Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I'm trying to make a projection on the potential AS revenue based on the stats that I have so far. All of my pages are similar, 500-word original articles.
So does it follow that if x number of pages are indexed in Google, giving an average of $y per day, that 2x = 2y? Or doesn't it work like that?
I'm hoping that the sum of the whole is greater than the individual parts, in other words, is the increase likely to be exponential?
No one can tell you exactly and there is no formula like a = b - c = xyz, rather the best thing you can do in my books is to think about how much traffic you are getting and look at your CPM - make a traffic projection and then look at your current CPM and try and work it out that way.
I think thats a semi good way of trying to project earnings.
2x = 2y?
Mostly - what you have to factor in is that a niche has a limit: the advertisers are only putting in so many dollars (admittedly, there is the odd niche where the limit is stratospheirc :))
So, if you reach the limit for that niche then you can't get more out of it.
Not very often that happens - mostly you can expect a linear increase.
But bear in mind that this is an average increase - you will still have up days and down days, up months and down months.
When you look back you should see a smooth increasing curve of return if you have smooth increasing curve of content creation.
giving an average of $y per day, that 2x = 2y? Or doesn't it work like that?
No it does not. I have 3X the unique & relevant pages of a year ago and my overall earnings are actually less because not every page is "equal in earnings" but also Google has Glitches!
Some may say this does not occur however, believe me, it does.
And then there are, of course, your visitors who may or may not be interested in ANY ad and especially so IF the ad copy is very poorly written and about as compelling as smelly socks!
There are no guarantees with AdSense although YMMV:-)
is the increase likely to be exponential
Not exponential, for sure (this isn't an nuclear reaction). Linear... if you're really lucky, it depends on the niche. From my experience though, the growth is decelerating.. meaning if you have 2X the traffic, you'll get 1.5X the revenue, and so on.
Traffic sources and visitor intent are very important. Getting more traffic won't help, and might even hurt, if the visitors are not interested in the ads. The worst case may be when visitors are not seriously interested in what the ads offer, but are still curious enough to click the ads. That might well end up in your site being Smart Priced downward.
The thing is, you might be able to influence traffic sources, it's harder to influence visitor intent, at least from the organic search results. That's because you can't change the way people search very easily, if at all. So you end up with the equivalent of window shoppers, when you really want plain old shoppers. Too many window shoppers in the mix can affect income.
One page that you think will do incredibly well might be lucky to draw 20 visitors a year. Another might hit the sweet spot for search engines, visitors and advertisers, making more than all your other pages combined.
You simply can't predict these things. All you can do is keep producing quality, useful content and hoping for the best.
You're developing your site. What are your competitors doing?
Adding content will often help but after a while--weeks/months/years--you can hit a wall. Where it seems even if you add anything, it's not going to boost your SERPs or increase your revenue. That's where I'm at now.
You may be able to double your site and double your income but eventually you can expect to plateau.
Some publishers see great volatility in their income. Mine has been very consistent--about as consistent in recent months as a regular paycheck. It's kind of boring, but consistency is good.
It's easier to have the stability if your site(s) are visited from many different keywords. It's the same principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Don't be dependent on one big keyword or a few hot phrases.
Google Analytics for example shows last month one of my sites was found via 42,000+ keywords (keyword combinations, one word and various phrases).
p/g
"is the increase likely to be exponential"
In my epxerience yes, but not in the way you may hope. I am seeing decay in CPC which is exponential (there are lots of different exponential curve shapes), but traffic and content is up, so the answer is not so clear.
See this too:
[webmasterworld.com...]
I wasn't asking for specifc formulae, that would have been foolish, just a general overview. I mean, there must be some underlying principle, otherwise there is no point in Brett's original "Google Alone" post.
adviews * ctr * epc = revenue
and traffic growth happens, then the result will be more like
X * adviews * ctr * epc = Y * revenue
with 1 <= Y < X, in other words: doubling the traffic will NOT double your revenue.
In a way that seems a more secure way of proceeding becuase all of the eggs would not be one basket.
In that case, would it be better to draw a line underneath the project when I get to - say - 200 pages and then write the next 200 articles for a completely different site focussing on a completely different topic?
Possibly but who knows which are the best subjects to write about and derive AdSense earnings?
Your first subject may be good and your second one even better, then again it may be worse, there are no guarantees, you must write about something that interests you and of which you have a sound knowledge.
This month I launched a new part of my directory web site, it is a Coppermine image gallery with about 1,000 representative trade images in it. I added this simply for users' convenience and have about another 2,000 images to add.
What's shocked me is that this gallery is now averaging 2,000+ page impressions per day after only a couple of weeks and averaging USD 5.00 per day.
This has been a very welcome surprise and has set me thinking about other ideas now...will they work? Heavens knows!
As for writing on a topic that interests me I don't believe that is crucial. The one thing I can do very well is write, the only drawback being that I don't particularly enjoy it, but if it is the way forward then I will do it, as my motivation for success is greater than my dislike of writing.
Where did you get your images from your gallery? If they are not your own, aren't there copywrite issues?
There are niches that one publisher can 'eat up' in under a day, once you pass the point, you get the crap ads, MFAs, and the worst of the scum. I try to make sure I do not use up the ads in my niche by not sending as much as I could to adsense till there are decent measures against the scammers on the adwords side.
It might mean short term less income, but I see it long term: the scams make me look bad (part of the scam) and make my visitors less likely to return to me.
Most of your income nonetheless depends on traffic you get and attention of the world at large to your niche, if you find mass media interest in your niche, you can easily get a 10 fold increase in revenue with only a 5 fold increase in traffic.
