Q&A: 6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)

I got I think more questions on my recent post on Micro Niche sites and making money online on than anything I’ve written about recently. I’ll answer the most popular questions first, but remember you can get all the info here: Xfactor's Micro Niche Adsense Course – follow the link to the Warrior forum thread which contains all the details, or optionally you can purchase the course like I eventually did.

Question: Is it a step by step approach?

Answer: It can be. The course contains a detailed step by step approach to launch two Micro Niche Web sites a week, but it’s only one of hundreds of ways to proceed. You could launch one site a month in your spare time, or do any of a large numbers of things successfully if you follow the basics.

Question: Can I apply the techniques to blogs.

Answer: Yes, you can. Many people in fact are using WordPress instead of a standard HTML Web site. Now this will work better for some blogs than others of course. If you are blogging on “The Theoretical derivation of the Greek Letter Omega from Sanskrit” you’ll probably never  make money from it or have
lots of traffic (but the traffic may be super-focused) whereas if you are blogging on a commercial products like fish finders it’ll have  more applicability.

Question: What about bigger Web  things than “ Micro.”

Answer: In the next version of the course later this month, free for everyone that has already bought the course, Xfactor John goes into bigger sites in a lot more detail. There are also plenty of free details if you just go read the thread Xfactor's Micro Niche Adsense Course

Question: How long does it take to launch a site?

Answer:  The blue print had you do two a week, but I’ve done anywhere from 4 a week to 1 in 5 weeks. One made money within a few minutes of my launching it.

Question: What about existing things we may have on the Internet? Can we retrofit?

Answer: Absolutely. I changed my existing Web site on flyfishing for striped bass (a personal passion) to have a layout similar to the one recommended, and I’m suddenly making twice as much money as before. Results are very preliminary (less 48 hours), but I still have an attractive site, and I’m getting at least
twice a many clicks on ads and twice as much money, even though money is NOT my primary goal here.

Remember, the details are freely available. Follow the clearly marked link called: “6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)” from this link:  Xfactor's Micro Niche Adsense Course

Thanks for all the questions!

What I learned from the Free Roadmap to Become A Blogger

Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick's Free report, Roadmap to Become A Blogger is quite interesting. It's not a rehash of old stuff you can find other places, but some useful and interesting techniques and approached I'll be using very soon - some I've started already.

Before I go over my chief takeaways, let me say that I found information that will help me with Websites, blogs, and more. The report focuses on starting blogs to make money, but many of the techniques will work for plenty of other purposes.

Here are my main takeaways:

1) Forum research. To find areas where people are interested and exactly what they are interested in, check out related forums. You can just type in Google, "<topic> forum", to  find related forums.

For example I'm really into fishing for striped bass, and if you Google "striped bass forum" you find the top related forums. As I have a (money making) site on striped bass, you can bet I'll be looking these for ideas of new content areas to give readers what they want.

2) Diversify. Not all blogs or Web sites take off and do well for whatever reason. Now if you are blogging on your one true passion or career, and it doesn't do super well, you can slightly position it, but if like me you have many passions in life you might consider starting or trying several blogs/sites and then sticking with the most promising one.

I'm doing this. I have four different site up on different aspects of a passion of mine, fishing. The oldest one is doing OK, the next is doing  well so far, and we'll see how the two newest do. In the long term, I may abandon (or more likely combine) the least successful.

3) Build an email list of your readers. This really works, and many many of you reading this are coming because you are on my email list. Email lists work to build relationships, provide  value, and absolutely to make money!

4) Research within your niche by looking at Facebook groups. What are people interested in? I've done this, and will add for business topics also look in LinkedIn. I found both useful, but LinkedIn somewhat more for professional topics.

5) Use video. It's easy and cheap and people love it. I've done this, although not nearly enough, and it works. I'll be making some simple fishing videos soon to promote my fishing sites. It's really very very simple and it works. It gets you people coming to visit and see your stuff.

YouTube is the biggie, but there are also other significant video sharing sites, as well as easy ways to upload to all of them (I'm doing this!).

Click Here for the free report, Roadmap to Become a Blogger

These are my top takeaways. I have plenty more as well, and the report of free.

