Google AdSense. As a blogger, I hear about AdSense more than most people. The topics of most articles I see usually cover the wonderful side of AdSense; how to place ads, target your audience and make a ton of money. The truth behind AdSense, at least for me, does not have such a happy ending.
I installed AdSense on my hardware review site OCIA.net back in the summer of 2004 and received my first payment in the amount of $190.63 a few months later. At that time, this was the only advertising on the site and needless to say, I was thrilled with the results.
OCIA.net was more or less a hobby of mine for several years; something I enjoyed doing but never thought that it could be profitable. Now, simply by installed one set of ads, I was making money… money that I could have been making all along. It all seemed too easy… and perhaps it was. I should have capitalized on it at that very point, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything different.
I continued with this single set of ads… the very same placement that it is at today. I have changed nothing from 2004. The result?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. My AdSense revenue has taken a plunge directly into the toilet. It now takes me three months to accumulate how much money I used to earn in a single month despite the fact that the site receives much more traffic these days.
The change in income did not happen overnight; it was a slow and gradual process. So slow, in fact, that I really didn’t notice how bad it had become until recently. Since dropping out of school and deciding to run the site full time, I have become a lot more aware of this. Hey, you have to put food on the table right?
I blame this solely on me and my lack of effort to better target my audience and optimize the ads I use. This is partly due to the fact that I didn’t know the first thing about marketing and advertising. The other reason for my lack of success points directly to the layout of OCIA.net. The design is several years outdated and is in desperate need of an overhaul.
My next post about AdSense will no doubt cover a brighter story. Once the redesign of OCIA.net is complete, I will be singing a new tune - the tune of success!
