I am getting a search volume of about 18K queries. Keep in mind this is data gained over the past 12 months. Now take a look at the new Google released search volume data. Goto https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and enter the keyword seo… here is the results I got.

Notice the difference? Google gets 1.2 million search queries for a keyword Yahoo is only getting 20K for… that is absolutely amazing. I have seen this over and over in my rankings on Google and Yahoo… I can get 500 hits for one keyword on Google and Yahoo will send only a couple hits in a whole month.

Now that I have shown you the difference in the search volume between Google and Yahoo let me show you what this tool can really do. Okay lets start off by doing some keyword research for a laptop bag supplier which specializes in leather bags. So that appears to be our main keyword.
So lets enter that into the tool and get some suggestions.

Right away I find two additional keywords worth targeting…

leather computer bags and
leather laptop cases

In june the first keyword received 9,900 queries in Google and it averages 14,800. If you click the “Choose columns to display” dropdown menu and click “show search volume trends” it will show a graph depicting the trends… unfortunately and this is something I hope Google will rectify soon, but currently it only gives a graph bar for the trends when IMO mouseover should give a numeric value for each month depicted in the trends graph… but I can live without that for now.

What I do like about the current situation of the tool is it gives you the previous months search volume and the trend data and also the average data… this helps you to eliminate keywords which might have had a temporary spike in search volume in one month which you will likely not see again for some time. This is very important to me… another thing that I really like about this tool which really should be in ANY keyword tool is the ability to sort results by search volume or keyword in alphabetical order. But using this tool to find high traffic keywords and then comparing trend data will be highly useful to me in the coming months. I know I will be using this tool all the time!

Okay back to our results… I have compiled a list of part of the keyword suggestions google has provided, I did not bother to try and sort them or anything, I pretty much left them raw. And here it is…

Click this link for a larger image:

One thing that is interesting to me is the vast difference in the singular and plural searches for certain keywords. I have heard some seo claim that they are the same but this can be easily disproved by the fact that searches for the different versions produce totally different results(not in all cases obviously but in the case of the leather briefcase/s keyword it is)

I have taken a small list out of what google has presented in suggestions… I am using this only as a representation and not as a keyword research project for laptop bags. Again if you notice the singular and plural forms listed separately note that this is not a mistake and you as an seo should always make sure you rank for both versions.

Of course being a adwords tool it the tool gives some invaluable info on advertiser competition… if your a totally organic man(or woman) than you may feel this does not pertain to you but this can be a good indicator of the organic competition as well… keywords with low ppc competition are likely to have little organic competition as well. So keep this in mind when using this tool.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE GOOGLE SEARCH VOLUME TOOL!!!
Okay my suggestions would be…
1.) Ability to select keywords and export only those selected keywords to csv or text file instead of having to export the whole list.
2.) The ability to delete keywords from the list which you feel are not related to your target. This could prove invaluable when creating a list of kewords to target as manually deleting later could prove a time waster.
3.) Actual search volume data in the trend graph… this can be guessed at but I always like specific and accurate data.
4.) The ability to form groups of keywords and export them together would also be nice.

These suggestions are not necessarily for Google, they are for anyone who will make a tool which queries the Google Adwords Search Volume tool.

So my overall opinion of this tool is, this is a great step in understanding the search volume of Google and the differences between that data and other engines. This can prove very valuable to you in your keyword researching. Like I said previously, this tool has now become my #2 keyword research tool. Keyword Elite is still my #1 as it is the fastest way for me to build a list of targeted keywords… however I will probably use the two tools side-by-side as they will save me countless hours and tons of money.

If you have any comments on this tool please comment. Feel free to email questions or comments regarding Keyword Elite as well.

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Jennifer also believes this could temporarily make adsense profits for publishers drop, this could be true seeing as a good many advertisers will be out however I do believe too that it will help clean up the ad network and help promote more/better companies to use adwords. I am not too worried about it at this point, if I get rid ofAdsense I will either go ad-free or affiliate ads for tools I use.

There is one reason why I am writing this article. I wanted to link to Jennifer’s article for anyone interested in reading her thoughts but I also wanted to answer a question I get fairly often which is “do you recommend adsense arbitrage?” and “is adsense arbitrage white hat?”

