How to Make Money with Google Adsense

Friday with Vicky 23

One way to make money with your website is to display ads on it. There are many advertising platforms but one of the most popular one is Google Adsense.

There are a few reasons for that; it`s free to sign up, it`s reliable and you can make some decent money with it.

Google Adsense is a reliable advertising platform, owned by Google, that connects publishers (blog owners), advertisers and potential customers.

As the publisher you will display ads on your website, if those ads are clicked on by a visitor you will get paid from Google Adsense.

In this article we will be talking about;

• What kind of sites are  good for Google Adsense
• How much money can you make with Adsense?
• How to sign up and create an ad
• WP Plugin that can save you a lot of time
• Where to place your ads
• Testing
• Is it just sunshine and unicorns with Adsense?
• 6 Action steps to set up your Adsense site

 

What Kind of Sites are Good for Adsense

A lot has changed the last few years when it comes to “Adsense sites”. Back in the day (say 5 years ago, I know way back when it comes to the online world) you could put up a 5 page WP blog targeted on a few specific keywords and make some decent money with Adsense. This model does NOT work anymore. Today you will need a quality, content rich site to make decent money with Adsense ads.

If you don`t have a site set up already the first thing you will have to do is figure out a niche, the topic of your website. Your site could be about anything, sports, interests, recipes, anything…

You want to find a niche that gets a lot of searches, with little competition. You also want to make sure that there are related ads to the niche. You can do that by doing a search in Google on a related keyword. So say that we are interested in making a site about smoothies.

As you can see here, there are ads displayed which means that advertisers spend money on this niche.

Some sites are better suited for Adsense ads than others. What you will need is a high quality, content rich website. If you have a plain information site than Adsense might be a good fit.

Think of it like this, if you wanted to spend money on ads would you want your ad on your site? If you have good quality content then you probably would, right.

If you don`t have a site setup yet, then that is quick and easy to do with today`s technology. Check out my review of my #1 place to get started with a website/adsense site. They will show you step by step, for free, how to set up a website and get it ready for Adsense ads.

If you have a site already and want to make some money implementing Adsense ads keep reading…

 

How Much Money Can You Make with Adsense?

As a publisher you receive 68%, Google gets 32% of the revenue. This means that if the advertiser pays $2 for a click then you will make $1.36 and Google makes $0.64. This is one of Google`s largest income streams.

It`s impossible to say how much a site will make with ads, there are too many things to take into consideration. There are a few factors that you can look at though.

EPC – Earning Per Click

You can go after high EPC, earning per click, keywords and they pay up around $15 – $20 / click. Yes very high EPC but that space is usually pretty crowded and there is a lot of competition.

If you go after keywords with low EPC say under $1 / click then there is usually less competition but it will take more clicks to reach the same result as with the high EPC.

It will depend highly on the niche that you are in what the payouts are.

CTR – Click Through Rate

Another thing to look at is the CTR, click through rate. This varies greatly from site to site as well. I have plain Adsense sites with a CTR of 5-10%, then I have sites that are affiliate marketing / Adsense sites with a 1-2% CTR.

Let`s look at an example. Say you have a plain Adsense site, you have been working on your site for a few months, you provide quality content a few times a week. You have 5000 monthly visitors, you make $2 / click and you have a CTR of 4%. Very reasonable numbers…

5.000 visitors with 4% CTR is 200 clicks.

200 clicks à $2 is $400

There is one thing you will need to be able to make decent money with Adsense and that is lots of targeted traffic. The more targeted traffic you have the more you can possibly make.

Target the right keywords, go after the low competition keywords and rank your content in the search engines.

Can You Combine Adsense Ads with Affiliate Offers?

Yes, you can combine affiliate offers and ads. These are your options;

• Only Affiliate offers
• Combine Affiliate and Adsense ads
• Only Adsense ads

What works best on your site, is something that you have to test.

 

How to Sign up with Google Adsense and Create an Ad

Before your sign up with Google Adsense you want to make sure you have your site in place. You want to have some helpful content on there or you run the risk of not getting approved. You also need your own domain. You cannot sign up with a subdomain like .siterubix.com.

You can sign up with Google Adsense for free, it can be done here.

When you are signed up, it`s time to create an Adsense ad.

How to create an ad with the the Adsense tool.

After you click “New ad unit” you will have to design your ad.

¤ sorry about the extra “e” in custom

When you have the ad code it is time to place it on your website where you want your ads to show. You have two options.

1. You can paste the code where you want it, in a post, page or sidebar
2. You can use a wp plugin to automate the code submission

If you use the first model to copy and paste the code, then you will have to do that with every single post and page where you want your ads to show. This can be good if you want to place an ad in the sidebar once.

If you are planning on submitting an ad in every post/page then I would suggest that you use a WP plugin to automate the process. By using a plugin your Adsense ads will be displayed with every new post/page according to your settings.

How to paste code manually in the sidebar

If you want to show an Adsense ad in the sidebar, go to the Widgets section over at your WP blog.

Add a text widget to the sidebar and place the Adsense code in the text widget. Click done/save and wait for the ad to show. Sometimes it will take a few minutes before it actually shows up.

 

Use a WP Plugin

I prefer using a plugin called Quick Adsense. With Quick Adsense you can set your ads to show at different positions. You can also set it to show posts and pages or your just posts.

 

You paste the code, in the code section, and adjust the settings to where you want your ad/s to show. The ads will then automatically show on every post / page depending on your settings. You don`t want to show more than the 3 allowed ads /post or page. Again sometimes it will take a few minutes before the ads show.

 

Where to Place Your Ads

Personally I have gotten better results placing my ads in my content, not in the sidebar. This is something that you can always test though.

There has been discussions about placing ads above the fold and if that would hurt your rankings or not. I see many high ranking sites with an ad above the fold. They don`t crowd the space with ads but they show one, so if the no ad above the fold policy is true or not… not sure.

My personal take on it is for the user experience I find it better to not place ads above the fold. I don`t want the first thing my visitor see to be an Adsense ad. I place the ad/s in my content further down. I want to give my visitors a great experience that`s my number 1 priority.

There are certain areas that are better for ad placements than others, it depends on what kind of site you run as well so I suggest that you test your ad placement and try different things out. Record the changes and results and improve upon that.

 

Testing Testing Testing

Through out the article you have seen me mention “test” that. So to summarize it what can you be testing to increase CTR when it comes to Adsense ads? Here are 4 things you can test;

• Text ad or banner ad
• Ad placement
• Ad size
• Ads – affiliate offers – or both

 

Is It All Sunshine and Unicorns?

The biggest issue I`ve seen is that it`s hard to get in contact with Google Adsense if you have issues or questions. They give you the run around and there is just not an easy way to communicate with them, no email or phone number to call.

Know their rules, and play by them. Google will take action against any publisher that does not follow their rules and guidelines, so make sure you know them and follow them.

6 Action Steps to Set Up Your Money Making Adsense Site

1. Find a profitable niche
2. Set up a website
3. Submit quality content on a regular basis to your site
4. When you have some traffic apply for an Adsense account
5. Create your Adsense ad and submit ads to your site
6. Implement, analyze, test and improve

You don`t have to do this alone, I`m part of a great community that has a very active chat where you can get help from people that has done this successfully already. They also have a step by step training program for you to find a niche, set up a website and apply Adsense to it. You can find out more about it here, my #1 free way to make money online.

I hope you found this article helpful – How to Make Money with Google Adsense. I would love to hear what you have to say about it, do you use Adsense? Are you thinking to implement it on your site? Feel free to leave a comment below,

Have a productive day and a great week!

See you next Friday,

Vicky