AdSense Superstars - Who Makes Most Money With AdSense

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The following is a list of the Internet’s eight biggest Google AdSense publishers. The information was compiled from interviews and articles found on the Internet. Whenever possible, I list the source of the information.

I apologize in advance if I missed anyone on the list. If you make more than the people listed, please send me proof of your Google AdSense earnings and I will add you on the next time the list is updated. This is a list of individual site owners - people just like you and me. Big corporate AdSense publishers like AOL are excluded.

1: Markus Frind: PlentyOfFish.com - $300,000 per month

Markus Frind is a local Vancouverite who is turning the online dating world upside down. His site, Plentyoffish.com is the biggest free dating site on the Internet. Plentyoffish.com receives up to 500 million page views per month and make over $10,000 per day for Markus, who runs the site from home.

You think a site this big would be staffed by a hundred people but the only employee that Markus has is his girlfriend, who helps to answer the emails. Markus coded Plenty of Fish all by himself. The site is lean and mean and requires only four servers to handle all that traffic.

Doubts about Makus’s Google earnings were silenced when he posted this $900,000 check from Google. According to Markus’s blog entry, the check represented two months of AdSense earnings.

2: Kevin Rose: Digg.com - $250,000 per month

Kevin Rose started Digg in December of 2004 with just $1000. Today Digg is one of the biggest news sites on the Net, with over 400,000 members and over 200 million page views per month. According to this article from Business week, Digg will make $3 million this year from a combination of Google AdSense and Federated Media ads. Unfortunately, only Mr. Rose and his accountants knows how much came from Google and how much came from Federated Media. I can try to take a guess based on the number of times I have seen a Federated Media ad vs. a Google ad on Digg but, being in Canada, it’s almost 100% Google ads.

Whatever Google’s share of Digg’s $250,000 per month in ad revenues may be, one thing is for sure, it is not small.

3: Jeremy Schoemaker - $140,000 per month

If ever anyone can be considered an Internet marketing superstar, ShoeMoney would be near the top of the list. Jeremy Schoemaker is a search engine marketer who knows how to take advantage of both Google AdSense and AdWords. In the above photo, you see him with the biggest Google AdSense check he has ever received from Google. The income was earned back in the month of August 2005. Since then Mr. Shoemaker has moved to wire transfers. No doubt, he got tired to dealing with the bank tellers when trying to deposit $100K plus checks every month.

Unlike the other Google whores on this list, ShoeMoney, as he likes to be call, does not own just one site. He makes his enormous Google checks using hundreds of sites and thousands of domains.

4: Jason Calacanis: Weblogs, Inc. - $120,000 per month

Before Jason Calacanis sold Weblogs, Inc to AOL for $25 million, he got the network of blogs making over $4,000 a day from Google AdSense. So impressive was his AdSense performance that Google used Weblogs for a case study.

Now that AOL controls Weblogs, you can bet it is making a lot more than a measly $120,000 a month.

5: David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard - $100,000 per month

According to this Washington Post article, David Miles Jr. and Kato Leonard, claims they make $100,000 a month from their site, Freeweblayouts.net, which gives away designs that people can use on MySpace.

The only problem with the revenue figure is it is not 100% AdSense. Free Web Layouts use other advertising networks in addition to Google. However, with a claimed $100,000 per month in revenues, I am fairly confident that the AdSense portion is higher than our next Google whore.

6: Tim Carter: AskTheBuilder.com - $30,000 per month

Tim Carter is a licensed master plumber and carpenter with his own radio show. He also makes frequent television appearances. He founded AsktheBuilder.com in 1995, The primary focus has been catering to an avid following of fellow builders on the site. According to the Google case study, Mr. Carter did such a good job tweaking the Google ads on his site that it now makes $30,000 a month.

Tim’s AdSense revenues now average $1400 a day and growing. Overall, Carter is enthusiastic about AdSense: it allows him to focus on content development, and gives him built-in tools to measure ad performance and make changes to maximize revenues. “People come to me for help,” says Carter. “They get what they need from my columns and advice - and also from ads delivered by AdSense.”

7: Joel Comm - $24,000 per month

Joel Comm is get rich quick guru. He wrote the best selling e-book, What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense. The e-book, along with the website that promotes it has a screen shot of Mr. Comm AdSense earning from November 19, 2005 to December 15, 2005. Whether or not Mr. Comm still makes this much from Google is anybody’s guess.

8: Shawn Hogan – DigitalPoint.com $10,000 per month

Back in January of 2005 the New York Times had an article about AdSense, featuring Shawn Hogan, founder of DigitalPoint. The article states that Mr. Hogan makes $10,000 per month from Google AdSense using a very unique revenue sharing model.

