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.
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Colin
November 5, 2008
Caroline,
Those figures are truly pathetic. Do you think this whole idea might be a blind alley?
Not having a dig, just being realistic. Even a 1000% increase in revenue would be rubbish. Time to look for some other way to make money?
Colin
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