A common thread I see on the various AdSense-related forums are complaints about not making any money with AdSense. Typically, they're from people who have a small site/blog and who expect to rake in the bucks by slapping some AdSense ads on them. But what do they expect?
I guess I could go around complaining that Oprah isn't calling me to feature my book on her show. But I don't, that would actually be a silly complaint to make. Why would Oprah care about my book? She probably gets hundreds of pitches each day from book authors and publishers looking to promote their books. You can bet that almost all of those pitches never make it to her.
And that's the real problem. Ask yourself this question: why would anyone care about my site? If you can't come up with a good answer, you won't make money with AdSense, except maybe by targeting search engine traffic with many small sites.
In today's world, it's extremely hard to get anyone's attention. Search engine optimization is critical, yes, but it's not enough. You need to stand out from the crowd somehow. You need to do some self-promotion, no matter how hard it is (it's not easy for many of us). You need to publicize your site. Find your “unique selling proposition” as the marketing types say it and figure out how to reach the audience that responds to it. It takes time, though, so don't expect it to happen overnight.
Unless you get featured on Oprah!
Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book. Or add it directly to your Amazon shopping cart!