Google pays Digital Point about $10,000 a month, depending on how many people view or click on those ads, said Shawn D. Hogan, the owner and chief technology officer of Digital Point.

Mr. Hogan said he started the revenue-sharing approach in 2004 “as kind of a marketing gimmick.”

“But everyone seemed to think it was a cool idea,” he said. “I saw a lot of other sites doing the same thing maybe six months later.”

DigitalPoint have grown a lot since that article and while Mr. Hogun would not say anything, the DigitalPoint forum members speculate that he is making at least twice that amount now.

[Via John Chow]

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Single Mom From Pennsylvania Makes A Living Selling Bookmarks Online

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http://www.creativebookmarks.com/

My business is designing and laminating bookmarks for wedding favors, business promotions, nonprofit organizations, holidays and other special occasions or projects. I design them on my computer, depending on what the customer wants. Then I print and laminate them.

I came up with the idea of a bookmark business because it was a fun way to express my creativity and would require a low investment. Extensive foot surgery forced me to quit my office job a few years ago, and my doctors told me I would be out of work for more than three years. I knew I had to do something while recuperating, so I decided to look into an online business. I researched my competition and found only one Website selling handmade bookmarks.

Within a week, in March 1999, I had started a business. After I researched my idea on the Web, I went to a local business supply company and bought most of my supplies -- a laminating machine, sheets of laminate and paper, ink and special software. Then I got going on my Website. I also checked my state regulations to see what forms I needed to file to make my business legal.

I researched Web design and learned how to build my own site, found a Web host and lined up a merchant account so I could accept credit cards. Then I was ready to market my online business -- probably the most important step.

I began by targeting some likely markets. I knew that my bookmarks would make great wedding favors, so I contacted bridal Websites and had a few list my business in exchange for a free ad in my weekly newsletter or a free link on my Website. I also advertised online in the classifieds and in newsletters from other sites and registered with the search engines. Search engine placement is very important. Offline, I designed fliers to post in local bridal shops. Most of my marketing efforts were free.
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Author Offers Tips for Wellness Programs

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Employers big and small are coming up with creative ideas for encouraging employees to live a healthy lifestyle, says Tom Weede, author of The Entrepreneur Diet: The On-the-Go Plan for Fitness, Weight Loss, and Healthy Living.

"In talking to small-business owners for The Entrepreneur Diet, I found that many were really creative in how they brought a healthy culture to their company," Weede says. "They're proof that you don't necessarily need a lot of extra capital lying around for a lavish workout facility to help employees stay fit."

Read more on blr.com.

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http://www.mprivateresidences.com/

If owning a $2-million to $3-million home complete with tennis courts and a waterfront location in Cabo San Lucas sounds appealing, Calgary-based M Private Residences has a deal for you. Think of it as a time-share on a whole new level. "We specialize in the shared ownership of luxury vacation properties around the world," says co-president Paul Poscente. "The word 'ownership' is key and differentiates us from time-shares. Each investor actually owns an undivided interest in our properties and gets the luxury of travelling to those properties." In other words, this investment property doubles as a getaway home.

Currently, there are 12 luxe homes in M's stable. By the end of the year, there will be 13 homes in six countries. There are two types of shares: class A and class B. When the company was founded in September 2004, A shares were going for $340,000. They're now up to $465,000. Investors who go with the premium shares are entitled to 60+ days of time per year at any one of the homes, explains co-president Ken MacLean. They also pay $20,000 in annual dues for maintenance fees and elaborate concierge services. Class B shares go for $265,000, with $12,000 in annual dues, and allow for 21+ days of use per year. "You're allowed to book a month of time up to two years out," explains MacLean, "excepting Christmas and Easter, which is lottery-based."

Douglas Gray, a former real estate lawyer and author of 23 books, including Making Money in Real Estate, says M's business model is intelligent and eclectic. "They've taken the best of all the investment options out there and blended them into this opportunity," he says. "It's a natural evolution. It will be a good fit for a select group of sophisticated investors." So far, about 90% of M's clients are Calgarians, but the company is expanding east. As the number of investors grows, so does the portfolio. "For every six shares we sell, we buy a house," says Poscente. What's the latest location under review? A property in Italy with its own olive grove and vineyards. "In the morning, you go and test your grapes," says Poscente. "It's living the dream."

