If I had a dollar for every time I get asked how much money I make I would have… even more money! Regular readers have learned by now that I don’t play by the A-List rules and more or less contradict their whole methodology when it comes to making money online. I use free blogs (Blogger), I like my sites good and Ugly and of course I don’t sell crap to my readers – I prefer making money with Adsense. My method is really very simple; I target keywords. I rank on top of Google’s serp’s and bring in traffic. Visitors see my inept, amateurish and oh so ugly blogs and they run like hell. Fortunately 10 -12% of them leave by clicking on my Adsense ads. That is my system (not totally as I do have other forms of monetized blogs) and it works.
How well it works is relative – I don’t pull in $30,000 a month from a single site as that illiterate food monger claims 
out in Vancouver but then again I don’t have to post crap every day either. I also don’t have to deal with people be it advertisers, affiliates, staff or anyone else for that matter. I do get a ton of emails and a ton of comments on a couple of sites but that is my own choosing. I don’t mind helping others out and truth be told I quite enjoy it.
I should also point out that when it comes to the make money online niche I outrank all the A-listers and drive more search traffic than the whole works combined. There is only one fellow in this niche that I happily admit has me topped – Alan Liew and his moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com. If you aren’t familiar with him it’s not surprising as he doesn’t chase social traffic either. He does top the charts for the term “Make Money Online” and ranks in the top 3 for dozens of other related terms. He also uses free blogspot blogs…
A benefit of not selling anything to my readers has meant zero hate mail and I have developed a ton of good will over the last couple of years from the folks who do me the honor of reading my blogs. Oh and aside from a few expenditures (links) I have no overhead. I make money without spending much – almost nothing in fact and what I do spend in a month is recouped in less than a day.
All in all my system is perfectly suited to a guy living in the middle of nowhere running a full time business in the real world. My system is also perfectly suited to beginners. This is part time work with full time income and I have been telling people how I do it for a few years now. No strings attached. Your success will not hurt mine and the best thing is I have made a lot of online friends – friends who have helped get this blog up the MMO charts in record time. I have always lived by the motto that you help yourself when you help others.
So where is this going…
Oh yes… the money.
Well another year is coming to a close so I thought I would give you a peak at how the year has gone – or at least how my public network has fared. This basically means my earnings from the Make Money for Beginners blog and associated sites that I have used when demonstrating my techniques. The site was built as an Adsense blog and strangely enough has morphed into a social/affiliate/adsense blog due to the fact that some people just had to read it instead of running away like they were supposed to. I love my readers but they have lousy taste in blogs – apparently they didn’t get the memo regarding how worthless a Blogspot blog is. Good thing though – it is far from worthless but don’t tell the “experts” as the prevailing myth that bloggers using free platforms can’t know much has been working in my favor (and Alan’s) for years now.
Due to Google TOS I can’t show you all the stats but I’ll give you what I can. I have been open about what I do so I may as well be open about what I earn.
Most of the money is made from the Beginners blog and at present there are only two sites running Adsense on that account. I have had maybe a dozen sites using the same account over the past two years but only two have been Adsense winners and the rest have been transformed into affiliate sites or farm blogs. One is now making headway as a lead generation site and this blog is being groomed to make a killing by scamming all my readers once I develop the perfect scam – still working on that.
Overall I have 4 networks but only one has been made public – meaning you can track most of the sites on it if you do a little digging. You will never find my other networks by way of this one. I see the queries in my stats all the time though – people trying to track my adsense publisher number, my name, IP etc. (You are wasting your time. I am 4 completely different people online and never will the four meet.)
Making Money Online with Adsense
Contrary to popular myth it can be done. You hear stories and complaints all the time from people making $1 a month. The reason is simple – they don’t know what they are doing. I like Adsense for one simple reason. It allows a complete computer illiterate like me to make money online. No skills required other than a half functioning brain and a determination to succeed. Well okay – it helps if you understand SEO and you should if you have been reading my blog. That is what I do and that is the secret to making money online. SEO is what drives traffic and traffic is all that is important. All modesty aside – I am really good at getting traffic and it has nothing to do with my good looks or computer savvy. It has everything to do with – write this down – Getting Backlinks. A little on-site tweaking and a lot of backlink building equals traffic.
