3 ms·

I was curious also so I ran some numbers: He's the #1 search result for "personal development", which averages 90,500 searches per month from Google. Assuming

by imp 18y ago

I was curious also so I ran some numbers: He's the #1 search result for "personal development", which averages 90,500 searches per month from Google. Assuming he receives 60% of those visits, that's 54,300 visits per month. Since it's search traffic, which would be people willing to click and look for info, he might get a CTR of 2%, which is 1,086 clicks per month. The estimated CPC for that term is $1.92, so that is $2,085 per month, or $25,021 per year. Since that's a rough estimate of $25k/year for one search term, I think $100,000 per year is reasonable.

wmeredith 18y ago
A number one ranking on a Google SERP will get you far more than 60% click through. It's usually 90%+. Even if its clearly something different than you were searching for (in the description, etc.) a lot of people just click the first link reflexively. <-- Obviously, that traffic doesn't convert well, but it's interesting.
jwesley 18y ago
Your assumptions on this are off. He may be making $100K per year, but definitely not $25K for one search term. Google takes at least 40-50% of the CPC as rev share. Also, the traffic estimator you used is broad match, meaning it includes every query that somehow includes "personal development" such as "Tony Robbins personal development" or "personal development workshop". Many of these Steve will not rank for, even though he is number 1 for the exact match. I've run a site with similar content and good search rankings that gets around 50% of the traffic of Steve's site (according to Compete), and our AdSense revenue was nowhere close to $100k per year. Even though Steve was using AdSense more aggressively, it makes me wonder how he was able to earn so much. The average earnings per click for us was only 15 cents or so.
- imp 18y ago
  Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. I forgot about Google's share of the CPC. Duh. I was also misreading Google's traffic estimator. That exact phrase, "personal development" only receives 14,800 searches per month. Big difference.

by imp 18y ago

wmeredith 18y ago

A number one ranking on a Google SERP will get you far more than 60% click through. It's usually 90%+. Even if its clearly something different than you were searching for (in the description, etc.) a lot of people just click the first link reflexively. <-- Obviously, that traffic doesn't convert well, but it's interesting.

jwesley 18y ago

Your assumptions on this are off. He may be making $100K per year, but definitely not $25K for one search term. Google takes at least 40-50% of the CPC as rev share. Also, the traffic estimator you used is broad match, meaning it includes every query that somehow includes "personal development" such as "Tony Robbins personal development" or "personal development workshop". Many of these Steve will not rank for, even though he is number 1 for the exact match. I've run a site with similar content and good search rankings that gets around 50% of the traffic of Steve's site (according to Compete), and our AdSense revenue was nowhere close to $100k per year. Even though Steve was using AdSense more aggressively, it makes me wonder how he was able to earn so much. The average earnings per click for us was only 15 cents or so.

imp 18y ago
Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. I forgot about Google's share of the CPC. Duh. I was also misreading Google's traffic estimator. That exact phrase, "personal development" only receives 14,800 searches per month. Big difference.