Pay Per Click Overview

How to Make Money with Pay Per Click Ads

Originally Posted, Monday, February 11, 2008
This post is in response to a number of emails I have received regarding Adsense. Specifically “How to Make Money with Adsense”. I know most of you are familiar with the concept of adding Adsense to your blogs and are equally familiar with not making any money with it – or paltry sums at best.
This post is an overview of what I do and regular readers may want to skip this.
I have been absent for the past two weeks working on some other projects but I noticed my RSS readers have grown by another 100 or so which tells me that there are a lot of new faces on here and most of you are not familiar with me or what I do online. I am not an A Lister or a guru of any kind. I am a niche marketer who until now has been making money quietly on the net – this blog was developed as just “another” niche I wanted to dominate in order to make money with Adsense and Affiliate sales. Unlike my other niches this blog has developed a readership and this has curtailed a lot of my usual activities regarding affiliate sales but I have kept the Adsense.
I dominate niches by using SEO techniques that I have been refining for a long time. I am not familiar with other systems as everything I do has been learned by trial and error – I experiment constantly.
My methods can be reduced to one simple strategy – I pick a niche that gets lots of search engine traffic and has a lot of corresponding advertisers and then optimize my blog and posts for every term that is in any way related to the main topic and sometimes no relation what so ever. My goal is always the same – I want to rank on page 1 on Google for every single term I target. By doing this I receive thousands upon thousands of visitors to my sites everyday and a percentage of these visitors click my ads or buy products through my links. Making money online can be reduced to one simple equation – the more search traffic you receive the more money you make. You will not make decent income until you start drawing thousands of visitors daily – it is a simple numbers game.
I don’t want to rehash topics I have covered before so please read my posts on Keywords and Search Engine Optimization if you are not familiar with the topics. To make money with Adsense you will have to grasp these concepts first.
In spite of what most of you think – you can make a good living with Adsense sites. I do and I can honestly say that it is the easiest method for making money online – but – it does require work and some patience before you start seeing any meaningful results. I realize that screenshots are meaningless as anything can be faked but I will show you my Adsense income from last month and remind you that I am not selling you anything here – I just want you to realize that this is a viable source of income if you want to buckle down and work for it. It has taken me the better part of two years to reach this stage so don’t get ahead of yourselves – this takes time.
This blog is in the “Make Money Online” niche and isn’t one of the better searched niches in spite of it’s popularity in blogging circles. The table below shows a sample of some of the related keywords for the “make money online” niche. None of the keywords provide a great deal of traffic on their own compared to niches like “music downloads” but when you add up all the different terms you can create a good flow of traffic if you rank well for all the keywords. This is what I do in every niche and it works.
Ranking well for one term in Google boosts your rankings for other terms – ranking well for lots of terms boosts your rankings for lots of other terms and so on – a giant snowball effect if you will.
Here are some keywords that I have targeted…
How to Get Money Rank 1

How to Make Money Rank 3

How to Make Money Online Rank 2

Making Money Online Rank 4

Make Money Online Rank 8

MAKE MONEY ONLINE Rank 5 – yes you rank differently for the same term if it’s capitalized.

Making Money Rank 10

These are all on page 1 on Google. I rank on page 1 for dozens of other related terms as well but these bring in the bulk of my traffic for this blog and add about $1500 a month to my total Adsense earnings. These earnings will increase over time as I am still working on page 1 rankings for lots of other terms – one in particular that will add a considerable amount of traffic. I am currently in 12th spot on page 2 for the most competitive term of all in this niche…
Make Money Rank 12

This term has 147 million competing pages – no easy task right? Well actually it’s not as hard as you might think.
Those of you who are new here may have noticed that this blog isn’t pretty. In fact it’s just a plain old free Blogger blog hosted on Blogspot. I have no fancy graphics and don’t do a dam thing to encourage people to stop and read my content. This is by design and for one simple reason – I am not after readers – I am after clicks.
The layout of this blog goes against all the conventional wisdom of how you should set up a blog. Keep this in mind – all that wisdom is about attracting readers – not making money. People don’t click if you get them reading. About 7% of the people who find this site through Google click my Ads. The uglier I make the site the higher this percentage gets.
If you are brave enough start reading my old posts – they explain how I have optimized this blog for search traffic. My techniques work in a highly competitive niche like this but more importantly they really kick ass in less competitive niches that have a lot more searches to cash in on.
Getting search visitors is only step one however – getting them to click or buy is the hard part. My next post will cover all my little tips for converting traffic into Adsense revenue.
Till then,
Griz
98 comments:
DeMerchant said…
Griz, I am having an awful time even getting approved for an AdSense account. Any suggestions? It’s seriously driving me nuts!
Thanks,
DeMerchant
February 11, 2008 12:43 PM
christine said…
How should you go about optimizing a BANS (build a niche store) site for traffic? I’ve made pages around keywords, added text to most pages, but they are still way down in the SERPs. www.onemanknifefight.net Can you address this in a post?
Christine
February 11, 2008 3:29 PM
nick- road2blogging.com said…
Grizz,
Really good advice there. Really having a great time setting up quite a few adsense niche sites at the moment. Hard work, but it’s fun when I haven’t a clue what the topic is about – interesting really, but trying to write more and read less .
Just a quick question, what SEO resource would you say is number 1 for you (site, blog or book)? Just curious.
February 11, 2008 3:42 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Demerchant,
You’ll have to give me your URL so I can see your site. Perhaps you have run afoul somewhere.
February 11, 2008 3:42 PM
Macnabclan said…
Grizz, you crack me up!
I had to show my wife your paragraph about the ugly page so you get click thru’s. She wants me to make my sites look better, but I told her SEO is more important right now. Thanks for a good article.