[Via Canadian Business]

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Common Mistakes to Avoid When Freelancing

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I know a lot of folks who are into freelancing -- web designers, graphic artists, writers and others. They are all self employed who enjoy being their own boss and the freedom associated with being a freelancer. The flipside, though, is that I'm also privy to the mistakes they often make in managing their freelancing careers.

If you want to freelance, here are common mistakes to avoid:

• Over-reliance on one client. When you find a great company to work for that pays well, often you stop looking for other clients. Afterall, you already have a great account so why bother embarking on marketing and bidding again? Alas, this attitude is very risky. Freelancing is a volatile occupation; and even with a contract, companies can let go of freelancers. A company downsizing for example would first fire their freelancers compared to their employees. It is always best not to put all your eggs in one basket, and get a variety of clients.
  
• Failing to Account for the Ups and Downs of Self Employment. When you are freelancing, you need to be prepared for the roller coaster ride of self employment: some months you may have several clients, and some months you may find it hard winning any accounts. That is simply the nature of freelancing. You need to prepare for the lean times and make sure that you have income buffer to ride out those difficult times.
  
• Forgetting the business side of being self employed. You may focus too much on the technical side of your occupation ensuring that you deliver high quality products that your clients expect. However, don't forget the management aspects of being a freelancer, and that involves billing, collection, record keeping, tax paying, even marketing your services to other clients. Dedicate a certain percentage during the day to administrative and marketing tasks, or hire professionals to help you manage these tasks.

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Not having right insurance can be a disaster for small businesses

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NEW YORK -- Many small business owners in the Northeast are still trying to recover from floods caused by as much as 8 inches of rain earlier this month. Those who had flood insurance can recoup some of their losses, but those who never purchased such coverage are now dealing with the fact that a disaster doesn't have to be a hurricane, tornado or earthquake to cause cataclysmic damage to a company.

Insurance industry analysts and people who advise small businesses say many companies find themselves underinsured when disasters happen. Many don't have the specialized policies that would cover disasters, or they have coverage that falls short in dollar terms of what they need. Or they find they didn't read the fine print about what was and wasn't covered when they bought insurance.

Being underinsured for a disaster is a common problem for businesses, especially younger ones, said Cathy Weatherford, executive vice president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an organization of regulatory officials from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories.

Cost is a factor when owners decide not to purchase specialized disaster insurance; the premiums and deductibles tend to be high because damage tends to be heavy and insurance company payouts in turn are large. Small business owners without a lot of spare cash often decide to take their chances and hope disaster never strikes.

Equally problematic, Weatherford said, is the attitude of "this can't happen to me" that many business owners have.

"Not until you become a victim or you come very close to losing everything do you decide this is something essential for you that you cannot do without," she said.

Flood insurance tends to get the most headlines, particularly since Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans in 2005. But there is other specialized disaster coverage, such as earthquake insurance, which many businesses in California buy, and landslide insurance, policies that businesses in the Puget Sound area should consider.

But a disaster isn't limited to a catastrophe wrought by Mother Nature -- a fire that destroys a business can be just as disastrous. So a small business needs to consider whether it's adequately insured for any and all possibilities.

A big difference between disaster insurance, such as flood or landslide coverage and, say, fire coverage, is that disaster insurance isn't included in a standard business or commercial insurance package. It must be purchased separately. And beware: Many lenders will require you to buy flood insurance for a property, and the Small Business Administration won't disburse disaster loan money if you were flooded and didn't have flood insurance.

Physical damage is only part of the problem. According to the insurance commissioners group, only about 35 percent of small businesses have business intruption insurance, which covers lost profits and operating expenses, such as salaries, that must still be paid even when a company can't operate.

Glenn Pomerantz, director of the business interruption and insurance claims services practice with the accounting firm BDO Seidman in New York, said another issue for small business owners is a lack of knowledge of the insurance process. They don't know enough about deductibles, for example, and what is or isn't covered under the insurance they already have.

"If you haven't been through a major catastrophic loss before, you really don't know how" an insurance adjuster is likely to assess the damage and what the insurer will pay, he said.

One thing small business owners can do is to read the policy they buy carefully, and to understand how much they're likely to pay for a deductible, and if they're responsible for a co-insurance payment. For example, their policy might provide that the insurance company will pay 80 percent of the amount after the deductible, leaving the company responsible for the remaining 20 percent.

Mark Thaw, a partner with the Florida-based accounting firm Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra, noted that no insurance covers all of a company's losses.

"You have to absorb some loss yourself," he said, adding, "the purpose (of insurance) is to make you get over the hump" after a disaster.

Thaw said many small business owners also get a shock when they discover they hadn't bought enough insurance to cover the value of their property, and so their insurers in turn reduce what they pay out.

