Creating Your Website for AdSense

Before you even begin your site, make sure you've come up with a topic that you feel you know plenty about. That way it will be easiest to write a lot of content.

The more content you have, the better chance you have getting accepted into the program. Also, the more content, the greater the earning potential. AdSense is nothing but a numbers game. If you want to make a lot of money, prepare to write a lot of content.

Now let's talk about building your website. There are two ways you can approach this:

1) Do it Yourself (DIY) from scratch

2) Use Site Build It! (SBI!)

Why I Believe AdSense Works So Well

For years, website owners have tried to make money from their sites by putting up banner ads in hopes of visitors clicking them. The problem with banner ads is that the Internet audience is so immune to them, people do not click on them anymore.

When's the last time you clicked a banner ad?

...Exactly!

Second, in order for the web site owner to earn money from that banner ad, usually the web surfer that clicks has to purchase something. With AdSense, your visitors just have to click the ads. They don't have to purchase a single thing.

Third, most people that use banner ads do not do a good job of matching the ads to the website's content so the click thru percentages are dismal.

With Google's AdSense, not only are you displaying text ads, (which tend to receive a much higher click-thru rate than banner ads), but you are displaying contextual ads that match your website's content....thanks to Google's advanced technology.

Lots of times people think the ads are part of your site's content so they click because the information is relevant to your site. Whereas with banner ads, they often have little relevance and people tend to ignore them no matter how much they flash and fly across the page.

How Much Can I Earn With AdSense?

Google does not disclose exactly how much you'll earn per ad that is clicked.

The commission you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of earnings anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.

So it is logical to believe that keyword phrases like debt free, employment, make money, mp3, sex, etc. will earn you more per click since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web.

Advertisers generally pay more for popular terms because they are searched for more.

Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.

For example, if you see that you've made $12.60 today from 9 clicks then you can calculate that your average click-thru commission was $1.40 per click. That's as detailed as their stats will get. Also remember, that's only an average. You won't know how much each specific ad brought in.

The amount you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests, the placement of the ads on your pages, and of course the amount you receive per click.

Ideally, you should create a site on a topic you know a lot about. That way you'll have a much easier time creating a generous amount of content on that subject.

My Personal AdSense Story

I have been receiving monthly checks from Google since 2003, and I've read numerous success stories of websites earning 5 digit incomes per month with AdSense.

Now, I will admit, a 5-digit commission in a single month is probably not the norm for most participants.

I promote AdSense on three of my websites and my checks have been as high as $4,500.

The more information you have, the greater chance you have of attracting free search engine traffic. That's why it's so very important you choose a topic you have an interest in so you can keep building and building.

My checks weren't always that large. I think my first month's earnings in 2003 totaled less than $20. However, I kept getting more and more search engine traffic by adding more content and the checks slowly began to increase. I had no idea it would grow to anything like this.

What is AdSense?

Google.com earns most of its revenue by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. All this is managed through a program they call AdWords.

Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns from AdWords by displaying these same text ads on your site. In other words, you're helping Google advertise and they pay you a percentage of what they earn.

This program is called AdSense.

Every website owner should at least consider the program. Even if your site is just for information purposes, you can still participate and make decent money with AdSense -- or at least enough to fund your website.

So if you are one of those people that don't like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some.

What Is Google AdSense

AdSense is a great program, though Google has given it a confusing name. If they'd called it AdSpace, you'd know right away what it's about: selling advertising space on your website. Despite the nomenclature issue, AdSense (http://www.google.com/adsense/) has become popular with bloggers and other people who run noncommercial sites. You sign up, carve out some space on your pages for the ads (Figure 1), paste a few lines of code from Google into the HTML for your site, and let Google fill in your pages with color-coordinated ads. When somebody clicks one of the ads, Google pays you a fee (the amount varies, and the company doesn't disclose its payments).
Note: AdSense can be tricky for e-commerce sites because you can't fully control which ads appear on your site, and you wouldn't want to run ads for your competitors' merchandise right next to your own displays. You can, however, filter out some ads.
Though you can't decide which ads appear on your site, Google does a very nice job of assessing your pages and supplying ads that might interest your visitors. For example, if you run a site about the history of window treatments, Google is likely to dish up ads for vintage blinds and specialty curtain rods. That kind of relevance is important, because Google doesn't pay you when somebody sees an ad on your site; it pays you when somebody clicks an ad. So you want Google to fill your space with blurbs likely to interest your readers.
The $64,000 question is, of course, how much can you make? The exact answer is: it depends. If your site gets tons of visitors, and you focus on a narrow topic, there's a good chance Google will serve up ads that appeal to a lot of people hitting your site. For example, if you run a popular site devoted to mobile gadgetry, you might make enough to buy a new device every few months. If your site gets sporadic traffic, or more important, if it's not clearly about something, it may be hard for Google to supply highly relevant ads, and you might make enough to cover a box of paper clips every so often.