February 11, 2008 3:45 PM
Make Money Online said…
Nice post. I am also chasing the “make money online” top spots and believe it or not I have already been ranked for earn money online even though my blog is only a month old. I have done this using some wicked article techniques you should click through to my site and check it out. 12 months and I’ll be at the top
February 11, 2008 4:24 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Christine,
I checked out your site and it appears to be a case of non-optimized backlinks. You have a PR3 but very few of your backlinks have your keywords in the anchor text. This is a common problem with most sites that don’t rank well on the serp’s.
To fix this you can take the long route by writing articles with optimized links and post them on EzineArticles, GoArticles etc and set up Squidoo lenses for each product. A quicker solution if you can afford it is to join a network like Backlink Solutions and start posting optimized snippets linking to your site on the network blogs. Whatever method you choose, you need keyword authority – lots of links with your keywords in the anchor text.
I hope this helps. Good luck with your store.
February 11, 2008 4:30 PM
christine said…
Thank you so much for your quick response!
Ok so it’s off page SEO then. I’m using 3waylinks.net with this site but it’s only been going for a month so nothing noticeable yet.
I also can post to the Article Underground blogs. I think they are just like Backlink Solutions except that with AU you also get hundreds of PLR articles each month. I don’t use the articles, just the blogs.
So I’m guessing that I should make one snippet per AU blog per page on my site? Dear lord that’s a lot of snippets. But it would probably work though!
Christine
February 11, 2008 4:37 PM
Frank C said…
I was just wondering how many different blogs brought in that impressive Adsense number. 100? 200? 500? 1000? More? Less?
The reason that I’m wondering is that I’ve had some success with a couple of blogs usually hitting the $3-5 a day range (although most are less than that in the 10 cent range). That would mean having between 75-125 blogs of that caliber in order to hit that kind of earnings. Would you say that is an accurate number or would it require more?
February 11, 2008 4:40 PM
DeMerchant said…
Hi Griz,
When I submitted the form I used www.worldofcanadiancurrency.com. I did get an account booted off of Google almost 2 years ago. But it was a different site, with a different email? I guess they are probably still flagging me?
February 11, 2008 5:37 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Nick,
Sorry I missed your comment earlier. I must admit that the only SEO resource I use is between my ears. When I first started there were so many contradicting theories out there that I ended up shelving the works and went the trial and error method. My SEO techniques are a byproduct of my experiments so I can’t recommend anyone else – not that there aren’t useful books out there – just none that I use or know of.
Sorry I can’t be of more help – perhaps I will get this all down in a usable ebook one day.
February 11, 2008 5:53 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
MacNabclan,
Sorry I missed you as well – I must admit I hate Blogger’s comment section. Thanks for the note and I feel for you – my wife is constantly asking me why my sites don’t look as nice as blah, blah, blah… and then she says “who would want to read your stuff anyway?” – “exactly” I say. Huh? says she.
I have given up with her. lol.
February 11, 2008 5:58 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Tim (Make Money Online),
I must admit I haven’t got around to optimizing for the “Earn Money” keywords yet but they are on the to do list. I look forward to seeing you whizz by me on your way to the top – I may put up a bit of a fight though. lol.
I see you are in the UK data center which is just about as hard to dominate as the US center. Your blog looks good and I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for stopping in and warning me of your impending takeover! lol.
February 11, 2008 6:09 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Christine,
You have the right idea – make sure you vary your anchor text though. Too many links all at once for the same keywords can set flags off at Google. Since you have the link resources just take your time and make them as natural as possible. Your niche is a bit competitive (you’re up against Stompernet Guru Andy Jenkins) but you can get to the top with a little patience.
Best of luck.
February 11, 2008 6:35 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Frank,
You aren’t going to like my answer – while I have a few hundred assorted blogs the bulk of my Adsense revenue comes from about 25 of them and in truth just 6 blogs make up 80% of my total earnings. This blog is one of those six. I have one site that brings in half the revenue by itself.
It really comes down to finding high paying keywords and I have managed to find a few whoppers with little competition. Keep in mind I have had to test out several hundred niches to find these though. It is work but the payoff can be worth it.
BTW – I’m becoming a big fan of OpTempo – you’re doing a great job with the site. A listers watch out!
February 11, 2008 6:44 PM
DJNttall said…
Grizz,
OH MY G..
If I had half that amount of money coming in monthly my life would definitely change for the better.
? – So you are saying that you only optimize your keywords for only the keywords that bring in the most Adsense income or you optimize for all the keywords in a particular niche?
How do you decide how many keywords to optimize for? If you find hundreds of keywords in a niche, do you only go for the keywords with the most searches? Or do you choose keywords with the most searches and less Google pages?
February 11, 2008 6:44 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
DeMerchant,
Thanks for getting back to me – let me look into it and will get back to you tomorrow. Unfortunately I’m a litte pressed for time right now.
February 11, 2008 6:46 PM
DJNttall said…
Grizz,
I agree with you! OpTempo is a great blog.
February 11, 2008 6:47 PM
Houston23 said…
Hi Grizz,
I had been working really hard on IM for the past few months, really shag me out beside my work and studies (which I abit regreting studying it).
A few months back, I tried google adwords togather with my affiliate programs. I did earn from my affiliate programs but I lost about SGD200 plus, as my adwords input is more than what I earn. Thereafter I know that I need to do alots of keywords research.
I then tried doing up a blog about IM. I haven’t promote my blog yet as I lag of contents and not enough posts. Beside the biggest obstacle was I wanted to revamp my blog theme but I don’t how too. I haven’t learnt programming before. Stuck once again.
I do know I am running around in circles but I am trying out things. I got to settle down on one by end of this month, as I promise myself I will earn my first US100 per month by end of this year. Most importantly, I hope my mum can don’t have to work.
