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. Our goal is to equip you to get started on the road to making money with
AdSense.
Part 1: Join the AdSense Program
Understanding Google policies
We discussed earlier how rewarding the Google AdSense program can be. However, joining the Google AdSense program is not that easy or everyone in the world would do it (which would defeat its purpose, ultimately). You have to be approved by Google in order to create your AdSense account and start earning
money from it.
How do you get approved? Google famously has never publicly published details of its approval process, there are tips you should follow to ensure a high possibility of getting approved.
The good news is that Google does publish its policies and you do not need to be a member to read them. You should read them and be certain that you are in 100% compliance with them, not only when attempting to start your AdSense account, but once you are already a member. They update these policies
regularly and a violation will get you suspended. A list of Google AdSense policies can be seen at: http://www.google.com/adsense/policies
Content – The Key to AdSense!
As stated earlier, we cannot say exactly how Google decides to accept or reject a site. However, one thing is for sure – the main criterion for approval is always the content of the website!
Most sites get rejected simply because they do not have any – or enough – good content. What constitutes “good” content? We can say what it is not. The types of websites that only have links and “filler” content aimed at attracting Search Engines, and sites that do not offer any informational content but solely focus on their own products and services. Google is one of the smartest companies on the Internet, and they can easily tell “junk” content from “real” content, even if many web surfers themselves can’t.
Google approves websites that have significant real content. These could be in the form of informational articles, analyses of various topics, and much more. For business websites that solely focus on selling their products and services through their website, including informational articles about their industry is smart, and this data is usually pretty easily available.
Another reason why most business websites do not qualify for the program, is that most businesses are specialized, and these websites are most likely to get Ads from their competitors, as only those ads would be relevant. As discussed, competitor ads would be blocked by you, filtered by Google, or both, so an AdSense program that serves no ads makes no sense!
Similarly, websites that focus only on links for generating search engine traffic do not have any content at all, according to both common sense and Google. These sites may rack up fairly high traffic scores and so forth, but they do not qualify for AdSense.
One of the best and simplest strategies is to include at least 30 to 40 informational articles of 400 to 450 words each and update them from time to time. Writing these articles yourself may be a daunting task. However, the good news is that there are considerable websites that offer articles for free, and plenty of professional writing resources who can not only write high quality material for you, but can especially optimize that material to work well with search engines and the “qualification” processes for systems like AdSense.
We’ve developed a 5-Step plan for success.
Part 2: The 5-Step Plan to Success
Once you’re accepted, you want to maximize the opportunity. In this section, we look at some of the most effective strategies for generating optimum revenue from the Google AdSense program.
Step 1 - Formatting Ad Blocks
You can let Google decide for you the type of ads that will be displayed on your web page, but as the website publisher, you may be in a better position to decide what ads suit the content of your website and how you would like them displayed. To the extent possible, whether chosen by Google or you, make the ads seem like part of the site itself.
Most internet marketing experts believe that the ads on your website have a high probability of getting clicked if they blend in with the rest of the content of your web page. Factors such as color scheme, font size and type, and the appearance of your ad should match your web page. Borders are optional and
we think often you should opt out – why put a box around the ad that says “Hi! I’m an ad!”?
Also, regardless of other design choices, text links should be blue. Why are text links blue? For the same reason Henry Ford said of the Model-T “They can have any color they want so long as it’s black.” They just are.
Though we think text ads are generally better than graphic ads, also known as image ads, Google does offer them with the program.
Actually, you don’t need to struggle much with whether graphic ads or text will be better on your pages, as Google’s technology will suggest whether an image ad or a text ad will be more suitable and which will earn you maximum revenues (since you earn part of they earn, they have motives to get this mix right).
However, it remains totally up to you whether you wish to run image ads or text-based ads. You can select only image ads, or text ads or a combination of both these formats on your entire AdSense account or on one page at a time based on your discretion.
Step 2 - Ad Placement
“Location, location, location.” It is true in real estate and true in advertising, including web advertising. Since the “location” of the user is your site already, the “location” of the ad in this context means on which pages, where on the pages, and so on. As noted, the less an ad looks like an ad, the more effective it is likely to be.
Then there are general design and usability factors to consider.
