Markus Frind runs a free online dating site called PlentyOfFish.com and he rocked the Internet world this week when he posted a photo of his latest Google AdSense check for nearly $1 million CAD.
It was a check for 2 months because the first check they sent was so big it was rejected by his bank. (I hate it when that happens.)I asked Markus to share a few thoughts with us, and he was kind enough to oblige.You're a one-man show running a very successful dating site.
Tell us how you got started.
Back in 2001 after my birthday someone in the office introduced me to online dating sites. I went back to my desk and checked out udate.com and kiss.com and lavalife/web personals. I was bored and I wanted to chat with people. I was really annoyed when I found out you had to pay for everything, I ended up telling the girl who introduced me to the sites that I could do better and make them for free, so I went and registered Plentyoffish.com.
All I ever ended up doing was creating an index page and forgot about it. Fast forward to 2003... [Find the rest of Markus' answer over on his blog]Your site, if you'll forgive me, isn't terribly attractive, it isn't "web 2.0" it isn't even a terribly original idea.
Many entrepreneurs today think that without those ingredients in the recipe, they'll never make it. You've clearly proved otherwise. What's your secret and what are your thoughts about what it takes to be successful?To many people assume an "original idea" is just something that looks visually different then others. I created the first real free dating and the first one that actually worked.
Just like Google created the first real search engine that worked. There is no such thing as a secret. When I came home from work I sat down and I forced myself to code for a hour or 2. The enemy was thinking, whenever I paused or started to think I would force myself to type something, its amazing how much you can get done when you just type.
There are only 1000 or so sites in the world with massive traffic, and of those mine is the only one that is run by a single person. It's not possible for thousands of people to be as successful as me. For being successful in building sites you need to give something to the surfer faster or better or both. If you want to do pay per click, you just need to be good at picking words to bid on. For that business its just a matter of repetition and fighting boredom. At the end of the day you just need to sit down and DO it.
Most people don't.You've obviously done a brilliant job marketing the site because you have some insane traffic numbers. What do you feel has been your most successful marketing move and why?It was all viral.
My best move was not going out and spending a ton of money, with online dating you need to spend $6.00 for every free member, and most of those leave on the first day and the few that do become active don't stay more than 3 months. So 30% of your membership is turned over per month. There is no way you can make your money back.
The site went ballistic in Canada all on its own I really didn't have to do anything.What has been your least successful marketing effort? Why wasn't it successful?Radio, too expensive, too hard to buy your way into markets. Yahoo, Match.com and Eharmony and Lavalife are each spending $10 million a month on marketing.
How can you even come close to competing with them?Can you share some of your favorite sources of inspiration and ideas? (e.g. certain blogs/books/magazines)Never bothered reading books, magazines Just started reading blogs lately outside the dating world.
For the most part I treated it as a video game, and defeat isn't an option you just find some way to win.Any parting advice for other entrepreneurs trying to gain success with AdSense or other "eyeball/traffic"-oriented ventures?Google pays out $500 million a quarter to AdSense users. That money is going somewhere, and if you look at the top 1000 sites not a hell of a lot of them have AdSense.
Statistically speaking those sites that have low numbers of users and high EPC [Earnings Per Click] will make the most money. Build sites that no one else has done before, stuff only goes viral the first 1 or 2 times after that you have to buy your way into a market.Thanks again to Markus for sharing his thoughts.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
How to Join AdSense
After you've created your website, click the button on the right to join. Most sites are either accepted or rejected within 24 to 48 hours, so you shouldn't have to wait too long to find out if your application has been approved.
Once you've been accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you'd like to show the ads. If you've done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page...increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors.
You can either display the ads vertically along side the page like Google does or in a banner-like formation horizontally across your pages. The placement is up to you. You can even customize the colors to match your site's theme.
Once you've been accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you'd like to show the ads. If you've done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page...increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors.
You can either display the ads vertically along side the page like Google does or in a banner-like formation horizontally across your pages. The placement is up to you. You can even customize the colors to match your site's theme.
"How Much Can I Earn With AdSense?"
Google does not disclose exactly how much you'll earn per ad that is clicked.
The commission you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of earnings anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.
So it is logical to believe that keyword phrases like debt free, employment, make money, mp3, sex, etc. will earn you more per click since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web.
Advertisers generally pay more for popular terms because they are searched for more.
Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.
For example, if you see that you've made $12.60 today from 9 clicks then you can calculate that your average click-thru commission was $1.40 per click. That's as detailed as their stats will get. Also remember, that's only an average. You won't know how much each specific ad brought in.
The amount you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests, the placement of the ads on your pages, and of course the amount you receive per click.
Ideally, you should create a site on a topic you know a lot about. That way you'll have a much easier time creating a generous amount of content on that subject.
