AdSense Stats for October 2008
I haven’t done quite as much work on my niche sites as I did last month but I’m starting to see some trends in the stats. Here is the stats table at the end of October:
I’ve completed a third site now which is in niche B and what you can’t see from that table is that another couple are close to completion now.
Backlinks
Some time during last month I setup Google Webmaster tools to look at the inbound links for some of the sites and saw a much larger number than was being reported by Yahoo Site Explorer. However, although the numbers in the above table have increased from the month before, they are lower than when I first added the sites to Google. I have no idea what has happened there. I’m wondering if it could be something to do with changing my theme but I can’t see how that would be relevant. Perhaps somebody who knows more about how Google Webmaster tools reports its links could enlighten me.
Traffic
I should probably try and find a way of reporting average traffic levels neatly into that table. In niche A, both of the completed sites are now getting some traffic but site A1 which has the lower PR is getting a lot more traffic than A2. Neither site is ranking very well for the target keyword and 99% of the traffic is coming from long tail keywords. So what I can conclude from that is that so far, my efforts in building backlinks to these sites has not been enough to get them to rank for their chosen keyword meaning that the only factor determining traffic levels is the number of searches to the long tails.
Niche B is not doing well at all. Niche B is more competitive and has *significantly* higher AdSense CPC – we’re talking a 10 fold increase over those in niche A which is why I wanted a stab at it. But so far, those efforts are not paying off. I am finding niche B to be a very difficult topic to write about and although I have managed to find an angle that allows me to pump out the number of articles needed, there are no significant long tail phrases to speak of so those sites just aren’t ranking for anything that can bring me traffic.
Niche C is a funny one. I didn’t use keyword sniping for this site, there is no real target keyword and the AdSense CPC for any keywords relating to this topic are low – below $1.00. So why did I start it? Simply because it’s on a topic I’m interested in. I am treating this site more like a niche blog than a structured niche site. Every now and then I will just write something that comes to mind and leave it at that. But here’s what’s interesting – over the last few days that site suddenly started to get traffic! It’s only been a couple of days so it’s too early to tell but so far it’s getting almost as much as A1 and yet this site was only registered a few weeks ago and so far only has 5 articles on it and no backlink building has been done other than bookmarking the posts!
Maybe those people that say follow your passion are right… Niche C – easiest to write for, seems to be getting traffic more quickly. Niche A, moderately easy to write for, doing okay traffic wise. Niche B – very hard to write for, no traffic to speak of.
Income
Earlier in the month I reported that my click through rate was very low and I was concerned about that so I decided to change my theme on sites A1 and A2 and I have also removed AdSense from all other sites and they will remain like that until they start to consistently get traffic then I’ll put it back. After my initial error, I’m pleased to report that the change in theme has marked a huge improvement in CTR. I can’t give you actual percentages but the change was a 9-fold increase and income increased accordingly!
Site A1 brought in $3.80 this month which is quite an improvement over the $0.33 the month before. Of course these figures are still tiny but if I can improve CTR now while traffic is low, it means I’ll be as effective as possible when the traffic increases over time.
Site A2 looked like it was doing better as it has earned $0.88 in September but that was just a fluke and throughout October before the theme change it wasn’t getting any clicks at all. It is getting more now but not as many as A1 even though they are using the same theme.
None of the other sites have AdSense on them at the moment but if C1 continues to get traffic then I’ll add it in a week or so.
Want to Make Money Blogging? My free course, The Bloggers Bible contains everything you need to know about building a highly popular and profitable blog from scratch!
Just fill in your email below to get your first lesson immediately:
I’ve never got luck with Adsense. It’s so hard to increase my earning level :-(
Hosting Reviews last blog post..HostDime.com
@small hosting, I don’t know what you mean by 104 and A01 but I will be covering my link building methods in this project. Yes I do write all my own content at the moment but if I continued this kind of thing long term I would want to outsource it in some way.