How to Live Your Passion and Wildly Succeed

"Anything insane has a price. If you're serious about building your personal brand, there will be no time for Wii. There will be no time for Scrabble or book club or hockey. There will be time for meals, and catching up with your significant other, and playing with the kids,  and otherwise you will be in front of the computer until 3:00AM every night. If you're unemployed or retired and have all day to work, maybe you knock off at midnight instead. Expect this to be all consuming."

- Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Gary also mentions you are going to enjoy it, as you'll be living your passion. He should know, he's living his passion, getting quite wealthy, and obviously having a blast.

His book is HIGHLY recommended!

Can you make money with AdSense?? Maybe

Can you make real money from AdSense?

I don't do a lot with AdSense, but it pays for my coffee, and a few bottles of Champagne, and it's growing.
Some people do make serious money with it though, although its glory years may be past.

With AdSense, you sign up with Google, add snippets of code to your blog/Web site, and Google automatically displays hopefully relevant ads based on your content.

When someone clicks on an ad (and it better not be you, read the terms of service carefully) you get between perhaps1 cent and 100 dollars, usually a few cents, When and if your balance reaches US$100, they eventually send you a check.

Can you make money with AdSense?? Maybe.

I've screwed with it for years, and have found a few things to be very true.

1) The ads need to be in your face. Ads in the left sidebar down low, for example, won't get clicked.

2) Some niches, think targeted Web sites/blogs, get far more clicks than others. Consumer goods, things people buy, tend to be good niches. This blog is not in a great area for AdSense.

3) You need to experiment with placement, colors, etc. Find what works for your blog/Web site.

4) Search engine traffic converts (clicks) far better than social traffic. This doesn't mean blogs don 't work, in fact they do, but your regular (social) readers tend to be ad blind. they not only don't click on them, they don't see them.

Of course there are other things to be concerned with, like Google can always throw you out of AdSense and refuse to even tell you why - and yes, they quite well may. And I'm rather have a $1.50 click rather than a bunch of 5-10 cents clicks, and I got both yesterday.

It's a minor income for me, but the occasional check for a few hundred dollars isn't bad, and of course a lot of people make much more. Those who make serious money either have a site with serious traffic in a great AdSense niche OR have a whole mess of small targeted sites.

You might want to read this long thread on AdSense on the Warrior Forum
6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned) - and yes, it's worth reading the whole thing and taking notes.

Wii Games - My Kids' Web site

I've helped my kids start a Web site - they actually have a lot of input although I do most of the technical bits and ghostwriting.

Jamie, 9, Amelia, 6, and Stacie, 5, have a new Nintendo Wii.  They are pretty excited.

So we started a Web site on Wii game reviews. We've gone through some keyword research together using the Google Keyword Research Tool, and are writing some reviews using long tail keywords.

For example, 1300 people a month Google "Wii Active Life Outdoor Challenge" (exact match, meaning they type in exactly that phrase). Yet there are only 921 pages that have that exact phrase (found by Googling the phrase in quotes - Google tells you how matches there are).

Now of those 921 pages that use that phrase, how many do you think concentrate, i.e. are optimized for, exactly that phrase? Probably very very few -- we didn't research further. Instead we threw up a quick yet hopefully useful review, using both personal experience and that of others to add more value (i.e. we read about 150 other reviews online).

I'm betting we snag some of those 1300 searches a month.

We've added Google AdSense, and may add a few other potential moneymakers like Amazon Affiliate links and ClickBank ebooks. My kids will get to buy new games with any proceeds, and if it's a total flop, I'm sure we'll still make enough after expenses to buy 2-3 games minimum.

What did it cost, other than time? Well, I bought OurWiiGames.com for US$2.19 from a domain name sale at GoDaddy this week, normal price about $10.00, and I already have several hosting accounts so that was a non-issue (it's hosted on BlueHost which I recommend - cheap and good).

Now instead of wondering what I'm doing on the computer all day, well, they have an idea now.

PS: My 6 year old wanted it to be a blog, but quite honestly, her writing weekly might just be a bit too much extra work for me :) (she does write well, and may probably be blogging within a year or two)

Review: Blogging to the Bank 3.0

Did Rob Benwell really make over 1 million dollars with his simple techniques outlined in www.bloggingtothebank.com ?

