Since I wrote this a long time ago, my Adsense income went from 330/day DOWN TO maybe $2.00/day if I’m lucky. All the money making MFA sites got penalized, so be wary of this when reading the post below
I’ve been coaching some marketing buddies on the side on how to make a “passive” income with Adsense, so instead of endlessly repeating myself I figured I’d outline the process here.
NOTE: I’ve seen many threads on forums discussing Adsense success methods and the process was pretty much the same for them too so there is some conventional wisdom after all…
Crucial steps that can’t be skipped or done improperly
1- Research
2- Site set up, content
3- site promotion (ranking the sites)
Preamble Notes…
Many people who do well with Adsense site have their own theories on how to pick niches, but they all agree on one thing; you need search volume and traffic in order to get a modicum of earnings from any site/niche.
- Some say to pick a common household item and build a site around those terms
- Some say to pick high paying keywords or niches
- Some say to focus on physical products and product names
Well, I’ve tried all 3 methods, have built all types of sites and they all perform differently, so there’s truth to all those suggestions bulleted above, and no method is incorrect (they just work better/worse depending on the target audience)
BUT… you still need traffic no matter what…
Keyword research versus niche research…
Some people think that if a keyword ranks #1 for a term getting 10 dollars CPC (cost per click) that means they will get 10 dollars every time someone clicks on their site’s Adsense ad block, and this just isn’t the case… You get a percentage of what the PPC advertiser is paying for that click and the ads on your sites aren’t always going to be for the keyword your site or site content is ranked for.
The reason I mention this is…when doing keyword research, you tend to limit yourself a little bit because there might not be many other keywords that your site will rank for that will also have high CPC and search, therefore it’s niche research you want to focus on, since advertisers will find your site and will want to advertise on it for various other terms you haven’t uncovered during the research phase.
So when doing research, make sure that there’s other decent paying CPC terms related to your site content that’s getting some searches, too. Create a mini site that’s high CPC keyword-based, basically.
Doing the research, criteria….
Google’s keyword tool is allegedly more accurate nowadays with regards to expected search engine traffic a term gets, so focus on finding terms that getting at least 1k exact local searches a month. The reason I stress that you want to focus on Exact search volume counts is because broad match search volume isn’t realistic search volume and to focus on the Local counts for volume because it’s unrealistic to think your site is going to rank globally for your chosen keywords and phrases on site, anytime soon.
So focus on Exact Local search volume and keywords or phrases that show a CPC of at least $1.70 CPC and at least 1000- 1500 Exact Local searches/month.
Important research criteria - keywords or phrases with 1500 exact local searches/month and CPC of $1.70 minimum.
Site set up- The acronym EMD means exact match domain and part of your research process, and subsequent decision to proceed with developing a site in a certain niche should be dependent on being able to register an EMD for the main keyword, the one getting the most traffic.
If main keyword is not available as an EMD, then find a domain you can register that has main keyword and another “volume keyword” in the domain name.
Note: you could also buy an aged domain with PageRank and backlinks to it and rank that site for your chosen keywords, and while this might be a good shortcut, you should remember that sometimes Sites can get banned form Adsense due to prior domain owners mistake or violation of Adsense’s TOS, so I like to start fresh with my sites in the hopes that my newly registered EMD doesn’t have any “badness” attached to it…
Also, while it might take you longer to rank a newly registered EMD for your terms than it would an aged domain, over time you stand a better chance of outranking your competition, and ranking #1 for a term… if you have an exact match domain.
What kind of sites to build?
Mini-sites. One Page sites. authority sites…
I have one-page sites that rank well, but I don’t like taking chances with anything so I spend another 25-30 dollars on articles to flesh out the sites in case the search engines “dislike” my one-pagers….
Remember, the goal here is passive income which means researching niches and keywords, building sites, ranking them, then let them be (earn), leaving you time to perfect your research methods better, and build more sites.
Build blogs or HTML or other… sites?
It doesn’t really matter, and is merely a matter of preference to you, or your site builder…
So buy or register a domain and put some unique content on there. It doesn’t have to be Pulitzer prize-winning content, but unique content does rank easier than rewritten PLR or scraped articles from directories.
Your site content should focus on all the other keywords you found during research phase that have some volume to them, and decent CPC. you will rank the main domain url for the main keyword the domain is focused on, the highest search volume keyword or phrase.
Site promotion – the last phase
You won’t make much with Adsense unless your site’s getting traffic that converts, therefore you have to get your sites to page 1 for a specific relevant keyword in order to get impressions and clicks form targeted traffic. The higher you rank for your keywords, the higher your CT R(click Through Rate) will be. I’ve had sites ranked #3 on page 1 that got about 10% less , lower CTR than they now do when ranked #1 for that same term. Also, when you’re #1, instead of #3, expect earnings to double, triple, and/or sometimes even quadruple due to the increased number of impressions and higher CTR.
I rely on search engine traffic for traffic to my sites, therefore my real job is to rank the sites, since the research process and subsequent site building is pretty straightforward. Researching niches and creating sites is pretty much a one-time thing, whereas striving to rank your sites is what will take the most time and where most of your energies will be spent.
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{ 79 comments… read them below or add one }
Daniel: You have done a great job on this project. I was wondering if you do any research to see if a niche which has keywords that meet your volume criteria is also likely to monetize well? How do you pick seed keywords to start with? Do you reference “buyer terms” to kick off keyword research? How would you profile the sites that have worked the best in revenue per unique visitors?
