The Difference Between Top AdSense Earners and Everyone Else

[Joel Comm]

A poll I saw recently on one of the AdSense forums got me thinking. It asked how much the readers were earning each month from their ad units. I don’t remember the exact results and the poll’s gone now but I certainly remember one thing about it... only about five people said that they were earning more than $10,000 per month.

That’s a pretty small number. I think it worked out at around 2-3 percent of the site’s viewers, and this was a site aimed at professionals.

The question that went through my mind was: What is the difference between the top-earning publishers and the bulk of people who were earning less than $1,000 a month?

I’m sure that every one of the people on that site knew the basic principles of creating high AdSense earnings. Many of them (certainly more than 3 percent) would have known lots of advanced strategies too. And yet only a tiny fraction were earning the sort of high income that AdSense makes possible.

It’s likely that a lot of people on the site were beginners. They’ve gathered the information but have yet to put it in practice. Others might not be interested in taking AdSense as far as they can go with it. They might see their ads as a way of earning a some extra money but never thought of it as a way of replacing their day job.

But what was stopping the rest from reaching their dreams of earning high incomes from their websites?

Well, here’s what I think... It’s a question of dedication.

Search for anything on Google and among all the good results you’re going to find a bunch of Web pages that contain nothing more than ads.

The people who own those sites are never going to create a six- figure online publishing business. They’re looking for a short-cut instead of thinking about the long term.

And that’s the difference between a top-earning online publisher and someone who makes peanuts: the top-earners understand that an online publishing business is exactly that... a business. It requires an investment of capital to buy traffic. It requires an investment of time and effort to create content, analyze stats and put new strategies in place. And it requires patience and planning to go from a simple blog to a network of sites a year or two down the line that all earn solid profits.

All of that adds up to dedication, focus and a professional approach to publishing. It’s not an easy answer and it doesn’t bring success overnight... but it’s worth making the effort to put it in practice.

[Chris]

Well said.

For me Success = Hard Work.

If you want success in anything in life it requires "hard work", often combined with "working smart" and "sacrifice". It seems that all too many people in life say they aspire to a range of things yet can never seem to make the sacrifices or get committed to their own dreams. I shouldn't preach too I after am only a high $XXX/month earner and I believe I do know the formula to make sites work and many advanced strategies (yet have not made it into the $X,XXX/month) - but that said I have no intention of it remaining this way and I am committed to pushing my earnings to the $X,XXX/month very soon (August or September I'd imagine) and with a pipeline dream of $XX,XXX/month sometime late next year.

Anyway I won't rant on too long, nice article Joel I whole hearted agree with you.

[markp-r]

Joel (and Chris),

Thanks for your inspiration and truth!

It's a pleasure to be learning from you both...

[wm8c]

Thanks for the words of wisdom Joel. In just a couple of days back in March I was able to increase my earnings by 5 times from two figures a month to just over three now with just some simple changes I ran across on one of your sites at the time.

I'm not making big bucks as my traffic is still too low but it's starting to slowly move up. Since March I have been adding fresh content I've written myself. I'm trying to stay away from the article mills at this point and I have a goal of at least one new article a week for the next year and working on some better linking strategies to improve my page rank and position. I'm trying to build a site for the long haul and traffic to go with it and so far it's been a slow progression with the traffic part of things. I also started a blog and have begun trying to get it noticed although so far that has been a flop :confused: and I'm still learning about that.

I just received your book the "Adsense Code" yesterday and have already finished about a third of it and I'm hoping to find some more gems in there to help the cause. Anyways, thanks for the inspiration and I hope to be a "top dollar" man at some point in the furture but for now I'm just trying to do the right things and grow with it (although impatience is a problem I have to work on) :rolleyes: I would like to think I could pay off my mortgage with this someday but for now I'll have to make an extra car payment every three months I guess.
Todd

[brian@my-affiliate-progra]

Yep, it's all about work. I have done very, very well with affiliate programs in the past and still make excellent money in that field with some of my sites. About a year ago I started to target another type of income (contextual ad programs - mostly adsense) and launched a series of sites that I knew would take a lot of effort for small earnings until they were established online.

Well 12 months later and one of my niche sites is really starting to kick butt, over the next 2 months I should make no less than $3,000 and possibly as much as 5 or 6k.

However it took lots of hard work, most of which was spent posting my own content to my blog. I think most people focus to much on "technique" and not enough on "content" and links.

Anyway, it can be done.... many people online are making a killing with adsense however you really need to think past 9 months when you launch a site these days. Something that most people don't do, they often quite before the magic happens.

One last note:

You need to have goals, mine are here (http://www.my-affiliate-programs.com/blog/42/marketing-tips-journal-monthly-wrap-up/)....

What are yours?

[nukemdomis]

Thanks for the truth and motivation. While I am learning...I am always listening.

[photogold]

I think all the posts show that if are serious about Adsense you can make a good income from it . But it isn't a get rich quick scheme and this is where a lot of beginners fall down . I have seen some of the videos by Michael Cheney about Adsense and they are very helpful. Good quality content and user friendly design are vital for any website , with or without Adsense .

[boston]

I agree. The there are so many people out there preaching the short term results by using software etc, that people get excited and forget the long term objective.
You're trying to build a site to that makes $1000's per month so you can quit your job and go into business for yourself.
Well what if the shortcuts get you a site that earns fast cash, and then the site get's dropped b/c the search engines catch on?
Would you quit your day job and go work for a company that pays you 2x more but can be out of business in 2 months?

I don't earn 4 figures/month, but I am in the 3 figure range now, and I can tell you most of the cash comes from a few sites (80/20 rule here) and those sites have 1 thing in common.
1- Genuine content.
2- Ethical links exchange.
That's it. The process is slow, but the top earning sites I have have been around for 2 years or more and have been consistently building links and content.

Stop thinking so much about the search engines, and focus the links and content around the visitors. If they like it, they'll keep coming back because your site is actually useful.
Thanks,
Mike

[Iceni]

I took a site that had high rankings but was not earning me any money but a lot of enquiries for something I did not do - into a site abut that thing. Now I have No 1 in Google and a PR of 5. The site is an information site and from $1 a day I now average between $10 and $20 a day with Adsense - and Joel, you know who to blame :). I have only been using adsense for 3 months.

My goal is 10 sites by Christmas but I know that it will take a long time for them to get listed in the search engines and bring in this type of income per day as the original site was already proven.

My only problem is getting the Google PIN number - 2 attempts and still waiting, anyone else had this?

