Theres a lot of buzz around about how you can make a quick and easy fortune using this AdSense course or that tool or this book.
And they show you their incomes from AdSense too (though not necessarily THIS month). Now, is it just me or is something a little odd in all this
Say, Im making $5000 - no make that $15,276 a month from AdSense on my sites. And now Im going to sell all my secrets on how to do that for $67 or $97 or whatever.
So what happened, did I get all bored with my filthy riches and decide to become a philanthropist and sell stuff that makes me 15K a month for a pittance Or is it something else
Am I saying its impossible Certainly not. I know people who make that more.
But a little reality. Those people dont have 5 or 6 or 50 sites. They have maybe 500 or 3000 or more. Few sites make 20 or more a day. Very few. Average income is probably less than a dollar a day. So with 500 sites at a dollar a day, youve got your 15K a month.
Now the domain names cost you maybe $3500 to $4500. Then you need hosting and somehow youve got to build the sites and get traffic to them. There are excellent tools but the ones that will let you do this kind of thing in a reasonably short time are also very (very) expensive.
And you are continually dealing with sites that dont get indexed or get de-indexed or even get banned. Traffic today, gone tomorrow. Plus, if youre not real careful with those tools you may get an unpleasant letter from Google about a DMCA copyright infringement which could cost you your AdSense account.
You can make money, you can build an empire. But it isnt easy or quick no matter what you hear. And it really isnt a business. Its not a long run proposition, its not stable. You need to keep creating more sites as older ones fail - or you need to be smart and use those AdSense revenues to build an enduring business.
You put up with this down to here, so here are the real 7 secret keys to AdSense.
1. The best performing AdSense type is the large rectangle. This has been tested over and over.
2. The best colors are blue for the link - surfers know that blue means click me. And darkish almost black and grey for the text and url. No borders. The same background as your page. Will it merge into your content No, thats bogus. There are maybe 4 surfers in this galaxy who cant tell a Google ad when they see one. They are not going to believe its part of the text. Wake up, OK
3. Another format which is being reported to more or less work is the full wide banner type layout with text ads and images directly above the links. Try it and see if it works for you. Maybe its a fad.
4. Keywords and related content are critical if you want targeted ads. If you want high paying clicks you need to target the costly keywords AND have content that supports the keywords.
5. You need traffic interested in the ads. Which means your traffic generation techniques have to be targeted not scattershot. You might hear that 1% or 1.5% clickthrough rate is OK and 3% is good. Nonsense. Really successful people get CTRs that are often well above 30%. Even with modest efforts you should be getting an average 6 to 15% CTR (per ad impression, not pages).
6. You have to track what youre doing and you have to test variations in ad layout, placement, color and related content to optimize your income. No one can tell you how to do it except the traffic coming to your site. If you dont test and track, youre flying blind.
7. You need to keep building new sites.
You are now a member of the AdSense Illuminati. Quite possibly you already knew all that. So why are you looking for something else Really. This is all you need to start doing it.
Probably any course or book can help you if thats what it takes to get you moving and doing. Ultimately, no one can really show you exactly how to do it. Youre going to have to learn the ropes and put in the time.
Like everything in life - the greatest traffic generator, the ultimate course or the super MLM opportunity, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is. Theres no magic bullet, no ultimate secret to buy. Theres no easy, painless, work free, certain road to riches (except, maybe, inheriting it and that can be very hard on the heirs).
Whatever you do on the net, do it wide awake and with your brain actually functioning. The final un-numbered key is that a technique, a shortcut, an idea that will make what you do easier, faster, or more profitable - one single tiny thing - is worth more than any book or course costs. One useable idea and youve gotten a great deal. If you learned something you didnt know or had forgotten, then its worth much more than you paid. There may not be any magic solution out there, but there are useful concepts, techniques and ideas. You just have to see them for what they are, and then get busy and really use them.
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit - you can find more articles at
Adwords PPC Management Tip No. 1
Setting up an account
If you live outside of the US, different minimum bid prices hold true given the different currencies involved.
Lets take the UK for example - in the UK the minimum bid price is 0.04 whereas the minimum bid price in the US is $0.05.
This means the cost of bids in the UK when currency is converted is significantly higher (July 2005), therefore it may be wise for you to setup an Adwords account which uses USD.
