Are you earning nothing, pennies, or dollars? Something to consider...

Hey Everyone,

I wrote a post a while ago, that's still running, about building an online income using a website, fundamental affiliate marketing, as well as product creation.

I've received a LOT of PMs about building sites, and how to use AdSense/PPC campaigns on your site for traffic. Here's the thing...

First off, most new sites, unless you have a previously built audience anticipating the launch of your new site, you won't have hardly any traffic, if any at all, unless you go straight to paid advertising/social media sharing.

With that said, I want to answer anyone considering using AdSense on their site with this question, "Do you REALLY want to send traffic AWAY from your site for pennies on the click?"

People get too hyped that they can make money with AdSense on their sites, since it's already targeted to the people visiting their site. There are some niches that pay dollars per click, and that's awesome if you have that audience and ability to generate leads in that niche, because you're earning dollars per click, and not just cents.

However, wouldn't you prefer to offer them an affiliate product that solves the problem they came to your site for in the first place? Yes, chances are you'll make very few sales at first, if any. Let's look at a quick scenario though...

Let's say you build a website for "Make Money Online".

If you type "make money online" into the keyword planner, you will see apx. 110,000+ monthly searches. (110,000 is current for July, 2016. This will vary.)

You will also see a "suggested bid". This is about how much people should pay in order to get placed on the first page of Google. However, it can be used to guesstimate the price people are paying to be seen through AdSense advertisements as well. The price varies greatly, depending on bidder, size of the website AdSense is on, quality of traffic, etc.

So, with these, if you have 1,000 monthly visitors reading your articles about how to make money online, making money online ideas, etc., you can guess that a few will click on your AdSense ad, if it catches their interest.

Again, the market average for this varies greatly, and I'm not trying to stir up conflict here. I'm trying to show you the power of affiliate/personal sales compared to AdSense.

Let's say 5% of your visitors click on your AdSense. Currently, the suggested bid is $3.25. For example, we will say you get paid $2.75, due to charges, quality pay, etc. (These numbers are NOT meant to be 100% exact, this is all example.)

5% of 1,000 is 50 clicks. 50 clicks X $2.75 = $137.50. That's what you'd earn from your AdSense.

Now, let's say you have a solid page offering a quality product, that is referenced throughout your entire site;

Say this product pays you $50, whether it's your own, or an affiliate product. Since people are looking for an answer on your site, since they clicked on it, you will have a higher % of people see your offer. Let's say out of the 1,000 visitors, that same 5% buys. This is 5% after the opt-ins, leads to this offer, etc. It's broken down as traffic progresses through your funnel, but it comes down to an example of 5% buyers.

Again, this is 50 buyers. 50 X $50 = $2,500.

Even if you had half of that... 25 buyers out of 1,000, which is easy as long as you have solid content and quality traffic, you'd still make about $1,250.

Of course, you CAN use AdSense along with a product or products, but it's my suggestion that you first start with quality content, a solid product that is known and trusted, or even a trusted source, such as Amazon.com affiliate program, etc.

Also, here are a few additional tips on what I'd suggest to maximize profit from websites;

1. Learn how to socialize your site. Buy catching interest through infographics/memes on social media, you'll also have your content shared for free, which is free traffic.

2. Learn PPC through Google AdWords, as well as Bing PPC. There are various others, such as Facebook and YouTube, however, your main focus should be on the ones that most people find solid results with.

3. Learn to create! If you can't create your own voice, products, and audience, you're going to have a very difficult time making money online, even if you're a PPC master list builder. Even then, you still need to create solid emails to keep subscribers.

4. Learn what pages/articles you should associate an affiliate product, or your own product with, and learn what pages you can attach an AdSense link to.

TIP: Some articles that you write on your blog, forum, etc., aren't attached to any specific product. These can just be free advice pages. These pages would be great to attach an AdSense campaign to, simply because people on these articles are not set on a product, and are most likely still searching. This means that AdSense would be a great way to target these people and earn some extra money. If they are going to leave your site anyways, might as well try to help them find what they want, right?

5. Finally, I'd highly recommend that you learn how to be a voice of wisdom. Anyone can "review" a product and through a link up to try to make a sale. Seriously though, if you aren't being your own person, telling stories, relating to others, building trust, giving loads of free content/help, you won't go very far with a website.

People will refer others to your business if it's solid, professional, informative, and most of all, legit. No one wants to feel like they've been scammed after they visit a site or buy a product!

If you can make people happy, in whatever business you do, you're not just an advertiser to them. You're a voice they are willing to listen to, and this is where you really start to earn the big dollars!

I hope this helps, and I'm looking forward to hearing some stories about personal experiences of what you might be earning now, the trials and problems you've been through, the success you're now seeing, etc.

Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day! Don't forget... PUT IN WORK!