I always answer this telling webmasters not to use it, now I can confirm why they shouldn’t use it. I promote some of Brad Callen’s tools, the ones I use myself, however I never promoted his e-book on adsense arbitrage because I always felt it was short-lived and there were better ways of spending your time which in the future will turn out more money then a temporary adsense income using arbitrage.

I have reiterated this point over and over to webmasters. Create your websites with users in mind, create a site that you would love if you were the user instead of the webmaster. Create a site that offers the user what they want, what they don’t know they want, options, innovation, quality articles, and get them involved. Don’t waste your time creating MFA sites and other schemes that will likely die out, spend your time creating a quality site and it will pay off.

Some of these publishers had both quality and low-quality/MFA sites and now they will have to use another ad network for their quality sites because I tend to doubt Google will reinstate many of these publishers very easily. Somebody also told me that Google is cracking down on publishers who get banned and try to get back in with different details. So i’d be careful going that route too.

Well here is the link to Jennifers article on Adsense arbitrage

If you have any questions/comments please post them here. or at Jensense.com

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Just to give some useful information I am also going to show you how you can find low cost adwords keywords to target your campaigns at. This will help you greatly lower your adwords bill while targeting a larger audience. Many advertisers don’t realize that they are paying much more than they have to and recieving much less than they deserve. So if your interested in Adsense high paying keywords or Adwords low-cost campaign keywords then read on.

Lets start off by finding the Adsense goodies. How to find high paying adsense keywords:

I will admit this information can be gained by using totally free tools and I have done it however it is very tedious. So in this example I will be using Keyword Elite. I use it because it works, it is much faster than any other method I have found(please prove me wrong if you can) and very easy to use.

Okay lets open Keyword Elite. Select project #1 Create a Keyword List and enter a keyword or phrase.

(CLICK FOR FULL SCREENSHOT)

I chose the keyword gardening randomly. I selected only a few results because it does take time to load the results.

I selected a bunch of the 50 keywords which immediantly came up and clicked the right side of the mouse and selected the ’send to project 2′ option. Here is a few of the results I got:

(CLICK HERE FOR LARGER SCREENSHOT)

If you clicked the link above to see the big image you will notice I selected a few keywords and sorted them by PPC price. The highest paying keyword is “fine gardening” and it is estimated at $6.27-7.84 per click. Not a bad keyword to try and target your adsense for.

On the other hand if your are looking for adwords keywords here are a few all under $1

(CLICK FOR LARGER SCREENSHOT)

If you noticed there are two keywords with only 1 campaign each. This means that you can pay nearly NOTHING and still rank #2 at the very least. Also just because there are CPC prices does not mean you must pay that. You can pay much lower and if your PPC description is good you will rise in position and still do very well.

I tryed the keyword “insurance and out of 50 keywords here is what I got:

(CLICK FOR LARGER SCREENSHOT)

Of course we all know the insurance industry is a very large and very wealthy industry.

I have found some very profitable Adwords using these methods and I believe you can too. Not only does Keyword Elite show me the PPC but also how many sites are competing and maybe even more importantly WHO is competing. It gives me the search data for the phrases and the average clicks per day for the adwords listings.

I know some use these methods to target low cost adwords and create pages of high paying adsense ads to take the people to. I don’t recommend this. First of all Google doesn’t like it and secondly searchers don’t like it.

You can also use Keyword Elite to find high traffic low competition keywords to target. This is my main use for it.

If you would like more information on Keyword Elite and what it can do for your click here
You can buy this tool based on my reputation. I don’t advertise garbage or affiliate with such, I do however affiliate with tools or services that actually work. Whether they be free or paid. I plan to do a tutorial on the HitTail tool as well which happens to be free. I will not recommend a tool unless I actually use it.

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You will need a copy of keyword elite to follow along. I provide screenshots however so that you may kind of see what goes on before you buy. If you would like more info or more screenshots of the program just send me a note. It may take me a few days but I will get you some.Click for larger screenshot of the below image

Okay open up keyword elite and select project #1 ‘Create a keyword list’ – Select overture and keywordiscovery. If you don’t have accounts with these sites click the following links. Sign-up for KeywordDiscovery trial. You can sign-up for a free trial and check it out a little and see if you want to buy it, if not you have nothing into it.
I selected 200 results for this project, for low connection users I HIGHLY recommend you choose a low number such as 50-75 at a time. If you don’t, you may be waiting all day. For fast connection users do large lists, import them to txt pad or notepad and you can create pages on your site targeted to each.

