James Jones: Hi everyone.  This is James Jones and I have John X-Factor on line and John is the Ad Sense expert and first off, John, tell us a little bit about what exactly is Ad Sense for people who don't know. 

John X-Factor: That's a good question.  I'm not used to communicating with people that do not know what it is.  Most of the people that buy my course have an idea and are having trouble, but in a nut shell, Ad Sense is simply a way for you to make money without really selling anything on your web site.  So, when you create a web site around, let's just use gardening as an example, and all you have to do is write some content about your favorite gardening passions or what not and when you have an Ad Sense account, you'll just simply copy and paste a little bit of this code into your web site builder and when you look at your web site live and when other people look at it, you'll see some links.  That is called Ad Sense and these links show up and what they do is they enable you to whenever someone comes to your site and they click on a link, well, that link goes to a business that pays for that advertising and you get paid per every time somebody clicks.  So, this could be five cents, it could be ten cents, it could be a dollar and so the entire system is as close to passive income online that I could ever, you know, find myself.  So, in a nut shell, you create a web site, you join the Ad Sense program; you put Ad Sense on your site.  When somebody comes to your web site and clicks on these Ad Sense links, bam, you get paid and that payment goes directly to your Ad Sense account which Google pays you once a month after a certain amount is reached.  Is that a pretty good job of – 

James Jones: – absolutely now – 

John X-Factor: – explaining – 

James Jones: – and Ad Sense is absolutely free to join – 

John X-Factor: – mm hmm – 

James Jones: – so, there's no cost to you to join it and is there any issues with getting accepted into the Ad Sense program?  I know that there are some issues with other affiliate-type programs. 

John X-Factor: Here's the deal.  This works like a charm.  Get a free blogger blog.  This is what I tell everybody.  Don't create some, you know, some fancy web site or don't get some special niche.  Just go to blogger.com and open up a free blogger account.  Create one site and don't make the site cheesy or trying to sell anything.  Write about anything.  If you, if you really love, you know, calendars, write about calendars.  If you love children, write about children.  Write two or three posts today.  Write two or three posts tomorrow.  On the third day write two or three more posts.  Make sure they, they're good, good decent content.  It doesn't have to be more than a couple paragraphs each.  Then apply for your Ad Sense account and use that web site as your application and I haven't had anybody get turned down yet, so that's – 

James Jones: – that's excellent advice, excellent. 

John X-Factor: Yeah, had it's so simple and, and it works like a charm and if they do turn you down, you know, that's between you and Google.  I don't know, sometimes people have complications, but most of the time it works. 

James Jones: What about international people?  People in the U.K.; can they get an Ad Sense account? 

John X-Factor: Well I haven't, I think most countries can, you know, join the Ad Sense program.  Most of my, I mean, 75 percent of the people that have purchased my course are from places like the U.K. and, you know, Africa and things like that, so that's a question.  If you do not know the answer, I would, you know, look around some Ad Sense forms and what not, but I would say most of them, yeah, do get accepted – 

James Jones: – okay – 

John X-Factor: – yeah, Google is a worldwide company. 

James Jones: Great.  Now, I know, in, you know, Ad Sense has been around for a while and I know in the past I've seen various gurus and also just people posting in discussion forums saying that Ad Sense is not the best way to monetize your web site; that it's much better to, say, affiliate with Amazon and sell products from your web site.  What, what is your stance on that? 

John X-Factor: Well, my stance is that it's an individual, you know, opinion.  You know, there's no such thing as the best way to make a web site and it's not my job or anybody else's job to convince you that Google Ad Sense is the way you should make money.  My, you know, my advice is, you know, you know, be an adult.  We're all adults here.  Spend some time researching.  If your looking at really marketing, spend a few weeks looking at everything you can that his to do with **** marketing.  Same thing with Google Ad Sense; same thing with, you know, CPA or, I don't know, whatever program out there.  There's a lot of different ways to make money.  I decided, after doing a lot of research, that Ad Sense was something I could get passionate about.  I, I, I would just love the idea of creating a web site and then getting money while I slept at night and I didn't have to sell anything.  I didn't have to have customer service calls.  I just logged into my Ad Sense account and wow, you know, I've made $4.00 or $5.00 today from this one web site that took me a day to put up, so I would say that it's a great way to make money. 

James Jones: I would, yeah, I'd like to add to that particularly – 

John X-Factor: – well, it isn't secure – 

James Jones:  – probably from the beginning – 

John X-Factor: – 100 percent.  Nothing is.  You – 

James Jones:  – but I think really – 

John X-Factor: – you could lose your Ad Sense account down the road for some reason if you decide to cheat the system or decide to, if you made a mistake or have your family click on your ads; there, there's things that you can do safely to prevent your Ad Sense account from being shut down, but, you know, I look long term and that's why I choose to build my sites around specific types of niches so that if something was to happen to Ad Sense, to the Ad Sense program, I could easily switch it over and make money through other means. 

