Adsense Wealth Empire is one of the most anticipated Adsense course of the year. The course has a certain exclusivity to it:

1. It is designed for folks who want to make a fortune with Adsense

2. It requires a bit of a money to acquire it.

3. Only 200 copies are released.

With that in mind, I have decided to review Adsense Wealth Empire 2008 to decide whether it is right for you. I first came across Adsense Wealth Empire training set in 2007. I remember downloading a report that talked about how you can make a fortune with Adsense. At the time, I was still in school, finishing my MBA. Now, I got to be honest with you. Being an executive and making millions is something that has always been attractive to me. But being lazy and creating a wealth empire has been even more attractive.

Once I finished school, I started building my very own Adsense empire. The amount of passive income that you can earn with Adsense can really surprise you. For a long time, I assumed that you can only make a few bucks a month from Adsense, but after hanging out with folks who are consistently pulling in $1K a day, I realized how I had missed this great opportunity. Better yet, I realized that in order to make money with Adsense, you are going to have the right strategy. In general, you need to have a:

• Publishing Strategy: you can’t put your eggs in too few baskets. The best way to make money with Adsense is to have many pages that bring you more targeted ads. That’s what building an Adsense portal is all about. You are trying to grab a traffic market share and act as the middleman between advertisers and searchers.
• Traffic Strategy: once you have your pages up, you can’t just pray to God to bring you more traffic. You’ve got to do something about it. Having the right traffic strategy can make all the difference.
• Linking Strategy: this really goes back to the previous point. But you need to find ways to get links for your pages and climb the rankings ladder.
• Niche Strategy: finding the right niches can help you make thousands of dollars. Think about it. A portal about law can earn you as high as $5 a click. Would you rather settle for a niche that doesn’t pay that high?

Adsense Wealth Empire covers all the above strategies and more. You’ll not only learn how to drive traffic to your site, and how to pick the right niche, but you’ll also get the tools that you need to build massive web portals (I personally use HyperVRE).

Negatives:

It’s tough to see a negative in a package that promises you to make a million with Adsense, right? The truth is, the coverage is comprehensive, and you’ll a lot of bang for your buck. But the package can’t teach you the creativity that you may need to make a million. I would say, don’t get discouraged if you are making $50-$100K with this package. Not everyone will be a superstar, but you give me $100K a year only from Adsense, and I’ll take it. Wouldn’t you?

In addition, some of the techniques that are covered in the course are a bit advanced and can confuse newbie marketers. Don’t get me wrong. By watching the course thoroughly, you are going to pick up the nuggets you need to get started with building your empire, but don’t expect to go over this package in a couple of hours.

The package is pricey and not for everyone. I wish there was a way to share this info with more folks so everyone could benefit. But the truth is, if more folks know about it, there is a good chance the market becomes saturated and the business becomes less profitable for all the folks involved.

Positives:

Information: the good folks behind this package have gone out of their way to provide a package that is comprehensive and teaches you how to fish. You’ve got to have the dedication to do out and do it, but the opportunity is there.

Teaching Style: I don’t know about you, but I always get motivated by folks who are passionate about the topic they are talking about. These guys are certainly passionate about Adsense, and you can feel it in their voice.

Techniques: While everything covered in this course is white hat, you are still going to get your hands on some techniques that are not discussed anywhere. Don’t for a second think that you are paying that kind of money for second rate information. This is top notch stuff here.

Should you get it?

It really depends on you. Not everyone’s going to be able to afford Adsense Wealth Empire. And not everyone who can afford it should get it. Think about it. If you are not going to use this information anytime soon, let others who are dedicated and need it get their hands on it first. It’s not fair to keep folks out (knowing that only 200 copies will be available). Adsense is not for everyone.

Where to go next: the course will be out soon. I do encourage you to read the Adsense Manifesto and Adsense Wealth Report to figure out if the course is right for you. This is not a course you should buy without doing proper research. So do yourself a favor and read the information provided to see if a career in Adsense is something you want to follow.

As the economy gets worse (and you can expect it to hit rock bottom sometime in the near future), you are going to see folks who are going to sell you Adwords/Adsense things that can, get this, help you make millions out of these networks. That’s the oldest trick in the book. Let’s say, I have lost my job, I have a couple of kids to feed, and I have the year-end approaching fast. What do I do? Simple! I am going to get a book that will show me how to make millions in a year, and if I get 5% of that number, I will be happy.

I am all for learning. You should never stop learning, and one way to do that is by keeping up with blogs and reading books on a weekly basis. However, when it comes to Adsense, you can really learn a lot from watching the best do it. And who’s the best when it comes to using Adsense? I would like to think it’s Google!