Before I go on I should also clarify what I said above. I did NOT say create MFA sites, or adsense sites. You can put adsense on these pages but because of the bad name ‘adsense sites’ have gotten I try not to call them ‘adsense sites’. Write these pages with unique and quality information related to what the keyword is so that your has provides what the searcher wants. If at all possible provide info no one else has. If all you can do is copy your competitors I highly recommend finding an industry you have more experience in.

Okay back to our project…
I used the keyword ‘gold watches’ as the main keyword. Now click the OK button. Depending on your connection speed a list of keywords will start piling up quite fast. Keyword Elite will list the keyword that it found, the parent keyword that was used to find that specific keyword and what tool was used to find it. I always use Overture and KeywordDiscovery. Overtures data is outdated but it does provide a really great list of keywords to go by.

You should see something like this:
(click for larger image of the below screenshot)

Note in the above image that the keywords are blue highlighted. When Keyword Elite finds and downloads them they will be gray not blue. They are blue when selected.

When all the keywords are downloaded scroll up to the top of the screen. Select the first keyword by clicking on it. It will now have a blue highlight on it. Now scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Select the last keyword again by clicking on it. Now all the keywords should turn blue highlighted as shown in the above image.

Now click with the RIGHT-SIDE of the mouse and select ’send keyword(s) to project #2′ – Keyword elite now opens the project menu and automatically fills in a bunch of the data for you. For step #3 make sure Google is checked. On step #4 check KEI and leave the rest unchecked. On step #5 check “google broad match” and leave the rest unchecked. It should look something like the below image:(Click for larger screenshot of the below image)

Now keyword elite will bring up some useful data on these keywords. It provides you with the results, searches, R/S ratio(will explain that in a second), KEI and other data however we told KeywordElite not to load the rest of the data. Just the above.
Whats really cool with keyword elite is you can sort the data at anytime in any fashion by clicking on any of the lists. I can sort by alphabetical, by lowest competing pages, highest searches, lowest R/S ratio or highest KEI. This is really cool! What’s also nice is I can select a bunch of keywords click the RIGHT-SIDE of the mouse and copy them to notepad for future reference. Keyword elite also has a SAVE feature which allows me to save my project and return to it later for future reference. One reason I prefer Keyword Elite to some other tools.

Okay I will come back to that in a second. First let me explain some of this data. What is R/S ratio anyways? Well it is the ratio of competing pages to number of searches for that phrase. So the lower the R/S ratio is the higher the likely hood of that phrase being a great target. Keep in mind that this data is not fool-proof and you must use manual work as well to determine whether or not it is a really great phrase. Keyword Elite eliminates the manual work of locating a list of phrases, now all I have to do is go through the list and find good ones to target. This has eliminated a HUGE amount of work for me.

So click the R/S ratio title and sort the keywords by the lowest R/S ratio. Now you can find potential keyword to target. Here is what it should look something like:(Click here for larger image of the below screenshot)

You can also use the KEI column to give an indication as to whether a keyword is good or not. Unlike the R/S ratio it is the higher the KEI value the better. So a 5,000 KEI level and a 7. R/S ratio may be a keyword worth looking into. Use the searches and results columns to kind of guide you.

Right off I find a few good keywords. white gold diamond watch, for example seem to be good targets. Some of the higher R/S ratio keywords are also good targets just slightly more competitive. I will also target some of those. I purposely used a high competition industry “watches” to do this review. Why? Well because of a couple of reasons. Firs I don’t want to show you the industries I am in, second I wanted to show that even in a expensive industry such as gold watches there are some great low competition high trafficked phrases. I spend hours on keyword elite and then implement what it tells me and I have made tons of money from it. I am telling you allthis because I know once you try it and find it works for you, you will come back to my blog for other info and may even link to me.

This is basically how I do part of my keyword researching. As I said before I use KeywordDiscovery, Keyword Elite, HitTail, Google Analytics and webstats. All of which play a role in my keyword researching. If your serious about seo, keyword research and ranking high in Google I recommend you use them too. You won’t be disappointed!

