Not so long ago I published a post that described the goals I’ve set for my business in 2012.
As you can see, my #1 goal in that post was to boost my Adsense income to at least $5,000 a month – which by most anyone’s measure, is a full-time income for the vast majority of people in the USA.
In today’s post, I’m going to share with you more details on exactly what I’m going to be doing, along with the keyword data for the keywords that I’ve chosen, as well as how you can learn exactly how I chose all the keywords – which, I should add, I chose myself without the assistance of a VA.
The Keyword Selection Process
Unlike the last 20 or so sites that I launched (which are doing extremely well, I’m happy to say!), with this new batch of sites I decided to not use a VA for any part of the keyword selection process. There are several reasons for this:
- Keyword research is THE most important part of the entire process and the more I do it myself, the more skilled/confident I become
- I believe that I will always make better decisions than a VA
- I will spot opportunity for authority sites that a VA will miss
- With tools like SECockpit, finding killer keywords just isn’t that hard!
If you would like to see my advance keyword research training, just be sure and sign up for my next webinar.
Authority Sites vs Niche Sites
Its no secret that search engines want to see very high quality websites, and as I want to build a portfolio with staying power, I felt that it was time to start adding some authority sites into the mix for diversification.
Does this mean that I’m saying niche sites are dead? Hell no. In fact, as I’m about to report in my January monthly income report, my niche site portfolio saw a 100% increase in Adsense income/day over the previous month and I didn’t build any new sites in the last 30 days.
All I am saying is that as a business owner, your job is to assess and attempt to mitigate the risks that you are exposed to.
As I don’t have a crystal ball, that means that I need to protect myself from Google’s future changes by diversifying my Adsense portfolio. You should be doing the same.
Product Sites vs Information Sites
As I’ve shared in many of the one-on-one coaching sessions that I do with Niche Site Mastery members, I’m not a huge fan of building sites focused on products. The reason for this is that it appears to me that Google seems to favor the major retailers in their search results. Just search for any physical product that might be sold by Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc…and you will see what I mean.
With that said, there are keywords that a user might be searching for because they want more information about that product, as opposed to just trying to find an ecommerce site to buy it from.
For example, “cheap toaster” is a keyword that would only be searched for when someone wants to buy it. A toaster is so mainstream that no one wants to read about it. “Weight Loss Pills”, on the other hand, is a keyword that someone could be searching for because they want more information PRIOR to making a purchase.
What I’m trying to say is that some keywords could be used for either product searches or information searches, and these are they keywords that I will be going after in some of this latest batch of sites.
My Chosen Keywords
Below are the keywords that I will be having the NSM VA team build sites for. As you can see, at the bottom of the image, the average articles per site is 16, so most of these sites are what I’d call authority sites.
As well, for the vast majority of these sites, I have already used SECockpit to find the next 20+ keywords that I’m going to have the VA team write additional articles for over time.
You’ll also notice that in addition to attempting to forecast keyword profitability, I’ve also included a an estimate of each site’s future asset value, which I’ve calculated by taking the site’s estimate keyword profitability and multiplying it by 10. I suspect that each site could be sold for closer to 20x cash flow, however, this is just one of the ways in which I’m attempting to be conservative in my forecast.
Another of the ways in which I’m being conservative is that I’ve not attempted to include the value of Adsense clicks from ANY of the related keywords for each site.
For example, site #1 will have 20 articles (when its launched), however, the $432/month that I’ve estimated for keyword profitability ONLY takes into account a #2 ranking for the primary keyword. Any/all addition traffic and clicks would be gravy.
Given that these 30 sites will actually consist of 483 articles (targeting 483 keywords), it could end up being quite a bit of gravy!
The other major assumption that is not directly displayed in the spreadsheet above is that I expect to be wrong at least 50% of the time! That is why I’m only forecasting keyword profitability for the primary keyword, as well as why I’m only assuming asset value of 10x cash flow instead of the 20 that I know I will get.