If your webpage is cluttered and you can’t dispense with any content, you may want to break it down further into sections or more pages to provide easier reading. This also gives you the potential benefit of placing additional ads.
As noted, we generally recommend text-based ads. However, text-dense sites may actually do better with image ads. If your site has very few graphics, you may want to balance it out by putting image-based ads. In the monotony of a lot of dense written information, image-based ads and graphics provide what’s called visual relief. This can also prompt clicks.
Where should you put the ads? The chances of your ad getting noticed by the visitors to your site increases greatly if you place ads as close to the top of your webpage as possible.
If you choose to place so-called ‘skyscraper’ ads – in magazines these would be called columns – on the sidebars of your webpage, it would be wise to place them on the right side of your principal content areas. The reason for this is the visitor to your page (in most languages) will read from left to right, he or she will chance upon the ad ultimately, if not consciously then at least out of habit. Their eyes will go there. From the left, they can visually “skip” the ad when they start reading next to it.
Your ads should be placed in such a way that it matches the links to other websites on your site. If you already have a links section on your site, put the AdSense links in that section or list. This is not dishonest – if it were Google would not allow it.
Obviously if you have a “most popular” area on your website, such as a page that is updated daily with some kind of material that people bookmark to revisit often, place your ad(s) there instead of somewhere else that may get less traffic. For many websites the home page is not actually the most accessed area. If you don’t know what the traffic pattern is on your sites, it’s easy to find out – ask your hosting provider about usage logs.
One more thing: While some affiliate marketing programs encourage host sites to encourage clicks directly, it is not appropriate to expressly ask your readers to click on the ads served by the Google programs. Not only is it unprofessional and arguably unethical, it also annoys people and moreover Google AdSense actually prohibits any such activity. You can neither directly solicit clicks nor can you do anything considered deceptive to encourage clicks.
In conclusion, the emphasis is always on quality of content on your web pages.
Good and interesting content makes your site better, more acceptable to Google, more likely to win with AdSense, and therefore more profitable for you!
Step 3 - Researching Keywords
After you are done choosing the right format and location for your AdSense ads, don’t sit back and wait for the money to roll in just yet. The next important step is to choose the right keywords for your web pages. These will influence both who visits your site, and how AdSense assigns ads to you.
The number one mistake most website publishers make is to constantly choose high-paying (i.e. expensive!) keywords assuming that it will yield them more income. While it is tempting to choose such keywords to get higher rankings on search engines, be prudent when it comes to selecting the right keywords that go with the AdSense ads that are to be displayed.. Remember the goal here is clicks, not SEO rankings. This is a case where you often do not get what you pay for.
Consider this scenario. Your web page talks about wine tasting courses. You review search phrases and keywords with “wine” in it and you find “wine rack” is in the top three and available, so you buy it. The corresponding ads also focus on buying wine racks online, wine storage and building your own wine racks. After a week when you check on the statistics of your webpage and AdSense account, you see that you are losing visitors and your income is dipping! The keyword selection is faulty in this case even though it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Why? The visitors to your web page were actually looking for wine racks and have landed on your web page talking about wine tasting courses instead. The wine course types want to sign up for the courses, maybe buy a book on wine, or a wine of the month club. They don’t want to build a wine rack. Think strategically, not tactically.
Just because a keyword is high paying and is seemingly related, does not mean it is totally relevant and you need something relevant. Relevance is more important than value! In the above case, you could have – and should have – chosen wine tasting tour, wine tasting party, wine tasting event, wine tasting class, wine tasting school, course tasting wine and so on. You are interested in relevance more than popularity. Tasting is a match. Racks are not.
Let’s look at some of the ways in which you can research your keywords for AdSense ads:
- You can check out the popularity of various keywords if you already have an account with Google AdWords. This way you will get an idea of the popularity of various keywords as well as the cost and returns that entail.
- Google AdWords also has a tool known as the AdWords Keywords Tool which can sometimes help you search for alternate keywords and variations.
- Another tool known as Keyword Analyzer can generate numerous key phrases that are typed by Internet users in different search engines.
- Consider getting a WordTracker account. They have an excellent tool that suggests top 1,000 most popular keywords. This tool can also help you create a list of relevant keywords for your webpage. You can learn a lotfrom a small investment here.