Warner thanks, replies in italics, questions in bold
I was wondering if you do any research to see if a niche which has keywords that meet your volume criteria is also likely to monetize well?
Warner, I look at supporting keywords related to the main term I found and liked and if there’s good CPC for those terms as well, then the mini-niche concept will usually pan out well, but in cases where I based a site on a single keyword or phrase with great search volume and CPC and had an EMD available, those sites still don’t do very well because there’s no supporting volume traffic with good CPC
How do you pick seed keywords to start with? Do you reference “buyer terms” to kick off keyword research?
The more you do this kind of research with the aforementioned research criteria in mind, the easier it becomes. I can find 20 or so good niches or keywords in less than an hour, but it’s the whole EMD thing that is the deal-breaker for me; if there’s not an Exact Match Domain available, or if there’s way too many authority sites with keyword rich domains in way way for ranking well, then I take a pass of them.
Seed keywords, yes you can start with words like save, discount, discounts, coupons, or even the typical seed keywords like “how-to”, “get rid of”, “fix” etc… to kick of the research process, and as you start digging into some of this research you will go off on tangents and find all these amazing sub-niches or micro-niches, and as long as you keep adhere to the research process/criteria you will find plenty.
How would you profile the sites that have worked the best in revenue per unique visitors?
Generally speaking the higher CPC Niches pay the best even thought they are much harder to rank for, insurance niches for example those can be tough to rank for but mini-sites focused around the 5 or 6 high CPC and decent volume keywords solidify the site and have been some of my better earners.
However, I’ve found some real gems and 2 sites I have are ranked top 3 for terms getting 13-45k exact local searches/month and those are quickly becoming some of my top earning sites. This is why I tell people to treat build an Adsense portfolio like a stock portfolio, with diversification in the types of sites and niches you delve into; some are long term project with high payouts at some point, others are lower payouts per visitors but pay off sooner rather than later
Do you check the competition on the keywords at all? If so, what do you do?
Do you find that you have better results with one word, two word, three word, or four word + keywords?
No I don’t generally check the keyword competition just the SEO competition on first 15-20 spots or so. Read this post on how to analyze seo competition to see some tricks to discovering weak competition in seemingly difficult niches.
About the single, double, triple keywords thing… it’s almost always 2 or 3 keywords/keyphrase terms the site goes after, but if there were a single word that met the criteria and an EMD was available, then I would definitely go for it.
I should stress that with time you can rank anything given enough effort, but also again….why I think it’s important to go after less niches to at very least get the income rolling in because we all like to see some positive results from our labours no matter ho wminimal as it gives us the motivation and energy to proceed with a scalable, somewhat passive income stream
Great article Dan!
Thank you very much!
Sure thing Steve, and thanks for the feedback. Please let me know if you have any questions
Very thorough post. I have a question about setting exact local searches. I now live abroad, so to what country should I set the local search for ?
Also, on the EMD, will you buy the .net or .org or even .info if the .com is already taken ? Or is it better to put a suffix at the end or make the keyword plural, such as if redwidget.com was taken, get the redwidgets.com domain ?
Also, on ranking the sites on google, do you put more weight on content of your sites or backlinking ? What backlinking strategies do you prefer ? Link wheels, press releases, blog commenting, .edu links or other ?
Jeff, good questions!
OK, you live aboard but where’s your hosting? Exact local is important because it’s where you will most likely rank better, hence that suggestion, so if you have hosting in China, and a China TLD .ch then when doing research, use the Google China keyword tool if that even exists, a better example would be something like Singapore, if you have hosting through a Singapore company then you’ll most likely rank locally before ever ranking globally, so when doing the research use the Google Singapore keyword tool.
hope that makes sense, I’m admittedly sort of out of my element when discussing how people can rank globally when all I know is, I rank well in Google USA but in other countries not so well, therefore I advise people to focus on Exact Local search volume since that will tend to be less disappointing and more accurate representation for them/us/you/… I’ve also spoken with other marketers about ranking globally and they said it’s a lot o feffort to rank for a term globally and requires different sites and multiple hosting companies, geographically based (strategic)
Book Em’ Dan – O!
Another gem released. Lots of great stuff in here. Thanks for all the pearls brother. Going to crack this little adsense bank soon enough.
Got the terms now, and the serps …. they are a risin …
Keep rockin!
Steve, thanks for stopping by, I’ll be watching YOU!
Dan,
Do you use a specific backlink strategy for your adsense sites? I prefer doing alot of mass article distribution for my adsense sites, and it seems to work well. Thanks again for another great post.
Paul
Hey Paul, I call myself the SERPs whore (nice huh!?) and I use whatever tool it takes to get the job done, and don’t rely on any one service tool or method to get ranked. Naturally I like to rely on automated methods for backlinks, but if those take too long to bear fruit then I can hire a write to do some of the more white-hat stuff like article marketing and mass article distributions.
One thing I’d like to point out (again) is that I build STATIC mini-sites, sI don’t want people to become overwhelmed thinking that they need to work on 50 sites simultaneously, all day every day in order to achieve success here. Just build some easy to rank mini-sites, whilst always devoting energy to the long term projects, and in time the sites that start earning can pay for your linking services, and your writers. At some point the income could pay for your site creations, too, just a thought there, this is scalable but I’m stopping it soon to go do another project, which another reason I wrote this post, to get the method out there.
Dan, I now live in Peru, but my hosting is in the USA. Hostgator.
So do you think content of the site is more important or less important than quantity and quality of backlinks ? And what do you think about press releases and link wheels ?
