Adsense Is A High Traffic Game These Days
March 21, 2007 – 12:58 pmIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
A few years back, it was very easy to make good money with “niche websites” that didn’t have to deliver a ton of traffic to earn good money. In several niches that I’ve been involved in for the last few years, I’ve seen the EPC trend down, so that the main way to stay even or get ahead in revenue is by acquiring more traffic. I’m sure not everyone on the internet is experiencing the same thing I am, so I’m not attempting to make generalizations, but it appears that you’ll have to work much harder for your Adsense revenue in the coming months.
What are some of the factors that could explain a downward trend in revenue?
1) My favorite theory is that many advertisers, as they became more savvy, have learned that the value is not in the content network. I’m sure many advertisers have turned off the content network to focus on the search end of business. The less people who advertise in the content arena, the worse it is for woebegone content publishers.
2) There’s more competition than ever. This is a given, especially in the last few years when so many would be “publishers” have been attracted to the internet arena for the same reasons you and I are probably here. They tend to research keywords using the same tools available to everyone, so it’s almost probable that they’ll end up making of the exact same targeted pages as you. Add in the scrapers, ethical ones or not, and you have a huge inventory of content pages, for a probably slightly falling demand.
3) The advertisers are savvier than ever, and have been outfitted with tons of tools to check their conversion rates. If they don’t convert, they pay less. Now there’s nothing really that most webmasters can do about conversion rates on external websites. But if people have problems converting your traffic (which they might do with repeat traffic), then you may see a pay decrease.
All in all, the worst of the decline seems to be over, but this is subject to change at any second. What I’m feeling these days is that you’re much better off with a few traffic-y websites than a bunch of slow-moving but well-meaning niche websites with targeted traffic. This is the exact opposite of what was important in the past.
What are your thoughts?
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5 Responses to “Adsense Is A High Traffic Game These Days”
As someone who manages adwords campaigns for a living, I make pretty good use of the content network for some of my clients (not all though). The best adwords advice I got from a friend was to separate the content into a different campaign and manage it as a different entity. This turned out to be a pretty good advice and allowed me to find some niches where the ROI of the content network is equal to that of the search network or even better
By Ohad Gliksman on Mar 21, 2007
Ohad, I’m glad to hear it. I’m sure tons of content websites are well worth it. But you have to manage the account closely. I’m sure you manage the Adwords accounts tightly.
The “fat” is out of the program. In many ways, this is a good trend for serious webmasters anyway.
By Darren McLaughlin on Mar 21, 2007
I really agree that this is a good trend for serious content developing webmasters who has real value to offer to the world. After all the weeds have been weeded out of the competition, serious webmasters will experience an explosion in profits.
By jason on Mar 26, 2007
Google has destroyed the Internet by literally encouraging creeps to set up Adsense-filled websites with virtually worthless content. Anybody who clicks on those Adsense ads is encouraging the proliferation of these garbage websites.
By John Thompson on Oct 7, 2007
Ultimately conversion rates will dictate, and the Adsense game will be tossed onto the dustbin of history. These Adsense websites, setup for no reason other than to get clicked-on, are totally worthless, both to the visitors and to the Adwords advertisers who get virtually nothing for their money except clicks from Romania and Nigeria.
By John Thompson on Oct 7, 2007