Before I begin let’s clear something up right off the bat. For every thing I tell you to do there are exceptions to the rules depending on your niche/platform and your ability to modify and experiment. Nothing is set in stone but I am going to give you the basic guide to follow. Only you will know how your site is different and you will have to use some of your gray matter to figure out what works best in your situation. My tips will serve to get you started down the right path.
If you have questions - and I know you will - then please use the comments rather than emailing me. This will allow me to answer for everyone’s benefit and save me a lot of time. Also - please give me as much info as you can when asking questions. Don’t ask why your site is getting 2 cent clicks. I will need to know what the niche is, where your traffic is from, how much traffic, what your keywords are etc to make an informed opinion. Please try and include as much relevant info when asking for help.
Rule #1
If you are going to make money with Adsense then you build your site for that purpose. You don’t slap Adsense on an unoptimized site and expect to make much money with it.
Rule #2
Adsense works best when you drive targeted search engine traffic to your site and the visitor clicks an ad targeted to the term that the user found your site with. Or a related term.
ie. John is searching for “Adsense Tips” using a search on Google. He finds your site listed for that term. He visits and at some point he sees an Adsense ad on your site for “Adsense Tips” or “How to make money with Adsense” or “Adsense for beginners” and clicks one of the ads.
That is a targeted click. You will receive the best CPC. (cost per click or in simple terms this is the amount of money Google will pay you for the click) In this case let us say you get paid $0.50 for it.
Now Bob drops in on your site because someone (maybe you if you don’t know any better) stumbled your post on stumbleupon. Bob isn’t looking for anything - he’s just aimlessly surfing the stumble sites. He doesn’t see much that interests him but clicks on an Ad just out of curiosity. He doesn’t convert for the advertiser - why would he (but sometimes it can happen) as he is just checking things out. He spends two seconds on the advertiser’s landing page and leaves.
Bob is an untargeted click. Google will pay you $0.01 for the click.
Do not get hung up on all the variables at work here. Just understand that you want to drive as much targeted traffic to your site and avoid as much untargeted traffic as you can. You want to rank well in the search engines for as many keywords as you can that are related to your niche and you want to avoid driving traffic to your site from untargeted sources. No stumbling, digging, reddit, etc. If others do it you have no control so don’t get in a flap - it happens. Just don’t chase that traffic yourself.
Overall you will get both kinds of traffic - as long as the majority of your clicks come from targeted sources you will average a decent CPC. They will never all be perfect clicks. If the majority of your clicks end up coming from untargeted sources of traffic then eventually you will be smart priced and all you will see will be the 2 cent CPC. If that happens then pull Adsense off the site and leave it off until you can change the traffic source to more targeted visitors.
Now, before you all ask, yes you can get direct traffic from other blogs linking to you or from people bookmarking you. In general these people are interested in your site’s niche and probably have related niches. Whether they are targeted or not is usually not a concern as they will be readers and are not likely to click your ads anyway. You can have a million stumblers show up too as long as they don’t click your ads you will be fine. I am not telling you that you can’t have untargeted traffic - you can - you just don’t want them clicking ads. There are programs available that allow you the option to only show ads to search visitors. If your site has a lot of untargeted visitors then use them. I am too lazy to go find the links but I am sure some of my readers will supply them in the comments. If you are new here then you may as well learn this now - I yak a lot and my friends roll in to do the leg work. 
I encourage it because it gives them a chance to introduce themselves and they are people you should get to know - they help me, I help them and they will help you. If you have no online friends then make friends with some of mine as they will be your best resource. Just be sure to give as much as you get.
(Don’t be shy - get involved. You will notice by the abundance of comments that I belong to a growing community of like minded folks who all help each other and are far more knowledgable than any other group you will meet online. We were all beginners at one time and we don’t mind passing along our knowledge to others - take advantage of it and pay it forward when you can.)
Rule #3
Do not click your friends ads and discourage them from clicking yours. You will get banned. Google can tell when multiple clicks come from the same IP. It is un-natural and sticks out like a sore thumb. Never ever get involved with click fraud. It is not worth it and yes - you will get caught! Yes you will… you beginners had better listen to me as you are all going to try and think of a way to inflate your clicks. DON”T!!!
Rule #4
A successful Adsense site is a site that doesn’t look like an Adsense site. No splogs. It must contain legit information and serve some purpose other than simply displaying Adsense. It is against the Adsense Terms of Service to create a site for the sole purpose of slapping Adsense on it.
How you create an Adsense site for the purpose of making money with Adsense without looking like you have just created an Adsense site for the sole purpose of making money with Adsense will be discussed in the next post. (say that 5 times fast)
Rule # 5
Everything you think you know about Adsense and SEO that you read about elsewhere is crap - even if it isn’t crap. Just because some dude wrote an ebook on either subject doesn’t mean they know jack. It just means they wrote an ebook. The people you want to listen to rank on top of the search engines and don’t write books about making money online.
They make money online.
They don’t need to make money writing an ebook.
And why should you listen to me?
Because I rank on top of the search engines for just about every “make money online” keyword you can think of. Go look.
and… I’m not selling you anything.
and… I’m just a swell guy!
Why am I telling you this for free? Because I need content in order to rank on top of the search engines for even more terms and It is easy for me to write about stuff I know a lot about. I also know that only 1 in 10 of you will follow my instructions. Only 1 in 100 of you will become adept enough to knock me off my perch and when you can you won’t. You will become an ally and together we will kick more ass in more niches and make even more money. In short I want and need more friends who do what I do so that we can all help each other.
Rule # 6
The best business model I know online is to provide free information for any niche that is dominated by sites that sell the info. By providing free and legit info you will bury the competition - the traffic will come to you. And you pay for it all with… yup - Adsense.
Next post I will talk about how to set up a site, how to structure your posts, how to use adsense on the site and how to get people to click on your ads without violating Google’s terms of service.
In the meantime you should re-read rule number 6 and find a niche that meets that requirement. You can also observe how I structured this post. It is perfectly optimized for the keywords I want traffic for.
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