There are no two ways about it. When Google bought YouTube, they did it to make money and get their initial funds back. There were other reasons, but bear with me here. So you have the largest online video library anywhere, and you are trying to monetize it for months. Does it make sense for you to put Adsense units that don’t make you money? You tell me!

I am no Adsense expert. I do make a few bucks a day from Adsense, but it’s not really my focus (that does not keep me from checking it every 10 seconds). Now here is the thing. YouTube is a goldmine when it comes to Adsense. You can figure out what formats would work for your niche site. And you are going to learn what Google is spending millions of dollars researching – where to put your ads.

I am not suggesting that Google CEO is actually checking YouTube’s Adsense account to see how much they are earning, but the ad format and positioning should be a good indication on where on your page you can expect to make more money. Each site is different, and your results will probably be different from mine or Google’s. But, you don’t have to read a book to figure out what works and what doesn’t with Adsense.

As a student of the online advertising game, I am always on the look out for products that truly stand out. Products that train you how to make a decent amount of money using Google Adwords. After reading many books in the past few years on the subject of online advertising, I believe you’ve got to be able to take risks to be able to have any success whatsoever on the Web. I have worked with many newbies to get their campaigns started on Adwords. These guys tend to stop their campaigns as soon as they don’t see results after the first 10-20 clicks. But online advertising is a game of averages. If you go in expecting to convert every single click to a sale, then you are going to be deeply disappointed.

Google Money Pro is a very effective advertising training system that gives you the mentality you need to be successful in this business. Before you get started with Adwords, you need to understand that losing $1 is not a big deal if you gain $10, $5, or even $2 per click. You are going to have to work on a profit basis and not on a cost basis. Most successful PPC marketers spend more than $100,000 a month. That’s a staggering number for regular folks, but if you can get back $500,000 for your troubles, then it’s well worth it.

Just like Adwords Profit, Google Money Pro comes with a blueprint that you can use to get started with Adwords right away. But there are certain differences between two products. I do believe that Adwords Profit has the skeleton and you need to meat on it. Google Money Pro is more meat, which is why it would be a great complement to (AP).

Here is why I like Google Money Pro (GMP):

• Basics: it’s easy to assume that folks have some level of knowledge when they pick up a training product such as this one. In truth, it’s always better to walk folks through the basics of what it takes to succeed online as a Pro PPC marketer, and GMP accomplishes that.
• Blue-Print: don’t you love products that show the theory and then put things in practice? I certainly do. Google Money Pro has a blueprint that you can use to manage your very own Adwords campaign.
• Audience: there is no one size fits all solution when it comes to Adwords. Some of us have more starting capital than others, and we afford to have bigger budgets. Steven takes that into account and even shows you how to get started with $100.
• Mentality: a big part of the Adwords game is mental. If you have the mental capacity to take costs on the chin and make $2 per every dollar spent, you are not going to lose money. But I know how hard it is to adopt that mentality. You got to experience it to get it!
• Expertise: It’s easy to come out and claim to be a guru in a market, but it’s even better if you have something to back it up. Steven is a Google Advertising Professional, which means he has passed the exam, and has managed Adwords campaign in the client center for 90 days, spending a considerable amount of money to get traffic on behalf of his clients. It’s good to know you are getting your info from someone who knows what they are doing.
• Guarantee: this isn’t really a plus but rather a must have. Steven guarantees his product for 60 days. I wish other folks would learn and adopt this practice.

And I don’t like:

• $$$: it turns me off when folks talk about you can make this or that online by using their techniques. There is no way to be certain about the amount you can earn online. You may earn more than $160K or less than $160K. It depends on your niche, and your situation.
• Sales-letter: I hate long sales-letters. It’s nothing against Steven or anyone else for that matter. I am a marketer and I know long sales-letters actually help folks decide better, but I just don’t like reading through all that.
• Testimonials: the product is great but can we just stick with 3 to 5 testimonials. More than that is just stating the obvious.

GMP is not for everyone. It’s not a cheap training system, and you shouldn’t get it if you are not planning to succeed online. I know it sounds strange but some folks are looking to start a hobby and not a business. If that’s you, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. Otherwise, you should definitely give GMP a try for yourself.

Google Adwords is becoming so competitive that unless you are getting great quality scores from Google, you are going to have break your bank to get any decent traffic. I remember when I started my financial site a while back. Google was asking me to pay, get this, $10 a click to be in the top 10! That’s like paying a million dollars to get a used car. Of course, if you are getting a great quality score from Google, you are going to pay less.

It is apparent that getting “great” quality score from Google on your landing pages is a must. But do you really need to create one landing page per each keyword? I have been hearing from some experts that you don’t have to do that to get great quality scores. I really don’t have any evidence for that argument, so I will consider it B.S. for now. Here is what has worked for me. You create a landing page for each keyword, and you start your title tag with that same keyword. You also use the same keyword throughout your content. I have tried this many times, and it works like a charm. Keep in mind that the keyword “books” is different from “book.” You need to create one landing page for “book” and one landing page for “books” (just an example).

