Making a Living Off of AdSense

by Paul on February 21st, 2005

Is it possible? At the moment it certainly is. I say at the moment because you never know what advertisers or Google have up their sleeve in the future. What I do here is go over some of my thoughts on how to create sites that live off of AdSense.

Myths

Domain Names matter. Maybe back in the days, but domain names really have no bearing on how successful your site does. Assuming you are not using a domain name that Google doesn’t like, which is the case with my poker blog BetFest (soon to change).
This is the easy money. Wrong. And it won’t come fast either.

Write for the Advertisers or the Readers?

It makes sense to create content that people are looking for, but rarely do we put a conscious effort into doing so. I know there are times where I just write just to write without any consideration if it will be useful to someone coming from a search engine. I tend to blog more for the community than the money at times. However, if you wish to make this a full-time living thing then you need to focus more on what people want to read and not what you want them to read.

For example, thousands of people visit Dooce daily, but are not looking for specific information. Instead they go their just to read the content. The content isn’t targetted at any particular subject per se, so having Google Ads wouldn’t prove as beneficial as it would on a site that focused PVR devices for example.

The key is to create a site that gets your readers looking for something in particular. Your site should be about that subject, your site should become the authority on that subject. All titles and descriptions should be thought out well enough to get you high in the search engines and targetted enough for the ad bots.

You are trying to be a big fish in a small pond. This was the case for the CSS Vault. To me it was the CSS gallery site on the web. So why sell it? Well that is discussed in other places.

Getting Started

Sit down and find your passion. Yes this has been said by me a million times, but at the beginning you will be writing a lot of content so it’s better to find a topic you enjoy. Try to narrow that niche down as much as possible so that you can own it then expand coverage over time.

There are rare occassions when someone creates a one or two page site that explodes and they make a healthy living from AdSense, but these are not easy to create.

Exit Clicks

This is where you really have to plan your strategy. Think of when you visit a page. There are 4 possibilites to exit that page:

An internal link to another page on that site
An external link to another site
The back button
An advertisement

You are trying to get people on #4 or at the very least #1. To do this you should create content that entices people to find out more or buy whatever you are talking about. This takes practice and careful pruning of your content. And in doing so you are also helping out the SEO of that page.

Part II

Bryan
Feb 22, 2005 at 9:23 am

Interesting site and concept :), making a living from adsense WOULD be nice :), it just takes time.

I am now getting into plenty of SEO myself, so this should be a good site for me to hand at (but not in my boxers).

btw - noticed you have the sitemeter at the bottom. Well, I use sitemeter on some of my sites and throwing it into its own div and setting it to display: none makes it disappear. I prefer it to not be seen
Scrivs
Feb 22, 2005 at 9:26 am

Well not showing it is going against their TOS so I rather not break the rules for a great tool.
Feb 22, 2005 at 10:16 am

Exit Clicks are the Ones that Matter

In his “Making a Living Off of AdSense” article at WorkBoxers blog Paul Scrivens writes:

“Exit Clicks
This is where you really have to plan your strategy. Think of when you visit a page. There are 4 possibilites to exit that page:

An interna…
Feb 22, 2005 at 10:18 am

I think this is pretty important if you are in this for the money. The potential downfall is, you start to lose credibility if you come off as selling something. Readers can spot a sell instantly, and if theyâ€™re turned off by it, will never return to your blog again.
Scrivs
Feb 22, 2005 at 10:26 am

You are exactly right Rick. Some sites work well with the selling approach, but blogs will never be that type of site. However, there are informational sites that aren’t blogs that would do well, but leading the reader into the ads.

With blogs, being honest and giving your opinion to help foster a relationship between yourself and the reader is the best type of selling you can do.
Blog World
Feb 22, 2005 at 7:36 pm

Can You Make A Living Off Adsense?

There’s a good article on how to make a living of Adsense at WorkBoxers . Now don’t get too excited, this isn’t a step by step plan on how to do it, but it does give you a point of reference on how to design a site with Adsense in mind.

There are so…
Ryan Latham
Feb 23, 2005 at 1:38 am

I find it kind of funny that a person, such as yourself Paul, could be anticipating #4 and #1. Seeing as the vault was based around external links, forevergeek, tcb, insert25…many external links. Yet, people are clicking your ads.

And the something highly important that you did not cover, “I like this persons work so much I will click one of these little ads right here.” It does not happen. It may happen once a day at the most (no one will ever know). But if you think you are going to bank off AdSense that way alone, you are living a dream (like the kind that you wake up 2 minutes to early from).

The fact of the matter is, Google has one of the best ad systems because they serve relevant content. When you write what people want to read about, the chances of an ad they are interested in coming up is much higher. I can not stress that enough, make it is relevant to your genre of site as possible.

If you are a blog about AMD processors, do not throw the word “kitty” in a single entry multiple times. Who the hell wants to click an ad about kitty care when they are reading the difference between Newcastle and ClawHammer’s? No one.

And for those of you who decide to take on the venture of paid ads, be careful on who you let advertise on your site. Or your credibility will diminish. Let us be real, when Paul had the Vault, and he took paid ads…if he would have ran an ad for “Grandmas Homemade Wall Hangings” as opposed to something that was related to web design, would you have not seen that as a compromise to his integrity and credibility?

So if I want to stress anything it is this: relevance and integrity. Especially when you get into self pay ads, do not jump on the first advertiser who is interested in you, unless you think the readers will find it useful. If you write about bunnies, and only bunnies, do not advertise fish food on your site.
Scrivs
Feb 23, 2005 at 1:43 am

Excellent points Ryan. One thing though that you do have wrong and I cover it in Part II. I never expected that many people to click on the ads on my sites because most of the content isn’t targetted well at all. In fact I haven’t put any effort in getting the content targetted. Myself and my writers just write.

The strategy behind this is to build community and a following which is more valuable to me at the moement then hits from a search engine. However, soon you will start to see targetted articles appearing on these sites that mix in with the news that gets posted.

But yes, relevance and integrity are vitally important.
Thomas
Feb 23, 2005 at 7:45 am

Hey Paul,

Great Article, I found it very helpful as I am just starting out with Adsense and still learning the ropes.
Shady Goings On
Mar 1, 2005 at 11:32 am

How to Improve Your AdSense Earnings

While browsing round the web today I came across this article that suggests you might be able to make a living from AdSense. I was expecting the usual ‘get rich quick by buying my book’ type of site, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a to-the-point…

b5media.com

Work Boxers