The commission you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of earnings anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.
So it is logical to believe that keyword phrases like debt free, employment, make money, mp3, sex, etc. will earn you more per click since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web.
Advertisers generally pay more for popular terms because they are searched for more.
Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.
For example, if you see that you've made $12.60 today from 9 clicks then you can calculate that your average click-thru commission was $1.40 per click. That's as detailed as their stats will get. Also remember, that's only an average. You won't know how much each specific ad brought in.
The amount you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests, the placement of the ads on your pages, and of course the amount you receive per click.
Ideally, you should create a site on a topic you know a lot about. That way you'll have a much easier time creating a generous amount of content on that subject.
How AdSense Works
If you go to Google.com and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you'll notice some "Sponsored Links" that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for.
Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer. With the AdSense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it as well.
All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila! the ads will show up. Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.
Once your account reaches $100, you'll receive a check in the mail.
"Is Google Crazy?"
I know what you're probably thinking...
"What's the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?"
The answer...
Because Google is very smart.
Now that I understand how AdSense works, I can see that it's a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google. Let me explain...
Since the advertiser's ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google's site), they are getting much more exposure. More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.
This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.
Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit; and of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.
What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.
Of course, I'd expect nothing less from the most popular search engine on the web. :)
Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer. With the AdSense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it as well.
All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila! the ads will show up. Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.
Once your account reaches $100, you'll receive a check in the mail.
"Is Google Crazy?"
I know what you're probably thinking...
"What's the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?"
The answer...
Because Google is very smart.
Now that I understand how AdSense works, I can see that it's a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google. Let me explain...
Since the advertiser's ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google's site), they are getting much more exposure. More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.
This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.
Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit; and of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.
What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.
Of course, I'd expect nothing less from the most popular search engine on the web. :)
5 Ways To Increase Your CTR
For more information and special deals related to any of the issues on this page, place your cursor over the double-underlined links. All information supplied by Kontera.com. Kindly subscribe to my feeds via RSS reader or via e-mail if you want more updates
Since many blogs got a CTR drop during the past few days, I’ve decided to make this blog post to help them out. Luckily, I’m not affected by the CTR drop.
First, what is CTR? CTR stands for click-through rate. It is the ratio of the clicks to the ad impression. Which means that if you have 2% CTR, you got 2 clicks for every 100 times the ad is displayed on your site (ad impressions). Having a higher CTR means more clicks and more clicks means more earnings.
I’m not sure about what a healthy average CTR is, Yugatech says 3% CTR is a good number for blogs. This blog’s CTR is way higher than that.
CTR is affected by many factors. Ad placement, ad format, source of visitors, visitor’s profile and blog design to name a few. Let’s tackle them one by one.
1. Ad Placement. Our target here is to place the ads so that your visitors will be able to read it and click on it when interested, NOT to place the ads where they will get clicked accidentally.
Above the fold. An ad placed above the fold gets higher CTR than an ad placed below. The reason is obvious, people can’t click an ad they don’t see, right? Putting your ad above the fold gives the ad more eyeballs and more chances of getting clicks.
Below your blog post title. An ad placed below your blog post title gets a higher CTR too. This is because people tend to read the ads first before your exact blog post. If they get interested, they’ll click on it. You lost a visitor and a potential regular reader, but they gave you money in return. Update: As of March 28, 2008, this technique is already illegal.
At the right sidebar just beside your blog post. While reading your blog post, they might get interested on the ads on the sidebar related to your blog post. Another lost visitor but a money in return.
After your blog post. Putting an ad after your blog post is a good idea. After reading your blog post, you’re giving your visitor an option to further read the comments or to click an ad related to your blog post.
Near Search boxes. Putting link units near search boxes will give your visitor an option to type keywords on the search box on what he’s looking for or to click a link on the link unit if he found his keywords listed on it.
2. Ad formats. An ad that doesn’t look like an ad gets higher CTR. Format your ads so that it blends well with your blog. Use the same color schemes as what you’re using on your blog. Make it blend. Don’t use borders. 336×280, 160×600 are the best performing ad sizes. Use them well.
3. Source Of Visitors. Visitors coming from the search engines are the people who click your ads. This is because they are searching for something, if they find what they are looking for on the ads, they will click on it. Regular visitors don’t click your ads, and don’t even think of encouraging them to click it. That’s illegal. So, to increase your CTR, learn SEO to get visitors from search engines.
4. Visitors’ profile. Adsense-ignorant visitors will click your ads. People who knows about Adsense will not click it. Blog post talking about making money online thru Adsense and optimizing CTR like this one will not get clicks. Target Adsense-ignorant readers on your blog posts. Talk about topic totally not related to Adsense and see your CTR increase.
