Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Let me tell you my story. I make more money on Adsense than I make on my low-paying full-time sallaried job. I do not like my 9-5 job and if I could change it, I would do it instantly (but unfortunately, it's hard to get another job in Vancouver, BC - when it comes to employment situation, this city really s--ks, if you know what I mean).
So, I am still stuck with my job and don't want to lose it (yet). My website has performed well in the last three months and success continues to this day (and I hope it will continue for months and years to come).
The secret of my success is rich and fresh website content that constantnly grows. Also, I believe that my website design is beautiful and that is one of factors that impresses my visitors.
Yet, I am not ready to quit my full-time low paying high stress office job.
How about you? Have you already quit jor job over Adsense? How is your website performing? Thanks for your input.
Augie
Not that it can't be done, but it just takes more careful planning.
Regardless of where your income comes from, direct product sales, affilliate programs, Adsense, YPN, etc, your traffic source is critical with a single site.
When it comes to traffic sources and single sites you've basically got three main sources, free serps, PPC, and links/ads on other sites.
We all know how fragile the free serps can be. A stable ranking history is not a good indicator of future ranking.
PPC is another thing, just read through the Adwords forum and you'll see a lot of folks mentioning how they're advertizing, and I assume traffic and income, is affected negatively everytime Adwords tunes up the system. I'm sure PPC can be made to work in the long term, but it's probably not easy, and might be very costly.
That leaves links/ads. We are talking about links/ads that drive traffic here, not links for serps ranking. To me, this is the key with a single site.
Pretend for a moment that you had NO traffic from search engines. Could you survive financially on the traffic that is left? The traffic that comes from links/ads on other sites?
If you can, then you're in a much better spot. If you can't, that might be a goal you shoould consider.
If that doesn't seem realistic, you're looking more at diversifying. Diversifying comes in two forms. I wouldn't rely soley on Adsense if I needed the money to live on. At the very least I'd want to set up some good affilate deals, probably some direct ad sales, and get more than one Adsense like provider.
Then maybe look into becoming a multi-site, maybe multi-topic operation.
That could lessen the risk involved with the free serps, but wouldn't be a sure thing.
I'm a single-site guy and I've survived the updates for 5+ years without a hitch, and get plenty of traffic from the free serps. I don't do PPC and I think I have enough non-SE traffic to make it without the free serps traffic.
But, if I needed the income to live on, I'd definitely be looking at other income sources for my site and creating more sites just in case.
I continue to work for old clients.
But I have no big interest in new clients.
My only new client this year was an accident.
I wanted only to write about his invention, but he persuaded me to make him a new web site.
An other possible new client happened in the same way. I wanted only to write about his new product a big article for my online magazines.
But he told me, he does not want to write before the investors are settled and the new factory has started production, but he needs also a new web site. Maybe I start this in Jannuary.
BTW, my internet promotion web site is producing still requests for internet promotion, but mostly from the sort of companies filling up my URL filter. MLM. So I had the opportunity to talk with this MLM people. They spend usual much money for advertising and have nearly no ROI. Only very few make it to MLM heaven, most are spending more money than earning back.
Stress comes from within. It's your reaction to your environment, not the environment itself.
Since you say you're in a low-paying job, I am going to assume that your job isn't a high level position, say like the Presidency or CEO of a major corporation.
Do you think the president of your company has at least as much to worry about as you do? ;) Of course s/he does. S/he worries about everything you do, and everything all of your coworkers do, times 10.
If stress levels were proportionate to the actual consequences of people's environment, people like EMTs and ER doctors and Presidents of the United States would never be able to function at all.
If you believe yourself to be or close to being financially independent without your 9 to 5 job, then there shouldn't be any stress on you. Perhaps you need to re-evaluate what is truly important in life.
My AdSense income is substantially less than my former salary and bonus. In fact, it is substantially less than just my bonuses... but is enough to keep the wolves from the door so far and at the moment.
Signed: a formerly totally stressed out guy from the high-tech industry, who had to learn to relax.
Good luck to you.
PS Yesterday was the worst day I've had on AdSense in the last 2 months, and I seem to be developing a little twitch in my right eye...
I trully appreciate them.
Thank you.
I own six great sites ( almost 2 to 5 year old ) and I write for them myself everyday. My success with adsense started about 2 years ago and I started concentrated more on adsense and less on my main line of business. This resulted into a major boost, and grew bigger than my main business. I worked harder on content and things became brighter by the day.
In last three months, my earnings have dropped to less than $5 a day. There have been many factors, explainable but heartbreaking.
I am now focusing on my main work again and paying less attantion to adsense.
I had a work to fall back on,,,, Will you have yoru job which you may leave, to fall back on?
AdSense is NOT predictable over a long range of time. Dont leave your 9 to 5 for this.
Its like leaving your wife for a mistress. lol ..
But I would not seriously consider leaving my salaried job even if I were earning ten times what I am. And my reasons go beyond the risk issue that several people have raised, though that's a good reason all by itself.
For one thing, I like going to work at an office. The work I'm doing at present isn't fascinating, though that may change. But the people are mostly nice, and I like the interaction. The few times I've worked at home for extended periods have not been happy ones. It's very easy to get isolated.
