You know, I use Google Adsense to monetize a number of blogs, and I have been happy with the results. I have been able to reach a point where my daily earnings on Adsense are enough to significantly supplement my earnings from other sources, and I am still relatively young at the Adsense game.
As I make adjustments to my Adsense placements and other factors in order to improve earnings, I am really learning. I spent the past months working on improving the number of ad views that I could attract. The more that people saw the ads, the more clicks I would get, resulting in more income, right? Well, that is true. But, I have learned that there are other ways to improve that income too.
For the past few weeks, I have been closely watching how much I am getting per click, instead of how many clicks I am getting. I mean, I am learning now that I can get only half the clicks, but if I am attracting higher paying ads, my income can be more! And, I am learning strategies that are paying off and helping me get higher values for each click. I can also see that at certain times of the day, click values are higher than at others.
So, if you are working on improving your Adsense earnings, keep in mind that you need to keep many different factors in mind, and optimize each of those factors in order to really get optimal value from Adsense!
Some really good thoughts here, Bob. One thing folks wanting to make money with AdSense seem to ignore is .. there is traffic (page views), and then there is traffic, but traffic alone will make very little money for you.
The important factor in traffic (visitors) is their intent. If they come to your site seeking something they want to buy .. seeking a solution to a need they have … then you have a good chance of making money off them.
If they come to your site to research their term paper or say hello to a friend, or download pictures, then they will never be ‘buyers’, so to speak.
Both buyer and non-buyer traffic are important, but to make money, you have to focus on the intent.
Example, on my Philippine site I get a lot of searches for pictures of the Philippine flag and the words to the Philippine national anthem. I’m happy for those visitors, but the chances they want to buy something (and thus click on an ad) are small.
But if they come searching for a hotel to stay at on a visit? Ah, then you have a buying intent. Much better chance they will click on something that pays.
An awful lot is made of “keywrords, SEO optimization”, etc. Advice fills our in boxes. Actually way too much advice for the average blogger/site owner, and one can go ‘down a rabbit hole” wasting a lot of time with details that don’t move your site forward.
But the other side of that coin is, to totally ignore keywords and the intent behind what your visitors are looking for is dangerous as well. You really can’t make any money off people viewing a picture of the the Philippine flag, no matter how many come to look. 😉
Life (and websites) have to be a balance, but all money ultimately is made from sales, or driving sales, and you have to be sure you are offering the visitors something to ‘buy’.
So a primary question beginners need to ask is, What am I offering here? What’s my “product”, What would anyone ‘buy’ from this site? Money will surely follow once people focus a bit of time on that question.
Hi Dave – You have some good words and ideas there as well. Probably more detailed than the article was in the first place! 😉
You know, for me, I tend to ignore, to some extent, the more technical stuff like the keywords and such. I try to just write interesting articles that people will be interested in, and let the money part take care of itself from there. However, you are certainly correct that you have to write something that makes the right reader come who will make some money for you. I could probably increase my success by focusing more on that, but it’s not necessarily the natural way for me to go.