OK, then do research using Google USA search engine. content doesn’t matter, just make it unique and with proper on-page seo, titles tags, kws in front of the urls etc….
Content like I mentioned before, doesn’t have to be stellar. Your goal with Adsense sites is to get people OFF your site preferably via ad block clicks, so as long as the content isn’t disgustingly bad and nonsensical, any unique content will do, even rehashed PLR, not that I’ve tried that….
Press releases are OK for links, it’s tough to find Press Release sites that give DoFolloe anchor text links, although I’m sure someone somewhere has a list and a tool that does that. For me, the issue with press releases is they need to be written a certain way in order to get accepted by, and distributed through, the good Press Release sites, and you could get just as many Dofollow anchor text links with article marketing so I don’t really bother too much with it.
Thanks Dan, for a great post and answering my questions.
Your mails were going into my spam filter, so I am glad I came across your message today. You are now added to my contacts to keep you out of yahoo spam oblivion.
OK, Jeff thanks for taking me out of oblivion, it’s probably well-deserved, haven’t shared much of value lately aside form newsletter emails.
Are you going to take action here? It seems like it, if so… please post follow up questions so the process becomes clearer for you, maybe even report back results if you don’t mind?
Thanks in advance,
Dan
Th
Let’s say I’m building a site on WordPress to do well with AdSense (primarily). What themes do you suggest for a good/high CTR?
If I didn’t mention this in the post earlier, I apologize… but best thing to do in my opinion is NOT use same theme for all sites, but use generic themes and place the ads in optimal spots on site, other than that, you can start out with the heatmap theme which is a bit of a pain to configure but somewhat powerful in the right hands, when customized, but I urge you to shy away from using same theme for all sites, makes your site look different and somewhat unique when you use a theme not widely used already.
Thanks for that suggestion Dan.
I just looked at the Heatmap theme, and for someone with a shoestring budget (domain + hosting) like me, that one seems costly right now. Are there any free themes that compare or come close?
I’ve just purchased an EMD (2 days ago) in the debt/loan niche. Any themes you think that might be good enough for it? I’ve been searching the past 2 days, but nothing I’ve zeroed in on.
Theme doesn’t matter really, just build a god site rank it, then put Adsense in optimal spots.
Top left, above content, top right in sidebar, and text blocks below every url
Thanks, I guess I get the idea of the kind of theme, just one last question; well 2 actually…
1. text blocks below every url – I didn’t actually get this
2. What, in your opinion, could be the maximum monthly AdSense earnings potential of a niche-specific authority site? Let’s consider a site that gets like 1,000,000 views a month.
Sorraj, text block at the end of each piece of content is what I meant not url, sorry about that poor answer, I was in a rush when answering that.
About #2 question….Google has a case study for a guy called Bob the Builder who does home improvements videos and stuff and he makes good money doing it, and has an authority site in niche specific area.
Hi Dan
Thanks for the post. My question and also a concern is related to building mini niche sites. Google went on a war path and deleted a lot of mini sites with Ad sense on them in the past year.
So, my question is; should your readers really be building mini sites and putting adsense on them?
Don’t you think it is more prudent to build up a mini niche site to have say 50 plus pages to avoid the Google slap etc?
Just looking for clarification from your own experience.
Cheers and have a great day
Darrell, the idea and business model here is based on ranking static mini-sites, and even one-page sites for certain keywords.
Never been slapped, and I have multiple page 1 rankings. I have a site getting close to 1000 impressions a day and it’s a one-page site, and ranked #4 for a certain term. So while the slap might have happened to some people in the past, it’s not an issue with me, but to be safe, yes why not add another 5,10,20,50 articles… IF site is making money already, it’s a no brainer to re-invest into an investment of time and energy that’s already paying dividends.
But I see no need to add content to a site just because some people got slapped a while back, and some sites just don’t justify having 50 pages of content on them, since they’re mini-sites in micro-niches….
Thanks Dan for the quick answer and clarification. I too have some small niche sites that are ranked on page 1 and with some people that I know got slapped, they pressed the panic button and said only to build authority sites as they believed that is what the search engines ultimately want.
On a side note, how does one write 50 or 100 pages about acne pimple cream cure
But, I see your point. I have both and plan to continue to do both small niche sites and large scale monster sites. That way, I protect myself every which way I can at this time.
Cheers
Right, and Darrell, your mini-sites are still page 1 while others got slapped. Here’s the thing about that mini-site slap… I have sites with 500 pages and some with 50-60 pages that got slapped during that mini-site slap period, and what made them recover, almost immediately was adding a few pieces of content, and more links.
People also hit the panic button when they start building backlinks to a site and their rankings drop (albeit temporarily) so they panic and stop building links, then leave site alone and it takes a while for those sites to recover their previous position, if at all.
If you’re page 1 with some sites, then you’re obviously doing something right, so don’t worry about the panic button pushers, just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing since it seems to work for you.
Dan, Thanks for this very informative outline of your adsense process. I have been watching your work and posts now for a while and really appreciate your commitment to doing a job well and documenting how you did it for others to learn and/or follow. You Go Man!
Donna, thanks and You Go Woman, I’m watching you too!
Dan,
What do you think about it: http://demo.wpadsense.com/
Just bought it, think it’d have good CTR.
And one more question, what is approximate % of CPC adsense publisher gets? and average $?
Thanks,
See, that’s what I get for sharing!
That site has optimal Adsense ad block placements
Thanks Steve, for finding and sharing that
Dan,
You are welcome, glad that you like it
How about my second question, about %?