I have no idea, but I use many of Rob's techniques, such as keyword research to pick niche areas, optimizing for the search engines AND humans, building emali lists like this one, and monitizing by selling ads, using Google Adsense, and promoting affiliate (commission based) products.
For example, that's my plan with www.ChampagnePoodle.com, a site (not a blog) I just started.

These techniques work.

However, what Rob preaches differs from what I promote for blogging. It's just a different yet equally valid model.

I've always emphasized using blogs to showcase and promote your career or business. That's my primary focus.

Rob teaches you a formula that's worked for him to build blogs in small niche areas and then make money from them. You might build 10-20 or more blogs over the course of several years, and
no, you don't spend lots of time writing content for each. You might even outsource the writing (and he does) of some of the content.

This is a FORMULA - it's step1/step2/step3/step4/etc. then repeat for the next blog. I find it fascinating, but probably couldn't follow the steps over and over and over, even though I use many of his techniques.

This is not an approach you would use for your professional or business blog, although there are valuable techniques you can adopt successfully

Blogging to The Bank is a short ebook. There isn't a lot of handholding. If you're a total newbie, like if you need help reading your email, this is not for you. It could use a good proofread, although the grammatical and spelling errors don't detract from the information.

Should you buy it? That depends. Most of you will learn a lot from this ebook, and you'll probably read the whole thing as it's short - no time or words wasted here.

If making money online techniques interest you, and you are actually going to take some action, then yes, it's probably worthwhile.

Blogging to the Bank 3.0 has lots of fans. People ask me about it a lot, hence this review.

And I just checked - I made $18.34 last night while I slept using Robs techniques! No bull!

Click Here for More Info

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments and More, Part II

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments, Part I - click here

Here's part two of how to promote yourself, your blog, your Website, your charity, your sleazy underworld pursuits, or anything else  using blog comments.

I'm just giving you the tools -- please play nicely now!

How do you make search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you or whatever you're promoting is, whether it's a charity or even something sleazy?

As I said last week, "blog comments are awesome. They let you enter someone else's Internet real estate and leave public statements, which can make you look smart, drive traffic to your blog or Web site, and make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you are too."

Did you know that most traffic on the Internet is driven by the search engines, especially by Google, which is #1 by a long shot?

That's why search engine positioning, where you show up in the search engine results, really matters a lot.

For example, my new Web site flyrodstripedbass.com, is getting over 80 visitors a day JUST FROM GOOGLE. And the visitors are sticking around and reading several pages because they like the content (good content is very important, but you know that right?).

We can't go into all the reasons right now as to why Google digs my new site, but one primary reason is because it has a lot of links to it from other Web sites and blogs. Google and the other search engines take each link as a "vote of confidence" -- if it's worth linking to, it must be valuable they reason.

Well, there are lots of ways to get links, including leaving blog comments, buying links (called "text link advertising"), registering with directories, etc.

But let's step back - the search engines:

IGNORE MOST LINKS FROM BLOG COMMENTS!

You see, there are two types of links.

• Ordinary links, called "do follow links" and
• No follow links, which search engines ignore

Most blog comments utilize no follow links, in part to combat comment spam.

All intelligent blog comments are valuable, because readers may see them and follow them to your blog or Web site.

Unfortunately, all do follow blog comments, even comment spam, are valuable as the search engines take them as a vote of confidence. That's why we see comments like "wrerw effwefwe ewewffew" left by "Cheap Vaigra."

This causes a link to be made with the anchor text (the clickable part) of  "Cheap Viagra" and if the comment is left on a "do follow" blog, the search engines not only take the link as a vote of confidence for the cheap Viagra site, but they also use the anchor text to help figure out what's important about the linked to site.

Leave a couple million comments like this using automated spamming software and some of them will be do follow and your site promoting cheap (and probably fake) Viagra will get more search engine traffic, you'll sell more cheap vaigra, and perhaps live long and prosper, although I hope you die a early death in prison you miserable spammer!

I'm assuming my readers are good people and we're just looking at mechanics here.
Of course they can be used for good as well as evil.

So, "do follow" comments, actually any "do follow" links are very valuable, especially if you can use keywords as your name, the anchor text.

So, how do you find "do follow" blogs?  Several ways:
(most spammers don't get this -- don't tell them!)

• There are do follow blog search engines, for example
  http://dofollow.thegermz.com/
• You can use the Firefox browser with the following plugin which highlights links
  depending on their follow status
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5687
  Red is no follow, blue is do follow
• You could just look at the underlying HTML code!