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First before we even go into the types of adsense blocks I think we really need to look at what type of site we have. This can have a large impact on whether or not the ads will perform well. A good way for blogs to get users to click ads is to review products/tools and the ads will likely target those tools. If your review is good they may click the ad and you can make a decent profit that way. Make sure your reviews are always accurate and unbiased. If the tool is bad, review it as such. Your reputation is worth more than a click.

One thing you must really think about is the type of information you provide. Good blogs that provide the information the visitor wants tend to not get many adsense clicks, afterall if the user got what he or she wanted why would they click the ads? I am not recommending providing useless information so that users will click ads. Some sites do this and they will never make it to the next level because of it. Webmsaters will link to the good stuff so provide the good stuff. Use Google Analytics to track these sites and identify whether the users spend alot of time at the page reading the article or if they bounce fast. If they tend to stick around a while you may want to implement ways of selling products/tools/services to them instead of adsense. Of course you can’t please everyone and there will always be those who don’t like your article and will click the adsense ads anyways.

Okay, okay just give us the info on what ad blocks convert the best…
First let me point out ads that perform very low, ads I highly recommend you DO NOT use.

• 468 x 60 (banner ad)
• 160 x 600 (wide skyscraper)
• 120 x 600 (skyscraper)

The above ads have the lowest CTR(click-through-rate).

The following are the best CTR(click-through-rate) adsens ads

• 336 x 280 (large rectangle)
• 300 x 250 (rectangle)
• 250 x 250 (square)

I find these perform the best if placed inside content. For instance in the middle or end of an article. Afterall if they read the article and are still looking for info instead of clicking the back button they may click an ad. I implemented these type of ads into a couple of my sites and have seen marked increase in CTR.

Do the colors matter?
Should my ads blend into the content or stick out? My answer is usually neither. You don’t usually want your ads to stick out or to blend in too well. With content ads such as the above mentioned it is good to have a color that flows with the rest of the scheme as the title of the ads. I also find borders and backgrounds lower CTR.

If you place the ads near middle or the end of your article and use a color which makes the user realize its not part of the article but the color still flows with the site I find that the conversions are much higher. Of course the type of site also plays a major factor in whether or not a user will click under certain conditions. The middle tends to be best because if they don’t read the whole article they may never see the ads, likewise ads at the bottom of sites tend to have much lower CTR then ads placed at the top of the site. I also find that the following as perform very well at the top end of alot of sites.

(468×15) Displays up to 5 links

(468×15_4) Displays up to 4 links

(728×15) Displays up to 5 links

(728×15_4) Displays up to 4 links

If you place these ads near your banner they can have a very high CTR. They also seem to pay a little more overall than the other ads tend to.

This is a short article and I will probably be writing more on adsense later but I do have a few good articles on the subject already on this blog in case your interested. This is the most popular: How to make money with google adsense

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So if you are experiencing Adsense relevance problems read the rest of this article. If your not you might still want to continue on as the info provided here can be helpful if you should ever have problems with Adsense or if you should ever need to target parts of your site.

What is Adsense Section Targeting?
Simple question. As I noted before most webmasters I have talked with had no idea this method worked and to top it all off the method was made and recommend by Google Adsense which means you will never have to worry about getting banned for using it. Okay so you want to know what it is?

It is actually very simple. It is a piece of code which you place before and after a section of your site. This code will tell the Google Adsense robot one of two things. It will either tell it to ignore the content inside the code or to emphasize it. This can come in handy if you are having google adsense relevancy issues. Please note this is not guaranteed to fix your problems although it usually works well. I should also let you know that targeted high paying keywords on a site that is irrelevant to those keywords is highly ineffective I do not recommend it.
How to emphasize a section of your site
Lets start off by adding a emphasize tag to part of our page to let Google know we think that is the most important. Heres how the tag works:

<!– google_ad_section_start –>

Part of page we want to emphasize. This can be as long as we wish but keep in mind the more you emphasize the less emphasis can be put on each sentence/word. Also the section must start with the start tag and end with the end tag or it won’t work.

<!– google_ad_section_end –>

How to tell Google to ignore a section of my page
This is probably the part most of you have been waiting for. This is the code which will tell google to ignore part of the page. Just in case somebody was wondering this is for Google Adsense only. it will not effect your Google rankings and will not effect other forms of Advertising.

