There are many people who started blogging with the goal of making passive income from Google Adsense. How many of them would keep blogging if, after 10 years, there is little or no income from it?
Some started blogging
and may have written over 100 blog posts and were able to pull some traffic to
their blogs. They were easily accepted into the Google Adsense program since
they had some traffic and were keen on making money with it.
Blogging can be an
easy way to make money especially if you connected it to Google Adsense but it
can be hard making big money from it such that it would be enough to stop you
from keeping a full-time job.
There are quite a few
number of bloggers in Kenya who make enough money from Google Adsense that it
would be sufficient enough to keep them as full-time bloggers but for the many
others, it can be hard earning anything reasonable from Adsense.
When I wrote an
article on how to make money online in Kenya, one of the ways I did mention was
Google Adsense. What I also mentioned was that it wasn't easy and so one needs
to be really dedicated to it to be successful.
The bottom line is that
being a Google Adsense publisher is a credible way to make money online. Yes
people can make money with it but the main problem is that many people are not
satisfied with their income from it.
So people in Kenya are
really making money from Google Adsense but they don't seem to be making
enough.
Google doesn't stop Kenyan
bloggers from making more income from Adsense since it helps both the company
and the publisher. More income for the Kenyan blogger via Adsense also means
more income to Google.
Your ability to make
money from Google Adsense depends a lot on how much work you put into it.
Things Kenyan bloggers can do to increase their Google Adsense income
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1. Create and publish more content:
We always hear the phrase, "Content is King" and this is always true.
Don't expect to be earning $1000 a month when you just have 20 blog posts
unless you are in a really rich niche that people don't know about. It works
like this, if you currently have just 50 blog posts on your blog and are making
$5 a month, then you can earn $500 per month by the time you publish up to 5000
blog posts of similar quality as the ones earning you $5 per month.
The more content a
blog has, the more traffic it can pull from search engines since it will rank
higher and the more return visits it will get by the time people get to know
about the website. A lot of people start blogging and after 6 months they start
seeing good results since the search engines have taken their blogs on a
honeymoon. After about 1 year, you'd notice that the blog starts losing traffic
because it has been dropped by the search engines and/or because no new content
has been created by the blogger. So you should be ready to keep blogging
periodically and not just abandon your blog. A blog with over 1000 blog posts
would earn more than another in its niche with just 100 blog posts. The more
blog content you have, the more money you will make from Google Adsense. Why do
you think websites like Daily Nation make money? It's because they have rich
content which encourages search engine traffic as well as return visitors.
Don't just do a
blogging marathon to produce 100 blog posts and expect to make $100 a month
from Adsense. It is rare to achieve that feat. Try thinking 10,000 blog posts
and then you are definitely in the big league.
2. Invest in
niche blogs:
When I started my first blog, I put a lot of effort into it and for several
years, I kept adding content to it and it did make some money from Adsense.
However, I soon discovered a more profitable niche and just build some 40 pages
on it and that made more than my first blog. So, at times, a particular niche
blog can pay better than others that you might have been running for several
years. Try to put down a list of niches that you can blog about such as
education, business, entertainment, money, finance, travel or even news. You
might be surprised that the news blog might bring in more income than your
education blog. So, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Try to invest in
other niche blogs and see which works better.
3. Publish on
a variety of blogging platforms:
Most people start blogging on a particular blog and for a long time don't want
to think outside the box. Blogging is not just about using texts to publish
your ideas. You can also use videos, pictures, and audio. I recall a particular
YouTube video I created and uploaded and to date, it has generated over
900,000 views and has also earned me some income as an Amazon affiliate. You
can take pictures, create videos besides writing, and just publish on your
blog. You never know which one might make you more money. You can even write
for other Adsense sharing websites and still earn some income from them. I also
write for sites like Hubpages and even though I've abandoned it for some time
now, it still brings me some income daily which is enough to pay for some domain
names.
So, don't just focus
on publishing on one platform such as your blog or just with texts. Try out
other blogs and platforms too. There are YouTube publishers that make more than
$10,000 monthly just from their videos alone. Some of them make more money than
we bloggers who just focus on WordPress and Blogger. You might be in Kenya and
just create a simple video on places to visit in Kenya and you might be
surprised at how much traffic and income it can bring for you.
- Focus on
popular keywords:
The truth is, when it comes to Google Adsense income, some keywords pay better than
others. A blog for instance that focuses on Forex trading might earn more
income for you even with fewer visitors than one that just talks about
"how to make money". This is probably because there are many rich
advertisers paying Google to advertise their Forex business than the ones
paying to advertise their online money programs. Some keywords pay better than
others and the best way to find out is to use channels in your Google Adsense
account. This will allow you to know which sites or which blog posts are
bringing in the most income per click for you and then write more blog posts on
it. You might be surprised that out of all the 20 blog posts you've written, it
might only be one that could bring about $5 per click for you on a good day.
The highest click I've had on one of my blogs is about $20 and I was surprised
that it was not really a blog post I put in much effort to write on that
brought me that income. So try and write on a variety of keywords and then
monitor and focus on the ones that bring you more income.
- Use desktop
and mobile ads:
Most bloggers just focus on writing blog posts and splashing Google Adsense ads
on it but don't care about how to make their blogs mobile friendly. In Kenya
for instance, there has been reports that there are more mobile internet users
than Desktop users. What this basically means is that if for instance your
website or blog has been having about 100 visitors a day from Kenya, about 80
of them did so through their mobile phones. That means that they might not even
be able to see the Google adverts on your blog and so you might just be getting
traffic while at the same time losing money.
You should try to
mobilize your blog and then make use of both desktop and mobile adverts on it.
Your Google Adsense account allows you to set up mobile ads that can be used on
a variety of web platforms such as PHP, pl, asp, and so on. This will be used on
a mobilized blog so that they show up to visitors irrespective of whether they
were using a mobile or desktop browser. This means more money for you.
- Use popular
Adsense formats:
Some Adsense formats pay better than others in terms of click rates. Google did
a mention of this in their Adsense blog. The 336 square ads earn more per
click than the other ones and you should make use of these on visible places on
your blog. Your blog might get a lot of traffic but if you were not using high-paying Adsense ads, you might be earning less than you should. So follow
Adsense's blog and use ads that earn you more per click.
- Don't limit
yourself to Kenya:
Many bloggers might limit themselves to Kenya but this might end up keeping
their earnings down. If you are going to keep writing on your blog and don't
want to limit your income, then you might try getting out of the box once in a
while and see how it goes. You might be surprised that it's just one or two of
your blog posts on issues around the world that might get the most traffic out
of the other ones that you narrowed down to a Kenyan audience. People around
the world connect to each other on several issues and those are the ones you
can focus on once in a while.