There is one other method I suggest, but it costs $5 a month
(pretty cheap, huh?).

Easy Backlink Builder sends you 30 easy to get do follow links back to your site each month. They're not all blogs, but they all let you build do follow links back to whatever you're promoting, as long as you're nice, leave good comments, don't spam, follow sites terms of service, etc.

Let's look at two real (and ethical) Examples

#1) I have a Website on fly fishing, www.flyrodstripedbass.com

Now I do make some money from this site, but it primarily exists because I LOVE to fly fish, especially for Striped Bass.

I left comments on do follow fishing blogs to help build the sites importance to the search engines and get more traffic from them.

Actually I used Easy Backlink Builder as part of my strategy to help find places to (politely and respectfully) drop back links.

Hey, it's a fishing site, and I'm a fanatical fisherman. Leaving comments on fishing and related blogs makes perfect sense.

#2) "Bob Smith" (not his real name) has a common name. He has no Web site or blog of his own, but does use LinkedIn and considers his LinkedIn profile to be his home on the Internet.

If you Googled Bob, his LinkedIn profile showed up on page 7 of the search engine results. Everything else was some other Bob Smith.

Bob created a couple of backlinks to his profile, primarily using do follow blog comments (as well as leaving plenty of no follow blog comments), each week. Now, a few months out, if you Google Bob Smith he's THE NUMBER ONE RESULT!

So, Bob left a very few thoughtful comments each week, and he went from essentially unfindable to extremely findable!

Now as an aside, not all links are created equal. Links from important and related sites are worth more than links from obscure and unrelated sites, but pretty much all links matter.

Disclaimer: If you try Easy Backlink Builder I get enough money to buy a cup of coffee -- but not one of the expensive froufrou coffee drinks at Starbucks :)

SO:

• Build backlinks, but be nice!
• Bloggers don't need to be too concerned as bloggers naturally link to each other -- but "manually" creating a few links can and does make a big difference
• Many big companies including Fortune 500s spend a lot of effort building backlinks

OK, so why would someone have a "do follow" blog and how do you do it?
Stand by for part III!

Making Money from Membership Sites

As you probably all know, I'm a fan of Yaro Starak.

His last (complimentary) report made a big difference to me. Not only did I make a few hundred dollars within a few hours (just by following his strategy to attract advertisers), but it helped me improve my content and Internet presence over the long term.

You may also remember I interviewed Yaro for my last book.

Yaro Starak is at it again, and his new report, the Membership Site Masterplan is available now.

Now I have no particular interest in starting a membership site, but am eagerly reading Yaro's report -- I always get great ideas from Yaro's stuff.

Yaro is a great teacher and writer, and whenever he releases a report people always eagerly await what he has to say.

His gift is the ability to take complex subjects and make them very easy to understand.

On the Internet, whether Web sites, blogs, etc. - it's all about content, and this report is about using your content to your best advantage as well as to help others.

The Masterplan doesn't disappoint, and once again Yaro has not held anything back. This is a report that is full of CONTENT.

Ever notice how a lot of reports are just a bunch of hype -- or leave key pieces of info out on purpose? Not Yaro's stuff! If anything, it has too much info in it!

In the Masterplan Yaro explains how he was able to make $250,000 from just one membership site and then goes on to lay out a plan so you can launch your own membership site and earn at least $100,000 within the next 12 months.

In the report Yaro takes you through the following process:

• How to find topics for a membership site
• How to develop preeminence, which means people choose to join your membership site over all the other options
• What sources of traffic Yaro uses to bring members to his site and build his list
•  What technology Yaro uses to deliver content (this is so simple, anyone can do it)
• How to legitimately make money from a membership site BEFORE you create the content for it
• How to fill your membership site with hundreds of new members in a matter of days by conducting a powerful, yet simple, launch campaign
• and much more...

Click here to download the Masterplan.

This is by far the most comprehensive report I've ever seen on this or any related topic and I can't believe Yaro is willing to give it away.

Of course Yaro hasn't put all this work into the report for nothing. He's launching a training program and this report is designed to introduce you to his teachings.

That being said, this report is a complete document - no matter whether you decide to join Yaro's program or not, you will benefit greatly from this report.

