When do you add advertising to a new site?

Of those of you who are creating sites to generate revenue via CPC, when do you start putting ads on the site?

Do you decide a target exposure (search engine placement etc) and when that is reached add the ads?

Do you wait to get some traffic? How much?

I've read somewhere that with Adsense if a site does not generate enough clickthroughs that they start receiving less on the clicks. Have you found that to be true and would therefore recommend waiting to build up traffic first?

Any suggestions? Any lessons learned you would care to share about setting up the first one?

Thanks for any insight.

so you say that people starting with adsense on a new site earn less money then people with an older and frequently visited site?

I hope they don't :D
What I noticed is that adsense gives you no (or less) money if the CTR is to high, example: 100 expressions and 10 clicks
 

I haven't heared something like that (about the low CTR)

About the monetization of a website, the startpoint has to be traffic related.

I believe that you can start with 100 uniques per day, but after 500 you will really be able to make some money enough to get a check every month.

You say I have to wait until I have 100 unique visitors?

and I don't understand you calculation I have at finalwebsites almost 1000 uniques a day but I need several months to get the next check :-(

That really depends on the site also.

A content site can get about 1$ per day with 20 uniques while a forum get 0.50$ with 300 (numbers are justan example).

Finalwebsites is a site that is more closer to the forum, as the people visit the site to get specific information on your scripts, etc.

lol that will say I need some boring content to earn more money or beter I need lost visitors, hehe...

edit: this was my number 300  8)

Yeah that's true. People tend to click on ads when after they read some boring content.

If you have something very interesting they just stick on that.

Let me tell you an example. Suppose that someone is searching for a php script that manages users/cookies and searched google and founds a thread in this site about that thing, but none really gives a good answer. They just say their opinions with small snippets, but as the user searches for a 'ready to work' script he/she will leave the site.

But if there is an advertisment about the script, the user will click on the ad while leaving.

I think this scenario is very true, and it is the reason that the worst designed sites with the most boring content make the most with adsense.

Do you agree?

Yes I agree, since people with this sites telling me they earn hondreds of dollars a month.

But this is OK, I earn my money in a diff. way..

I remember something I read in a book about becomming a millionar:
"I'm not intelligent that why I can't become rich"
and the answer was
"often rich people are not very intelligent, this way they following their instinct"

... or something like that. do you see the connection with this here?

I don't really understand what you say.

Can you explain more?

It's about that websites from people with more advanced content (for more intelligent people) gain less profit by Adsense the websites with less quality content. Maybe this comparison is not so good to use...hehe. just want to say while I think about to serve better content to my public and I loose money...

Yeah it is very strange.

Because quallity content can bring you more returning visitors while makes the site gain smaller profits.

So, the answer is get traffic first?

As to the payout thing, I've looked around and can't find the original articles I saw, but it was basically that low performing sites will get less of a percentage for each click. The primary outrage was that a publishers entire Adsense account was dropped to the lower payment, not just the underperforming site(s). Not sure if this is related to smartpricing or something else.

That's true, and I think it is also the bottom line of making money with a web site. No traffic = no money.

Even if your site is converting the traffic well, it wont help if you have 10 visitors per day. You need to have at least XXX visitors per day to start monetizing.

Another thing is that you are also able to test ad positions and colours when you have traffic.

Its funny, I have at this page in my signature arround 50 vistors today and already 2 paid clicks!
This beause the information is not so special to the visitor! I start to build websites with not so usefull conten and become rich!!!

hehe

about the calculation of how much do you get for each click:

I think it works like this:
1000 impressions are about 3,0 usd
thats 0,3 cent for each impression

just in case there are 100 impressions on your own site then 10 % uf the 3 USD are the maximum you can earn if you show the add about 500 times than its 50%  from the 3 usd.

I don't know how google calculates the share for the number of clicks.

but this example will explain why site with less impressions doesn't earn a lot...

when i make an information site live, it is already complete with ads. then i start getting traffic to it. i dont wait anymore. i think the "build traffic first before advertising" applies only to dating sites so members will get accustomed to the site's features without distraction. when they are already used to the site and keep coming back, then will the ads be displayed.

YMC, if you want to earn from CPC ads,  i suggest you diversify. make a site with lots of content on different topics so you can also display different ads since some pay higher than others. having lots of content will get you free targeted traffic from search engines. although it is difficult to optimise for Google(more than a year and im still on page 2 with a site im optimising) Yahoo and MSN is much easier to get into(within 3 months) on page 1 provided you have lots of content pages. i know it would be easy for you since you are a writer.

if you want to earn from Adsense, dont attract what they call leech traffic. Leech traffic are visitors going to your site just for the information, then leave without clicking ads because they are already contented with what they got from your site. leave them hanging a little so they will continue searching for more information from the relevant ads that you display.

it is true that if you write very useful content, you will get a lot of new and returning visitors but there will be few clicks to your ads. either you keep one and give up the other. you cant have them both at the same time.

i invite people into my site thru the search engines. yes, i also give out cookies to my visitors, but they cant have the whole cookie jar. i just point them somewhere else with my ads right on their faces.

but my sites arent really designed like yours since im not really into writing scripts and helping people with it. im more into seo and making money.