James Jones: Okay and I'd like to know – 

John X-Factor: – there's enough stuff – 

James Jones: – I'd like to add to that that for beginners, I think Ad Sense is, is a good, a good way to go, because it's not very complicated and, you know, you're really, you're not having to apply to a bunch of different affiliate programs.  You just get accepted into Ad Sense and put up your web sites and do some research and write some articles.  Is that – 

John X-Factor: – it is true.  That is true and it, it, and it helps break the mental barriers of believing that you can make money online for a lot of newcomers and that, that's one of the biggest obstacles that people need to overcome is, is belief.  So, when they create a little site and they use Ad Sense and they log in and they made a couple hundred dollars that month, that really breaks their, you know, their, their walls down and you gain more confidence and then you're, you know, you can go in so many different directions after that. 

James Jones: No, you have a course.  It's called the Micro Niche Ad Sense course, okay – 

John X-Factor: – yes – 

James Jones: – can you tell us what's included with that course? 

John X-Factor: Well, to summarize it quickly, it's really just a, about 100-page E-book that I put together.  It was the result of me giving away free information on some public forums.  I've always wanted to help people and I know that most people get confused about the best way to do their online business in regards to creating content sites and getting traffic and ultimately getting clicks through Ad Sense, so, what I did was I just went ahead and put together the basic simple steps that I use as a guide for my own business and it ended up being a great E-book.  I've got some course updates.  There's a numbers area which they can download the information and in a nut shell, it's great for new, new people.  It's great for people that's been around the block and I've even got experts that have been online since the Ad Sense program started and have commented on how wonderful and easy I put this book together for people and there's been tons of courses released in the last few years and videos and it's just something that's very easy to work.  It's very, it's, it's a plan that you can, anybody can put into action.  And, you know, the rest is up to you guys. 

James Jones: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting.  I hadn't done a whole lot with Ad Sense in a while and after I read your course, I started playing around with it again because it really got me excited about Ad Sense again and, just kind of coincidentally a, another customer of mine who uses Ad Sense who uses my Micro Niche Finder software and he's got several Ad Sense sites.  He emailed me – 

John X-Factor: – mm hmm – 

James Jones: – and said that he, he got a click the other day that was, it was either $25.00 or $28.00 he made off of that. 

John X-Factor: Wow, that's amazing. 

James Jones: Absolutely amazing.  I mean, I had never heard of someone getting; that was, that was for one single click.  It was on a web site.  He said it's a very obscure subject. He wouldn’t tell me what the subject was, but, you know, it's something that's just real, very niche based and – 

John X-Factor: – yeah, you do get lucky sometimes.  I mean, I haven't seen those $20.00 clicks yet, but I have gotten, you know, several $5.00 and $6.00 clicks – 

James Jones: – well, what's the average that you could expect?  You know, I know that early on I, I, I used to see a lot of, you know, 3-cent clicks and, you know, 5-cent clicks and it seems like they've gotten a little bit better now. 

John X-Factor: Well, you know, that, that, that's a, that's a question I get sometimes and there's really no scientific answer as to what's the average because you have to look at the type of niches you get involved in.  Now, there are some niches where advertisers are paying a lot of money to get traffic to their, their web sites and then when that advertisement is part of an Ad Sense ad, then yeah, you can click to be higher, but I, the way I work my niches is I choose specific products because they're easier to get ranked and to get traffic for and so I see an average of anywhere between, you know, 20 cents to 50 cents on, on, on all of my sites and in those 5-cent clicks, those 3-cent clicks do come in and they usually come in off peak hours, you know.  You have to understand that the Ad Sense ads are displayed whatever advertisers are paying for those ads, so sometimes you'll get, you know, there's no, the bidding is low, so late at night when your sites are there making money, you know, you'll get some of those low clicks and, and there's other variables.  It depends on how many Ad Sense blocks you have on your, on your site.  It depends on the traffic.  There's the smart pricing issue, so I, I was sure to work my business and then put it in the course the best possible way to get the most money per click, no matter what your niche is, and that's how I lay out the, the, the web site design on my sites. 

James Jones: Do you find that with, with Ad Sense that Google kind of tests your sites out to start with?  Sort of send you some very low, low click-through traffic in the beginning? 

John X-Factor: Hmm, you know, that's a good question and you know, the honest answer is I don't know what Google's up to all the time at all.  I mean, you know, Google and any search engine is, is, is an unpredictable ocean.  You know, you can – and that's the thing too that frustrates a lot of people, is that it's not like a job.  It's not like you clock in and go, "Okay, I'm going to build this web site and it's going to launch and I'm going to make this much money.  Then I'm going to clock out."  It's a lot of just, you know, you've got to get your, your sites out there and then you see what happens, but in the beginning I usually see pretty targeted traffic simply because, depending on, on, on how I, I promote my site through article marketing, but, you know sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but most of the time I do get pretty targeted traffic pretty fast. 

