JL Forums

If you do some digging (aka some searches in Google) you will find quite a few articles that talk about what percentage (%) of total search volume each different position gets on page 1 of Google.   Each article will "suggest" slightly different percentages so you have to understand that these percentages are nothing more than rough estimates.

For example, one "study" suggests that the #1 rank position will only get about 13% of that total search volume with each lower ranked position getting less and less; such as the #6 position getting about 5%. 

You reference "getting to page 1" of google.  So let's do some math on the "guestimate" of a #6 ranked site using your high end estimate of 2,200 monthly searches.

2,200 x 5% = 110    <-- A #6 ranked site's share

If you then divide that 110 by 30 days:

110 / 30 = 3.6 visitors per day ...

So your visitor counts sound like they are right on target for the keyword search volume you reference.

And your Adsense Click Through Rate (CTR) of less than 5% is also very common.

So overall - you are not doing anything "wrong" ...

Since you are not doing anything wrong - you simply need to look at what you can do to "tweak" and improve.  There are a few threads here in this forum about how to improve adsense performance, but most of the threads you find here are probably going to be focused more on the search engine optimization and link building (aka traffic generation).  This really isn't an adsense forum.

There are a few generic tips that you will find on most Adsense Forums:

1.  Tweak your titles - Use language that is question/solution oriented such as How To or Problem Solved or Solutions To ...

2.  Tweak your descriptions - Use language in your description and first two sentences that talks about a solution to or answer to a problem ... (but don't actually answer the question) ...

These two will help you increase your share of the search volume.  But to be honest with you, increasing a 5% share to 5.75% share of a lower search volume such as 2,200 is not going to have a huge $ value.  However it is still an excellent exercise to build habits.  Overtime you will get a sense of what text Google is going to use in your site description and you will start to write articles intuitively designed for search results.

3.  Article construction - This one is not popular - however, if your monetization strategy is to "generate clicks" which is what adsense is all about, then you need to "preserve" a "need to click" in your reader.  This means that you can not actually "answer" the question or "solve" the problem in the article.  If you do, there is no need for the reader to click on an "ad" ... so you have to write your articles to "enhance" or "focus" the readers "pain" while creating confidence and inspiration that a solution is only a click away.  If you are "lucky" to be in a niche with "enough" advertisers, then hopefully one or more of the ads (which you have little control over) is going to offer a relevant solution.

4.  Page layout - This is also VERY controversial - but there is a LOT of discussion in adsense forums about how to best design the page layout.  What layouts will Google allow and what layouts will they not allow (and potentially ban your account).  What colors best induce people to click.  What ad types to use (for example, do you incorporate adsense ads into your navigation menu so that people click on an "ad" when they think they are clicking on a navigation link to go deeper into your site).  There are all kinds of discussions - pros and cons - supporters and detractors ...

Best of wishes in finding what you need.  You sound like you already know most of this - so I doubt any of the above is new to you.  But hopefully it is helpful to refocus on things even if we already know them ...

Greg


 

You should check out thewealthyaffiliaterevealed.com the second product he talks about is about making hundreds of $1 a day sites. It's quality information and I'm doing pretty well with it.

And don't worry, its NOTHING to do with Wealthy Affiliate (thank god)lol

Hi brw9532

I've gone a bit further with this and have currently got in the region of 150 microsites with exact match domain names, I've been doing this for nearly a year now and my best ever day was £27.

Most days I make between £4 and £14 on AdSense but I have also got an Amazon Associates link on the footer of each page and funnel visitors through to Amazon and this month my Amazon income is actually in excess of AdSense income for the first time. (perhaps as Christmas approaches)

On a good day I get about 1000 impressions on AdSense ads pages and 25-35 clicks. a lot of the clicks get just pennies, but one site actually paid me £6 for 1 click once! Yay. Since then I have learnt that in the last year those 30,000 visitors could have translated into huge lists of niche buyers that i could be mailing to so that is my current focus.

Most of my sites are page 1 and a lot are ranked no.1 because i have quality content written for each site and score each page as A+ (using traffictravis.com) for a search term using a customised wordpress theme to put keywords in titles and h1 tags etc.

I also have AdSense partners who are signed up with Google and we split the revenues 50/50 just to make sure i have not got all my eggs in one basket and protect against Google suddenly deciding they don't like what i am doing maybe.

So far i reckon i have made about £2500 in revenue from Google, amazon and some other affiliate products and i reckon i have spent about £6000 so get rich quick it is not, but if you compare that rate of return to a bank, investing in buy to let property or a regular pension plan you will see it is actually an excellent return, enough for me to keep working on it and calling it my 'Google pension' (except it is paying me now and i haven't retired yet) hopefully it will keep paying me for years to come and the domains themselves will be come more valuable over time. I sold one microsite for £1000 to a customer of mine too and he is going to keep hosting it with me so more income there.

I'm also setting up another system where we identify an ecommerce customer and create and rank a microsite to funnel traffic to their site in return for commissions on the products sold, so no cost to them and win/win, but we're still working on the tracking system for that and how to make it work with 'any' ecommerce website.

At the end of the day $7 or even $1 per day websites do not appear to be a guarantee but there is no doubt that every day millions of transactions are completed on the web and if you can insert yourself into as many of those transactions as possible by being the no.1 site for that search term and testing a tweaking different content and strategies you can get to the place eventually where it generates an income for you, eventually.