I currently have 2 personal projects, one is the tactic in this blog and the other one is my own domain wordpress blog (but stuck with programming). I am blogging about Internet Marketing, do you think I should blog about this niche since it’s so saturated right now?
So sorry for the long post. Do you mind sharing some thoughts and advice for me? Just one or two will do ya, I will be very much appreciated.
Houston23
February 11, 2008 7:37 PM
Mike Pedersen Golf said…
That is one hell of an adsense check Grizz! You’ve got me 10 times over. Can I ask how many sites total that much? I am on a rampage launching adsense blogs (thanks to Court’s help) and my Type A personality, but I’d like to know I’m heading in the right direction as it’s been about three weeks and no adsense money with these new blogs so far.
February 11, 2008 8:46 PM
yc said…
Houston23, stay away from blogging about Internet Marketing unless you’re extremely good at drawing readers who will buy your affiliate programs/products. I’d advise reading what Grizz, Vic and Courtney recommend and that is niche marketing. The tougher part of this to me is really finding the right niches with better paying keywords and enough traffic. The rest of the techniques required are homogenous to all.
I noticed that you might be from Singapore. If so, you might wish to contact me, we can help each other along.
February 11, 2008 9:14 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Denise (djnttal),
In a nutshell I write long rambling posts stuffed with lots of related keywords. The longer the post the more keywords Google has to send me traffic for. Once the traffic starts coming I pay attention to which keywords show up most often and then I write new long and rambling posts targeting these keywords. This in turn prompts Google to send even more traffic and new popular keywords pop up which I then target. I do this over and over in all my niches.
Sure I know the top keywords ahead of time using Keyword Elite but just optimizing for top keywords rarely gives me enough traffic – in fact there is no such thing as enough traffic and that’s why I continually add new keywords.
This blog brings in traffic from about 200 different “make money” keywords. (I track them all in notepad) This isn’t really a lot. My payday loan experiment has already produced over 500 different keywords used to find this blog and I am not even ranked well in that niche yet. Eventually my Payday Loan Terms will bring in more traffic to this blog than the “Make Money” terms.
I average $.50 a click for the make money ads and $1.50 a click for the payday loan ads so you can see why I added them into the mix. Eventually I will target the “Internet Marketing” and “Business opportunities” keywords and so on. I don’t stop… ever. The more keywords you rank well for the more traffic you get. Adsense is simply a numbers games.
So to answer your question – I target the highest paying long tail terms first but eventually I will target every niche relevant keyword I can find and when I run out I will introduce a new niche like Payday Loans and rinse and repeat. This sounds a little overwhelming but remember it doesn’t happen overnight – start with a few and just keep adding more as time passes.
February 11, 2008 10:40 PM
Houston23 said…
HI YC, I had sent you an email through your blog just 2 mins ago, hope to catch up with you soon!
Best Regards
Houston23
February 11, 2008 10:52 PM
Houston23 said…
Between what does A Listers means?
February 11, 2008 11:11 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Houston,
YC is quite right. Until you gain some experience I would stay away from the IM/Make Money/Blogging niches – they are very competitive but moreover they really aren’t great revenue producers – getting other internet marketers to click your ads or buy something with your affiliate link is the hardest game in town.
I have a site that sells an ebook that teaches people how to breed tropical fish. Do you know how easy it is to sell a cheap book to someone looking for information on exactly what the book offers? These folks don’t know what an affiliate link is and wouldn’t care if they did. They want information and they want it now and for $17 they can have it in minutes.
Those that don’t buy the book tend to click one of my ads which, lo and behold, offers them more cheap ebooks tailored for what they are looking for.
This is the type of niche marketing you should cut your teeth in first. One niche won’t make you rich but it will earn you money and once it is set up you move on to niche number two and then number three and so on.
Eventually you will find you are making a good buck and your increased experience will prompt you to target more lucrative niches where the competition is stiff but only because there is some serious money to be made.
Start small so that you don’t get discouraged – your goals have to be attainable or you will burn out and quit. If it’s any consolation I typically bomb in 10-20 niches before I find one that works. Nobody hits a home run every time at bat.
ps. Take YC up on his offer – he knows what he is doing and we all need friends to help us online.
Good luck Houston.
February 11, 2008 11:16 PM
send money to philippines said…
Griz,
I have been reading your blog for a month now but two -three things I have not been bale to gigure out and they are ..
1) when you say that we need to rank well for all keywords and in this post you have given your ranks for all the words .. how do you determine for what keywords i need to target and for what keywrods i need to rank well .. do you use kyeword elite for that ?
2)All along you have been saying that it will take you a year to reach the top spot for make money online.. How did you determine this ? I think I did not get an answer on this one in any of your posts..
3)Court has been very gung ho about WordZe has a tool for sekecting niches ..What do you recommend and also he has a D-list for commenting . Do you subscribe to that and what do you say about the comibnation of D-list and article submission
February 11, 2008 11:34 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hey Mike,
Check out my reply to Frank – he asked the same question.
From what I have seen of your work I know you are heading the right way – your Golf sites are great and your talent will shine through in any niche.
I don’t typically start making much in the way of adsense on a new site until I reach page 1 on Google for the main keywords. This usually takes me about 3 months with the niches I tend to target but can be longer if Google sandboxes me.
Have you thought of using your established sites to introduce new topics/niches into them – golf/travel destinations or vacations. There are some pretty decent clicks in the travel/vacation biz not to mention lead generation fees. Just thinking out loud. I only mention this as it is easier to morph an existing site into something new than starting from scratch – no sandbox for one thing.
Al the best Mike.
February 11, 2008 11:37 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Houston,
The A list is just a term used to describe the well know Internet Marketers like John Chow, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Shoemaker etc.
