I am a 28 year old “webmaster” with over 2 years of experience being online and trying to make money.  At first I started this game because I just thought it would be cool to have a website.  Then one website led to another and another – and every idea expounded upon itself into a different way to cash in from the Internet until today I have hundreds of domains and websites.  I have tried my hand in domaining, ebooks, Google Adsense, affiliate programs, SEO, content writing, selling links, and just about everything in between.  I haven’t necessarily stopped doing any of these, but now my focus is geared primarily on one thing – making money online with Google Adsense.

I read a very good free ebook the other day and I’m sorry to say I can’t remember the name of it.  I’ll have to dig it up for a future post.  Anyways, the ebook was one of those “How to make money with Google” type of things.  I usually just disreguard these types of offers, but since it was “free”, I wanted to see how they would attempt to convert me into cash.  At the very least, I thought I might be able to get some Adsense tips to help me out.  To my surprise, the ebook was short, sweet, and solid – a very rare happening.

In the Google book, the authors showed how they were pulling in thousands a month with Google Adsense with screen shots.   (I know SS can be doctored but didn’t get the feel these were.)  The driving force behind making thousands of dollars was these guys had Adsense on hundreds of domains and would optimize each of their domains and then rake in the money from there.  They also pointed out a great tidbit on why people make so little per click.  I was one of those people.  I actually had given up on Google Adsense because I was getting 1 cent clicks, 4 cent clicks and it was just depressing to see 10 clicks for $0.24.  I would think to myself, yeah I wonder how Google is staying in business.  They have someone paying them 20 cents a click and they drop me 15 cents.

So the clicks weren’t working and I went the affiliate route to make money online.  I hate affiliate programs.  Do you know why I hate affiliate marketing?  Because they never convert for me.  I know, I know, some people are making thousands with them, but for me I only generated 1 sale through clickbank and that sell is being rotted away with clickbank fees so I’m giving up on them.  Then the Amazon affiliate program only pays 4% for starters!  Are you kidding me?  A 4% sale?  I’m sorry but that’s not working for me.  I tried them for their new shopping network at 15% and their Kindles at 10% – but at $30 per sale because the Kindle is $300 but I never sold a thing from the Amazon program.

The best affiliate program appears to be Commission Junction.  They’ve got a wide array of products and most will pay you a respectable commission for a sale.  Godaddy pays out 20% which is really awesome on their already low prices.  I’ve only had 1 Godaddy conversion, but still it’s something and I’m relatively new to Commission Junction with only a few hundred page views to mostly webmasters.

One thing I’ve been forcing myself to realize is not everyone on the Internet knows what I know.  I read so many webmaster forums like WarriorForum, NamePros, and DigitalPoint that I’ve become skewed in how I think about ads, prices, sells, and sales pitches.  I’m usually modeling my blogs and websites around webmasters rather than a regular person that isn’t concentrated in Internet marketing and Internet money.  My jaded view is something I constantly have to battle.

But back to the focus at hand: making money with Google Adsense.  This is my new mission.  I’ve got the domains and I’m going to make the time (I’m a grad student) so I’m ready to go all out in this Internet money making operation.  Making money online is such the ultimate game for me because it’s an open playing field for everyone and the results are very real: either you’re winning, getting by, or failing.  So yes, to me it’s like a video game that plays with real money and now I’ll be blogging about my progress in the game as I move forward.  My hope is that other bloggers become excited about making money from reading my blog and get in on it with their own blogs as we compete with one another.

Obviously the more resources you have at your disposal, the more of an advantage you have, but advantages can be negated.  For example, if you pick a lower CPC niche, you may dominate it by throwing a lot of money in outsourcing SEO and content writing but I its possible that I can be more efficient than you and end up making more money by picking a better niche, reducing overhead, and putting in leaner hours.  By leaner hours I mean whereas we’re both on the computer for 4 hours a day, you’re watching tv and iming people while I’m working straight throughout with no distractions.

While I know my way around Internet marketing, I’m by no means on the level of a Grizzly.  This guy is probably the best and he straight up proved it by going out and dominating some of the hardest search keywords on the Internet such as “how to make money online” and “make money blogging”.  I’m probably near the level of apprentice.  As I eluded to earlier, I make money online through the combo method.  I sell domains, I collect Adsense checks, I sell advertising, etc.  I made the most money this fall when I had 3 websites in a sports niche turn PR5, PR3, and PR3.  Looking back, I undercharged the guy I sold to and I still made a ton of money.  The PR5 of course fell.  The reason it became a PR5 was because I got a link from a major online newspaper’s sports section which was a PR7.  That link put me in elite status and I road that wave as long as I possibly could.

As you might have guessed, the PR5 site was significantly devalued by Google because of all the links.  I knew that would happen, but the money presented itself and there was no way I was going to make more money off that site other than doling out blogroll links so I did it.  Definitely should have charged more though.  The guy that was buying from me was obviously an SEO guy, but my problem was I was thinking on Digitalpoint prices.  This SEO guy obviously liked to keep costs down, but I was charging too much of rock bottom prices to really start making money online.  Like I said earlier, the webmaster mentality can hurt you sometimes.  It’s ok though because later he kept buying at a slightly inflated price even when the PR5 dropped to PR3.

My make money online plan now centers around Adsense and developing blogs and domains simply to produce great CTR results.  In 3 months, I want to have 120 sites with Adsense optimized templates ready to go.  I already have this, but the themes aren’t choice and the pages need to be better optimized (lighter theme, better Adsense colors, more content, more links, etc.).  I’ll be posting my Adsense results every week in the upper right hand corner so you can see how my progress is going.  Hopefully you are already getting the motivation you need to start your make money online campaign.

My niche sites are mostly of the “make money on the Internet” variety, but I’ve also got a few in other niches.  I probably won’t be posting many site names, but I’ll give you a good feel for what I’m concentrating on.  I’ll probably also be money blogging about 2 or 3 times a week so stay tuned.  In the meantime, good luck with your money making ideas!  I hope you get wealthy and stay rich off your blog.