>>How about $5,000.00 per month.... how hard is that?

While it's not against the TOS to state the total of what we earn each month, many of us feel funny about providing those numbers.

I wasn't asking anyone to say how much they earn.

The question was....

How about $5,000.00 per month.... how hard is that?

My answer would be with the right topic and enough content that attracts enough traffic, not that hard. That said, some topics are going to need more traffic than others.

Make that real evergreen content and it might get easier as time goes on.

The hardest part might be creating enough content and promoting it effectively.

>>I wasn't asking anyone to say how much they earn.

I understood the question; it’s obvious what people are looking for in this thread. The value of $5,000 is irrelevant, that's my point. It’s just a number.

"Problem" is that vast majority of the successful publisters don't want to reveal how much money they make, because, if you have any kind of business-sense, you don't want to lure more competitors in your own topic.

How about $5,000.00 per month.... how hard is that?

Way back in the good old days of 2006 it was relatively a breeze, even getting into the UPS club was not that difficult, however the world economy and the nature of the beast has changed considerably since then.

Find the next relatively big "thing" and you may have a chance so long as you are in at the start, however that's always assuming ad blindness will not have affected everyone by then!

If you can get one million visitors per month, anything is possible!

Yeah right! I wish.

I averaged over $10,000 a month for the last couple of years, but fully expect that amount to go down 30-50% this coming year due largely to economic conditions and the subsequent expected adjustments. Other forms of advertising and a more conservative approach to spending will have to compensate for the economic reality that in the U.S. we have been living above our means. I am not convinced that staying "bleeding-edge" will result in either increased income or traffic: I think that Web 2.0, while welcome for those of us Web developers, has been far too overhyped (remember Java?)

This thread got me thinking and remembering...

What ever happened to the college student who was writing a diary and posting here, starting with just a convect, and then publishing a site?

Many of us thought we were having our leg pulled by someone who was setting things up for an e-book. Does anyone recall more of this story?

Jane_Doe hit it on the head in what I've thought for a long time seeing certain checks or hearing about them. It's like people that brag about getting 15k back from the IRS on their taxes. Duh, they gave out a free loan to the government. Doesn't mean anything. I prefer to pay in at the last minute myself.

It's always the total dollars that is spoken about, not the profit. If I wanted to max out some loans and credit cards, I could spend a bunch on advertising and pump up a high dollar check out of it. That doesn't mean I would actually make that money.

What's better...making 15k a month on 5k in ads or 130k a month on 125k in ads? I'll take the lower amount just fine because it's the profit that counts.

Well since BillyS, JoeS and HobbS have posted in this thread, I thought I'd jump in and say that my guess would be that quite a number of Google execs have gotten checks that large because of AdSense. :)

If you can get one million visitors per month, anything is possible!

I had 2 million per month last year and did low-mid 6 figures. This year down to only one million and I will be lucky if I even break 6 figures at all.

Ho hum, guess I am going to have to scale back a bit.

Yes, we all want to share our Adsense secrets with you! That way we won't make as much money!

Hey Stoutfiles, Thanks for you comment.

Glad to know that you have Adsense secrets to share with me. Please that's why I am here, just go ahead and share it. You will still be making as much money while I remain grateful to you as I make my own money too.

By the way, very odd number you picked.

I don't think I made any guessing in picking the number. I posted exactly what I saw but yet to earn. You can get a crew from DXL comment above.

Glad to know that you have Adsense secrets to share with me. Please that's why I am here, just go ahead and share it. You will still be making as much money while I remain grateful to you as I make my own money too.

I...I can't even tell if you're being sarcastic right now. There are people on this site that can barely generate a couple bucks a day and you expect people to share how to make thousands a month? Or in your case, the insane 132,994 dollars a month?

That much money is possible. It's as possible as winning the lottery. Besides, that amount doesn't figure in his advertising costs and hosting costs...that picture is there to impress gullible people that go to his website.

Shoemoney made that check like 3 years ago. He doesn't even advise people to use Adsense these days but yes, you can still make money with Adsense. It helps if you are in a category that matches higher-paying keywords and, of course, you need quality and quantity traffic to do it.

i have 0.1/click about 10%
and 0.3-0.5 80%
and 1.0-2.0 10%

all of my ads generate revenue about 10-30 dollars per day

I...I can't even tell if you're being sarcastic right now

Please, I can't be sarcastic at all. I am here solely to learn from people like you who have been here before me and to contribute my own quota in helping others find answers to their questions. Now that you have known where I am coming from, please, all I want from you, if you wouldn't mind, is your candid opinion on the possibility of making such buck with Adsense based on your own personal experience. As for me I didn't see the possibility of making such buck before now and that is why I ran to webmasterworld for help. Let's talk how a web publisher can make good bucks with Adsense. What are those publishers already making good money with Adsense doing that could be of help to the new publishers?