February 11, 2008 11:41 PM
Stephen(a.k.a. dreamscaper) said…
Grizz,
Damnit! Another late night surf ‘n stop with one victim (moi)! lol
My fiance is starting to think that you are one of the bad men who keeps me up late at night (on a work night!) trolling the interweb for a decent read – little does she realise that you are one of the ‘white hatted’ good guys, heh heh.
This post read like those classic opening credits to Star Wars for me: it was a good read but left me anticipating what was about to come. I am really looking forward to your next post on adsense tips … if you don’t get sidetracked and hit us with a post about blogging about Central Canada in the wintertime.
PS. Consider this post ‘zoomed’ by me.(and rightfully so!)
February 12, 2008 1:43 AM
yc said…
Grizz, you’re too kind. I know extremely little (as shown by what I make each month online as only a tiny fraction of just your adsense check). Everything I do and learn which has turned out well have come from you, Vic, Court and Garry. I just make sure I apply and learn continuously. Hope you didn’t mind me asking Houston to contact me, as he appears to be from the same country as I am so it would be good for a local community
February 12, 2008 2:46 AM
Houston23 said…
Grizz,
you hit it on bingo. I had a domain name myself on Internet Marketing but found myself got stuck in creating my own contents. I am now thinking of canceling the domain already.
The niches you talk about, is better as other niches’ vistors don’t know what IM is and will click on ads or affiliate links, it’s very true. But by creating alots of other niches, does it also mean I create those niches using the free way first like blogger? Free wordpress blog don’t allow any sort of affiliate link or ads so it’s out of the picture.
I seriously hope I can make some money online consistently by the end of this year. Grizz, do you think US100 per month by the end of this year is feasible?
I am also trying to go into ebay soon, trying to find out more. I found that I had a bad habit of reading other people’s blogs and find myself not doing anything about my own blogs and it’s already late in the night, so now I set my priority in doing up my own blogs first then read others.
Between, if I have 20 gmail accounts for 20 blogger accounts and 100 blogs per account, does this flagged google and banned me from blogger and my adsense account?
So sorry for the long post, I am a newbie and help is needed, thanks all for shedding me some light and pushing me along, thank you!
To you, YC too! Thanks so much!
Yours Sincerely To All
Houston23
February 12, 2008 2:51 AM
Houston23 said…
Hi YC,
Yes, I am from Singapore. I came from a very normal family trying to earn more for my love ones and my gf (as she live in a very very small flat) and trying to get her better doctor to improve her skin problems.
I had email you through your website, is there any other ways I can contact you, maybe MSN chat?
I will treat you for meals as my appreciation to you, that’s the most I can do now.
If you do have any mentorship (not expensive kind), I will subscribe to it.
Houston23
February 12, 2008 3:03 AM
Mike Pedersen Golf said…
Thanks Grizz! I have considered vacations sites for golf and have a sub-section on one of my existing sites, but didn’t know if I wanted to go after it on a separate site.
Glad to hear the 3 month time-frame as I think I am once again being impatient.
How do you know if you’ve been sandboxed. I bought a parked domain (golf) that was first page google for it’s main keyword. I launched a blog and pointed several of my good PR golf sites at it and now it’s gone from google.
Also, would it be possible to contact you via email for a couple of more private questions?
One of my many emails is mpfit@cox.net.
Thanks again for your time, and kudos on your adsense earnings.
February 12, 2008 6:29 AM
Frank C said…
Hi Griz – That’s amazing that 6 blogs make up the bulk of it. And thanks for the mention about OpTempo. It’s a good example of why a social ‘make money blogging’ blog doesn’t make any money. Only about 8% of its traffic is from Google.
@Houston23 – $100 a month isn’t that hard to do. It’s a matter of finding a niche that will make $3-5 a day once you’ve built up some links and search traffic. Non-technical hobby niches are good for this.
@Mike – I’ve seen some weird indexing stuff over the past few weeks. It seems like it’s taking a very long time to get indexed on most sites. Sites will disappear from SERPs and then reappear or I won’t see it in SERPs myself but yet I get Google hits. Weird.
February 12, 2008 8:23 AM
Houston23 said…
I don’t know if this works. But I will share with you guys.
I am thinking of combining Grizz’s tactics using blogger with technorati plus what if I do an extra step by submitting my blogger URL to directory submitters. I think it will give the blog an extra traffic through its not targeted but I believe some will click on the ads thou, just my 2 cents worth
Houston23
February 12, 2008 9:45 AM
Grizzly Brears said…
@ Philippines,
Please read my answer to Denise above re: what keywords I target.
I have said this “took” me a year to rank on page 1 for all the main “make money online” keywords – not that it would “take” me a year. If I had those powers I would be buying lottery tickets. lol.
I don’t use WordZe myself but have heard good things and if Court gives it a thumbs up that would be good enough for me. I use Keyword Elite and SEO Elite for most of my research. As far as linking goes the D-list is fine but I have found quicker ways to obtain more valuable links – it costs money though.
@Stephen,
hmmm… how about some photos of my dinner – fresh Pickerel from a hole in the ice out on the lake. Let’s see John Chow beat that!
Thanks for the Zoom.
@YC,
Hey that’s nice of you to take Houston under your wing – as I said to him, you can never have too many friends online.
@Houston,
I am biased towards Blogger but there is nothing wrong with self hosted wordpress blogs – just don’t use wordpress.com (the free platform). $100 per month is certainly doable – I have a lot of neglected blogs that bring in $2-$3 a day which all add up in the greater scheme of things.
I can’t help you with eBay though but I caution you not to open 100 blogs per Blogger account. Stick to 4-5 blogs for each one. You would get flagged long before reaching 100 blogs per account.
