Copyright 2006
You see them everywhere now.
Offers of off-the-shelf websites that you purchase, update with your Adsense account details, and upload to your host to start earning from Adsense immediately. Prices are attractive too, some offers working out at less than $1 per site.
Sounds good doesn't it? I've even purchased a few of these sites myself. In most cases I've found the quality of the products to be quite good for the small outlay per website.
So whats the problem?
There's two actually. The first one is simply the law of supply and demand. Its inevitable that as the supply of available web sites wanting to display Adsense advertising increase, the price advertisers are willing to pay for display will decline. This economic principle has been around for centuries and is not likely to disappear any time soon.
If all you've got is a 'clone' site, set up just for the sole purpose of earning Adsense dollars, you are going to be left in the dust by smarter competitors.
Still, if you've got two thousand of these sites and made only $5 a month average from each after expenses, you wouldn't complain. But how realistic is that for most webmasters or a newbie wanting a share of Adsense dollars? Not very.
The second problem is perhaps less obvious. If history is any guide manias are a basic part of human nature. The most well-known mania of course is the Tulip Mania that gripped Holland in the 17th century. This speculative frenzy, which began in the early 1600s reached its height in 1633-37. Many were ruined financially when the tulip market crashed in 1637.
We don't seem to have learned much since. The stock market mania in the 1920's that lead to the Great Crash in 1929 comes to mind. And we are all familiar with the mania that can surround some film stars or rock bands even today.
Adsense shows all the early warning signs of impending mania. Everyone's talking about adsense, products claiming to boost your adsense income abound, and articles about adsense flood the article directories.
This must be making Google and paying advertisers very happy.
But this tidal wave of adsense web site owners - particularly those who purchased a package deal that locked them into hosting of their brand new adsense web sites - might become a tad unhappy in the not so distant future.
Here's what you can do to minimize any effects when the adsense bubble bursts.
1) Add original content to the site. This helps set yours apart from the other clones.
2) Change the 'look and feel' of the site eg. graphics and navigation
3) Revisit the keyword and other meta tags on every page. Do your best to make your site search engine friendly.
4) If its an article based site, go through the articles and see if some of the better ones can be used as content on another website you own.
By all means take advantage of some of the offers around. Just make sure that you have the skills to use the material wisely and adapt it as you see fit. Uploading a site as-is to a cheap host, and then forgetting it, seems likely to prove disappointing.
About the Author
This article was written by Des Scahill. If you want more tips on how to get started in making money online and avoiding some of the traps visit his website http://www.trawl-for-cash.net
This article is free for republishing
Source:
http://www.articlealley.com/article_30843_3.html Keywords: 1600s,
17th century,
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film stars,
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human nature,
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rock bands,
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stock market mania,
tulip mania.
