Make the Most Money with Google AdSense and Niche Websites
Making money with Google AdSense can be an excellent source of income for your site. I tested a generic site using Google AdSense and a niche site to determine which is more profitable.
The benefits of implementing Google AdSense is the fact that it is:
- easy to sign up,
- does not require a minimum amount of traffic
to your site, - you can place multiple advertising units on the same page, and
- you can begin earning quickly and effortlessly.
Many factors can determine how much you earn, such as:
- placement of the ads on your site and pages,
- average revenue per click, and
- relevance of the advertisement to your content and to your visitor
The average revenue per click depends on two main items, your content and the associated ads. If your site is focused on life insurance and another site is focused on cellular phones, then the ads placed on the sites will reflect life insurance and cellular phones respectively. Google matches your content with their advertisements. You can only attempt to control the type ads on a page with the content on the page. Therefore the ads will match your subject matter.
The average revenue per click will depend on the worth of the keywords that are being bid on by advertisers. How words obtain different prices from advertisers depends on multiple factors and is a subject for another story. Typically if those selling life insurance products and services make more per sale (assuming equal click through and conversion rates) than those selling mobile phones then the site with life insurance content will make more revenue per click.
Test of Generic and Niche Site Content Revenue
I created a site due to my passion for Venture Capital and those that are funded, called Venture Capital Update and implemented Google AdSense. This is a niche site focused on Venture Capital fundings, Venture Capital firms, and entrepreneurs.
This site Longest.com is more of a generic site. While the focus is on learning what does and does not work in the realm of making money online, the stories and subjects can vary greatly.
Here are the results after 2 months of running Google AdSense on both sites.
- .68% Click Thru Rate
- $2.83 eCPM
- .17% Click Thru Rate
- $.36 eCPM
The implementation of Google AdSense was as close to exact on both sites as possible. The eCPM is an effective cost per thousand, meaning for every 1,000 pages the ads appeared on that is the amount earned on average. Above you can see that the click thru rate was better on the Venture Captital Update site and the earnings per page denoted by eCPM were also higher. The earnings per page are a factor of both the price bid on keywords that match your pages content as well as the click thru rate, the more that click per 1,000 pages the more revenue you will earn.
The conlusion here is twofold, the higher click thru rates denote advertisements were more targeted to the content and site visitor on the niche site of Venture Capital Update. It may also be the case that the keyword prices that were bid on related to the niche site were higher as well. As this test is not perfect, it was over a period of 2 months and the difference in revenue was large as the niche site earned much more. If you wish to optimize your Google AdSense earnings I suggest you create a niche site as I did for Venture Capital.
Click below to sign up with Google AdSense:
Comment by Gustav on 23 December 2007 :
The link is wrong, is for google adwords instead of adsense.
Cheers
Comment by Brian on 23 December 2007 :
Thanks Gustav, the link has been corrected. Good catch!
Twitter: www.onlinemeetingblog.com
Comment by Making Money With Google Adsense on 24 December 2007 :
Yes, With Google Adsense a webmaster can earn money by adding the Google Adsense code to their websites and blogs. But we cannot predict how much we can earn from clicks, as it depends on how much the advertisers pay per click for Google Adwords.
Comment by Make Money Blogging on 25 December 2007 :
I think we must use affiliate programs more than adsense…. it gives you more ROI… if you choose the right program.
Comment by Brian on 26 December 2007 :
Very true that you cannot predict how much someone will pay per click on Google AdwWords. However you can look within AdWords and determine which key words have the highest bid rates. It will give you an idea of which subject matter you may want to focus on if you only cared to generate the largest ROI per page. The above comparison was to show that a generic site may not have effectively targeted adverisements as it is too difficult for their algorithm to determine what ads to show. This is shown in a low click thru rate. All things being equal the lower click thru would tend to imply that the ad was not matched well with the content and therefore not the right ad to the right person at the right time. Regarding price, that is only helpful if you are deciding which type of content to focus on for a site or article.
I also agree that affiliate programs, if chosen wisely, can generate a more substantial ROI. The beauty of Google AdSense is that it can be implemented effortlessly and quickly. Once you have it installed I highly recommend trying various affiliate programs until you can find one that converts effectively for your site and subject matter.
Twitter: www.onlinemeetingblog.com
Comment by Jo Mark - The Make Money Every Day Expert! on 8 January 2008 :
Great post. Good info on the niche site vs the generic. Thanks for the info!
Comment by Paulymath.com on 30 June 2010 :
Things are changing though, no?
Meaning I heard AdSEnse is now using Browsing history as a big indicator of what ads to show, and not just what the site is about.
If so, there won't be as big a need to make niche sites anymore.
-Paul
My recent post Better Blog SEO – Proper Category and Tag Structure