Good luck Houston
@Mike,
Oh you’ll know when you have been sandboxed – you will disappear from the index and none of your links will show up in webmaster tools among other things. Not to panic though – just keep posting quality content and collecting backlinks. Once G realizes you aren’t a spam site you will reappear running full speed ahead. It sounds like the Golf domain was hit but just wait it out and post normally to it.
I’ll look out for your email Mike – please send it.
@Frank,
Yup, I got very lucky finding one niche that has unreal traffic and still has no real competition – the few that existed I bought just to solidify my hold on it. Sadly these don’t come along often as I am still trying to find another bonanza – maybe it was a once in a lifetime thing like winning the lottery. The nice thing about the other 5 sites is that they prove persistence and patience will win out if you stick with it long enough.
OpTempo may not be a money maker at the moment but I can see you cashing in on it down the road – keep building your reader base and do like Court – advertisers love sites like yours once the base is there. They take one look at an adsense blog like this and run like hell – the fools. Lol.
Btw – you are right about Google – they are busy with changes again and I suspect it has to do with their plans to eliminate the supplemental index which they have said they were going to do. As usual with them – they cause havoc (without an explanation of course) and then things settle back down to normal again – we just have to ride it out.
@Houston,
That’s what I like to hear – experiment and then experiment some more. Let us know how it turns out.
February 12, 2008 4:50 PM
DJNttall said…
Grizz,
I guess I need to bone up on a few more niches.
Is there a specific number you look for in searches per month?
Denise
February 12, 2008 6:08 PM
Mike Pedersen Golf said…
Grizz,
I can’t send you an email as I don’t have your email…LOL. That’s why I posted mine “publicly” on your blog…LOL.
Mike
February 12, 2008 7:21 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Denise,
The standard answer would be to look for niches that have at least 1000 searches a day for the main keyword – preferably a lot more – and have decent CPC ads. A good adsense site should produce at least $50 a day – if I can’t make this I don’t spend a lot of time on them.
Having said that I have gone after keywords that don’t get a lot of searches but do have a decent CPC – this won’t make a lot of money but they are easy to dominate and you kind of set them and forget them. 25 blogs making $2 a day does add up but it’s a lot of work setting them up and getting them ranked in the beginning. They will require periodic posting to maintain your adsense. (you get the PSA ads if you stop posting after a while)
This is how I first got started with Adsense and it made some money but as I got a handle on things I realized I could make a lot of money going after the super competitive keywords that pay the big bucks. This has a lot longer time horizon until you see results but when you do it is worth all the work – there’s nothing better than seeing a blog pull in a hundred dollars a day or more while you put in a hard day on the Golf course!
February 12, 2008 7:33 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Mike,
Sorry about that… my email is kinda hidden right at the bottom of the page under the “Help” banner. Just click on the Grizzly link.
February 12, 2008 7:37 PM
mambo said…
Hi Griz
I discovered first hand how difficult it is to make money in the money niche. It’s my own fault for not doing any research – or finding your blog – before plunging into this niche.
The irony however is that, if I weren’t in this niche, I wouldn’t have found your blog and learnt all the amazing information here.
I hope to drive up PR for my existing money blogs and sell them after the next PR update and go the way of making many ugly niche sites.
I’m so tired of chasing PR and continuously trying to write good content.
cheers
mambo
February 12, 2008 8:42 PM
christine said…
Since I need a lot of backlinks with targeted text, would software that leaves comments on blogs or trackback submitting software work?
I printed out tons of your blog posts over the last 2 years and have been reading them. Would 3waylinks.net be one thing to stay away from? You said in one post that link exchange programs that put your link on a page with hundreds of others should be avoided. With 3waylinks you have one page on your site with links to a bunch of other sites in same general topic such as science. Is that something to stay away from?
Christine
February 12, 2008 9:10 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Mambo,
Thanks for the kind words.
The “make money online” niche is absolutely one of the worst niches to get into and yet I bet there are more blogs in this niche than any other. It’s crazy as I will wager there aren’t more than a dozen blogs out of millions (?) that make any meaningful money in this area.
Good luck flipping your sites and welcome to the world of ugly blogging. lol.
February 12, 2008 11:10 PM
James said…
Theres’ a lot of good things to read here, as well as on Vic’s and Courts blog.
I only have one question which I can’t answer myself. I currently can’t afford Keyword Elite or Wordze and I am stuck with Wordtracker. And there’s the problem – number of searches on Wordtracker doesn’t agree with WebCEO tool or Google Trends.
Is there a more reliable way to know what are people searching in Google, because getting ranked for something people don’t search for would be a lousy investment.
Thanks in advance, whoever responds to my question.
James
February 13, 2008 1:27 AM
Grizzly Brears said…
James,
I have found that all these tools are best used as estimates and none are completely accurate. Like stat counters you never get the same results from any two sources. The thing to keep in mind is that they will tell you which terms are searched for most even if the “number” of searches is not accurate. ie. The term “make money” is the top searched keyword in this niche regardless of whether it gets 18k a month or 35K a month.
Always combine the search results with the number of advertisers bidding on the term and what amount they are bidding if you are after adsense. For affiliate sales make sure there are products tailored to the particular keywords.
There are lots of terms that have high search numbers but little in the way of monetization – there were 60k searches for the term “How to” last month but how would you monetize this term? 428K for the term “news” but ranking on top for this will not make you a lot of money.
Ultimately keyword tools are just one part of the process in finding good niches – helpful to a point but monetization factors are far more important than just the raw search data.
February 13, 2008 8:37 AM
Houston23 said…
Grizz,
if I were to create 20 gmail account in one shot, will this action flagged G?
Thereafter i will create 5 blogs per gmail account on blogger to test for niches, does this action also flagged G?
Between what does PSA ads means?