Is this approach inefficient? You may say so. But that’s the only sure way to get great quality scores from Google. Everybody knows about LSI and all that nonesense. I am not saying an LSI-based approach to landing page optimization doesn’t work. I just personally have not had 100% success with that approach. I have had 100% success with the above approach, and that’s why I recommend it. And if you are a hard-worker, willing to put hours and resources to implement this, more power to you. But you can always trust the “experts” and get no results. It really depends on your taste.

Let’s say you want to get into the Internet marketing game. You want to do SEO & PPC to dominate your niche. But how do you go about actually beating folks in each channel. Depending on the degree of competitiveness in your niche, the incumbent may be awfully hard to beat. But you are not really hopeless. First, you need to go through your top competitors sites (top 3) to figure out what is their search strategy (see the below two tools). The good thing about running a business on the Internet is that there is just so much information available on the WWW that you can use to your advantage. You can run sophisticated spying campaigns on your competitors. You can also carefully observe what your competitors are doing and try to do it better.

You will still have to go through your keyword research process, but by using the below tools you can figure out what keywords your competitors are using, and what you can do better. The concept is not something new. Many super marketers use the very same technique to enter and dominate niches at will (full disclosure: depending on your niche, you may have to spend considerable amount of effort and time to achieve dominance in your niche).

Search Engine Optimization & PPC

Once you have used your favorite keyword tool to come up with a list of keywords for your niche, it’s time to go and see what others are doing in your niche. You can use a tool such as SpyFu to figure out what exactly your competitors are ranking for, one what page. The page-keyword breakdown report is very useful as you can figure out exactly what keyword density your competitors are using to get ranked for what keyword on what page. This is powerful information that used to take so much time to dig just a few years go, but innovative spying solutions make it easy to dig up information in a flash. Linkscape by SEOMoz is yet another tool that you can use to dig up information on your competitors. Take our sister website, SEOABC. By feeding the URL to Linkscape, you can all kinds of information, including but not limited to links, domain data, and link juice for that domain (see below).

With the keyword report that you get from SpyFu and Linkscape you can figure out what keywords to target, and what anchor texts to shop for. With SpyFuKombat, you can figure out exactly what areas you have in common with your competitors and what areas you need to work on. Finally, SpyFu will give you the paid listings for your competitors which you could download and take a look at.

But knowing virtually everything that your competitors are doing, there is no reason to do something better and try to top them. It’s going to take some work, and nobody said it’s going to be easy. But a few years ago, you would’ve had to spend a lifetime to gather this information. Now, it only takes about 30 minutes. Times have changed indeed.

Your take: what’s been your experience with SpyFu Kombat and Linkscape?

Rand Fishkin had a great post a few days ago about how Google’s monopoly can hurt us marketers. I thought he was making some valid points, but here is my take on Google’s inevitable journey to world dominance. If you look at the numbers from various sources (including Rand’s), you are going to realize that Google is in such a dominant position that it almost looks helpless for Microsoft and Yahoo!. Google has been having a lot of success as they understand the search business more than their current rivals. Google understands that it’s just not about making more money but also providing value to users in return. So Google has been decent enough to respect its searchers and don’t insult their intelligence as other companies do.

I do agree with Rand that Google can get to a point that it can dictate price. That’s the classic theory of monopolies. You can do almost whatever you want as you are the only game in town. The UFC does it in the fighting world, so it happens even today. But I would argue that the Internet industry is very different from those classic monopolized industries. The industry is just too dynamic for someone to create a long-lasting monopoly.

I also don’t believe a Google run monopoly (however long it lasts) can actually dictate outrageous things. The Congress and the government would love to jump on the Internet folks and put heavier regulations on us all. I doubt Google will risk getting in the regulation game. I do agree with Rand that power corrupts even the best companies. But I don’t believe Google can sustain a monopoly without staying ahead of potential competitors.

We are talking about the Internet industry, and the game is just changing so fast that Google’s search system could become irrelevant in a short period of time (I am not saying it will). Research data has shown that folks are not really loyal to one search engine, and they take their business where they feel they get the biggest bang for their time spent on site. Google can’t keep everyone happy even today. That means, they won’t be able to keep folks happy if they stop innovating.

As someone who has been involved in the SEO and Paid search industry for long, I would love to see a day when folks don’t get paid for just putting keywords in their clients’ title tags. I would love to see Google develop ways to make the SEO industry irrelevant. But we are years away from that. I actually believe that a Google monopoly is not such a bad thing for top SEOs. Having said that, I don’t believe Google can rest any second as the industry is moving fast. You are either on the train or your left behind (just take a look at Microsoft).

