AdSense and other questions
March 21st 2009 07:48
AdSense can be confusing, and after a reasonable amount of research there is still much I don't know. However, I can offer the following. It's not the full story, but I'll aim to answer some common questions.
1. How much can you make blogging on Orble?
The Orble Blog Adviser blog has a post here which analyses the performance Orble's best-performing blog, ZCars. At the time of the post ZCars had about 20,000 readers a day and earned about US$40 a day ($1,200 a month), according to Orble.
Having these two sets of figures - for ZCars and for my blogs - allowed me to make a comparison. ZCars has 40 times more readers than I do (20,000 divided by 500) but earns 80 times as much ($1,200 divided by $15). However, ZCars' $1,200 a month is before Orble's 50% cut, bringing the equation back to 40 times my earnings.
My blogs and ZCars therefore earn AdSense income at exactly the same rate, making the Blog Adviser post not just roughly accurate but remarkably reliable.
2. Who clicks on AdSense advertisements?
3. How much do I earn per ad click?
The answer to this is confusing, because Google's advertising system is complicated. There is no set fee to buy a Google ad. The rate an advertiser pays depends on key words - the words which describe the core subject of the ad and, typically, the core subject of the blog or web page where the advertisements will be placed. The more popular the key word, the more expensive the ad.
And if someone clicks on an expensive key word ad on one of your pages, you get paid more than for an inexpensive key word.
I recently made US$3.53 in AdSense earnings in one day - from one click! It was a record; an extraordinary, one-off result. The following day things returned to normal - I earned $0.06, from two clicks.
4. How quickly does blog readership grow?
If you write it, they will come. Believe it.
Another post on the Blog Adviser blog is entitled 'Orble Blog traffic over time: what to expect'. It offers a chart which shows that a blog on which you post a minimum of three posts every 20 days (say an average of just over four a month), will grow from zero to 900 readers a day in 500 days.
All six of my Orble blogs were started from scratch (I pig-headedly refused to take over abandoned blogs) within the last 10 months, and again I have found this Orble advice very accurate.
The problem for the impatient blogger, as you will see if you check the chart, is that growth starts slowly before accelerating from about 300 days. After 300 days, an average blog which has been added to regularly should be seeing about 150 readers a day. Just 200 days later, the number should be about 900 readers a day.
My two earliest blogs are both now about 300 days old and have tracked or slightly exceeded the Orble chart. If they continue to track that chart, things are about to get exciting at Vyoos and Zoomies.
5. So it's just a matter of writing at least once a week for 500 days?
To a large extent, yes. There are of course some things you should and shouldn't do, and they have been covered by many people in many posts. Three brief points are worth making again, however.
Firstly, you don't have to be Hemingway, but good spelling and grammar are rewarded.
Secondly, choose a niche subject and stick to it - it is the nature of blogging that writing about anything and everything will attract poor readership numbers.
Thirdly, the more content the better. You may have noticed that ZCars readers most days get two or three quality posts. It doesn't have to be that many, but three a week will get you substantially better results than one a week, and one a day will do better again.
image: washingtonmonthly.com
| 147 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Carolyn Cordon
Light Within
How do You Express Your Creativity?
Food Leaf
Comment by Time to Get Up Club
Comment by Spike 2
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Hi Time, glad it was of interest.
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Indeed, that was the real point of the post. Those two Orble posts promise a lot, but my experience says they are spot on.
Comment by The Rusty Can
Everything
uh... I think I might've chosen the wrong domain name...
Great post, Chris. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by moonglow
A Lot of Scrap
Paranormal Paranormal
Teacup Tales
Rubber Ball
In Zoo
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
although i do acknowledge that Deep Pencil has become the blog i post to most frequently
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
unfortunately, I think your earnings will depend on the subject as well, no?
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
When it comes to readership numbers, focused, single-topic blogs are recommended because they optimise search engine visibility. SEO gets more important as the blog matures.
I have an "anything and everything" blog too, Vyoos, and a focused-topic blog, Zoomies. Vyoos generally underperforms Zoomies despite having almost twice the content.
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Thank you kindly.
The way AdWords works, popular-topic blogs (popular topics here meaning expensive key words) will give a higher AdSense return per click.
To illustrate, it's easy to imagine the ads appearing on tech gadget and motoring blogs as high-appeal ads in high-appeal areas, and key words in those areas are no doubt among the most expensive.
My Zoomies blog, on the other hand, while sensationally written and magnificently entertaining (cough, cough), is about my pet dogs. It attracts ads for canine shampoo and tick control spray.
But things can get a bit complicated. Let's imagine a well-written gadget blog and a well-written dog blog. It takes about two years for both to become fully recognised by the search engines, at which stage we can consider them mature.
Which will have a bigger readership? I really don't know the answer, but I suggest the actual numbers are not that important. What will happen is that the gadget blog will find itself in a big pool with a lot of big fish. The dog blog will find itself in a smaller pool, but with fewer big fish.
Potentially, the gadget blog can make more money. The path to big fish status, and thereby better relative earnings, is however easier for the dog blog. Realistically, both can make good money.
I think.
Comment by Paul
Surreal Short Stories
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Comment by Wilson Pon
Health 2 Know
Adventure Toes
Techno Stuffs
boxing sound
Business Rope
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
I haven't seen any comments on that, and my AdSense earnings are too low to provide a reliable trend guide. On the other hand, it is a very fair assumption that PPC earnings would have declined recently, along with just about every other earnings indicator in the world.
Comment by sam sall
Health and Fitness
Speech Starter
Health Matters
Also not to forget that orble is a great site to start a blog , it provides more visitors than other blogs sites i think ,it is well infiltrated by search engine
thanks again
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Sometimes this gives you a bigger advantage - to start with anyway. Although, overall my blog is bit too general to get any real big traffic. I am working on that!
Good info, Chris.
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Orble's inactive blog list is a good idea, shortening that lengthy initial period getting a blog onto the search engine radar.
Janet, are you aiming to concentrate on the lengthy, well-researched and informative posts on topical issues, along with balanced opinion? You do it well.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog