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by: Richard Keir
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir
There's a lot of buzz around about how you can make a quick and easy
fortune using this AdSense course or that tool or this book.
And they show you their incomes from AdSense too (though not
necessarily THIS month). Now, is it just me or is something a little
odd in all this?
Say, I'm making $5000 - no make that $15,276 a month from AdSense on
my sites. And now I'm going to sell all my secrets on how to do that
for $67 or $97 or whatever.
So what happened, did I get all bored with my filthy riches and
decide to become a philanthropist and sell stuff that makes me 15K a
month for a pittance? Or is it something else?
Am I saying it's impossible? Certainly not. I know people who make
that more.
But a little reality. Those people don't have 5 or 6 or 50 sites.
They have maybe 500 or 3000 or more. Few sites make 20 or more a
day. Very few. Average income is probably less than a dollar a day.
So with 500 sites at a dollar a day, you've got your 15K a month.
Now the domain names cost you maybe $3500 to $4500. Then you need
hosting and somehow you've got to build the sites and get traffic to
them. There are excellent tools but the ones that will let you do
this kind of thing in a reasonably short time are also very (very)
expensive.
And you are continually dealing with sites that don't get indexed or
get de-indexed or even get banned. Traffic today, gone tomorrow.
Plus, if you're not real careful with those tools you may get an
unpleasant letter from Google about a DMCA copyright infringement
which could cost you your AdSense account.
You can make money, you can build an empire. But it isn't easy or
quick no matter what you hear. And it really isn't a business. It's
not a long run proposition, it's not stable. You need to keep
creating more sites as older ones fail - or you need to be smart and
use those AdSense revenues to build an enduring business.
You put up with this down to here, so here are the real 7 "secret"
keys to AdSense.
1. The best performing AdSense type is the large rectangle. This has
been tested over and over.
2. The best colors are blue for the link - surfers know that blue
means click me. And darkish almost black and grey for the text and
url. No borders. The same background as your page. Will it merge
into your content? No, that's bogus. There are maybe 4 surfers in
this galaxy who can't tell a Google ad when they see one. They are
not going to believe it's part of the text. Wake up, OK?
3. Another format which is being reported to more or less work is
the full wide banner type layout with text ads and images directly
above the links. Try it and see if it works for you. Maybe it's a
fad.
4. Keywords and related content are critical if you want targeted
ads. If you want high paying clicks you need to target the costly
keywords AND have content that supports the keywords.
5. You need traffic interested in the ads. Which means your traffic
generation techniques have to be targeted not scattershot. You might
hear that 1% or 1.5% clickthrough rate is OK and 3% is good.
Nonsense. Really successful people get CTRs that are often well
above 30%. Even with modest efforts you should be getting an average
6 to 15% CTR (per ad impression, not pages).
6. You have to track what you're doing and you have to test
variations in ad layout, placement, color and related content to
optimize your income. No one can tell you how to do it except the
traffic coming to your site. If you don't test and track, you're
flying blind.
7. You need to keep building new sites.
You are now a member of the AdSense Illuminati. Quite possibly you
already knew all that. So why are you looking for something else?
Really. This is all you need to start doing it.
Probably any course or book can help you if that's what it takes to
get you moving and doing. Ultimately, no one can really show you
exactly how to do it. You're going to have to learn the ropes and
put in the time.
Like everything in life - the greatest traffic generator, the
ultimate course or the super MLM opportunity, if it sounds too good
to be true, then it is. There's no magic bullet, no ultimate secret
to buy. There's no easy, painless, work free, certain road to riches
(except, maybe, inheriting it and that can be very hard on the
heirs).
Whatever you do on the net, do it wide awake and with your brain
actually functioning. The final un-numbered key is that a technique,
a shortcut, an idea that will make what you do easier, faster, or
more profitable - one single tiny thing - is worth more than any
book or course costs. One useable idea and you've gotten a great
deal. If you learned something you didn't know or had forgotten,
then it's worth much more than you paid. There may not be any magic
solution out there, but there are useful concepts, techniques and
ideas. You just have to see them for what they are, and then get
busy and really use them.
About the author:
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and
professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more
information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit
http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com- you can find more
articles at http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles.
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