Increasing Adsense Earnings How?

[Lauralee]

Hi,

Thanks for reading this.

I have a website that I built through Intuit websites. It’s about four years old. It has over 100 pages of what I consider to be high quality content. It is information based on a hobby that I love and have extensive knowledge of. Millions of people participate in this hobby. My primary goal is just to help people with this hobby.

The site is about four years old.

I am very reluctant to say what it is because I’m terrified of having the idea stolen. A few years ago my sister had a website and somebody copied everything she had onto his or her own website, stealing both her words and her photos.

Anyway, I get about 100 visitors a day who visit about 200 pages a day total. Some people stay and view many pages, most view one and leave. About a half dozen of the pages show up in the first page of a google search on the page’s subject. My traffic has about doubled over what it was a year ago.

I have adsense ads that make about $15 a month. I used to make a few dollars a month from Amazon but haven’t in several months even though I’ve probably tripled the number of their products I’m promoting.

My question is where do I go to learn how to increase my earnings from this site? Is there a book or website that has really good information that you would recommend? I might even consider having a consultant look at the site and offer recommendations.

Thank you,
Laura

[netmeg]

First of all, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

Second of all - no, don't specify your niche; in fact it's pretty much forbidden by our Terms of Service.

Third of all - read the post pinned to the top of this forum in full - Want to Earn More with AdSense?

Two primary ways of earning more with AdSense include tailoring your site to appeal to buyers at the proper point in their purchasing decision, or just plain attracting so much traffic that your earnings will increase.

At a hundred visits a day, you're probably going to have to try for the first one. Does your hobby involve buying any products or services? It helps if there are advertisers that appeal to your audience.

Do you pretty much know who your audience is? You could try adding more content that would appeal to them, or expanding your topic to cover more hobbies or niches.

You could also look for affiliate offers that would directly relate to your niche - it's not the same 'set it and forget it' that AdSense is, you have to actually sell it, but if done well, it tends to earn more.

Along those lines, you could think about starting a newsletter where you don't have to rely on people remembering to come to you - you send information to them, and while you can't use AdSense for that, there are sometimes opportunities for affiliate offers there.

The thing is, it's not as easy as a book or a website - if it were, then everyone would be successful at it. There's a lot of good information here in this forum if you want to browse through the various topics, and you must have some experience of your own that you can bring to the equation.

The first thing you should do is really think about your users intent when they come to your site. Do they come looking for something to buy, or advice on something to buy, or are they just looking for free information they can consume and then just leave. Do your visitors tend to come back over and over, or do they come once and never return? Are there any changes you can make to your site to keep them coming back, and sharing your site with their friends?

[ember]

Ditto everything Netmeg said. I'd also add that well-designed pages are key to Adsense success. Original, well written content is the first thing but also how well each page is laid out matters. Design can influence behavior, and how Adsense interacts with content can influence how many people click and why.

Study the layout maps Adsense has. Install analytics and pay attention to where people click on a page and where they don't. Test to see if changing an ad's size or location or color increases clicks. So much of it is testing because each site is different.

We've been able to increase our revenue substantially just by paying attention to ad placement.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I just wanted to add that when you said "four years old" + "100 pages" I knew instantly that you got roughly 75-150 visitors a day. This seems to be a limit within Google and it takes a large number of incoming quality links and/or social mentions from high profile people to break that glass ceiling. In fact I know of at least two webmasters who build to roughly 100 pages and then move onto a new site because of how hard it is to get more than 150 visitors a day regularly from Google on a 100 page site.

Your next stop will be in the 300 page range with 400-600 visitors a day and you will know when you break into that zone because of a quick rise in traffic. Breaking that level is a lot harder, of course.

Maximizing ad revenue from existing traffic and increasing traffic are two separate monsters and you should be trying to do both.

[Play_Bach]

Hopefully you also won't get eaten alive by Panda, Penguin and EMD. My Google traffic in 2013 is a far cry from what it was in 2009 and AdSense earnings are down now to only about 1/5th of what they once were. Good luck.

[jbayabas]

Netmeg has some valid points but if your goal is making lots of money, it won't get you anywhere.