The reality is that not every site is going to achieve the SERP goal, and, in this business, that is just a fact of life. If you want a guaranteed 100% success ratio, you’re in the wrong business.
How Asset Value Factors into ROI
At this point in time, Adsense sites sell very easily, and for very high valuations on Flippa. This may not always be the case, however, it is the case now, and I believe it will remain so for at least another six months…if not more. (broken crystal ball)
Given that a website that produces a passive income is so valuable, not including asset value in my profit forecast would be remiss.
Hopefully, its dawned on you that investing $5,400 ($5,400 initially with the expectation to invest another $5K in more articles and links) in niche sites to make $175K in six months, is an astronomical rate of return. Heck, even if I make only a quarter of that, in terms of investment performance, I’ll have hit a home run and then some.
Of course, you could always try your luck in the stock market 
How I’ll Get it All Done
Building 30 sites and writing 900+ articles is going to be a LOT of work. Did I ever suggest that success would be easy? No, its never easy; however, with access to the right resources its totally doable.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you already know about Niche Site Mastery, and more than likely, you already know that last month I launched a beta program for my Done for You VA Service - which is actually called a Master Ninja membership.
The beta program had a few hiccups, however, I’m very pleased to say that we’ve worked our way through 99% of them and we’re now very close to rolling this service out on a broader scale.
Guess who’s going to be first in line? Me!
Yes, that is right, I’m going to be having the NSM VA team do all this work for me. They will be doing the following on my behalf:
- Installing WordPress
- Choosing a theme for each site
- Writing all the content
- Publishing all the posts with images where needed
- Adding each site to my ManageWP account
- Adding in my Adsense ads
- Adding my Analytics code
- Finding a suitable Clickbank product (where applicable)
- 3 UAW link-building campaigns
- 3 MAN link-building campaigns
What Do You Think?
If you have a question, comment, or opinion on this post, please take a moment and share it down below in the comments. Thanks so much!
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49 Responses to My Plan to Massively Boost My Adsense Income in 2012
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Having sold his last business for over a million bucks in 2008 by the age of 38, Trent has since immersed himself in the study of internet marketing by going out and doing. Continue reading...
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Ambitious plans – Look forward to following along.
Could you give a breakdown of some of the columns like number of articles needed to rank #1, How did you work out the number of articles at launch?
It could be due to competitors’ sites and how many pages they’ve got. I’m making the assumption that the initial number of articles was decided upon by the main keyword and associated long tails.
For the last column regarding number of articles to rank 1st, I’m going to guess that the number is related to the additional long tails that the #1 site isn’t ranking for, based on SEMRush insight. How ’bout it, Trent?
The number of articles (at launch) was driven by the overall starting budget of $10,000. The plan is to see how much ‘love’ Google gives my sites over the first 30 days after launch. I’ll then look at the analytics and the competition to determine how many more articles that I need to hit my ranking goals. In analyzing the competition, I simply decided to have more articles than them. If that was not financially practical, I didn’t build a site.
I just looked at the site who I thought I had a chance of beating (based upon domain authority, SEO in title, and juice links), and then figured out how many pages I’d need to have more content than them.
Great one here Trent. One thing I want to ask is this, Is the new Google trend not affecting any of your niche site? I just want to have a clear cut understanding about this.
Nope. They are actually doing better than ever!
Hi Trent,
Thanks for the post.
Do you plan on using BMR for any of these sites?
Also – do you think it is realistic to get more than $1 per click? I think I remember reading a post from Spencer where he said that he never estimates more than $1 per click.
Are you also estimating that the first position will bring you 40% of the search volume?
Thanks!
Matt
I’m currently testing BMR on 5 of the sites that I launched about 90 days ago. I will be sharing the results at some point.
Re my estimation of keyword profitability; its based upon local exact search volume x % of traffic (40% for 1st) X CTR X CPC X 33%. In other words, I’m estimating to actually receive only 33% of CPC; which is in line with my current sites in ‘most’ cases.
no Need to TEST BMR dude its been killing it for at least 18 months as used by the EXPERTADSENSE guys at adsense flipeprs?
