Everyone has hobbies, or at least something they are interested in. I am going to show you a way to use your interests to make some money. Bear in mind, your computer probably won’t be handing you money through the screen like in this photo, but with a little work and patience, you can set up a nice little passive income stream for yourself. How much money you make is entirely up to you. And with most things in life, the more time and effort you put in, the more results you will get out.
Here’s how it works…..ever gone to a website and saw a block of ads that say “Ads By Google” underneath? Here’s an example….
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Do you see the blue links underneath the pictures of the pianos? Those are called Adsense Ads. Adsense ads are sponsored by Google and income is generated on either a pay per click or a pay per impression basis. Let’s break it down a bit further…
Say you really enjoy playing the piano (like me…as that’s actually my website above). So you build a little mini site about pianos, offering your visitors information about pianos. You can include information on different models and makes, as well as accessories that go along with piano playing like piano stools, benches, and lights. You fill up your site with useful content all about your love for the piano niche.
You then create an Adsense account, install the Adsense code onto your site (which is really simple, and I will show you how in a later post) which allows Google to crawl your site and determine what your content is about. Once that determination is made, Google will then choose appropriate related ads from their pool of advertisers and display a block of ads wherever you choose on your site.
When people arrive at your site, and click on the ads, you get paid. Depending on your niche, the pay out could range from .50 cents per click to $15.00 per click or even more. Some topics pay out better than others, but you can usually find ads for just about any topic. The more traffic you have to your site, the more clicks you will get. And those clicks add up quick!
Here is a screenshot of my earnings for the above website since March of this year (2010):
Now,
$80.53 in 5 months doesn’t seem like much, BUT…..if you have 10 of these mini sites (which take about 2-5 days to put together each), that’s $805.53. And if you are really ambitious and throw up 50 of them, that’s potentially $4026.50! And that’s only in 5 months. This site will continue to make me money for as long as I have it up. Not bad for a few days worth of work! That’s about $10,000.00 a year, and pianos aren’t even a hot topic online. If I would have chosen a better topic, a more sought after topic, my return would have been much higher.
You live and you learn though. That site was the very first site I ever built, and it only got better from there. Since then, I have learned how to do proper keyword research to determine which words people are actually searching for on Google. And from there, I learned how to assess my competition and get on the first page of Google for my keywords (which makes ALL the difference in traffic levels)
There are folks making over $100,000 a year with Adsense sites alone. The opportunity is there, you just have to grab a hold of it.
In the next post, I will go further into detail on how to find the right keywords for your first mini site. Keyword research is always the first step in any successful online venture, so we will start from there. I will walk you step by step on how to build your own little Adsense empire and cash in on clicks!
Stay tuned….
