Read KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays for Free Online Page A

code. If you’re also prepared to put in the effort to be able to write about the topic intelligently for a while (because traffic takes time to build), then you might well find yourself generating some income.
     
    But it’s not a fun way to work, and when you’re not writing about a topic you enjoy, it will feel like work, and it will be hard to do well enough to earn money consistently. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try writing about a subject purely for the high-paying keywords. But I wouldn’t recommend it. I think that choosing a topic you enjoy will always be better in the long run. You might be packing away fewer dollars for each KaChing but you’ll generating more KaChings, and most important, you’ll be having fun while you’re doing it—so you’ll be able to keep doing it.
     
    But there are things you can do to ensure the subjects you blog about within those topics are the highest-paying subjects possible.
     
    That’s important. Writing about photography in general might deliver ads from stock agencies or camera shops. Writing about equine photography on the other hand might deliver ads from stables and horse breeders—and those ads might pay much more!
     
    When you’re searching for subjects about which to publish, knowing that the ads for one subject are worth more than the ads for another can help to guide you toward the best revenues.
     
    Google, though, won’t tell you how much you’re receiving for each click on a specific ad. Nor is Google the only company that should be serving ads on your web site. However you’re receiving your ads, you should always be tracking the clicks and the money those clicks generate.
     
    You have to do this yourself. Keyword value lists will give you only a vague idea of what a term or a subject is worth. In practice, the amounts change constantly, and they can be different on different web sites. Google uses a practice called Smart Pricing that takes into account not just the amount the advertiser has bid to appear on Web pages, but the actions that users take when they reach the advertiser’s site. The higher the value of your users to the advertiser, the more advertisers will have to pay. And the reverse is also true: A site with visitors who have little connection to the subject will receive little for each ad click, even when the advertiser has expressed a willingness to pay more.
     
    Once you’ve decided on an overall topic for your web site, you should then write on different subtopics and track the revenues that those pages generate. Just as Darren Rowse noticed that camera reviews generated the most views and the highest revenues, so you should soon be able to see which subjects interest your readers and which bring up the highest-earning ads.
     

Niches Are Nice, but Micro-Niches Create Nicer KaChings
     
    Let’s say that you’re excited about gardening. Every weekend you take a trip to the garden center, load up on plants, and spend your spare time digging around trees, laying down irrigation pipes, pruning branches, pulling up weeds, creating mulch, and doing all of the other things that green-thumb types do to keep their gardens looking pretty.
     
    That’s not me, but let’s say it’s you.
     
    You sign up at Blogger.com and write a few articles about gardening. You also join Google’s AdSense program, receive your AdSense code, and place it on your pages, optimizing the units so that they blend into the page. You leave comments on a few other gardening blogs and join forum discussions to let people know you’re there.
     
    There’s a good chance that before the week is out, you’ll have received your first KaChing. One morning, you’ll look at your AdSense stats and find that instead of the total earnings column saying 0.00, it now says 0.10.
     
    KaChing!
     
    Okay, that’s not a very loud KaChing. You might think that dime isn’t going to change your life, but if you let it, it will. Forget the amount. Think of the