What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is the No. 1 Revenue Sharing, High Paying Affiliate Program and if you have a website or blog, you can join this program for free.
This is a platform in which advertisers can display Google advertisements on Web sites and earn revenue from hits that generate traffic for the Google search engines. It represents companies of all sizes worldwide in multiple languages. Adsense is a revision and expansion of the concept behind the banner advertisement sharing arrangements that have been in use for years.
Google AdSense is a program run by Google Inc. that allows publishers in the Google Ad Network content of sites to show text-based ad units, image-based and video-based ad units that are specifically targeted based on the website’s content and its audience. Such interest-based advertisements are controlled, organized, and managed by the Google AdSense team.
Note: This article is a reflection of my own experience. If you want further information on this revenue program, you can go through the latest adsense policies and keep yourself updated.
HOW DOES GOOGLE ADSENSE WORK?
Google Adsense is a program which displays ads on various platforms based on the user’s interactions with the browser. There are 4 different types of ads targeted on these platforms which automatically display the ads.
- The Adsense program thoroughly checks the content, keywords, and links available on the web page and determines what that page contains and filters the ads in their database which are related to that content and delivers the ads according to the content.
- Interest Based: Based on the user’s previous interactions with the browser, it determines which products are suitable for the user and delivers appropriate ads.
- Placement Targeting: Here, advertisers have the option to select the placement of the ads on our blog based upon our blog’s popularity and the keywords we use in our content allow the advertiser to choose our blog.
- Language Targeting: Based upon users’ demographic areas and the language we use in those places, allows Adsense to determine which ads to deliver for that particular user. This is called language targeting.
How to Get Google AdSense Approval Fast for My Blog?
Follow these steps and get Google AdSense Approval fast within 3 days for your blog.
- Age: You must be at least 18 years of age to participate in AdSense.
- Payee Name: Your Payee Name needs to match the name on your bank account.
- Domain: You must have a paid domain, no sub-domains, no blogspot, etc. You must be the owner of the domain.
- Google Webmaster Guidelines: Your website should totally comply with Google Webmaster Guidelines. The following pages should be included on your website. a. HTML Sitemap b. XML Sitemap c. Privacy Policy Page d. Google Verification Page e. Yahoo Verfication Page d. Alexa Info Text Page e. Unix Data Page etc
- Unique and Quality Content: Put unique, quality content (not copied from other blogs or websites). Don’t copy and paste other people’s content onto your blog. Don’t use copyrighted images on your blog.
- Google Analytics: Add your site to Google Analytics. Get the verification code and paste it on your website. (It will show that you are the real owner, as well as the Google Adsense Crawler will display relevant Google Ads on your website. So, submitting your site to Google Analytics is a must.
- Google AdSense Program Policies: Follow Google AdSense Program Policies Strictly.
- Add a privacy policy, terms of service, about me and contact page on your blog.
- Conclusion: After finishing all the above things successfully, apply for Google AdSense. I am 100% confident you will get approval within 3 days.
Besides this, follow the following important guidelines as well:
Content:
YES! The First Thing That Google Adsense Sees in a Blog or Website is its Content. And Google Adsense Have Strict Policies About This, which are Provided on Your Blog.
- Your Blog Should Provide High Quality Unique Articles, Which are Not Copy Paste From Somewhere on the Internet.
- Adding Images & Video Tutorials Will Help a Lot Because Images Speak Thousand Words Which You Can’t Express.
- Your Content Should Not be Related to H*cking, Cr*cking, Wa*ez or Po**ography (Google Adsense is Strictly Against those Blogs).
- Your Blog Must Contain 40–50+ Articles. [Note-No. of Articles is Not Fixed, It Depends Upon Your Post Quality. If You are Providing Very High Quality Articles, Even 20–30 Articles are Enough For Adsense Approval.]
Your Blog Post should be a minimum of 600–700 words.
Site Design:
Your Blog Must Have a Neat & Clean, Simple yet Professional Design. Much Better if it has a Unique Design. Your Blog Design Must Include These-
- Easy Navigation.
- Search Box.
- Irritation Free Colours.
- Link to some important pages like About us, Contact us, Privacy Policy & Sitemap [Disclaimer & Terms of Use Pages are Mandatory].
- Link to Facebook and Twitter profiles.
- Social Buttons & Subscription Box.
Domain Age
If you have a developed blog, then a domain age of 2-3 months is OK, but if you have an under development blog, then I’ll consider 6 months of domain age.
For Asian Bloggers, there is No Strict Rule of Waiting 6 Months Before Applying for Adsense, But I’ll Suggest You Wait For 6 Months Then Apply for Google Adsense.
Note – You Must Have a Top Level Domain Before Applying For Google Adsense.