I wanted to add the ever popular screenshots to this post but they are so small as to be unreadable so I will list my earnings using text as well. If any of my computer savvy friends feel the urge to tell me how to make a screenshot larger by clicking on it (like blogger does) please fill me in as I haven’t the patience to figure this out. (I told you I was mentally challenged when it comes to computers)
Monthly Adsense Revenue = Currently averaging $3000-$3500 on beginners blog (Best month = $5200). The top 7 blogs across all my networks bring in roughly 20K a month in Adsense. The shot below is for November and I added it to explain the slow start concept to you. Without getting into all the reasons (I’ll save it for the book) it is normal to see low earnings at the start and end of each month and higher earnings mid month. This month started out with a $60 day and is climbing back up to the $100 mark ($96 yesterday). It was at $23 bucks early this morning which tells me today will end around $110 or so. Mid month usually sees days of $150 – $200 per day and then trails off again at the end of the month.
The shot below shows my all time earnings with this account – just over $65k. This is for the past two years and includes about $8k from the other blogs. The main blog has earned roughly $46k this year and the remainder in year one. (Two of my other networks have earned more)
The Beginners blog has also earned just over 15K from affiliate sales this year – the largest source from Project Payday which sits quietly out of the way down at the bottom of the page – the least effective spot and I have wondered what it could do if I just put it where my posts are.
Overall the Beginners blog has earned a little more than 60K this year with total expenses (re: link building) about $1800. Not bad for a blog that averages 4 posts a month and costs me nothing to maintain.
Traffic
The blog averages 1500 – 2500 visitors on weekends and 3500 – 4500 weekdays. This is all search engine traffic. 90% from Google. On days I post I get an increase between 5000 and 6500 visitors – my Adsense earnings/affiliate sales don’t see an increase on those days and this is why I have stated that social traffic does not convert to sales. Traffic has increased steadily every month and is due to targeting new keywords. The site ranks on page 1 on G for over 70 related terms and I’m adding more every month.
That is my system – pick a keyword and get to the top of the serp’s with it. Then repeat with a new term. Over and over and over. It works and it gets easier to do as you build up authority for the site as a whole. Last week I showed just how easy I can claim top spot for just about any MMO related keyword I want. It took less than an hour for Google to rank me number 2 for “make money online in Canada” without quotes and number 1 with quotes. (12 million competing pages)
Now while this all comes across as bragging I’m not really that impressed with myself as I know that this can be done by anyone. And that’s the whole point of this post – if you are starting out online the chances are good that you are going to come across Problogger or John Chow or Shoemoney and then spend the next year trying to duplicate what they have done. You will fail – yes – you will. You just don’t know it yet.
The reason you will fail is because they don’t teach you how to make money online. You will copy them like Caroline Middlebrook has done or John Cow did – and then you will begin to wonder why you still aren’t making money even though you have 3000 RSS subscribers. Caroline still hasn’t figured it out (you don’t have the right traffic Caroline) or you will sell out like the Cow did when you realize how much work is involved in building a social site with no return on the investment. Most of you will never see 3000 subscribers to begin with so take a cue from them – they aren’t making money following the A-List and they are successful as far as social blogging goes. Closer to home two friends of mine Vic and Court are busy with new ventures in spite of 3000 and 5000 subscribers to their flagship blogs. Why? Because there is no money in just having readers – they are using the flagships to funnel traffic to where they can make money. All the people I just mentioned have talent and quickly grew a large audience – most of you won’t even get that far – far enough to realize that you are wasting your time chasing bloggers. I have readers as well and truly enjoy them but I don’t need them to make money.
And that is why my system succeeds while social blogging doesn’t.
If you are new here and made it this far then you have just experienced what I do – I write agonizingly long posts full of terms that Google is going to rank me for. When I finish I am going to go out and build backlinks for all those terms and the end result will be that G will send the same traffic to this blog as it does to my other one. This site will be making the same kind of money as the other MMO blog but in a quarter of the time. And then I will build another site and do it all over again.
There are 36 million pages telling you how to make money online in Google’s index – only one of them sits on top of the list and it doesn’t belong to an A List blog. Google it and then start reading.
Thanks for enduring this,
Cheers,
Griz
Hi Griz,
I just realised you posted in here. That’s what I get for not doing the RSS thing. Ha! Who has time for RSS feeds…?
The livestock is getting hungry for more erm, hay… which I’m making while the sun shines…
No time to talk, must get back to the farm…
Hi Griz,
This is only loosely related to the topic of this post, but I thought it was relevant enough to post here.