Yes it is hard work and burning the midnight oil has never been more true.

Di
http://www.iceni-it.co.uk - Become a Virtual Assistant

[kbman]

It boils down to traffic....You can try every trick in "Joel's" book and without traffic it's useless. (But I must say - I've taken websites earning $0.10 a day to earning $3 a day without increasing traffic - just by using Joel's book)

To get traffic takes good content and lots of links. And that takes lots of work and money and effort.

It's not very inspiring to see those $0.10c days in the begining. But just getting to that level should already show you that it's possible - just do more of what you're doing and eventually it will get there.

[brian@my-affiliate-progra]

Kbman,

Yep, far too many focus on adsense optimization when their time would be much better spent creating good content about topics they love and getting inbound links. I really don't focus on income "too much" until I have a lot of good content on the site and have received a fair amount of inbound links.

Speaking of inbound links ... I found a new link to one of my sites yesterday from a pagerank 7 homepage ;-)

The lesson: create sites about stuff your interested in, forget the "high bid adsense terms"

[stanbeck]

Boston,

You made a comment about 'ethical link exchange'. Can you elloborate?

Stan Beck

http://kitten-pictures.com

[web whisperer]

I remember the day my brother called. We had a six figure success selling on Ebay last year. When you do EBay you learn to spot another eBayer easily in the post office as you wait in line to send your sold goods to the winners of your auctions. Dan had become acquainted with Bryan who was doing 4 times as much as we were on eBay. They talked regularly. This particular day Bryan was explaining that he had put ad sense on his site and was making $200 a day on ad sense alone! He insisted that Dan not waste one day and try ad sense on his site.

I had read some on ad sense but discarded the importance as so much "more work" to be addressed in the next life. I was busy with 111 urls, 3 that were earning money that I was earning ALL my income from. (I work full time from my home selling real products on websites that I have to ship when they are ordered.) EBay was a new adventure, but came to a screeching halt when we ran out of the exclusive product that sold like hotcakes for 18 months.

Dan was emphatic, "Don't let the sun go down, until you have put ad sense on your high traffic website." As it happened one of the 111 urls was getting 3-4000 visitors a day as an information site but I had nothing to sell and was negotiating to sell the site for $10,000 in less than a week.

I made all the mistakes, column ads, flashy colors, 3 ads to the page and made $1550.00 the first month. I was shocked... I found Joel and made some changes, $1800, the next month. Then Google rustled in its cocoon. (Google does a rejuggling of sites quite often and your site may go up or down in the organic search engine that = more or less traffic to your site.) I went down to $390.00 and was very upset.

I wrote Joel, I hired an SEO to kill the traffic virus that was stealing my traffic and sending my ad sense revenue to someone else. I started on 5 of my other sites "pruning, fertilizing and watering" them to be accepted by the Google Lords, oh yeah I put the right google ads and placement on them as well. I have labored many hours to increase my sites with ad sense ads on them and make sure my high traffic site was meeting the SEO requirements. The results are not staggering. But each month my income from ad sense increases. I am back to $800 a month.

My high traffic site makes 75% of my total ad sense revenue. All my other sites combined do not equal 1/2 of the high traffic site visitors each day.

Bottom line no traffic = no ad sense revenue.

[CharlieUK]

It's very true, it does take time and efforts. Great thread for newbies and veterans alike!

[Chopped Liver]

It boils down to traffic....You can try every trick in "Joel's" book and without traffic it's useless.

BINGO!

Again, kudos to Joel for offering excellent information. Some of the tweaks I learned from his book made my sites increase their CTRs and income substantially. I am nowhere near making "retirement income", but in one year, I have gone from $0.00 to low four figures per month.

After you get the HTML right, the content is flowing and the ads placed well . . . . It all boils down to traffic - and time.

Like most of you, I follow the "gurus" and what they're pitching and everyone either has a new slant on a particular idea - or they're repackaging and re-pitching someone else's information. One sells a social networking system, another has a foolproof one-way linking strategy, another pitches article distribution… you get the idea. Regardless of your site's topic, look & feel, and all the other things that are part of a well designed website - if there ain't eyeballs, there ain't no revenue.

IMHO, the "secret" is promotion - getting people to the site. Providing that all the key components are in place, promotion delivers eyeballs. To illustrate this point, one of my niche websites is about cats. Not just cats, but my wife's very special cats named "Puff and Pooh (http://www.puffandpooh.com/)". This started out as a novelty - long before Adsense gained popularity. PuffandPooh.com typically averages a couple dollars per day from AdSense. However, the site was mentioned in a syndicated article one day in February and earnings shot to three figures in one day. The following days it dropped off and resumed their average earnings.

Without buying your own ads… the real secret to success online is promotion. Getting other people to mention your site, quality inbound links, and keeping the buzz alive using all the best "white hat" methods available. Yes, this takes time, but if done properly it will yield results. To achieve the "gurus" earning potential I now turn you over to Joel…

Thanks all, good thread,

Chopped Liver
And of course, don't forget Puff and Pooh (http://www.puffandpooh.com/)

[kbman]

To be honest, when I initially bought Joel's book I thought - Hah easy money. And yes it was easy money 2 years ago where you could create a Directory Generator site and just pocket the money...

Those days are gone - now we need to work for the money...

Ciao
Kbman
Delicious (http://del.icio.us/kbman)

[johnUK]

Nice thread all.

From the 'newbie' point of view it helps to put things in perspective.

Having purchased Michael Cheney's videos and a sub to Joel's site and products, an initial period of excitement was soon replaced by strong overwhelming feelings. The courses and publications make it look easy, we sign-up to every newsletter or opt-in we can find and suddenly you can't 'see the wood for the trees' with endless daily emails arriving in the inbox :eek:

It's kind off reassuring to hear from others that it will need hard graft, commitment and patience to build a solid online business, not some fly-by-night venture.

[wm8c]

It boils down to traffic....You can try every trick in "Joel's" book and without traffic it's useless. (But I must say - I've taken websites earning $0.10 a day to earning $3 a day without increasing traffic - just by using Joel's book)

To get traffic takes good content and lots of links. And that takes lots of work and money and effort.

It's not very inspiring to see those $0.10c days in the begining. But just getting to that level should already show you that it's possible - just do more of what you're doing and eventually it will get there.

