It's time to be (very) serious about this.

[draggar]

My two most profitable (from adsense) sites are, IMO, the accidental successes. One I didn't expect any revenue from it (I mainly put it up for fun and as a dedication site) and the other I expected to get revenue from a different source. Its interesting how things like this turn out.

Site #1 - A "fan site" for a game show on a very popular morning radio show. I didn't expect to take off like it did but they mentioned it once on the radio and even though that gave me a boost, over the long run traffic has been slowly increasing. As the game got more intense (it usually lasts 20-30 weeks) traffic increased (I started the game halfway though the last round). I expected traffic to stop since the game was won a few weeks ago and it takes them a month or two to get the new game started but I decided to keep up with the show and blog about it. Traffic hasn't slowed. If anything, it's picked up.

Site #2 - My friend's site (with the books). He sends me articles on a regular basis and I have to do some "washing" and I get them up. Too bad this guy has a 56K connection where he lives and is a complete novice with internet related subjects - I think he is a natural with SEO in the way he writes. Traffic is also slowly creeping up with his site. About a month ago I changed the site from plain old HTML / PHP coding to a WP backed site and since then traffic has taken off (in conjunction with getting the domain HisName.com).

Both sites are Wordpress backed sites with templates. Neither have their ads "hidden" - they are prominently displayed (my friend's site also says that they are ads fed in by Google and he is not affiliated with them). they are also frequently updated. This proves to me that Google does look for recently updated sites and WP is set up well for SEO and spiders to crawl though the site.

The sites made $8 and $3 respectively last month. I know, most people are laughing over this but considering that they are relatively new (one is less than 2 months old, the other is 6 months old but wasn't monetized until last month). As time goes on and as the pages grow, the revenue will grow.

So, I've decided that it is time to slow down on the game playing (Civ III is so addictive) and start working on other sites with similar strategies. Wordpress with a good theme, put up some good content and ads, and then keep them frequently updated. Quite often when I get home in the evening I realy do not want to work on these sites but I think I am going to have to force myself to do this and update them. One is my reverse hijakcing site (which is bringing in no revenue) and the other is a site that is a broader view of my friend's site (but I will not let them compete with each other and I'll even promtoe his books on that site).

For all of you out there frustrated with making no money with sites, it is possible to make money, just don't expect it to happen over night. Work hard, study more, and don't procratinate (I wish I didn't last year!). I just had my most profittable month with Adsense ($25 - again, this is nothing to most people but I'm sure there was a time you were happy to see this). Find a niche and fill it well. Read, read, read, learn, and read some more. Once you think you "got" it al, just go back and start over from the beginning.

[sdsinc]

Originally Posted by draggar

Google does look for recently updated sites

Yes it is

[stock_post]

Hard to implement.
For those who have time and energy - it is rewarding for sure.

[draggar]

Originally Posted by stock_post

Hard to implement.
For those who have time and energy - it is rewarding for sure.

I don't think so. Getting everything set up may take time, let's say 3 hours to set up a wordpress blog (including uploading, setting up, modifting the code to have the adsense, and so on). Most people can find a 3 hour time frame in a week.

Then, just write an article on MS word while you're at work, surfing, and so on. You can easily get 1-4 articles in a day. If you can't at work, bring them home (email or on a USB drive) and spend 10 minutes each to throw them on the blog.

I write several articles in a day but many don't make it since I don't think they would be worth the blog. Research is the hard part, though, but if you're just making a ranting site, you don't need a lot of research (but researched blog entries do well).

The radio show blog, I listen to it every day anyway so I can just write about it as it is happening, especially if they have something going on (like the day their 'stunt guy" ate some rather interesting foods last week).

[godolphin]

Hey Ed, thanks for sharing your experiences. All top sites had started small. We need to have perseverance and patience to increase our revenues this way.

[ezimedia]

HI

Congrats on building your adsense income... and yes the more work you put into your sites and blogs the more money you will make in the long run... just keep it up like you already said.

Tom

[myst woman]

surely a different ( and much more successful) model than minimum effort minisites revenue hunters looking to get rich off 5 minutes of administration a month.

[draggar]

This is also interesting. My "game show" fan site (which has also turned into a blog about the show, what happened etc..) had gotten 5 comments this week along. The site is about 2 months old and the first comment was last week.

After I made this site I got a lot of hate mail from a "competition" site but it seems that site hasn't been updated in a while so it seems that people are coming over to my site now.

the sad part is that it seems that revenue has stopped this week (with these sites and my parked pages).

[copper]

Originally Posted by draggar

the sad part is that it seems that revenue has stopped this week (with these sites and my parked pages).

What do you mean?
People stop clicking or Google stop paying?

[Bob]

Originally Posted by draggar

. . .
So, I've decided that it is time to slow down on the game playing (Civ III is so addictive) . . .

OMG - you better not even THINK about Civ IV then. That game has sucked so much time out of my web development, that I now have to hire it out.

-Bob