Have you seen the new features integrating G Analytics and Adsense together?
I think you might just use StatCounter for recording site metrics so you might not even use Analytics. If that is the case, would being able to see which pages your users convert to Adsense clicks as well as where the come from (both geographically as well as from what online source) be enough for you to start using Analytics?
I think it would be super cool if they showed which keywords actually convert to clicks too, but from what I can tell from the intro video it doesn’t.
You sure rock the boat! I doubt if any sincere person can dispute the points you made above. I never planned reading through the post, but I was still looking for more when I realize that it has ended.
Thanks for sharing, you sure have provided tremendous help. Kudos !!!
LOL I happened to find this site bc I was typing “how to…” into the Google page (I love Google, I feel I am a proffessional googler lol) and laughed at the selections that popped up. Of course reading “how to make money online” was a curiousity spiker, so I clicked it. As you know, you were number one on the list. Anywho, to help you out maybe, I use tinypic.com for images. It sizes them for you. I don’t rightly know if it helps you with what you do, but ohs a well lol.
I’m a squidooer, I used to have a Wal-Mart blog that actually generated a ton of traffic, I just stupidly didn’t know what a blessing that traffic was, and deleted the page. I know I am a foll hardy newb, but in any which case, good to see you mention squidoo.
Have fun.
I follow you because you say it like it is with you. Myself, I go between wanting my readers to come back to wanting the search engine traffic which generates adsense income for me. I love hearing from people but I also enjoy getting a paycheck so I keep returning to your teachings knowing that you are correct in what you teach; social networks bring readers, search engines bring buyers (or clickers). Thanks for your directness and correctness!
I would love to know what this is all about, looking to make $$ online but still have no clue.
Thanks for any help.
Trying not to sound too stupid and helpless.
Ron,
No stupid questions since more and more want to learn to make money online. It was new for us too.
Continue to read Griz and my blog
Hi Griz…just wanna tell you that I really am now working hard to make money with adsense…so one day I could visit your beautiful lodge..;-)
Hello,
Is it true that GOOGLE is giving preferential treatment to WP Blogs? To note BLOGGER is owned by them.
SAMMY
Griz, I just discovered your site, I’m liking it! Thanks, Keep up the good work. I’m learning more everyday, and your help is apprciated.
One of the things I do to show an enlarged picture is just link the picture to the url of the picture itself and allow it to open in a new window so they can view the enlarged picture without leaving my site.
Griz,
Just finished reading your post. Thanks for all of the good info. I have been following the advice you and Court give over the last year and have begun to make money using your methods. I am curious as to how many backlinks a site needs? 10, 100, 1000? What do you think?
Thanks again for your hard work and help.
I think you should post more of these Adsense screenshots
By the way, how long does it take for you write a normal long post on your money for begginers blog?
Hey Griz,
I’m going to be a reader, but also a customer when you put out that book I’m hearing about. Hurry up wouldya.
Jerry
That was really nice reading.
Got some new ideas.
Greetings from Macedonia!
Nice post, once again. I always like reading about those who are succeeding : )
I am very very new at this and I would really like to know how to make money online can someone tell me?
Thanks for the info about Adsense. This is one area where I could use a little advice.
Grizz, I have a question about buying backlinks. Is this something that is advantageous? Will the G penalize me for doing it?
Thanks.
Hello,
I ranked number 3-5 in SERP’s for one of my keywords thathas an average of 3million searches, still I got zero traffic from google. Is it normal? What’s the plausible explanation
please.
Thanks!
SAMMY-D3Marketers
Hey, I’m so glad I found your site. I think my analysis paralysis is finally over. I was convinced by some of the other Guru sites that it was a bad idea to put adsense on sites that have afiliate links. My gut told me that this social stuff was to much work for the results. I guess a bit of everything isthe way to go.
I’ll have to put some time aside to read your other post.
Looking forward to it.
Thanks again
Hi there!
It looks like you have been getting a great deal of readers to you blogs by targeting the right keywords and phrases and optimized the websites for this keywords. Actually I found you searching for “Make Money Online” in G – just as you are mentioning in this post. SEO is truly a “must do” in Interenet Marketing and when climbing the SERPs. Feel free to visit my blog anytime you want to. It looks like we have shared interests
I have started this blog just recently and have no PageRank yet, but I am getting great SERP results in G Norway and guess I will climb in the SERPs for Google.com soon when I get more time free to optimize and build my other blogs in my network.