And one more question
– how installing UAW plugin (for autoblog, new articles) would affect the site? Considering that I make the homepage a static page (which means homepage will be my own unique content, and those newly published “spun” articles won’t be displayed at homepage).
Thanks a lot.
Steve, where can we buy or download the theme from here? http://demo.wpadsense.com
I think you’re asking me what percentage of the advertised CPC in Google KW Tool can we expect to get in real life if we rank well for that keyword?
Anywhere from 16% which is 1/6th or so> to 50-60%. It varies…sometimes I will get a 4 dollar click on my site which is optimized for 6 dollar CPC keywords, but most of them are a little bit over a dollar, so my site…which is built around a 6 dollar CPC keyword and its supporting keywords which similar CPC averages about 1.50 per click received.
Sorry for the long and complicated answer, simply put it could be anywhere from 1/6th to 2/3 of the Google KW Tool CPC
Dan,
go to http://wpadsense.com/, themes(3) have some special features too: http://wpadsense.com/features/ – I am sure many others will buy these themes, nice surprise for the owner
Thanks for great answer Dan, this week I will start with Adsense.
Steve
Hi Dan, really appreciate you sharing your successful Adsense outline.
As I dive into this, my biggest question is where to start your “profitable niche” research? I get the research criteria – 1500 exact local searches/mo., CPC of $1.70 minimum, EMD, etc. – but still wonder where to start. Up till now, I’ve chosen a popular consumer product, like “outdoor barbecue grills,” and often bought an EMD with a trade name in it, like jennairoutdoorbarbecuegrills.com, because it was hi-search/low comp. But you also brought up that whole other approach where you start with “seed” words like “how-to” and “fix” and follow the many tangents that brings up. Where’s going to be the best place to start your drilling down from?
Also, re-asking Jeff’s 2nd question above, that didn’t get answered here: On the EMD, will you buy the .net or .org or even .info if the .com is already taken ? Or is it better to put a suffix at the end or make the keyword plural, such as if redwidget.com was taken, get the redwidgets.com domain ?
As an extension to that question, you mentioned: If main keyword is not available as an EMD, then find a domain you can register that has main keyword and another “volume keyword” in the domain name. Do you mean, just slap another high-volume keyword on the end, like outdoorgrills.com is taken, so get outdoorgrillsinfrared.com, or something that reads better? Perhaps you could give a couple examples of a domain names that you added a volume keyword to, because the pure EMD was already taken.
Thanks again
Rhythm
My biggest question is where to start your “profitable niche” research? I get the research criteria – 1500 exact local searches/mo., CPC of $1.70 minimum, EMD, etc. – but still wonder where to start. Up till now, I’ve chosen a popular consumer product, like “outdoor barbecue grills,” and often bought an EMD with a trade name in it, like jennairoutdoorbarbecuegrills.com, because it was hi-search/low comp. But you also brought up that whole other approach where you start with “seed” words like “how-to” and “fix” and follow the many tangents that brings up. Where’s going to be the best place to start your drilling down from?
You start drilling down from anywhere really, buyer keywords can be seed keywords, typical seed keywords can be how-to, deals, discounts, affordable, low cost, get rid of, symptoms, etc… but ALSO, seed keywords can merely be one word keywords, like say….laptops…so using laptops as an example, use that as base/seed keyword in keyword tool, then sort by volume, then add CPC column to the view, next thing you know you’re presented with an idea on what’s getting searched for and WHERE inside this niche the profits lie (HINT: the high CPC keywords), is it in a high search keyword like laptops carrying case handle (fake example) with low cpc, or something like laptop deals, which has high search and decent CPC, and if this EMD or variation thereof is available, then no harm in going for it
Also, re-asking Jeff’s 2nd question above, that didn’t get answered here: On the EMD, will you buy the .net or .org or even .info if the .com is already taken ? Or is it better to put a suffix at the end or make the keyword plural, such as if redwidget.com was taken, get the redwidgets.com domain ?
Yes, I will take whatever EMD is available that’s not one of the expensive ones, like .me or.cm, or .co. I’d rather have a 3 word hypbrid EMD (main keywords plus supporting keyword) than an exact match .info though.
As an extension to that question, you mentioned: If main keyword is not available as an EMD, then find a domain you can register that has main keyword and another “volume keyword” in the domain name. Do you mean, just slap another high-volume keyword on the end, like outdoorgrills.com is taken, so get outdoorgrillsinfrared.com, or something that reads better? Perhaps you could give a couple examples of a domain names that you added a volume keyword to, because the pure EMD was already taken.
http://mlnnetworkmarketingtraining.org – good example there. Best combination of multiple broad keywords I could come up with whilst still being able to get one of the more “respected” domain types, .com. org. net etc… Also, I will add in a plural to main kw too and see if I can still rank for the EMD kws even though there’s an extra letter in it , the “s”…
Dan
You can get that theme here. http://wpadsense.com/purchase/
When it comes to linking we’ve had good luck, eventually, starting one UAW submission dribbled out 10 a day, then maybe another at 20 at day, then using BMR links to bump the page in the SERPS. How many depends on how much competition you’ve got to claw past.
I use the UAWs to vary the link text. Then feel somewhat comfortable with less link text variation with the BMR subs.
Do you have any comparable approach or different experience with the link getting side of this process? And about how long have you seen it takes to hit the top 10?
