I logged into my Google Adsense account today and out of curiosity, checked how much money it had made me since I started using it. I was really shocked. Apparently from June 23, 2003 to November 3 2008 I’ve made $289.99. I’ve never used adsense on any of my main sites but I still thought that I had made over $1,000.

Breaking Down My Stats and Puitting Things Into Perspective

For me, the most important stats on the adsense report page is the Page CTR (Click Thru Rate) and the Effective CPM. Google explains the Effective CPM as :

From a publisher’s perspective, the effective cost-per-thousand impressions (eCPM) is a useful way to compare revenue across different channels and advertising programs. It is calculated by dividing total earnings by the number of impressions in thousands. For example, if a publisher earned $180 from 45,000 impressions, the eCPM would equal $180/45, or $4.00. However, please keep in mind that eCPM is a reporting feature that does not represent the actual amount paid to a publisher.

Most channels seem to have a CTR of 0.5% and an ECPM of around $1 however AlcoholView and Finding Love were much higher. AlcoholView had a CTR of 1.10% and en ECPM of $5.35 whereas Finding Love had a CTR of 0.80% and an ECPM of $2.19. Both of these stats are considerable higher than all other channels.

Both AlcoholView and Finding Love are mini sites I created to test the waters with their related niche. I was also curious to see if you could make money with a site using free articles.

I probably spent less than an house creating AlcoholView and less than 2 hours creating Finding Love (as I added some other affiliate links). All I did was upload WordPress, activate a free design and then add a few free articles from an article directory. Other than that I haven’t did anything with them. My original plan was to go back and spend more time on them later if they were converting well but I never made the time.

The domain name AlcoholView expires soon so I decided to list it for sale on a few forums but I’ve not had any offers as yet. I’m tempted to renew the domain again and add some more articles as the ECPM is really high. But then again, this is time that could be spent working on another site. Even though the site has made a few dollars here and there I think that to increase page impressions and Search Engine traffic I really need to spend some time writing original articles but I’m not sure how much time I would have to spend on the site to get it to a dollar a day through adsense, and I’m not really willing to waste more time on it either.

Which is why I’m going to cut my losses, sell these sites and move on. Although they didn’t make money, I’m glad I built those sites as it convinced me that free articles are generally speaking, not a great way to add content to a site.

Selling Text Links : A better alternative to Adsense for Mini Sites?

Adsense is not usually a big earner which is why it’s sometime called ‘Webmaster Welfare‘. Which is why it would be better to just get some inbound links to my mini sites and once it has a PR of at least 3, I can sell text links on it. I know that Google frowns upon this but if the site got a PR penalty I wouldn’t be that bothered.

I created a few other content based mini sites using original articles recently and I think thats the strategy I’m going to apply to them. The sites in question are Htaccess Basics and Taekwondo Patterns. I spent the best part of a working day on each site doing research for the articles and writing the posts. The articles are original and informatitive so they should be able to get inbound links natrually though I will probably add links to them on some other sites I own.

As I wrote in my article Using WordPress To Create Mini Sites last month, the idea is to spent a little time building the site and then move on. I know I can build sites of this quality within a day so if these sites prove to be profitable I am going to start developing more (though I am going to wait to see how these two perform before I commit time to it).

So to summarise, this is how I plan on making money through mini sites :

• I’ll create a mini site using wordpress using a free design.
• I will spent about a day writing original content to the site and making sure the site is actually useful to people.
• I will try and get some inbound links and get a PageRank within a few months.
• Once it has some PR, I will then sell text links using Text Link Ads, LinkWorth or LinkXL.
• I will then repeat the process.

Some things to note :

• If the site gets a little traffic, I may add adsense or promote a related product through the site. I might also spend some more time adding content to the site so that traffic increases.
• I won’t worry too much about getting a PageRank penalty. The whole point of this process is to get the site to a point where it is making money and move on.

I actually have 3 or 4 old sites which I am doing this on just now. They are sites which had good traffic at one point but have not been updated in years. However, since they still retain a PageRank I am able to make a few hundred dollars a month by selling text links on them.

I’m sure some of you will be interested in developing a mini site of your own so if you have any questions, stories or tips, please share them by leaving a comment

Also, I encourage you to subscribe to Self Made Minds, as they have written some great posts regarding mini sites and continue to make good money through them.

Thanks,
Kevin

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