Re: Web advertising

**"* C* <y*@ispnet.ca>**

Here's what I sent to Jo Ellen about what I do at my site for anyone who is 
interested:

Hi Jo Ellen:

I have Google ads on my site, www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com
which was designed solely as a garden information site, with the purpose of 
earning money from these ads. (The ads are not on the home page, but on most 
other pages.)

The site has been running for three years and it has taken about that long 
to realize decent income from it, but the Google ads were paying more than 
the site's expenses right from the get-go. I couldn't live off the ad 
income, but it is more than I'm making with garden writing for Canadian 
magazines or doing a book. As it is, the site finances my vacations and my 
expensive hobby of digital SLRs and lenses.

BTW, one of the really counter-intuitive things about website ventures is 
that you are giving information away for "free" to readers. We're all 
conditioned that we have to earn a dollar a word, or whatever it is that 
publishers pay writers. (It's always paltry.)

But giving content away on the web begins to make sense if you view yourself 
as a *publisher* who is creating valuable *advertising* space.

You will earn very little from Google ads if there is no valuable content 
that brings readers. The ads are all content driven, and relevant to what 
the surfer is looking for, for example, a page on irises, will have ads from 
growers selling irises. A page on energy-efficient windows will have ads 
from companies with this product to sell.

Most freelance writers and many newspapers and magazines don't get that you 
have to "give away" your content to attract readers and ads. People are 
looking for information, web sites exist to help them find what they are 
looking for. Providing good info, and doing it right can make money.

Being successful with Google ads is a numbers game that involves doing many 
things right: having a visible site with lots of good content (at least 
60-100 pages, the more the better), getting traffic (lots of visitors), 
realizing good page rankings from Google and other search engines. I started 
my site in Nov. 03. Last May, it had almost 70,000 visitors and earned 
almost $2,500. May is, of course, the biggest month, as it is in any garden 
center.

All of this requires a good deal of knowledge, and I did it by following a 
blueprint laid out by the company that supplies my site-building software, 
which costs $300/year. For more information about this, see 
http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/site-build-it.html. There is a 
link to a video that describes the process near the bottom of the page. 
Disclosure: if you buy a SBI web site by clicking through my page, I earn a 
commission. (So far I haven't earned any, as a gardening site is not the 
best place to sell web-building products.)

For anyone who is interested in SBI, the software will not replace a heck of 
a lot of hard work. It takes many months of work to create a website that 
earns income. You're basically starting a small business, which tends to 
mean a leap of faith and lot of work before you see a cent.

Hope that helps, and I'm happy to answer more questions. And, one more 
thing, for me, the site is really a fun project to work on.

Cheers, Yvonne Cunnington
www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com
http://countrygardener.blogspot.com

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