Well, I'm almost done with the second month of Mark and Court's Keyword Crash Course and I'm continuing to be optimistic despite the fact that my Adsense earnings were lower this month. Really, it's no surprise that Google favoured my sites and put them higher up in the rankings when they were new. My sites are now 2-3 months old and it's going to take extra work and time to get them up in the top 5 results where they belong.
The fact that most of my sites are getting small bits of traffic and clicks for long tail keywords and phrases related to my main keyword phrases proves that the "system" is working. I can only imagine what it's like to have your website ranked #1 for its main keyword phrase. How exciting! That's what kept me going through this dreadful second month. It seems like sometimes the thought of banging your head against the wall is more pleasant than the thought of writing or re-writing more articles for backlinks.
Something interesting Mark and Court did this month was add a forum to the membership. I really like being able to follow along with other people that are going through the course but sometimes I do find the forum to be a bit distracting.
Many people like to throw in all kinds of ideas and questions that you may never of considered before. I like the idea of following along Mark and Court's plan based on blind faith a whole lot better. Trying to follow along behind a confused herd is what I did for the past 2 years and it got me nowhere.
Also, sometimes when I'm getting ready to write an article I'll think to myself, "Gee I wonder what they're talking about in the forum . . . " and I'll go check it out for a few minutes. However, after signing up for the membership I find that I'm able to manage my time so much better now that I have daily tasks assigned for each day. I don't waste nearly as much time as I used to reading through other blogs and forums.
I do wish the forum was laid out a little better though--as it can be difficult to find which threads and posts you've already read. Who knows--maybe Mark and Court did this on purpose to make sure we don't become too comfortable and spend too much time in the forum instead of working on our sites. Overall, the forum definitely has its benefits but I'm trying to stick with the core videos as much as possible.
Anyway, in a few days I'll update my Adsense earnings for the month of April. I'm looking forward to a very productive May.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Keyword Crash Course April Mid-Month Update
Well, April has definitely gotten off to a rocky start. I registered all my sites the last week of February so they are almost 2 months old now. It certainly seems like I've been working on them longer than that!
So far this month I've earned $13.81 in Adsense from all my sites. I was hoping to earn at least $40 for the month of April because it would give me my first Adsense check. But I think it's gonna be kinda close. In March things really started to kick in mid-month but I think that's because my sites were still pretty new and Google was ranking them a little higher then they are now. Now that the honeymoon is over Google is no longer interested and my sites have to start earning their keep in the rankings.
It was really fun though--one day I earned over $6 in Adsense and you would've thought I won the lottery. :-) I can't even imagine what it feels like to earn $100/day. Right now my goal is to get to $25/day. If I could accomplish that by my birthday (July 2nd) it would be the best present EVER!
Another problem I encountered was possible smart pricing on one of my sites. Last month the site was getting pretty reasonable click earnings but then all of a sudden after April 1st it started getting the dreaded $0.04 and $0.02 clicks. As a precautionary measure I pulled Adsense off the site. Kind of a bummer though since this is the site that currently ranks the highest for its main keyword (#12) and is getting the most traffic from all my sites (today I got 9 unique visitors and 28 page views).
Just to see what happens I put a couple of Amazon widgets on the site instead. Maybe next month I'll consider replacing them with Adsense again. The whole smart pricing thing really freaks me out though.
Keeping up with the daily grind is starting to become difficult, especially when you don't see instant results. But I'm continuing to do something everyday, because something is better than nothing. I think now I have a feeling for which sites might have the most potential so I'm going to try and concentrate on those.
So far this month I've earned $13.81 in Adsense from all my sites. I was hoping to earn at least $40 for the month of April because it would give me my first Adsense check. But I think it's gonna be kinda close. In March things really started to kick in mid-month but I think that's because my sites were still pretty new and Google was ranking them a little higher then they are now. Now that the honeymoon is over Google is no longer interested and my sites have to start earning their keep in the rankings.
It was really fun though--one day I earned over $6 in Adsense and you would've thought I won the lottery. :-) I can't even imagine what it feels like to earn $100/day. Right now my goal is to get to $25/day. If I could accomplish that by my birthday (July 2nd) it would be the best present EVER!
Another problem I encountered was possible smart pricing on one of my sites. Last month the site was getting pretty reasonable click earnings but then all of a sudden after April 1st it started getting the dreaded $0.04 and $0.02 clicks. As a precautionary measure I pulled Adsense off the site. Kind of a bummer though since this is the site that currently ranks the highest for its main keyword (#12) and is getting the most traffic from all my sites (today I got 9 unique visitors and 28 page views).
Just to see what happens I put a couple of Amazon widgets on the site instead. Maybe next month I'll consider replacing them with Adsense again. The whole smart pricing thing really freaks me out though.
Keeping up with the daily grind is starting to become difficult, especially when you don't see instant results. But I'm continuing to do something everyday, because something is better than nothing. I think now I have a feeling for which sites might have the most potential so I'm going to try and concentrate on those.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Welcome to the Keyword Crash Course Review Blog
My name is Amanda and on February 10, 2009 I took a leap of faith and decided to sign-up to Mark and Court's Keyword Crash Course over at the Keyword Academy. After a disappointing few months over at the Niche Blogger membership I was beginning to feel frustrated at my lack of success and progress. It seemed that despite my best efforts to make money online I just wasn't getting anywhere.
To give you a little background, I'm no stranger to the Internet. I've been trying to put the pieces together since November 2006. If you think that sounds like a long time--it is. I first began making money online writing pet PLR articles since I'm a licensed veterinary technician. I've done pretty well with that but would rather find a more passive form of income. For a long time I got caught up in the idea that I could make lots of money selling ebooks and tried building a list and all the jazz but something didn't feel right. I got distracted with lots of ideas and strategies until one day I stumbled on Grizzly's famous blog and realized that all I needed was Adsense. A light bulb came on in my head and it finally clicked that if I could learn how to make money with Adsense and drive traffic to my sites relying only on search engines the sky was the limit.
Now instead of going in a million different directions I'm focusing 100% of my time on 10 sites I've built using Mark and Court's methods. I feel like I've made more progress these past two months than I have during the past two years. I decided to start this blog as a way to track my progress as I go through the course. I hope you'll follow along with me.
To give you a little background, I'm no stranger to the Internet. I've been trying to put the pieces together since November 2006. If you think that sounds like a long time--it is. I first began making money online writing pet PLR articles since I'm a licensed veterinary technician. I've done pretty well with that but would rather find a more passive form of income. For a long time I got caught up in the idea that I could make lots of money selling ebooks and tried building a list and all the jazz but something didn't feel right. I got distracted with lots of ideas and strategies until one day I stumbled on Grizzly's famous blog and realized that all I needed was Adsense. A light bulb came on in my head and it finally clicked that if I could learn how to make money with Adsense and drive traffic to my sites relying only on search engines the sky was the limit.
Now instead of going in a million different directions I'm focusing 100% of my time on 10 sites I've built using Mark and Court's methods. I feel like I've made more progress these past two months than I have during the past two years. I decided to start this blog as a way to track my progress as I go through the course. I hope you'll follow along with me.
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