I’ve written close to half of the posts for my 100 blog posts experiment. I’m blown away by how well it’s already going – this week it produced $678.62:
That brings the two week total to $1,050.60.
Why Most Bloggers Can’t Produce Results Like These
The more I read what bloggers have to say about making money online, the more frustrated I get. If you’re a blogger that isn’t getting results, I’m sorry but you probably either have no plan or you’re using a flawed one that makes no sense.
Most bloggers are the same people that buy lottery tickets hoping that luck will lead them to fortune. They follow A-listers or IM gurus believing every word they say with little understanding of how much they’re getting misled and ripped off. Buying lottery tickets is honestly a lot better business plan than listening to most IM gurus/bloggers. The odds of succeeding are about the same and the cost is a lot lower since many of you spend TONS of time using techniques that don’t work.
The barrier to entry with blogging is obviously very low. You can do it for free or you can choose to get your own domain and hosting for a whopping cost of less than $100 per year. Since you don’t really have to invest either way, you think that you don’t need a business plan.
I’m sure that some people are going to lace the comments of this post with f-words and uppercuts because no one wants to be told that what they’re doing is wrong. The only reason I’m saying anything is so that people can get better at blogging. If you don’t understand exactly how you are going to establish your site, I don’t understand how you think it’s going to happen.
A Plan That Actually Works
Many bloggers could establish their blogs and make money if they would simply learn how to write effectively about the right topics. Since they don’t know what the right topics are, it usually doesn’t matter how effective their writing is.
With my experiment, I am writing about topics that I know will be effective. I’m not writing posts to write them. I’m doing everything in my power to pick topics that are winners and that’s why this experiment is going so well.
When you pick topics to write about, you should be looking at your competition in Google. If you choose topics that have really strong competition, it’s obviously going to be a lot harder to do well. Since most bloggers write about the exact same topics as everyone else, they are going up against maximum competition. This is obviously a terrible plan in both the short and long terms.
You should also be looking at both the search volume and CPC of any topic or keyword that you’re thinking about writing about. You’ll get a lot better with this the more you do it. I’ve obviously done this a lot and I know what’s going to work and what isn’t. I firmly believe that you have to take as much of the luck out of the equation as possible and you do that by planning out your topics well.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on why this is working so much better than the previous experiment on Hub pages.
With HubPages you only get 60% of the ad impressions so you lose 40% right off the bat! Usually hubs still work better than a new site though. I’m working with a site that’s a few years old and getting 100% of the impressions – that’s a big part of it.
This is seriously impressive Court. Even though I really don’t have the time I can hardly manage to avoid signing up with you guys
I’ve never produced results that fast so I am definitely missing something that you guys know.
I think you’d like what we have in there!
I’m sure I will. I enjoyed the videos you did before you launched the program (still watch them from time to time) so I am sure I’ll enjoy the new videos as well. (Did sign up already)
My blog makes money but nothing at all compared to what you are doing. I think it comes down to what I write about. Maybe you can tell me if I’m right or wrong.
I have recipe sites. They get a decent amount of traffic but for the most part the keywords are not high paying. My click through rate for adsense bounces around 3-5%. Which I think is not too bad. But to make “real” money I would either need higher paying keywords (read different niche) or a much higher volume of traffic.
I started writing longer and longer posts that have relevant keywords in them. But in reality the money I make seems to stay the same.
So at this point I am lost. I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or I just picked a niche that is very difficult to make money with. I like recipe sites but if it is a lost casue then I need to know so that I can change direction.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Recipe sites such when it comes to Adsense. Yes they get a ton of easy traffic but is often 1-2 cent clicks. I prefer higher paying keywords with less traffic. $1-2 per clicks takes a lot less effort and traffic.
Two things to consider when you’ve got a subject matter that doesn’t do great on Adsense is picking your own affiliate products and creating your own ads.
Also, if you have a following – that is if you have RSS subscribers and know that people are following you – write a dang ebook.
If it were me I’d take a look at some other niches so that I could get a comparison. Look at the Adwords CPC of your niche and some others and compare that with the search volume. You might find that other options would be a lot better…
Hi Court,
What’s (if any) is your rule (of thumb you would go for if you see you can beat the competition):
Adwords CPC x monthly searches = above ???
