Ugh, one of the graphs is for YoY decline in CPC rates, but it it shows 2015 at the right and 2019 at the far left . Who does that? And it shows it by quarter, so is this a rolling window? Then: > As long as Google can keep growing the blue line -- growth of paid clicks faster than the red line its ad click deflation -- then it is golden. > Every three months Google has to find faster ways of expanding the total numb…
And when an ad pays well, publishers create content that will show that ad {rant: This- this right here- sums up my frustration with the evolution of the web. Getting ready to launch a new site, I looked around a bit at "SEO." The push was exactly backwards. It was, "given that you have some keywords you want to "optimize" for, here's the web content you need." That's exactly backwards, and leads to people producing…
When I first started writing, I discovered what was popular versus not. Authentic content that nobody read didn’t seem like a good use of time.
Writing about how shitty my current credit card was and which I found to be better was very profitable. Reviewing a keyboard was not.
But having said that, some of the most valuable content was useful, but flew under the radar of other writers. E.g. how to navigate a particular government office’s procedures.
Google did a lot to help your case when they targeted ads based on the user and not the content. IE: showing you finance ads on non-finance websites. That really helped out publishers in otherwise not-too-profitable topics.