I get questions and comments on a fairly regular basis asking me how I manage to earn a pretty consistent $1,300 per month using Google Adsense. They usually come from people who lament the fact that they only make $68.52 or some such amount per month and they want to know my secret for earning what I do. In light of that, here is part 1 of a 2 post series on how to earn the most from Adsense. This first post will cover what kind of niches and keywords to target and the next post will cover how to optomize your pages and Adsense placement to get the most clicks.
I just want to preface this post by saying that I’m no Google Adsense expert, there are people who make thousands per day and I’m not one of them. However, I have been able to discover what works quite well for me and I’ll share it in these 2 posts, but first, let’s clear up one huge misconception about Adsense. Very high paying Adsense keywords aren’t necessarily the best keywords to be basing a niche site around.The main reason for this is because if someone is paying $50 per click for one of those mesothelioma lawyer type keywords they probably don’t have their ads displaying on Google’s content network, and if they do, it is on a very selective basis and you and your sites aren’t in that picture.
You probably don’t stand a chance of building a site about mesothelioma, laser hair removal, or DUI lawyers and getting those very high paying ads to display on your site, much less get your site ranked in the search engines any longer. People and businesses who can afford to spend $50 to $100 per click to get traffic to their site are more than likely hiring someone who knows what they’re doing when it comes to Adwords, so it’s pretty certain they aren’t wasting their ads on your made for Adsense site.
To make long term consistent money from Adsense, you must base your site on keywords that pay relatively high, get lots of traffic, attract shoppers and are not based on a fad movements or lawsuit of the day clubs. When I say shoppers I mean people who are in a frame of mind to be looking at many different aspects of or products in the niche you are targeting. The more people are in a shopping mode, the more ads they will be clicking on, because they heven’t decided to buy yet. Remember, they’re looking, just like you are looking when you go out shopping for a pair of shoes and try on 15 pairs before you buy. Now translate each one of those shoe fittings into a click and you get my point.
That’s why I like the travel niche so much for Adsense. There are niches within this niche that I do very well in and won’t reveal, but in general, building a travel based web site is a good way to earn substantial revenue from Adsense. It works for the same reason mentioned above, people shop when they look for travel. Let’s say someone is planning a trip to Seattle, they will look at all kinds of things related to their trip, from several places to stay, to restaurants, to activities and attractions to airfare and more. If they don’t find what they’re looking for from an ad they clicked on your site they may hit the back button and click another ad on your site.
If you have a comprehensive enough content site about vacationing in Seattle, or Northern California, or Las Vegas, or wherever, they may spend a lot of time on your site and do substantial planning right from your very own informational pages that have Adsense and other revenue generating advertisments on them. Occassionally I will have pages that get a more than 100% CTR for Adsense, meaning people are hitting the back button and clicking more ads on my pages generating more revenue.
Finding the right niche for Adsense is the foundation for earning consistently high revenue. If you think about what you’re targeting, brainstorm on subjects where people spend a lot of money and therefore merchants are willing to spend a lot of advertising dollars to attract consumers. Travel is great because people are spending hundreds or thousands booking flights, finding places to stay, cars to rent, etc. On the other hand a website about your Beanie Baby collection wouldn’t be such a great idea because they aren’t a fad any longer and they cost $5 or $10 each, not something where an advertiser is willing to pay $2 a click on Adwords for.
In part 2 of How To Earn The Most From Google Adsense I’ll cover how to optomize your site and Adsense placement to get the most clicks and earn the most revenue.
Allright, time to put on your thinking cap and figure out where people spend lots of their hard earned money for the long term. Get that down and you’ve got a great foundation to earn a nice income from Adsense.
My monthly income report won’t be out until tomorrow because of the delay in the eBay Partner Network reporting, but I can tell you that last month, June 2008, was a record month for Google Adsense earnings. While I took apart Google in yesterday’s post, my main issue is dealing with things on the Adwords side, they have been very good to me on the Adsense side. June 2008 Adsense earnings came in at $1,492.96, a record by nearly $100.
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