So very true...I in essence am a two month newbie. I had adsense on my site for over two years but never did anythig with it. I averaged about $10 a month for over two years! Arrrrghhhh! That gets me everytime I think about it now. Just by using some free ebooks I found on the web the last week of March, inside of a week just by changing the layouts adding some ads, getting rid of borders, and changing colors, I went from $10 a month to $100 a month. This is a 10x increase so not bad for a few days work. Unfortunely I have flatlined at $3.50 a day and still looking for the secret to boosting that. Time to find a niche and get it going. Unfortunately all the things I am passionate about don't have great paying ads :mad:

One suggestion I have though, is watch out for the ads and spending a lot of money on claims by people claiming they will get large % improvements in your earnings. I made a 1000% improvement on my earning although it was only from $10 to $100 a month so I just gave you that for free and it cost me nothing :) My adsense earnings are going to a non-profit (my church's building fund) until a $6000 pledge I made is covered so that's my first goal. I am open to any mentoring someone might have of the "big earners".

I have now just about finished Joels book and unfortunately (although some very good information in there) it didn't have the "golden egg" I hoped it would. I did find a few more ideas, but they would be more what I'd call tweaks than changes. But as I mentioned earlier, even tweaks can make a big difference. The secret to building more traffic is still eluding me :confused:
Todd

[jaihyppo]

The secret to building more traffic is still eluding me :confused:
Yup, whatever business we are in, without traffic, you won't make any money from your adsense.

I think I've heard someone saying that after applying Joel tips on adsense, their website visitors increase from 10 per day into 500 per day.

How is that possible?:confused:

From what I can see, traffic and adsense is totally a different thing.

[ericr]

Hi,

I lauched my first website with adsense in March 2006 after have bought Joel ebook. I was very discouraged in April when I saw my March report with an average of $0,10 a day.

The next month I had an average of $0,30 a day. It still not a lot, but 3 times more than the month before. I was still not happy because with the money I invested (ebooks, ads, Pay Per Click...) I was still in the red.

In May, Ta da!!! I had my first big day, $7 for just one day, now I was very exciting. At the end of the month my report showed an average of 1$ a day. So in 3 months my revenue increase by 10.

Today June 7, my report shows an average of $1,46 so it's still growing up.

So if my income multiply by 2 every month I can't wait in 6 months and in few years ;)

Thank you Joel!!

Here is my website www.en.articlesgratuits.com

[wm8c]

Yup, whatever business we are in, without traffic, you won't make any money from your adsense.

I think I've heard someone saying that after applying Joel tips on adsense, their website visitors increase from 10 per day into 500 per day.

How is that possible?:confused:

From what I can see, traffic and adsense is totally a different thing.

I think what you are confusing is "traffic" vs. "click through rate or CTR". No traffic, no clciks, it's as simple as that. What you will hear is lots of people say what I did and that is by making changes to your site and layout per Joel's book or any other E-book out there on Adsense, you can improve your click through rates dramatically. For example, let's say you get 50 visitors a day and 1% or 5 of them clicked on your ad. Now you make some changes to your site and place more ads or move them around, change colors, etc. and now you still got 50 visitors but you increased your CTR to 2% or 10 clicks (doubled). So you can make the most of your site by increasing CTR but obviously, if you can maintain that through 200 visitors, you just went from 10 clicks to 40 clicks at 2%. So you see, more traffic, more clicks and the better your CTR is, the more $'s you earn. To our success!
Todd

[Tradielady]

Hi Everyone,

I always find these posts so informative. It can get 'lonely' waiting for results and thinking "is it ever going to happen?" So I keep ploughing on after listening to others in here. I know it will happen, I just want it sooner rather than later :D

Like Di, I am also waiting for my PIN and I think it has something to do with the US Postal service??? I know for a fact that it's not exactly fast. I visited the US a couple of years ago and did too much shopping. I had a pair of shoes I didn't want to throw away but I didn't want to keep hauling them across the country with me either. So I posted them home to myself from Santa Barbara (surface mail) and continued travelling through the US for a couple more weeks.

Weeks after I arrived home I received this present from the US and yes, my shoes had finally come home!

And guess what? I haven't worn the rotten things again! Life, huh?

Anyway, I plan on making enough money with Adsense that I will be able to have as many pairs as take my fancy.:D

Cheers,
Jan

[dragonmum]

I took a site that had high rankings but was not earning me any money but a lot of enquiries for something I did not do - into a site abut that thing. Now I have No 1 in Google and a PR of 5. The site is an information site and from $1 a day I now average between $10 and $20 a day with Adsense - and Joel, you know who to blame :). I have only been using adsense for 3 months.

My goal is 10 sites by Christmas but I know that it will take a long time for them to get listed in the search engines and bring in this type of income per day as the original site was already proven.

My only problem is getting the Google PIN number - 2 attempts and still waiting, anyone else had this?

Yes it is hard work and burning the midnight oil has never been more true.

Di
http://www.iceni-it.co.uk - Become a Virtual Assistant

I know what you mean about Google Pin, I am in the same situation suppose we will just have to keep trying.:rolleyes:

Dragonmum
http://www.crystalvibrations.org

[Joel Comm]

This has been a great discussion! It's so encouraging to know that people are taking my strategies and putting them into action. It's all about taking action to pick cash off the Internet money tree. There is such an abundance available... it's true that you just need to work for it.

Keep it up!

Joel

[jaihyppo]

I think what you are confusing is "traffic" vs. "click through rate or CTR". No traffic, no clicks, it's as simple as that.
No... No... I do understand what CTR is. What I meant was when people applied Joel tips, the number of visitors to their website increase. Meaning lets say you have only 10 visitors per day, now it will become 100 visitors per day all of a sudden.

This is not possible, right? Yes, the CTR might increase but not the number of visitors to your website.:(

[ericr]

wm8c is right, it's not just about traffic, the CTR has a big role. I double my revenue in one month and I didn't double number of visitors.

Another thing which affect your revenue is the damn smart price. I read about that and it look like that more your website is old and more quality traffic your send to the advertisers more your commission will be high.

On my website I launched in March I have an article about Loans. Loans is a very expensive keyword. I have also an article about Loans on another website I launched 3 weeks ago. Results: For a click I received the same day my older website gave to me a lot more. $2 for the older and $0,05 for the other. I can't tell the time though I know the bid can change in the day, but it's a huge different.

The Smart price is a myth or it's true?

About Traffic, I didn't mention before, but I designed a little free traffic generator. You can use it as often as you want. It won't bring hundreds visitors a day, but you will have free visitors for sure. I use it 3 or 4 times a day and few visitors click on my ads. One or 2 visitors a day can bring to you more. A visitor can come back on your site even refer more visitors.

