Killin' It With Google Trends!

[JoshuaG]

Hey guys, decided to run a little adsense experiment today.

Looked at Top 100 Google trends about 3am this morning and saw that there was a new celebrity Scandal.

I've spent the past 5 hours building a blog, posting content, bookmarking, creating blogger blogs etc.

I've seen hundreds of visitors and even made some adsense clicks!

Its still early and the trend was new as of last night about 6pm. So should see lots of visitors today if my site can keep ranked.

Here's the site if you want to try and steal the niche.
I'm dug in deep though so good luck
Vanessa Hudgens Scandal 2009

I'll post later exactly what I did so the other newbs like myself can see how this is done.

[Monika Mundell]

It will be interesting to see if you get good clicks because the celebrity niche sucks when it comes to Adsense. I've done a similar experiment last year and was rocking Google's first position for a popular celebrity for a full year afterwards. I probably made like $2 in Adsense because nobody eas clicking the ads and when they did it paid cents. So eventually I took it down.

Good luck anyway.

Monika

[mojuu]

I would add a nice WP theme to the blog to make it more inviting... I think there's a free WP theme called UBD moneymaker theme that makes your adsense ads more visible.

Good luck.

[Liam Hamer]

Originally Posted by cyberchick

It will be interesting to see if you get good clicks because the celebrity niche sucks when it comes to Adsense. I've done a similar experiment last year and was rocking Google's first position for a popular celebrity for a full year afterwards. I probably made like $2 in Adsense because nobody eas clicking the ads and when they did it paid cents. So eventually I took it down.

Good luck anyway.

Monika

In this case, I think the first adsense link on his page will get plenty of clicks The other 3 won't though.

[Punkaj Dube]

Congratulations for your success.

The problem with the trends is that you have to research and create content everyday as the trends change daily (even in a few hours). I tried last year but was unsuccessful. Earned around $9 something in a month.

[JoshuaG]

Originally Posted by cyberchick

It will be interesting to see if you get good clicks because the celebrity niche sucks when it comes to Adsense. I've done a similar experiment last year and was rocking Google's first position for a popular celebrity for a full year afterwards. I probably made like $2 in Adsense because nobody eas clicking the ads and when they did it paid cents. So eventually I took it down.

Good luck anyway.

Monika

Yea, the clicks are few and far between. Only had a few so far. But there is plenty of time left. The only thing that is keeping it alive is the fact that one of the ad's promises something my site doesn't have.

Thanks for the luck!

I would add a nice WP theme to the blog to make it more inviting... I think there's a free WP theme called UBD moneymaker theme that makes your adsense ads more visible.

Good luck.

I thought of that too. But I also have heard that uglier sites get higher CTR's so I opted for that. I may switch it up just for kicks. But we'll see.

Thanks for the luck from you too

Congratulations for your success.

The problem with the trends is that you have to research and create content everyday as the trends change daily (even in a few hours). I tried last year but was unsuccessful. Earned around $9 something in a month.

Yea, I don't suspect I would want to do this long term. There is too much work for limited money. I kinda enjoyed the initial rush of doing something at such a fast pace. But I know over time that feeling will go.

I was lucky to be one of the first to Digg the story so I'm getting some nice traffic from there and one of my blogger blogs took off hard. But other then that none of my efforts are seeing much success. And believe me I put up ALOT of content.

I'll keep people posted.
Right now I have 106 visits.
Guess I can't report adsense earning because its against TOS. I will say I'm happy with them, but they are low.

[affilcrazy]

I have tried my luck with varying success with Google Trends. From my own experiments i have found that celebrity scandal seems to be the most successful.

There's 2 separate blogger blogs that i knocked up in a hour or so that have yielded the most.

1) Leanne Rimes Affair - This was back in March this year. I remember checking my stats at 3pm UK time and i'd had about 10 visits. Went back and checked at 8pm and had received over 4000 visits. The trend seem to last for 2 days in total and produced in excess of 19,000 unique visitors.

I simply wrote about the speculation and added a Leanne Rimes bio. Made no sales of the product i was promoting (download itunes), but made around $76 in adsense.

2) More recently, the story of the 650 pound virgin. Once again i wrote a report on this story, the day before it aired on TV. This time i simply added affiliate links and banners for Fat Loss 4 Idiots and another Clickbank weight loss product.

I also wrote 4 articles and submitted to EZA. The articles were about weight/fat loss, but i related back to this guy's story. Nothing for the first 2 weeks. Then the 3rd week after 1500+ visits, even though the traffic wasn't 100% targetted, this has produced 3 sales @ $114.

So these 2 trends, you could say have produced $190 for about 2 hours of actual work!

Traffic generation included - bookmarking, using RSS submit, pinging, twittering and craiglist.

Anyway congrats on your success and keep us updated.

Cheers
Partha

[JoshuaG]

Traffic generation included - bookmarking, using RSS submit, pinging, twittering and craiglist.

Would you like to share how you used craigslist?

[affilcrazy]

OK here we go...a little secret i learnt!

With the 650 lb virgin, his interview was in New York. So i wrote a short summary, about 150-200 words and then just added my blogger blog url at the end.

I then posted this in LOCAL NEWS. Now i read somewhere that local news is not as saturated as some other areas of craiglist. Oviously this means not as much traffic, but CG is such a high traffic site, that you will still produce a fair few visitors from the more "popular" cities and states.

Just that one ad, produced about 30 UV a day for the next 10 days. So not the large volumes that some people boast of from CG, but a decent amount. You must remember with local news, the traffic may not be uber targetted as it is mainly people looking for things going on in their area.

