Online Marketing Blog

AdSense is a double-edged sword; sure, it can earn you money but it can also be a distraction. Picture this:

You have a new website and you’ve been accepted by AdSense so you rush off to generate the code and install it on your site. Perfect, you think, the money will soon come rolling in. WRONG! It won’t and this is why.

Tip #1 AdSense don’t disclose which niches have the best Click Through Ratio (CTR). (By the way CTR is clicks divided by page views so if you have 10 clicks from 100 page views, your CTR is 10% – that’s actually extremely high, so is just an example.)

Tip #2 If you have a new website, you probably don’t get more than 10 visitors a day which equates to 30 per month. Even if your CTR is 10%, you have had 3 clicks and unless you’re in a very high value niche, you have just earned around $0.30

Tip #3 The average CTR is probably between 0.5 and 2%, if you’re lucky, so look at this another way, you didn’t earn anything like $0.30 cents in the month.

Tip #4 Don’t let AdSense distract you! I remember when I first started, I couldn’t wait to look at my AdSense account to see how much I was earning and when I discovered it was virtually nothing, I thought that maybe the ad positions or colours or content were wrong, so I moved them and changed them but the income didn’t get any bigger because I didn’t have the traffic and I was wasting time that I could have used to create content.

Tip #5 Did I mention content? Well I will now because it’s the life-blood of a website, particularly one that aspires to earn with AdSense. Unique, informative content is paramount.

Tip #6 Don’t expect to make money from a news or review site which just regurgitates what others have already reported. You won’t get the traffic because the big boys who originated the content will have already got the audience.

Tip #7 Don’t write a personal blog because nobody cares and you won’t get traffic except maybe from your friends. Celebrities can get away with it because people are interested in the minutiae of their lives but AdSense ads won’t be focused if you use only personal content.

Tip #8 If you want to suddenly attract traffic, you need a hook. Make videos using a funny voice or with your dog doing tricks or your cat performing for the camera – that will make people watch your videos and visit your site.

Tip #9 Create your website and populate it with great content before you ever install AdSense; you will already have traffic and you won’t be distracted from your main purpose.

Tip #10 Just work at it. Create content regularly which helps people and which they want to read; that’s the only way you’ll attract traffic to your site and revenue from AdSense

So, I hope these AdSense tips will help you to focus on your content and forget those measly few cents for the time being.

Liz Canham has made a study of making money from AdSense over a number of years and has lots of AdSense tips on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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The argument still goes on about image ads vs text ads on AdSense. As a publisher, you have the choice of either or both but which performs the best and which works best for the advertisers?

Advertisers often find that graphic advertisements stimulate interest but less often end up in a sale whereas text adverts are less visible but when they are clicked more often convert to a sale. Thus, in the image ads vs text ads war, it seems that image ads are better for the publisher because they attract more clicks and therefore more income, but that text ads work more effectively for the advertiser because they result in more sales.

However, there is a third point of view to be considered; that of the surfer or website visitor. Text advertisements are less intrusive than flashy banners but that surely means that they’re less noticeable. On the other hand, banner advertising is so prevalent these days that the average surfer tunes out the intrusion and continues to peruse the website content.

Some graphic adverts do not make it immediately obvious what they’re advertising and as most people can’t be bothered to work out what an ad is for, they are unlikely to attract clicks, whereas text adverts, being keyword targeted, make their purpose quite clear.

Because text advertisements are not so intrusive there is a danger that they won’t be noticed at all. However, if they are properly targeted to the page content, they will usually contain something to attract the surfer to click through to get more information about their search subject.

From the point of view of the publisher, graphic advertising paid per impression rather than per click is obviously a good deal and it can work well for an advertiser seeking to publicise their brand rather than a specific product.

In terms of choice, in the image ads vs text ads competition, text adverts offer far more. For example, a 300 x 250 ad block will contain just one image but at least three textual advertisements. If one were to put three image ads side by side, the effect would be too dazzling for the surfer.

While Google are very strict about regulating the use of trademark names such as "iPod" in text adverts, it’s much harder to prevent them appearing in images.

For the advertiser, it’s much cheaper to produce a text advertisement, particularly if they don’t have in house graphic designers. Equally, if their text advertisements are well crafted, advertisers will only pay for clicks from visitors who are genuine potential buyers.