Thanks
John, thanks for that link, and you pretty much answered your own question when you wrote:
How many depends on how much competition you’ve got to claw past. in your comment above…. THAT applies to everything; I’ve had some sites rank pretty quickly with minimal links and others where I had to get close to 700-1000 credited links before ranking those sites well. I know people would love to have the asnwer to this so they know what to expect, but that’s why you need a portfolio of sites of different variety, CPC, competition etc…
Hi Dan,
What did you do to rank your sites higher?
Could you please describe them in a top priority list? Like:
1. LinxBoss
2. UAW
3 etc
4. etc
Thank you,
Dave
Dave, I’m going to update my true master list on where to get backlinks in about 2 weeks, and will list every tool and service that I use to get job done for the sites, I will repsond here when time comes but this is the url to bookmark for link building services
Can’t wait to see your master list Dan. Meanwhile, I’ll hold my registration to any backlinking services.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the tips – been wondering about adsense sites and how to go about doing the research…
About the niche and keyword research, if I understood you properly, I believe you’re basically saying to do the research as you would any niche/KW (other than your CPC and Exact Match search volume recommendations). Is that correct?
I often struggle at this point (research), so if you could provide more details or examples (better yet – a quick example video with a throw-away niche/keyword ?????
), that would awesome!! That would help me template out my own process for finding niches and keywords — I often get caught up in all kinds of analysis and uncertainty and end up giving up as it all becomes so fuzzy I can no longer tell if I’m on the right path.
I know you’re busy, so my apologies if this is onerous to ask…
Thanks in advance,
Carrick
Daniel,
What is the best way to get content for a website? For instance in the alternative health niche.
Thanks
Hi Chloee, you can write it yourself, or pay a service like textbroker to do it for you. I build mini-sites that are static, not-changing so I consider this a one time fee that’s part of the set up costs for investing time into a new site/niche…
Where were you 3 months ago?!
I’ve been following this (almost) exact process building a portfolio of niche sites (which, incidentally, is how I landed on your blog, studying your methods and reviews, and getting to know you better – and about your charity run… how did that go, btw?).
The one eye-opener is the LOCAL search point. Makes perfect sense, though the terms I picked are ranked on page 1 for different locations globally, thanks to following a lot of your advice about backlinking, and Steve Aylor’s amazing Back Link Energizer. (thanks, Steve!)
The Q&A at the end of this post is worth GOLD, thank you for taking the time to do this, Dan. I’m sure many people deeply appreciate it, along with me!
All success
Dr.Mani
Hi Dr. Mani, I’m honored you stopped by my site. I will respond to your emails as soon as I can.
Charity run is in April (Boston Marathon).
I try to get people to focus on LOCAL search because it’s more realistic short-term, but yes you can get Global volume too over time it’s just not as common to experience that than it is to get numbers closer to the local volume, so I’m trying to “keep it real” for people so they don’t get too disappointed…if they end up ranking a site then not seeing the expected volume/impressions/clicks.
I’m glad you like the Q and A here at the end of the post, I’m trying to answer everyone’s questions so all the little details and questions in people’s minds are assuaged, so they have no (more) doubts about their action plans and can move on with confidence
or just not take action boo! 
.
Thanks again for stopping by, I appreciate that, please ask any questions about this if you have any.
Dan
Oh, and where was I 3 months ago? That’s when I started all this in a serious manner, but will be moving on to new things to conquer early next year, hopefully in January…
Thank you for sharing all this great information Dan.
It inspires me to now finally start this as well in a serious way. It’s all very clear.
One question though: how many pages do you have in total to bring in the $200 per day? Just to give me a rough idea.
Less than 1000. Think 20 sites times 5 pages, with some sites getting more content as needed
So that’s 100-200 pages of content making $200 daily?! Wow… that’s amazing.
Possible factors at play I can think of:
1. High rankings (and/or social sharing) of all your pages (or the 5 sites)
2. High CTR ad placements
3. Constant SEO efforts made for the 5 sites
There could be some more, I’m sure. Dan, if you could take that us one step further here, that’d help us all big time here. Thanks
P.S.: I know I’m asking for too much, so you can choose to reply in plain English or you can talk cryptic
So that’s 100-200 pages of content making $200 daily?!
CORRECT
Wow… that’s amazing.
I guess so, I really don’t know if I think it’s amazing though
Possible factors at play I can think of:
1. High rankings (and/or social sharing) of all your pages (or the 5 sites)
No, just main domain URL is ranked page 1… in most cases top 3 on page 1. I focus on 1 url getting ranked, that’s it, the rest of the site pages are merely there to flesh the site out…
2. High CTR ad placements
I get what an Adsense Pro would call average CTR, can’t really say what that is because Google has some sort of policy about not sharing CTRs with people. Anyway, all I can tell you is what best ad placements have been for me, and that’s the ad placements shown in the demo theme mentioned several comments above.
3. Constant SEO efforts made for the 5 sites
Yes, and no. I apply constant SEO efforts for the sites until they rank where I want them to rank, then I back off on doing any SEO work for those sites, and will only work on them on an as-needed basis. The “need” to work on a site comes when the site drops in rankings, if at all. Other than that, I will basically forget about a site once its ranked.
There could be some more, I’m sure. Dan, if you could take that us one step further here, that’d help us all big time here. Thanks
P.S.: I know I’m asking for too much, so you can choose to reply in plain English or you can talk cryptic
Hope these answers are clear enough for you, ask more questions if you have any, thanks…
Ahh Daniel,
As always, awesome post here.
You’ve inspired me here to start a little Adsense work in the new year.
Hope you are having a great holiday!
Kurt
Kurt, thanks for stopping by THIS blog, too!
Been waiting to post this one for a LONG time.
If you got any questions post them here please.