Try it and give me your comments and suggestions to improve it.
http://www.your-website.ca/free-traffic/

Don't be surprise, but I have ads on the page ;)

[bwiemers]

Great Article Joel.

I've been working at Adsense since August last year and at first only made about 0.50 cents per month!

Finally, after a lot of persistence, learning and testing I managed to get my PIN in December 2005. Since then I've been earning a $XXX income per month and it's great! But I feel I still have a long way to go.

I agree with the other posts, that people get into Adsense and expect instant riches, but this business is like any other business. It takes a lot of hard work and patience.

I've now turned my attention to my other sites because although they convert well, I really need to get more traffic to increase their earnings, and this is where I am finding it difficult at the moment, but it is still fun :)

I still get a buzz everyday when I check my account and see that I've earned some money, no matter how small the amount is.

Thanks Joel for your book and articles, you helped me turn the corner.

Regards

Bernie
http://www.articlerich.com
http://www.money-site-builder.com

[bcnorman]

Learning as I go along, mostly from what isn't working. I've just purchased Joel's book and studying it intensely. I can see the hard work that goes into making an income of say 6,000 or 7,000 per month, which is my goal and I'm more than willing to work as hard as necessary.

Joel does us all great service and I'm delighted that his experience and knowledge is here for us all.

Hummm. Does that sound like I'm kissing up? ;)

Brenda

[wm8c]

Joel does us all great service and I'm delighted that his experience and knowledge is here for us all.

Hummm. Does that sound like I'm kissing up? ;)

Brenda

Now that is some serous "kisser upping" :D I've gone about trying to solicit some help and suggestions myself but I think you got the "direct approach" about covered lol!

I think we all have aspirations for that kind of cash but so far I've only met a couple that are doing it and trying to pry the real secrets away have been harder than trying to saddle a bull. Finished Joel's book...some good ideas but some would take more investment in $$ than many have. I think if you are averaging at least 4% CTR's and just keeping looking for ways to increase that (in my case I cut it in half with my last change, so live and learn I guess) and also increase traffic, I think it's all possible. I refuse to go "black hat" on this stuff but I'm hoping I can find some "white hat ways" to accomplish the same things. The best of success to you Brenda! Let me know if that big "kiss up" worked or not :p
Todd

[bcnorman]

Now that is some serous "kisser upping" :D I've gone about trying to solicit some help and suggestions myself but I think you got the "direct approach" about covered lol!

I think we all have aspirations for that kind of cash but so far I've only met a couple that are doing it and trying to pry the real secrets away have been harder than trying to saddle a bull. Finished Joel's book...some good ideas but some would take more investment in $$ than many have. I think if you are averaging at least 4% CTR's and just keeping looking for ways to increase that (in my case I cut it in half with my last change, so live and learn I guess) and also increase traffic, I think it's all possible. I refuse to go "black hat" on this stuff but I'm hoping I can find some "white hat ways" to accomplish the same things. The best of success to you Brenda! Let me know if that big "kiss up" worked or not :p
Todd

Thank you Todd for your good wishes. You sound like a "white hat" kinda guy. What exactly do you mean by "black hat" so I know not to put one on. As for the numbers I mentioned, my motto, which I have followed throughout my life, is: "Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will still hit a few billions stars." If it's possible, I aim for it. :) Brenda

[wm8c]

Thank you Todd for your good wishes. You sound like a "white hat" kinda guy. What exactly do you mean by "black hat" so I know not to put one on. As for the numbers I mentioned, my motto, which I have followed throughout my life, is: "Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will still hit a few billions stars." If it's possible, I aim for it. :) Brenda

I like your quote :cool: "Black Hat" tactics would be what some people choose to use to boost their clicks, and one obvious one would be the click exchange groups out there and also programs to generate clicks. Anything that is not "honest and following all the rules" would be "black hat" tactics. Now this doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with using the system to your advantage but just avoiding the out and out cheating.
Todd

[splork]

Lots of discussion here about good content sites. Building a business and all that. Last month was my best affiliate and Adsense month ever. My best performing site was a keyword spam portal site. I have numerous of these bad boys. Some perform great, some not so great. They all follow, in some fashion, Comm's Adsense tips. They take about 5 minutes to build with the few templates I use.

I have numerous blogs that blog just run of the mill feeds. Junk sites really. They make money. I have datafeed sites that run on blogs. They make a few bucks from time to time. I have content blogs and XSP sites. Really nice content sites. Some original, some scraped, some PLR that has been changed and some PLR that hasn't. They make money.

My point is there are tons of ways to have a "business". Is keyword spam sites sustainable for the future? Maybe not. But it gives me profits today to add back to the business. Does Wal-mart worry about being able to sell crappy Spongebob dolls today, since they probably won't be popular 5 years from now? No. They profit from what is happening today. That is a business.

Folks are always worried about building these nice and neat VRE's that will be around forever. Super. I have those too. But I always work what is working today too.

Don't discount anything to add to your arsenal for making money. Diversify. Blackhat rocks. Whitehat rocks.

I guarantee there are plenty of folks working every angle to make a buck. That's business. You may as well join them.

[bcnorman]

Lots of discussion here about good content sites. Building a business and all that. Last month was my best affiliate and Adsense month ever. My best performing site was a keyword spam portal site. I have numerous of these bad boys. Some perform great, some not so great. They all follow, in some fashion, Comm's Adsense tips. They take about 5 minutes to build with the few templates I use.

I have numerous blogs that blog just run of the mill feeds. Junk sites really. They make money. I have datafeed sites that run on blogs. They make a few bucks from time to time. I have content blogs and XSP sites. Really nice content sites. Some original, some scraped, some PLR that has been changed and some PLR that hasn't. They make money.

My point is there are tons of ways to have a "business". Is keyword spam sites sustainable for the future? Maybe not. But it gives me profits today to add back to the business. Does Wal-mart worry about being able to sell crappy Spongebob dolls today, since they probably won't be popular 5 years from now? No. They profit from what is happening today. That is a business.

Folks are always worried about building these nice and neat VRE's that will be around forever. Super. I have those too. But I always work what is working today too.

Don't discount anything to add to your arsenal for making money. Diversify. Blackhat rocks. Whitehat rocks.

I guarantee there are plenty of folks working every angle to make a buck. That's business. You may as well join them.


Thank you for your blog ... it is written in a literary style and has great value.