I Had though you already copied a bunch of there work.
Love the way Justin called out people that hide info behind membership sites. I wonder who he was talking about?
regards
Your the only guy on IM that moderates every single Post!
Pat Flynn and Adsense guys nor indeed anybody else does that. Why?
Its also against EU law to force the positive tick on subcribing to your blog.
I moderate posts to prevent people like you from polluting my blog
I’m glad to hear that you feel there is no need to test something before I recommend it. Obviously, I disagree with you as my recommendations don’t come without my having personally experienced the product.
Regarding my copying “a bunch” of AdsenseFlipper’s work; what, specifically might you be referring to? If Justin thought I was copying his stuff, why would he come on my podcast? And if you don’t think that everyone on the planet is using what others have done to improve their own work, you are dreaming.
I love guys like you Timmy. You show up out of the blue and spew a bunch of poorly written garbage in the hopes of making yourself feel better. Did it work?
Thankfully, my blog is read by a lot of very nice people who truly appreciate all the free knowledge that I share so I don’t have to put up with whiners like you. If you were really committed to becoming successful, why on earth would you throw stones at a guy you don’t know on your very first visit to his blog?
The world definitely doesn’t need any more people like you. Neither does my blog.
As an obviously BIASed niche site mastery member, I will of course say that Trent provides a lot of unique value to me. He provides ideas and guidance as well as a great sounding board.
One of the main differences is that Trent does not pretend to know everything. He does his own testing as should you.
What happens if one day you favourite goto guru disappears (we all do eventually!) you have no business if you can’t do it yourself or manage others to do it.
As the CEO of your adsense business you have to manage risk. Taking anyone including Trent or the adsense flippers guys advice without testing is nuts. If you have nothing else to compare with and are just starting that is fine.
At some point you have to take responsibility and develop your own twists, take bits from different people and see if 1+1=3.
Blind faith is not a good thing.
The other issue with adsense site building is it takes 3-6 months to get results. A lot of time advice is given based on the initial 1 to 2 months timeframe. Would any business change their whole business model that has worked for a couple of years – based on the results from 1 or 2 months. Yet that is what a lot of people do.
Be bold but do something constructive … run a business not a hobby and think like a business person not an armchair expert.
Nicely put. Thanks Rob
Rob beat me to the punch, I’d also like to know how you arrived at the total number of articles needed for a #1 ranking.
Also, have you considered adding a bit of video to your sites (or posts) to fast track the Google rankings?
Sounds like a good plan.
See my reply to Rob.
Hey Trent, in my first set of 10 Adsense sites I’m launching this week, I have many product based keywords and have taken the approach of a ‘how to’ and ‘how to buy’ direction in my articles. Many of them will probably flop (who knows) but since I have a good chance at ranking these keywords on the first page of Google, I will convert the flops to Amazon sites as a backup attempt to get them to generate income.
If I’m not mistaken, you’re now launching full sites with multiple pages instead of launching with one article? Since your VAs are writing the articles, are they also writing your main article or are you still ordering the main article from The Content Authority?
I also have the same question as Rob above, how do you determine the number of articles needed at launch?
Harlan,
This lastest batch of sites ranges from 3 articles to 20 articles per site. The NSM VA team is doing EVERYTHING for me, so no, I’m not using The Content Authority for these sites. See my reply to Rob for the rest.
Cheers,
Trent
My predictions is that you are way overestimating… esp. individual site earnings… not sure what CPC you used as average but it won’t be bigger than 30 percent of the estimated CPC.
I’d be betting on you getting about 100 bucks a site a month on average in 3-4 months. If your secondary keywords succeed too then add another 50 bucks to that.
If you keep us updated on the project then it will be very interesting case study.
I wish you best of luck tho! If it worked out as your predictions are then it would be an amazing accomplishment and I’d be first to pay you for keyword research…
Ad
I will be keeping my readers up to date with a monthly report of the results. Stay tuned
Will do!