Speaking as a publisher, having studied the results of comparing image ads vs text ads, I am gradually changing the AdSense on most of my sites to text. I have found that text ads are far more likely to relevant to the content of my sites and therefore of more interest to my visitors. Relevance equals income, as far as I’m concerned.

Liz Canham has made a study of image ads vs text ads for AdSense over a number of years and has lots of AdSense tips on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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Making money from the net has changed in so many ways since the giant that is now Google, came up with the idea of AdSense. Some ways of making money from the net have become easier and some haven’t.

I don’t think any other advertising system has ever had as much impact as Google AdSense in terms of the way webmasters, advertisers and visitors treat internet marketing.

AdWords was already in existence and being used extensively before AdSense was created. As now, you could get your advert shown at the top of Google’s search results dependent upon your chosen keywords but your website didn’t have to be top ranked to get your advertisement shown. As a result, the price of advertising became lower and the profitability of a new website was now longer a pie in the sky idea.

With the advent of AdSense, online advertisers had another way of getting their ads seen because they would be published, not only on search result pages, but on any web page which matched in any way with your chosen keywords. Gone are the days of new and low ranked websites having to advertise offline in order for anyone to find out about them.

Highly paid advertising companies are no longer needed to publicise your website and the cost of advertising has plummeted because if your advert doesn’t attract clicks, you don’t pay.

All any webmaster needs to do now is sign up with AdWords, fund their account, create a small and punch advert with relevant keywords and the rest of the work is done by Google.

In addition, a publisher can earn from their website with AdSense as long as the content is relevant, fresh and doesn’t contravene Google’s policies. As a result, good websites are getting better with content being frequently updated so visitors are happy too.

The problem the publisher faces now though is not how to earn enough to maintain his website but how to get it ranked in Google so that those visitors arrive.

Visitors seem to like Google sponsored ads because Google is a big name that they can trust so are more likely to click on an advert.

Unfortunately, there are those who abuse AdSense by creating websites stuffed with keywords and not offering the visitor a good experience. This is tantamount to click fraud as a visitor is bound to click on AdSense to get away from the rubbish.

Of course, such sites can be reported to Google and their accounts will swiftly be closed down if they’re found out but Google can’t legislate for the corrupt or the greedy so in general AdSense has changed making money from the net for the better.

Liz Canham has made a study of making money from the net over a number of years and has lots of AdSense tips on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

Publish this article: How AdSense Changed Making Money From the Net

Making money from the net has changed in so many ways since the giant that is now Google, came up with the idea of AdSense. Some ways of making money from the net have become easier and some haven’t.

I don’t think any other advertising system has ever had as much impact as Google AdSense in terms of the way webmasters, advertisers and visitors treat internet marketing.

AdWords was already in existence and being used extensively before AdSense was created. As now, you could get your advert shown at the top of Google’s search results dependent upon your chosen keywords but your website didn’t have to be top ranked to get your advertisement shown. As a result, the price of advertising became lower and the profitability of a new website was now longer a pie in the sky idea.

With the advent of AdSense, online advertisers had another way of getting their ads seen because they would be published, not only on search result pages, but on any web page which matched in any way with your chosen keywords. Gone are the days of new and low ranked websites having to advertise offline in order for anyone to find out about them.

Highly paid advertising companies are no longer needed to publicise your website and the cost of advertising has plummeted because if your advert doesn’t attract clicks, you don’t pay.

All any webmaster needs to do now is sign up with AdWords, fund their account, create a small and punch advert with relevant keywords and the rest of the work is done by Google.

In addition, a publisher can earn from their website with AdSense as long as the content is relevant, fresh and doesn’t contravene Google’s policies. As a result, good websites are getting better with content being frequently updated so visitors are happy too.

The problem the publisher faces now though is not how to earn enough to maintain his website but how to get it ranked in Google so that those visitors arrive.

Visitors seem to like Google sponsored ads because Google is a big name that they can trust so are more likely to click on an advert.

Unfortunately, there are those who abuse AdSense by creating websites stuffed with keywords and not offering the visitor a good experience. This is tantamount to click fraud as a visitor is bound to click on AdSense to get away from the rubbish.