Traffic:
If I Stay True to You, Google Doesn’t See How Much Traffic Your Blog or Website Gets. But to Avoid Rejection, It’s Better to Have 1000 Page Views & 300+ Unique Visitors Daily on the Basis of Google Analytics. You must work on improving SEO to get better traffic.
If You Have More Traffic From Search Engines & Your Most Traffic Comes from the United States & Canada, Then it will Increase Your Chances of Getting Approval.
Tips for placing Google Adsense Ads:
Google Adsense is one of the easiest ways to present your promotions that can benefit you in a precise way. First, you want to mark the ads either with “Paid Ties” or “Ads.” This is meant to help pay attention to advertising and is absolutely appropriate in Google policy.
Second, put your ads in the best available positions (i.e. Adspace) on your website. If you have a longer article or post, the ads would fit best in the middle or at the bottom of the article/post/page. Your website users can search for relevant links to follow up on what they have previously read. However, if you post a short article/blog, you can place the advertisement at the top of the page, because this tends to attract the reader’s attention.
Third, Google Adsense’s trick is to match the ads with the website properly. While you want the ads to stand out to the viewers, you do want to make sure they are appealing and meaningful. The easiest way to do this is to match the colors of your ad with your site. Ads with no backdrop or boundaries would work well as they use the background of the website. Additionally, seek to change the font of your ads to a significantly lighter color than the text on your website. It helps the advertisement to stand out in a way that appeals to both the website and the advertising.
The AdWord program is behind all this, managing and sorting all information and the source of all money making with Google AdSense.
The problem that emerges here is how to get the most catchy spot on the web. Okay, it all depends on an auction scheme. Advertisers have to pay for the most desirable spot, and those that give the most enticing number get the most stunning spot on the page. The standard of the ad always plays a role in deciding the location.
Now, that you have displayed text or image ads on your site, you have become entitled to a share of the revenue that Google is making from AdWords. You, being a publisher, get approximately 68% upon a single click, while Google gets roughly 38%.
In short, this simple concept leads to the program called AdSense. Just display ads and get paid. Simple! This seemingly simple program is great in the sense that it allows you to generate additional income from your website depending on the quality of your content.
How much money can be made via AdSense?
Many people are interested in learning how much money they can earn from AdSense and what the average cost per click is. Yet it’s a fact that the solution to this very problem is best known only to Google. No one else knows it, either to publishers or to us. It all depends on how much the advertisers pay for every single ad, and the profit they receive always depends on the price charged by the advertisers. Publishers are getting a share of that number.
There are certain searches based on highly competitive words, searched more often, that pay more per click. In short, the more competitive the search is, the more the advertiser pay, the more chances for the publisher to earn.
After signing in to your Adsense account, you can check the total amount of revenue earned during the day, week, month, or year without even knowing the exact amount generated for each button. For example, if you received $35.00 in your account after 25 clicks, that would mean you received an average of $1.3 per click. Through keeping track of the daily amount earned and estimating the average, it would be possible to pin down the estimated sum per click.
There are a variety of other variables that contribute to the number you produce. How much traffic you have on your site, the interest of your audience, the consistency of the advertising and the interest of the user, and how well the advertisements are positioned on your site make a significant contribution to the amount that you can eventually make.
Since, AdSense values content a lot, so you should opt for a topic for your site that you have a solid grip on. Thus, it would be convenient for you to create convincing, cogent and reliable content on that subject.
WHAT IS CTR, CPC, AND PAGE RPM?
When we check Adsense reporting, we will frequently come across these words in their reporting system, so we should have some basic knowledge about the words.
- CTR: It is the short form word for click through rate. It conveys information about the ad clicks out of the number of ad impressions we received.
- CPC: It is the short form of cost per click. It shows how much information we get for that particular click.
- Page RPM: Revenue per thousand impressions is conveyed as RPM in Adsense reporting.
Essentials of making money with AdSense?
Thus, by far, we have come to know that making money with AdSense costs you nothing. It is absolutely free, there is no complex science involved in it, it is easy to use and, above all, you get a share of almost 68%. Inquisitive minds must be wondering what the pre-requisites for starting making money with AdSense are. So, here we present a list of do’s and don’ts.
- Choice of Niche
An important consideration while getting started with AdSense is niche-what your site is all about. Different niches are not equally important. Some are more profit-generating, while others are less. For instance, health, fitness, money making, and finance would attract more quality traffic as compared to other niches like arts, culture, or history.
- content-rich website
Content, being the most important and valuable ingredient in the recipe for money-making via AdSense, is literally loved by AdSense. As long as it complies with the policies of AdSense, there is freedom in the choice of content. It could be text, videos, or images etc.
Text is usually recommended along with images and videos so that the AdSense crawler can easily get to know what the website is all about and you should write a plagiarism free article.
