Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This is what happened:
in the first 2.5 months, earned about $175
3rd month, earned $150
So far this month, averaging $20/DAY
So, my question: as more and more pages get indexed and ranked, does it just keep going up and up? will i reach some peak once all pages are indexed? if i keep adding content and doing my (apparently good) SEO, will it just keep increasing? all the reading i've done says 'dont expect anything until the 2nd or 3rd year' - well at this rate in 3 years i'll be rich!
what has your experience been? should i expect my increases to flatten out?
secondly, there are exogenous forces which you cannot influence adequately (smart pricing, advertiser supply etc.), which can kick in from time to time and hit your earnings.
you may fly high on several exceptional months here and there, but don't expect this to happen frequently or forever. by the way, who earns 1000$/day? so, stop dreaming and go on working on your site ;)
I suspect that there is a glass ceiling on the income from most sites, or ideas for sites (though, it is a fuzzy ceiling, not an exact point but a range of income). Initially, you can make great gains as you discover how to leverage income from your site/idea and take it up to the glass ceiling. Once you reach that point, however, it can be much harder to increase income - eg: because the ad market has reached saturation point in that niche.
To step up to another level of income, you may need to find another idea that raises the glass ceiling.
the older your account gets the easier it is to make leaps, but the more you make the more reluctant you will be to change things that work, in the same time as time passes the more in tune you will be with the pulse of your site and visitors and know what ticks and what clicks.
did that make any sense?
I think once you have an established crop of web sites it is easier and quicker to generate more and even getting them indexed only takes a couple of days if you link from a strong PR site.
The more experienced you are the less mistakes you make as well, as with anything I guess!
Once you can do that, and I do mean consistently with "natural" traffic, then usually that indicates you are drawing enough traffic consistently that you are on your way to doing pretty decent.
When I say "natural" traffic, what I'm talking about, the kind of traffic you would normally get everyday, outside of the occasional bump from a Slashdot or a Digg or whatever. I'm talking about you are getting search traffic - Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., and you are getting traffic from other sites that feel your site is worth linking to as well (not one-time articles like Digg/Slashdot, but other related sites that have you linked, perhaps under a "related links" in a sidebar or side menu).
I'm also not talking about AdWords. Some people use AW to draw in traffic, and for some sites it works, but for many it doesn't, or it only works initially. I don't consider it "natural" traffic because you are paying for the traffic.
The thing about $10 being a good indicator - at that level of traffic, when you do something (perhaps write more content) that bumps traffic and revenue up just 5% or 10%, that starts to become significant.
When you have 100 visitors a day and only bring in $1.00, it doesn't seem significant to bump that up 10% - after all, 10 more visitors or $0.10 more a day doesn't seem like much.
But when you hit 1000 visitors a day and $10 a day, adding a %10 increase in traffic and revenue here and there starts to becomes more significant and tangible, because it builds on what you have already done.
You sound like you are well on your way to success, but keep in mind seasonal variations can get you.
You also have to consider the niche you are appealing to. In my case, my site is a hobby site. Based on my research, I estimate that there are about 3 to 4 million people in the US interested in the hobby. That definitely limits the size of income growth I can expect.
That's a great observation. Also, the "glass ceiling" phenomenon that some people have mentioned is understandable, because there are so many ads to go around for any given keyword and Google may have measures in place to keep any one publisher from sucking up a disproportionate number of impressions and clicks.
I think like others that the first 100$ take longer than the first 1000$ because usually you increase your pace.
Re: Glass ceilings...
I think to some degree it's a simple matter of supply and demand. I could easily double the size of my site without much thinking, or working for that matter.
Would I make twice as much? I doubt it.
I doubt it beacuse I don't think I'm likely to attract twice as much traffic. A good portion of the traffic that would LAND ON the new pages is already LANDING ON my old pages.
Sure, I'd no doubt get some new traffic, but it's not likely to double.
When do you get to the point where diminishing returns make the effort not worthwhile? I guess that depends partly on why we're doing what we're doing. If it's JUST for the money, then I guess you stop when the money doesn't cover the cost of expansion.
I would be curious to hear of anyone sustaining this ON A SINGLE DOMAIN, SINGLE TOPIC website where basically the list of advertisers could be the same for any page on the site
Topics have subtopics.
For example, if you had a site about golf, it might have subtopics about golf courses around the world, golf holidays, golf clubs and balls, golf clothing, and so on. Each subtopic would attract a different pool of advertisers. (E.g., the pages about golf holidays in Scotland would attract travel agents, tour packagers, hotels, etc., while the pages about golf clubs would attract equipment retailers.) The total number of advertisers on a large, authoritative site could be enormous.
Pick a goal, any goal. Getting there is one thing, staying there is another.
So true. That's why I think it's important to focus on building a healthy source of traffic.
Topics have subtopics
That'd be a good topic for a site: subtopicsforpublishers (as opposed to subtropicsforvisitors?)
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