Thanks and (belated) Merry Christmas to you, too
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you for all this great info. We all really appreciate it!
You mentioned in an earlier post that you spend about $25-30 on articles. Roughly how many articles does that add up to, and do you then drip-feed the articles over time?
Thank you.
Brad Kaz
Hi Brad, thanks for dropping in with a solid question. since these are mini-sites, I do 5 articles all at once during site-build phase, then let them age a bit. All I do during this phase is age the sites… If/when I get stuck ranking a site I will add an article every once in a while to keep the spiders coming back and to “keep pace” with the off-site SEO (AKA link building that’s taking place all the while.
So, it differs per site, but I’ve done OK so far just by building static 5-page mini-sites. More content gets added if there’s ever a rankings drop, or complete site disappearance, which hasn’t happened, yet…. but if it DID happen, then that’s when I’d add more content to the site…
Google’s Keyword tool sucks!
I typed in a 3-word keyword ending in “EDITED OUT,” sorted the results by CPC, and that keyword showed 22,000 monthly searches and a CPC of $3.23, which easily met your 1500/$1.70 criteria. Then a minute later I sorted the same results by Local Monthly and the exact same keyword now showed 22,000 monthlies and a CPC of only $1.12…WTF?
It’s hard to know if our chosen keywords meet the criteria if Google is this inaccurate:(
Rhythm, that term you mentioned, some interesting things there
With SHOW RELATED SEARCH TERMS CLOSELY MATCHING- selected
Broad- 60.5k, 1.79 CPC
Exact- 22k, 1.12 CPC
With Show Related words, deselected
Broad- 74k, 0.00 CPC!
Exact- 22k, 1.12
With infection symptoms as seed keyword, the CPC is in the 3 dollar range….weird….
However, I did find an easy niche just form trying to figure out the issue here ( EDITED OUT check for EMDs and high traffic high CPC related kws)
Yeah Dan I found several great niches/keywords related to “that term” that I am definitely gonna run with. Now that I’ve announced it publicly, I guess I better run w/them soon, lol:)
Anyway, you saw my dilemma with Google’s weird change. Guess the only thing to do trust the higher figure, throw up a site and hope for a decent CPC
You said you don’t check Google’s green competition bar when choosing, but rather focus on the top 15 sites to see if you can compete. I know you said you don’t worry if they all have high backlinks because you are going to make sure your backlinks are anchor text ones, which can outrank higher numbers of un-anchored links…so 2 questions:
1. How do you find out whether their links are anchor text or not, and
2. Do you quickly let go of a niche and move on if the top 5-8 are “authority” type sites?
Anyway, you saw my dilemma with Google’s weird change. Guess the only thing to do trust the higher figure, throw up a site and hope for a decent CPC
This is why I strongly suggest that there be other supporting keywords and phrases with enough volume and CPC to balance things out…
You said you don’t check Google’s green competition bar when choosing, (THAT GREEN BAR IS PPC COMP ANYWAYS, NOT SEO Competitiion, but still doesn’t matter) but rather focus on the top 15 sites to see if you can compete. I know you said you don’t worry if they all have high backlinks because you are going to make sure your backlinks are anchor text ones, which can outrank higher numbers of un-anchored links…so 2 questions:
1. How do you find out whether their links are anchor text or not, (http://backlinkwatch.com, type in the highly ranked URL, to see some of what they’re doing, or invest in an SEO suite software. Can’t recommend one though as I don’t use one)
and
2. Do you quickly let go of a niche and move on if the top 5-8 are “authority” type sites?
Nope, I’ve outranked, ask.com. money.com, ebay, wikipedia, etc… with EMDs with lots of anchor text backlinks. Authority sites usually don’t spend time getting backlinks to all their individual urls and rank for certain terms based on their….authority and the PR and link juice being passed dwon form main domain to their inner url that’s ranking)
So, you mean to say, you have a website of 5 pages minimum and you build backlinks to each of the pages until they get high on ranking?
Dan,
If you could clear up these few details, it would help me a lot in building my Adsense sites:
1. You said you were allotting $25-$30 per site for articles; if you’re posting 5 articles, that’s about 5 bucks an article, which is on the high side. Who do you use for your article service, and how much per article? I’ve gotten articles for as little a $1-$3 per article through e-lance and fweeze.
2. Important Clarification on insertion of anchor text keywords: What terms are you using for anchor text – the supporting keywords (LSIs)? Are you inserting approx. 3 of them across each of your 5 articles, and most importantly, where are they linking to. Certainly not off your site, right? So I’m assuming they just loop back to the same page or interlink to other pages of your 5 page site, is that correct?
3. Also, for a 5-post/article mini-site, have you found any traffic/conversion difference between using a separate page for each article vs. one long post/page with each article scrolled down below the next?
Thanks,
Brad Kaz
1. You said you were allotting $25-$30 per site for articles; if you’re posting 5 articles, that’s about 5 bucks an article, which is on the high side. Who do you use for your article service, and how much per article? I’ve gotten articles for as little a $1-$3 per article through e-lance and fweeze.
I use textbroker, or a writer I want to test out. The content doesn’t have to be super-awesome as I mentioned above, just readable, informative to some degree and of course be related to main topic and optimized for a suppporting keyword you uncovered in your kw/niche research. Why try to save on cost by getting cheaper articles when the sites will most likely be static sites. If you intend to build an authority site, you’re better off BECOMING an authority and writing the articles yourself, because outsourced articles do not make for a believable authority site, not unless the writer is already very knowledgeable on the topic, sorry for the digression here…but point being static sites require one time outspend for articles so what you save may not be worth it, textbroker is what I’m recommended to people.