Your clickthrough rate will be boosted tremendously by including the right keywords in your web copy, of course. Keywords occurring in your ads are usually highlighted on the search engine results page. This also helps in drawing additional attention to your ad.
The URL of your webpage is also an integral part of achieving success on Google AdSense program, as it is on the Web generally. Current wisdom holds that the keywords in the URL are equally if not more important than the ones featured in the actual webpage content or in metatags.
If you change your ordinary URL to a keyword rich URL relevant to your market, it is possible to raise your CTR as much as 200% or more without doing anything else. Obvious domain names with the keywords that you want might be expensive to purchase from a broker, but you can also buy used domain names that are no longer active, often for just a few dollars per year.
Step 4 - Developing ContentLet’s assume you have good ads, good placement, and good traffic.
This step is all about how to tweak your pre-existing content to support the most effective profitability from your new AdSense program.
One major mistake many web publishers make now is to lard up their pages with a bazillion keywords for so-called “search engine optimization.”
Do not fall into that trap and clutter your web page with high-profile buzzwords that do not contribute to the value of your web page or the experience of your intended audience. Remember, we’re focused here on clicks, which means bringing relevant readers to your site and giving them a good experience that puts them in an inquisitive or buying frame of mind.
As a general rule, all content shifts should make some kind of sense. You may well be able to make connections between articles on sports, to articles on sports medicine, to articles on herbal supplements which feature ads for those products. On the other, a web page on bicycles should not have ads for other kinds of pumps, if you know what we mean.
Before you decide to add that magic Google AdSense code on any page of your website, you should have dealt with the following two important steps:
* High quality textual content: Ensure that your web pages have enough textual content so that the AdSense program can set up ads that are relevant to the content on your pages. If you have very little content, it will be difficult for Google to determine the focus of your page and end up displaying only public service ads that do not earn any revenue.
* Use different page titles for different pages: Have unique page titles based on the specific content of each page. Avoid generic or vague page titles such as ‘Untitled Document’ or ‘Page 1’. Be crisp and precise and avoid using long phrases and difficult words in the page titles. If your page has a very long title, it might get banned from some search engines, so be pithy.
Step 5 - Tracking and ReportsTracking the results of your marketing efforts can help you focus your efforts and make adjustments to win.
| Google offers a great free tracking feature known as ‘Channels’. You can use these channels to track ads on specific URLs or to categorize ads based on their formats, keywords, location on web page and so on. |
You can choose from two channel types offered by Google.
* URL Channels: This will help you track the performance of your web pages without altering your ad code. All you need to do to track your performance is to enter a full or partial URL in the channel and you’re done. A full page URL will track the performance of the specific page having that address. If you want to track all the pages on a specific domain, you need to enter a top-level domain name.
* Custom Channels: Custom channels are used to track the performance of your webpage based on the criteria that you specify. You can choose what specific factor you would like to track and customize the channel according to your requirements.
As the name suggests, custom channels are very flexible, and if you have ever used any kind of data reporting tool you will find setting them up easy and logical. You can have up to 50 custom channels!
You can compare the performance of different ad formats and the relevancy of ads. You can also compare how ads on one page are performing when compared with ads on other pages. You can do so by assigning each group of pages to a specific channel and eventually comparing results in your customized channel reports. You can also see where your clicks are coming from by assigning a channel to each of your separate pages. Also, it is a good idea to name your channel in such a way that it is easy to identify different channels in reports, especially if you are using a dozen or more.
Server LogsIn addition to the ‘channel’ program offered by Google to track your AdSense ads on your web pages, you can also use any of the various high quality external AdSense tracking software packages to track your performance in greater detail (except actual revenues – you need to get that from Google). One major advantage of such software is that it runs locally, which enables you to access specific information that Google doesn’t track. Be aware that none of these third-party software solutions are “endorsed” by Google currently but most of them guarantee to operate within AdSense guidelines. Just make sure they do,
because you don’t want to lose your account status over a technical violation by a third party.
Some of the information you can obtain by using tracking software:
* Referring website of all your visitors.
* The type of web browser they are using.
* Where the actual ad-clickers are coming from.