Now as I said, I'm not starting a membership site -- BUT I am getting some great ideas
from his report that I'll be using soon!

But listen, I don't need to convince you of anything, just read the Masterplan. Yaro has put together a very compelling story and followed it up with a very detailed plan.

You can use his field-tested ideas -- no theory, just stuff that has and does work for Yaro and others, so get his report like I did.

Addendum:
Yaro has also released an audio version of the Masterplan too, so you can either
read this report or listen to it, whatever you prefer.

Click here to register for both versions.

How to give away Great Content

"Selling" the free stuff - you need to!

Let's say you got something great, and it's free!

And you've got a bunch of interested people, maybe even raving fans. Perhaps readers of your blog, personal fans of you, or people who really dig your Web site.

What you've got, maybe a special report or audio mp3/CD or whatever, is good enough to sell. Maybe you'll even sell it but first are offering it for free to your favorite fans, maybe for feedback, comments, or just because you're a nice guy or gal.

You let everyone know about it -- and they yawn. A few people download it. No one comments about it.

You know it's great because everyone you've personally shown it to raves about it. They love it. No one else much cares!

What went wrong? Simple.

You've got to "sell" free stuff, same as non-free stuff.

This is not my opinion. It's fact.

You need to create something, let's call it a "sales letter," explaining why it's so cool and why people want it. This "sales letter" might be a blog post, a Web page, an email, part of a presentation to your local pigeon fanciers club or whatever.

In your letter or presentation, you need to stress the BENEFITS. What it'll do for you, not the FEATURES, what it is.

Example - Aspirin:

•     Features - round, white, and small - yawn
•     Benefits - Will make your headache do away - cool! (especially if you have a headache! i.e. it fills a need, real or perceived)

Now here is a real-life example from last week:

I'm fanatical about fly fishing for striped bass and have a pretty popular Web site on the topic. Traffic is exploding. I've got an associated email list with equally fanatical fly fisherman.

I wrote a little special report on fishing. I'm going to sell it eventually.

I email my list and tell them. It's free, just for you, just for now. Friends who reviewed it really love  it. I only get a few downloads. Yawn.

A week letter, I send another email to my fly fishermen friends, stressing:

• Benefits: You'll double your catch, you'll get 'skunked' less, you'll have more fun fishing etc.
• Urgency: Download it NOW, it won't be up long and then I'm selling it
• Social Proof: I added a comment/testimonial from a friend (just one tip caught him more fish last weekend)
• Exclusive: Just for my friends who are currently on my email list

This is all basic sales stuff - and by the way, I neither understand nor like sales!

Net result? FOUR times as many people downloaded it! WOW!

So, you put together something. Maybe a "white paper," special report, ebook, or even a coconut creme pie.

It's GREAT stuff! You NEED to sell it.

Think of it this way:
You're Ripping Off your potential audience if you don't convince them - after all, if it's  great, it will benefit them enormously.

Trying to give away Great Content? You need to sell people on it, just like paid stuff.

Need To Know - Almost Profound Effect?

One book that's had an almost profound effect on me is "Need to Know" by Paul Myers, and he's GIVING it away now. I'm reading it for my 4th go through now. Yes, it's Free.

Profound Effect? Am I serious? Sounds like bull!

Well, yes, in an "online" sense.

He convinced me to build an "online playground" -  actually I've built more than one, and they're paying off too.

The most important started as a blog but morphed to a Web site full of evergreen content (stuff that doesn't go obsolete), and is on a hobby I'm passionate about.

And it's even making me a few bucks, has turned my fly fishing hobby tax deductible (that surprised me!).

I like reading Paul's stuff - I learn a lot from him.

Click here to grab a copy -- before he changes his mind and starts selling it! And he may.

"Need To Know" has also clued me in as to why somethings I've done online weren't even medium successes. Don't get me wrong, I've had some big successes, but some things I thought were no brainers didn't even get a yawn from potential readers online.

I've also got a short list of things to do, which will be fun AND add value to me and others.

You are bound to get at least something out of it, and besides,his writing style rocks!

Click here to grab a copy - A fun, quick, and valuable read,

I'm working on a simple & fun exercise from the book now -- and I think it'll add value and maybe even make me some money.

It may just set my online direction for the rest of the year - no bull!