Am doing your experiment with a brand new site and my monthly earnings also start with 6, be it a 1 digit number
Thanks for sharing your knowledge,
Stef
My wife runs a very nice recipe blog, but has little interest in it any more. As already mentioned by others, you really can’t have it both ways. A lot of people want to buy ads for cooking/recipe related keywords, and there are lots, really lots of sites that want (are relevant) for such ads. So no matter how ell you write your CPC’s are always going to be low. Supply and demand. All clicks never were and never will be equal.
If your love is cooking and recipes, that’s great too … keep at it and build, links, traffic, etc., but AdSense is likely never going to pay much per click, Now, OTOH if you were interested in and blogged about … oh let’s say mortgage restructuring and foreclosures, Google charges advertisers a _lot_ more per click and thus shares alot more with the publisher who provides the real estate that generated the click.
Theer are some decent affiliate programs in the food/diet/cooking ara that might be a lot better to monetize a recipe site with than good old Google.
Mikael,
One thing you are doing wrong is wasting time reading and commenting on all the A-list blogger’s blogs. Whenever I poke around for fun, I inevitably see your comments on many of the A-listers. Once you stop reading and commenting so seriously on their crap, you may find more time to spend really learning how to make money. As I said, I read some of their blogs just for the laugh and to see how they are scamming their readers. I don’t take one word they say seriously.
Lol Stu. What A-bloggers are you talking about? I’m not even sure I can name one A-blogger blog that I comment on
And even if I were that isn’t my problem at all. I comment for backlinks and nothing else. The only reason I read the blog posts are to be able to make valuable comment. I’m sure you know the importance of building these relationships with people that can “move products”
/Mikael
That’s a good idea. I already write allot of posts. Keep on writing. the key word and adsense still kind of confuse me a little. But I have been working every single day on 4 blogs.
Donny
And I thought you were commenting because you liked my posts
Back on topic, Court and Mark have great results with this experiment. I’m also doing the experiment, but I had to interrupt it for a while. Yet, I’m pleased with what I see, despite the fact that I’ve chosen a blog that was less than 10 months old. I’ll post an update on my blog pretty soon.
You know you don’t get any backlinks for posting on this blog, right? It’s “no follow” so I hope you are only posting here because you truly have something to say. lol Or it is all for nothing.
~ Cheers ~ Jodie
Sure do Jodie and that is not the reason I comment here
But I am sure you also know that not every search engine counts no-follow, and you are probably also aware that no-follow isn’t always as useless as it is called out to be right?
/Mikael
Gotcha
. I gave up on the IM niche so the only time I comment is when I feel there is something to say on these kinda blogs. =) But have been really digging how they are leveraging hubpages to make them some nice cashola..
I’ve been seeing a lot of the “gurus” hunting down those types of sites to show how much you can make and then sell you the plan. I’ve got one just about all of those types of sites… but the best part. It works and Mark has been doing a great job of breaking it down for peeps.
I always include my link to my site on IM blogs because I figure ppl may want to know what my background is. And surely it makes me smile when I see a few extra hits… but it’s all for ego. lol
You’re good stuff!
Cheers!
Grats on the good chunk of change you made!! So many people THINK they know the way. I’ve learned over time you duplicate those that are ALREADY successful. Why people try to reinvent the wheel from the get go is beyond me. Once you know how the wheel works, then you can make tweeks you feel could help.
The only problem I have is i want to LEARN too much up front and it holds me back from taking action. That is a task in itself lol. Luckily with this, I am sticking to the plan. One video, one assignment and reading a few posts here and there to get tips. But the wheel is in motion and im sure as sh** not going to try and reinvent it anytime soon. or maybe ever. Im a pretty good writer and smart so Im hoping once i start writing and things will fall into place. I think i’ve got a pretty good idea of what to write about. If not, ill be emailing you asking WHAT IS LISA DOING WRONG??
Mikael you said,
“I’m sure you know the importance of building these relationships with people that can “move products”
No, I do not know of that importance. If you want to be an A-lister with a huge mailing list and a ton of RSS subscribers who want to read your every word, then it might be important. But how many people can realistically do that….and that is the problem with the John Chows of the world who will waste your time making you believe you can become famous too.
I am a nich blogger. I have NO RELATIONSHIPS with other bloggers. The only relationship I want is with the first page of the Google search engine!