Seems like a common experience I am seeing across several forums and would explain many of the sites I have been seeing lately...create mediocre content with great SEO = good CPC profits.

So, would you all agree that creating a site with original and complete content in the hopes of doing well as a 'publisher' is not a good model for success? Better to create content that tells half of the story or tells nothing at all to get more $$$?

I truly see the logic, and it would explain some of the results from my own searches of late on CPC, Adsense and the like. So much hype, so little information, unless of course I pay good money (in one case over $1,000 USD) to be told the secrets.

I had planned to use my new site to earn some revenue and to act as a complimentary portfolio site to my main site. Ok, as I'm writing this I think I have an idea how to make it work better for both; but will have to reevaluate the profit potential.

I guess then I will need to start working on site #3 for a true revenue producer. Gasp, I've only had one visit from a search engine on the second and I'm already talking about a third. I think I need to have my head examined.

It is like article promotion.

When you submit an article to article directories, you send an article that has enough information to make the visitor visit your site after he/she read it.

The same is for the articles that you have on your site. You want them to read it and the click the ads.

vbignacio you are right about placing ads from the start, but that's not good for all sites. The problem is that adsense in most cases display ads of competitive sites. The problem with that is that the people that visit your site in the start, wont come back if you promote a competitive site that is better to yours.
That mostly applies to forums.

BTW this thread became one of the best. We've done a good job here ;)

Got this result on a new website about toys with less then 100 visitors a day:

I got a number for EPCM higher than 200 USD but because the site has low traffic I got only less 1 usd for one click, what if this kind of add is showed up on your site with hundreds of impressions! $$$$

If you make a single site with lots of different topics, doesn't that make SEO more difficult? Or should they be related in some way?

I think its better to build multiple sites with diff. topics. Each single site shopuld be optimized for the  content. Some sites will generate low earnings and some moderate  earnings... and of course its more work... :(

So, generally speaking, how much content do you put on a site before you begin working the next one?

Do you ever consider a site "done" and other than tweaking the ads leave it alone?

I think its very inportant for SEO that your contant is dynamic, never leave a site alone, Think about the searchengine positions of blog sites. But its easy to say, I don't need the ads to earn money...

I strongly agree with what Olaf just said.

For me there is also another big reason of having multiple sites. You can use them to check different SEO and ad placement tricks for each, to have a better view of what really works.


A web site is like a living organism. It never stops to developed. If it is then it is propably an unsuccessfull one.

About.com is an example of what im talking about, and it is a successful site. just make separate directories for it like this:

http://about.com/autos/
http://about.com/money/

Nik and Olaf, you are both right about a webpage constantly changing to get spidered often, you can do that hands-off by placing rss feeds on related topics at the bottom of your page.

As a writer and former programmer, I've always felt a project is never truly finished; there's always something that could be added/changed.

Your responses have got me thinking.

Ok, so one more question (well, maybe); when you create a network of sites, do you put them on the same hosting account? It would seem the best attack would be to get a reseller account, but then won't all of the sites have the same IP and not be as effective for cross promotion?

This same ip thing is like a myth.

I host all of my sites in the same ip as I use dedicated server hosting for the last 3-4 years, and never got a problem from that. PR and links from each site are counted by search engines.

I know that it is better to have one site to one ip for SEO purposes, but that's only when the links are not reciprocal.

Using RSS to update a whole page is not enough sinds seachengines know there is already a source with the original, its better to use your own content.

about ip adresses:
I know really big sites with thousands of daily visitors which are shared hosted. Just create unique websites and every thing is fine :)

i dont know if it isnt enough olaf. i made this site about robots and getting rss feed about robots from Engadget. the Googlebot visits my site almost daily. i think it thought that my page was being updated daily so the reason for the daily visit.

The fact that Google visits your site doesn't mean that it will send you traffic too ;)

But you are right it visits very often sites that update frequently.

I have sites that are changed 1 or 2 times in a month and the googlebot is there every day too.

I like RSS feeds to because they are showing visitors every time something new, but I think to use them to have dynamic contant that goes to far.

i only suggested rss for those sites that doesnt need updating in terms of content because the information found there is already final, like an online ebook. just for SEO purposes.

we know about that we can advertise the first to that website and when the website is popular that become a famous website

we are about that if you make a new website .then the advertisment of this website and after some time the website is famous

Well, I have several flash games sites, I started to advertise on each one only when the traffic reached the limit of 100 unique visitors/day. Until then, only seo, link building and adding quality content.