Of course, such sites can be reported to Google and their accounts will swiftly be closed down if they’re found out but Google can’t legislate for the corrupt or the greedy so in general AdSense has changed making money from the net for the better.

Liz Canham has made a study of making money from the net over a number of years and has lots of AdSense tips on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

Publish this article: How AdSense Changed Making Money From the Net

As well as putting AdSense content ads on your site you can use Google search. If you don’t know how to make money with Google search, read on.

Google search provides website owners with the chance to offer a search tool on their site, the results of which contain paid Adwords advertisements, which in turn generate revenue for both the publisher and of course, for Google.

The reason why this tool is effective for publishers is this. A visitor has been searching for something which makes him end up on your site. Unfortunately, you haven’t got the information he wants so he needs to continue searching and if you haven’t got a search box, he’ll almost certainly return to Google to carry on with his research. However, if you have your own search engine on your site returning results from Google, he will probably use that and also very probably click one of the links which comes up – that’s how to make money with Google search.

Publishers don’t usually feel that rival AdSense ads on their site are a problem because if they cause a visitor to click away they’ll still make money and the same goes for search. Another advantage to the website owner is that the search box doesn’t use up much real estate on their site and the settings can dictate that the search results appear on a different page – either a Google page or their own page in frames. Even if you don’t choose for the search results to appear on your own pages, you can specify the colour scheme for the Google results page so it still looks as though it’s part of your site. As these results are in a new page, your own page will remain open for you visitor to return to.

Your website will have more appeal to visitors if you offer that extra facility of a Google powered search; your visitors may even choose it as their home page if they like your content enough and find what you offer to be useful.

Many Google search publishers say that search often doesn’t make as much money as AdSense units do but it can keep your visitor on your site while still earning you income for each other site that they click on. Your reader can also use Google search to search your own website so it’s really multi purpose.

Adding a Google search box to your site is very simple and takes barely any time at all if you follow the simple instructions in Liz Canham’s post How to Add Google Search to Your Site which you can find on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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Since Google changed their interface it hasn’t been as obvious as to how you set up AdSense or how to make a custom search engine so here’s a quick tutorial on how to set up Google Search.

I’m going to assume that you’re starting from the Home tab on the AdSense interface so here are the steps you need to take:

1. Click on the My Ads tab then on Search which is fourth down in the left hand menu.

2. Click on the New Custom Search Engine button and fill in the fields.
a. Name: Give your search a memorable name for example MySitesidebar. In this way you will be able to identify your different searches and edit them when necessary.
b. What to Search: Click the radio button for The entire web or Only sites I select. If you choose the latter, you will need to list the sites you want to search.
c. Keywords: Choose keywords and phrases which are the best fit with the site or pages that you’re promoting.
d. Safesearch: By default this is selected; only deselect it if you don’t mind pornography and sexually explicit content being shown in your search results.
e. Country or territory: There is a dropdown list of all the countries where Google is accessible. The default is the United States.
f. Site language: Again there is a dropdown list of languages for you to choose from. The default is English.
g. Encoding: This field defaults to Unicode (UTF-8) and should match the encoding of your browser. In Firefox you use Tools >Page Info: Encoding to find out. Other browsers will be similar.
h. Transliteration: Select a language if you want your search engine to allow visitors to type in their search in phonetic English and have the results appear in another language.
i. Popular queries: Check this box if you want to.

3. Custom channels: I would advise using a custom channel so that you can track which search engines create the best income.

4. Search box style: Select the one you prefer.

5. Ad style: Select the ad style you want to show up in your results.

6. Search results:
a. Click the radio button next to your selection.
b. If you want to use your own logo, insert the url of the image file.
c. If you want your visitor to be redirected if they click on the image, insert your desired url.
d. Select your desired logo position.

7. Click on the Save and get code button.

That’s how to make a custom search engine.

To learn set up google search on your website visit Liz Canham’s website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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I have been using the Google Adsense Program to generate extra income online for some time now. I have gained a lot of experience from using the program. I feel its become necessary to share the pros and cons of the program with those that may be considering using it in this article. But first, I need to explain a bit what the program is. What is Google Adsense? Google Adsense is an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products.