But insurance shouldn't be the only consideration when a small business thinks about reducing the losses suffered in a disaster -- companies need to think about ways of mitigating the damage by planning well in advance for how they get themselves up and running after a catastrophe.

Disaster mitigation planning is "as important as the insurance," Thaw said. "Without the plan, you're nowhere."

Such planning includes knowing where and how you'll get your company up and running again, where you'll get supplies from a vendor, how you'll get in touch with clients and customers. Without those plans in place, Thaw said, you'll suffer further losses.

"You need to keep them to a minimum and survive," he said.

[via seattlepi.nwsource.com]

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What My Engineering Professor Taught Me Of Life, Business And Marketing

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In engineering school my professor, Dr. Soukup, was a stoic, military-general kind of guy. Every week he would give us homework. One week his assignment was especially maddening.

Turns out it was impossible to solve with 'textbook' formulas. You had to use a special computer program to solve it.

But he never said anything about that. It took consultations with several other students and another professor to solve. So when I finally showed up for class, homework in hand, I was mad.

I chewed him out in front of everybody. "You gave us this problem and didn't tell us ANYTHING about how to solve it. Not a single clue. We were whistling dixie in the dark and had to waste a bunch of OTHER peoples' time just to figure this out."

An eruption of chuckles from the other students. (Most people wouldn't have the guts to challenge Dr. Soukup publicly in class. He was the department chairman and had a well-earned hard-ass reputation.)

I was so brave.

I felt so vindicated.

Dr. Soukup was undisturbed by my angst. I only got an icy stare. He felt no moral obligation to pave the way for our homework success and I received no sympathy.

'What's the matter with this guy anyway? Doesn't he know when you grade students for an assignment you're supposed to tell them how to solve the problem first?'How naive.

Pretty much every problem I've ever had to solve in business has been like Dr. Soukup's class.

There's something you've gotta figure out; somewhere there is a way to figure it out. The person who's asked you to figure it out did not hand out handy-dandy formulas in advance.

There's a deadline.

It may require consultation with other students and professors to solve.

May require a special computer program you don't know about.

The problem may in fact be unsolvable and requires an entirely different approach.

That's life in the jungle, my friend.

Which is why traditionally educated people often struggle mightily in the entrepreneurial world. They expect exact answers and well-defined assignments, but what they get is Dr. Soukup.

Which is also why many of the most successful entrepreneurs I know never went to college.

If Dr. Soukup had said, "Here's an assignment and it's going to take a special trick to solve this problem but I'm not going to tell you what it is" I would have taken that as a summons to action and probably dug into it with verve. I enjoy a challenge and I know you do too

So my message to you today is:

Whatever marketing problem you're trying to solve today requires a trick or some kind of special touch. It may very well be a 'textbook' answer or formula. Might not be all that exotic or complicated. But... nobody is handing you a book before the test.

The good news is: Business is an OPEN BOOK test where nobody tells you which book you might happen to need today.

All you know is: The more things you've seen and the more books you have at your fingertips, the faster you can solve the problem, run through the maze, ring the bell and get the cheese.

Oh, and one more thing: Listen up. Hearken unto me, for what I sayeth to you today mattereth.

In school, homework is never optional, is it? You do it. You turn it in. It gets graded. If you don't, you fail. No serious student considers homework assignments to be optional.

Yet in the entrepreneurial world I'm amazed at how many homework assignments I give out, that people somehow think are optional.

Where did they ever get that idea?

If I tell you your homework assignment is to split test four different ads by next Friday, then doggonit, split test your ads.

If the homework assignment is to put live chat on your site and talk to 20 visitors before next week... then get chattin'!

If the homework assignment is to call 20 customers on the phone and do a survey, then... start dialin'!

Why do people blindly follow professors for years - or obediently work as a cubicle drone for some soulless insurance conglomerate - yet will not do the requisite assignments for their own success?

If you've ever asked yourself that same question, let me give you a new way to think about it.

In the Dilbert Cube and the classroom, they give you 100% of the answers in advance and they expect you to do 100% of what they tell you to do. If you do it correctly, you get a grade of 100%. A-Plus.

You're so special. You're the Star Estudiante! Everyone rise and give a hand for Donla !

In the entrepreneurial world, you get maybe 30% of the answers in advance. And because you assume from the outset that only one third of the things you try are going to work, you need to do 300% of what you're told to do.

Oh yeah, and nobody's gonna clap for you either. (Plus Anna Quindlen may shame you for not voting for the tax increase 'cuz all those shiftless drones need you to fund their medical care.)