Also, my paid job brings with it benefits which I would have to pay a substantial amount of money to replace if I were working on my own, and which are really essential for my family.
I like working on my site in my spare time. The amount of money I've earned from AdSense has been a nice bonus but I don't want to depend on it.
Here's a great excerpt:
You have a good job that you like. Are you about to get a promotion? Could you see yourself in ten years doing the job you’re doing now? Don’t quit. Good jobs are hard to come by, and, sooner or later, you will want probably one. Building a career is more important than realizing your short-term poker fantasy. In other words, if you are stacking boxes at Walmart, quit. If you are CTO of a tech company and love your work, please don’t quit.
Personally I make about 4 grand at my job and wouldn't quit for adsense or poker unless I was bringing in 10 - 15 grand a month.
and I like the interaction
And where is the opposit from living by Adsense?
I have much interaction when I visit fairs, inventors, interesting projects.
I meet many interesting people at collecting materials for new pages in my online magaziens.
To each his own. I was just talking about my own preferences.
I'd still be in my home office, on my own, staring at a computer screen.Hey, that's MY job! :D
errrr.... my life....
My husband and I are willing to pay about $1,200 a month for health insurance, but can't get a policy where we live, that includes prescription benefits etc. I spent 7 hours on the phone the other day researching options.
Other than for that reason, I would have quit today and gone full-time. But for now, I really enjoy all the 'bonuses' I give myself each month.
I dont want to do a 9-5 thing for the next how ever many years, I want to just go kite surfing and trials riding and having fun when its light, then work when I can around having fun, I dont mind working, its just so inconvienient :)
I do like my current job, and make about 50k doing it. My current AS is on track to do $450 this month (my goal is $500). I would have to do 10x the traffic, to get to where I am at at my current job financially. I would love to be in the position of doing 50k at my full time job, and 50k a year with AS - then make a decision whether or not to go full time with my websites. While I was deciding, I sure would enjoy the double pay :o)
Ride the wave while it's here, but don't expect it to last forever.
They don't pay benefits either...
I doubt that AdSense will be a reliable source of income in the long term
I do not know anything more reliable besides being a clerk in Austria with Pragmatisierung - a term that the clerk can not be fired until rent.
A friend from me is programmer. Freelancer for Siemens. Suddenly the mobile phone part was sold to a Chinese company. Now he is freelancer for Benq.
Most of the company owners, I know at my internet promotion clients, is owned by the bank. High credits, the bank can write him any time a letter like:
"We have seen Your turn around decreased. So You have to pay back all Your credit line until next Monday.
best regards
Your bank"
I was just at a beauty surgeon on visit to talk about SEO on his web site. He just finished his university study and got one year ago his right to have an own clinic.
About 300 squaremeter rooms, 1.5 million EUR runing credits, and he is just experimenting with AdWords around, how he can fill his clinic with paying patients.
Compared with all what I see around me, I have the most secure job.
Question about adsense. I am seeing more and more lately organic links on topical subjects on google search and when you click on it its takes you to a page full of google adsense on that subject with just a bit of surrounding informational text.
Sometimes I see this on a normal domain name and other times on a blog.
My question. Is this legal according to google guidelines? If so has anybody tried it and was successful doing it?
What's the rule on this?....was always interested in trying this but was not sure if it was ok to do it.
But I am seeing more and more of it.
Please Advise.
Thanks!
"Do you really enjoy that much your 9-5 jobs? Are you really excited getting up every morning and going to work and workining for "The Man"? And/Or "Do you feel comfortable taking calculated risks? If "no", then "why not?"
Thank you.
Do you really enjoy that much your 9-5 jobs?
I haven't had a "9 to 5" since 1994, thankfully. :)
But, yes, giving up a regular job for independence is a bit of a risk, I think that's why we usually see pretty conservative advice given in threads like this.
At least with a "real" job there are laws and if you get laid off without good reason and not properly compensated, you can sue the company (don't ask me how I know this...).
Anyone who depends on Adsense for their livelyhood (and perhaps that of their family) is a fool.
As a small part of a larger money making scheme it's OK, but as a sole (or major) source of income, it's playing russian roulette. And that goes double if you have any sort of "built for adsense" site without any real unique content and nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of similar site.
On top of that if Google does a reindexing and drops your site off the front page, you can lose 50% of your income overnight though no fault of your own and no change in Adsense policies.
Have you priced health insurance on the open market for a family recently? Do you know how much tax the government will take once you're playing you own social security and self-employment taxes as well as city, state and federal income tax?
I haven't had a "9 to 5" since 1994, thankfully. :)
My last 9 to 5 job from 1982 to 1985 was really not a 9 to5.
It was at a computer company start up in Austria.
We had 1982 the situation to develop a new system or to be thrown from a competitor out of the market.
We had September to December 1982 100 hours weeks. It was possible that the company parking place was full Sunday 3am. The company won the battle with a new product, but it was a disaster for the families of the programmers. An all time high of divorces 1983. I lost also my first girl friend.
The chief told us programming will never be a 40 hours a week job.