My thoughts exactly. I might comment here and here, but commenting and reading others work does not bring me the bacon. And that bacon I speak of, is allowing me to move to Spain in 3 weeks. Adios Amigos!
That is sad Stu but I respect your choice. I’m have no intention of becoming an A-lister and that is also why I don’t even comment on their blogs (even though you think so… and BTW why are you reading them?? *lol*)
Internet Marketing is just as much about people as any other business and if you think that you can do business without having to do with people are making friendships that is fine. But if you have been following this blog I am sure that you have read it many times that Court and Mark draw huge benefits on their “network”.
But still I am curious. What A-list blogs have you seen me commenting on because honestly I can’t remember any that I have commented on recently.
Mikael
I’m not trying to get rich. I also do very well playing the stock market. I’m good at 3 things Computer expert, Stock market and Alabama football I know like the back of my hand.
Donny
The reason he is commenting on these so called A-liters blog is to grab their link juice. It’s about getting a higher search engine ranking..not trying to get famous. If you really want to get on the front page of google…then you would follow his lead.
Exactly Marcus, but still.. WHAT A-listers are you talking about???
I’m started this in July. What do I need to do to make money? I have written 82 posts on that one blog and that’s the main money maker. I made almost 4 bucks today. Some good advice and no scams would be nice. Thanks for your help in advance.
Donny
This is Awesome court. I have been busy with the HubPages thing for a while now, I even exceeded 100 hubs and I’m seeing some good results so far. But this, this is more than I expected, you MUST do a webinar on this sometime soon!
You do have to write allot but their is a whole lot more to it than that. You have to continue to build and learn. Now the stock market I don’t have to learn anything.
Donny
Hi,
I liked your post and I agree with you that most of the people who created a blog does not have a plan that studied the issue for you to start earning some bucks with adsense.
Because this has become to compete in the ultra competitive IM market, with the conclusion reached after a time you can not generate revenue online.
Greetings!
Mikael,
I do this for a living so I have to make money. That is not “sad”. It is my job. If I were to go around trying to make friends and commenting on other blogs trying to be “part of the community” I would starve. I would guess that this is a hobby for you and not a business. That is fine but there is a difference between recreationally trying to make money and really going for it.
I have to feed my family and so I only comment on a handful of blogs like this one for recreation. Also I don’t do it for links as you can see. I gave up on commenting for links long ago as that is mostly a waste of time. Please notice that you rarely if ever see Court comment on another blog. Why? Because there are better things to do with your time.
While you are busy reading a post so that you can intelligently comment on it, I will have probably gotten 2 or three links somewhere else. I have to stop here….enough free content for Court for today
Okay, when you come back please see if you can find time to answer my question as i still don’t know where you got your idea from.
Mikael you are even mentioned in the post by Caroline Middlebrook here http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/just-a-quick-note-about-blog-comments-again/ and then in the comments you say “I am honored that you mention me
”
LOL LOL You are a commenting machine and you know it!
Hi Stu, why are you reading Caroline’s blog? She knows nothing about Adsense and isn’t even an A-list blogger.
In regards to Caroline I have gotten several PR5. 4 and 3s out of it. What did you get?
“If I were to go around trying to make friends and commenting on other blogs trying to be ‘part of the community’ I would starve.”
This is fine for short-term success, but it won’t get you anywhere in the long run. You mentioned you only care about being number one on Google. But what happens when Google changes its search algorithm for the millionth time and all the years of work you did on SEO go flying out the window?
If you were smart, you would have developed a big following that’s NOT reliant on search traffic by creating solid customer relationships over time. But if you’re not interested in creating relationships, you won’t have that following to back you up when technology lets you down.
You’re getting some wise advice on this feed and you would be wise to rethink your strategy. Otherwise you’ll be living hand-to-mouth your entire career.
Kelly, are you dense?
“If you were smart, you would have developed a big following that’s NOT reliant on search traffic by creating solid customer relationships over time.”
What hell do you think TKA is? Recurring income not reliant on the SE’s!
Social traffic, SE traffic, they all have their place. What traffic you go for depends on what your end goal is. With Sm vs SE traffic, it’s fame vs. money.
