Why You aren't Making Money with Adsense

To turn a profit with Google Adsense, some people have 100s of sites working at once in efforts to make money online in volume. Others pour their efforts into only one or a few websites, trying to maximize their Adsense money with droves of new and repeat visitors. Whichever way you choose, if you're not making much money, there could be more factors in play than you know.

One problem could be how fast you insert Adsense on your website. I recommend not putting Adsense on a new site right away, whether or not the domain is old. If the site itself is old and has had content, then you are good to go but adding Adsense immediately to a new site - even with quality content - will hurt the amount of money you receive per click. I would wait at least a month before adding Adsense, two months to be completely safe.

Secondly, your title tags are very important to how much your click is worth. Search Google Adwords keywords for your keyword terms and then look for other terms that could be directly related but pay more. Granted, you may not be perfectly optimized for the more expensive term, but your cost per click ("CPC") will jump. For example, I changed one of my blogs to add an "s" at the end of a keyword in the title and the average Adwords CPC became $3 higher. Obviously you won't get $3 more but you might increase by $0.75. Don't get too fancy with this one though, your title tags should always match your content.

This notion goes right along with the niche you are in. Some niches simply don't generate a high amount of money or aren't very profitable through online operations. Thus, you won't see a high CPC return.

Another influence on the amount of money Adsense generates is where your traffic is coming from. Search engine traffic on par with your content is golden in terms of maximizing your CPC. On the other hand, if you receive a large amount of type-in or social traffic your percentage of advertising revenue will decrease.

Lastly, the reason your Adsense earnings may be puny is simply because Google doesn't share as much as it used to. While Google guises all of the factors I have mentioned in terms of preventing click fraud and protecting advertisers, the fact still remains that scores of legitimate publishers are being muscled out of millions of well earned dollars.

What you are witnessing is the result of one entity having too much power. Because Google has had little competition in the form of a viable, comparative PPC advertising company, many of us still play Google's game, hoping that our websites are righteous enough to earn 30% of the advertising share.

If you find yourself on the receiving end of continual $0.05 clicks (or less), don't settle. Instead, bridge the gap. Contact some of the Google Adwords advertisers directly and offer your site statistics including unique visitors, number of Google clicks, and possibly your search engine position for terms they are related to (hard proof).

To set a price, take your average CPC and multiply it by 2.5 or 3 times the amount. If the advertisers are initially skeptical, offer a one month trial rate for a little less so they can witness your site's effectiveness with less risk. After one month, follow up and you will most likely find a win-win exchange awaiting in your inbox.

One mistake many online entrepreneurs are making is leaving common sense at the front door. If one form of monetization continually disappoints you, you must figure out why. If you cannot understand why a reasonable revenue is eluding you, it is time to move on. Take charge and start making money on the internet.