5. Blog design. I’ve only realized this after an experiment. A 2-column simple blog design has a higher CTR than a 3-column blog. Minimize the number of outgoing links. Too much links on your blog page gives too much competition to your ads. Having less links give a higher CTR for your blog. Do yourself a favor, remove the unnecessary widgets and buttons that slows down your blog and gives competition to your ads. Do you really need those widgets? I don’t think so. I’m actually planning to give a new look to my text messages blog.
These were all based on my experience, which you could see I’m applying on my blogs. If they worked for me, they might work for you as well. Try them, there’s no harm in trying.
Since many blogs got a CTR drop during the past few days, I’ve decided to make this blog post to help them out. Luckily, I’m not affected by the CTR drop.
First, what is CTR? CTR stands for click-through rate. It is the ratio of the clicks to the ad impression. Which means that if you have 2% CTR, you got 2 clicks for every 100 times the ad is displayed on your site (ad impressions). Having a higher CTR means more clicks and more clicks means more earnings.
I’m not sure about what a healthy average CTR is, Yugatech says 3% CTR is a good number for blogs. This blog’s CTR is way higher than that.
CTR is affected by many factors. Ad placement, ad format, source of visitors, visitor’s profile and blog design to name a few. Let’s tackle them one by one.
1. Ad Placement. Our target here is to place the ads so that your visitors will be able to read it and click on it when interested, NOT to place the ads where they will get clicked accidentally.
Above the fold. An ad placed above the fold gets higher CTR than an ad placed below. The reason is obvious, people can’t click an ad they don’t see, right? Putting your ad above the fold gives the ad more eyeballs and more chances of getting clicks.
Below your blog post title. An ad placed below your blog post title gets a higher CTR too. This is because people tend to read the ads first before your exact blog post. If they get interested, they’ll click on it. You lost a visitor and a potential regular reader, but they gave you money in return. Update: As of March 28, 2008, this technique is already illegal.
At the right sidebar just beside your blog post. While reading your blog post, they might get interested on the ads on the sidebar related to your blog post. Another lost visitor but a money in return.
After your blog post. Putting an ad after your blog post is a good idea. After reading your blog post, you’re giving your visitor an option to further read the comments or to click an ad related to your blog post.
Near Search boxes. Putting link units near search boxes will give your visitor an option to type keywords on the search box on what he’s looking for or to click a link on the link unit if he found his keywords listed on it.
2. Ad formats. An ad that doesn’t look like an ad gets higher CTR. Format your ads so that it blends well with your blog. Use the same color schemes as what you’re using on your blog. Make it blend. Don’t use borders. 336×280, 160×600 are the best performing ad sizes. Use them well.
3. Source Of Visitors. Visitors coming from the search engines are the people who click your ads. This is because they are searching for something, if they find what they are looking for on the ads, they will click on it. Regular visitors don’t click your ads, and don’t even think of encouraging them to click it. That’s illegal. So, to increase your CTR, learn SEO to get visitors from search engines.
4. Visitors’ profile. Adsense-ignorant visitors will click your ads. People who knows about Adsense will not click it. Blog post talking about making money online thru Adsense and optimizing CTR like this one will not get clicks. Target Adsense-ignorant readers on your blog posts. Talk about topic totally not related to Adsense and see your CTR increase.
5. Blog design. I’ve only realized this after an experiment. A 2-column simple blog design has a higher CTR than a 3-column blog. Minimize the number of outgoing links. Too much links on your blog page gives too much competition to your ads. Having less links give a higher CTR for your blog. Do yourself a favor, remove the unnecessary widgets and buttons that slows down your blog and gives competition to your ads. Do you really need those widgets? I don’t think so. I’m actually planning to give a new look to my text messages blog.
These were all based on my experience, which you could see I’m applying on my blogs. If they worked for me, they might work for you as well. Try them, there’s no harm in trying.
Proof Of Real Blogging Money
For more information and special deals related to any of the issues on this page, place your cursor over the double-underlined links. All information supplied by Kontera.com. Kindly subscribe to my feeds via RSS reader or via e-mail if you want more updates
Do I really make money online? I could show you some checks, screen shots of Paypal payments, but still, people doubt it. How about a picture of me holding the dollars after I got my Google Adsense payment for October? I earned $600+ last October, I asked the Western Union people to give the fraction of a hundred in pesos and $600 in US dollars. Now, here are the dollars
How do I made all those money? Try reading my old posts to know how. Dig it. If I can do it, you can do it too. We all have the same number of brain cells, isn’t it?
Do I really make money online? I could show you some checks, screen shots of Paypal payments, but still, people doubt it. How about a picture of me holding the dollars after I got my Google Adsense payment for October? I earned $600+ last October, I asked the Western Union people to give the fraction of a hundred in pesos and $600 in US dollars. Now, here are the dollars
How do I made all those money? Try reading my old posts to know how. Dig it. If I can do it, you can do it too. We all have the same number of brain cells, isn’t it?