These ads, which is actually a link to the advertisers website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program. In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised. The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly if you earning reaches $100.00. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows them to monitor the earnings they actually get from a certain ad.

Now that you understand what Google Adsense is.

Below are the pros of the Google Adsense program:

1. They are great for webmasters creating content websites. It used to be these webmasters worried about how to cover the expenses of running their websites. With Google Adsense, these worries became a thing of the past. All they have to do now is write their content and add adsense to it and make money.

2. Google Adsense makes the internet better for the users. Webmasters can now concentrate on publishing quality content. Quality content makes the internet better for the users.

3. Once a webmaster creates quality content, it can generate income for years to come. All the webmaster has to do is update the content from time to time and the income will keep coming in.

4. If a webmaster has the time, the webmaster can publish multiple websites. You can use one Google Adsense account on multiple websites. You dont have to go through the hassle of applying for another account with Google.

Below are the cons of the Google Adsense program:

1. The Adsense account can be closed by Google at any time. There are horror stories of webmasters waking up and seeing their account closed. They all of a sudden lose their source of income. Usually, one of the reasons that makes Google close an account is click fraud. The problem is that the click fraud my not be committed by the webmaster.

2. The Google Adsense program does not provide residual income. So, you cant continue to reap the reward of your hard work over and over as you do with residual income programs.

3. Most content websites depend on search engines for traffic. When the search engines shuffle their ranking algorithms, the traffic may drop. This drop will result in less traffic and income.

4. Creating content can be hard work. Youll need to keep adding content to keep your website interesting. Without this, you visitors may dry up, which will decrease your income. There you have it! You now know the pros and cons of the Google Adsense program. Its up to you to decide if you want to use it to earn extra income.

About the author: Copyright © Kenneth Echie. Kenneth updates the latest extra income ideas at http://www.extra-income-ideas.com. Subscribe to his informative ezine by sending blank e-mail to: bye925 AT http://getresponse.com. Other websites: http://www.franchise-opportunity-directory.com. http://www.african-safari-vacation.net. http://www.diet-plan-directory.com.

Publish this article: The Pros And Cons Of Using Google Adsense For Extra Income

If you’re wondering whether you can earn your fortune and retire by hosting Google AdSense ads on your site, then the answer is probably a resounding "no". However if you’re asking "can I earn money from AdSense" then the answer is probably "yes" but if you’re asking "how much can you make with AdSense?" it’s like asking "how long is a piece of string?"

The "how much" question is completely dependent on the keywords used in your pages, the subject of your niche and what advertisers are prepared to pay to Google to have their advert appear.

Google have a duty to their advertisers to only show their ads on appropriate pages, in other words pages which are likely to be found by using the keyword that the advertiser is bidding for.

In a nut shell you could earn a few cents every few days, a couple of dollars a day or even $1000 a month if your website is very popular.

It is actually against Google’s terms of service to publicly disclose how much you’re earning with AdSense so if you come across programs which claim to make you a fortune that way, there’s no way of proving it one way or the other, because they’re not allowed to tell you what they make.

I would look on AdSense earnings as a bit of a bonus; they won’t let you retire but they may cover the cost of running your website e.g. domain name registration, hosting and even some admin or ghost writing.

Obviously, you will earn more with AdSense the more websites you have and the more pages they contain as long as the pages are content rich and are focussed on specific keywords.

If you have a site which receives a lot of traffic, you have a better chance to earn money with Google ads and if that site is in a really popular niche such as forex trading, weight loss or internet marketing then you will certainly receive more per click than you would in the less popular niches

The position of your AdSense ads is also a relevant factor. It seems that "above the fold" adverts are more likely to be clicked than others. You can check out Google’s help to find out their perceived "hot spots" but if you use Channels when creating your ads then you will soon find out what works and what doesn’t. You also need to make sure that your ads are correctly targeted to your keywords which you can do if you use WordPress by installing the Better AdSense Targeting plugin or by making sure that your content is really relevant to your site.

Basically to earn through Google AdSense you need to concentrate on interesting, keyword rich (but not overdone) content with strategically placed adverts.