2. Important Clarification on insertion of anchor text keywords: What terms are you using for anchor text – the supporting keywords (LSIs)? Are you inserting approx. 3 of them across each of your 5 articles, and most importantly, where are they linking to. Certainly not off your site, right? So I’m assuming they just loop back to the same page or interlink to other pages of your 5 page site, is that correct?
I think you’re asking me about on-site interlinking here, if so, answer is, I don’t do any of that, because my main goal for these sites is to rank the main domain url, that’s it, and sometimes, when you create clickable links to other articles on your site, it makes the reader read more of your site and spend more time on the site, which is good, but it’s also making the impulsive lazy reader “tired” , but that’s just a guess really.
From an SEO standpoint it’s good to interlink to other articles on your site, however, use the same desired anchor text every time, and use anchor text that the other, inner url is optimized for in article title. The crosslinker wordpress plugin does an excellent job of that and I use it on some of my wordpress sites.
3. Also, for a 5-post/article mini-site, have you found any traffic/conversion difference between using a separate page for each article vs. one long post/page with each article scrolled down below the next?
Yes, I’ve found that front page/home page should have one article on it when site is “adsense-ready” meaning that site is ranked well. However, when starting out with a new site, it’s a good idea to display all the article son the home page like wordpress blogs sometimes do. The reason for this is, you want all your articles, or posts to get indexed and displaying them all on the front page (which gets spidered the most) will make it easier to get all those pages naturally indexed, via spiders coming back.
Side note: I don’t put Adsense ads on these sites until they rank well, as it seems to make things harder to rank when there are ads on the sites when site is page 10 or so (in the beginning)
OK the answers to questions #1 & 3 were great, thanks.
But the answer about anchor text in question #2 is unclear, probably my fault for asking about “interlinking.” All I’m trying to clarify is, since anchor text is, by definition, some “normal” text over a disguised link, and since you stress the importance of having anchor text LSI keywords on your site, where do your anchors link to when someone clicks on them?
Or are you just putting 2 or 3 LSIs in each article without turning them into anchor text? If so, where do the all-important anchor-texted backlinks you need to rank higher, coming from?
I just had a discussion with someone who had similar questions on #2, about insertion of anchor text links amidst site content.
It’s not necessary, no real need to do it when your main focus in getting the main url ranked. The entire site’s content serves the purpose of fleshing the site out to be seen as “robust”, and also to allow the readers who read more than one article on site to land on another page that’s optimized (or about) for a decent CPC term.
The main domain url draws in the real traffic, the res to fthe site is for serving up ad clicks, really, and maybe also to offer up some other keywords to rank for, if your EMD keyword isn’t pannin gout for you, and you want to get more traffic to the site by ranking all the inner urls for whatever keywords you can.
Hi Dan,
Have you updated your true master list of how to get backlinks on your adsense sites?
Dave
Hi Dan,
firstly a “Happy and successful New Year 2011″ to you and your readers.
As my first post on your site, and for the new year, just wanted to thank you for your open and honest approach in discussing your methods.
It is very much appreciated!!!
Any way a few quick questions questions for you when you get a chance:
1.What is your view on hyphenated EMD’s?
In my searches, If an EMD is not available in a single string, it will usually be available in a hyphenated form.
Using your example from above:http://mlnnetworkmarketingtraining.org
if this was taken, is there value in the variation:
http://mln-network-marketing-training.org?
Someone somewhere has suggested that search engines will see no difference between the two of them , and rank them the same way?
2. If you find keywords/phrases that are less than $1.70 CPC, lets say around $1.00 but have a fairly good Exact Local Search traffic > 1500, lets say 2600 or more; is this a KW you would go after if the EMD was available?
3. There is probably an obvious answer to this one; its just not obvious to me yet; but the application of keywords and phrases is slightly confusing.
Are keyword phrases only applied with in the content, or can the be applied to an EMD (used as an EMD)?
I guess my question is really: how do we apply each of these (keywords and phrases) effectively and correctly to capitalize on the traffic and CPC.
Hope these questions make sense?
Thanks Dan.
Any way a few quick questions questions for you when you get a chance:
1.What is your view on hyphenated EMD’s?
In my searches, If an EMD is not available in a single string, it will usually be available in a hyphenated form.
Using your example from above:http://mlnnetworkmarketingtraining.org
if this was taken, is there value in the variation:
http://mln-network-marketing-training.org?
Someone somewhere has suggested that search engines will see no difference between the two of them , and rank them the same way?
Hi, thanks for the questions…
I avoid hyphenated domains, as there’s really no need to get those when you can go for a .com that is a semi-EMD or other tlds. I an prejudiced against hyphenated domains, and maybe evne with out reason. The only reason I have for shying away from hyphenated domains and subdomains is I hardly ever see any of eithe rof those 2 ranked well , and consistently in the search engines.
There’s no difference between a .info and a .com except for the fact that .infos have really bad history as being spammers throwaway domain types.
I am doing a test now on .biz extension for exact EMD versus .com extension for semi EMD, but I digress…..
There may not be difference between hyphenated domains and non…. but I don’t see any of those ranking well and that good enough for me to stay away from them.
2. If you find keywords/phrases that are less than $1.70 CPC, lets say around $1.00 but have a fairly good Exact Local Search traffic > 1500, lets say 2600 or more; is this a KW you would go after if the EMD was available?