More about adsense

AdSense often easier than affiliate programs
Google's AdSense is a superb revenue generating opportunity for small, medium and large web sites.
Some webmasters are designing brand new sites specifically for serving AdSense text ads. (It's against the AdSense rules to design a site purely for AdSense, so you'll want to include a few affiliate links or sell your own product, too.)
Here's the background info:
AdSense overview

AdSense FAQ

AdSense tech FAQ

AdSense policies
AdSense allows you to serve text-based Google AdWords on your web site and receive a share of the pay-per-click payment. AdSense ads are similar to the AdWords ads you see on the right-hand side at Google when you do a search there.
AdSense is having a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry. It's often much easier to generate revenue from AdSense than from an affiliate program.
Weak affiliate merchants will die faster than ever.
If you're a merchant running a lousy affiliate program, now's the time to improve it FAST.

AdSense's advantages

AdSense is simple to join.
It's easy to paste a bit of code into your pages.
It's free to join.
You don't have to spend time finding advertisers.
Google provides well written, highly relevant ads - chosen to closely match the content on your pages.
You don't have to waste time choosing different ads for different pages.
You don't have to mess around with different code for various affiliate programs.
You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages from 100,000 AdWords advertisers.
It's suitable for beginners or marketing veterans.
AdSense provides simple, easy-to-understand stats.
If you have affiliate links on your site, you ARE allowed to add AdSense ads. However, with your affiliate links, you must not mimic the look and feel of the Google ads.
You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for sites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors.
Inevitably, AdSense is competing strongly for space on web sites with all other revenue sharing opportunities.
If you own a small web site you can plug a bit of AdSense code into your site and almost instantly relevant text ads that are likely to appeal to your visitors will appear on your pages.
If you own several sites, you need apply only once. This makes AdSense much simpler than joining a bunch of affiliate programs.
As you can see, I'm really keen on this revenue sharing service

Disadvantages

One problem is inappropriate ads. You don't want spammy junk advertised on your site. Google's standards probably aren't as high as yours. You can filter out 200 URLs, but in some industries that won't be enough.
The stats Google supplies are inadequate. They're easy to understand at a glance. However, they don't tell you exactly which ads people are clicking on, or which keywords are involved. That's frustrating.
Also, I'd like to be able to identify and block ads that have very low payout rates, without doing a lot of sleuthing and messing around.
The ad panels say "Ads by Google" - free advertising for Google. You don't earn anything if someone clicks on that link.
The minimum payout is $100, which is regarded as too high by sites which don't receive much traffic. That won't worry experienced webmasters.
Also, sites that want to display AdSense ads may not include "other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads." However, human beings review the sites. Rejected sites have been able to appeal successfully.
Another disadvantage is that Google doesn't allow you to share your stats with other webmasters. The AdSense Terms and Conditions say:
"Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: ... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to you by Google..."
That's really weird. Web site owners need to be able to share such information and discuss successes and failures.
A big disadvantage of the service is that Google doesn't say how much its AdSense partners will receive. You'll just receive an unknown share of the revenue.
Only a company with the goodwill and respect Google has earned could get away with such a cheeky offer.
Google says:
"How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks."
So the only way to know how much you'll earn is to try it and see. If you want to bail out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site.
Don't put all your eggs in the AdSense basket. If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed. Some webmasters who claim total innocence have had this happen to them.
Google has made several changes to its AdSense FAQ, clarifying varying things. For example, it IS possible to apply for separate accounts for separate web sites. I've done so, and checked with Google that it's OK in my case. Read the rules - they look ambiguous to me. If in doubt, ask first!
Some time after the launch of AdSense, Google added "channels" which improve the tracking. I strongly recommend that you experiment with these

Experiences with AdSense

The payment you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying per click to advertise using Google's AdWords service. Advertisers can pay as little as 5 cents per click and as high as $10 or $12 in profitable niches, perhaps even more sometimes. You earn a share of that.
So your payment rates can vary enormously.
The rules forbid me from revealing my stats. However, in the tests I'm doing on five sites, the results have been startling - far better than I expected. The results are much better than I receive from many affiliate programs.
In the past, I've talked to affiliates who were happy to receive $5 or $6 CPM (per 1,000 page views). My results from AdSense leave such affiliate revenues far behind.
I've increased my use of AdSense. It's a winner!
If my results are typical, it helps enormously if you build very simple, uncluttered pages so that the ads catch the visitor's eye more than anything else.

