Tweet

AdSense – is it all that the hype says it is?

Written by:

Article Overview: We’ve all seen the hype surrounding AdSense, contextual advertising on your web site, and heard the stories of people banking thousands from this groundbreaking concept. But… for every person banking $1,000’s there are many, many more who are banking less than $50 per month. There are many reasons for this so let’s examine a few.

AdSense – is it all that the hype says it is?

We’ve all seen the hype surrounding AdSense, contextual advertising on your web site, and heard the stories of people banking thousands from this groundbreaking concept. But… for every person banking $1,000’s there are many, many more who are banking less than $50 per month. There are many reasons for this so let’s examine a few.

* Value of the ads – despite the hype over the high paying keywords, many keyword pay only a few cents to the advertiser (that’s you). The high paying keywords are fiercely fought over by both bidders and advertisers. That’s a fierce arena for someone with little experience and little traffic to their site. So forget about throwing up a “meso” or credit web site and then sitting back and banking your new found fortune. That is probably not going to happen.

* Your business model – there are two ways to profit from AdSense – a few web sites with loads of traffic or numerous web sites with average traffic. The concept is the same as with any business – it’s “bums on seats” or “people through the door” that make the money.

Looking at the first model – plainly the problem is to get many interested people to your web site – preferably those seeking information so that if they don’t find it on your site, they click on one of your ads and move onto another site – leaving you with a few cents as they leave you. Traffic, as any internet marketer will tell you, is not only the life blood of your business, but is also very expensive and time consuming to build up. Shouldn’t you be looking at capturing emails for your mailing list or selling them something rather than letting them go leaving you a few cents in tips. Of course if you merely look at AdSense as a secondary income, then these few cents are more than welcome.

Let’s look now at the second model – the pile it high concept. You need numerous very large sites, all attracting high paying words with thousands of pages, to make a good living with AdSense. There is a place for this, and indeed we sell large batches of densely keyworded AdSense article sites ourselves – because we know they work. But… here is the problem. In order to make them work – you need not only a lot of domain names, but also a serious amount of hosting and we are talking paid hosting, not the no cost stuff. Many packs sold have over 100 sites and tens of thousands of pages. 100 sites means 100 domains – that is about $1,000 a year and a lot of time finding good ones. Of course you could use sub domains, but then you have problems getting them all into the search engines and pay per click advertising. 10,000+ pages and 100 domains – that’s a server you need to rent, be it virtual or actual. That is serious money each month – and you have still not earned a dime! You have to earn a serious number of click thrus to cover your annual and monthly fees.

* The ads themselves – just as banners are no way as effective as they once were, then surfers are growing weary of AdSense ads. This is especially so of those ugly sites that just throw up the maximum 3 sets of ads in the default colors, not caring if they are messy and detract from the site. Many of these sites contain minimal information and are spoiling it for those that make much more effort with their internet business. Google knows it has a cash cow and a virtual monopoly with the AdSense business, I can’t see it letting this happen for too much longer, but sadly it will take a long time to clear up and, as this happens, surfers will get more and more immune to the ads.

It’s not as if you can encourage your visitors to use the links, or disguise the ads, or even place graphics around them – all forbidden by the Google Terms of Service.

So what can you do to keep making a secondary income from your web sites?

Well if you want to stay with Google and why not? Then; understand that it is a business and be prepared to spend out on advertising, test your product, refine your web site, tailor your advert design to your web site and lastly offer good value to your surfers.

Lastly look elsewhere – we found a great software program that lets you provide contextual adverts on your web site derived from the 1,000’s of high commission paying products in ClickBank. The beauty is that you can merge these ads into your web site, draw attention to them, encourage people to click on them and add graphics to them. Better than that, although you don’t get paid when someone clicks on the ads, your Clickbank name is added to the link, so if someone buys from the powerful sales page you send them to, you make a very large commission – up to about $75 from some sites?

So AdSense is a great system, but what about looking at other methods? – Just a thought!


-------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru Services Ltd
Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites. With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.

If you are intrigued about this new software then go to our site www.clikkads.com – if you want to build your AdSense Empire then have a look at www.AdSenseSites.biz

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
-------------------------------------------------

Related Articles
  The Best Ways To Start With AdSense!
  3Tips How To Improve Your AdSense Earnings!
  What Do You Want To Know About Google AdSense?
  3 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings For Any Online Business
  Google Adsense and How It Works

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: How can we replace plastic grocery bags? - I heard those kids went right back from where they lived before. The little boy even got beaten or something horrible by his dad. Something about attracting to much attention. I don't know if they were truths or hype. I hope it was just hype. That would be really sad.
Re: What Do You Think Of My Breaking News Video? - Hi Zac I think your video is great. The colors are pleasing and the lack of hype is an absolute pleasure. I have reached the stage that as soon as the hype starts I tend to hit the delete button. MichelleJ
Re: From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 1 - How To M - Hi Jeff - I`ll likely get into 3rd party advertising later on in the series but what I recommend doing is putting AdSense up as your baseline to test with. Get a sense over a couple of months as to how much you can make from that ad space. Remember that Google takes a percentage of all the money you make through AdSense so it would make sense to charge a higher amount for private ad sales than you`re making through AdSense - the advertisers are paying those rates anyway. Once you know how much your ad space is worth in AdSense, offer up the space to private advertisers with a 30-100% price increase. If you don`t get any takers then you can stick with AdSense... if you do sell the spots then you`re making more than you were with AdSense so it`s worth it. I didn`t have any luck with 3rd party companies who offer to handle the sales for me. Many of them contacted me but when I told them what I made through AdSense and through my own private sales, they said they couldn`t match it. The offer sounds appealing and I was really hoping that a company could take that off my hands but it looks like I`m too well optimized at this point.
Ad Sense plug in - [quote:3ztngbhz] I have a plugin on my computer that shows me my AdSense earnings. It logs in to update every 15 minutes and there are always changes. [/quote:3ztngbhz] I would love to have such a plug in! Where can I go to get it? Somewhere on the AdSense webpage? (I've never noticed one!)
Re: From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense Part 1 - How To M - Thanks for sharing Alan! Testing is always key! I always recommend using AdSense as your benchmark to measure against. For my site I haven't had much success with products (my own or affiliate). For direct ad sales, sometimes I can get advertisers and charge them a premium. Other times, depending on the section, I make too much from Adsense for an advertiser to compete with. As this series continues I'll share how I've managed to make money from AdSense and hopefully it will provide some new insights for my readers.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Tips to Take Control of Credit Card Debt

Looking for an Easy Online Business Opportunity?

What If You Had a 100% Success Rate?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.