<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>

This part of the page I wish to ignore. Google Adsense: please forget this part exists.
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

Make sure you put these tags after the <body> tag and before the last </body> tag. As stated before emphasizing or ignoring too much content may raise a red flag. Using this method does not mean Google does not use other factors any longer. Google will continue to use their Adsense targeting methods and abusing this method may get your Adsense account flagged for inspection. Do not abuse or overuse it. Do not try to emphasize unrelated keywords. Only use it to make your ads more relevant to your site. Other uses will get you in trouble.
Google states it may take up to 2 weeks for the targeting to take place so you must be patient. I have also noticed it work within 48 hours so it can be pretty quick as well.
Resources related to Adsense Section Targeting:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&sourceid=ASO&subid=en_asblog&medium=link

JenSense

http://www.jensense.com/archives/2005/08/section_targeti.html

I have not read any other posts by her as of yet. The post about Adsense was good and basically what I said. If I had found it before writing all this I might have just linked to hers. I will be looking into her other articles to see what else she says because so far I like her information.

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Interviews with Adsense publishers who make over $1000/month

***Adsense GURU***
Name: Will
Makes: $18,010.13 in September
Uses Adsense on: About a dozen sites

What steps did you take to make what you make today?
I built good web sites which help people.

How long did it take before you started turning over the big bucks?
About two years, part time.

What in your opinion is the most important part of becoming a success with Adsense?
Providing value to your site visitors.

What is the best way to turn in the highest CTR?
The 336×280 ad unit, with matching colors and no borders.

How important is content? Should the content be very targeted and helpful so the visitor finds everything they need or should it be slightly targeted so that the visitor is more apt to click an ad?
Content is king. Good content brings natural inbound links, which are absolutely the most important factor in building traffic and revenue.What steps should I take to start making $$$ with Adsense?
1. Decide what you want to say to the world.
2. Build a web site about that.
3. Put the AdSense JavaScript on the web site.Should I read an E-Book on making money with Adsense? Or should I hire a SEO/Adsense Professional to help me?
There’s no need to hire anyone.
Aaron Wall and Joel Comm both have decent e-books, but you can find most of what you need to know for free in The Internet Search Engines FAQ.
How do I get traffic to come to my site? Should I advertise using Adwords or use organic SEO?
Some people do well with AdWords/AdSense arbitrage. I’ve always prospered in my markets with organic SEO. AdWords seems more directly suited for web sites which make money directly from product sales.

Do you believe that Web Design and color schemes of a site have an effect on CTR?
Definitely. Design issues can double (or half) CTR.

Do you use Rotating Adsense Color Schemes?
No.

Do you use borders? And if not do you think it decreases CTR?
Borders definitely decrease CTR.

What should I focus most of my efforts on?
Building quality content — making your web site worth visiting.

Should I find the higher paying keywords and create a site targeted towards those so that I make more per click?
Definitely not. Build web sites about topics that you really care about. That’s the only way you will ever create a truly successful web site in the long run.

Which do you recommend using for an Adsense site a blog or a site assuming both are hosted by the user on its own domain.
Definitely a web site. Blogs are much harder to optimize for either SEO or CTR.

Are there any things you would warn against NOT doing?
Don’t build too many web sites — build 1-3 awesome web sites.

Any additional helpful comments???
Don’t give up. Don’t slack off. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep at it and you will succeed. Build new content every single day.

Don’t focus too much on CTR, CPC, CPM, or even your traffic stats. Focus on taking care of your site visitors and they will take care of you.

__________________

Name: Garve
Makes: Over $1000/month but growing at around 20% per month.
Uses Adsense on: about 6 main ones, but in total around 250

What steps did you take to make what you make today?
Created systems where visitors can add content – as they grew added Adsense to them.

How long did it take before you started turning over the big bucks?
About 18 months of doing it seriously. Don’t think of it as big bucks yet I’m afraid – covers the hosting costs but not all my time. The idea is that in 5 or ten years time we’ll have 1000 sites or more with hundreds of thousands of pages paying our pensions.

What in your opinion is the most important part of becoming a success with Adsense?
It might be creating loads of MFA sites, but that’s not what we’re interested in – we like creating useful interesting sites and the adverts come second.