[splork]

bcnorman, thanks for reading and the nice comments. That means alot.

Thank you for your blog ... it is written in a literary style and has great value.

[bcnorman]

bcnorman, thanks for reading and the nice comments. That means alot.

The thing about your blog is your willingness to share your mistakes so some of us don't make the same ones. One thing I can say about these super marketers, they are good at what they do. You really have to think twice and dig deeper into why they are "sharing" this information with the rest of us, if it's sooooooo good.

But your story about the $5,000 you spent with the disappearing guru ... that's more than a mistake that's fraud on the guru's side. Certainly an extraordinaryly expensive lesson. Thank you again for sharing.

As I stated, I am a newbie. Just getting my feet wet. OK maybe up to my ankles. And the postings here are a fabulous education.

Brenda;)

[splork]

I am under no illusions that marketers do anything unless it is a benefit to the bottom line. Of course, why should they? They are here to make money not friends. I have stopped believing in any promises. That's harsh and a bit sad for me, but I have been burned so many times. I have been disappointed more times than not and have been able to find the information that was so "secret" on a free website, chat or forum more times than I can count.

I don't pay attention to the pitches anymore. Like I try to express vigorously on my blog, don't let the offers find you. You'll know when you need it, and when you do, go find it. This intimidation by these gurus using time decay pricing and availability is just garbage. And yes, I believe it's intimidation because they know that the people consuming these products are desperate to find a way out of being a slave to the cubicle, or low paying wages. And they don't have a ton of money to spend either. We all want the 5 figure check from G and will happily believe whatever to make that happen.

Can you be a top adsense earner? Yes. Is there magic to it? No. It takes alot of hard work. It takes a lot of time or money. You have to decide which you want to give. Do it yourself or outsource.

huff, huff...rant off. Sorry 'bout that :rolleyes:

[samurai]

Yes it is hard work and burning the midnight oil has never been more true.


Man, I like your wording style :)

[Iceni]

I had an accident - well actually I used some fake tan and ended up looking like a zebra. I posted this on a couple of forums for a laugh (with my signature of course) and had my second best day ever yesterday - the day I posted.

Now I have noticed that this often happens if I start to post for business or pleasure, I just wish there were enough hours in the day to do this every day.

I suppose we have to get the number of sites we want up there and then get a plan for getting more traffic. I know what I can do with one site, I now need another 9 and more traffic generating tactics.

As an aside I registered with a well known autoresponder - half my list did not convert via the double opt-in (we don't like this method in Europe, don't know why but we don't). I then got a max 4 subscriptions to my newsletter a week - terrible. I took their form off the squeeze page and put one linked to my domain autoresponder and have had almost 80 subscriptions since the 11th of June and each address is checked for validity by my domain system. I am going to use GroupMail and do it myself. As a second income stream I need my list. No point in outsourcing if it is a total failure.

Right - back to site 2. I have decided that each site will be original, of a good size and added to each month. There will also be a blog for each site. Thank goodness I don't like cricket or football...

By the way, I am writing down what I am doing with each site as I go along and getting a 'plan' for writing sites. I will adjust this plan as necessary until I have a system that I know works for me.

Sorry for the long post - Oh, and I got my PIN number, we are now into the 'transferring to my bank a small amount' mode as the post to France takes 8 weeks.

Di Chapman
Become a Virtual Assistant and work from home (http://www.iceni-it.co.uk)

[Tradielady]

Hi Di and Everyone,

My PIN arrived too. Very soggy but still usuable. I live in one of the more fortunate places in Australia that is still getting rain and yep..you guessed it...You see, my snail-mail box is crammed with junk mail daily and the postie can't always fit 'proper' mail in! Grrrr....I hate junk mail!

Wanna know something really horrible?

I was talking with one of my new contracting businesses yesterday and he was telling me this client (his MAJOR client!??...yep...diversification urgently needed) expected him to wait for 120 days to get paid because he didn't have a merchant account! Can you believe that? He was virtually bankrolling their business. Obviously he wasn't happy about it but after our conversation yesterday and the new tools I have provided him with I think that'client' will now have to go to a REAL financial institution for an overdraft.

Anyway, by helping him sort through and solve many of his problems it made me feel good and to know I'm not wasting my time in helping these blokes get their businesses organized.

BTW, I just love this site. It is my personal adsense educator and what I am learning from here I am practicising and passing on to others so they can try and improve the income from their websites.

Now I have my PIN, sooner rather than later (I believe) Google will be needing to send me more money and make my PIN worth the sending to me :D

Cheers,
Jan

[Iceni]

Daily Post - what is that, we get post 3 days a week if we are lucky - but I am really remote so the fact that the only noise I can complain about is my cockerel crowing and the next door goat bleating early in the morning is why I ran away to live on a high hill in France.

Google now owe me a nice sum of money - with just one site it is amazing. Second site finished and I will submit that to the small search engines today.

I had the worst site ever to SEO and I told them I could not help them but they insisted - well I have had a mail today to say that they are getting loads of hits - so submitting to all the small engines DOES work - backlinks again :). Don't forget the tiddlers, just because you cannot rank in Google and Yahoo does not mean you won't get the traffic - yup, I love helping folks as well.

Di

[masjidi]

the top-earners understand that an online publishing business is exactly that... a business. It requires an investment of capital to buy traffic. It requires an investment of time and effort to create content, analyze stats and put new strategies in place. And it requires patience and planning to go from a simple blog to a network of sites a year or two down the line that all earn solid profits.

I like that Joel, unfortunately the online business is not clear yet to a lot of people as it's a real business , a business that you need to study, understand, like and run.

[Tradielady]

I think I know what puts a lot of people off is the information overload. Does it ever stop? I think I'm getting on track and something new pops up again.

Apart from the information overload, I think my hardest problem is staying focused and learning what to ignore and what to follow through on. Do others have the same problem?

Jan

[Iceni]

I have unsubscribed from almost all the mail lists I was on. I have decided that 30 mins twice or three times a week is enough to scan the offers. I have decided on how I am going forward and am not going to be distracted.

As an aside, one of the lists I am still on sent me a mail yesterday for Adsense books (all of which can be got free from JV's). He was bragging how much he made in his first five months.

All of these figures for a whole month
Month one under a dollar.
Month two 6 dollars
Months 3 4 and 5 $160 on average.

Using Joel's book and Michaels videos that he was an affiliate for, I went from $7 the first month, $70 the second and seem to have settled on $400 per month since. I am using a free e-book to pull traffic for one site only.

