Make Sense of Google AdSense – and make money!
As a successful web publisher looking to get to the next level, you are probablythinking about trying a number of different approaches to increasing revenue –
especially your passive revenue, the money that just “shows up” from time to
time while you focus on other things. You may be considering various forms of
internet advertising. And you should.
Internet advertising has exceeded all expectations. The technology keeps
advancing, and the popularity and ubiquity of the medium is incredible. Most
companies can benefit from the Internet because it allows the chance to reach a
global audience at never-before-possible speeds, with many kinds of filters to
make sure the right audience sees the right message, and costs that are often
surprisingly low. But many businesses make money online in ways that have
very little to do with their own actual business, but with systems that connect
various companies and offerings together.
You may be wondering how to make money easily with online advertising, and
you have come to the right place!
The secret is that taking ads is a much more profitable strategy then placing ads
for most websites. And the best way to make money with this right now is “hiding
in plain sight” from the world’s most popular search engine company.
While there are many ways to approach online advertising, it makes sense the
best would be offered by the ultimate search engine company, the company that
is setting out to organize all of humanity’s vast amounts of information – Google.
This method is Google Ad Words, and it’s sister program, Google AdSense. With
Ad Words, Google makes a lot of money. With AdSense, web publishers – that’s
you! – can reach a lot of people and make a lot of money too!
In this report, we’re going to focus in on how to make sense of, and a lot of
money with, Google’s AdSense program.
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Want to make five or ten or twenty thousand dollars a month automatically and
be paid by one of the biggest Internet companies in the world?
We’ll describe what AdSense is, how it works, how to get started, how to
maximize the program, and where to go from here! Ready?
First let’s examine what AdSense is and how it works.
What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is an ad-serving program that places ads that “make sense” –
specifically, that make sense based on relevant content, and assumptions about
who might be interested in that content. AdSense is an application of the broader
concept of Contextual Marketing. Contextual Marketing is just what it sounds like.
On a website about custom cars, you might have an ad for fancy wheels or car
care kits. On a website about off-roading, you might have an ad for durable truck
tires or spotlight rigs. A hockey site might advertise hockey sticks…and a tennis
site, tennis shoes. Contextual Marketing just means aligning the ad serving with
the context/nature of the website and its audience, the same way like items are
grouped in a store. And the “context” can be cut much finer than website level, it
can be page level, article level, and so on, so the ads always match the material
they are appearing near, and thus, appeal to the interest of the reader/buyer at
any given moment.
So what’s in it for you – the website publisher/owner? That’s easy. Every time a
visitor to your site clicks one of these ads, you make money. The better the ads
are targeted, the more clicks you get, the more money you make. AdSense
displays easy-to-read, text-based, relevant ads that don’t overshadow the
content of your website or annoy visitors. Actually, you have seen hundreds of
these ads yourself, as you’ll realize in a moment.
Today there are probably only a few places in your website that can directly
make you money, if any. The magic of Google AdSense is this: It allows you to
earn money through every page of your website. On top of that, with algorithms
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used to align ad content with page content Google automatically selects and
displays ads for your website that are likely to generate the highest revenue for
you.
AdSense is an application of AdWords beyond Google.com
Making “sense” of AdSense means understanding that it is really an offshoot of
the older Google model, AdWords. But they are not the same thing.
Google AdWords
If you have ever searched on Google, you have seen AdWords.
Google AdWords are the small text ads that are displayed on the side of the
search results in Google. These ads are contextual of course – in this case the
context is the search terms you entered. The ads will be served based on what
you’re looking for. So, if you do a search on “printing services” you will get ads for
printing services along with your search results!
How does this generate money for Google and the advertisers?
Google AdWords works on a model known as pay-per-click. When someone
clicks on an AdWords ad, the advertiser of that ad has to pay Google a certain
amount. It’s easy to track and fully automated.
We say “certain amount” because that amount is different all the time and is
subject to market forces – in this case, bidding. Something has to determine the
placement of those ads, and what determines it is how much the advertiser offers
to pay per click. When you submit this kind of ad to Google, you submit it with a
bid – which is compared to other bids for similar keywords. It’s an auction style
process.
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The position of the AdWords ads is based on the bidding amount of keywords of
an ad. Obviously, the higher the bid, the higher the position the bid buys you. For
instance, if the highest bid for the keywords “Internet marketing” is 80 cents per
click, you can get top position by bidding 90 cents. Then every time someone
clicks on your ad, Google would charge you 90 cents, and you would retain the
top position until someone else bids more for the same search word placement.
Google AdSense, as stated earlier, is an extension of Google AdWords. It takes
the AdWords concept and moves it off of Google’s search page and onto
thousands of other web pages. The ads that are displayed on the websites are
Google AdWords ads.
It’s good for the advertiser, who gets more and broader displays, for Google, who
charge more for this program, for you, who will make money from the
clickthroughs on your pages, and also for the consumer, who will see cool ads for
stuff they are probably interested in!
So how exactly are you making money from all this? You earn a share of the
pay-per-click amount, every time a visitor clicks on the ad. So you just need to
get ads on your site…
How the Ads Get On Your Site
Once you join the AdSense program – and Google approves your site or sites,
which we’ll cover in detail shortly – the actual process of displaying ads on your
website is extremely simple. You are provided with a small HTML script, which
you can paste anywhere on your webpage. You may paste this code any number
of times and on multiple pages, and watch the ads get served! Google
automatically places AdWords ads that are most relevant, from its extensive
advertiser base. Google employs various sophisticated algorithms to determine
the relevancy of the ads to your content.
