What Is Adsense?

Adsense is a contextual advertising program by Google which allows website publishers to generate revenue from their sites by placing ads from the Google Adwords network on them. Each time these ads are clicked on by one of your visitors you earn a share of the revenue that Google makes from charging that particular advertiser.


The story begins On June 18, 2003, Google Inc. introduced the Adsense program to the world, allowing web publishers to earn money with Google Adsense in their sleep. Publishers, webmasters, and bloggers can sign up for the Google Adsense program and display relevant advertisements to their readers in conjunction with Google Adwords, Google’s pay per click revenue model.

What Makes Google Adsense So Special and Unique?

Before Google released the Adsense Program, webmasters spent time & resources forming partnerships with potential advertisers to generate revenue from their sites. Online publishers would search for advertisers, get their contact information, call them up or e-mail them, then explain why a partnership would provide value to both parties.

As you can see, seeking out potential advertisers for your website is a time-consuming process.

Most people lack the marketing expertise and spare time to actively pursue advertisers for their websites. Google Adsense bridged the gap between advertisers and publishers, providing an easy to access and highly usable network of highly respected advertisers like Nike, eBay, Coca-Cola, etc.

Once provided with a third-party advertisement service, online publishers and webmasters gained the following advantages over non-Google Adsense members:

• Make Money with 100% Automated Monetization Solutions - Using javascript, Google Adsense provides its publishers with a unique javascript code that serves up ads automatically on all content pages. Adsense’s search engine spiders automatically “read” the content on your pages, and display adverts within the context of your content. This translates to a 24/7, 365 automated cash machine that earns residual income in your sleep.

• Gain Access to Fortune 500 Companies - No matter how large your website, any publisher may gain access to advertisements from some of the largest corporations in the world. Whether you run a personal blog or a high traffic social media network, you can capitalize on the professionalism of the Google Adsense network in no time flat.

• Spend less time negotiating, More time writing - The greatest benefit is the absence of constantly updating and searching for new advertisements. Adsense is a “set it and forget it” solution, which is why webmasters become so obsessed over its powerful earnings potential.

Some quetions before starting?

What does it cost me ?

Nothing, the program is free.

Do I have to live in the USA to join ?

No

What should I have before I apply for adsense ?

A working website or blog, not one that is under construction, good content, lets say if I search for how to paint a car, I want to get info on how to do just that and not go off on ten other things with little info and a lot of ads, have at least three to five good articles and some useful links, If you only have one page right now with good content that should be ok, If you get turned down add some pages with content and apply again, remember to try to stick to one topic, that way when google scans your page the ads will be relevant to your site topic.

What's the easiest way to begin?

Creating a simple blog.

Getting Started with Blogging

Here’s the definition of a blog from Wikipedia:

“A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”


A blog is basically an online diary - A journal written by an author, about the author and/or the author’s interests. The great thing about a blog is there are no boundaries whatsoever. You can blog about your dog, cat, career, relationships, car, favorite ice cream, etc, etc. You have total control to be as creative as your heart desires!

The important thing about this journey is that you blog about something that matters to you. Different people have different interests and you’re no exception. Chances are good that others just like you are ready to delve into your material because they have similar tastes. Don’t hesitate to write about something you’re passionate about - just do it! (like Nike).

Creating a Blog Site

1) Go to Blogger and sign in with your Google account. If you don't use any Google services like Gmail you can create a new account here.

2) Click on the “Create Your Blog Now” button arrow on the bottom right and fill in the information.

3) Name your blog and give it an address. Make sure the name is meaningful and not too long.

4) Choose from one of the many templates available.

5) Your blog has been created!

Now all is OK

Google AdSense Terms and Conditions

The most important TOS are:

Invalid Clicks

- Do NOT click on your own ads.
- Do NOT encourage others to click on your ads.
- Do NOT encourage your audience to click on your ads. Attempting to be slick with your ad links and say, “click these ads” or “support us” is a good way to get the boot.

If you don't respect those terms, You’re going to get your account terminated.

Ad Placement

There are several types of ads that Google AdSense allows you to place on your site. We’ll learn more about these as we go but for now, remember these guidelines:

1.) Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
2.) A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes on a page.
3.) Up to three link units per page.
4.) Up to three referral units per page, in addition to the options above.

I encourage you to read the Terms and Conditons and the Program Policies in their entirety so you’re equipped with the proper knowledge. Heck, I’ll even provide the links on my sidebar in addition to this blog so we can all stay informed!

Google AdSense Program Policies
Google AdSense Online Standard Terms and Conditions

Google adsense account setup

It's time to get signed up with Google's Adsense and hopefully start making some money!

Like everything up to this point (minus your personal time) AdSense is 100% free. So head on over to the Google AdSense home page.

Now simply fill out the fields provided.

Google states that they can take anywhere from 2 days to a week for approval, but my experience was quite quick - a couple of hours. Google's AdSense Help Center does a great job of answering all frequently asked questions. Now that we have an account we'll be able to put the ads on our blog page!

Placing Adsense in your Blog

The great thing about Blogger is it makes it dead simple to get started. First, head over to Blogger and log into your account. When you do that, it should automatically bring you to your “Dashboard”.

To get started, simply click on the “Layout” link on the bottom right of your Dashboard summary and you'll see something similar to this:

What you're seeing here is a high level breakdown of your web design. Most sites (like my own) are composed of a header, menu, content, and a footer (not shown in my picture). To get AdSense up and running on your blog, click any of the dotted areas that are labeled: “Add a Page Element”.

Once you do that, you'll get a pop up (make sure any anti-pop up software is disabled) with many options to choose from. From here, click on the AdSense section button: “Add To Blog”. The icon is marked with dollar bills (Oh yeah!).

You have a screen that let's you choose format options and colors. It even gives us a nice little preview to save us time later on! We'll dissect these options more in future articles, but for now keep the defaults.

Hit the “Save Changes” on the AdSense window - it should close automatically. At this point you are all set! You can click on the “Preview” button on the original page to view your changes or simply refresh your blog. You also have the ability to move the AdSense up or down - or move it to a completely different page element altogether! (Just make sure you preview your changes before you save).


But where do you put AdSense!?! Can we just slap it in any old place we like?

Well, you could. And if you’re lucky you might get some clicks by blindly placing AdSense anywhere on your page. But our purpose is to make money from AdSense, so we need to optimize the best we can. Luckily for us, the nice folks at Google have given us a diagram that does just this – optimize.

Google has labeled this their “Heat Map”, and the darker the colors the better the placement. As you can see the best areas for ad placement happen above what’s known as “The Fold”. The fold is the viewing area that is first seen when a user visits your site. Typically this will include the header, navigation system, and some of your content. Therefore you DO NOT want to place your ads in the footer as it’s unlikely your audience will click on those. What you want to do is place the AdSense near rich content areas that readers are going to be drawn to. In most cases (as shown in the picture) this will be near the header, navigation, and content.



Now you have the tools setup to pull in some extra revenue (hopefully a steady stream).