Houston23
February 13, 2008 11:02 AM
James said…
Thanks for clearing that out Grizz. I am being careful that there’s good advertiser competition and that Google Adwords tool itself shows good search volume. So I am trying to find a keyword that shows good amount of search on all the tools I have.
I am just stunned to see many keywords being searched 1000 or even 2000 times a day by Wordtracker, while WebCEO and Google Trends show no search at all. That’s messed up and can lead you to build a website around a keyword that actually no one types in Google.
February 13, 2008 11:30 AM
edk said…
Hi Grizz,
Since I want to monetize my blog, what would consider to be a good combination or percentage of adsense ads and affiliate programs that I should use on one
blog? Would it be better to have blogs that use adsense and no affiliate promotion and another blog that is visa versa? Thanks.
EDK
February 13, 2008 4:14 PM
RT Cunningham said…
“The uglier I make the site the higher this percentage gets.”
Heh, the uglier I get, the more the chicks dig me.
Actually, I’ve been using a lot of your techniques (but not all). If people would quit stumbling, my site would be about 90 percent search traffic. That’s okay though because only search visitors see the ads.
February 14, 2008 11:08 AM
aravind said…
Hi Grizz,
i’m reading your blog from a few days and got inspired by your techniques and i created a blog and started posting unique content with specific keywords, how much time it may take for my blog to get onto the front pages.
February 14, 2008 1:15 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Houston,
I have never created 20 gmail accounts at one time so I don’t know… anyone else? You may be the test case Houston.
5 Blogs per account should be fine.
Public Service Ads.
February 14, 2008 3:00 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
James,
Always go by the Google Adwords tool when in doubt. Trying to get a consensus on all the tools is probably taking up more time than you need to spend.
February 14, 2008 3:03 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
edk,
Monetizing always depends on the niche and what options you have available. Experimenting is the key but as a rule of thumb I will try either Adsense or 1 affiliate product to start and then play around from there depending on the results. It’s never a good idea to give too many choices though – you want to funnel your traffic to either click ads or by products and this is hard to do if you have 10 different links on the page. Stick to one or two exit links – if they don’t produce then try a couple of different ones and keep repeating until you find some that convert well.
February 14, 2008 3:07 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
RT,
If ugly attracts the ladies I should have a harem… lol.
You are an exception with that kind of search traffic – well done. Are you converting it?
February 14, 2008 3:10 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
aravind,
That depends on how old you blog is, how much unique content you have and most importantly how well you produce keyword relevant anchor text in your backlinks and what keywords you are targeting. There are probably a few dozen other factors as well – start reading my blog as your question has taken 100 plus articles to answer and I’m still not done.
Sorry there is no quick answer to that one…
February 14, 2008 3:14 PM
almost17yrold said…
wow just found your website yesterday and I’ve learned a lot already. there’s alot of stuff to read and its way too much for me to absorb at once. I see a lot of potential in this money making thing but I still don’t know where to start, and I’m gettin a headache lol. not to mention my underage status keeps me from starting accounts on most if not all sites like adsense. good luck to me getting my mom to let me get accounts in her name and convincing her I’m not trying to do some crazy get rich quick scheme. but I could really use the money…*sigh*
February 14, 2008 10:24 PM
James said…
Thanks again Grizz, you cleared a lot to me. Now I can be on my way.
Have a good day,
James
February 15, 2008 1:17 AM
Michael said…
Hi Grizz,
In one of your reply in the comments, you have mentioned that you average $.50 a click for the make money ads and $1.50 a click for the payday loan ads..
How did you track your adsense earning for different keywords?
February 15, 2008 2:17 AM
aravind said…
hi Griz,
i got my site indexed in google and i was able see on google search when i searched for my url. but now after a week i’m not able see it again like dat. i used only unique content. what may be the reason
February 15, 2008 5:58 AM
aravind said…
is it necessary that we have to change the content before we submit it for article sites like goartilces. because it seems to be like big time taking process………………sorry for asking tooo many question i’m just curious about this thing.
February 15, 2008 6:09 AM
Mike Pedersen Golf said…
Grizz,
Did I do something to piss you off? I sent you an email, then have make a couple of comments that you have not approved or responded to. I’m a bit confused.
Mike
February 15, 2008 6:28 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Mike,
Apparently you have not received my email – I have been having troubles sending emails lately but thought I had fixed it. Have you got a mybloglog profile – I’ll paste it in a private message on there or send me your skype – I am receiving yours fine.
February 15, 2008 6:36 PM
aravind said…
hi Griz,
i got my site indexed in google and i was able see on google search when i searched for my url. but now after a week i’m not able see it again like dat. i used only unique content. what may be the reason.
is it necessary that we have to change the content before we submit it for article sites like goartilces. because it seems to be like big time taking process………………sorry for asking tooo many question i’m just curious about this thing.
please respond…………
February 15, 2008 9:47 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Aravind,
It’s never a good idea to use duplicate content – take the time to rewrite your articles before posting to an article directory like GoArticles.
As to why you were listed and disappeared I need more info…
How old is the blog?
What’s the URL?
What keywords are you targeting?
Get back to me and I will look into it further. It’s possible if your blog is new that you have been sandboxed and will just have to wait it out until Google let’s you out.
February 15, 2008 10:01 PM
aravind said…
Hi Griz,
http://www.make-money-online-blogs.blogspot.com/. this is my url and i’m targeting keyword make money using blogs………………………..i know that you are the first one under that keyword.
February 16, 2008 6:15 AM
Grizzly Brears said…
Aravind,
You are indexed, just run a site: listing for your url on Google.
site:http://www.make-money-online-blogs.blogspot.com/
As you don’t have a lot of content yet and only a handful of backlinks you are not in the top 1000 pages of the serp’s. This is a very competitive niche and you will need a lot of content and tons of optimized backlinks before you see any results in the serp’s. I have said this frequently – the make money online niche is not a good idea for beginners but the choice is yours. Personally I would pick a much easier niche to start out with.
