This month January 2013 is a remarkable milestone for my website, I reached $100 mark exactly 1 year after starting this website Gratifying Lifestyle. $100 in 1 year is the most motivating thing a blogger can ever have. I have no hesitation in admitting that I am running this website for my passion and to earn money, both are equally important for me.

I started this website exactly 1 year back in January 2012 with an aim of sharing my experience and knowledge about living a healthy and gratifying lifestyle. And earning some money to run this website was also required, hence I opted for Google Adsense program.

Before starting my blog I took advice from some experts and researched a bit on internet on how to get more traffic and earn some money from Google Adsense. And my estimation was 2 to 3 years to reach $100. Here is my learning experience on running a successful website, though I wont claim that I run a successful website. I made several mistakes and slowed down for few months in last year. But below points are worth noticing

1. Content is King

If you want traffic on your website, then you have to write good quality, genuine, useful and original content. In marketing language you must have some USP to sell your product. So I started writing from my experience and my knowledge. I refrained from copying others’ content. The rule of thumb was give less information but it must be unique and useful.

2. Be Consistent

You have to keep updating your website regularly. The frequency could be daily, alternate days, twice a week or weekly. But you have to maintain pace and stick to your writing habits. If you drop the pace of writing new content, it will directly reflect in number of visitors and adsense earnings.

3. Keyword Research

I user Google Keyword Tool to research the keywords I want to target. Usually pick the keywords on three dimensions  Competition, Number of Searches and dollar value of that keyword (CPC). I use the keyword with low competition and medium to high traffic. Sometimes I write content with high competition too for the completeness purpose keeping in mind the experience of my readers.

4. Backlinks?

This didn’t work in my case, I never tried to get backlinks by posting comments or writing into forums. Or I never collaborated with other blog owners for backlinks exchanges. And I don’t see any downside of that, may be Google Search Algorithms understand my motivation.

5. More Content = More Traffic = More Dollars

I realized the straight relationship between content updates, traffic and clicks on adsense ads. I tried to post multiple articles in a single day but it became bit difficult for me. But with good quality I am able to post average one article per day which is working fine for me.

6. Keep Learning

As I move ahead with my blog, I keep researching on various plugins, security fundamentals, wordpress updates, wordpress themes and content quality. I also tried some themes which promises better adsense revenue, some plugins which promises huge boost in traffic and many more but I learnt that all are fake and useless, it will make more harm than benefit to your website. Hence I stick to a clean and user friendly theme with minimum set of plugins.

By following above rules I reached $100 in 12th month of my website. Below is the breakup of my earning from January 2012 to Mid February 2013.

There are some months where earning is low, or went down from previous month. The decline in traffic and earning was result of the following

• 1. Stop blogging, or very few updates in website
• 2. Not going to depth of the subject
• 3. Not doing keyword research
• 4. Removing or Changing any URL
• 5. Removing or Changing any pages
• 6. Installing bad theme or plugin

In January 2013, I was very much consistent and regular in writing, though I was below desired average of 1 post per day but still I managed to cross $20 in this month. This post I am adding to my website to share my experience and joy of achievement of earning $100 in Google Adsense. Hope this will help to all my readers and motivate them to follow right techniques of blogging.

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