IT Milk: entry

Like most webmasters out there, I run Google Adsense on several of my websites. I don’t make nearly as much as I’d like to, although I get dozens of clicks each day. How much you make through Adsense really depends on the theme of your website. For instance, a real estate blog is going to make a lot of money per click because that niche is super-competitive and advertisers are bidding high on the content network. On the other hand, a good example of not making enough money through Adsense is my service academy admissions website at Get Into Academy.

Before I go on talking about ad placement on Get Into Academy, my goal is not to make a profit from that admissions help website, as stated on the About page. Whatever small amount that I earn through contextual ads is going towards my hosting bill and the occasional traffic-generating campaigns.

Some Niches are Just Not Fit for Adsense

With that said, I am fortunate enough to get tons of organic search engine traffic each day to Get Into Academy, and visitors love to click on my Adsense blocks for whatever reason — maybe they just want to leave my website. On the downside, military-related advertisements just don’t seem to pay. I calculated my average earnings per click for the past 7 days and it’s only 15 cents per click. Compare that to an average of 60 cents per click on this information technology blog. But even then, I could settle for more money than that!

So, on Get Into Academy, I’m sending cheap traffic to some lead-generating advertisers, mostly for hotel and ringtone offers. These advertisers have to pay me a couple of cents for each click-through, but think about all the money that they’re making when they convert this traffic. An average ringtone lead is about $10 per lead!

Therefore, in this particular case, I want to abandon Google Adsense for a more profitable system.

When Contextual Advertisement Doesn’t Work

We use Adsense because it is an easy system that automatically places relevant ads on our websites. But this contextual advertisement doesn’t always work. It only works when there are advertisers bidding for relevant websites and when the competition in the content network is fierce.

As I mentioned earlier, most of the Adsense ads on Get Into Academy are “Navy Ringtones” or “USAFA Hotel” advertisements. These are totally crap because my visitors generally do not want to see irrelevant ads like this. They would be more interested in college information or cool military gear. But Google’s Adsense bot is not smart enough to realize this, and it refuses to allow me to force certain ads like AuctionAds allows you to do.

Exponentially Increase your Contextual Ad Profit with This System

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. I’m going to place my own ad blocks that looks exactly like Adsense, except the clicks would go through to my own affiliate links. Sure, I won’t be making a consistent 10 to 20 cents for every click. But who cares when I will be multiplying that small Adsense income by a walloping number?

If you haven’t already, you would need to join some affiliate networks. A combination of Commission Junction and Azoogle should provide plenty of ad ideas for your website.

Then try ripping the CSS code from Google Adsense to design your own fake contextual ads. Or just write your own CSS styling to mimic Google Adsense. View the source for this code:

And if you use Wordpress on your website, I recommend that you use the Adsense Deluxe plugin to easily manage all your custom blocks of ad code.

Now you should be well on your way to exponentially increasing your profit through contextual ads on your blog or website.