3. There is probably an obvious answer to this one; its just not obvious to me yet; but the application of keywords and phrases is slightly confusing.
Are keyword phrases only applied with in the content, or can the be applied to an EMD (used as an EMD)?
Niche selection is based upon being able to get an EMD. EMD should have some main kws in there that are getting good volume.
Supporting keywords are to be used in article titles, and repeated 2-3 X within articles, which should be 400-500 words at least (each)
I guess my question is really: how do we apply each of these (keywords and phrases) effectively and correctly to capitalize on the traffic and CPC.
Ah, that’s the next step, tweaking the sites to get higher CTR AND CPC. Right now, focus on getting good niche sites built and ranking them, then use the layout in http://demo.wpadsense.com and your CTR should be close to 20%. Worry about the other stuff later, i smy suggesstion. I haven’t even got to the part yet where I start disallowing certain ads on my site in order to only allow the highest-paying ads to appear.
Hi Dan,
I hope the new year has been treating you well.
From the moment that this thread started, I have investigated a few more sources of information on adsense.
Now quite a few ‘guru’s’ insist on using wordpress as it is supposed to be the better traffic magnet.
You made it quite clear that you prefer using static html for your adsense sites and not wordpress.
Why is that?
Maybe you can tell a bit more
.
Thanks,
JP
JP, I prefer wordpress because it’s simple for someone like me to set up, but as far as SEO is concerned, it really doesn’t matter what kind of platform, or code, or CMS your site is
Hi Dan,
many thanks for the info and advice in reply to my earlier post. It’s already been very useful. Another quick one. You made the comment:
“I haven’t even got to the part yet where I start disallowing certain ads on my site in order to only allow the highest-paying ads to appear”.
Have you posted this anywhere on your site yet?
Also looking forward to your response to JP’s question on Static site vs Wp. I think most of us are convinced we need to continually add fresh content to sites in order to keep them ranking hence the WP model since it is easy to manage the content. A Static set and forget model goes against this thinking and might therefore be discounted as an option to develop sites. Your thoughts?
Given you employ Static sites, what is the best platform to build these on?
Many thanks DAN.
Dan,
I have a few adsense sites that is sitting in page 3 page 4, and i dont seem to be able to boost it any higher.
I am looking for some BL services that is not bh and will create more long term permanent strengths in serps.
so do you suggest to use BLG to build BL to adsense sites?
I am kind of lost, and would like to seek some of your suggestions. I can even show you one of my better ranked site that is making $.75 a day thats on page 3 and hope you can give me a few suggestions, if that is alright with you.
Dan, great thread. Reading and learning. Posting so I get updates to this thread. Thanks.
Hi Dan,
I have followed your blog as I have time. I have been away for awhile, and reading this brings to mind something I would like your input on.
What is a good way to track our keywords to see how they are moving in the SERP’s and track this so as to know where to put our efforts. I have been doing some checking with Rank Checker, also Market Samurai does this. What I am after is a software that will check and track what is happening so I can work on certain words.
Thanks Again
Don’t know if Dan or anyone else has noticed, but the Estimated Avg. CPC column is GONE from the Google Keyword Tool. It is no longer one of our available choices when clicking the “Columns” box. Hope this is just a temporary glitch in the Tool, as it’s going to be hard to see whether or not your chosen KWs are getting at least a couple bucks of CPC, if you can’t see…you see?
Rhythm
SpyFu is the place where I always go to check if anybody is buying any ads for a particular keyword.
You get a good idea how popular a keyword is and how much the click costs.
Plus you get related keywords. Have a look there!
JP
Thanks JP, good idea…but doesn’t SpyFu base their results on Google’s own CPC?
BTW, G’s Estimated Avg. CPC is back on as of this morning, Feb. 9. Are they messing with us?
Dan,
Thanks for all your helpful info. I have a concern which has been driving me kinda crazy, and i hope you might be able to help. I have seen in my kw research times when an exact keyword cpc and local volume will vary drastically from one day to the next.
For example, I found an exact match that had about 3500 local volume, and cpc of about $35. yes, dollars. So I bought the EMD, bagan work on the site, and then 2 days later I checked the kw tool agina just for fun. Well, now the numbers said 260 local searches and .05 cpc. yes, cents. Very discouraging. I have seen this before on other keywords and kw phrases as well.
What do you make of this?
Thank you for any advice.
Eric
Hi Dan
Great article, I would agree totally with the 3 steps that can not be missed, especially number 1 RESEARCH. If this is not done or done incorrectly they every step from then on can be a huge waste of time. Though adsense per click pays well for insurance related websites the competition is huge and therefor you be lucky to get any visitors to your site and other niche ideas may only pay a penny or 2 per click. I think finding something that will pay between 10p and £1 per click is the way forward especially if you are just starting out. Great post and thank you for sharing.
Thanks Mike, the real issue is getting the sites to stay in good graces with Google, they’re real fickle in the sites-banning and penalizing process.
Almost everyone I know who had a good empire going got whacked, the similarities between all the whacked sites was, they were solely MFAs, and even though Google encourages you to optihttp://askdanmcgonagle.com/support/index.php?cmd=ticketmizie all your web space with their ads, doing so leads less room for other monetization, which begets and MFA-looking sites, which just BEGS for a manual review, and something a ban, or penalization
Thanks alot for the post!
My website income has dwindled down on some with my PPC ads on!
It’s terrible!
GOLDEN info though! And thanks alot for the advice you are sharing!
I’ll be sure To keep in touch and get my websites back up and creating alot more cash then $10-30 a day!
MM-Craig