How to Create an SEO Friendly Adsense Site

May 30th, 2012 | 32 comments

Since Jon and I started KeywordCanine (KC,) I’ve started getting back into creating small adsense sites. The case study sites I created for KC, using KC, started bringing in $5-$10 per day, and still do, which got me thinking, why did I stop making these sites years ago? So I’ve created a few more and have others that I’m in the process of getting published.

With that being said, today I want to show you exactly how I create these small sites and tell you what I believe is important.

How I Create Small Adsense Sites

First, let me make it clear that although the following is for Adsense sites specifically, you can use the same type of site as an affiliate site or for many other monetization models. But since there are many different ways to do affiliate sites and since the “best” way is determined by the niche, what products are available and other factors, I’m focusing on Adsense, since I do the same things for all of my adsense sites, no matter what niche etc.

I’m going to skip the basics (registering an exact match domain, installing wordpress or a template etc.)

1. The first thing I do once I have WordPress installed, or my template uploaded, is I add a few standard pages: About, Contact and Privacy (or you can use “Legal” or something similar in place of privacy) at a bare minimum. But the more pages the better! I haven’t ran any tests to see exactly how google reacts to new sites that have these pages and new sites that don’t, but to me it seems like common sense that a good, legitimate site would have these pages and that any site that does not have these pages is not legitimate. And I’ve had alot of very profitable sites that rank FAST by doing so.

The content I put on these pages varies. But I always just try to make them “sound” as natural and real as possible. On the contact page I put a real email address, that really does forward to my main email… something like “support@thesite.com” On the about page I just write up a few sentences (minimum) that sounds good. On the Privacy/Legal page I generate a website agreement from here. If you want to go all out, which DEFINITELY would not hurt, you can add a DMCA page (explaining how readers can report copyright violations,) an advertising page and any number of other pages… all show that your site is credible.

2. I link out to a competitor site. Yep, I link to my competitors! This link should be to an obviously legitimate site like wikipedia or something. Answer these questions: How many spam sites have you seen that link to authoritative sites in their niche? (my guess is very few or none.) How many legitimate sites have you seen that link to other legitimate sites? (my guess is nearly all of them.) So how do you think Google treats a site that provides a “clean” (no nofollow) link to an authoritative site?

3. I typically use free themes/templates, but I use a different one for each of my sites. Just like link networks must reduce their trace in the SE’s, if you own multiple adsense sites you don’t want google knowing that you have “xx” websites that were made for the sole purpose of earning adsense revenue. So you don’t want all of your sites using the same theme/template. Mix it up. It’s also a good idea to use multiple c-class hosting, like seohosting.com to further dilute footprints.

4. I add a 468×60 ad unit directly below the title of each post (below the title, but above the content) and a second one directly below the article. Then, depending on the theme/template, I’ll add a different ad unit (the size is determined by the theme/template) to the sidebar somewhere. This saturates the site pretty good with ads, without overdoing it and the CTR is pretty decent. I used to use a large rectangle unit directly below the title, but google frowns upon that these days. They don’t want to see a high percentage of ads above the fold.

5. If using WordPress, I change the permalink structure to post name (http://www.mysite.com/sample-post/)

6. If using WordPress, I also go to “Settings,” “Reading Settings,” and I change “Blog pages show at most” to 1. This reduces duplicate content and canonical urls.

seo friendly adsense sites

7. If using WordPress, I also get into single.php and index.php and I delete the code that displays the date and time stamp (because the date is irrelevant for this type of site and would only make the site look old and stale over time,) the comment fields (again, it just isn’t needed and when all of your articles have zero legitimate comments, it only looks bad,) the category link (reduce canonical urls,) and any other blog-like links/info that the theme/template you’re using has.

8. In the sidebar, I show the last 10 most recent posts, I link to each category (there is usually just one… on a new site anyway) and I add the link I previously mentioned (the one to an authoritative competitor site.)

9. I add my content. I usually start off with 4 or 5 articles, get the site ranked, and if it does well then I’ll continue to add content over time. If it doesn’t so well then I never add more content (they aren’t all winners.)

10. Once my content is published to the site I start building links. When targeting long-tail phrases that aren’t real competitive, it’s typically pretty easy to get them to rank.

That’s it! Follow those steps and I have no doubt that your adsense sites will rank well in Google and earn you some good money, as mine have for me.

32 comments

Jason
30th May, 2012 at 6:59 pm

Josh FYI your social plugin doesn’t look right with WPTouch. Your post is pretty good but I would like to have seen more about selecting your keywords and link building. I have some adsense sites getting thousands of hits per day. My success comes down to 3 simple things. Keyword selection, original content (no spinning), and diverse link building. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!
Rhonda Morin (18 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 7:05 pm

Great article. I am glad to see that you are coming back to your “bread and butter” so to speak. I was having trouble with the dates on my wordpress blog but I kept at it and kept at it and found all kinds of plugins that gave me the exact site that I wanted without all that stuff. Didn’t realize it was so easy.

