These illusions are quickly shattered when they see their Adsense accounts with .05 and .20 cents per click and a CTR of 1%. It doesn’t take the newbie blogger long to realize that their dream of living of off Adsense income isn’t a reality.

Is Adsense Still a Good Choice For Monetizing Blogs?

The quick and easy answer is Yes and No. In order for Adsense to be a viable option to monetize a blog, you need large amounts of traffic. And not any old traffic will work!

Many bloggers love to talk about Social Media and they spend a good amount of time writing articles and submitting them to the popular Social Networks like Digg and StumbleUpon in order to bring the masses of Social Networkers to their site. While this may increase traffic to a blog, it rarely translates into clicks on their Adsense ads.

Why Social Traffic Isn’t Good For Adsense

If you’re one of these bloggers who’s chasing traffic from Social sites and still wondering why your Adsense account is empty, listen up, I’m fixing to let you in on a little secret.

Social traffic doesn’t convert for squat. Of course, you already knew that didn’t you!

Why?

Because people who use the Social networks are pretty ‘Net savvy and they don’t click ads. They read blogs more for entertainment purposes than they do for the informational value. Sure, they may read a post about whether or not Adsense is still a good choice for monetizing blogs, but if there’s an Ad block on how to monetize a blog with Adsense next to the post, they aren’t likely to click on it.

Another reason Adsense is a poor choice for Social blogs is because the Click Through Rate (CTR) will be in the dumps. This will cause  your Adsense ads to be Smart Priced.

This is how it works. Google Adsense works of off the principle that a targeted Internet searcher is more valuable to the advertisers than a browser just clicking around the Internet.

So when your Social Network browser comes to your site, Google does not consider this a targeted user. If the advertiser is paying $2 per click, and a Social Network user comes to your Social blog about making money on the Internet and actually does click on a Adsense ad, you’ll receive a lower per click price than if that user had went to Google and typed in “how to make money online” and came to your blog and clicked an Adsense ad about ‘how to make money online’. Google considers this targeted traffic and will pay you the most for this type of Internet users. 

Why Organic Traffic Pays Off With Adsense

Stop and think about this one for a minute.  When an Internet user is searching for some knowledge, they want it and they want it yesterday! Many of us will not stop searching the Internet until we find the useful information we need. We’ll click on this or that, we’re frantic searchers and we need that information!

Let’s say you’re bills are piling up because gas is at $4 a gallon and food prices are skyrocketing. You need some debt relief. So you go on over to Google and type in ‘debt relief’. You then click on the first result that promises you quick and painless debt relief. After you browse the site for a few minutes, you realize this site can not answer your questions and you’ll have to go elsewhere. There’s an Adsense ad block to the upper left with an add about instant debt relief. Hmmm, that’s just what you need right now, instant debt relief.

What do you do?

Click the Adsense ad promising instant debt relief or hit the back button a half dozen times to get back to the Google SERPS page?

Yeah, me too. I’ll hit the Adsense link every time if it will lead me to what I’m looking for.

And you know what?

The Webmaster or blog owner gets the maximum payout for your click because you found his site by searching for the term ‘debt relief’.

If I had gone to his site looking for ‘Ways To Make Money Online”and then clicked the same ad, chances are good he would not have received the maximum payout for that click. That’s why you’ll see some of your Adsense ads paying out .20 cents for one click and the next it gives you $2. It’s all about how the Internet user got to your site.

So What Type Of Blogs Are Best For Adsense?

It’s not really what type of blog is best for Adsense, the question should be “What type of traffic is best for Adsense?”

And that question is an easy one to answer. It’s organic search traffic. Plain and simple.

Now having said that, you’ll see that many of the so called Social media blogs do not rank well for anything of value.

Ever see John Chow or some of the other popular social bloggers rank in the top 10 for terms like “how to make money with Adsense?”No, you don’t. That’s one of the biggest reasons you don’t see Adsense on their sites. They can’t bring in the organic search traffic they need to convert browsers into ad clickers and their social traffic sure as hell won’t click the ads. So they end up with a crappy CTR and get Smart Priced. The few clicks they do get, Adsense pays out a few cents here and there. Then the Social bloggers will proclaim to the masses about how Adsense doesn’t work any longer!

Adsense Can Be a Steady Income Producer For Blogs and Websites That Pull In Organic Traffic

This is the real secret to Adsense and how to make it pay the most for every click. If you have a blog or website that ranks well for a number of keywords and your pages are optimized to bring in targeted search traffic, you’ll do well with Adsense.

Your blog doesn’t have to be a custom made WordPress blog nor does it have to be fancy. In fact, you can start with one of these Adsense optimized themes. It does have to be SEO optimized with lots of backlinks to rank well for your keywords.

