Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I know for many of you AdSense is not working, but trust me, it is probably the best monetization program for high quality publishers (even New York Times uses Google, among thousands of others).
We started in 2004 with AdSense hoping to generate about $30 a month (don't laugh, that is what we really thought since we were so clueless). Little by little traffic improved and here we are.
Since it is important to put this in context for others, our company has 2 full time and one part time person working hard (no it is not a hobby for us, it is a real business run as any company would run) creating essentially the best content that we can create. Our advertising budget is nearly zero (and we don't waste time spamming forums or exchanging links and the like -- if you create great content linking happens naturally) and we get over 2 million visitors monthly, nearly 90% of them through Google search or through repeat visits (and yes, we don't think that Yahoo and MSN are search engines and never waste a minute wondering what our rankings there are).
My message to those who plan to build a solid publishing business is to do the best you can. There is no shortcut to success here too. Like any business we had ups and downs (loss of rankings, low CPM, daily fluctuations, so-called pentalties -- we seem to have seen them all) but in the end, if you focus on a real human visitor (rather than a computer algorithm) who wants to find useful information or entertain him/herself, results will come. There is a reason Google has all those billions in revenue because some publisher out there is bringing great traffic and the clicks.
Who woulda' thunk that concentrating on quality content, along with a bit of patience and persistence, would pay off in the end ;-)
10% repeat visitors is very low when measured against what you say on building the best content, where is the visitor loss coming from?
Finally: From your earnings total, what % contribution is from ad units/ link units / referrals?
we get over 2 million visitors monthly, nearly 90% of them through Google search
My next step would be to address that problem.
Curiously how many clicks a day do you get?
if you create great content linking happens naturally
How right you are!
Do you have one site or several? You three write all the content?
Very inspiring :)
...for now my goal is to get $168/day avg
That's my goal as well. It's not as odd a number as people might think - it works out to roughly $5000 a month.
To back up skweb's good news, I regurlarly hit $200 a day for one of my sites and $300 a day has been passed a couple of weeks ago. One man band, with a love of the subjects I publish. Guilty feeling coming on here! Add "with lots of encouragement, help and common sense from my partner". And that is probably more important than I can ever imagine.
it is probably the best monetization program for high quality publishers
First of all, congratulations on hitting that milestone! It is an incredible achievement to make that sort of money with any advertising scheme under the sun.
And a second point, Adsense can be a top-performing monetization program for quality websites, but the market can fluctuate and make Adsense a poor performer. Sites like NYT rely only partially on Adsense, as do other large publishers. The #1 rule of thumb all publishers MUST adhere to very strictly is to never depend on one advertising network and always have a plan b in the effect a top-performer tanks.
Ride this out for as long as you can but learn from the mistakes others have shared and plan for the day Adsense tumbles, which it may at any point given that its performance is only partially attributed to your direct efforts.
Best of luck and keep up the good work.
I just can't remember the blue widget site I got such good information from last week
There's your problem that needs answering, every percentage point that moves you away from search engine dependancy imho is worth more than a 10% rise in your earnings long term.
<<You must be paying a big chunk of that daily $400 for hosting and salaries, how much do you estimate your net profit percentage to be?>>
Hosting is probably $100 a month. One employee is overseas so that is cheap. Company owned by husband/wife.
<<10% repeat visitors is very low when measured against what you say on building the best content, where is the visitor loss coming from?>>
Don't have great stats on repeat visitors but that is not what I intended to say. We also have one of those web 2.0 social networking sites that brings a lot of repeat visitors who then end up reading a lot of lifestyle articles.
<<From your earnings total, what % contribution is from ad units/ link units / referrals? >>
Never used referrals. Don't believe in the PPA model. Hey if a visitor is gonna leave my site. s/he is going to either a partner website or we are gonna paid. Don't believe in driving traffic to other sites for free. Ad/link unit is around 80/20.
<<90% traffic through Google is a problem>>
Good thought and we worry about that too. It just so happens that we have great ranking in both Y and MSN. Somehow these two search engines don't send us as many visitors. I think it is the visitor profile. Our visitors are as obsessed with G as we are.
<<Is it 2 million unique or 2 million page views? >>
2 million uniques with a lot more page views. Would not disclose page views to comply with AdSense TOS.
<<Curiously how many clicks a day do you get?>>
I don't want to give too much data here to comply with AdSense TOS. The next thing you know I give out page views, # of clicks and you have all you need for my stats. Obviously, 2 million monthly visitors will lead to millions more in page views and tens of thousands of clicks.
<<Do you have one site or several? You three write all the content?>>
Two very large sites and a few small ones. All content created in-house. Two large sites launched in 1999 as hobbies but converted into business in late 2003. Joined AdSense in mid-2004.