Feel free to make a comment!
Best regards,
Trond
Hi Grizz,
What an excellent resource your site is. Thank you for sharing your information and experiences with us.
Thought I would ask your opinion…
What is better for adsense…
A single site with many different categorized topics or several sites with just a single topic?
I see plenty of sites, like indianchild.com, that seem to rank well in google for just about anything and everything. They focus on no particular topic or niche, but many different ones.
Looking forward to your opinion and thanks again……
Thanks for the continued inspiration Grizz. I shall go forth and create more backlinks ! One day I’m sure it will pay dividends.
Griz,
Shoemoney’s newsletter is excellent and aimed at newbies in the way it is written and packed with incredible info. At least the ones I have read so far.
It’s unlike any other marketer’s newsletter I ever received before. This guy used to be terribly obese and had surgery to correct it so he is not a normal person.
And now he has a company with employees to make big money online. I don’t think his blog is supposed to educate people about making money since it is more like a personal blog with photos.
But if you subscribe to his newsletter you may get a different feeling.
I am a big Adsense fan myself, I get consistent monthly income from it so it has to be appreciated.
Thanks Andy,
Good to know and no I haven’t read his newsletter. This helps to understand why anyone would bother with his site as his posts are frankly terrible. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Nice blog and good informative blog,i hope that i will recive knowledge from your blog.Thanks
Wow! That’s some pretty good earning figures. Good work!
Grizz,
Why oh why didn’t I find your site a few months ago. Months before I paid up to join two make money online blogs…Jeez. I feel stupid now. Great work and I am now your most avid follower
Have any of you guys also tried BANS or PHP bay? I’ve had sucess with both as long as you target the right keywords and don’t just pick keywords with no traffic..
I do with phpBay. I even wrote AuctionSiteWriter so that I can write BANS/phpBay sites(faster) using targeted keywords.
i enjoy reading all ur articles, chhers from Indonesia
Nice honest earning figures, thats what I like to see.
Nice Shots of Money Income statement…
I’m very motivated with it.
We should be kept motivated to keep on doing online business..
[...] Show and tell – the money shots [...]
good work Grizzly
have to check those out, the phpbay one looks very interesting.
I’m now using MyStarterBlog eBay Plugin instead of phpBay. I’m converting all my sites to it.
Granted, I created MyStarterBlog
but I’m using Rob’s MSB eBay Plugin. For $14 total, you have a better/cheaper alternative to WP/phpBay or BANS.
I’m updating ASW to support it the plugin too.
January was my best month ever since I had a few ACRU added
Hi Griz, I have a very common question always come up in my mind like some internet marketer says that it is absolutely failure and loss of time to do an effort of making money doing a blog business with blogger.com They suggest for wordpress. Do you think, is it mandatory to do a blogging in wordpress to make money?
[...] are looking for something and we want the answer to jump out at us. This was confirmed by one of Grizzly’s post, one of the best internet marketing minds in the [...]
Thanks for taking this opportunity to talk about “Show and Tell – The Money Shots | Make Money Online”, I benefit from learning about this subject. If possible, as you gain data, please update this blog with new information. Thanks, Hier
Hello from Germany! May i quote a post a translated part of your blog with a link to you? I’ve tried to contact you for the topic Show and Tell – The Money Shots | Make Money Online, but i got no answer, please reply when you have a moment, thanks, Gedicht
John Chow is my idol when it comes to online moneymaking*-;
You know, Griz, it is funny – I spent about 9 months off from doing internet marketing / blogging work and yet my site has continually risen in the search engines without any effort. Part of it is due to the content, like yours that has depth and deeper keywords. Great to see just how you do it. If that isn’t a gift to your readers, I don’t know what is.
Thanks Don – nice to see you back as well. I noticed I had not seen your name pop up in a while. Now if the site is making you some money even better!
This is a bit of an note to myself – and some thoughts on my question I asked you about WordPress vs. Blogger. I have recently noticed that Google ‘seems’ to love wordpress sites over blogger sites. But, I don’t know if it is just my imagination. I have some small empirical evidence for this – but, I’m wondering if something else is going on here. So, I’m wondering if you switched because of the same.
It is getting there – I see that I’m now #21 in Google for the open search of Learn How to Make Money Online and #11 with the same phrase quoted. I’m anxious to see what happens when I bump into the top 10.
Question, however, why did you move from Blogger to WordPress?