Google Adsense Revenue

I have been working with Google for over four years now but I never realized how powerful they were until yesterday.  They have the power to turn any company profitable in a split second or bankrupt an entire corporation just by where they place them in their “serps.”

The Story

It happened when I was talking with a friend of mine. 

I have to give you a little background.  He owns a small carpet cleaning business.   It’s not his main business on any level.  In 2002 he purchased two carpet cleaning vans with a small client list from an older guy who wanted to retire.  Both vans, with equipment, cost him $30K. 

My friend never wanted to get into the carpet cleaning business. His only motivation for doing this was that he wanted to buy a ready-made business for his kid brother who was going through a rough financial time (recent divorce). 

Anyway, his brother never appreciated what he had done, worked the business for a couple months and then left for Las Vegas to open up a head shop. Not being one to just let a $30,000 investment just sit there my friend starting doing it part time. 

For the past eight years he has been doing approximately $1,000 a month just off referrals or someone seeing his van from the road (it’s a bright red van so it sticks out). One year ago he sold the second van because he did not need it.

Fast forward to 2010.  I have some spare time and I start a website for him.  I figure why not.  It’s on a WordPress platform. I optimize it, do a little SEO and write two guests posts for the thing.  Took me a couple hours to complete.

I also take a little extra time and get him a Google Maps, aka “Places, “page.  I had just taken a course about getting to the top of Google Maps and I followed the instructions to the letter.

Ten videos, ten pictures, make it keyword rich, write a long description, get a couple reviews and most importantly build a lot of citations.  That is the formula for getting to the top of Google Maps.  It does take a lot of time, to be frank, and it takes even longer for what you do to “sink in” Google.

It takes three months but he gets to page one of the organics. I have ranked over 150 sites so this wasn’t difficult at all for a local search term.  The places page took a little longer to take effect.

The result of him being one page one for the organics and one the maps:

He called me several months ago and asked how much it would cost to purchase the website.  I had made it for him but I still owned it.  Without thinking I just said $1,000.  He was a friend but, wow, did I undercut myself. My friend went to Wells Fargo and deposited the money in my checking account the next day. 

“Why was he such in a rush,” I thought to myself?

After we make the deal official he tells me exactly why. 

I had known he was getting calls but I had no idea to what extent.

He was getting 3-5 calls per day.  They were all targeted people who were moving out and wanted their carpets cleaned so they could get their security deposit back.

Google has done several changes to their places page since then.  They don’t know for sure how they want to structure it.  One moment they incorporate the maps page with the organics and the next moment they separate them.

I was on the phone with him yesterday and he informed me that he was doing $1,500 per week in business.  He could do more if he wanted to but like I said this is his part time job. He mostly likes the exercise (he owns real estate property that generates over $30K a month for him).

What is the moral of this elaborate story?

You can beat your local competition by investing in Google map advertising.  My friend was lucky.  He knew someone who is an SEO guru who just threw something on the wall that ending up sticking.

Most of you will not be so fortunate.  It may cost you a pretty penny to get on the maps but it’s worth it.  There are many companies out there that will guarantee Google map placement for $1,000 or less.  Some terms in larger cities will cost more. But this is definitely a worthwhile investment.