What is the best way to turn in the highest CTR?
Biggest improvement I’ve made to date was blending the ads into a structured page with images beside the ads.

How important is content? Should the content be very targeted and helpful so the visitor finds everything they need or should it be slightly targeted so that the visitor is more apt to click an ad?
For the long term I think Content which will remain relevant for years ahead is the only important thing. If you’re looking to make quick money then I wouldn’t know the best way to do that.

What steps should I take to start making $$$ with Adsense?
I think you need an income from somewhere else and be able to treat the Adsense side of things as a long term project.

Should I read an E-Book on making money with Adsense? Or should I hire a SEO/Adsense Professional to help me?
I don’t know, I’ve never read one. I’m sure you can find all the info you’ll need on the internet for free.

How do I get traffic to come to my site? Should I advertise using Adwords or use organic SEO?
I don’t think using Adwords to drive traffic to click Adsense is ever likely to pay off. The Adwords have to cost more unless you come up with something really clever that no one else has thought of.

Do you believe that Web Design and color schemes of a site have an effect on CTR?
Definately – you need to blend them.

Do you use Rotating Adsense Color Schemes?
No – blend them.

Do you use borders? And if not do you think it decreases CTR?
No borders – keep blending them.

What should I focus most of my efforts on?
Content filled sites with a long shelf life.

Should I find the higher paying keywords and create a site targeted towards those so that I make more per click?
That’s what you have to do if you’re doing MFA. It’s not what I do.

Which do you recommend using for an Adsense site a blog or a site assuming both are hosted by the user on its own domain.
The distinction between a blog and a site is pretty blurred nowadays. A blog would be easier to maintain.

Are there any things you would warn against NOT doing?
Be very careful to follow the T&Cs – I think when you get to my level of impressions (approx half a million a month) then Google will give you some leeway for dodgy clicks etc, but when you’re first starting you need to be squeaky clean.

Any additional helpful comments would be welcomed.
I’ve mentioned blending – have a look at
http://www.fire-engine-photos.com/li…year&crit=2005
for an idea of what I mean.

__________________

Name: Randy
Makes: XXXX and growing rapidly
Uses Adsense on: 2-4 sites. But 2 main ones.

What steps did you take to make what you make today?
I started sites on something I like and something I knew a good amount about.

How long did it take before you started turning over the big bucks?
Can’t really say it is the big bucks yet because I haven’t made it to $20,000/month which is my aim but it came slowly as I worked on my sites. The biggest part was writing useful content for my visitors. Once you create a presence and you have loyal visitors especially for blogs they will become your marketers.

What in your opinion is the most important part of becoming a success with Adsense?
Creating a site about something you know something about, something you have experiance with and which you can explain to your visitors. If you have the experience and not the skill to put it to blog or have the skill to write but not what your writing about your site will not be a success.

What is the best way to turn in the highest CTR?
Depends on the site. I have found rotation of ad colors work well on some sites and on others a solid smooth color works best on others. The more traffic you get the more clicks. The most important things is to worry about getting the traffic, taking care of it and the CTR comes by itself.

How important is content? Should the content be very targeted and helpful so the visitor finds everything they need or should it be slightly targeted so that the visitor is more apt to click an ad?
Should be targeted and very helpful to the visitor. If it isn’t they probably will be more apt to click the back button than click your lousy ads so keep them there. The longer you have them there the more chance they will see a good ad to click.

What steps should I take to start making $$$ with Adsense?
Don’t quite your job and go Adsense full time. It doesn’t make quick money at least it didn’t for me. It takes time and effort to build up a good site. Like I have reiterated over and over you must have something your visitors will find useful whether it be articles or tools. Keep writing content. Start out getting 20 visitors a day and watch it build. Don’t be disappointed if it takes a while. It may depending on your category of interest.

Should I read an E-Book on making money with Adsense? Or should I hire a SEO/Adsense Professional to help me?
If you got the money and find one that looks good buy it but remember the guy writing the E-book makes more selling to you than he does or did with the information or he never would give it to you. I think all the information you will ever need to run a successful site is on the web. I hope to write lots of it for you here on this blog.