- You need a high-quality website.
Since then, AdSense’s focus has always been on content, but it’s not enough. Consistency of quality content is the most important thing, because Google won’t ever like ads on low-quality websites. Since they own the income of their customers, they are searching for top-notch ads on top-quality websites to run AdSense and make money.
- Target the right keywords
Another major contributor to the success of AdSense is the choice of the right keywords. If you have targeted the best keywords in your content, then you can make more money. Now, the question arises, what are the keywords? Those words used by advertisers for the promotion of their products and encouraging visitors to click on advertisements are called keywords.
- Quantity of traffic
Along with quality, another important factor is the quantity of quality traffic that happens to visit your website. This is the reason it is recommended to run AdSense on websites that have at least 300-400 visits a day. Only then would you be able to make a reasonable amount of profit. More traffic, more money.
How to Find a Profitable Keyword
There are two ways you can go about actually finding keywords.
First, you can do keyword research yourself, manually. The most common tool for this is the Google Keyword Tool. It’s completely free and I still use it for my keyword research, even though I have a bunch of fancy paid software too.
If you want to go for fancy paid software, which will save you time, I recommend getting
- KWFinder – the most popular keyword research tool (30 day account price would be approx. $29.9).
- Word Tracker – what I use now. I like it because it tells you domain name availability and can also generate keyword ideas ($27 WSO discount).
My KW Research Tool of Choice – Keyword Scout
These tools are for more advanced users who understand the fundamentals of keyword research. If you’re a total newbie, you can still benefit from these tools. Just make sure to go through the tutorials first.
First, you need one keyword for your main domain to rank for in Google search. This should be the keyword with the most searches. Once you find that, you want a list of related keywords to target individual pages.
For example, if your main keyword is “Christmas gifts”, your secondary keywords may be “Christmas gifts for mom”, “Christmas gifts for boys”, “Christmas gifts for girls” and so on.
The second way to do keyword research is to outsource it. There’s a dude named Derek on the Warrior Forum who I use to outsource keyword research for my projects. He provides you with a pretty detailed KW research report that you can use to get started right away.
- Follow AdSense rules and policies.
Up till now, we have known that Google has been very serious when it comes to dealing with its customers and safeguarding its money. However, they are flexible enough to let everyone get an AdSense account, but this does not mean they will not look after it afterwards. If they find anyone guilty of not following the policies, they will not spare a second in disabling that account.
It is literally impossible to double-cross or cheat Google in any case. They have got the best team to ensure the implementation of their rules and policies. Thus, it is highly recommended to abide by all the rules and regulations to keep your account functional.
- Made for AdSense only. Websites are not recommended.
AdSense should preferably be used to make money from a website that has got tremendous traffic. But Google usually does not favor a website that has been designed just for running AdSense. The quality of content should never be compromised for the purpose of getting more traffic and using that to make money via AdSense.
- Optimization of Ads for better CTR
For high CTR (Click Thru Rate) generation, optimization and placement of ads are very important. The following points must be taken into consideration while working to make money with Google AdSense:
i. Appropriate ad size
AdSense offers flexibility in the choice of form and size. The ad could be in any shape, like square, rectangle, button or even bar, but despite this offered relaxation, it is observed that there are only a few which convert well. Google recommends 300 x 250, 338 x 280, 728 x 90, 160 x 600, and 320 x 50 sizes. But other available sizes could be checked via experimentation to see if they work best for you.
ii. Multiple ad units
As mentioned earlier, one can run up to 3 link units, 3 ad units and 2 search boxes per page, too, in different sizes. For example, choices can be made like 728 x 90 or 160 x 600 units for under the header/side menu and two more, for example, 300 x 250 and 338 x 280 for inside the text.
There is an option to choose between text only, text and image, and image only ads. It is seen that plain text ads have given better results as compared to images, which are too obtrusive to attract clicks. But you should go on your own experimentation spree to check which scheme works best for you.
iii. Link units
Most people do not use link units. It can be regarded as a mistake as link units possess the potential to outperform normal ads because they are least obtrusive and more attractive when blended with the menu.
The Link unit can be placed under the header and under the side menu. The color scheme can be kept the same as the menu, but the font should ideally be different to create a discrimination from the format.
iv. AB test for color schemes and sizes
Apparently, the complex-sounding AB test is very simple. It is used to compare which of two similar units would perform better. For instance, check two similar units that vary in one feature only, i.e font color. Now, these units must be placed in the same spot. Run this test for a month and keep track of which unit attracts more traffic.
Why does one get disabled from AdSense?
As per rule, Google makes money via advertising. Advertisers are the ones who are being charged for every single ad appearing on your page and for every single click. Thus, Google becomes liable to keep an eye on all these activities closely. And this is what Google is actually doing, monitoring every single click minutely and meticulously, especially targeting the newer accounts, and ready to respond quickly to any suspicious activity.