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Before we get into how Google assesses sites, and whether a few or many
placements of that magic script will deliver optimum results, let’s review the
advantages of AdSense.
Advantages of the Google AdSense system
Google AdSense is simple to use and manage. Once approved, displaying ads
on your webpage does not take time and requires minimal technical knowledge.
Google AdSense is very smart about ad selection. The ads that are displayed are
only those that are relevant to your content, and Google has strict quality control
on the general quality of the ads.
Google AdSense uses text-only ads. Far from being low-tech, text ads are more
effective than flashy ads. The clickthrough rate of text ads is proven to be higher
than that of animated ads! More clicks equals more money, and text ads equals
more clicks. Also…text ads are very “low weight” and very fast loading. The
AdSense program will not slow your website, or your visitors, down. You can also
use graphic ads.
Google AdSense programs: Choose your weapon(s)!
Google currently (mid 2005) offers three programs: AdSense for content,
AdSense for search, and Premium AdSense.
AdSense for content
AdSense for content is the main AdSense program – contextually targeted ads
are displayed on your webpage, and you get paid for every click. These ads are
specifically targeted to the content of your webpage. Consequently, if you change
the content of your page, the ads that are displayed would also change. AdSense
allows you good control over what ads get served, since there might be some
obvious problems if it didn’t. These include:
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Blocking Ads – you choose
While the ad selection is automatic, you can block unwanted ads – such as those
from your competitors. You just tell Google which companies to block from your
sites.
Reviewing and filtering Ads – semi-automatic
Google has its own strict policies for ad content (no profanity, no racial
discrimination, etc). These are filtered out automatically from your point of view.
Additionally, you can choose to block additional content through custom filters.
This is slightly different than blocking an advertiser, since with this method an
advertiser you generally allow may submit ads that would individually be filtered
out.
Allowing the publisher to select an ad
In the rare case where Google’s content engines can’t make a clear match of ads
to pages, they will let you pick which ads you want served. If you don’t pick, you’ll
get public service spots.
The look-and-feel of Ads can be customized
Ads shouldn’t look out of place or be jarring on your website. Google allows you
to customize colors and layout. You can choose options provided or have your
own custom layout and color applied to the ads. The advertisers have no control
over this; as the material appears on your site, you can and should select how it
looks.
Tools for analysis
Tracking and analyzing the performance of any marketing campaign is critical.
Google AdSense provides a range of comprehensive online reports that allow
you to monitor and analyze your earnings as well as the performance of ads by
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many metrics, including size, color, and so forth, so you can make adjustments to
maximize the value of the placements.
AdSense for Search
This is another program whereby Google allows you to ad a Google Search box
to your website. By doing this, visitors to your site can search the entire internet
from your website itself. In a way, your site becomes a host to Google. Except
you make money!
The search results page that is displayed when a visitor on your website
searches through the search box on the site itself, also displays Google Ads
(AdWords ads) next to the usual listings, just as it would on Google.com. If the
visitor clicks on any of these Google Ads, you get paid as well. Thus, with
AdSense for search you can enhance your income potential beyond what just the
content of your actual site can provide.
AdSense for search offers all the same options and controls as AdSense for
content. These include ad customization, ad filtering, monitoring and tracking
results, and so on.
Google AdSense Premium service
The AdSense Premium service provides advanced functionality and features,
provided your website qualifies for it – which in fact very few sites do.
As a base requirement, your website should received at least 5 million search
queries or 20 million page views a month to qualify for the Premium service.
(We’re betting if your sites qualify for this level of service, you already know all
about AdSense!)
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How much can I make with AdSense and
how do I get started?
You’ve seen the nutty claims by so-called “internet experts” that strategies and
programs they have devised enable surfers to earn thousands of dollars within a
matter of days! Or minutes!! No such thing.
However, there are several lucrative programs that can provide an extremely
generous income with comparatively little effort – Google AdSense is absolutely
one of them.
But it takes some time, and it takes some planning, like anything real does. The
rest of our report is all about unlocking that potential.
To start understanding the potential, think about how you make money with this
program. Each time someone clicks an ad on your pages, you get a percentage
of what Google is paid for placing that ad.
Revenue (or Income) from an Ad
=
Clickthrough value of the ad * Payout Rate * Clickthrough rate of the
Ad * Webpage traffic * Frequency of Ad
In the above equation, Clickthrough value is the amount the advertiser pays per
click for the Ad (this figure varies); the Payout Rate is the percentage of revenue
to be paid for every click fixed by Google (this figure varies); Clickthrough rate is
simply the # of times the ad is clicked on in a certain period of time divided by the
# of times it is displayed during the same period; Webpage traffic is the # of
visitors to your website; and Frequency of Ad is the # of times this particular ad
appears on your webpage.
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Let’s put some figures into the above equation and see what the income is. The
figures below are for a single day:
Clickthrough Value → 30 cents or $0.30 (The advertiser pays 30
cents per click for the Ad, to Google)
Payout Rate → 50% or 0.5 (This is an assumption based on what
many experts believe to be the current payout rate for most
deals)
Clickthrough rate of the Ad → the ad is displayed 100 times
within the day and clicked by 9 people → the clickthrough rate
would be 0.09
Webpage traffic → 150 visitors during the days
Frequency of Ad → 100
The Income per day from a single ad would be = 0.30 * 0.5 * 0.09
* 150 * 100
= $202.5
If you consider this to be the average income per day, the total revenue
generated within a month would be more than $6000. This is incredible,
considering you basically did nothing to earn that money. We know of cases
where people have earned even more than $25,000 a month with AdSense,
which is a large sum to anyone.
Our goal is to equip you to get started on the road to making money with
AdSense.