subject: Adsense Sites - You Can Still Make Money If You Keep It Simple
[print this page] Everyone who is involved with internet marketing loves to hate the Big G. On the one hand they are the single largest source of traffic on the planet. On the other hand, it seems like they change their rules every other day as they apply to advertisers or sites running Google ads. This holds particularly true if you own or are thinking of launching Adsense sites.
Not so long ago Adsense sites were particularly profitable. It was a great way for the smaller website or blog to monetize their inventory. Then along came the marketing idea of arbitrage. Basically this involved slapping up a bunch of sites with less than quality content but plenty of Adsense advertising space. Then the website owner would buy cheap Pay Per Click advertising on Yahoo or what was then called MSN and have the clicks pointing to their Adsense sites.
The cheap traffic brought visitors to the site where the higher paying Adsense ads ran with the hope that the visitor would click on one of the Adsense links. So if you bought traffic for $0.05 and sent it to an Adsense site that paid $0.60 per click anything better than an 8% click through rate meant you made money. Arbitrage marketers would put up hundreds of these sites that basically were worthless to all involved, except of course, for the webmaster who owned them.
So the Big G changed the rules. That's what most people would say but really they were just adapting to ensure that the visitor received value not just worthless real estate. Google has probably been the target of more manipulation schemes than any other site ever and they tend to take rather drastic measures to counter those schemes.
So does this mean you can't make money with Adsense sites? Well the short answer is no. Many sites still make a nice buck off Google ads but there's a reason for it.
Firstly these sites offer value to the visitor. It's not crammed with PLR articles. Secondly they are correctly optimized to get their fair share of organic traffic from Google or any of the other major search engines. And lastly, and probably most importantly, they have tested and tracked the Adsense ad units that they have deployed on the site.
Testing size, location and color are all exceptionally important if you expect to make any money off these ads. Typically, although it doesn't work for all sites, a single large block of ads directly below the header gets the best CTR. Google offers you all the reporting you could possibly need between its Adsense reports and Google analytics. It's up to the webmaster to use this info to optimize his revenue.
So if you're thinking about putting up a site and relying on Adsense to monetize it, make sure that it is clean looking, focused on a single subject, optimized for SEO and then test the ad placements. Once you have the right mix you'll see a steady stream revenue coming your way. These sites aren't dead, they're simply not trying to scheme the system.Everyone who is involved with internet marketing loves to hate the Big G. On the one hand they are the single largest source of traffic on the planet. On the other hand, it seems like they change their rules every other day as they apply to advertisers or sites running Google ads. This holds particularly true if you own or are thinking of launching Adsense sites.
Not so long ago Adsense sites were particularly profitable. It was a great way for the smaller website or blog to monetize their inventory. Then along came the marketing idea of arbitrage. Basically this involved slapping up a bunch of sites with less than quality content but plenty of Adsense advertising space. Then the website owner would buy cheap Pay Per Click advertising on Yahoo or what was then called MSN and have the clicks pointing to their Adsense sites.
The cheap traffic brought visitors to the site where the higher paying Adsense ads ran with the hope that the visitor would click on one of the Adsense links. So if you bought traffic for $0.05 and sent it to an Adsense site that paid $0.60 per click anything better than an 8% click through rate meant you made money. Arbitrage marketers would put up hundreds of these sites that basically were worthless to all involved, except of course, for the webmaster who owned them.
So the Big G changed the rules. That's what most people would say but really they were just adapting to ensure that the visitor received value not just worthless real estate. Google has probably been the target of more manipulation schemes than any other site ever and they tend to take rather drastic measures to counter those schemes.