I actually did the same earlier this year with the Swine Flu Pandemic. Utah, turned out to be one of the worst effected states around about May. So i put some facts and figures together, stuck an ad on Utah's local news (can't remember the exact ciy off the top of my head) and again this produced spurts of traffic for the next 2 weeks.

Cheers
Partha

[Steven Wagenheim]

I have been using Google Trends now since last August. I have found that
the best trends vary depending on the trend itself and not so much if it's
a celebrity or not.

For example, any time a big video game release comes out or a new movie
or a book, these are usually very big.

Also, tech problems are very big, like if somebody is having problems with
a movie download site.

Yes, celebrities are big too. I didn't jump on the Michael Jackson fiasco
because I just found it all too distasteful, but I heard from quite a few
people who made out like bandits.

TV shows also do very well especially if it's a big episode like a season
ender.

You basically have to learn what to look out for. My personal success
rate with each trend I put up is about 40%. In other words, 4 out of 10
make me money.

In that respect, overall, it's hit and miss because it's very hard to guess
what's going to be really hot when there are so many each day and they
change so often.

What you want to do is chart a trend for a while and see if it's lasting more
than just a few hours. The downside to this is if you jump on it too late,
you're going up against a lot of sites.

That's another thing. Before you hop on a keyword phrase, see how
much competition there is already out there. I try to go for trends that
have around 1,000 to 2,000 sites. Of course if I find one that has fewer
(one day I found one with 2 sites) that's all the better.

Of course monetizing the trends is important too. Most can be monetized
with Adsense, but there are quite a few that can be monetized with
Amazon, CPA or even a Clickbank product if you jump on the right one.

After you've done enough of these, you can get a trend up online and
marketed in less than 2 hours.

As for marketing, social bookmarking, RSS, pinging, and social networking,
like Twitter, are great ways to get traffic fast, especially if you have a
big following on Twitter.

I've more than doubled my Adsense income since doing these stupid little
things, and believe me, Adsense has never been my main income model.

Bottom line...Once you get a feel for what trends to stay away from and
what trends to jump on, your success rate will increase.

[affilcrazy]

It was actually after i read Steven's original thread on this last October and his subsequent WSO that i jumped on this bandwagon!

So thanks for the heads up Steven!

Cheers
Partha

[JoshuaG]

Of course monetizing the trends is important too. Most can be monetized
with Adsense, but there are quite a few that can be monetized with
Amazon, CPA or even a Clickbank product if you jump on the right one.

Steven, did you tend to make your adsense monetized pages ugly?
You know, in hopes of a higher CTR.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

Steven, did you tend to make your adsense monetized pages ugly?
You know, in hopes of a higher CTR.

No, I make my pages attractive so that people will actually want to read
what's there.

Oh yes, that's another thing.

I actually put content on the page that will help people.

What a novel concept.

[garyv]

Also - if you look for names and events that always end up in the spot light, then your efforts will be more lasting. I jumped on the Paris Hilton trend when she was arrested a couple of years ago, and that web-page still receives hundreds of visitors a day.

And if you think a little more outside of the box, you can make a killing w/ CPA ads on these things. When people are desperate for information, they won't think twice about giving up their email address for the information they want. So if you word your ads just right, your conversions can jump instantly from 1-2% into double digits.

[JoshuaG]

So at the end of the day I had over 600 visits. Its too bad the adsense clicks weren't paying more because I got quite a few!

Its 3AM here and already 66 visits for today so it looks like the trend is still hopping. *fingers crossed for a adwords bidding war*

[Tracey_Meagher]

[double post] sorry!

[Tracey_Meagher]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

Its too bad the adsense clicks weren't paying more because I got quite a few!

Now you know how to get the traffic you can repeat the process with higher paying keywords

Hot trends marketing definitely works. I had one hot trend bring over 500 visitors to a Squidoo lens in less than a couple of hours. The lens was promoting a popular clickbank product on the back of the content and I made three sales from this traffic.

I never tried it again, it's so much hard work for me and time consuming. If outsourced, this could make a pretty niche money making model.

[GuerrillaIM]

I'm going to say this quietly and briefly so hopeflly no one hears ..... movie releases.... look at film studios up & coming projects ... nuff said.

[AndyBlackSEO]

I've never actually used this concept before but I have recently incorporated a feature in a new tool which extracts data from Trends and Alexa Movers and Shakers.

With things like this you just need to ensure that you get your pages indexed asap otherwise you will miss the peak. I wonder what other good ways there are of monetizing something like this other than Adsense.

Of course, it's a non targeted crowd. People looking for some goss with no clear label of who they are.

[AndyBlackSEO]

Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM

I'm going to say this quietly and briefly so hopeflly no one hears ..... movie releases.... look at film studios up & coming projects ... nuff said.

Yes, a number of years ago I bought the domain name, austinpowers3.com I kept it for ages and there was no sign of a 3 coming out. I let it expire and within 2 months news of a third one was banded around the media.

[Monika Mundell]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

No, I make my pages attractive so that people will actually want to read
what's there.

Oh yes, that's another thing.

I actually put content on the page that will help people.

What a novel concept.

LOL Steven, you're da' man! I'm so with you on the content thing. If I already spend time and effort on creating a site why not make it good. Loved your comment about the MJ fiasco being distasteful. I had a similar discussion with my hubby because we both knew there was a TON of money to be made. But like you we found it too sick to try and cash in on someone else's death, kind of morbid.

Glad to see people think alike.
Monika