How much can you earn?

Let's say you have a goal of earning $100,000 a year from AdSense. Is that possible?
Let's see ... $100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day. So your goal is to produce either:
274 pages which earn $1 a day OR 548 pages which earn 50 cents a day OR 1096 pages which earn 25 cents a day
The following are hypothetical cases. To earn $1 a day per page, you need, per page...
400 visitors, 5% click-through rate (CTR) and average 5c payout.Or 200 visitors, 10% CTR and an average 5c payout.Or 100 visitors, 10% CTR, and an average 10c payout.Or 100 visitors, 5% CTR, and an average 20c payout.Or 50 visitors, 10% CTR and 20c average payout.Or 25 visitors, 20% CTR and 20c average payout.Or 20 visitors, 10% CTR and 50c average payout.Or 10 visitors, 20% CTR and 50c average payout.Or 5 visitors, 20% CTR and $1 average payout.
Let's assume you choose a goal somewhere around the middle, say aiming for 50 visitors per page and want 274 pages earning $1 a day. You'd need 274 x 50 = 13,700 pageviews a day.
Does that sound too tough? If so, you'd better look for more profitable keywords and ways to improve your click-through rates.
Let's try a different scenario. You choose more profitable keywords and make your $1 on average per page from, say, 10 visitors. 274 x 10 = 2740 pageviews a day.
That's looking easier to achieve. If your average visitor sees 3 pages, you now need 913 unique visitors a day.
Is that too tough to achieve in your niche? If so, create two sites, each attracting half that number, 456 unique visitors, a day.
Can't achieve those click-through rates and payouts? Then you'll either need more pages on your sites on more niche sites.
Some affiliates have a goal of writing one article a day and building one site a month.
Need a little more help reaching that $100,000 goal? Add affiliate commissions into the equation. Add a newsletter for repeat sales.
Choose the goal which best matches your site or sites.
Then start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site.
Please note, because of the AdSense rules, these are all hypothetical cases. I'm not allowed to give real cases. Real CTR rates and payouts vary hugely.
It's fast
Google usually approves web sites in less than a day.
After your site is approved, within a few hours a special Google spider will spider your site. Then it's time to paste the code into your site and the text ads will appear.
You can choose between either horizontal or skyscraper AdSense ads

How AdSense matches ads to web pages

Google is doing a good job of finding ads that are highly relevant to the web pages.
Google says:
"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."
Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising.
Also, watch out for your anchor text - the words in the links on your page. We've found that sometimes if irrelevant ads are being served, you can fix the problem by rewriting anchor text.
You can check the relevance of the ads by looking at the text ads near the top-right of this page

Will the AdSense ads appear on your page?

Publishers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites.
Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads.
You can also use AdSense's preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries.
Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity.
Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs

Why are the wrong AdSense ads being displayed?

Sometimes, Google seems to get it wrong. You create a page and ads you've seen elsewhere and were expecting to see on your page just don't turn up. Instead, you see vaguely relevant or totally irrelevant ads.
Here are four possibilities:
1. Your page isn't perfectly optimized for the keywords. It's very important to get the key phrase in the file name, for example "product-xyz.html", in the title, in the heading, in the first paragraph, in the body, at the end, and put it in the meta tag description, too.
2. Advertisers can choose to advertise just on Google's search engine. They can opt out of advertising on the AdSense content network. Perhaps the advertisers you're interested in have opted out. To check, type a few phrases into Google and try to find some sites that are displaying Google ads and see which ads appear.
3. Advertisers can choose which countries will see their ads. If you're in Canada, for example, you may not see an ad that people in the U.S. will see. To find out where ads are being displayed, download the free Adsense Preview Tool.
4. This is very rare, but weird stuff can happen for no apparent reason. If all else fails, contact AdSense support. I've always found them prompt and helpful

Sites using AdSense

Sites using AdSense include large information sites, affiliate-driven sites, forums and blogs.
"Chat" sites are considered not suitable. Some blogs are being rejected, but information-rich blogs are being accepted.