Court:
Good series of posts. Can you tell a bit about the blog you are doing this experiment with? Is it older? What PR? Also is each post targeting a different long tail keyword related tot he main kw?
thanks
So…with all this banter between you two…LOL
Stu, can you offer some advice to someone whos end result is to make this a FT gig as opposed to recreational? Aside from don’t post comments on blogs because they dont make you money
I just started. Im on video 2…will be watching the 3rd video tonight.
@Lisa, I don’t know
But it is kind of Stu that he is trying to help me out.
Lisa, if you’re watching the videos, you’ll make a full time living at this eventually. It takes a few months to build up the sites etc.. but follow the keyword academy and you’ll make money online with no problemo.
Thanks!!!
I know it wont happen over night. The only reason im posting here now and not watching videos is because im at my 9-5 lol
Are the videos you all are talking about a part of a paid membership?
Mitch Lisa and Alexis are both paid members, yes.
Here’s a question about the unfocused bloggers out there.
An “aged” site is worth more than a new one. So… what’s better, someone who waits to start their site until they have a plan, or somebody who starts the blog first, and noodles around while they figure it out, and THEN start taking their older blog seriously?
It’s way better to start the site now, even if you don’t have all of your ducks in a row.
Amen to that, Court. The number one, absolutely number one, reason most people don’t make money is they don’t start. Register a domain and start something right now, today. period. No question about it. Even if you later decide to try a different approach later on, a 1 year old domin with even a trickle of traffic and pages in Google is worth say $40 or $50 bucks .. and you paid $9 for it … anybody’s 401K that quadrupled in value in a year, lately?
Mikael
umm — I am really new at all this stuff but I have to comment on something you said
you said you make comments for backlinks — I truly hope you don’t do this with any seriousness or time involvement. comments are nofollows so there is no reason to do it for google and for traffic to your site — possibly — but since you aren’t a guru as you say, then the people on the comments will give money to the guru way before they give money to you
seems like you are just wanting to make comments for comments sake
Hi “4″, thank you for your comment. I appreciate it. I don’t know where you got the idea that “comments are no-followed”, but if you’re only referring to this blog, then you’re right. But as I have also stated about that is not why I comment here.
I do however find it fascinating that so many people are trying to “help”
Mikael
I got started late on this experiment, but I am about one quarter through the 100 and I hope to complete by the end of August.
Nice Walter!
Great job Court! It’s really awesome to see that you are getting the results you’re after. Sounds like you are having fun with your experiments. Keep up the awesome work.
All the talk about commenting on blogs/forums for backlinks, I have a quick question. Does Google (and other search engines) designate them nofollow, or do you mean when some websites recode them?
I’ve just read a few SEO books that suggest commenting on related threads/blogs for anchor text and/or backlinks. People have been saying this is a waste of time, but from what I’m reading in the main article here, should I just be writing a bunch of posts in my blog, and that scores higher with Google?
Jeff most blogs have a nofollows on their comments. WordPress and Blogger blogs are set up by default to nofollow comments and that removes the link juice. In order to pass juice, you have to change the code and not very many bloggers do that.
If people could at least pretend to comment on the topic of the post more people might turn on the dofollow.
Also most bloggers don’t know to do that. The only blogging niche I’ve ever seen where they honestly care one bit is the “how to be a blogger” niche. Otherwise people posting blogs couldn’t careless if they pass link juice to other people.
Court… I do it! =)
But only for my IM niche blog. I do not bother when it is is a niche outside of IM because as many people said it’s mostly just spam you get.
Cheers! Jodie
I’m making progress toward the make money online goal of 100 posts. I have several blogs that I’m writing articles for. Is the 100 posts a goal for a single blog? Or can I splatter it about? I just got on page one of google for my big keyword “folding camper” yippee! And, amazingly, a real live comment, on topic! Wahoo! I have 17 published posts and will aim for 100. I can’t commit to the one month period as I’m moving this month, what a nuisance. Once that’s settled I’ll be back at the folding camper website, working away! I do really like this make money online formula and I’m happy to report that my “older” keyword website, Camper Blue Book Value has 37 posts and is pulling in over $600. per month adsense revenue. It is exactly one year old, and now achieves more than 30,000 page views per month. Too bad I didn’t understand the CPC aspect of the make money online formula when I launched it. 2/3 of the formula works, good keywords, low competition, but the CPC is very low… Better next time!