I treat it as a business and have two more sites on the go and a third ready for some time in the future.

I am also doing a 90 day course to learn Internet Marketing - other than that I ignore all fads and fancies that come along. You have to work at one thing at a time. Luckily I found my niche which I love and am using that to expand - I have a goal. It might take 2 years to get there, but reading the stories about the real 'overnight successes' they all seem to take quite a bit of time to get to that one night.

Don't give in - keep going, for every action there is a reaction, take enough of them and you will get results, just make sure they are all towards one result and not scattered - if you do nothing you get nothing.

Happy 4th of July to those in the US.

Di

[www.centraldirectory.net]

this post makes me fell guilt i am not earning even $1/day

[Iceni]

I took an existing site that I had had for years, I read what Joel had written, watched Michaels videos and copied exactly what was done and said.

I then offered a free e-book which I had written to bring in the specific niche market that my stats said were finding my site (ie what was the site being searched for). I changed the site to fit in with this clientelle and it now appears at No 1 in Google for the search phrase that was the most common one used before I put Adsense on the site and rewrote it.

I do not really like the outcome of the redesign. I am not sure I would stay around with all the adds BUT my site has far more visitors and in four months my Adsense income went from zero to $400 per month.

I am on another course now for Internet Marketing. I am doing the same thing - I am following the instructions to the letter. If you buy a system that is supposed to work the only way to test it is to follow it to the letter.

As an aside to this, I have bought one other Adsense system and got my money back within the 30 days - I simply could not see how it would work as it failed miserably for me and even got me thrown off blogger (and no it was not Blogging to the Bank which I also have). I have asked for my money back on only one other product ever - which was not worth the money paid, so I am not gullable and do give the books/videos time and effort and do not try to change what they do - if it works for them it should work for me and it did.

I did not do this on a new site and expect it to be found by magic - I have put other sites up and they earn nothing as I am not paying to get traffic to them but waiting for the search engines to find them (I have submitted but we all know how long that takes). They are for the long-term and some day Google will find them.

My personal opinion is take one site and follow the advice to the letter. I have been working in SEO for years and the mantra that each page needs at least 500 words of text for the search engines to fall in love with it seems to hold true. You won't get any ranking with graphics apart from the Alt tags holding your keywords.

I took a lot of time looking at Joel and Michael's sites before I started - that helped a lot.

Hope that this helps.

Di

[hilolarry]

I make a 6 figure income off the internet (writing applications that run in web browsers) but i really doubt that even 3% of people make $10,000 a month off adsense. Even if you had a 20% click through rate (which we all know is high) you would need 250,000 visitors to your site every month or over 8,000 visitors a day. If you had that type of traffic you would be in the top 1% of sites on the web for traffic.

The reality is that if you can make $5 a day off adsense ads on a site, you are doing pretty good. All the guys out there saying they are making 6 figures off adsense ads may be making that income but more than likely its; from selling information on "how to make $10,000 a month from home."

[Iceni]

I make a 6 figure income off the internet (writing applications that run in web browsers) but i really doubt that even 3% of people make $10,000 a month off adsense. Even if you had a 20% click through rate (which we all know is high) you would need 250,000 visitors to your site every month or over 8,000 visitors a day. If you had that type of traffic you would be in the top 1% of sites on the web for traffic.

The reality is that if you can make $5 a day off adsense ads on a site, you are doing pretty good. All the guys out there saying they are making 6 figures off adsense ads may be making that income but more than likely its; from selling information on "how to make $10,000 a month from home."

Agree totally. My site is a 'how to' site for homeworkers but it is about one of the specific fastest growing top 10 industries in the US and the world. Anyone can do it if they are willing to build a real business (ie take 2 year to go from nothing to earning a living). There is a lack of information in the UK and the adds are well linked to the content so those that visit seem to click away. $20 yesterday and that had to be UK visitors as I doubt that many in the US would be bothered on the 4th of July. The visitor rate is not as high as I would like but it is climbing and the site only went live with Adsense adds in March.

Side note - funny that - everything that makes you money via the net seems to take one to two years.

I used to earn a lot more from the net but 3 years of ill health and now living in a remote place has made me look for other ways of supplementing the clients 'I' decided to keep. Working at something new for me is a real 'learning process'. By that I mean as an on-line and off-line tutor, I do what I am told as I would expect my students to do. If they say put adds all over the page, I bite my lip and do it - and for me it has worked.

Today I am going to revamp another site as per the instructions of Joel and Mr Chaney. It may take a long time for the search engines to get it indexed but one day it will happen and it should start earning.

It is in PHP and that nags a bit as I prefer HTML but I can at least test it against other HTML sites launched at the same time and see if it causes any problems.

My earning site is PR5 and a lot of my visitors come from a directory site I co-own with a PR5 rating - they both have backlinks all over the Internet and I submit to free classifieds. I also found that someone has put a free e-book I wrote up on an eZine site and that is in the search engines.

To me it is a lot of work and I have a 'checklist' that I keep at with any new site. The site is there for good so it is worth spending an hour or two a week submitting the site to small directories and subsidary search engines - lets not forget the blog. It does not all happen on its own.

My $400 a month is not without work and I am in the replication process now with other sites.

Di

[Sohan]

A poll I saw recently on one of the AdSense forums got me thinking. It asked how much the readers were earning each month from their ad units. I don’t remember the exact results and the poll’s gone now but I certainly remember one thing about it... only about five people said that they were earning more than $10,000 per month.

That’s a pretty small number. I think it worked out at around 2-3 percent of the site’s viewers, and this was a site aimed at professionals.

The question that went through my mind was: What is the difference between the top-earning publishers and the bulk of people who were earning less than $1,000 a month?

I’m sure that every one of the people on that site knew the basic principles of creating high AdSense earnings. Many of them (certainly more than 3 percent) would have known lots of advanced strategies too. And yet only a tiny fraction were earning the sort of high income that AdSense makes possible.

It’s likely that a lot of people on the site were beginners. They’ve gathered the information but have yet to put it in practice. Others might not be interested in taking AdSense as far as they can go with it. They might see their ads as a way of earning a some extra money but never thought of it as a way of replacing their day job.

But what was stopping the rest from reaching their dreams of earning high incomes from their websites?

Well, here’s what I think... It’s a question of dedication.

Search for anything on Google and among all the good results you’re going to find a bunch of Web pages that contain nothing more than ads.

The people who own those sites are never going to create a six- figure online publishing business. They’re looking for a short-cut instead of thinking about the long term.