* Search keywords typed in by the visitors to your website that eventually brought them to you.
| You should use a combination of Google channels and a reliable AdSense tracking program so as to get comprehensive information about your AdSense account. |
Part 3: Summary and Additional Resources AdSense Do’s and Don’ts Now that you know what AdSense is all about, we can offer the following do’s and don’ts – which more or less summarizes everything we’ve said so far.
Do’s The first rule of using AdSense is to follow their terms of service. Google has exceptional monitoring ability, and if they find any violation of their TOS, your account will be suspended, rendering all your efforts moot.
Consider having a number of informative pages about varying topics but with a consistent theme for your website. That way you will have more ads to choose from and can possibly maximize your CTR.
Use keywords to your advantage. Higher paying keywords will usually but not always yield more rewards. Think relevance. Also use variations of keywords for added advantage.
Provide unique information on your web pages. The more specific the content of your website is, the more targeted your ads will be, and the more effective. Always focus on providing good quality information!
Experiment with various ad formats on your web page and choose those that suite your website. You can choose to display ads with different formats on one page.
Position your ad block in such a way that the ad is visible and yet it does not put off the readers. Ideally, place your ad in the top section of your webpage which can be viewed without scrolling down.
Use the Google AdSense preview toolbar to your advantage and see how the ads will appear on your website. Get a hands-on feel of how the visitor to your website will view your web page.
Use Google channels and other external tracking software to evaluate your performance on a routine basis.
Don’ts Do not resort to fraudulent or deceptive means for generating clicks on the ads that are on your page. Some of the methods that are prohibited by Google AdSense are:
- Automated clicking programs
- Repeated manual clicks
- Using robots to generate clicks
- Clicking your own ads
- Tricking your visitors into clicking on your ads by using fraudulent means
Don’t have confusing layers of content. Content on your web page should not hide the ad text and URL. At the same time, it is advisable that you use same font type, size and color (background and font) for both the ads and the content on your web pages so that your ad does not announce itself as an outside ad. Ideally, your ad should look and feel like a part of your website.
Don’t have broken links on your site. Your website should not contain any broken links and should be easily navigable. Also, the content on your web pages should be informative, of high quality and the ads should be relevant to the content.
Don’t have old or illegal information on your site. Be careful about outdated information, plagiarized text and obscene or offensive material. Avoid using any of these on your web pages.
Two More AdSense Opportunities: RSS and BlogsAdding Google Ads to your RSS feeds RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has gained huge popularity on the Internet. RSS is an XML document format that organizes and stores news-like content from various sources into one source. Think of it like a newswire service, the kind of stuff that scrolls along the bottom of cable channels. A large percentage of the
“news” items you find on any website that is not a major news portal got there through an RSS feed.
Google has introduced a specific program known as AdSense for RSS. It offers a variety of interesting content options that most websites themselves can’t match. Google AdSense for feeds has its own set of policies. These can be accessed at:
http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=20134. Like the AdSense program, you must follow all guidelines in order to be accepted for the AdSense for feeds program.
Placing AdSense ads on your BlogsBlogs are similar to RSS feeds in concept except they usually have one author rather than an aggregate of sources of the material they contain. Blogs (short for Weblogs) are simple web pages where you can write articles and other content on a variety of topics, and both the famous and the unknown use these online
diaries to share their thoughts, post pictures, and so on. The public can view this content and even comment on it in most cases.
Due to the considerable amount – and unlimited range – of content on Blogs, it may make sense to place AdSense ads on them. In fact, it is much easier to generate revenue from Blogs as compared to other web pages, at least in theory.
* First, blogs are full of content, most of which is original most of the time. The content may not be “good” from a human reader perspective but it is usually “good” according to Google’s scans. Thus, getting approved by Google AdSense may be easier.
• The content presented on the blog, in many cases, is quite diverse which, unlike a website that needs to be “about something” can be excused by the “everything and nothing” nature of most blogs. Consequently, the possibility of Google finding targeted ads that are relevant may increase.
• Google AdSense works only with those websites that are already indexed by Google. Blogs get indexed far more easily than regular webpages. Some blogs get indexed in as few as two to three days of submission. Thus, the chances of getting approved by Google AdSense increases.
• Blogs can be created at practically no cost – much cheaper than commercial websites.
