Adsense Daily Digest

Updated: Added Google Hot Trends in the tools section.
Updated: Added a few more keyword tools. 

More traffic simply means more revenue with Adsense. I haven’t been writing for long time but as I learn and experiment, things eventually come up for me a little. Here’s some thoughts I’m going to share with you and at the same time clear the mess up for myself. Thanks to those guys at DP, they are just lovely!

Formula of success with Adsense

Targeted content -(gets)> Targeted traffic -(clicks)> Targeted ads -(incurs)> $$$$$$

Everything you do is counted in the above formula if you are determined to make decent money from Adsense with professional website rather than some hobby one. Only what exactly are done to get the chain to work varies from people to people. Note that there’s at least 2 targeting processes in the above formula. You can make big money with Adsense only with ads targeted to content AND traffic targeted to content. This is important. Content is the ultimate connection. Successfully built content brings in revenue. CTR and eCPM raises themselves considerably if it’s done right.

But how?

Step by step

Select niche

First off, you have to decide what content you want the visitors to be targeted, or determine the niche -  what specific content to build. To do this, ask yourself these questions:

1. How much you know about and interested in this niche?
   Knowledgeability and interest in an area keep you going and your site in good shape.
2. Is there a demand for the content you want to provide?
   No demand, no traffic.
3. How big is the demand?
   Big demand, big traffic, and also big competition.
4. Is it related to marketable services and products or some very profitable industry?
   If it is, your PPC tends to be high because advertisers would compete to put ads on your site, but at the same time, you will have to work harder to get your site ranked well, because there would be more sites providing related information. Nevertheless, it’s not always true. Winners discover things losers neglect.
5. How fierce is the competition you will confront?
   That is, how many quality sites there are dwelling in the same niche, providing similar content as you would.

Attaining answers to these questions involves some basic searching research, playing a little bit with keywords. Sometimes it’s a little tricky and only experienced internet marketers know the secret. I provided some of the tools used frequently at the end of the article. Make good use of them, and you are on your way.

Branching keywords

Say you have done with the niche thing and picked one that’s not too competitive nor too widely demanded. Plus, you know quite a bit about this area and confident in writing quality articles for it. Now you might think it’s time to be faced with the toil part of writing content.

Not really. You are now to proceed with researching your keywords instead. Yes. Though you have determined your base keywords, a.k.a your niche, you have to further branch your base keywords to supplemental keywords. This is how specific content plans come up. 2 basic things you should know to do about this include:

1. Spot search patterns or search phrases that people may use in search for similar content. Because phrases people use to search are largely complicated terms, targeted at very specific things.
2. You can also simply look up good sites within the same niche to find out more about the keywords you should use. Write what they are writing? Not always. Writing in imitation of successful sites and diverting from the main tone have their respective pros and cons.
3. Note down and remix common search phrases collected to fit your niche and planned content. In a word, spot traffic, and then target your content to those traffic or search patterns, but divert a little bit. Do article-specific SEO rather than site-wide one.

What now?

In the branching process, think of NOT what you can offer but what SOLUTIONS you have for your visitors’ PROBLEMS. This is important. Sometimes a differenct perspective really makes miracles.

Since now you have acquired a good idea of the exact content to write about, time to get down to work. Write targeted content around those branching keywords. This may include more specific SEO techniques like tweaking the titles, writing page descriptions, using targeted keywords in html headings, h1, h2, h3 and so forth. But not abusing them, of course.

Getting traffic is really another big topic and I’m still learning my ropes. However the key to getting sustainable organic traffic from search engines is to keep writing content EVERYDAY for at least 3-6 months. Other than that, I promise I will share anything that I know of with you.

Some free research tools

Keyword tools

1. Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool
2. Google Adwords Keyword Tool
3. Yahoo Search Marketing Tools
4. SEOchat Keyword Density Tool
5. Keyword Density & Prominence

To know what’s hot and emerging

1. Google Trends
2. Google Hot Trends
3. BlogPulse
4. del.icio.us
5. Digg
6. Techcrunch
7. Technorati