And that’s the difference between a top-earning online publisher and someone who makes peanuts: the top-earners understand that an online publishing business is exactly that... a business. It requires an investment of capital to buy traffic. It requires an investment of time and effort to create content, analyze stats and put new strategies in place. And it requires patience and planning to go from a simple blog to a network of sites a year or two down the line that all earn solid profits.

All of that adds up to dedication, focus and a professional approach to publishing. It’s not an easy answer and it doesn’t bring success overnight... but it’s worth making the effort to put it in practice.Not putting you down or anything, but you kind of promote those shortcuts. Like the instant adsense templates (Amazing stuff btw, got it today.) Thats a shortcut kind of, becuase it has pre-built content.

[garg]

Not putting you down or anything, but you kind of promote those shortcuts. Like the instant adsense templates (Amazing stuff btw, got it today.) Thats a shortcut kind of, becuase it has pre-built content.

After a person gets the templates he / she still needs to work on them. I guess he means that the templates shortcut won't cut it alone. It's a short cut that gives you an advantage over others but it won't throw you into the $10,000 range unless you regularly update and promote them.

[Tradielady]

Re the Adsense templates that Joel released today...I'm seriously impressed! I have had the most wonderful day learning...and learning...and and so much has come together for me today its been absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

This will be one of those purchases that has been life changing for me. A day to remember for the rest of my life.

Thanks Joel. I will keep you updated as I grow.

Cheers everyone,
Jan

[Sohan]

Normally i would spend a month totaly making my own CMS per site in PHP.
Now that i've seen Joel's HTML Tool, i was amazed.

[Iceni]

You have all these fantastic templates - how are you going to drive traffic to them?

You will need a domain name and hosting for each one and traffic costs money. Just 50 domain names is a tidy sum you have to come up with.

I am not saying the templates are not great - they are, but that is only the start, you need visitors and visitors cost time and money - they do not appear by magic.

I have been testing and using a free tool and have found I get a spike when I do this one thing - I have tried this for 3 weeks with three spikes - so now I am going to buy the software so that I can expand on this experiment - the three weeks extra spike has paid for it. I am more interested in getting traffic to the sites I have than getting extra sites.

It is a bit like location location location, but it is traffic, traffic, traffic.

Once you crack it with one site you can duplicate with others but I still maintain that a new site will take some time before it really delivers the money and you need to spend even more money to get it to deliver the money (hope that makes sense). You need to get an awful lot of clicks to cover the money.

Di

[Sohan]

You have all these fantastic templates - how are you going to drive traffic to them?

You will need a domain name and hosting for each one and traffic costs money. Just 50 domain names is a tidy sum you have to come up with.

I am not saying the templates are not great - they are, but that is only the start, you need visitors and visitors cost time and money - they do not appear by magic.

I have been testing and using a free tool and have found I get a spike when I do this one thing - I have tried this for 3 weeks with three spikes - so now I am going to buy the software so that I can expand on this experiment - the three weeks extra spike has paid for it. I am more interested in getting traffic to the sites I have than getting extra sites.

It is a bit like location location location, but it is traffic, traffic, traffic.

Once you crack it with one site you can duplicate with others but I still maintain that a new site will take some time before it really delivers the money and you need to spend even more money to get it to deliver the money (hope that makes sense). You need to get an awful lot of clicks to cover the money.

DiHow do you get your traffic?

[anmb1]

Hey All,

It seems to me that most people here have at least some idea of how to play the AdSense game, namely:

(1) Focus on building sites that have good content focused on a well defined niche
(2) Make sure you apply the best advice out there when designing and placing your AdSense ads on each page
(3) Find ways to drive traffic to your webpages
(4) Monitor the results you're achieving and find ways to (a) increase your traffic (b) improve the click-through-rate to make the most of the traffic flowing your way.

Of the points above, by far the hardest to crack is driving traffic.

And...we've (probably) all been searching for the answers to web-traffic.

Do you focus on search engine placement?
Do you focus on inbound links?
Do you focus on traffic from Google? (What about MSN, Yahoo and others?)
Do you focus on paid-for traffic? (AdWords/AdSense arbitrage?)
Do you focus on sponsor ads in newsletters?
Do you focus on link exchanges
Do you focus on article submissions?
Do you...

My point? My point is that the gurus who we place so much faith in and have so much admiration for must have some clear cut advice to give and yet I've never seen one of them really open up and show us the way with a real-world, proven example...

What's more, there are other ways to generate incomes on the web...affiliate marketing, having your own products, create a fire sale, membership sites, etc.

Surely AdSense is just part of the income mix - part of several streams of income?

I, for one, would be thrilled if other members of this forum (including Joel - please :) ) could share their traffic strategies and back them up with real data, real results...

Hard work alone will not make you a fortune. We all need that edge, to seek out and find that competitive advantage.

When do you want to break free and start living the life you dream of?

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

Tony MB

[Iceni]

Tony

I am not going to quote your whole post as it is just above this but YES,YES, YE S - what a fantastic post. I do most of the things you itemise to send traffic to my site and am learning all the time.

No-one ever tells you everything - Joel makes his money from all the various methods open to Internet Marketers - we are at the starting gate (well I have been working on the net since 1995) but to me it seems that there are a group of 'Gurus' who share and share alike - just look at the testimonials on Joel's site. They get each others products in advance (so if they put up one of the sites before you and you put yours up unchanged the search engines will rate the first one up highest - so who gets the advantage). The same people were all over Butterfly Marketing and all the other launches from $2000+ to $47. I am also amazed at the overnight success stories who admit quite often that it took them 2 years and help from the big Guys and Gals to get launched (and they never would have got launched except for being in the right place at the right time etc) - we can't all be chosen but we can all buy - or not.

I am currently on the free 10 in 90 program. http://www.10in90.com/ It is running and full but I am sure they will do it again. It is amazing - the links to the website writers the big boys use, the copywriters etc etc etc. They are telling their secrets and mentoring a whole group of people into building a real Internet business with their own products. Hard work, YES, worth it - I will let you know. Total cost to me so far - time, I have not had to buy anything except a domain name.

I am fed up with getting half or a quarter of the information and the 10 in 90 program has given me more info in the first 5 weeks than anything I have ever paid for. I can't wait to see what the whole 3 months brings.

By the way, when I find someone who sells something I like or want, I go and analyse their site, quite often that gives me as much information as the product does. This does not work for templates but can work for how other things are done. If the advice they sell is not what they actually do - then I wonder.

