Change One At A Time

Now that I have left things alone long enough to see a pattern on my earnings, I went to one of my website pages and made some changes to see if I could improve my earnings.

I had the 'Two banner ad' just below my home page title block. The ads looked like ads even though I configured it to blend in with the page. No borders, same background and the same link and text color as everything else on the page.

I removed it and replaced it with a 'link unit'. The results were a pleasant surprise. The revenue increased by just under 200%.

I think it is important to point out here that when making a change, only make one
change at a time and allow time to see the results. If you make 2 or more changes, you won't know what caused the change if any. It may be that one change helps and another hinders, so you see no change.

Get $250 for Referrals

Google's new, revamped AdSense referral program is well worth taking another look.

It used to be that you received $100 if a publisher you introduced to AdSense earned $100 in ad revenues. This can take a while for publishers who are just getting started if they aren't using some of the strategies that I use but are not readily available. This old referral program left a lot of referrers waiting a long time for their commissions.

Under the new system though, as soon as your referral makes $5, you get $5 right away. As soon as this referral makes $100, Google will pay you an additional $250.

That's a huge difference. It's big enough for you to give those referral spots on your page another chance.

Going from $2.30 to $102.00

In the first 6 weeks that I started to pay attention to my Google AdSense account, I started to make money. The first thing I did was to read some eBooks on the subject. Five of them actually. They all had something to offer so I focused on the common threads between them.

The first thing I got out of my reading was that you MUST have good content. I had good content so what was the next common thread between all the eBooks I read. Ad Placement.

The placement of the ads is critical. My ads were at the bottom of the page because I didn't want the ads to distract from my content. Actually, there is a hierarchy of preferred spots on a page for ads and the bottom of the page is at the bottom of the list. Go figure.

My idea of ads distracting from the content of the page was also misguided. The ads actually provide a very good service to my visitors because Google has a way of targeting the ads displayed to be in line with the content of the page. In other words, the ads displayed actually pertain to the content on my page. this is a good thing for the visitors so they are more likely to click on the ads.

The second thing I did was to blend the ads. What I mean is that the ads I had originally placed on my page were contrasting in color and border color. I figured that would make them stand out and draw attention so they would get clicked on.

On the contrary, I found out that the tendency is to block out or ignore the things that look like advertising. The idea is to blend the ads so they look like part of your website. This is not deceptive as I originally thought. Since the ads actually pertain to the content of the page, it is a good thing for your visitors.

Just by implementing those two simple changes on all the pages (about 8 in all) I was able to go from $2.30 to $102.00 in the first 6 weeks.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, there was Google.

What I'm saying is that Google and it's AdSense program is the first to get me excited about the possibility of making a good passive income online.

I actually signed up for the program about 2 years ago. I figured it would make me lots of money while I slept. That was the hype anyway. What actually happened was this. I forgot all about it. When I took a look 2 years later, I had a whopping $2.30. That's right two dollars and thirty cents.

So what was the problem? What went wrong? Well, the problem was that I did nothing and that is just what I got out of it.

My interest was rekindled by all the email ads I was getting from my marketing friends. I decided to take another look. I'm glad I did.

Next time I'll tell you how instead of doing nothing, I did very little and I got my first check from Google for $102.00.