My Google Adsense Story
For more information and special deals related to any of the issues on this page, place your cursor over the double-underlined links. All information supplied by Kontera.com. Kindly subscribe to my feeds via RSS reader or via e-mail if you want more updates
In the beginning, I have a blog. But I didn’t have Adsense ad on it. And then I discovered Adsense last August 2005. I learned that I could earn some money on it. So, I put all their ad code on my blog and waited for the money to come. But I was disappointed. Here’s my post, dated March 03, 2006, telling how I was disappointed with Adsense. I even preferred Adbrite ads.
In the beginning, I have a blog. But I didn’t have Adsense ad on it. And then I discovered Adsense last August 2005. I learned that I could earn some money on it. So, I put all their ad code on my blog and waited for the money to come. But I was disappointed. Here’s my post, dated March 03, 2006, telling how I was disappointed with Adsense. I even preferred Adbrite ads.
How To Earn $1 A Day In Google Adsense?
If you are just starting with Google Adsense, I think, before targeting a $100 a month Google Adsense earnings, it’s better to have an easier goal first, and that is to earn $1 per day or $30 per month. It took me 3 months before
For an average CTR of 3% and average cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.05, how many visitors do you need to get $1 a day?
With an average of 3% CTR, it means that you need 100 pageviews to get 3 clicks. With an average of $0.05 CPC, it means that you’ll earn just $0.15 for those 3 clicks. It means that for every 100 pageviews, you got 3 clicks and earn $0.15. Now, to get $1, it means that you need to have at least 20 clicks, and you’ll get 20 clicks only when you have 667 pageviews.
Now, check your pageviews. Do you get at least 667 pageviews per day? Note that 3% CTR is already a good average for a blog. If your blog is not optimized, you might even get a CTR less than 1%, which means that you need more pageviews to get more clicks.
Now, how do you get 667 page views a day? The pinay $candal keyword on which this blog is optimized is giving me at least 100 page views per day. To achieve that 667 page views a day, it means that you have to optimize at least 7 keywords on the first page of Google with traffic as much as that oSee, I get that $1 a day in Adsense after 3 months. You can have it too in 3 months if you promise yourself to optimize at least 2 popular keywords in 1 month. Make it 3 on the 3rd month. 2 keywords in a month isn’t that hard, isn’t it?
Now, where do you get those keywords to optimize? I already shared my keyword research technique. And some bloggers already followed my foot steps on sharing new keywords to optimize. Bluemumble has his keyword of the day project. Silkenhut has his shawty project. And I also release new keywords from time to time.
Yeah, it takes a lot of time and effort. But if you really want to earn from blogging, you must be patient.
After hitting the $1/day goal, then try bigger goals. Do it slowly but surely.f pinay $candal. Quite tough huh? Not really.
For more information and special deals related to any of the issues on this page, place your cursor over the double-underlined links. All information supplied by Kontera.com. Kindly subscribe to my feeds via RSS reader or via e-mail if you want more updates.
I achieved that when I’m starting. But how do you really get that? How much traffic do you really need? Let’s do some math.For an average CTR of 3% and average cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.05, how many visitors do you need to get $1 a day?
With an average of 3% CTR, it means that you need 100 pageviews to get 3 clicks. With an average of $0.05 CPC, it means that you’ll earn just $0.15 for those 3 clicks. It means that for every 100 pageviews, you got 3 clicks and earn $0.15. Now, to get $1, it means that you need to have at least 20 clicks, and you’ll get 20 clicks only when you have 667 pageviews.
Now, check your pageviews. Do you get at least 667 pageviews per day? Note that 3% CTR is already a good average for a blog. If your blog is not optimized, you might even get a CTR less than 1%, which means that you need more pageviews to get more clicks.
Now, how do you get 667 page views a day? The pinay $candal keyword on which this blog is optimized is giving me at least 100 page views per day. To achieve that 667 page views a day, it means that you have to optimize at least 7 keywords on the first page of Google with traffic as much as that oSee, I get that $1 a day in Adsense after 3 months. You can have it too in 3 months if you promise yourself to optimize at least 2 popular keywords in 1 month. Make it 3 on the 3rd month. 2 keywords in a month isn’t that hard, isn’t it?
Now, where do you get those keywords to optimize? I already shared my keyword research technique. And some bloggers already followed my foot steps on sharing new keywords to optimize. Bluemumble has his keyword of the day project. Silkenhut has his shawty project. And I also release new keywords from time to time.
Yeah, it takes a lot of time and effort. But if you really want to earn from blogging, you must be patient.
After hitting the $1/day goal, then try bigger goals. Do it slowly but surely.f pinay $candal. Quite tough huh? Not really.
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