Quite recently, lots of cases have been reported of accounts being disabled for “fraudulent or potential fraudulent click activity.”
But, again, the reasons are best known to Google only as many publishers are found claiming to be fault-less. In fact, this has given rise to an air of exasperation among many AdSense publishers, who are eager to know what “potential fraudulent activity” actually is.
Indeed, to safeguard the money invested by the advertisers, it has become the primary duty of Google to take immediate action upon sensing anything unusual or bizarre. This is what has motivated them to disable accounts that seem to cause “potential” risk to their advertisers’ money instead of waiting and confirming the fraudulent clicks.
If, once, you are disabled from AdSense, you will not get any credit for any activity you have done. In fact, Google will refund that money to their advertisers.
If you are interested in knowing the scale with the help of which you could gauge the number of times you have performed “potential fraudulent clicks”, it is unfortunate to announce that Google has not disclosed any such parameter that would help you to get to know about it before hand.
Indeed, all these activities are automated without prior warning. What annoys me most is the fact that you can not make any appeal anywhere and there is no way to reach out to the Google high-ups.
But despite getting frustrated, it must be kept in mind that by agreeing to their terms and conditions while signing up, we have given Google the right to do whatever and whenever they feel appropriate. When they feel something is out-of-ordinary, they definitely go for every possible measure to protect their money. They would never want their money to be wasted on fraudulent or potential fraudulent clicks.
Google never makes any commitment to us, no guarantees, no promises. Thus, upon sensing risk, you will be deprived of your Google AdSense account. In fact, everyone is at risk all the time. Though it is difficult to digest, such is life.
The system might have got loop-holes or who they have banned might be guilt-less, but you have to agree to the ultimate boss, Google, upon joining AdSense to make any money.
Google Adsense Program Policies and FAQs
- Type the Website URL of the Ad directly into your web browser’s address bar and check if the link is working or not and if the ad complies with AdWords Policies or not.
- You can also use Ad Review Center in your Google AdSense Account to review the advertisers’ lists. Here you can see Shown Ads, Blocked Ads and finally Settings. In shown Ads, you can see all ads that are now displaying on your website. So, either you can allow ads to continue or block any of these ads that ad directly placed under the Blocked Ads list. Now you might have understood the usage of Google AdSense Review Center.
- Install Google Publisher Toolbar that allows you to view your ads in more detail without clicking the ad links.
Don’t display Google Ads on the following list:
- Integrated into a software application of any kind, including toolbars.
- Obscured by elements on a page.
- placed on any non-content-based page. (Does not apply to AdSense for search or mobile AdSense for search.)
- placed on pages whose content or URL could confuse users into thinking they are associated with Google due to the misuse of logos, trademarks, or other brand features. placed
- on, within or alongside other Google products or services in a manner that violates the policies of that product or service.
The above paragraph Content Courtesy: Google AdSense Program Policies.
HOW GOOGLE SHARES REVENUE
For example, advertisers may bid a lower amount for a click on the keyword “email marketing” like 1 $. Sometimes advertisers bid a higher amount like 10 $for a specific keyword like “email marketing software”. Based on the advertisers’ bid for the keywords, we will get a share from Google Adsense.
For contextual ads, publishers get 68% revenue sharing. For search ads, publishers get 51% revenue sharing. It all depends on the keywords we use in our content and the advertisers bid for those keywords, so we have to select high-net-worth keywords to get maximum benefit from Adsense.
HOW GOOGLE PAYS PAYMENT
Google has a minimum threshold amount of 100 dollars to release the payment per month to the publisher. When you reach the initial 10 dollars, they will send you a pin number which you have to confirm in your Google Adsense account to confirm the address verification. The payment
method depends upon the country you are residing in. Usually they send you a cheque via postal service or you can choose the payment method in your Google Adsense account, like EFT, Western Union Quick Cash.
Conclusion
When you talk with respect to online money making, AdSense appeals to you as the most reliable, authentic and easiest way. It enables you to generate a handsome amount as your monthly revenue, if you follow all the rules and regulations and meet all the criteria. All you need is your time, solid and valid content utilized in the most appropriate manner.
AdSense is great for being used as a source of income, but, despite its perks, it carries a sword of Damocles hanging over your head all the time, i.e. being disabled at anytime without prior warning and even without doing anything wrong.
Thus, it is rightly said that you should not rely wholly and solely on Google AdSense for money making as it does not make you a millionaire overnight, but with luck and knowledge, it could be used as a stable source of income. But, thinking that since you have joined, you are guaranteed to make big money is not right either. If you are not doing any regular job, then you must look for alternative ways of income generation.