I agree with you that the successful blogger that wants to make money online writes about what will earn money, which is not necessarily what they WANT to write about!
Hey,
I have just started the above blog from scratch and all this talk about older sites being better made me a bit apprehensive at first! Court, How about you starting from scratch as most of us newbies would and then checking the results. Maybe for a new experiment???
My first goal is to make $100+ per month in order to receive monthly checks. I will then use this income to develop my knowledge (Your subscription program). Further i will commit 10h per week as a start. This is sure to see me clearing $5000 per month in 3years from various blogs. In South Africa this is a truckload of money!
Sorry…
my blog is called zero-debt-more-money.blogspot.com. dont check it out yet cause there’s nothing there!!!!!!!
Impressive stuff, very inspiring.
Do you have any guidlines on the keywords best to target in terms of numbers, like how many competing web sites (max) should the keyword have in “phrase” mode and how many visits per day (if you were number 1 in google) would be the minimum amount you would target?
These are the things I find most diffcult to work out, any help would be great.
Nice job guys.
In your process were you targeting high CPC clicks or low cpc clicks off-set by a large quantity of traffic?
First I want to say that what you teach is extremely helpful and joining TKA was well worth my time and money.
I have a few questions about this new experiment. How old is the site you’re testing the 100 posts experiment on? And how many posts did it have before? Was it a well ranked site already with a lot of backlinks? And did it have adsense on it before and if so how much more is it making now then it was before you started your experiment?
Thank you for being so generous with what you know!
Hi, where can we see these 100 pages?
Thanks.
I love TKA
If you haven’t joined, join for the community – a real community filled with people passionate about making money – they’re walkin’ the walk in there, and if you aren’t with them…you won’t last too long.
GREAT WORK Court!
And yes, I am a member of TKA – 33/mo pales in comparison to the accountability, the challenges, the open dialogue, the super support and community spirit of being around real entrepreneurs – not just talkers. It’s worth every penny and then some.
Very inspiring post Court – well done!
You mentioned that your keywords are all on a related topic – do you think this method could also work with a multi-niche site covering multiple topics (with Adsense on single post pages only, so as to trigger only relevant ads on each page)?
I thought I was reading the same post again until I saw the total. Do you provide more detail about this experiment in the forums?
Yes.
Court,
I typed a reply earlier, but for some reason it didn’t load.
I was asking about the backlinks because a friend told me about Google Alerts. I’ve set up a few related to my keywords, and especially on the blogs I’m able to get about 5 posts with anchor text each day for about 15 minutes work. I know this isn’t a lot, but one, it’s anchor text that’s from related webpages pointing to me, which from what I read is better than random links. And two, I’ve written some articles/press releases and posted them at my blog, Twitter, and Facebook, but they just seem to sit there with no one reading them.
It’s cool that you include more in the members section, but like a person asked above, are a lot of people already subscribed to the blog you’re posting on, or did you start from scratch?
Thanks in advance,
Jeff
PS I’m also trying to rank high for a product I sell online, so CPC isn’t that important to me atm, and might make my focus a bit different than people on here.
Hey Jeff!
I actually don’t even have 10 subscribers on the blog I’m using. The money is coming from new search rankings. You really aren’t starting from scratch when you use an older site, but I don’t have an existing audience.
What is the average word count for the 100 posts?
Mine is 500 or more
Also one thing I know for sure is Google searchs for content, so if you know nothing about you’re topic forget it.
Wow, over 1k already. There are people who haven’t even been able to do that in their dreams.
Your marketing strategy must be working really well.
To say I am skeptical would be an understatement. Is all of this documented in the paid area?
As the saying goes, content is king. Articles/posts drive traffic to your blogs. Finding the write keywords and great content will definitely made a difference. Your ads will then have higher click through rates.
hmmm, interesting. Thanks for sharing this info!! http://www.sabetsu.com
Hey Court,
New to your blog and I must say you are doing an awesome job. I didn’t get to start in the 100 post challenge since you are in the 3rd week. However I am following keenly.
I am not yet into adsense but you challenge is giving me a zeal to start
All the best
………
Casey
Good quality information. Well never post for the sake of posting. Never blog on a topic that has huge competition. Never go on blogging about topic you have no idea about. Good points and well taken