It’s easy to throw a niche site together without much of a strategy; you simply whack up some AdSense and affiliate ads and wait for the money to roll in right? It’s usually pretty depressing though when you find your AdSense clicks coming in at .10 cents and affiliate sales sitting near to zero.
I’ve discussed previously the use of keyword rich domain names and their effectiveness for helping rank niche sites. Of course a domain name, whether it be keyword rich or not, is not the only thing you need to power a niche marketing strategy.
I tend to think if you’re going to do something you might as well do it properly. I’m not talking about spending months on end on a niche site, I’m talking about setting things up in ways that act as a catalyst for your sites to make good money not just a few dollars here and there.
The monetization methods I employ on my own niche sites are; AdSense, affiliate products and email marketing to opt-in subscribers (as pictured below).
I’ve seen many niche blogs with AdSense and affiliate links plastered around but no opt-in form. Setting up an opt-in form can be done for free but if you’re serious about making money online then the one thing you should invest in besides domain names and web hosting is an autoresponder account. An autoresponder account helps manage the process of capturing email addresses of your site visitors and automating the sending of emails to your entire list of subscribers. I use AWeber and highly recommend it; for true beginners there is an easy to follow wizard as well as loads of support on how to best utilise your AWeber account.
I’ll share a few specifics here today and in future posts about the model above and will begin with looking at the AdSense arm. I’m covering off AdSense first for the simple reason that it’s so popular yet it often proves disappointing due to seeing tiny .10 cent clicks. There are ways to steer your AdSense clicks toward the higher earnings bracket for your niche but it takes more than just picking colours for your ad block and popping the code in your sidebar.
Most people are already aware that there are some niches that attract very high AdWords costs; the cost advertisers pay Google when their ads are clicked. The flip side of course is AdSense, where you receive payment when someone clicks on the ads displayed on your site. If an advertiser pays $15 every time someone clicks their ad, then it would make sense that the AdSense payment will be higher too. Of course not every niche is going to cost advertisers over $16 per click like the keyword mortgage does.
In the following examples I’ll show you a neat way to increase AdSense income. It might still seem small but when traffic starts building there’s going to be a percentage of those visitors who will click on your ads. If you can double your click value you can make quite an impact on your earnings over time.
Below is a screen shot of keyword searches in the getting pregnant niche using Google’s Keyword Tool. The values listed in the right hand column are the estimated costs per click that advertisers would pay for these particular keywords. If an advertiser is only paying Google .09 cents a click then how much do you think the AdSense share would be?
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This second screen shot shows the opportunity for much higher AdSense earnings and there are keyword phrases in this market that cost advertisers as much as $15. Remember these are the costs advertisers pay not the amount an AdSense click will pay out. It stands to reason that the AdSense pay out will be higher when the cost to the advertiser is higher. There are instances where your AdSense payments can be penalised by Google but that’s for another article.
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The next logical step of course is to focus your site’s content around the higher paying keyword phrases to generate the relevant ads. This isn’t ground breaking news but this simple way of increasing your AdSense earnings is easy to overlook. There are instances where you will want to cover specific topics that are low paying phrases, but for the most part you can easily integrate some of these higher earning phrases into your blog posts. As a side note; depending on how you intend to drive traffic to your site, will determine what other things you need to consider when selecting your keyword phrases. For example, things such as competition and search volume might need more consideration.
Can you apply this to any niche? Yes of course. There will be some niche markets however that might have very few related terms that show any promise of higher earnings, but remember AdSense is only one arm of the monetization model covered here. If you look at the estimated cost per click for your niche sites, you’ll soon start to realise whether you should be devoting prime virtual real estate to AdSense ads that might only return you 10 cent clicks. There are so many ways to monetize your businesses, so if AdSense is looking like it’s not going to earn it’s keep then look for alternatives.
It’s great if you can incorporate content into your site that has higher earning opportunities, but don’t let that drive everything you publish.
In future articles I’ll cover both the affiliate and opt-in methods mentioned above. Meanwhile, if you don’t have a niche marketing strategy or you do and it’s not making you money, then now would be a good time to bed down some goals and decide what tactics you’ll employ to reach them.
Let me know how your strategies are going if you have any, I love hearing from action takers!
Just re-reading this post Michelle,
You, along with everyone else, almost have me convinced that I should put in an opt-in to build a mailing list on my sites – just trying to move my mindset from “hobby business” to “pro business” here.
My question is in regards to selling a site. Given privacy laws, is it legal to include that list in the sale? It’s obviously a great asset but I have to wonder how the people on the list would feel and if they should be given a heads up about the sale with the usual “unsubscribe” option.
If you could address this in a future post, that would be great.
Is it legal? Hmmm, good question and I couldn’t say with 100% confidence it’s legal, particularly as there would be different laws in different countries and states…not to mention I’m not a lawyer. (You should always seek advice from a professional if you’re in any doubt.)
Now that’s out of the way…:) I relied on AWeber to guide me when I chose to sell a couple of sites that had a list of subscribers attached to them. I trust AWeber know the laws around email subscription and transfer of those addresses; to my knowledge they are the market leader in the industry. Their response to me was that I could transfer a list of subscribers to another AWeber account if that account was in good standing.
Good standing was defined around, but not limited to, things such as no high spam score and the account invoices being paid and up to date. Because I sold the websites that the subscriber emails were submitted to, I felt it was reasonable to pass on the associated email addresses. If I simply gave the list to someone unrelated to the websites then I would think that’s highly inappropriate. Amazingly, the buyer of the sites didn’t want the subscriber lists. Still, I would never sell the list or give it away or even pitch to it myself.
It’s easy to think of list building as some sort of spammy marketing method but you only have to look at some of the most popular websites in the world. They have newsletters and all kinds of offers that get people onto their lists, the subscribers want the newsletters and updates though…it’s a service to be kept up to date via email you see?
I really dislike RSS and much prefer to be sent an email update myself, but a lot of bloggers/sites don’t do that. My own figures from my old blog prove I’m not the only one who prefers email updates to RSS.
It’s all those spammy emails we’ve gotten that makes us feel like email marketing is not wanted, but we tend to be more exposed to it given we’re studying Internet marketing. Don’t deny your site visitors the convenience of being updated of news, special offers etc; if they like your content they’ll happily opt-in.
Thanks for the in-depth reply Michelle.
Ah! Lawyers! I love lawyers the way most people love dentists.
My original thought was the privacy policy we so often read that states, “blah-blah marketing hates spam and we will never share your email address with anyone else.”
To me, I interpret that as the list is the property of blah-blah marketing or Blogger-Boy’s Blog and not personally to the owner or any future owner (or Blogger-Boy himself.) I have a friend who works as a sole proprietor of 2 different businesses and she would never cross lists even though there is a strong relation between the two entities so I see where you’re coming from.
As an end-user, the only time I’m really annoyed with an opt-in is if the RSS feed and the email are identical since I prefer RSS feeds. I guess it all goes back to idea that, “Content is King,” and if I don’t want to be perceived as a spammer with pop-up opt-ins or mini-videos that launch every time a user visits my site, I just shouldn’t act like one.
I have never heard a pro blogger or Internet Marketing pro that didn’t have a positive experience with Aweber and I will probably use them if/WHEN I start building a list.
Just an FYI here on the “spamminess” of the IM industry. Of the multitude of email addresses I use for subscriptions and on-line accounts, the one with the most spam is the one I set up for job hunting. You Internet Marketing pros got nothing on those vultures!