I now limit myself to a certain amount of 'spending money' each month - it is amazing how much extra that leaves you in the bank - almost as good as a low paying Adsense site... :)

[anmb1]

Thanks Iceni

Appreciate your comments.

Here's another thought...(and by the way I see these as positives as it never hurts to talk about the real state of affairs than puffing up each others' egos)

Why does everyone think success on the Internet equals mega $$$s?

How many people, right now, today are going to work, blowing their brains out and working 40, 50 hours per week (or more) for a megre paycheck (Here in the UK the average net income is around £1200 per month - about $2000 per month)

Now let's just suppose everyone started to focus on a practical goal...

What if you could match or even exceed your job income by 25-50% every month?

How much would that be? Say $3000 or £1500...

That would be enough to pay all your bills, live life as now BUT kiss goodbye to the boss...FOREVER!!

So what does that mean?

It means instead of focusing on some wild dream and being the next online millionaire you can focus on something that delivers much greater value/benefit RIGHT NOW!!

And that is....

How can I make $100/day (or £50/day) ONLINE - right now?

When you look at the question in this way there are many more ways to achieve this dream than blowing your brains out trying to make AdSense your prime income.

Even PPC affiliate marketing looks interesting...after all it's about targeted traffic, cost vs income.

And many affiliate programs will return you a profit on just 2% conversion!!

Oh, and in case we've all forgotten - what about building a list within a niche a promoting things your list members...

Hmmm...

Perhaps there is a simpler way to WIN ON THE INTERNET and change your lifestyle forever...

How can I make $100/day?

Answers?

Tony MB

[Iceni]

Well the people I support can make £100 a day (yes UK £) because they do digital transcription. You may think that this is just typing BUT because of the many different forms of digital transcription or even just transcription (from video tapes for example or conference calls) they are now experts in their field and the work is delivered either via the net or via snail mail - it is one of the fastest growing industries - I think in the top 10 in the US.

I have not done transcription but do actual work via the net and have done so for 6 years. You may lose the boss and the commute but what do you do when your clients hit a tought spot (and anyone who thinks the US and UK are not in recession might just be fooling themselves) - you suddenly find you have some lean months - what I did was start playing with earning money via the net in other ways - hence the reason we are all here.

I set a very low amount I wanted to earn per month in dollars via the net and am 40% there in 3 months. Now I have to increase it and that is the hard bit - but the 10 in 90 project looks like it will help.

Having done quite a bit of research I have found that the key is 'having your own product to sell'. Now Joel has sold all 2000 of his template kits and is getting ready to produce more - who makes the money, those who buy them, buy the domain names and hosting and put them up or Joel??????????

I am working on my own product. It will only cost me time to do and while I am doing this I am also building traffic to my site in various ways. When the product is ready the traffic will be ready and hopefully it will take off, if not I will do it again and again until it does.

Look at what you buy and think hard - who really makes the money, I will make a bet it will be a long time before the cost of the templates, ancillary costs and time will be recouped, if ever.

I am not a pessamist but someone who has been testing and I know that driving traffic to a site in large enough numbers to make any money out of Adsense is a hard job and a long one.

It is about time that those who say - I make $10,000 a month from Adsense admit how old the sites are, what they do to drive the traffic and how much it costs them - I bet there is quite a bit of arbitrage there that we never hear about. That $10,000 might well be $5,000 in reality - nice - even wonderful to make money like that but you need the $5,000 a month to earn the $10,000 and most of us come to this with a need to earn money not spend that sort of money.

The best bit of marketing advice I ever got was 'go find your clients itch and scratch it'. Joel has just scratched a lot of itches and you will note that he did not do it alone - he is the person that we all trust for Adsense and he was the front man but there is another name in there as well.

There was an article I once read which showed how you could save quite a bit of money each month by changing the way you spent your money and your habits - even missing the morning coffee from Star**** added up to a good amount in a month, packing a lunch and not buying one again added up to quite a bit - the aim, to have enough behind you to quit your day job and start your own business.

As someone who has been in business for 20 years or so, the Internet is a hard nut to crack and I have marketing experience as well. Like any business you have to put money into it to get any back.

I look forward to posts from those who bought the templates, I really really hope they work for you. :).

Di

[Iceni]

I know I am responding to my own post but this is regarding pushing traffic to your site.

I have one well paying site and some others that cost a lot of time and effort that sit there and don't make a thing. So what does the one that makes money have that the others don't - I wondered if it was content - perhaps I should stick to one topic and explore that. So I had a free site built for me - just articles and a newsfeed but on a very similar and related subject as the winning site. I set up the Adsense as I normally do (very similar to Joel's templates). Well, within 12 hours of putting my first link to the new site on the good site I got my first Adsense hit. It went up Friday late and I have had a very small amount of hits over the weekend but the new site has had a couple (World cup football, Wimbledon, holiday time so I expect things to slow down and living in France we are a bit tennis and football mad at the moment).

I am going to monitor this and if this is the solution I already have another two domain names that link into this 'subject framework'.

Linking from two related PR5 sites and blogging to get the pages indexed is a very good way to start. My links are actually banner adds - yes I know they are not supposed to work but placed in the right position and relating to content I think that they will.

By the way, this is exactly the same method I took for the non-related sites and I got zero clicks in a month and very few visitors.

I don't think the scatter gun approach works unless you can afford to PPC. Get one site up there in a subject you know a lot about, SEO and submit it. Blog and Ping it, stick it on your signature and post on related forums - read the books, do everything they say to do and when that takes off (and it will if you wait long enough) start building related sites and linking one to the other. Not my idea - one of the many ideas for building a group of sites I have read about. You can then monitise them further with your own products and of course the most important of all, the ruddy list which I have finally cracked.

Now you could follow the instructions for getting traffic to one site for all your sites but to be honest I simply do not have the time - getting one site to No 1 in Google was hard enough on a subject. I co-own another site which is at No 1 also for various key phrases so I can advertise on both.

These are my personal opinions and views but after a lot of trying and pulling out of hair I have found a way of getting a second site to work - and there have been a few sites between the money maker and the latest site that have cost me weeks of time and effort for nothing.

I am looking forward to hearing how you all get on with your templates and I hope you prove me wrong BUT I still cannot see how you are going to drive traffic to them unless you have a way of getting them indexed fast.

Linking to a PR5 or above site will speed your indexing, I am willing to put another page of links up on my site if you want to talk to me about it. Just PM me if you are interested.

Di