@Paul, whilst leaving them alone is the ultimate aim, they still need to be ranking for something in the first place. A site that doesn’t rank for anything is still not going to get traffic a year later.
Strange, I find myself agreeing with just about everyone in some way or another….
Adsense sucks…. true
Adsense is great…. true
Niche sites work…. true
Niche sites don’t work…. true
Those figures are truly pathetic (quoting Colin)…. true
But to me the moral of all this is that different things work for different people!
Colin’s site obviously works due to his knowledge and passion about the subject, but that is hard to duplicate over a number of sites.
Personally I have around eighty niche sites, covering subjects in a large number of popular, and not so popular, niches.
As I am not an expert in all of these niches I rely on PLR articles, sometimes rewritten, sometimes used as they are. The duplicate content issue never comes up as the site design and order of articles will never be duplicated, unlike the many ‘cookie cutter’ niche sites that you can buy!
Adsense sucks as sometimes a site will earn only a few dollars a month!
Adsense is great as some of these sites are doing a few dollars a day!
Not huge money but it’s all in the numbers over time.
Frequently, as Ryan also says, I put Adsense on a site to help indexing. Why it helps I don’t know but it appears to in some cases.
But the strangest thing is that out of all my niche sites the ones that consistently perform well are all subjects that are close to my heart… could it to be to do with visitors noticing a little bit of passion in the content?
Time also helps as my two best performing sites are both over three years old, and even though they aren’t updated regularly they still earn from Adsense every single day – what would they do if I worked on them?
Keep testing Caroline, it makes interesting reading particularly your comment about not showing posting dates and times on sites that aren’t going to be updated regularly.
I have implemented this change (by manually editing the themes) on quite a few sites over the past two months and have noticed a definite change in the time visitors spend on the site, guess they now don’t get put off by seeing a post date that is months old!
Cheers
Phil
@Phil,that’s right – it’s different for everybody but things also change over time. I never expected to pull in huge incomes from the start, that would be unrealistic but the fact remains that there are people who consistently make 4 and 5 figure incomes purely from AdSense each and every month. Everybody does it differently, there is no one single correct way to do it.
Some people may well pull in substantial incomes from adsense. I imagine it would be viable strategy for someone like Steve Pavlina who has the talent to write compelling and original content that makes you want to visit his site.
Paul MacCartney makes substantial sums of money from monetising his ability to write catchy melodies – that doesn’t mean we should all get our guitars out.
Adsense is a lovely way of generating a small income from an interest you have. But if you can’t generate really valuable content I don’t see any way you can turn it into anything other than pocket money. And if you can generate really valuable content the chances are Adsense isn’t the best way to generate an income from it.
Colins last blog post..Choosing a Hand Cream
Adsense looks truly discouraging.
Looks like it’s going to be an uphill battle to monetize with Adsense! Thanks for sharing this so openly with us.
FH2os last blog post..4 Eared Cat
Great post. Thanks for the update. It seems that Google likes to play with us. They don’t always show all the links that they have in their database.
I have played with the niche blogging thingy for a little while and you’re right it is hard to write for niches that you have know interest in. I have to follow my formulas for writing articles or use a article researcher to help me produce good quick content.
@FH2o, aww don’t be discouraged by the struggle of one person! Just because I’m still struggling with this doesn’t mean its hard or there wouldn’t be loads of other people making wads of cash with it! I just haven’t found the right mix of ingredients yet.
One of my niche sites (about 200 pages in size) that I completed about a year ago and haven’t touched since then, is now generating $40-50/month from adsense. Over 90% of traffic is organic.
People tend to underestimate the value of time.
Good start Caroline!
dan
BloggerTests.coms last blog post..Ignite Landing Page Theme: Review
I’m shocked by your figures. Just looking at this blog, I would think you were one of those niche gurus.
Hopefully things will pick up soon.
My Crazy Debts last blog post..Extra Money in December