The Four Steps

Since Claude seemed eager to continue, I sat down next to him and sketched the process for him on a pad of paper. "Like most things," I explained, "the amount of money you make will probably be in direct proportion to the amount of thought and effort you put into the process." Here are the steps I described to Claude.

Web Stats

Many sites offer statistics on Internet usage; a site that covers worldwide Internet usage patterns and trends is www.internetworldstats.com/.

Step 1: Create Some Web Pages

The first step is to create some Web pages. Don't look so dubiousWeb page creation is not as mysterious as it seems. The basics are easy to understand, and there are many tools (both free and commercial) available to help you. What's hard is coming up with the content for those pages.

When you think about it, the Web is all about contentsurfing the Web is just looking for stuff. With billions of pages out there, the competition for a surfer's attention is very stiff. The better your content, the more unique and useful it is, the better your chances that others will find it. That's why I'll be discussing creating good contentfinding something to say and saying it wellbefore getting into the mechanics of actually creating Web pages.

Step 2: Show Ads on the Pages

The second step is to show ads on those Web pages. Viewing Web pages doesn't usually cost the reader anything. Few sites can get away with charging for access to their materialthere's simply too much competing material already freely available on the Web.

If you can't charge for access to the material, how do you make money? It depends on the nature of your pages. If you're running a business that sells products or services, then the pages are indirect moneymakers. They're a marketing expense, a cost of doing business. But you don't have anything to sell. Or do you?

Well, actually, you doyou have space on your Web site. You can make money by selling parts of your Web pages as advertising space. This is the same way that newspapers and magazinesthe classic pre-Web content servicesmake most of their money.

Sample AdSense Ads

If you'd like to see sample AdSense ads based on any URL or keyword, try Digital Point Solution's handy Sandbox utility at www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-sandbox/.

Google makes this step easy. Once you've created your Web pagesor at least some of themyou join Google's AdSense program. Google will read the pages you made, analyze the content that's on them, and use that analysis to select ads that are relevant to the content of the page. All you need to do is insert some Google-supplied codedon't worry, there's no programming involved, just cutting and pastinginto the pages. If someone clicks an ad on one of your pages, Google gives you a cut of the per-click fee they charge advertisers. And it's all automated, even the ad selection (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2. Sample AdSense ads generated by Digital Point Solution's Sandbox tool.

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Step 3: Drive Traffic to the Pages

The third step is to increase the number of visitors, or traffic, to your pages. Just showing ads isn't enough: in most cases, you only make money when visitors click on the ads, and the ads will be clicked by only a small percentage of your page visitors. Increase the number of visitors, and you'll increase the number of clicks.

Why AdSense? While it's true that AdSense is just one advertising system, it offers a number of advantages over most of the others. Not only is there no cost to join it, it's also available to almost anyone with content on the Web. The ads are primarily text-based (image-based ads are also available as an option) and come in a wide variety of formats for placement on your pages. The ads are also drawn from the same large pool of advertisements shown by Google on its own search pages. Finally, the automated page analysis ensures that the ads displayed on your pages are relevant to the content of those pages.

Find Your Rank

Google rankings are available at www.googlerankings.com/.

This step sounds simple, but it's not. In fact, driving traffic to your pages is the hardest step of the process. With so many Web pages out there, the chances that someone will stumble upon yours by accident are small. Your best bets for traffic are to generate good word of mouth and to get your pages higher in Google's page rankings (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3. Google page rankings.

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Step 4: Monitor and Update the Pages

The final step is to monitor and update your Web pages on a regular basis. This is the easiest step to perform, but it's an important oneyou want your visitors to keep coming back. If they see that your pages are current, that the content changes in regular and interesting ways, they're more likely to come back. You want them to come back. You want them to link to your pages from their own pages. You want them to tell others about your pages. Making sure your pages are always available and are always up-to-date will make this possible.

Monitoring your pages can also help you create new content. With a bit of work, you can usually figure out which search terms visitors are using to find your site. These termsand some of them may surprise youwill suggest topics to focus on when creating new pages or updating existing pages.