I’m also extremely interested in knowing how you estimate the number of articles needed. Right now I just backlink and write articles until I rank well. Probably a little bit of overkill.
See replies to other comments for the answer.
Hi Trent, I wouldn’t mind a breakdown of the costs to do “Master Ninja” eg, is it $97 a month plus the cost of SE Cockpit plus $99 per site? Are there any other costs and is there a limit per member on the number of site you can have built for you each month. I’m definitely interested but want to know exactly what I’d be up for if I signed up. Thanks, keep up the great work.
The way you’ve described it is pretty much accurate. You can order as many sites as you like, as often as you like. Just make sure you are on the early bird list if you want to get the pre-launch deals that I have in the works.
I see a lot of adsense sites selling from 8-12 times monthly earnings on Fippa and few at 20x, although I know the AdsenseFlippers guys can’t keep them in stock at 20x, but they have established a level of trust which few have on Flippa, thus: is 20x really a good number to use to value of site?
If they’ve established such a solid reputation on Flippa as you say, I’m not sure how they did it. They even describe their own sites as “minimum viability” and on an individual basis, the make peanuts.
This is the stuff that keeps me coming back. One request I have as this project progresses is a per site income/expense breakdown. I’ve been trying to find blogs such as yours with per site breakdowns. I think this helps fortify the strength in numbers approach. I only have a handful of active sites now. But I report those out individually now.
I will say this; the 80/20 rule is alive and well. 60% of my revenue comes from my top 3 sites. The bottom ten don’t make a cent (yet).
Hey Trent,
I’m already on your list but I don’t understand one thing. Whatever you are sharing, you said newbie friendly but i don’t know how newbie friendly your information is.
I’m newbie for Adsense and I’m just starting out with definitely do not have any big budget to start up with. likewise, $40 max i can spend to get domain and hosting but what you are showing for keyword research, is with “SECockpit” which is pretty expensive tool.
Not to mention that newbies like me are already struggling to start out and spending like this may already a big damage before even get any return. hope you understand my point.
Are there any alternative you should suggest for keyword research to find good keywords for adsense type site?
Any suggestion will be much appreciate.
Hi Jim,
I hear what you are saying and sadly, there aren’t any tools that I believe are anywhere near as good as SECockpit. Why not sign up for just a month, go research crazy and then find enough keywords to keep you busy for the next few months? If that doesn’t appeal to you, two other tools I’d suggest are Long Tail Pro and Microniche Espionage. Both have been reviewed on my blog.
Trent, that is awesome to see you gonna grow Adsense income big for sure. To prove this business model works, cool to see you walk the talk.
I know it’s a number game and I’m playing a catch-up in Feb. Just that I could start with low budget like $50 per site instead of $200 each as yours.
When I have enough profit, definitely I will be taking advantage of your VA service so I could scale much faster.
Trent, I am on your NSM baby plan.. It’s awesome! It’s by far the best Adsense Niche Site Training out there (I guess I learn fast in video training in general). Indeed, I have a few Adsense information products and following some other gurus who sold Adsense sites for 4 or 5 digits out there.
I will see you at the finish line.
Hey Kent,
This month’s income report will show a big increase in Adsense income on my newest sites…so the model definitely works. Glad to hear that you are enjoying NSM so much!
Trent
Trent, it’s nice that you have the budget to get quality articles to start with.
I probably don’t have $2000 to build 20+ sites with your VA service yet.
I still buy in what you said for building 10 sites.. Sell 6 and keep 4 for the ROI, but haven’t had that success yet. Will see.
Thanks for your response. My only other concern is SECockpit. I already own Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro and would like to save the expense of a additional monthly subscription. Is this something that could considered ?
Ann, SECockpit is just a tool saving you time in selecting keywords. It pulls the same/similar data as from MS and LTP I believe.
I use LTP and MS on daily basis.. In general, keyword selection is just time-consuming.