Is hard work and dedication a "hidden strategy"? Why do I have a feeling that's not the answer you wanted to hear?

Thanks Atomic.
I think that's a great answer. It's really part of the answers I want to hear. Without hard work and dedication nothing great and indeed rewarding could actually be achieved. Such buck can never be earned without these two factors been put in place first. That's a helpful contribution there.

inetguru - I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you want a real answer.

Is that amount possible? In theory, but it will take a lot of hard work, probably some amount of money, and maybe years to get there.

If you have no site now, the first thing you have to concentrate on is developing one. You need good, solid, unique content. You need to make sure your site will be of interest to users, will make them want to come back, and will make them want to recommend it to other people, either via word of mouth or social media services such as stumble, digg, delicious or twitter.

That alone will probably take you at least six months to a year.

You have to pick a niche. It helps if you pick one you have a genuine interest in, but if you are looking to make money from it, you need to pick one that targets people who want to BUY something. I have a bunch of sites that are about free events in my area and around the country. I make pretty good coin from them (because I have a lot of them) but I would make a lot more if I had more sites that were focused on actual products or services, and that people would visit when they were already in the mood to buy something, just looking for where to do it. There are a billion generic review sites out there; what can YOU add to make your site stand out?

When you're evaluating which niche to go into, you should do a bunch of searches in Google, Yahoo & MSN to see how that niche is covered currently. What you see there now will be whom you are competing against, and they already have an advantage because they're already out there and you're starting out. See who is ranking highly in the organics, and how many ads are being run. Check out the sites, and see if there's some aspect of that niche that isn't being covered, where you can creep in. If there are tons and tons of sites and the niche is pretty well covered, you're going to have a hard time. So for your first site, pick something small and very very focused. For example - if you want to work in travel (which is EXTREMELY competitive) then just start out working on a site about travel to a city or area that you know something about, and hopefully doesn't have too much competition yet.

Then concentrate on making that site the very best site you can, and attracting users to it. Don't worry about the ads at first; worry about the content and the traffic. Once you start to build those, introduce ads slowly.

Once you get a site that's up and earning consistently, start looking around for another niche. You don't want to be dependent on just ONE site. What if you wake up and suddenly all the traffic is gone? And also, you want to look at other forms of advertising than AdSense - other ad networks or affiliate programs.

No Single Point of Failure - if one thing goes down, it shouldn't bring down your empire.

That's how you get started. IMO.

[edited by: netmeg at 4:23 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2008]

Just to name couple of persons who have earned over $100,000 in a month with Adsense: Markus Frind, Kevin Rose, Jeremy Schoemaker, Jason Calacanis... Just search for "who makes most with Adsense" (or something similar) - lists.

Thanks Alephh.
So it means that amount is a possibility but just depends on certain factors and strategies being put in place. I was even doubtful a few minutes ago when I saw a claim that a certain site earns $300,000/month Adsense check. Now, how are they doing it?

Agree with Jane_Doe. A lot of these large publishers with huge checks also spend enormous money on getting that traffic. As any business owner will tell you, top line is important but the bottom line is what really matter.

Having said that my company made a cool $140,000 in net income in 2008 all from AdSense and with 100% organic traffic. So if you need motivation to work harder, there are a lot of success stories.

inetguru - I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you want a real answer.

Thank you so much netmeg. Your contribution is really sound and helpful. It will take me sometime to digest all that you have genuinely outlined above. Please, I really think I need people like you in my life. Would be glad to learn more from you. keep up your good works!

That Celebration Mode is first or maybe Biggest hurdle on your way to $132,000. When we are talking about that money per month then Its Just Work, Work and More Work! And sometimes sitting even 36 hours straight infront of your system trying to code for something or trying to research a better strategy wont seem enough :)

Good post, netmeg. :)

Don't worry about the ads at first; worry about the content and the traffic.

One of my most popular sites didn't have advertising on it for at least a year, probably longer. Helps in the link building process, in my experience, because webmasters like to link to free info. I think a lack of advertising presents a more positive face because some people tend to overlook the high quality of the content because of the ads, not even give the content a chance. Leaving out the ads puts your content front and center, there's nothing to distract from it.