Forget about the Social traffic and getting your post Dugg and Stumbled. Sure, it’s nice to see all that traffic, but why bother when you know it’s not going to convert plus it’s going to ruin your CTR. And to top it off, it will get you Smart Priced with Google Adsense.

Go after the money. And in this case, the money is in ranking well for your keywords and driving crowds of targeted organic search traffic to your blog or website.

Your blog or website should cover one subject, such as ‘debt relief’. Don’t try to make a blog or website cover everything under the sun. Each page of your website should have an article or post covering one keyword.

For example, if you had a blog over the main keyword of ‘debt relief’, then you’d probably want your interior pages targeting keywords such as ‘bankruptcy’, ‘debt consolidation’, ‘how to pay off your bills early’ or ‘debt consolidation loans’.

While you’re at it, make sure your blog or website is optimized for Adsense. Don’t cover every page in Adsense ads. The top paying ad block is normally a 350 block at the top. You might also want a Tower block in the sidebar, but that’s where I’d stop.

In the past, I put those little Adsense link blocks on my sites, but have always done poorly with them. I’d rather someone click on one of the Adsense ads in the body so I’ll make more money per click. That’s why I’ve started putting only two Adsense ads on my content sites. More ads normally dilute your per click payout.

To wrap this up, if you want to make money with Adsense, forget about those cool social blogs, go with a keyword targeted blog or website. SEO optimize it, build backlinks to make it rank well for your chosen keywords and then sit back and watch the Adsense money roll in. You can still monetize a blog with AdSense, you just have to go about it wisely.

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Update to the Update! Currently I can not recommend the Build A Niche Store program to my readers. Here’s why. Google has been deindexing many BANS sites, mine included. They apparently do not like the fact that this is a script that auto generates web pages with affiliate links on them (the ebay ads). However, Yahoo and Bing seem to still be ranking these sites and I’m still making money with them, but not near as much as I was when they were indexed in the top pages of Google.

If you’re looking for a legitimate way to create an eBay store where you can sell real products, I recommend Pro Stores. Currently they’re giving a free month trial for you to try it out. Use this link for your free trial – One Month Free Trial! ProStores – an eBay Company

Since I wrote the Build A Niche Store Review, I’ve had quite a few emails asking me to give everyone an update on how my Build A Niche Store‘s are doing, what techniques are working, which one’s aren’t, etc. I can say that the Build A Niche Store is still working for me, but a few of my sites have cooled off.

Currently I have 19 Build A Niche Store sites. These sites range from 11 pages up to over 40 pages. It all depends on the niche and how many categories ebay has for them.

Some of the first stores I built have dropped a little in the rankings as I’ve slowed down adding new content to them during December and January.

Last month my best performing Build A Niche Store did over $150 in commissions while the least performing store did just over $15. Sadly, this poor performer was a store I thought would be a great niche, but as it turns out, it’s a very competitive craft niche. This means I’m going to have to work very hard at building quality backlinks to this store to get it boosted in the rankings.

I didn’t follow my own advice when choosing this niche. It just “came to me” one night and I quickly looked up how many searches were being done for this particular niche and thought “Geez, this would make a great Build A Niche Store site.” The problem is, had I researched it a little further I would have found that the Niche has a lot of freebie websites out there giving away many of the same craft products I’m trying to sell on my BANS site plus many of these sites were built back in the late 90′s and early 2000′s by hobby Webmasters. This means they have their age working for them not to mention hundreds of old backlinks pointing toward them. DO YOUR RESEARCH!

On a very happy note, a few nights ago one of my sites turned in a $84 commission on one sale! That’s the best commission I’ve ever received from any of my Build A Niche Store sites.

Ways I’m Promoting My Build A Niche Store Sites

I’m promoting my Build A Niche Store sites just like I have any other website that I’ve owned or worked on. I’m building links slowly so they look natural. I’m using all of the Social Networking sites plus participating in forums that relate to the BANS sites I have.

One of the most effective techniques that I’ve used is buying advertising on other sites. You know the old adage of “It takes money to make money?” Well, I’m here to tell you that it works for BANS sites just as well. I’ve bought banner ads on several forums and other sites relevant to several of my Build A Niche Store sites.

I haven’t done much promoting through PPC. Most of the paid traffic has come through advertising on other sites.

Article Marketing is by far and away my best FREE* advertising to date. If you’re not using a service like Article Marketer to submit your articles to hundreds of places on the Internet, then you’re leaving a lot of traffic on the table.

It’s so damn funny to hear “Guru’s” say article marketing is dead and does not work any longer. Good for them, it means that there’s a tad bit less competition out there! Meanwhile my BANS sites are gaining backlinks and traffic!

*I say “FREE” because you can submit your articles to many directories manually for free. I prefer to pay a few bucks to Article Marketer and automate the process by sending one article to hundreds of places. You gotta work smart!