How do I get traffic to come to my site? Should I advertise using Adwords or use organic SEO?
Adwords traffic for Adsense is dieing. Google is catching on and realizing that Googlers don’t want to click a ad and then get another batch of ads. They want content. If you got good content however depending on what your interest is you could try Adwords. It works well if you do it right. I suggest using organic seo. Blogs work well with this. Write content and ask a few webmasters to link to you and others will link on their own.

Do you believe that Web Design and color schemes of a site have an effect on CTR?
Yes it does to a great deal. A clean professional yet smooth and easily navigational design is best. Keeping a link for feedback on the design is useful to determine what your visitors think

Do you use Rotating Adsense Color Schemes?
Yes and no. Again I run a bunch of sites so on about half I do and the other half I don’t.

Do you use borders? And if not do you think it decreases CTR?
No borders ever. They will decrease CTR considerably.

What should I focus most of my efforts on?
Writing content. Your visitors could care less what your PR is or how many backlinks you have. They want to know whether you got what they are looking for and if not they will find site #2 which may be able to satisfy that need. Don’t think backlinks aren’t important but content is much more important or you won’t be getting any quality links

Should I find the higher paying keywords and create a site targeted towards those so that I make more per click?
No. It is better to get 1500 clicks a day at $.10 than to make $150/click every other day right?(not that any keyword pays 150/click) If you don’t know anything about the target and are just targeting it because it is a expensive keyword your site will die.

Which do you recommend using for an Adsense site a blog or a site assuming both are hosted by the user on its own domain.
Depends. Blogs are easily created, edited and add content too. They have nice plugins(especially wordpress solutions), ping services and feeds. Sites can also have pros over blogs. you aren’t confined to a certain type of template and navigation system. I prefer sites in that respect but blogs are easiest and contrary to some people they are not less valuable than sites.

Are there any things you would warn against NOT doing?
Don’t use BH methods and don’t disobey the Google TOS. NEVER CLICK YOUR OWN ADS and don’t edit them outside the Google Adsense control panel.

Any additional comments???
Don’t think you are going to make money overnight but don’t think it is impossible to make millions either. It just takes work, effort, and patience. And of course a knowledge of what your writing about. Give your site time. As it grows offer more services, content, tools or whatever. Don’t use somebody elses content or tools and don’t market a idea as your own if it isn’t. Small things can give you a bad rep which will stay with you for a long time.

__________________

Name: Grasshoppa(nick)
Makes: On average: $10,000 Gross, about $5,000 net (after advertising and other expenses)
Uses Adsense on: 15 sites

What steps did you take to make what you make today?
Wrote lots and lots of content, constantly update pages, experiment with different ad styles and placement, read lots of tips in forums, ebooks, and on AdSense.

How long did it take before you started turning over the big bucks?
Grossed over $1000 in third month. Started netting (after advertising expenses) over $1000 in fourth month of implementation back in 2004. Started steadily netting over $5000 a month after 1 year.

What in your opinion is the most important part of becoming a success with Adsense?
Content, content, content. Provide something useful and people will come back. Provide crap and people will stop coming.

What is the best way to turn in the highest CTR?
Good ad placement that complements your color/layout scheme.

How important is content? Should the content be very targeted and helpful so the visitor finds everything they need or should it be slightly targeted so that the visitor is more apt to click an ad?
I believe that providing the best content possible is the way to go. This is a numbers game, the more people that you can get to come to your site, the more ads that will get clicked in the long run. If you only provide mediocre content people won’t return, won’t link to you, and won’t pass on your URL to others.

What steps should I take to start making $$$ with Adsense?
Write lots of good content and get your URL out there. You may want to drive traffic to your site using AdWords or another program. If people don’t know about your site, you won’t get traffic.

Should I read an E-Book on making money with Adsense? Or should I hire a SEO/Adsense Professional to help me?
Read all that you can! Hire a professional if you can’t do it yourself or don’t have the time.

How do I get traffic to come to my site? Should I advertise using Adwords or use organic SEO?
A combination of both is best. You may want to start off driving traffic to your site with a PPC while you are building up your SEO.

Do you believe that Web Design and color schemes of a site have an effect on CTR?
Absolutely, on some sites you may want your ads to stand out, on others blend in. It may take some experimenting to find out which one works for you.

Do you use Rotating Adsense Color Schemes?
No

Do you use borders? And if not do you think it decreases CTR?
I sometimes use borders, depends on the site.

