Investors say if you want to see your monetary returns faster, you go into a riskier investment. Though unit trust isn’t like trading in the stock market or foreign exchange (FOREX), I’ve noticed a commonality between my Google Adsense and my unit trust.
My fund manager once told me unit trust will see monetary returns after a set period. For example; my goal is to obtain a minimum RM10,000 return investment in 2-3 years time. So what has this got to do with my Google Adsense? Well, my returns has been climbing ever since I placed its advertisements into my blog.
This graph was made from the exported CSV file of my Google Adsense account. I’ve removed the figures as privacy reasons – I want secrets too.
The chart shows a constant growth of revenue gain through the following periods – dots. The steady period was when I first launched my blog as a personal space for myself. At the time, there wasn’t a Kenny Sia or Chan Lilian but us common Malaysian bloggers. So whatever Adsense clicks we got at the time were grateful.
Okay, the sudden plunge into the ravine isn’t because I wasn’t blogging. It was during this period I moved from the Movable Type blogging platform to the WordPress publishing platform. So revenue was lost as I continued blogging without having a good idea on how to incorporate Google advertisements into the blog at the time. The duration lasted for roughly 2-3 months until I managed to find out how to include Google Adsense between the first and second post in WordPress.
Then as time progressed, I began experimenting with other sizes. From experience thus far, the Google advertisement units which has the highest clickthrough-rate (CTR) for me are the link units and 468 x 60 banners. For some reason, most users click on these types more than even my 300 x 250 Medium rectangle. At the moment, I’m also experimenting with the 336 x 280 Large rectangle units to see if bigger means better.
One of the things I found out from Inside Adsense, the 300 x 250 Medium rectangle unit is suppose to work better if the ad unit were to display image ads only. I’ll probably try this after experimenting with the Large rectangle.
Nonetheless, the chart above proves earning money via Google Adsense is an investment. Plus, the additional blogs you run adds up to the total amount you’re able to earn. These are real figures and it’s unlike saying, “I’m earning RM3000 from blogging”. With this, I’m saying placing Google Adsense or others is like investing in unit trust.
[tags]Investment, Google Adsense, Unit trust[/tags]
One thing I’ve always been curious about is whether anyone actually clicks Google Adsense text links, because, personally speaking as someone who browses the net a lot, I hardly ever click text link ads. I just seem to mentally filter them out. Image ads work much better on me, especially the inline rectangle images used in places like Yahoo and Slate magazine since they’re slick looking, attractive and convey much more information on what is being advertised than a text link with a short descriptive line.
I believe they do, Wan.
At first, I was pretty much surprised as well. But it dawned on me depending where you place your ad unit, it plays a different role. For example; mine’s positioned where it is because it looks like a navigation bar.
For me and you, we tend ignore the ads nowadays because we’re well adjusted with the whole experience. But like you said, we would click on ads which are suitable or directed to our need at the time of viewing.
Yup, any feasible businesses I have seen always have this “barrier-to-entry” to it- you gotta toil in the start, and then the rewards will come for those who toiled long enough to see it.
Yes, that’s why I am very sceptical about people who tells me that they’ve found the ultimate express path to becoming filthy rich without having to work at all.
First of all, I’d be thinking you are out of your mind, why would you tell me the location of El-Dorado that you’ve been risking your life to seek all this while. There must be a catch, and that catch is most probably that I will become your slave working in your city of gold.
Danny, if you have the opportunity, I suggest you flip through Seth Godin’s “The Dip”. It’s a good book on explaining this syndrome of quiting too early and not knowing when to quit.
Well, they make it sound easy. But users are getting smarter. That’s why I’ve heard some people ask the relevant question, “How long will it take for me to see a nominal income?”
Good Internet marketers have an answer. Honest marketers will tell you the truth. Obviously, the latter seals more applicants at the end of the day.
Much thanks for your recommendation and I’ll go see if I can find the book, Yowchuan. Though I’ll have to find the time to actually read it. I’ve got a certain habit of reading and pausing before the end. LOL!