I’ve also went to DigitalPoint forums and paid someone to manually submit some of my BANS stores to Internet Directories. This has resulted in some nice backlinks as well. Eventually I’ll have all my stores in the free directories then I’ll start focusing on using some paid directories for more authority backlinks.

As I stated above, some of the Social Networking sites are sending good traffic to my sites. You’ll be surprised at how many old ladies use StumbleUpon!

Future Plans For My Build A Niche Store’s

Honestly I believe that I’m building stores faster than I can promote them properly. That’s okay because I can always come back and work on them later. There’s no problem in letting these stores sit and age for a while.

Speaking of aging, I’ve began buying expired domains and just uploading a BANS site to them, changing the colors and adding a header graphic and letting them sit until I can get back to promoting them and SEO’ing the pages. This is working damn good actually! If you have any domains parked somewhere, bring them out of moth balls and add a BANS site to them.

What Hasn’t Worked So Well On My BANS Sites

Unfortunately, Adsense has really sucked on these sites. While some have spikes in CTR, most of the CTR’s are lower than 3%. When your CTR starts averaging less than 3%, it can pull down all your Adsense sites due to Smart Pricing.

I’ve actually started pulling Adsense off of many of my Build A Niche Store sites. Now I do have to tell you that all my Adsense ads are at the lower left sidebar. This is a poor place to put Adsense on any site, so I’m not blaming Adsense entirely.

The reason that they are there is because I also use either affiliate programs and/or Clickbank products on the right side. These have been a big boost to the overall income of my BANS sites. They pay a helluva lot more than Adsense. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that Adsense ads on a BANS site is a poor move.

If you just have to have some type of pay per click advertising, check out these Adsense alternatives.

Build A Niche Store Project Summary

Okay, while most of my sites aren’t doing as well as I hoped (don’t we all have high hopes for our websites?), at the end of the day they’re still making money. They’re paying for their domains and hosting and some are doing much, much better than that. I have a few niche’s that aren’t paying off as I’d hoped. Having said that, I have some small Niches I thought would be ugly ducklings turn out to be beautiful cash generating Princesses!

Some of the first stores I built will be coming out of the Sandbox in the next month or so. So be watching for an update as my older sites start kicking SERP tail.

Also, I’ve had some really nice surprises with the PHPBay wordpress plugin. I’ll give you an update on that in the next day or so.

Don’t Forget The Special Report Bonus

The Special Report “How To Maximize Profits With Ebay Affiliate Programs” is still being offered when buying your BANS program through this site. Read my Build A Niche Store Review for the details. It has many more techniques and tactics for building profitable BANS sites.

If you haven’t looked over the features of the Build A Niche Store program, click here to see them now.

Build A Niche Store – Update

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Many of the blogs that I visited had removed the MyBlogLog widget. So then I logged into MyBlogLog account and noticed that there were fewer subscribers to some of the communities and my own community had shrunk.

In fact, when I looked at the top 10 A-list bloggers, I noticed only 1 had the MyBlogLog widget on their site.

What Has Caused the Exodus of MyBlogLog Subscribers?

So I started doing a little research into why this was happening.

I read old reviews about the acquisition of MyBlogLog by Yahoo and really found nothing.

Now I knew that some bloggers have had a problem with MyBlogLog from the beginning when it was reported that their widget was reading and possibly recording traffic to the blogs that used their widget. It was even reported that this widget would read and log clicks to Adsense. Needless to say, this didn’t set well with a lot of people.

Even with those reports though, many bloggers were adding the MyBlogLog widget to their blogs in huge numbers.

It wasn’t until I started reading post on other blogs about Yahoo requiring a MyYahoo account to login to MyBlogLog that I started seeing a lot of discontent. Obviously many MyBlogLog users refused to make the changeover and decided to leave rather than be forced to open a Yahoo account.

Why would Yahoo make this move?  Surely they knew it would drive away subscribers?

Life After The Yahoo Acquisition

Personally, I don’t like the move either. I have multiple MyBlogAccounts and Yahoo accounts. When I go blog browsing, I have one MyBlogLog account I use. However, sometimes another profile will pop up on the blogs MyBlogLog widget. This doesn’t set well with me.

I’m not sure what Yahoo’s plan is for MyBlogLog is. From where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like a good fit for Yahoo. I believe their move of requiring a Yahoo account to login proves this.

So what’s in store for MyBlogLog? I don’t know honestly. I don’t use MyBlogLog as much as I did previously. It also seems to have become very spammy.

I’ll continue to show the widget in the short term, but I’m wanting to see some advantages of using it.

What experiences have you had with MyBlogLog? Do you still use the widget? Share your experiences with the rest of us by dropping a comment.

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