Liz Canham has made a study of how toearn through Google AdSense over a number of years and has lots of information about AdSense on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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Most people who do business on the internet want to maximise their incomes from AdSense as well as providing a good user experience to their visitors. The highest income comes from the best paying AdSense keywords; in other words, the more an advertiser pays for a keyword, the more the publisher receives when one of their visitors clicks on a link.

The problem is identifying the best paying AdSense keywords for your niche and therefore your website but it isn’t insurmountable even if you’re not prepared to pay for the information.

If you are prepared to pay, then there are keyword tools which you can buy and which will tell you the average cost per click for the keyword or phrase of your choice and you can also pay for a service from a specialist company which will give you the information you need. However, you may be pleased to know that you don’t have to pay to find out which are the best paying keywords.

The down side of doing your own research is that it’s a bit time consuming but until you’re earning a good income, this may suit you better.

Firstly, you can get yourself a Google Adwords account. Log in and set up a campaign using the keywords which you think may be high paying ones and the system will tell you the average amount you would have to bit to run that campaign. You can keep tweaking this until you find some high paying keywords.

Adwords’ own keyword tool will give you the approximate cost per click of your chosen keywords and a lot of related keyword ideas. This tool is completely free and you will be able to compile and export a large list of keyword ideas.

This website http://www.ppcwebspy.com/ provides a free tool which is an add on to your browser. Once you have activated the add on and carry out a search on Google, you will see that the paid advertisements at the top and on the right hand side show a button which says "view keywords". Click on that and if the advert has been running long enough you’ll see the following information.

Keyword
Position
Avg. CPC
Max. CPC
Clicks/Day
Cost/Day

Keep an eye on which AdSense units on your site create the best income by using Channels to track clicks.

If you use one of these methods then you’ll surely be able to find the best paying AdSense keywords and earn a tidy income from visitor clicks.

Liz Canham has made a study of the best paying AdSense keywords over a number of years and has lots of information about AdSense on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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Even though AdSense is probably the most popular Pay Per Click advertising program with publishers, it still has flaws and disadvantages which should be taken into account by new publishers.

One of the major disadvantages of AdSense is that the ads are now instantly recognisable by anyone who uses the internet regularly. This can have one of two effects; either the website visitor is distracted from the content and the main product on sale or they ignore the AdSense ads completely because it’s so obvious what they are.

Which of these is the disadvantage depends on the purpose of the website so one could conclude that if you’re trying to sell, say, a Clickbank product, you shouldn’t display AdSense ads and if you want people to click on AdSense, then you shouldn’t display any other advertisements.

Another of the disadvantages of AdSense is the revenue or lack of it. It’s true that some publishers make so much from AdSense that they hardly need to sell anything else but these are in the really hot niches where advertisers pay large sums per click. Internet marketing, weight loss and the like can earn big numbers but other niches earn little. For example I have a website called Authentic Curry Recipes. It gets quite a high amount of search engine traffic and often several clicks a day on the AdSense ads. The only problem is, because "curry" isn’t a hot topic (no pun intended), each click is only worth a couple of cents.

One of the disadvantages of AdSense from an advertiser’s point of view is click fraud. Encouraging clicks in any way or clicking ads on your own site is strictly against Google’s publisher terms of service but unfortunately it does happen when publishers try to boost their AdSense income. The result is that advertisers have started to look elsewhere meaning fewer advertisers, less competition and ultimately lower earnings for publishers.

A problem that I personally find with AdSense is that the ad targeting is very inaccurate. I run a site called Asian Food and Cookery. Well, I would have thought that the food and cookery aspect would at least attract food related advertisements and to an extent it does. However, the word "Asian", presumably because it comes first in the title, results in totally unsuitable advertisements for Asian girls and dating, which I find something of an embarrassment. This can be overcome by filtering adverts but this means that the actual target website must be entered into your AdSense account which is rather tiresome. There is a WordPress plugin for better AdSense targeting and it works reasonably well but there’s no solution that I know of for non-Wordpress sites.

Despite the disadvantages of AdSense, it remains the most popular with publishers because it still attracts a huge number of advertisers.

Liz Canham has takes a keen interest in the disadvantages of AdSense being a publisher herself and has lots of information about AdSense on her website AdSense Tips and Tricks.

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