The key to success is traffic,  lots of it -- at least 20k  page views a day. If youve been doing this for 4 years and still not generating that much traffic, then it's time to change for a new niche. 

A 100 a day page view hobby will only become a hobby. But a 20k a day page view hobby will turn into a money making business. 

How to achieve big traffic?

1. Professionally designed site like CNN
2. Great content/niche that viewers want to stay and come back again and again. If most of your visitors stay only for one page then leave and never come back, then you have failed. You will forever make small change.
3. Great marketing skills so people can discover your site.

I consider having Adsense a privilege, it's big money if you know what you're doing. My advice to you right now is to focus on your traffic, not making money.  

[sam77]

It is possible to achieve big traffic despite the small size of your website.

I can speak from experience, as my site has around 100 pages indexed by Google and averages about 30,000 visitors per day.

It can be done, although you need high quality links from trusted sources.

It took 5 years for me to achieve good traffic (10,000 a day) and in year 7 things really took off. I hope this trend continues, but I don't take anything for granted.

If you truly believe your site is of a high quality then email relevant sites for links. This is how I started 7 years ago and it got me off the mark. Now I don't request links as the site gets them naturally. Getting listing in the Open Directory Project was also a big help to me.

[Chapman]

To illustrate what the others have said regarding maximizing profit from existing traffic, My smallest site is similar to yours at about 100 pages but consistantly earns two to three times what your's does with... half as many visitors. With your number of visitors, that site might easily see four to six times your revenue.

Making your entry/landing page as compelling as possible so that the visitor feels a need to investigate your content more thourghtly will bring your average page views per visit up from two to the ten to twelve I regularly see on that site.

Like your's, it's a niche hobby site (quite obscure as well). I'm not sure just how much more traffic I can expect to get after six years but I've done everything I can think of to be appealing to each person that seeks this site out and extend their vist to the max.

Traffic is important, but it isn't everything!

[Lauralee]

I am here, and reading each of these posts/suggestions thoroughly. I appreciate all the tips so much.

I'm embarrassed to say that I cannot figure out how to tell which ads on which pages are getting the few clicks that I'm getting.

[piatkow]

I'm embarrassed to say that I cannot figure out how to tell which ads on which pages are getting the few clicks that I'm getting.

Set up channels - one for each ad and name them clearly so that you can still identify which is which in 6 months time.

[ember]

The key to success is traffic, lots of it -- at least 20k page views a day.

No. That is one way. It is not the only way. I get 1/10th that amount of traffic and earn a very good living with Adsense.

[Play_Bach]

+1 ember. Thanks.

[jbayabas]

I get 1/10th that amount of traffic and earn a very good living with Adsense.

What if you had more traffic, you'd earn 10 times more. With high traffic, you will seldom see earnings go down. It's either average or above average. Well, in my case, since I achieved high traffic of over 500k page views a day, I never had to worry about below average earnings.

[IanCP]

It is information based on a hobby that I love and have extensive knowledge of. Millions of people participate in this hobby. My primary goal is just to help people with this hobby

How well and widely known are you in this hobby area? Would your peer group acknowledge you as an "authority" on the topic? Do you participate in forums which discuss the hobby?

All of those questions are absolutely critical to success. While you might write interesting content, is it content your peer group would link back to?

No I don't subscribe to the theory of writing content to suit AdSense. You are either one of two things, you write for your audience, or you build a site tailor made for AdSense and just happen to use your hobby as a medium. Many, if not most, will disagree with me on that, but I believe having AdSense in the back of your mind will degrade your contribution to your hobby world.

Three things I would certainly do:

a) If you haven't already done so - have an account with Google Webmaster Tools and learn how to use it.

b) Definitely sign up for Google Authorship as just one aid in the fight against copyright theft.

c) Consider building your own hobby forum related to your site where your visitors can talk to one another and interact.

[Lauralee]

Thank you everybody. I've printed out this thread and created a list of things to do based on all the suggestions.

[Leonard0]

Hot off the Wordstream blog: 50 Things Every Content Marketer Should Know [wordstream.com...]

[tim222]

Also, think lateral. Do you have a related Facebook page?