Is there a BIG secret to the huge Adsense checks? Yes, you've seen those screen shots of 5-figure Adsense earning ... so have I. And that made you thinking, why are some people earning those huge income, and you are not.
Whatever people may say, I only see these are the only factors that make the difference between your earning and those 'big-guns'.
1 - Adsense Placement
Yes, putting your Adsense in a special way can be the difference between 1% click-through rate (CTR) and 10% CTR. There have been some strategies outlined where you have to make your Adsense like content. You do that by removing the borders and using the same font color that you are using for your website.
Choosing the bigger Adsense format has always been recommended. It is said that the big square, wide skyscraper are the top performer. Me ... yes, I am experiencing good things with these ad formats.
Some may say differently, but I am doing well with the Ad Links too. It's those text link ads, which requires two-step clicks. I place them like a navigation link on my website, and I am doing quite OK with them.
2 - High Paying Keywords
Here's another known secret. Go for high paying keywords. If your website is about a topic where advertisers are paying high money for them, then you may get more money with Adsense.
This is common sense. When people are paying $5.00 per click on Adwords, you may get a lot of money on your Adsense. And if the ads that are showing on your website are ads that people are paying $1.00 per click, you may get lesser than a dollar per click.
Known topics where advertisers are paying top dollars are like DUI lawyers, credit card applications, web hosting ... you know the rest. And you can even go to Overture Bid Tools to guess what people are paying for certain keywords. If you come across a topic that you think might do well, you can give a try there.
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/
But the problem with this, high paying keywords are normally very competitive when you are trying to drive traffic with search engine optimization (SEO). So some would just go for low hanging fruits.
3 - Get More Traffic
Yep ... no secret here. The more traffic you get, the more clicks you are likely to get. And more clicks means more money. But then again, you should think about the type of websites that pull traffic.
I believe many of top earners are actually operating a community-based websites. These are like forums, photo blog service providers, blogs that has grown its readerships and maybe even dating profiles. Another way of doing this is where you build your website around user created content. You allow users to create the content, like put in comments and reviews.
These are the sites that where people keep coming back for more. The good thing is you don't have to crack your head for content. If you think you can build one like those, then go for it.
On the contrary, many are actually growing sites in smaller niches. And they go for SEO for traffic. I have to say that this is the most popular when it comes to Adsense.
You and I know there are the good ways and the bad ways to SEO - yes, the white hats and the black hats. Whatever you do, that is your choice. Some people are doing the black hats, but to them, as long as they are in compliance with the Adsense TOS, they have nothing to worry about.
To me, you do what you want and take responsibilities for the outcome. If you are doing black hat SEO, and you are making boatloads of money