Apparently, I am NOT an Adsense genius after all.

[Planet13]

Soooo...

Just checked my adsense earnings for the last 28 days and saw that I generated a whopping $7.28 from the nearly 18,000 users and 44,000 page views on my site. WooHoo!

<awkwardly leaves hand in air waiting for someone to high five me...>

Is it possible I am doing SOMETHING wrong?!?!?!

Maybe I just need to go over and beat that lying down horse some more (I am pretty sure it is just napping).

:(

[RyuUK]

This is why I always stick with financial/insurance/legal markets etc. I expect RPM to sit around £26 that would equate to £1144 ($1942.63) for 44k. You could earn $7.28 working at McDonald's for an hour. Is there a good affiliate program in your niche or can you sell direct ads? Otherwise, I'd move on to a new project.

[Planet13]

@ RyuUK:

Thanks for the input.

"Is there a good affiliate program in your niche or can you sell direct ads? Otherwise, I'd move on to a new project."

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Judging from the feedback I get from visitors to my site, it seems like they come to my site AFTER THEY ALREADY BOUGHT SOMETHING SOMEWHERE ELSE, and they just use my site as a reference to figure out what it was that they bought (or how to use the thing they bought).

People who are looking to buy things DON'T seem to come to my site first. don't know why exactly :(

Is McDonald's hiring?

[RyuUK]

If you are receiving 1500 hits daily then you are already off to a great start since you can centrally promote any such new project on there. At the same time you have shown that you can receive 1500 hits and so just replicate what you have done in a more profitable niche. I know I mentioned topics that are quite boring to blog about, but there is a lot of value in other Adsense markets such as business, gambling, making money online, property, web hosting etc. Obv if you are looking to sell then affiliate is the way to go, esp with higher ticket items. As I said, you have the audience already so just get creative with it. Anyway, hope things works out for you.:)

[Planet13]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Much appreciated.

[creeking]

I have heard that reviews are good because people want to read reviews before they buy. so you could add reviews. even if it's a review of an older model/version

[Planet13]

Thank you, creeking.

While that strategy might not work for my current site, I am thinking of a site or two where that MIGHT work.

[scooterdude]

|An investigation of the keywords people are finding your site by, even the limited GWMT version should tell you a lot about the type of traffic you're getting.

This will usually be a reflection of the content you have.

Question , is there something they need afterwards

[martinibuster]

>>>People who are looking to buy things...

Cultivate that. Then earnings should go up. If there's an affiliate program that will convert on your page then AdSense will do well. If there is none then it won't.

[Planet13]

@ scooterdude

"An investigation of the keywords people are finding your site by, even the limited GWMT version should tell you a lot about the type of traffic you're getting."

Well, my site has two areas (ecommerce and article / blog section) on the same domain.

On the ecommerce side of my site, I sell Blue Widgets.

In my /blog/ directory I have lots of articles about Blue Widgets.

Looking at the GWT query data, it is overwhelmingly related to "meanings". something like:

Blue widget Meaning
Blue Widgets Meaning
Blue Widget Symbolism
Blue Widget Shapes
Types of Blue Widgets
Blue Widget Settings
Widgets Meanings
Blue Meaning
Different types of widgets and their meanings

etcetera...

I don't get any traffic for something like "Buy Blue widgets" or even just "blue widgets"

~~~~

I wonder if my information / articles have "poisoned" the ecommerce section of my site.

On my articles (which get 4-times as much traffic as my ecommece pages), I have image links to the products I sell. They rarely get clicked on though.

For example: My most popular page is "blue Widgets Meanings" and it has image links to my main Blue Widgets ecommerce page (same domain).

Over the last week, it had 2,990 page views.

The image links to the ecommece pages on my site had only 24 clicks, which is a .8% click-though rate (24 clicks divided by 2,990 page views).

Meanwhile, the bulk of my traffic growth has been to my article pages (which I can't seem to monetize) and my ecommerce traffic has been declining constantly.

Sigh...

[Planet13]

It's kind of funny...

I just looked at the general categories in the Allow and block Ads, and it appears that the particular SUB-categories that perform the best on my site are:

#1) Psychics and Fortune telling, and

#2) Investing

None of those have ANYTHING to do with my site :(

[wa desert rat]

Welcome to the club. I suspect that there are more of us non-genius Adsense types than there are of the other sort...

Traffic and revenue on my sites has only the most tenuous of connection; traffic might go up while revenue goes down and vice-versa. It's likely, however, that very low traffic would result in even lower revenue. My site seems to get between 550 and 700 visitors a day of which about 60% are new. This is offset by the 60% bounce rate.

I think I'll try enabling the Psychic and Fortune Telling category. Maybe the Asian Dating category, as well (if there is one).

Luckily... McDonald's is ALWAYS hiring!

WDR