I will report back on my attempts on this.

Are you only using 1WayLinks to promote these sites? Or are you still using articles on directory sites?

Rhonda
Ico (1 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 7:07 pm

Interesting tips that I haven’t encountered before, Josh. I’m definitely going to try some of those on my current Adsense sites (which I built in the past using your Adsense ebook formula).

Question: did you mean that when we link to an authority site, we should make the link no-follow?
James (3 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 7:13 pm

Hi Josh, As always great advice. Thanks!! Was wondering if you have any screen grabs highlighting the bits to strip out of the index.php and single.php or maybe could point to a good resource for tips on editing themes? It took me ages to work out how to remove comments from static pages.

Many thanks
James
Evan Scoresby (1 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 7:14 pm

Loved the post Josh! I tried to get into Adsense awhile ago, but didn’t really know what I was doing. I am definitely going to give it a try again with your suggestions. Thanks!
Alan (1 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 7:58 pm

Josh,

Great article. I’m going to do as you say!

When do you add the Adsense ads?

I use 3WayLinks. Is this good?

Alan
Cathy
30th May, 2012 at 8:05 pm

You stated that you use free themes.

I note in 1 Way Links they want you not to use free themes: Notice: The blog can’t be a free wordpress.com blog, since this network is focused on IP diversity.

Have you altered the free theme so it works in the network.

Thanks
Cathy
30th May, 2012 at 8:07 pm

Just noticed that 1 Way Links states a “free wordpress.com site and not theme.
Chris (1 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 9:09 pm

Definitely old school, but it just goes to show how simple and easy it can be to make money online.

Adsense sites around a targeted keyword definitely still work. Of course, it is a lot of work.
John Mauldin (2 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 10:56 pm

Not taking anything away from you but I was thinking the same thing yesterday. In the past, however, I have used adsense in combination with something from clickbank or a product I owned the rights to because of the difference in revenue I can generate. Your article is timely, well written and appreciated. Warmest Regards, John Mauldin
Alex (2 comments.)
30th May, 2012 at 11:00 pm

Sorry for newbie question, but I have one on point 3. If you find it not appropriate to answer here, please do so on my mail address.
Recently (in march this year) I have launched my first wordpress site, and as a backlink strategy I created blogspot and a wordpress blog, pointing from the blog rolls and anchored text within the text on the blogs toward my main site. Stupidly I guess, but in order to get them indexed earlier I put the same adsense account on all three, and even more the blogspot and the main site are using same google analytics code. Is this enough for google to not to count backlinks from these blogs?
Strange thing is that my main site is on the 4th place on a first page for targeted keyword and the wordpress and blogspot on 12th and 23rd place respectively. But when I put link:”my main url” into google – nothing happens, there are just no results find. Is it because google don’t count these links or they are just too young to be shown?
Stef (68 comments.)
31st May, 2012 at 3:15 am

Tell us Josh,

why did you stop making those sites years ago?

Cheers
Alex (2 comments.)
31st May, 2012 at 12:05 pm

Really great to see a back to basics post. Do you write your own content Josh?

Thanks for the tips!
Kris
31st May, 2012 at 12:57 pm

Funny how things come full circle. How do you come up with topics for a site? For me that’s the hardest part.
yara
31st May, 2012 at 1:34 pm

Hello Josh,

Very interesting and informative articles. I am sure following these rules will make a good site.

I donot agree with point number 3 though. I do not think using the same template would bother google… or using a different class Ip address would help especially if someone is using the same adsense account on all his/her sites…. they are all automatically linked together by google since they all use the same publisher ID whether it is a different theme or IP or not.

Thanks for great info always.

Yara
John
31st May, 2012 at 2:20 pm

I am interested to know whether you consider Jon Leger’s One Way Linking to be a sure target for a vicious Penguin Peck, or whatever name you’d care to apply to another major strike on a Blog Network? It’s pretty old now as a system isn’t it and I was surprised at finding it when I tried your link. Thanks, I’m not criticising, just keenly interested!
John
yara
31st May, 2012 at 2:53 pm

I am not sure about this… but I had a website that used content from one of these blog networks (not the one mentioned in this post)… It was just getting articles to be posted on my site (i was not using it to build any backlinks to my sites)…

I just used it to get content to one of my sites and I used adsense on that site…

Today, I got my google adsense account suspended… and their email clearly stated it was because of the content on the site (which was totally articles from one of those blog networks — again, not the one mentioned in Josh’s post here).

