How Does Google AdSense Work?
I have been using Google AdSense to monetize this blog for almost six months now, and I have found it to be a great service that I feel all webmasters should be informed about.
Google AdSense is a fun and easy way to earn revenue by placing advertisements on your web pages. As long as your website complies with Google’s terms of service, then it should be no problem at all to gain acceptance into the program. Just two days after deciding that I wanted to publish ads on my website and I was already earning cash. It’s really that simple.
If you’re a webmaster considering to make the jump onto the publisher bandwagon, then you might be overwhelmed at first by the amount of options that are available. I’ve tried other services in the past, but I can confidently say that after using Google AdSense for six months, it is by far the best ad network around.
I am not affiliated with Google in any way, and this blog post is being written purely out of my own free will. I have no incentive to make this article other than to inform my fellow webmasters about an amazing opportunity that shouldn’t be passed. With that said, allow me to back up my claim.
Google, being the Internet giant that it is, has an amazing algorithm that it uses to provide visitors to your site with the most relevant advertisements possible. I have used ad networks in the past that operate in ways that are horrendous. If I write a blog post about programming tips in PHP, I would appreciate it if my readers weren’t exposed to advertisements about weight loss or hair removal.
Advertisements such as those seem to plague the Internet, as there is no corporation other than Google itself that is able to parse through the contents of a web page, determine the most important keywords, take into account the geographic location of the visitor, the time of the day, and dozens of other variables all within a fraction of a second, just to determine which ad would be the most appropriate given the circumstances. Weight loss and hair removal? There’s a time and a place, but not on my website.
Your visitors are at your website because they’re interested in reading about whatever topic it is that you endorse. If advertisements related to that topic are being displayed, then there is a much higher chance that they will attract the reader. Yes, I’m stating the obvious, but it’s very easy to underestimate the importance of relevant ads, and that is where Google shines.
So how easy is it to put up these ads? In the “AdSense Setup” section of the control panel, you can select which types of ads you want to display (text ads, image ads, search bars, etc), the size of the ads, and the color scheme. Designing a color scheme that blends in nicely with your website is critical, as if the advertisements just appear to be tacked on then it certainly doesn’t give the visitor a good impression and may skew their confidence in your credibility.
Google will then generate a small snippet of code which you will place in the source code where you’d like the ads to appear. After that, simply wait ten minutes and Google will take it from there.
So how are earnings computed on a per click basis? First, understand that there are two sides to the trade. Publishers place ads on their website and earn money for sponsoring them, while advertisers pay money to have their ads shown on various other websites.
Advertisers pay money to represent various keywords or key phrases. Someone advertising for a website about dogs might invest in keywords such as “pets”, “dogs”, “chew toys”, or whatnot. For advertisers, this becomes competitive, and certain keywords cost more money than others.
For publishers, however, it works a little differently. Let’s say you are planning on creating a website for the sole intention of generating revenue through Google AdSense. The first thing you would do is decide on a topic for your website. It just so happens that “debt consolidation” is one of the most expensive and competitive keywords in the industry. So why not create a website about debt consolidation?
The flaw with this idea is that there are already so many other websites on this topic for that very reason; it’s worth a lot of money to publishers. If you were to make your very own debt consolidation website, you would find it to be extremely difficult to get traffic, as any Google searches made for that keyword will place thousands and thousands of other websites in front of yours; nobody would find your website.
Not to mention that it is against Google’s terms of service to attempt to manipulate the ads in any way. Google is a smart company, and they cater to their advertisers. I pay money to have my ads shown on others’ websites, and I certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if I didn’t get what I paid for, and Google takes extreme measures to preserve the integrity of their program.
I see Google AdSense as a perk. I operate this blog and inform others about various things simply because it’s my hobby. To put it simply, I get paid for doing what I enjoy, and it is that attitude that makes AdSense a great opportunity for web developers like me.