Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It's pretty clear (to me) that the major success factor is the "clickability factor" and it's not the same as "good matching".
Now, if you create a site about dogs and people go there to find out about dog training, chances are, people will click ads about dog training. Or dog breeding. And if you have a dating site where singles look for a date, it makes perfect sense that they click dating ads.
However, if you have a "TV site" or a "Game site" or a "Music site", the money simply isn't there. Not because Google is bad at matching - quite the contrary, but "clickability" isn't there.
Something to keep in mind when you start your next site.
[edited by: DavidDeprice at 10:08 am (utc) on July 22, 2006]
[edited by: martinibuster at 1:42 pm (utc) on July 24, 2006]
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My analysis of the keyword phrase "dog breed" shows that the top bidders are only paying like $.20 - .25 cents per click. So the owner must only get about .10 cents per click at max.
He would have to generate about 6500 clicks per day to make that kind of money.
I doubt that. But maybe I am missing something.
I think putting the ads in the right margin is a smart idea since the scroll bar is located there.
Actually, when I look at that dating site, plenty of fish, I see ads not only for dating, but mostly for really profitable topics like refinancing, bankruptcy, mortgages, etc...
Really? I wonder if MediaBot has automatically figured out that many people entering the dating seen are also undergoing financial and real estate changes (e.g., divorce). If so, I'm impressed.
One of those days I should share some info about figuring out profitable keywords and keyphrases and why all so-called "profitable keyword lists" are total bulsh*t.
What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. ;)
Pubcon is in November, so save up those AdSense checks and see you there.
I agree that some topics just don't lend themselves to profitable ads. I also believe that insted of entering a niche, it can sometimes be better to enter it one or two levels higher because you may be able to interest visitors in a broader selection of content.
For instance, let's take a travel site. You can focus on a city, but you could also focus on the region. If your knowledge is wide enough, you could even focus on your state or province. If it's not, a regional focus will still have many opportunities.
I think a mistake some people can make is to choose too narrow a niche, which in my experience may have too little traffic. I'm not saying every niche is narrow. But some niches are.
Certainly you can endeavour to build a hundred narrow focused sites, but that's a lot harder to do well than you may anticipate.
I think a mistake some people can make is to choose too narrow a niche, which in my experience may have too little traffic. I'm not saying every niche is narrow. But some niches are.
I think your strategy of "enter a niche one or two levels higher" makes sense. That's what I've done--more by accident than by design, I'll confess--and the approach has worked well. It's a strategy that offers the best of both worlds: Enough breadth to reach a wide audience, plus the chance to build deep content and achieve "authority" status for selected subtopics.
ery few people realize THE OBVIOUS. How much you make is determined by the destination. For example, site that targets "Lake Tahoe" and "Lake Tahoe Rentals" (or Aspen) can make quite a bit more than the one about Northern California travel (or Colorado)
I think, that to be more accurate, one would have to say that revenue is determined by the destination and the traffic. For example, I get much higher EPC and eCPMs for some destinations than for others, but those destinations may not get much traffic on my pages (or on anyone else's) just because they don't attract large numbers of people.
Also, there's nothing to keep you from having the best of both worlds. You could have a site about California with a "subsite about Lake Tahoe, and this would give you a platform for long-term growth (since you could add in-depth coverage of other selected destinations over time). Add a "vanity domain" for each subsite, and you're all set. Hypothetical example:
Californiadomain.com
Tahoeddomain.com = californiadomain.com/tahoe or tahoe.californiadomain.com