Also agree with nomis5. It is amazing how people are lazy (or clueless) to even type domain.com in the browser and simply do that in the search window.
CentennialEmpire thanks for the insights. You are so right. It is a dilemma for any company and we will have to address it were G go out of business some day but for now it seems that Y and Microsoft are laggards.
That's my goal as well. It's not as odd a number as people might think - it works out to roughly $5000 a month.
Yeah $168 is easier to write than 166.6666666...
Company owned by husband/wife.
Keep up the hard work and one day you will not even need AdSense.
I agree with what has been said, getting 90% of traffic from google is risky. I owned a site that relied on Google like that and then out of the blue the site virtually disappeared from the Google serps and my income dropped drastically.
I also no longer rely on adsense 100%, I rotate the ads displayed between adsense, bidvertiser and direct ads. Although adsense is the biggest earner out the three for me, and my income would increase if I just used adsense, at least if adsense ban the site (happened to one of mine) or something drastic happens then I have the others to fall back on.
I've never really understood why people do this. Why not just run Adsense (your biggest earner) full-time and then revert to the other ad programs if you run in to any Adsense problems? You're losing money!
I've never really understood why people do this. Why not just run Adsense (your biggest earner) full-time and then revert to the other ad programs if you run in to any Adsense problems? You're losing money!
Experience is why I do it. One of my sites was banned from adsense, if my whole account had been banned then any earnings I had earned which had not been paid would have been lost.
If someone earned say $5000 in May and $2500 so far this month from adsense and then Google banned their account today (16th June) they would lose that $7500, or 1.5 months of income. At least by using multiple networks, unless they all ban the publisher during the same month, they will still have some income due.
I agree if you're only earning a couple of hundred dollars a month then it's probably not worth using multiple networks but if you're earning a decent figure - Never put all your eggs into one basket.
I'm curious how much time you spent in the past testing layouts, color schemes, etc.
And have you now settled into a common layout/format for your sites and focus your time on building the sites instead of constant tweaking in hopes of getting a few more pennies out of AdSense?
FarmBoy
<<how much time you spent in the past testing layouts, color schemes, etc.>>
The old timers will recall when G allowed only one ad unit, then 3 ad units, and then link units. Wow, it took a lot of time to go back to plain html pages to reformat them. We have relied on a lot of great info from G and have also done our own analysis to find that blending with a 300X250 ad unit above the fold works magic. Another ad placed at the end of the article is helpful too.
And I don't think that one can sit back and take it easy. The world of online publishing is so competitive and constantly evolving that we are always on our toes to figure out what is working and what is not. For instance, we tried those YouTube video ad units and what a waste (and loss of revenue) it was -- maybe G is right but that thing simply makes no money to the publisher.
Obviously, we now have a good idea of what is working so we do try to focus more on building content -- remember that we are just 2.5 people with literally no technical skills (our strength is writing).
<< By creating content do you mean writing articles or it is more like creating video's, reviews etc >>
We write articles with a typical "how to" approach. That is what monetizes the best. Yeah, you can create a website with enormous traffic talking about Ms. Spears or Sen. Clinton or Sen. McCain or baseball, but what works great is when there is something real to buy. That is when people are more likely to head to the website of an advertiser. Imagine a woman who hates cellulite on her legs and summer is approaching. She is ready to buy anything that helps her look good on the beach -- she is the visitor we want to help by giving her great, unbiased, solid advice and she helps us, Google, and the advertisers by spending her money.
We do not create our own videos but plan to do so -- right now we embed.
1. How do you get back links for each article of your website.
I don't. I think if your article helps someone, they might just link to it. I really don't have time to approach anyone for links.
2. How do you write article i.e. How do you research on a specific topic, how many words an article should be?
First, pick a topic that is of interest to a lot of people. For example, right now, everyone is thinking about the beach. So it is great to write articles about looking good, picking a swimsuit, top beaches, healthy eating on the beach, books for reading, etc. It is good to write what you know but it always best to write after some research. For example, if a better sunscreen is out this season you better know about it and mention it. Google is a great place to start your research.
Short, highly focused content that fits on one page (without scrolling down) is best. If you want to write about Cancun vacation, keep one page for hotels, next for beaches, and another for restaurants and so on.
3. What are the best long term topics for the Adsense ?
All topics are great if we will always need info on them. That is why news or politics or gossip are terrible topics since it may be big news now that Miley Cyrus got some controversial photos but 3 months yet another celeb will have controversial photos and no one would care about Miley. Similarly, Hillary Clinton was hot for so many months but who cares now (unless she is VP candidate). We like to write about "evergreen" topics so that an article written today will keep producing money for years to come.
Another rule of thumb: consumer websites do much better than websites targeted at technology professionals or business executives. They are so much savvier and know how to stay away from advertising.