Back when that guy's check was issued, we were making about 1/6 of that per month on a 100 page site and rising. We peaked in Mid 2006. Most of it was wisely invested and I've considered selling the site and retiring permanently. Since then, with fierce competition in our niche resulting in decreased organic traffic and a little lower CTR we are at only about 1/3 of that (of our previous earnings). If we could regain our organic traffic to where it was back then we could probably be about 80% of our previous earnings. As soon as someone else discovers your profitable niche, they will want to be there also to make the money. Fortunately, most of our competitors are hurting really bad now due to too fast growth, bloated payroll and costs and the recession and are dropping out of the biz like flies, so hopefully, we will soon be back to being the predominant site in the field.

If you can get one million visitors per month, anything is possible!

The most important factor IMHO is your site's topic. Some topics are simply Adsense goldmine, that will allow you to earn 5 figures a month even with only 200,000 visitors a month.

The challenge for this type of topics is how to increase the visitor base.

Don't worry about the ads at first; worry about the content and the traffic. Once you start to build those, introduce ads slowly.

I disagree with some of this advice.

Concentrating on content and traffic is all well and good and should be your main focus.

But if you plan to put ads on the site in the at some point, ...

Put them on from day one.

That way your visitors and potential linkers will know what they are really looking at and/or thinking about linking to.

There's plenty of ad free sites out there on the web. If a viewer objects to ads, let them look elsewhere.

If a webmaster who is thinking about linking to your site can't see past a few ads to see the real value of your content you probably don't need a link from them anyhow.

If a webmaster who is thinking about linking to your site can't see past a few ads to see the real value of your content you probably don't need a link from them anyhow.

Why would a Webmaster's prejudice against AdSense ads make his or her link less valuable?

It all comes down to the cost-benefit ratio. If the cost of running ads (e.g., losing potential links from university libraries, the occasional ad-hating DMOZ editor, etc.) outweighs the benefit of running those ads (earning minuscule revenues from a brand-new, unknown, untrafficked site), then it makes sense to invest now and collect your dividends later.

On my own site, I have ads and affiliate links, and I'm sure that I've lost some potential links because of that fact. But since I own an established and profitable Web site, the benefit (significant revenue) clearly outweighs the cost (fewer new links than I might get otherwise). If I were starting from scratch, the cost-benefit ratio might be reversed.

Why would a Webmaster's prejudice against AdSense ads make his or her link less valuable?

Because if webmasters who only want to link to ad free sites recheck your site (which all webmasters should do frequently to check for dead or repurposed sites) they may remove their links when they find the ads.

So you might be just getting a short term link to begin with. Why bother chasing temporary links?

It all comes down to the cost-benefit ratio.

That's just a way to justify trying to deceive the people being asked to help by linking to the site.

If the benefit is perceived big enough, intentional deception is ok, is that it?

Before anyone says it isn't deception, what is it?

If you plan to put ads on a site but don't because you want other webmasters to think it's an ad free site, that's deceptive.

Unless of course the webmaster asking for the link sends a note with the request saying, "Once I get enough links I'm going to put ads on the site". Raise your hand if you include that note in your link request emails.

If you plan to put ads on a site, I think it's best to be upfront about it and put them on the site from day one.

If you plan to put ads on a site but don't because you want other webmasters to think it's an ad free site, that's deceptive.

I understand and agree with your point. However I'm making a different point.

1. I constantly link to sites with advertising (except sites with ads for sites I don't want my site to be associated with).

2. My advice for leaving off the ads is so that A> the site does not appear like an MFA or thin affiliate site. And B> so that webmasters can focus on the quality of your content without being distracted by it. If they like the content enough that they linked to it, then in my experience they're going to keep linking to it once the ads show up.

This has nothing to do with sliding under a university policy of not linking to sites with commercial content. I don't understand why you keep arguing that point because it's not a point I'm making or defending.

My point is about putting the focus on the content so the site is fairly evaluated.

Evaluating a link to a site that is brand new and has ads on it makes me look at it harder. How aggressive are they with the advertising and how dedicated are they to the content? An established site with blogads on it is ok with me. A site with a domain regged two weeks ago with blogads already on it sends the wrong message to me.

But let's stay with the topic. The other topic, about linking to new sites continues here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

If any one person WAS making $133k, consistently in that ballpark, I feel sorry for them now. Since the economic downturn, our income is now only 1/3 of what it had been. If you became used to living on $133k a month and are now living on only $44k a month, that is a pretty hard fall from greatness.

Lucky for us, when we were making big money, we paid off everything we owned, paid for new things with cash, keeping ourselves debt-free. I always had this fear, that the golden eggs would tarnish, and the value of it would be much less. Now it is just a dusty paper weight.

Though... somehow we managed to make $2400 more in 2008 than we did in 2007 from all revenue sources, I don't think we will be as lucky in 2009. Early 2008 is what the made the difference in our year-end bottom line.

[edited by: MsHuggys at 2:27 pm (utc) on Jan. 6, 2009]