Good luck Aravind.
February 16, 2008 6:48 AM
almost17yearold said…
ok, I have a question. assuming I try to start blogging now and my adsense/yahoo/any other advertising accounts are in someone else’s name (my parent in this case), am I able to just change the name on it later on? or would I have to manually change the code, in all 5 gajillion websites I may have set up by then, to a new account?
February 16, 2008 1:45 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Almost 17,
You won’t be able to change the payee name once you sign up with Adsense so make sure you use the name you want right from day 1. I don’t use yahoo but other ad accounts vary depending on their TOS.
5 Gajillion? I’ve forgotten how ambitious I was at 17 – enjoy it now…
February 16, 2008 3:44 PM
aravind said…
i’m also workin on some easy niches parllely……………………as you said google will prefer old sites……………so if i create my site now and start posting it will become old enough atleast after an year so that it may get indexed in front pages.
February 16, 2008 5:04 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Aravind,
Grasshopper learns fast – you have a future in this.
February 16, 2008 5:16 PM
aravind said…
Hi Griz,
I read your blog and started following your tips to make money online……………..many of my blogs are now indexed on google…………..i’m workin on unique content and tryin for front pages……………..but it may take take time to start getting traffic for my blogs…………..so till then can you give some tips about small online jobs like data entry or any other things through which i can pay my internet bills to continue my work on blogs.
February 18, 2008 8:46 AM
Grizzly Brears said…
Aravind,
If you live in the US or Canada you can make a few bucks with project payday. As far as other online jobs go I am not the one to ask as I haven’t looked into stuff like that in years. May I suggest you talk to Monika at thewritersmanifesto.com as she may have a few ideas. She makes a decent buck writing for others online.
Perhaps you will get some ideas from some of my readers (don’t start spamming me with links people – grrrr, just suggestions on legit jobs.) or check out a few forums related to work at home, data entry etc.
Sorry I can’t be of more help Aravind.
February 18, 2008 10:13 AM
christine said…
What do you think of programs like 3waylinks.net? One page on your site has links to many other related sites, but not really in niche. The links only stay as long as you are in the $50/month program. I’m thinking it’s probably not the way to go.
I see people trying trackback spamming. Does that really work?
Christine
February 18, 2008 10:19 AM
Grizzly Brears said…
Hi Christine,
3waylinks is not the best system out there. I prefer backlink solutions as your links are all one way and stay forever whether you remain a member or not. It is $100 bucks a month though so be sure you can make back the expense – serious marketers only. (as opposed to those just getting their feet wet.)
Stay clear of trackback spamming – this is black hat, requires a bit of tech knowledge and ultimately produces poor quality links – never mind that it will get people pissed at you. Save your money and use do-follow blogs if you want to go that route – same crappy links without all the fuss. I say crappy links but any link is still better than no link.
February 18, 2008 10:29 AM
Scott said…
Griz-
Great content. I am a newbie to Niche marketing, but not blogging.
Because you are going to be blogging a lot on each niche at first, do you need to pick a topic/niche that you are familiar or knowledgeable about? If so, how much?
Could you write about nuclear medicine for example (assuming there were adwords for it)?
February 18, 2008 8:37 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Scott,
The easiest niches to write about are obviously things you know a lot about but this has not stopped me from creating all sorts of niches that I am truly dumb as a post in.
I just gleen info from all the top sites in each niche – re-write the info my way and bingo – I am an expert. Remember if you do things right you will never develop readers – just search traffic that you want clicking ads or buying products. If you start getting comments then you are not doing things correctly and need to dumb things down a bit.
The idea is to present readers with just enough info that doesn’t answer their questions – the adsense or product is there for that.
February 19, 2008 6:09 AM
Earning money with adsense said…
Great way to earn some money from a blog or website
February 22, 2008 1:55 AM
Adventures In Money Making said…
Hi Grizzly
thanks for the great info.
I’m not getting much revenue from http://livingoffdividends.com
its currently around $9/day, more if i promote it(Stumble, etc).
also http://wealthbuildinglessons.com isn’t doing too well.
any ideas on how to increase the adsense revenue?
February 22, 2008 1:38 PM
Adventures In Money Making said…
Also, do you know if the video blogs make any money.
I posted on Digital point forums and no replied, so either they suck, or they make a killing and no ones talking!
February 22, 2008 1:39 PM
Grizzly Brears said…
Adventures,
I will be talking about how to increase adsense revenue in my upcoming posts – please follow along.
I have yet to make any decent cash from Videos – I haven’t put much effort into it though so it’s possible others are making this work. I am definitely not an expert in this field.
February 23, 2008 8:48 AM
Business Opportunities Guru said…
Very impressive stats you have on this site. SEO is crucial to making Adsense earnings, because you just have to get to the top of the SERPS, or you aren’t going to make enough to get by on. I have also done quite a bit of work and a whole lot more research in the SEO arena, which coincidently has increased my Adsense earnings three fold over the last year. I would like to mention that for those of you just starting out, you may not want to try and tackle such a populated niche like make money online, until you are comfortable with your abilities and have a good foundation in place.
March 12, 2008 11:44 AM
yusuf said…
Your ideas and suggestions are valuable. I am also running a website www.medianowonline.com and earning good money from it. Thanks to my God Google.
April 09, 2008 1:16 AM
Travis said…
I’m curious, do you use Blogger for all your stuff or do you actually have web hosting for some of your sites? I’m guessing having that many sites would be easier to maintain through a centralized host… and if you’re using hosting which is your favorite?
