I’ll be forward and admit that 1) I enjoy earning passively using Google AdSense income, and 2) I hate teaching people how to earn income through Google AdSense.
Frequent visitors of my website might notice that I talk about my AdSense journey from time to time. I don’t speak of it much nowadays, since it’s not my major source of income. However, it’s nice to be able to not do any work for weeks at a time and still have money rolling in at the end of the month to settle the routine bills. Of course, I make sure that I’m debt-free first and foremost , which is my key to enjoying life the way it is, even during this COVID-19 economy.
Revving up seemingly “new” opportunities
For obvious reasons, amongst the hot topics that our general populace are looking for nowadays are:-
- Jobs that allow you to work from home;
- How to make money online;
- How to run a business online; and,
- Looking for extra income online.
The list isn’t exhaustive, nor is it new. However, COVID changed everything.
Roughly translated, an OECD report stated that in 2018 and 2019, one in every five people who buy your product is your online customer. But in just six months starting early this year 2020, this has changed. Instead, for every three to four people who buy your product, at least one comes from your online shop. Some even lost their walk-in sales.
But I digress. The reason I pointed out the info above is that the effects of COVID in accelerating businesses and economy in transformation online is too big for anyone to ignore. With transformation, comes opportunity, which I have personally benefited from.
On a wider perspective, for those of us already embracing digital business in our routine, the transformation and opportunities are nothing new and are expected.
To the rest of the world, it’s turning everything they know upside down.
To have to walk the talk on Google AdSense income
Forgive my digression. Back to my Google AdSense income matter.
On top of running my businesses and work online, I believe I tried it all when it comes to making money online. The legit ones specifically. Affiliate marketing, online advertising, e-commerce website development and selling online (both digital and physical products), dropshipping, niche marketing, site flipping, blogging, alt-cryptocurrencies, and content marketing. I still do all these today save for two of the methods I mentioned, because those require work that don’t allow for much automation.
The rest, I can do so automatically or with the least effort.
People find my Google AdSense journey via blogging to be the most interesting. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. As a matter of fact, I spend zero dollars on marketing and promotion due to bum methods.
My only cost is on my VPS web hosting which is USD5.00 a month. This covers at least 15 domains; I may have more domains, depending on my web development contracts and clients I have at a time. Another cost would be my domain name hosting which is USD10.00 per domain per year. This translates to USD150 for all the domains I personally own.
USD210.00 a year is not bad if you consider that, without my web development, training, online sales, and other side-hustling income, I can still cover that cost alone with two months’ worth of my passive income.
Adding to that, I only spend 10 hours A WEEK working on my 10 niche sites. That is still considered a whole load of effort. On some of my niches, I even leave them up to years without update, yet they still generate AdSense income. Effective niche sites that help earn you sustainable ad income are topics that are either evergreen, or trending. If it’s both, like finance and health, even better!
Herein lies my problem
Online scams are everywhere. Therefore, how can I proof that I can, and have indeed, make money online? How would you know that I don’t just talk cock?
By showing my own website. And, of course, live stats and earnings.
Some of you might think, “You can always just screenshot those.”
Followed by a, “There’s a thing called Photoshop,” rebuttal.
So, yes, to make my trainings more legit, I prefer showing my website, stats, and earnings live.
Google AdSense income report: getting to the heart of my annoyance
I am passionate about and love all my niche websites; however, I am particularly fond of my arts and crafts site called Cross Stitch For Free. I confess that it started out to mainly be used for AdSense earnings.
But that was 12 years ago.
Like most of my niche sites that lasts, I put a lot of heart into making sure the content I created would not only be ones that attract traffic, but it would also be content that I personally love reading over and over again.
Ironically, I earn the least from my free cross stitch patterns website compared to my other Google AdSense income niches. This is due to the fact that arts and crafts itself usually have very low profit margin. But I mind not one bit.
So I use the site whenever I do a demo; I usually show this when I share about Google AdSense or content marketing as a source of income.
Screenshot below: My Google AdSense income report for the past 7 days
I absolutely hate it each time I have to demo this website
Why? I’ll keep it simple.
The ad revenue we make is determined by, among other factors, the quality of visits we get on the website. The “best” quality visitors are those referred by Google search engine itself. It can also be through referral websites like social media or external websites linking back to me.
Although I know I have to, I can’t stand it when people visit CrossStitch4Free.com by typing the URL directly. Alternatively, I also don’t like people accessing the site directly through the link I share during my training (including visits from WebGrrrl.net since this site has NOTHING to do with cross stitch). Because — guess what? — it LOWERS the quality of my website visits. In other words, people aren’t visiting the site because they want to access the content. Instead, it is because they are curious about the website AND THAT’S IT.
And you know what happens when I get low quality website visits? I MAKE LESS MONEY!
There. I said it. FINALLY.
On that note, I apologise. When push comes to shove, this is my (un?)doing. This post is triggered by my recent stats that showed my organic visits have dipped these past couple of weeks.
This post is directed more for me personally than towards my website visitors who have visited my niche site directly. Even knowing what I know, I still prefer to show my website live instead of screen captures. Making my training and proving that the knowledge I share is legit, is way more important than my Google AdSense income.
In the mean time, let me wallow in my 9 other niche sites and online gigs. I’m sure I’ll get over this soon.
Cheers to your online money-making endeavors!
Check out my other posts: « Website redesign and content strategy: WebGrrrl.net 3.1 / Thoughts going into 2021 »