Based on what I have achieved so far I estimate that if you spend 50k on domains and sites (mine cost me £40 each to build) then you could get to about 5-10k per month which for me is enough to live off, just!

I think there is also some mileage in the smart pricing rules and for those companies who Google manages their campaign on a cost per sale basis they will pay you a lot more for ads on your sites that they get conversions from. I am yet to test if it is worth while having the cream of your crop in a different AdSense account so that smart pricing is not affected by under performing sites.

Anyway, I've got loads of sites and traffic so if anyone has got any propositions how i can turn that into more cash then let me know, but to brw9532 it doesn't sound to me like you're doing anything wrong either, it is just finding that magic site again that is the challenge!

I also thought that it might be fun to have a Daily Income Forum Group where we could all post our results, anyone up for that?

I'll start:
23rd Sept: AdSense £6.72 Amazon.co.uk £4.66

Onwards and Upwards Fellow Entrepreneurs!

All the best

Bodger

Responding to Bodger....

I have had a lot of success with “page one” rankings. My guess is that it is a combination of keyword selection, exact match domains and link building through 3waylinks and some article marketing. In fact, I have 40 of 40 Domains on page one. But, I am not getting enough traffic to see significant conversions on affiliate products. Assuming the standard 1%-5% conversion of an affiliate product, the numbers just don't work out for me. I have tried Clickbank, Shareasale, Neverblue CPA Offers and Azoogle CPA Offers with little to no results…except a little success with a Neverblue offer and a few sales on ShareaSale.com. So, it is interesting to see what Bodger has done to see success. I may re-think my strategy after reading that post.

I have stuck with the Adsense business model, because I am seeing some of my sites begin to consistently gain more clicks from Long-Tail-Keywords that I didn't even optimize my website for. This has been my biggest surprise. So, I am adding more pages to my sites and linking the inner pages through article marketing. Also, my clicks have gone from a few cents to upwards to $.75 in some cases. This may not seem like a lot, but it only takes 2 clicks to exceed the $1 per day goal.  I think Google uses several factors when determining how much to play per click and one of those factors is the CTR and the Keyword that visitors use to find your site. That’s why the Long Tail Keywords are so important, because in most cases Google has determined that your site is a good fit for the particular keyword. So, in time the CPC appears to increase due to these factors. I’m taking my time with this strategy to try and REALLY understand how to make it work. So, if I can make $1 per day from 1 site than I can make $1 per day with 1000 sites. Ha…at least that is my logic!!!!

I have contemplated keeping a daily log/journal on-line to show my day-to-day progress. Mainly because it would motivate me to stay focused and disciplined, especially if I know people are watching. I have seen other such journals ( ie., www.mikeiser.com/category/daily-progress-report ) and they have motivated me to stick with my plan. If I decide to build a blog showing my progress I’ll post a link and anyone can follow along if they like.

It is good to get input from others about this stuff and what they are doing to make money with this strategy….Thanks!

I fell into a good idea by accident. I had some top ranked, tightly targeted sites for a product that we decided to quit carrying (widgets-for-kids.com, widgets-for-adults.com, widgets-for-your-pet.com, etc.) We just could not justify an inventory of $20,000 when it was not the product that we preferred to sell. But what a loss it would be with those lovely sites that ranked so well.

I took the first page down to a simple form:
************************
We are sorry, but do the continued increase in pricing by the Widget company and the fact that we have always sold about 4 times as many Wadgets as Widgets, we have decided to quit selling Widgets. You can get Wadgets here. But if you are still convinced to buy Widgets, consider one of these websites:

{{{Adsense box with 4 listings}}}

Some are cheaper than others, so be sure to check out more than one.

Thanks for your support and we hope that this helps.

*********************

Peacock

I hope you're not too attached to your adsense account. Encouraging visitors to click on ads is a no no.

... I am seeing some of my sites begin to consistently gain more clicks from Long-Tail-Keywords that I didn't even optimize my website for. This has been my biggest surprise. So, I am adding more pages to my sites and linking the inner pages through article marketing. Also, my clicks have gone from a few cents to upwards to $.75 in some cases. This may not seem like a lot, but it only takes 2 clicks to exceed the $1 per day goal. 
...

Hi. 

IMHO I think this is your best strategy.  Just continue to post quality content along with links to your inner pages and proper internal linking structure and you'll do fine in the long run.

I think we (that's me, of course!) often over-analyze stuff in the beginning, trying to squeeze out micro-optimizations like agonizing over the best colors to use, how to make a nice graphic header, what color to use for the Adsense font, etc before we even get the basics down which is...getting quality traffic to your site in the first place.

The formula is pretty simple:  The more good content you write (or have written), the more long-tail phrases will appear on your site.  This increases your odds of getting more searches which in turn increases your chances of getting a click, making sale, etc.

I think the real key is having good content.  If the content is written with the intent to inform and help the reader, then the long-tail phrases just come out naturally.  It's when people go overboard on rehashing PLR content to the point of dilution or paying someone $1 to write an article that the quality really suffers and you miss out on the long-tail phrases.

So if you look at your site and ask yourself, "What kind of information could I put on my site that would really make it interesting and helpful to the reader?" and put articles and externals links that answer those questions, then I think you'll have a real winner. 

Just my 2 cents...

KenH