How I Boosted My Monthly AdSense Profits from $673.07 to $21,398.85 in Just 6 Months

How I Boosted My Monthly AdSense Profits from $673 to $21,398 in Just 6 Months

All of my keyword research/analysis and search engine optimization skills suddenly came together in October 2004.

I had just written my first book, and I just wanted to get some free traffic to my website so I could start selling the it.

Triple Your Income with Ad Layout Changes

I had been making about $600 per month from Google AdSense for a long time. As I was researching traffic and revenue techniques, I ran across a tip on how to triple your adsense income (by tripling clickthrough rate).

I implemented the change (relax, I'll put all the tips below) and it worked! I went from $20 per day to $40, $50, and $60 days, with the same amount of traffic! My click through rate actually quadrupled in 10 days.

I then wrote keyword-optimized articles on 90 keyphrases I had found. This led to a 150% increase in traffic - no small feat considering that my website already had 300 articles.

The following month, I averaged $98 per day from AdSense - I had some days above $100, and one day I almost broke $200. I was getting pretty excited. I felt I had broken a code, finally developed a cash system that worked. Google was my new favorite sugar daddy!

Get Better Rankings and More Traffic by Targeting Only Vulnerable Keywords

I got into the math of keywords- I looked at those 90 keywords and compared the ones that had ranked well against those that hadn't. I also compared those that brought in traffic as expected and those that didn't, despite ranking well.

I developed a keyword evaluation equation that I believe is superior to KEI. I've written elsewhere about the weaknesses of KEI - it can tell you the value of a keyword, but not every site can compete on every keyword. Because it overvalues demand and only reflects the exact-match supply, it doesn't help new websites identify their most vulnerable targets.

My equation, which calculates the "vulnerability" of a keyword. Vulnerability is expressed as a percentage- so 95% is good, 97% is pretty darned vulnerable, and 99% vulnerable is nearly a done deal. Using this equation helped me reduce inefficiency and increase my success rate with rankings, thus increasing traffic and revenue opportunities.

Partner with Writers to Increase Volume of Web Pages

The next major development was my response to discovering there was an immense number of vulnerable keywords to write about. I couldn't possibly write about all of them. So I found freelance writers who were willing to profit share with me. I gave them 50% of the adsense earnings on any article they submitted. But they could only write on the keywords I gave them, and they had to include the keyword in specific places.

That's the other key to website ranking success- putting your keywords in the right place in your web page. I worked on this quite a bit as well. As time went on, I got more and more writers, some of whom were very prolific, writing 100 or more articles in a few months.

With everything that occurred, I kept tracking statistics, rankings, success rate, etc.

I fine-tuned the vulnerability equation. I discovered which topics get advertisements that no one clicks on. And I learned some things about what kind of writing leads to better click through rates.

Follow Me to Huge Online Profit Boosts

In just 6 months, we put up 2000 articles, boosted monthly page views more than 5 times, from 100,000 to 525,000, and boosted profits to $21,398.85.

How did we do it? There are so many details that it would take a whole book to tell you everything - which is why I've been writing one on this subject - but here are some helpful tips to start with:

1. Strike Gold With More Precise Keyword Targeting: make sure the monthly demand is at least 300. I'm withholding my vulnerability equation right now for those who will purchase my ebook when it's released, but I'll tell you the essence of it: check the supply of existing pages on Google for the keyword both in quotes, and not in quotes- this takes care of exact matching and partial matching respectively, and both are essential. If one or the other is too high, chances are the keyword is too competitive.

The threshholds I put in the vulnerability equation are based on my PR5 site, but for newer sites you can use only the 99%+ vulnerability keywords.

2. Boost Traffic With More Thorough Keyword Optimization: without spamming or stuffing, write the whole keyword phrase (exactly as searchers type it) at least 5 times in your article. Include it in the meta keywords, meta description, 1 or 2 image alt's, and in the <title> tag. Write a <title> tag that not only includes the keyword (just once) but will also look interesting to searchers in the search results. It's also a good idea to have your keyword in an <h1> tag and in bold somewhere. Finally, if you aim for a word count of about 566 words per page, you'll please 4 of the biggest search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista).

3. Increase Earnings by Considering Keyword Profitability: Neither every niche, nor every keyword is equally profitable. For example, I found that sports keywords didn't lead to many clicks, presumably because when fans are looking for game scores, they probably aren't looking to buy a baseball cap. Also, famous people (perhaps with the exception of musicians) generally don't generate profitable clicks, because people usually just want free news or free pictures. The most profitable niches will be those in which the best information is not readily available, which require some specialized tools or services, etc. I found that health and electronics keywords were above average in profitability. Again, there are ways to get numbers for the monetary value of keywords- can you guess what? I'm going to explain this in more detail in a special report after the ebook is all taken care of.

4. Increase Earnings by Improving Ad Placement: Google has added a lot of new options to the layout code - I suggest you test with multiple channels to see what works best. Regardless of what I suggest next, testing is the key to all online success- whether you want rankings, traffic, or earnings. The internet affords accurate and detailed metrics- use them.

The tip that initially tripled my AdSense income was: put a 250x250 ad in the horizontal center of your page, above the fold, and make sure the border is white.

I've found that making the ads look like any other part of your site is important. The ads are valuable, but if they look like ads, people will tune them out. So make sure the color scheme for your ads in the same as your site's. Since you can place 3 ads on one page, I'd suggest a dead center one (as mentioned above), a left or right side skyscraper, and a wide banner one at the bottom of the page.

That's plenty of meat to sink your teeth into. I've learned a lot more, but another time, another article... Good profit hunting!

:-)

Since 1999, Brian Carter, MS, has reached more than a million visitors with his websites. His PulseMed.org ranks in the top 1% of all major websites. His second book, The Web Site Marketing Success Manual: How One of My Web Sites Made $21,638.49 in a Month, will be available in July, 2005.