I don't mean this in any disparaging way at all, I love Adsense as many people know but I have different strategies of building sites depending on the monetisation model.

[jspmedia]

so product meaning Brand-Productname(modelname) .com or More Broad Product domain name like babyearthermostats..?

[Frank Ayres]

Good to see you back John.
Is the adsense mentoring forum still dead or are you sharing any of your new discoveries there with paying members?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

That's really interesting stuff John.. I know you say that affiliate marketing stressed you out but the tactics you describe are the backbone of some of my most successful affiliate sites. I have never tried any A/B comparisons between Adsense and affiliate on these type of product sites to see which monetisation technique earns more income but I was wondering whether you have?

I don't mean this in any disparaging way at all, I love Adsense as many people know but I have different strategies of building sites depending on the monetisation model.

Perhaps I should clarify. I dove into affiliate marketing for a little while with
"review" pages. They did well, very well. But since all of my resources were
relying on article directories to send me traffic, I hated doing so much work
up front, only to have it dropped off.

I realized that, although I was making money, I was really building someone
else's virtual real estate, not mine.

That is what I meant.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by jspmedia

so product meaning Brand-Productname(modelname) .com or More Broad Product domain name like babyearthermostats..?

Yes I use brand names on some of my sites, but don't expect to have them
around forever, as the company can request to have your site shut down.

So I do not recommend that. But... If I see a keyword that is just too delicious
to pass up then I'll grab it, build it, and earn from it while I can.

P.S. I have yet to have any of these sites taken down, but I'm sure some
will in the future.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by SpudDS

Good to see you back John.
Is the adsense mentoring forum still dead or are you sharing any of your new discoveries there with paying members?

Hi Frank, good to see you here!

The old forum is dead, but feel free to PM me.

- John

[epsilon97]

John,

Great stuff John. Thanks for sharing.

What criteria do you use for determining whether you can get your page on the first page of Google for your keyword?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by epsilon97

John,

Great stuff John. Thanks for sharing.

What criteria do you use for determining whether you can get your page on the first page of Google for your keyword?

It all depends. But using Micro Niche Finder makes it easy. You gotta
look at competing sites, search count and SOC (strength of competition).

Sometimes it does not come as easy as planned, but most of the time it
does.

- John