Just that SECockpit runs on the cloud, faster, and help you to find the winning keywords “better”. I haven’t used it myself yet, but love to try out in the near future. My goal is to grab 10 golden keywords to start with.
One idea you may consider, get the free trial, or just pay for 1 month only.. Steal 10-20 keywords to build Adsense niche sites to start with.
Once you have the Adsense income success, it would just pay off itself.
I’m with Kent. If you’re really serious about cranking out sites en masse, then SECockpit is required unless you or your VA loves to do competitive analysis for hours on end.
See my reply to Jim…
Definitely achievable Trent but my only slight concern would be spending a truck load of money on articles and content bearing in mind that AdSense niche sites tend to have a certain failure rate as well.
Not sure how much you plan to spend per article but you could potentially look at using PLR articles for some niches and then simply get high quality re-writes from TCA (cost around $3-$4 for 450-500 word article) which could cut your content writing cost by as much as 50%. This is something I used to great effect back in December when I launched round 50 sites.
All the best though. Look forward to seeing how it all pans out for you:)
Hey Anshul,
I now have my own team of writers who write better articles than I’ve ever bought anywhere else; and they do it for less money. This is the exact same team that any NSM Master Ninja member will have access to as of Feb 16th. Re using PLR…I would NEVER do that on a niche site as its duplicate content.
Cheers,
Trent
Trent,
Which CPC number are you using? Are you using the Adwords Contextual targeting tool or just the numbers from the regular Google Adwords Keyword Tool(Which is typically what the KW software tools usually display?
We’ve found the contextual targeting tool to be far more accurate, and in some cases, very different from the numbers shown in the keyword tools. My understanding is that the contextual number is what advertisers pay for Adwords ads on the content network(niche sites) versus what they pay to be on google serps.
I just use the numbers provided by SECockpit; in particular, I apply and Adsense value filter of 15 as that is a MUCH better way than filtering by search volume or CPC because if you use either of those, you will miss out on good keywords. For example, there might be word with 500 searches and a $11 CPC and if you’ve filtered out keywords with fewer than 1000 searches, you will have missed it.
If you digg down the post in my blog, i predicted the goals to acheive $1,00,000 from $10,000 only. It includes even seo too.but my predicted ctr was very wrong and my not invested in seo bu returns was not bad it had $300+ last month. So, 2012 will only to grom my income month after month.
Hi Trent,
Are the two following link campaigns the only link building you are doing for sites?
3 UAW link-building campaigns
3 MAN link-building campaigns
Do you really think he article links are that good? Google is trying to kill link farms and article directories, I question the value of the links over the long term. In trying to build a long term business it makes sense to give google what google wants, rather than trying to game them as many of the article directories are doing.
Thanks for sharing your details and being open with your business.
Steve,
I cannot speak about what Google wants. No one can. Nor can any of us predict the future. What I can tell you is that my current backlinking strategy (UAW/MAN) is working extremely well and my Adsense income/day has tripled in the last 30 days….all from existing sites that used the aforementioned link building strategy. I have not built any new sites in the last 30 days, so the increase is ONLY from existing sites that are about 90 days or so old.
Trent,
Thanks. Point well taken regarding google.
Yes, if your backlinking strategy is working, then do more. I like to say ready, fire, aim – and that sounds like what you are doing. We have to our plan dynamic and adjust according to the feedback/results.
Steve
Precisely!
Nice post Trent, I am definitely considering going down the larger site route, it seems the safer route I think in the long term.
I will probably start scaling out my top small niche sites though, it seems the most obvious route to me.
Also just a question for anyone really, is anyone else still using Micro Niche Finder? I rate it better than any of the other desktop based keyword tools like MS and LTP.
I could see the advantage with SECockpit but its a bit pricey and MNS is pretty fast anyway I could easy get 5 decent keywords out of it in 1-2 hours running in the background while I do something else
Hey Carl,
I can’t speak to the usage of MNF…but glad to hear you are having success with it. Thanks for taking a moment to share your thoughts!