The $3000 per month Google Adsense Project...

[jordanmcclements]

September 2008 = $745

[cw1865]

Looks like your numbers head up more as the weather cools off and more people stay inside. I see the same thing too. Cold/Lousy weather is better for business!

[jordanmcclements]

Definitely - Summer last year saw a big slump in traffic also - so it was not anything I did myself to kill off traffic during the summer...

$3000 is still a LONG way off though..

I'll still be posting on this thread when I am retired!

[cw1865]

I think your equation here is simple, more content = more traffic = more click thrus.

With your current website we had previously discussed trying to further monetize the traffic with an affiliate links to give you some commisions.

At some juncture, you're going to hit the point of 'diminishing marginal returns' where no matter what effort you put into the website it just isn't going to produce any more traffic.

When I was first beginning, I hit this point and finally I gave up and just started building more websites and so far that strategy has been largely successful.

In your instance, there are natural 'extensions' to your current content. You are in a better position to analyze what they are, but essentially your website gives away nice photos of Ireland and you're hoping that people are interested enough in the ads posted on it to click thru. So far that is generating a respectable stream of cash flow.

Natural extensions of this would be (MAYBE), county specific websites, ie. photos of the famous 'Ring of Kerry' or 'County Cork' - websites explaining the origin of Irish surnames - perhaps Irish history generally, or maybe even a website giving a short biography of each MP of the Irish Parliament.

To do this I think you should seek a host that provides monthly hosting (cheap) for an unlimited number of domains.

[jordanmcclements]

Thanks for the feedback...

In actual fact - 'Irish / Ireland' related traffic is quite a small percentage overall for irishviews.com...

Basically, (to over simplify a bit) - if I put up a picture of a blue widget - and it looks nicer than other pictures of blue widgets that are already available in a google image search, then (eventually) - I get a lot of traffic from people searching for that particular picture.

So in theory I can go on indefinitely adding new pictures (it doesn't have to be Irish). Although I do understand that huge sites end up having a lower eCPM than smaller ones in general....

[Martinscholes]

My hits have started to go down again, having gone up quite a bit.

Oh well. Have to keep on plugging at it.

[Peter (IMC)]

Definitely - Summer last year saw a big slump in traffic also - so it was not anything I did myself to kill off traffic during the summer...

$3000 is still a LONG way off though..

I'll still be posting on this thread when I am retired!

So you know that,... and you´re doing what exactly to do something about this?

You know that from an Adsense optimization point of view, you did just about everything that can be done. So it's time to think about the next step. Actually you should have been thinking about that next step a long time ago already. But you seem to be more focused on thinking of reasons why you can't grow.

Think about this for a while. If you really understand it, you can put it behind you and get to work to reach that $3000 goal. Right now the only way for you to get to that point is inflation. (Which will take you about 35 years at 4% inflation.)

It is a typical way of thinking by the way. Not trying to put you down or anything, but most people will reason things towards the point where it is better not to take "the risk". You´re an entrepeneur, you should know better than to apply that same reasoning on to yourself. Leave the dumb "do nothing" reasoning to others and let them envie you when you reached your goal.

Stop "wining" and start taking the actions (risks) needed to get to your goal!

[cw1865]

I'm in Peter's camp on this one. Remember a .300 hitter in baseball makes an out 70% of the time!

[kgun]

Here is my view and 4 year experience. Online advertising and a better solution for professional publishers.

My experience. Very difficult for a company from a small non-English speaking country with a relatively high wage level to make money on AdSense or affiliate networks generally.

May be I had been better off if I had used the time I have used at WPW on my providers networks. I am far from convinced.

[Peter (IMC)]

Ireland speaks english too, well,.. I'm sure the english don't agree but it's still english.

In my experience it has more to do with the size of the country. People in small countries usually have a more difficult time to think big like americans are used to. Also the fact that in europe every country speaks another language doesn't help much. You can't target the all of europe with 1 language.