The adsense dream may be over-rated

Everyone is rushing to get out there and get their piece of the adsense goldrush but it may all just be pie in the sky fantasies. I’ve noticed my adsense revenue dropping about 10-15% over the last couple of months. Trying to get traffic to a new site is difficult enough unless you are willing to invest a lot of money and a lot of time into the site. But, by then, you’ve already dug yourself a huge financial hole to try and climb out of.

You’re better off using a multi-pronged effort to earn money. Don’t focus solely on adsense but consider other sources of revenue like your own digitial download product, affiliate programs, or selling other people’s products as a clickbank affiliate. You can make a lot of money off of clickbank products as the commissions that I’ve seen can be as much as $33 a sale. You don’t have any product development with clickbank products either.

If you are good at promoting websites and products, clickbank can be a perfect match for you. An exclusive adsense approach to making money on the web requires a lot of patience, time, effort and money. Consider several angles at making money on the web and pan the exclusive adsense goldrush.

Google Adsense Q&A: what type of sites does Google prohibit

According to the Google Adsense TOS, several types of websites are prohibited from displaying Google adsense ads including:

Pornography sites
Websites containing hacking/cracking information
Websites that contain excessive profanity
Gambling/casino sites
Sites containing excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords
Sites using deceptive or manipulative content to engineer a better page ranking
Sites for sales or promotions of firearms
Sites for sales or promotion of alcohol
Tobacco
Prescription drugs
Imitations of designer goods
Term papers/essays
Any other illegal activity

Google Adsense Q&A: can I encourage clicks on my ads

Google prohibits publishers (adsense program participants) from requesting users to click on the adsense ads. Publishers may not rely upon deception to trick people into clicking on ads either. Google does encourage the practice of blending your ad with your site. As far as what consitutes deception, it all comes down to what Google determines it to be. Obviously, there is a fine line between blending and deceiving.

Google expressly forbids using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language. Again, violations are in the eye of the Google beholder.

Google even expressly forbids the use of arrows or other “graphical gimmicks” to point users to adsense ads. What lawyer came up with the term “graphical gimmicks?” Can you say, “dork?”

Google indicates that you may not place misleading images alongside individual ads. Wow, that’s abundantly general! What the heck does that mean? I’m trying to imagine some image that would trick someone into clicking on an ad. I’m sure it’s possible but I’m drawing a blank on this one.

Google prohibits promoting sites displaying ads through “unsolicited” mass emails. Does this mean that I can do so using “solicited” mass emails? What consitutes “unsolicited?” What if I have a mailing list that users can opt out of but have not after receiving dozens of mass emails from me? Are these still considered unsolicited? Or are they considered accepted at this point in time.

Google also prohibits the use of misleading labels above Google ad units such as “Favorite sites.” How about labels below or to the side of the ads?

Google indicates that you cannot compensate users or promise to compensate users for clicking on ads or performing searches.

Google Adsense Q & A: How many ads can I display on a webpage

Google’s Adsense Program Policies indicate the following with regard to number of ads that you can place on one webpage:

Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
A single link unit may also be placed on each page.
Up to two referral units from each referral product or offering may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.

Kind of confusing, huh? Basically, Google is saying that you can have 3 ad units, 2 search boxes, 1 link unit, and two referral units for each referral product that is offered. Right now there are 5 referral products offered:

Google Adsense
Google Adwords
Google Checkout
Firefox plus Google Toolbar
Google Pack

So you could have 10 referral units in addition to all the other ads. I guess Google is giving you plenty of rope to hang yourself!

At what point should you try to capitalize on the Adsense dollar?

As I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts, a lot of people are trying to grab their share of the Adsense Goldrush (as I have termed it). Should you enter the fray and, if so, when?

If you are just now starting a website, don’t bother trying to get some of the Adsense dollar unless you have a way to attract thousands of visitors a day at no cost. Maybe you have another website or access to another website that will serve as an immediate source of traffic to your new site.

If you are selling a product on a new website or even on an established one, you may not want to try to cash in on the Adsense dollar either. Do you want people to click away from your site on an Adsense ad and lose a potential sale for a few nickels?

To evaluate when to get in on the Adsense game, consider what the average revenue per click will be for ads related to the subject matter of your website. If you can average a dollar a click and believe you can achieve a 5% or more click through rate then you made need less traffic to start up a successful Adsense campaign then another website that could only average eight cents per click.

If you are the website that can only average eight cents per click with your current subject matter, can you incorporate related topics that would generate more revenue per click?

Evaluate how much revenue you would need to generate with Adsense to make it worth your while. For different people there will be different amounts. Some may be happy with a few dollars a day. Others may need at least $100 a day. Determine your goal per day and then look at your traffic. If you only average 100 visitors a day and your ads only pay eight cents per click, you may be staring forty cents a day in the face.

Overture used to provide a view bids tool where you could go to see what people were bidding on the Overture advertising network but no more. It is gone. You can always start an Adwords campaign and find out a general idea of other bids by the relative position of your ads.

Future topics – the power of symbiotic website development and keyword domain naming
- the power of “passive income” from internet sales: why do people poo poo internet businesses?

Comments -

very confusing.
I have read this paragraph three times. maybe a typo?

In other words, some ads pay more than others. Google puts ads on your site that are related to your site’s content. So Google would put rubber stamp ads on your site. If those ads pay a lot per click, then you don’t need much traffic to make decent money. If those ads pay a nickel per click than you need a lot of traffic to make decent money.

If you put ads up and are also selling something on your website at the same time, those ads may detract from your sales of your product.

Remember not every visitor will click on your google ads. If you can get 5% to click through then you are doing well. So if you get 100 visitors a day, 5 would, on average, click on your ads. Multiply 5 clicks by the average ad revenue to figure out what kind of money you would make on the ads.

To evaluate when to get in on the Adsense game, consider what the average revenue per click will be for ads related to the subject matter of your website. If you can average a dollar a click and believe you can achieve a 5% or more click through rate then you made need less traffic to start up a successful Adsense campaign then another website that could only average eight cents per click.

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