One thing that I learned during my stay in business school was the concept of synergy. Don’t get me wrong. I was familiar with the concept, but I just didn’t know using it could get you the big bucks. But synergy is a beautiful concept and applies to the search industry as well. In essence, we are not really dealing with math in the online advertising industry. If A+B was always “A” + “B,” then there would be no synergy, and it’d be sad day for us all.

In reality, [A+B] can often topple [A]+[B}, and that is what most of us marketers live for. Combining channels to get more out of them than we would ever get from each channel individually. That is exactly why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. SEO is a wonderful channel, but you may be able to get more out of your online marketing effort by combining your efforts in SEO and PPC channels. The same can be said about online media. In fact, research has shown that you can increase your SEO/PPC click-through by using display advertising.

The same can be said about other types of advertising. I don’t know about you, but when I see a commercial on TV that I like, it stays with me for some time. When I search for something and see that ad online, there is a good chance that I will click on it. That doesn’t mean I am going to buy it. But the TV ad puts a seed in my mind and makes me more receptive to what the manufacturer has to offer. Without that commercial, I would probably not pay attention to any of the paid ads.

These days, you can’t expect to survive by being a one trick pony. That just doesn’t work anymore. You can put everything you have in SEO, and you could fall from your horse overnight. Being involved in multiple channels not only ads to your layers of core competence, but also allows you to stay relevant even if you are not doing too great in a few of your channels. And the synergies are the great unknowns here. But I am sure as heck glad that we are not dealing with pure math here, aren’t you?

Google certainly knows how to squeeze more money out of folks. There is no question about that. But one needs to give credit where credit is do. I do get the fact that mobile ads are designed for folks who want to advertise on mobile phones. Personally, I don’t believe my market is ready for mobile ads. The conversion is atrocious, and you end up burning a lot of money on nothing. But you’ve got to give it up for Google for making desktop ads available on the iPhone.

It’s true that Google is going after its very own mobile users with the introduction of Android, but for them to come out and target one of the fastest growing mobile phones in the world shows that they get it. What I like about the desktop ads for mobile phones such as iPhone is the fact that you get to track them separately (like you would your content ads).

So we are no longer limited to mobile ads for mobile devices. There are more iPhone owners in the world than the total population of my mother country. Being able to target these guys more effectively is going to help a few of us grow faster than expected. But I still don’t believe mobile ads to be conversion friendly. Good for branding? Yes! Good for conversion? I have no evidence for this argument. So I would suggest you take a few anti-depressant before putting a lot of hope in your mobile ads.

If you have been doing Google Adwords for a while, you probably know the bid prices are not going any lower. If you are in any somewhat common niche, you are going to have to pay through your nose to get those highly coveted places on the first page. But if you have a great quality score, you can reduce your bids dramatically. Getting the quality score without too much work can be a bit complicated. Google has gone out of its way to penalize thin sites, and the mini landing page approach does not work as well as it used to.

That’s where you can use articles to your advantage. Services such as SimplyPLR allow you to create fully-fledged websites for every niche without having to spend time and write the articles yourself. The good thing about private label articles is that you can actually change the content and insert your own keywords in there. The key to getting a good quality score on Google is optimizing down to molecules for individual keywords. By that I mean you should use the “exact” keyword you are trying to bid for in your text.

PLRs are usually written around one keyword, which makes these great for quality score optimization purposes. All you would need to do is make small changes to the article and replace the main keyword with yours, and you can have more success with Google Adwords as a result of it. Paying Google $10, $20 or more per click just doesn’t make sense unless you have money to burn. I don’t know about you, but considering the amount of effort involved to use PLR articles to create Adwords ready sites, this is all well worth it.

The big news of the morning is that Google Adwords is going to allow folks to advertise on Alcohol in the U.S. Google has been notoriously tough on areas that could lead to lawsuits against Google (boy, we all know how we Americans love to sue others for every small thing). But Google figures that they are going to make more money allowing folks to advertise liquor:

This fall, we changed our policy around beer, for the first time allowing advertisements of its sale in the U.S. via AdWords. And starting today, in response to advertiser feedback we’ve received over the years, we’ll permit the advertisement of hard alcohol and liqueurs that target the U.S.

Now if you think you can go on Google Adwords and just say, “I have hard liquor, you want?” that is not allowed. You will have to name the ingredients of your product and also any marketing slogan that you are using with your liquor products. If you are an alcohol manufacturer, you are going to be somewhat happy with Google’s decision to allow these changes. Now, keep in mind that Google is still working to bring the same policy to other countries, but that won’t be happening overnight.

What’s your take: does Google believe adding alcohol manufacturers to its list of advertisers enhances the searcher’s user experience or is it all just a ploy to extract more money in these tough times?