I say may because you will incur charges for currency conversions with your bank so you must look at your own particular financial situation to be sure. The new
So, if you have yet to create an Adwords account - or indeed even if you have an account (you would have to shut it down before reopening another) - sign up at http://www.google.com (not your local Google portal - eg: .co.uk) and specify dollars as your account currency. It Ccould make a significant difference to your PPC management costs.
Adwords PPC Management Tip No.2
How to increase your business profitability by hundreds of percent
Ok,
So you get a mere 4 lines of text to play with in Adwords so every single line counts. Even more than that every single letter counts (even the Capitalisation of letters will make a difference to your click through rates believe it or not).
But whats in a name
Your name in your ad is of course your URL. When crafting an ad, most people spend a lot of time concentrating on the headline (well worth doing as it is the most important part arguably) and on the ad text (also a good thing but not as important as youd think).
After the headline, the next thing that prospects eyes are drawn to is...
Yes youve guessed it - your name - your URL
But what can I do with my URL I hear you say
Just because you have 1 domain name doesnt mean you need to use it. There is nothing in Googles T&Cs that prohibits you from using a different display URL to that of your destination URL (although you will have to own the display URL and it must resolve to a pertinent page - i.e. If youre advertising pet food, it must be about pet food and not resolve to another address dealing with a different subject entirely.
Hundreds of percent more profitable
We have conducted tests outlined above with some of our clients. Results have ranged from 46% through to 76% more profitable domain names. These results are applicable to your bottom line profitability - remember 76% more traffic will result in a like for like increase in bottom line profits.
Your results are equally applicable on and offline, whatever grabs attention online will do likewise in offline print media.
We have also seen a 113% improvement on one of our tests (with a small sample) but we stopped the test early because our results were not statistically significant and waiting for a larger sample was a moot point.
Pop Quiz - One of my clients Jonathan Stanley has graciously allowed me to show you the results of our tests with him. Consider the following adverts and their display URLs:
www.TalkingLeadership.com
www.ThisIsLeadership.com
www.LeadSuccessfully.com
www.MyLeadershipCenter.com
www.LeadingEffectively.com
Which of the above display URLs was the winner and which do you think was the loser and which one do you think was the winner
Well, the results are as follows from worst to last:
MyLeadershipCenter.com 9 clicks
LeadingEffectively.com 17 clicks
LeadSuccessfully.com 18 clicks
ThisIsLeadership.com 21 clicks
TalkingLeadership.com 37 clicks
Who would have thought it I certainly wouldnt but then thats the point you will never know until you test.
My thanks to Jonathan Stanley once again at http://www.TalkingLeadership.com for allowing me the use of this example.
And what else can you do with your textAnd even if you want to use your existing domain theres plenty you can still do - remember CAPITALISATION And then there are sub-domains or even appended directory names.
All it takes is a little creativity and youll find your click through rates reaching new heights with your Adwords PPC management.
Adwords PPC Management Tip No.3
Keyword Resources
Its easy to think you have a great list of 50 or 100 keywords and stop there but youd be missing out on the thousands of other keywords your competitors may have researched.
Brainstorming ResourcesHere are a few keyword brainstorming resources you should try to increase your keyword list:
http://www.kwmap.net
http://www.trackingandtesting.com/dystatic/AdwordsVolume1Wordtracker.php
http://www.lexfn.com
http://www.goodkeywords.com
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.trackingandtesting.com/dystatic/AdwordsTip1NicheDB.php
http://www.nichebot.com
A little note on thousands of keywords:In theory you have 5,000,000 keywords available to you in your Adwords account. In practice this if used would annoy Google as their servers would grind to a halt. Having thousands of keywords is not a good idea from a testing/tracking or PPC management perspective unless:
* You have a large number of people to conduct said tracking/testing
* You have the requisite tools to analyse results
* You are extraordinarily disciplined (along with all the people you have under your command) in implementing correct tracking URLs
Google will cap the numbers of keywords in your account around the 50,000 level - they may allow more if your account history is good.
So dont get too hung up on constructing thousands upon thousands of keywords - find the ones that work as quickly as you can and focus on conversion, your time will be well served.
Bonus Tip
Are you looking for somebody to help you with your Adwords PPC management Well, perhaps before you decide upon who should help you, type in the following phrase into Google:
bad ppc management
Hmmm, makes you think doesnt it
** Note: This article is spam friendly and has received a low (safe) rating from Spam Assassin.
Tom OBrien turns Adwords PPC management problems into profitable advertising campaigns. For more free tips on PPC management visit