Why Are You Not Making Money With AdSense?
Are you having trouble making money with AdSense? I see many threads in webmaster forums, such as, “200 clicks and only 60 cents?”, “Why is no one clicking my ads?”, and “Why are my clicks only 1-2 cents each?
Here are some common mistakes committed by publishers which land them into trouble and disappointment. Along with the problems, I have tried to share the solution and tricks on how to become a smart Adsense publisher.
Two major problems with getting low clicks
Wrong Niche
There are some niche out there that has low competition and low demand. You might be thinking, “Great, if it has low competition, then I will be #1 on Google fast so I can make a lot of money with AdSense.” Wrong. Just because you get to #1 fast does not mean the niche has a lot of advertisers willing to pay well. For example, “toffee basket” niche has very low competition, and based on Google’s keyword tool.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
The average cost per click on ads for that phrase is only 5 cents (as of today). Also, people who are in the “make money online” niche will have a very hard time competing with the top players in that niche. If you are not in the first or even second page of Google for that phrase, you will have a hard time making money on AdSense.
Proper Keyword Research
Before anyone decides to dive in and work on a niche, he or she must do proper keyword research. First, you need to download this free SEO for Firefox add-on:
tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html
With that add-on, you will be able to quickly analyze the first few sites on the first page of Google. For example, you type in “cookies” in the search, you can quickly find out the Pagerank (PR) of each site listed there. As of today, the first 3 sites’ titles are listed in the following:
HTTP cookie – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (PR 8 )
Enable cookies : Search history and settings – Web Search Help (PR 6)
Cookies – All Recipes (PR 5)
Rule of thumb: If the first 3 sites on Google are 5+ PR, you will need several months/years to rank in the first page of Google. You will also need a lot of high quality backlinks to your site to compete with those sites. Trying to build a site to compete for the term “Cookies” will take you forever to make a decent amount of cash. You are trying to make money soon, and not 5 years later!
Now, let’s try “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”. As of today, the first 3 sites’ titles are listed in the following:
Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies – All Recipes (PR 2)
Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe from Betty Crocker (PR 2)
Cooks.com – Recipes – Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (PR 2)
Proper usage of Google’s Keyword Tool
Whoa! You can easily dominate the #1 spot for this keyword (I have a feeling everyone who is reading this article will jump on that keyword). Now, to make sure this phrase is worth working on, check Google’s keyword tool. Type in the tool, “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”. Before you look at the numbers, look at the match type: it should say “Broad”. Set “Broad” to “Exact” to show the average of how many people would type in “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies” per month. If you leave it on as “broad”, it will show you the total including other phrases that have “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies” in it. For example, “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe”, “chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”, “healthy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”, etc. You get the idea of the broad search?
As of today, the average per month search on “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies” is 14,800 global monthly search. When it comes to making money on AdSense, just focus on the global monthly search. Look in the “Choose columns to display:” and enable “Estimated Avg. CPC”, that will show you a rough estimate of how much advertisers are willing to pay for that phrase. As of today, it is $1.34. Not bad!
If you are stuck having a hard time finding a niche, then go to Amazon, eBay, or anywhere to find a niche. There are an infinite amount of things you can write about. The best thing about Google’s keyword tool is that you can type in one keyword, and the keyword tool will help you brainstorm a bunch of ideas. When I typed in “cookies”, “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies” was one of them. REMEMBER put the search on “Exact” instead of “Broad”.
For a general idea at basic level you can also read Google’s help for Using the Keyword Tool to get keyword and ad group ideas.
Ok, so now you have the right niche, and you did proper keyword research, now what? You make a site (or blog) on it. You can even use free blogs such as Blogspot with a crappy domain. If you check “make money online” on Google, you will find 2-3 sites in the first page with a .blogspot.com domain.
Website Relevancy
The title of your site is VERY important! If you want to rank #1 on Google for “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”, then the title of your site will need to be Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. DO NOT get fancy with the title. Do not think about writing the title as Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies – Easy To Make Recipes. Google looks for relevancy when it comes to search engine optimization. The title “Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies” has 100% relevancy for the keyword “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”, while the other one is not 100% because there are additional words to the title. Based on my search earlier for that phrase, the top 3 sites had PR 2 and none of them had 100% relevant titles. This is why you can easily dominate that spot (but sorry, after reading this article I’m sure bunch of you will be trying to fight over the same niche).
What to write for this niche? Go to Google’s keyword tool, and type in “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”. You will see a huge list of ideas, such as “chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies” and “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe”. You want your site to have posts that are all relevant to the title.
Do not always be intimidated when you see authoritative sites on the first 3 positions of Google. For example, while Allrecipes.com is a PR 7, the links inside the site gets weaker and weaker as you have to go deeper into the site to look for something. For example, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies is a few links deep inside Allrecipes.com. Webmasters often times call pageranks “Linkjuice”, and this “Linkjuice” gets spread out to each link in your site. This is why the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies link in Allrecipes.com is a PR 2 instead of PR 7.
Backlinking
Make sure backlinks going from your site have proper anchor text links. Anchor text link is like “Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies” (link to your site) instead of blahblah.com. Typically, people would link to your site as just the domain name. I am not going to write an article on how to build backlinks. If the anchor text link says Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, it is telling Google EXACTLY what the site is about. Do not just focus on one type of anchor text link because that will be suspicious. Google wants everything to look natural so you want anchor text links to say “chewy oatmeal chocolate chipc cookies” as an example to diversify your backlinks.
Key things to keep in mind while putting your Content
- Build lots of backlinks with proper anchor text links.
- Make sure the title of your site is 100% relevant to the keywords that you want to dominate.
- Do your keyword research to make sure that the niche has weak competition and decent advertisers spending for that keyword.
- Be particular about the content. It should be well researched and strictly sticking to your aim for which you are making keywords or search terms.
About Author: Kai Lo makes over 6-figure income on AdSense with free blogs and some paid domain sites. Check out two of his sites: My Ex Girlfriend (http://www.ihatemyexsomuch.com) and Horde Leveling Guide (http://www.hordelevelingguides.info)
Editor’s Note: This is the most common question I face from new bloggers and I would recommend them to keep working on the techniques to optimize your content and Adsense earnings’ success will follow.