But remember: It only has to work once. If it does, you make your million dollars.

So just multiply everything times three and don't expect more than one third of the answers to be handed to you on a silver platter. Then, having a super-successful business will seem easy compared to getting an MBA. Certainly a lot easier than law school or med school.

Deal?

Get to it.

[Via - Perry Marshall]

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The Critical Importance of Website Monitoring

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An essential element of the success of any Internet Marketing campaign is the ability to analyze the traffic to coming to your Website. A key business mantra is that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.

The are a number of techniques that the best Internet Marketing Strategies employ to jump-start Website traffic building. These strategies include article marketing, blogging, search engine optimization and email marketing.

Luckily for the Internet offers a wealth of excellent and accessible tools for analyzing the success of each of these strategies.

Understanding what your visitors do on your site is crucial information, not to mention interesting. If your visitors proceed to purchase a product but then a large majority leave the site when they get to a specific page in the order process then you need to know about it. It could be that this page is confusing or hard to use. Fixing it could increase your sales by 200%. This is just an example; there are many reasons why you want a detailed analysis of your site visitors.

Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. If you're not sure where this is, call up your hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of tracking your marketing progress. If you don't have access to website statistics get a package that can help you in this area. Do not get a counter that just shows how many visitors you've had. You'll be missing out on vital information that can help strengthen weaknesses in your site.

A good website hosting service would offer traffic logs that provide an invaluable insight into the traffic being referred to a web site from various sources such as search engines, directories and other links.

Unfortunately traffic tracking provided by web hosting services is often in the form of raw traffic log files or other difficult to understand cryptic formats. These log files are basically text files that describe actions on the site. It is literally impossible to use the raw log files to understand what your visitors are doing. If you do not have the patience to go through these huge traffic logs, opting for a traffic-logging package would be a good idea.

Basically two options are available to you and these are: using a log analysis package or subscribing to a remotely hosted traffic logging service. A remotely hosted traffic logging service may be easy to use and is generally the cheaper option of the two. WebTrends Live and HitsLink are two good, remotely hosted, traffic-monitoring services worth considering. However, WebTrends Live is a more complicated system and is suitable for larger ecommerce websites. "SuperStats" is another recommended traffic logging service.

These services do not use your log files. Typically a small section of code is placed on any page you want to track. When the page is viewed, information is stored on the remote server and available in real time to view in charts and tables form.

Log analysis packages are typically expensive to buy and complex to set up. Apart from commercial packages there are also some free log analysis packages available, such as Analog.

A good traffic logging service would provide statistics pertaining to the following:

* How many people visit your site?

* Where are they from?

* How are visitors finding your site?

* What traffic is coming from search engines, links from other sites, and other sources?

* What keyword search phrases are they using to find your site?

* What pages are frequented the most - what information are visitors most interested in?

* How do visitors navigate within your web site?

Knowing the answers to these and other fundamental questions is essential for making informed decisions that maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your web site investment.

Did you know?

As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilizing are working. It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business.

The most important aspect of tracking visitors to your Website is analyzing all the statistics you get from your tracking software. The three main statistics that will show your overall progress are hits, visitors and page views. Hits are tracked when any picture or page loads from your server on to a visitor?s browser. Hits, however, can be very misleading. It is quite an irrelevant statistic for your Website.

The statistic that is probably the most important for a Website is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good indication of two things. First, how many people are coming to your site, and secondly how long are they staying on your site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can figure that most visitors view one page on your site and then leave. Generally, if you're not getting 2 page views per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site's content so your visitors will stay around longer. If you see the number of visitors you have increasing as well as the number of page views per visitor increasing then keep up the good work!

Always look for this stat as an overall barometer of how your site design is doing and if your marketing campaigns are taking hold. Also, a good stat to look for is unique visitors. Once a person visits your site they will not be added to the unique visitors? category if they visit again. This is a good way to track new visitors to your website. Page views are a good indication of how "sticky" your Website is. A good statistic to keep is Page Views divided by the number of Visitors you have. This statistic will give you a good idea if your content is interesting and if your visitors are staying on your site for a long time and surfing.

Some people are intimidated by web traffic statistics (mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but they shouldn't be. While there are many highly specialized statistics that can be used for more in-depth web traffic analysis, the above areas alone can provide invaluable information on your visitors and your Website performance.

Remember - this data is available for a reason. It's up to you to use it.

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About the Author: Michael Saunders has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He edits a site on using Tools for Traffic Analysis and maintains a site on Traffic Building Strategies.

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