April 10, 2008 1:22 PM
Make Money Online said…
Hey!
Your blog is truly lovely!Thanks for the suggestive post it has helped me a lot.
April 17, 2008 4:22 AM
acf said…
Optimize for multiple keywords… thats something I need to work on.
thanks
May 25, 2008 7:57 PM
roger said…
Grizz,
I am yet to place adsense on my site. This is giving me good ideas.
I have to follow this and the wordpress blog. double learning experience. thanks.
July 21, 2008 5:11 PM
roger said…
Grizz,
long question, please bear with me.
1. you suggest a niche with more than 1000 searches/ day and goal is $50/day. Then you also mentioned blog making $2/day and create 25 of those, and make $50 /day. Your system of writing a big post and targeting each long tail and eventually all those will improve authority for your main keyword.
Court ( now removed) wrote about Keyword sniping and has Colorado lasik surgery guide site based on that concept. He just focusses on one keyword and builds the site around it.
For beginners or advanced which route is better. I feel start with court concept and move to your method as you gain experience. But not sure, I am thinking right. I seek your guidance in this.
thanks.
September 11, 2008 9:51 AM
Making Money For Life said…
Hi Griz,
What a great article you wrote. I am very impressed on how you are on top of the “making money online” niche. I know a lot of time you must of put into ranking high with such competitive keywords. Great job!
So you think you will be on page #1 soon of Google for “make money”. Well best of luck.
One question for you, I know I was on Steve Pavlina’s blog the other day and he talked about commenting on blogs. He actually turns them off now and doesn’t allow people to comment. He says it doesn’t increase traffic and I kinda disagree with that. With people commenting on your blogs it also increases your content level and updates your blog in which Google loves to see. So I’m not sure his reasoning on this one.
What are your thoughts on this? I strongly believe that allowing commenting increases not only the free traffic from search engines with new content but also increases your earnings with Adsense. What do you think?
I know I just created a website in the works instead of a blog www.MakingMoneyForLife.com which I’m wondering if I would have a better chance in search engine rankings if I went the blog route instead. Reason why I went this way is that I own it and not Google because that is something that worries me is that they can get rid of the Blogger service anytime they want just like the referrals on Adsense they recently got rid of. At least this way I have more control. Do I think this will happen, I doubt it as Google would loose a ton from Adword advertisers as there are so many blogs on the Internet today making money with Adsense.
What’s your thoughts?
Sincerely,
Jamie Boyle
Internet Marketer
Making Money For Life
September 12, 2008 2:24 AM
KuleKat said…
In answer to Jamie’s question… Steve Pavlina has comments disabled because it forces anyone who wants to comment to do so via a link back to his posts. As a model for making money I wouldn’t bother emulating him – his readership is just that; people who actually read his stuff. It is also enormous so even a miniscule CTR is going to make money, but it’s not a very efficient way of going about things.
I guess it comes down to a perfectly valid choice between additional content/company versus (hopefully) backlinks. Where I take issue with Mr Pavlina though is his fondness for promoting the epically bogus “Law of Attraction” as a route to wealth. He is either a cynic exploiting the gullible or he actually believes this drivel – either way not someone I would take seriously.
If you’re at all interested, click on the link in my name (takes you to: http://www.kulekat.com/articles/wealth-and-success/how-not-to-make-money-attract-it.html)
October 03, 2008 5:59 AM
Hair Growth Products said…
Hi Grizz,
Just wanted to drop a thank-you for all this wicked info. Also I’ve e-mailed you a couple of times regarding the private forum, just wondering if there was any word. Thanks again.
November 17, 2008 7:02 PM
I make money online said…
“Nice post. I am also chasing the “make money online” top spots and believe it or not I have already been ranked for earn money online even though my blog is only a month old.”
I find this hard to believe, but I will take your word for it. I too am chasing the magic words “make money online” but my market is in Australia so Ihave a much better chance.
Grizzly, love your blog mate
December 03, 2008 12:14 AM
Someone said…
im gonna print this, this article is awesome, thx grizzly
January 19, 2009 1:53 AM
Wayne said…
Awesome blog Grizzly, I think I’ll be visiting more often. Cheers!
February 10, 2009 10:56 AM
Margaret said…
Hi Grizzly and thank you for your blog.
I hope you can help me with something I am totally confused with. 1. If you make comments on other people’s blogs, how do you get a link back to your site that has anchor text in it if you can’t control what they comment about. 2. When building a blog on blogger: you name your blog putting keywords in it that you want to rank for. When you write your second entry, do you have to keep using the same keywords or can you change the title completely and put in new keywords? For example, I have a blog: http://culinaryartscollegesite.blogspot.com/ I have always read that you need to keep the keywords in your blog. . . what does that mean? If I want to write about “best culinary arts colleges in PA” for my next entry, don’t those words become my next set of keywords? Do I always have to have the words “culinary arts college” in each of my posts? 3. You also refer to putting a bunch of different keywords in your blog. If your title only has the above keywords, what do you mean by a bunch of other keywords. Sorry but I am new at this and I just don’t understand. I was able to get my website for this blog on page one of google for the past two years but this blog isn’t going anywhere and I’m not sure why. Thanks so much!
February 16, 2009 9:53 AM
TriNi said…
Wow… amazing blog!
Thanks for the post, cleared up alot of things for me. Thanks for putting it in “speak to me like I’m dumb” language too.. I’m so tired of all the professional talk. I never understand a word of it!
Great work.. keep it up.
March 09, 2009 1:28 AM
Sara said…
Hi Griz
great job :- )
this is the first time I visit your blog
you are very engaging and have amazing tips for making money
totally agree that “the wisdom is about attracting readers – not making money”
the most just focus on making money without paying attention to who will make him gain that money
keep up the good work