Yara
yara
31st May, 2012 at 2:54 pm

it was re-write content… not a copy/paste…and yes, it was doing pretty well on adsense for about 2 year (around 1-2 euros per day from each site).
Joe Mudd (3 comments.)
31st May, 2012 at 4:32 pm

Nice post Josh.

I had never really thought about linking out to another site being a good thing. Thanks for that tip.

Like the others, I wonder about using a link service in these post Panda/Penguin/Whatever days,
Josh Spaulding
31st May, 2012 at 4:58 pm

@ Rhonda – I diversify my backlink strategy as much as possible. 1WL, LinkVana, Social bookmarks, web directories etc. etc.

@ Ico – No, I meant you should not use nofollow.

@ James – Unfortunately I do not at this time. It’s a little different with each theme.

@ Alan – For adsense sites I add adsense ads right away. Yes, 3wl is still a good network.

@ Cathy – Yep, free themes are fine in the 1WL network. He mean you can’t use wordpress.com sites like mysite.wordpress.com

@ John – I always go the affiliate route when possible. But more times then not it is not possible. You have to have a good product to sell first. And it has to be the right niche etc.

@ Alex – They could devalue the backlinks if they see the footprint, but on such a small scale I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Regarding google not showing the backlinks, that means nothing. They never show all of the backlinks they find.

@ Stef – Good question

@ Alex – Not for my adsense sites. I use Article Builder… if it doesn’t cover the topic then I pay a writer to write them for $5/article.

@ Kris – Sometimes I’ll just brainstorm and do some research on the results. I’m always looking through the new niches that Keyword Canine is coming up with as well.

@ John – Many of the sites in the network are still indexed and the backlinks are being counted. There will be a BIG update on 1WL next month though. And as with any other backlink source, it should only be one part of your overall backlink strategy.

@ Yara – Yeah, I would not put adsense on a site that receives blog network content. That’s not the value of blog networks.

@ Joe – People have largely overreacted to the whole link network thing. I’ve been using them for years and they’re all working as good as ever for me. Of course, I’ve never relied solely on one service. I diversify.
Alex (2 comments.)
31st May, 2012 at 7:35 pm

Thanks for the reply, I tough so myself but it is a nice to get the confirmation. Most of the tips from the post I alraedy used myself, but I’ll keep my eye on the rest…
Jim (1 comments.)
1st June, 2012 at 10:28 am

thanks for sharing for all those tips..

not a site yet but your article did inspire me of creating a new blog… which i just did before commenting here…
Rick the Bike Parts Guy (2 comments.)
5th June, 2012 at 1:29 pm

A Great basic blueprint. I am kinda surprised you did not mention Article Builder from Jonathan Leger as a way to continue to add content.

Thanks,
Rick
Josh Spaulding
5th June, 2012 at 2:08 pm

Rick – I linked to it in the article.
crispo
15th June, 2012 at 10:38 am

Great tips, Josh.

What do you think of .info domains? It’s getting tough to get .com, .net and .org EMDs but I found some good .info. Do you have any experience with them?
Jason Guarantor (1 comments.)
19th June, 2012 at 3:21 pm

Thanks for sharing this article.

I’ve read on various forums that a website must be 6 months old before you can add adsense to it, is this true?

I think WordPress is a great place to start for anyone looking to start a small adsense website, not only is the dashboard very easy to use but there are also a number of great SEO plugins available, I especially like Striking.
Josh Spaulding
26th June, 2012 at 12:40 pm

@ crispo – I do own a few .info’s and they seem to do just fine. I do try to get a .com, .net or .org first though.

@ Jason – I add adsense units to brand new sites all the time. I’ve never heard of that and it doesn’t make sense to me why you would have to wait 6 months.

Yes, WordPress is very popular
Eric : Manila Blog (5 comments.)
9th August, 2012 at 3:08 pm

I was not aware on no. 6, thanks for this tip.

by the way, on no. 9, what do you do with sites that doesn’t do well? do you simply vanish them to oblivion?
Josh Spaulding
9th August, 2012 at 3:20 pm

I usually keep them. They don’t have to make much money to at least cover the expense of making them. But I have sold some and let some expire as well.
Murrey Donaldson
17th August, 2012 at 6:37 pm

Hi Josh,
Thanks so much for thsi article on building an Adsense site.
What theme did you use for split toe shoes?
And what theme do you recommend in general?
Thank you.
Murrey
Josh Spaulding
18th August, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Hi Murrey, Basic 1.0 by Theme Lab … no particular theme right now. But me and Sean Lowery are working on creating some killer themes optimized for adsense and affiliate offers.
erda (8 comments.)
16th October, 2012 at 9:27 am

Great advice. I must follow those adsence tips for success. thanks but I’m kinda surprised you did not mention Article Builder from Jonathan Leger as a way to continue to add content.