Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Four months after learning what <br> meant, my life has totally changed. I have practically tossed aside my roof contracting company that has been my focus for fifteen years now. With a little reading, a little guidance from my father, and 80+ hours a week working on my website, the income I generate from AdSense can now meet the bills without me having to lift a shingle!
Even in this short time span there have been ups and downs. My income dropped 40% two weeks ago and is just beginning to recover. But even with the problems I've had getting relevant ads, yada yada, my life has changed to where I can use my brain to make a living. One giant THANKS to google (and I even have clean fingernails now!).
Any similar experiences? I'd love to hear them
The other thing I love about it is that it rewards you for increasing your traffic - some people may scoff at that, but not all of my revenue models work that way.
Thanks for the positive post.
Congratulations on the succes of your site. It's great to hear stories like this.
I currently don't earn enough to quit my daytime job, but I am earning about half of my yearly salary, so with a little more hard work I think that goal can be attained :-)
Like you, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude towards Google for making this possible. I had spent 3+ years working on a site that produced no income until adsense came along. Now I feel like my time spent on the site is actually justified.
Google took a big chance by allowing small sites to function as publishers. None of the other CPC engines had been willing to take that chance. It would seem that gamble has paid off big for Google. I imagine they are doing very well with this program, and of course, they've made a lot of us very happy along the way ;-)
It will be interesting to see how adsense evolves over the years, hopefully Google has some more ideas brewing that will revolutionize the web even further.
Thank you for sharing this, CaryissoVery.
I knows how you feel like as I am running several sites on the side and generate enough to pay for extra vacation, a 25ft RV and some additional extra's.
A little risky for me to drop my day job as it is very well paid and the whole family life relies on it plus the future (retirement funds for my wife and me, kids schooling etc.) and life in Europe is way more expensive than in the US (I am entitled to judge after I returned from a five year assignment to the US back to Europe last year).
A word of cautioon though (although being able to put in all your time might limit the risks): be prepared for rainy days. Anyone can tell tales about the black weekdays or weekends or what not when you suddenly lose ground underneath your feet and need a long breath to recover.
There are so many variables beyond your control that leads me to say: Internet money is no safe money...
Diversify, create a couple of safe havens and you should be fine. What I have started to do is to document anything and everything in my professional and private life. Some day someone will be happy to have some advice about knobodyknowswhat ;-)))
If AdSense is still alive then, guess what kind of enrichment those articles will carry...
All the best, Jens
Its worked very well for me as well so far, better than i imagined have to say.
However i would like to add to what adfree said about being cautious.
Right now things are going well, but having all your eggs in one basket is always a big danger, and working on the net things change everyday, some go unnoticed and some are as devastating as a tornado, and you back to the start in a flash.
Keep working at it, and like myself go looking for other alternatives to increase the income from the web, make other websites, look for other advertising programs, other products to market, so that one day you can give up that day job, but i think doing this fulltime and relying on it for your sole income is much harder than some think.
Good luck
If my site is new and not found in google or other SE yet, what is the best way to drive traffic to my site, so that I can earn from Adsense click through?
Thanks
You are up for a wild and exciting ride!
One thing first though: it ain't gonna be easy.
But extremely rewarding if you exercise patience and recognize that you need to learn every day.
There are thousands of guys around here (me included) who have acquired a fair part of their expertise from this place.
In order to get you started you want to start learning some basics. The massive amount of information in this forum will look quite confusing to you. But hang in there.
Here is how I would tackle this:
- use the HOME link on top of the forum page and browse through the major categories
- for more specific information use the search feature (on top as well)
- here are some posts that I think might get you started just fine:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
Very important for being found by the Google spider is to have links from other web sites (at least one) pointing to yours. Talk to fellow webmasters and get someone to link to you (the site, page that links to you needs to be indexed by Google).
Have loads of fun and success, be interactive in this forum, this is what it's here for...
Jens
And, me too, both on the Adsense pays as much - or more than - a full time job... and on the caution that nothing is guaranteed to last forever.
Because of that element of risk I can't take the chance of kicking the day job.
I hope it continues and perhaps I'll be able to carry on working on internet projects rather than returning to the day job.
Well said about not putting all your eggs in one basket. That is a great trueism for any situation in life. We are all just one dreaded email away from being AdSenseless! As I mentioned in the original post, my adsense money dropped 40% two weeks ago with absolutely no explanation. Same impressions, ctr, etc., just way less money. So I see the potential rollercoaster ride I have signed up for. But a thrill ride beats a real job any day!
I envy your position with two businesses. I'm a full time self employed webmaster and I pound the keyboard all day long. And believe me there are days when pounding nails instead on a roof top sound awefully good!
I'm glad to hear of your success, keep working hard at it :)
.. whilst AdSense has been a great earner for me, I think that it would be wrong for anyone to "give up the day job" on the strength of it - or any other online income generator.
For security, everyone should have multiple income streams.
Remember, we are at the whim of..
* The advertisers
* Our page view traffic
* The CTR
* The EPC
* Google's policies and business strategies
All of these make us vulnerable. And this applies to any online - or offline - income source where we don't have strategy control.
Enjoy everything whilst it lasts.
But make NO assumptions about continuity.
End of "wet blanket" rave.
Sorry :-(
++ Dev
A strange new breed of websites is about to be unleashed as a result of Adsense - wesites built from the ground up - with Adsense income in mind!
I have just built 2 more genuine informative quality directories, just to catch Adsense income - and it seems that revenue income is now starting to trickle in.
2. Of course it makes no sense quiting full-time job only because of adsense, but adsense revenue can be wisely re-invested to make your business more stable in terms of other revenue streams (pay for content, create new sites, buy links (woops, did I say that? ;)))
Second that! This is growth at its best.
Build assets. Get the cash flow going. That's how the rich become richer and the poor stay poor.
Have to agree with EFV on that.
It really is worth your time looking at additional revenue streams to Adsense on your sites.....otherwise you are very vulnerable to the ups and downs of the Adsense ride.
So if you want to avoid going back to the shingles then get searching for the other revenue streams
Does playing on the world poker tour circuit count as income diversification?
<chortle> No wonder you thrive on the uncertainty and the ups and downs of AdSense!
For security, everyone should have multiple income streams.
That's exactly what I like about Adsense. For me, AdSense is an additional revenue stream that reduces the pressure on my primary revenue streams. Although I would never bet my kids' education on AdSense, it's reassuring to know that I will probably have some cash coming in, 24/7, even if my other business activities flop.
Thanks to Adsense and I finally believe after 9 years I am in the right business.
We are now looking for a nice house on a Greek Island for retirement.