What should I focus most of my efforts on?
Content, content, content and testing, testing, testing. Write good information and play around with the ads (not too often) to find out what works best for you.

Should I find the higher paying keywords and create a site targeted towards those so that I make more per click?
NO! Write or design about a website around what you know. Don’t write crap or make up stuff just to get higher paying ads. You want to be in this for the long haul, not just make a quick buck!

Are there any things you would warn against NOT doing?
Clicking your own ads and designing a site made specifically for Adsense (MFA).

Any additional comments???
Making good money at AdSense is not a get-rich-quick-scheme. Those who are sucessful at it treat it as their full-time job and work hard at it. You have to have a passion for your content and your audience–if you do it will show!

I hope you have enjoyed these interviews and have learned some new things. These Adsense publishers are in it for the long haul not just to make quick money. And hence have over time made a success. And you can be the next one to make it top the top. You just have to be willing to put effort and thought into your site and content.

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But if you want to go white hat I got some tips that can help you make good honest money.

Trick Google Adsense or be upfront?
I believe there is more money in white hat or at least as much as Black Hat SEO or Adsense sites. Eventually in unethical, black hat, illegal activity you will get caught whether it be robbing a bank or tricking Google Adsense. But if you build up a clean site targeted towards finding the info the visitor wants you can expect to grow and continue to make money unlike BH Adsense sites. With a BH site you never know when Google might catch on and you will be history.

First step:
The first step to creating a site that will eventually bring in thousands of visitors a day and $1000s in your Adsense account is to think of your visitor not Google meaning if Google where to drop of the face of the earth your targeting, marketing and development strategies would not change. If your thinking of the visitor you will be writing content they want to read, creating tools they want to use and providing helpful hints and tips for whatever it is they need to accomplish.
BH sites don’t do that. Their goal is to get Adsense money not make a happy visitor. My goal as a WH seo is to make the visitor happy. Once they are happy the money will roll in.
Remember a happy visitor my refer traffic but a unhappy visitor is more likely to complain than a happy one is to tell others.

Top Paying Keyword Adsense
Don’t target the big bucks. Thats right… Don’t go look on a keyword list and decide to create a site on mesothelioma because you can make $1-10/click. Create a site that is targeted towards a category you know something about. A topic which you yourself are excited about. If your excited about it your visitors will see it in your articles. In fact I recommend inserting the Google Adsense and forgetting about it. Don’t worry about changing it every few days or anything – worry about writing content for your visitors. The top paying keyword Adsense list is useless. If you write about something you know about you will get more visitors hence more clicks.

Best Adsense Template Format
What is the best format template to use for Google Adsense? Well I find it depends alot on the site. Certain sites will excel with one format while an other will do terrible with the same format. I find the 728 X 15 with 4 ad-link units do the best as far as CTR. The horizontal and vertical 728 banners also do well for me. I have also found that borders decrease CTR by a very high amount. You really must determine the Best Adsense Template Format yourself. Do some research. Try different things. Make sure it is all within the Google Adsense account or you might get banned.

How can I click my own ads unnoticed
Don’t click your own ads or you will get in big trouble. Don’t click an ad for a friend, business partner or John Doe off the street. Only click a Google Adsense ad on a site if it perks your interest. Of course if the site is yours copy the SITE URL not the GOOGLE URL. Do not use a click bot to click your own ads. You will eventually get caught and I and any other webmasters will look down on you. Only losers steal and it is stealing to click your own ads.

Adsense Alternative
I have not yet found a alternative to Adsense. Nothing really compares to Adsense. Google Adsense is very highly targeted returns good CPC for me and is very user friendly. Unlike previous methods of ads and other alternatives Google ads are generally in text and those that are images are still very targeted and are stationary. I hate sites who use ads that jump up and down and flash banners telling me I got 1 email to download. I don’t need that crap.
MSN and Yahoo do have publisher solutions similar to Googles. IMO they have a few years to catch up but they are pretty good. The CTR for Yahoo and MSN is much lower than Google Adsense. If you are going white hat use Google Adsense. If not pick an alternative as you will get caught. “Don’t be evil”

This article was meant to discourage black hat, unethical seo and/or fraudulent activity. If you have questions on white hat seo and would like seo consulting please comment on the post.

Copyright © 2006, 1st-rankings Co.
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