James Jones: Okay and that brings up another thing.  Now obviously in order to, in order to, to get clicks and to make money through Ad Sense, you're gonna have to get traffic to your web site.  You're putting up brand new web sites, right?  I mean, you're putting up, you know, www.productwhatever and throwing it out there.  How do you get ranked quickly in Google? 

John X-Factor: Well that's the, the reason why my income jumped so rapidly was because I stopped focusing on general niches and I started focusing on really super tight and that's why I call it Micro Niches.  So, instead of making a web site about, let's say, you know, stereos, you would make a web site around, you know and this is an example only, let's say, small blue stereos.  And so, there is less competition.  That means that you have a better chance of getting your web site ranked for that key word, which is what your web site should be about and I've seen some of my sites that I've built literally get ranked on the first page of Google just within a week without any back link simply because the key word is in the domain which is what the site's about.  So, for those of you listening, if that sounds complicated, it's really not, but most of you understand what I'm talking about in terms of search engine optimization so – 

James Jones: Well, and that's another thing you just brought up I hadn't thought about, the, the key word in the domain name; now – 

John X-Factor: – right – 

James Jones: – are you saying that that makes a big difference as far as ranking? 

John X-Factor: Well, it depends on the approach you're taking.  If you're taking the Micro Niche approach, then yes, it makes a huge difference.  You know, the, the way I'm building, I've built my sites, most of my sites are very super targeted, so yeah, having the, the, having a key word can be all the difference between getting ranked and making money and not.  On the other hand, going after the, you know, the typical approach to Ad Sense making a larger site around general terms, then, you know, you don't have to have the key word in the domain.  It's impossible, but it will take longer to rank and to get traffic to that key word.  Is that – 

James Jones: – okay, going back to your, back to your example, like blue, like say blue portable stereo –  

John X-Factor: – okay – 

James Jones: – would you try to register a domain that was www.blueportablestereo.com? 

John X-Factor: Yes. 

James Jones: Exactly like that with no dashes in the middle or anything? 

John X-Factor: No, I mean, I, I don't know whether dashes are bad or not.  I just don't use them.  I would go after .com and my next choice would be .org – 

James Jones: – right – 

John X-Factor: – and that's all I've used – 

James Jones: – yeah – 

John X-Factor: – if that is still taken, I will maybe add a word at the end like blueportablestereoequipment – 

James Jones: – sure – 

John X-Factor: – .com, something like that. 

James Jones: Yeah, my research has shown me that Google is smart enough now to figure out what the long key word phrase is within a domain name –  

John X-Factor: – mm hmm – 

James Jones: – without you having to put hyphens in.  So, I mean, just for what it's worth, they've been, they've been doing that, they've been able to do that for a couple of years now. 

John X-Factor: Yeah.  Yeah.  So I, I don't know, you know, that's the way I go about it, but I had some customers that swear by dashes – 

James Jones: – yeah – 

John X-Factor: – you know, they have them – 

James Jones: – I think dashes – 

John X-Factor: – they're – 

James Jones: – at one time, time you've got to do that to show Google what the key words were, but I don't think you have to do that anymore.  They actually think it's – 

John X-Factor: – yeah **** – 

James Jones: – better to not do that. 

John X-Factor: Yeah. 

James Jones: Okay, John.  It's been great talking to you.  Do you have any last-minute tips for people who want to get started with Ad Sense? 

John X-Factor: Hmm, yeah, so many of them, where to start?  Just take an action guys, you know.  Don't wait around for the perfect formula.  Don't wait around for the perfect course, you know.  Don't, don't sit there and look at your very first site as life or death.  You know, it's a business and you've got to practice your business to get good at it, so, go in there.  I would say the best tip is just get some basics down, start a couple of sites and have fun.  You know, don't look at the first month as, as expecting any income.  Just go out there and have fun, you know.  Put your, put your site up, whoever you're listening to; if you're listening to me, follow my course.  If you're listening to somebody else, follow theirs.  Just take action, focus and have fun with it and see what happens and then test different ways.  Eventually you're going to find your little groove in, in this system and, and that's it.  That's, that's my best advice for people just starting out. 

James Jones: Yeah, I mean like worst case scenario is, you know, say you fail and you're only making a dollar a month, you know, that’s – 

John X-Factor: – worst case scenario, you make money – 

James Jones: – yeah – 

John X-Factor: – I mean it's not a, it's not, that's not a bad thing. 

James Jones: That's not a bad deal and you're learning something as you go too. 

John X-Factor: Yes. 

James Jones: Any, anyway John, I want to tell you, I want to tell everyone again, I've, I've read your course.  I went through it.  I actually read it a couple of times, because I think it's just that darn good.  It is – 

John X-Factor: – I appreciate that – 

James Jones: – probably, not probably, it is absolutely the best Ad Sense course that I have ever read and I encourage – 

John X-Factor: – I appreciate that – 

James Jones: – people to read it.  So, thanks; thanks a lot guys and hope you enjoyed this.  John, have a great day. 

John X-Factor: Okay, I'll to you later my friend. 

James Jones: Goodbye. 

John X-Factor: Bye bye.