The ebb and the flow

Ebb and flow.  Usually, it refers to tides or other things that increase and decrease.  For me, AdSense is an ebb and flow.

Yes, some months AdSense earnings are great.  Other months they decrease, seemingly for no reason at all.  Why is that?

Well, I can’t really say why, because nearly every AdSense publisher that I know tells me the same thing.  Sometimes they make good money from AdSense, other months their earnings are down.  And, it all seemingly happens for no reason.  Nothing is changed on the site.  The amount of traffic is steady or even increasing, yet earnings will go down.  It just happens that way.

So, how do you combat this ebb and flow pattern that AdSense seems to consistently deliver?  Well, there are a few things you can do:

1. Ignore it.  Keep working hard.
2. Institute other types of advertising on your site that helps maintain some consistency.
3. When you detect, early in a month, that earnings are on a downward trend, make some changes and see if it help.  Change ad colors.  Change ad positions.  Change things to see if it helps.

So, there are a few things you can try to hopefully shake things up a bit and try to shake a few more dollars away from Google.

For me, I tend to ignore it.  I have told many friends over the years that I don’t write for Google, I write for people who want to read what I have to say.  Many bloggers write in ways that Google will be pleased and will produce more money for each ad click.  I don’t believe in that.  My feeling is that if you write interesting articles, it will attract more people to your site, and by having more visitors, your earnings will naturally increase.  Yes, you will still see an ebb and flow with your AdSense earnings, but what you want is that your earnings, over time, will increase.  Some months will decrease, but over time, hopefully, those low months will be a lot better than your low months used to be.  That’s the goal you should aim for.

Of course, as I’ve written before, I also sell other types of advertising, such as Text ads, which produce the same amount month after month, which helps with a little more consistency in site income.  But, with some types of advertising such as AdSense and Chitika, you just have to accept that earnings will vary over time.  Not much you can do, other than shaking things up from time to time to see if that will help keep you out of the doldrums.

If you try making a few changes on lean months, please let me know how it works for you.  I’m quite interested.