Google Adsense Tips | Easiest Way To Monetize A Website or Blog

July 7th, 2009, Author: Nathan Hulls, Categories: Google Adsense, Make Money Blogging, Make Money Online

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When you begin to get your head around internet marketing, whether it be with the aim to make money blogging, or through affiliate marketing or developing your own products, the question is always asked, Is there any easy money online?

How long will it take me to make a full time income online?

Should I use Google Adsense Ads on my blog or website?

All of those questions are so relative and there are so many variables involved like, social networking, traffic, search engine optimization, writing good content, link baiting etc etc
(if you dont know anything about any of those topics please message me and I’ll be happy to expand on them in future posts)

But let me just focus today on one potential income earner, which I will admit is one of my greatest earners online and that answer the question:

So… Is there Easy Money Online with Google Adsense Ads?

Short answer is - YES!

The longer and more detailed answer - here it comes.

Google adsense ads are one of the easiest and most effective ways to monetize your website or blog but there are a number of things you need to consider.

What is Google Adsense?

Google Adsense Ads are simply companies who want to advertise online through Google and their ad network

Google allow you to sign up for their advertising network program which is called ‘Google Adsense‘ which gives you the ability to choose different styles of advertisements to display on your own website or blog, which are relevant to the content on your site, and Google pay you a commission when one of the ads is clicked on for hosting the ad.

Through the Google Adsense control panel you can choose the following types of ads:

Text Ads - purely text based ads, these tend to blend well with content, and dont appear to be blatant advertising
Image Ads - much more obvious that they are an advertisement, usually animated image banners
Link Unit - this is a list of key words, which then takes the user to another screen with text ads, requiring 2 clicks to earn your commission

adsense-unts

From my experience I have found that the text and image ads convert the best, but I have found while image ads may have a higher conversion rate than text ads (differing with your placement), text ads are often higher paying per click.

Depending on the purpose behind your site, your style, and your readership its always worth doing some testing with the various ad groups before you settle on your decision of which to use.

How Do You Determine Who You Advertise On Your Site?

As Google Adsense Ads are contextual advertising, Google has their own special algorithm to work out what businesses or services advertisements they will place on your site, so while you cannot choose specific companies or particular ads to host, there are a few Adsense Optimization Tips I can share with you:

Target High Value Keywords

In Google’s Keyword Research Tool we have previously talked about researching high commercial value keywords and keyword phrases. When using this keyword research tool, Google will give you a ball park estimate of the figure you will have to pay to get your adverisement (if you were advertising in Google Adwords) to appear i the top 3 positions on Google search paid listings.

There is a direct correlation between this figure and the amount of money per click Google will pay you for hosting Google Adsense Ads for that particular keyword.

Ah Hah!

So If you can find keywords, which are related to your particular niche marketing/website topic, optimise a single page for that keyword, then Google will work with you on that keyword or phrase and post ads to your site from advertisers who are targetting that keyword or phrase.

Just because the top 3 position is paying $40 per click does not mean that Google will pay you $20 commission, you have to remember that not all advertisers who advertise with Google Adwords decide to advertise on the content network (which is what you have just joined by hosting Adsense Ads).

Optimize For Adsense You Say?

Firstly let me say this… if you are going to go to the trouble of optimizing particular pages of your website or blog to attract higher paying Google Adsense Ads then you need to realise that you will need individual pages create for each of these keywords/keyword phrases.

To properly optimize a page for high paying google adsense keywords you must use the keyword in the following places:

Page Name
Page Title
Bolded Once
Italicized Once
3% to 5% keyword density in total page content
In meta tag keywords
In meta tag description
In link text - linking to itself

By placing that particular keyword in those places Google will see that the content and structure of your site is clearly appropriate for the companies who want to advertise for your chosen keyword.

If you are currently hosting Google Adsense Ads on your site, but haven’t really put any thought into optimization, have a look at the ads which are being displayed and then look at the various elements listed above in your site, and you might just find a correlation.

On a side note - these elements are also very important for targetting keywords and keyword phrases for Search Engine Optimization or SEO, to get your site or blog ranking well in Google and other search engines.

Google Adsense Positioning

Where you position your ads from Adsense is again entirely up to you and firstly dependant upon the content, style and readership of your website, but if that is all flexible then here are the various positioning options according to the Google Adsense heatmap:

google-heat-map-732414 According to Google’s studies this heat map shows the conversion of your adsense ads according to how dark the area is… ie. the white area in the top right corner is the lowest converting area for hosting Google Adsense Ads, where as the highest converting position and ad size is in the middle directly above your primary content and one of the smaller square ad blocks.

Because the highest converting area on your site is so close to your primary content it is probably then best to use the Adsense Text Ads, rather than the image ads for these reasons:

1. Text Ads will blend into your site more in turn will appear to be links through to other areas of your site, increasing your conversion rate.

2. Because they blend better they will help you maintain the integrity of your site if it is an information site or blog.

What are the Google Adsense Rules

DO NOT click your own ads (Once your banned , there’s no redemption in Google’s Eyes)
DO NOT use more than 3 Google Ad Units (The 4th is usually ignored and will be empty anyway)
DO NOT change , modify , spruce up , or add anything to the code. (Google gives you the option of using changing font/background colors when you login) Check it out
DO NOT put Google ads on Adult - Oriented Sites or other banned website Content
DO NOT force or encourage your users to click on your ads
DO NOT blend your ads so that your users can not tell the Difference between advertisement and web-content.
(Wrapping images around Adsense is a BIG no-no and will get you banned)
DO NOT forget to create a Privacy Policy Page explaining to your users about the Google Adsense network and how data may be collected.
DO NOT Pay for traffic services that will artificially inflate your traffic statistics. Google’s Engineer’s are smart and will find out eventually.
DO NOT register multiple accounts
Finally people please DO NOT tell ANYONE online how much money you make with Adsense on a Click-Through-Rate and Earning-Per-Impression basis.

Recent Policy Changes

Google requires that any websites participating in Adsense should have / create a privacy policy. (It is very easy to make thanks to Privacy Policy Generators you can find on google like this or this.)
Google makes you responsible for wherever you put the Adsense code. If the website’s material is inappropriate you might get banned.
Google prohibits the use of “third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs.”

**Rules thanks to http://sherifabdou.com/2008/10/10-google-adsense-rules-n-optimization-tips/

So that’s Google Adsense in a nutshell…

Its a fantastic monetization method as all of the hard work is done for you. You dont have to manage advertisers, you dont have to worry about an ad serving platform, tracking clicks and impressions, but its not the best method for everyones website.

One negative I do have to say about Google Adsense Ads, are that because they are contextual, if you’re running a business website eg The local butcher, it’s likely that the ads which will appear on your site will be competing businesses. So it is more appropriate for information based sites and blogs.

If you have any questions about Google Adsense or other ways to monetize your website or blog, please shoot me a message through the contact form… I look forward to hearing from you.

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