Blogging for Dollars

by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley

Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are:

1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs
Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served.

2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements)
Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale.

3. ) Product Promotion
Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement.

4.) Banner Ads
While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space.

As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many.

Make Money Quick With Google Adsense

by: Jeff Schuman
Do you want to make money quick? In this article we are going to
talk about one of the quickest ways you can make money. Making
money quick is not only possible there are people doing
it everyday with Google Adsense.

Google AdSense delivers text and image ads that match the
content on your website. These are very targeted ads that you
can choose the size and color of and they come across to your
customer as helpful more than an ad itself.

Google Ads require virtually no maintenance and they help you
put advertising on your website without actually having to deal
with advertisers yourself. If you can copy and paste a small
code you can have targeted advertising on your website in
minutes.

Adsense is simple to join and it is free to join. Whether you
are an internet newbie or a veteran you can profit quickly by
placing Google Adsense ads on your web pages.

Since Google does all of the work by finding the most profitable
ads for your pages you can do what you do best....provide good
content and lots of it. The more web pages you create the
quicker you will be making money. You can learn more here:

https://www.google.com/adsense/

Once you have joined Google Adsense you will want to combine
Google search with AdSense to monetize more of your web pages.
You can do this by placing a Google search box on your pages.
Google AdSense combines Google's search technology with
thousands of keyword advertisers to deliver targeted text-based
ads to search result pages. People find these ads useful and
click on them, and when they do, Google pays you.

You can see an example of how this works right here on this web
page. In fact we combine Google search and Google Adsense on
almost every website and web pages we create. We have found it a
very easy way to make money quick and to make money over and
over. It's great.

The internet offers many ways to make money quick. The nice
thing about Google Adsense is you have the largest search engine
in the world doing your advertising for you. This truely allows
you to make money quickly and you can do it over and over with
as many products as you want.

About the author:
Team-Schuman.com contains the best of everything you need to
make money online. Their make money quick website contains links to
the Top 10 webites to help you make money quickly on the internet.
http://www.team-schuman.com/make-money-quick.html

6 Easy Steps to Increase your Adsense Earning

by: Scott Patterson
How much revenue do you generate from Google Adsense?

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about people who earn over $10,000 a month just from Adsense. Furthermore, there are rumors of a few individuals who earn over $1 million a year just from using the power of Google advertisements.

So what is Google Adsense and how can you use this program to earn a six-figure income?

About two years ago, Google created this program to help websites to monetize their web-traffic.

Here's how it works:

Webmasters obtain a special code from Google which then displays targeted ads on their website. Whenever a visitor clicks on one of these ads, the webmaster earns a commission. Unlike other online businesses, there is no selling involved. All you need to do is get people to click on the ads.

Although this is an excellent way to generate an income, many websites are not effectively maximizing their Adsense potential. As a result, they are leaving a lot of cash on the table.

The question is how can you increase your Adsense revenue without increasing the number of web visitors?

The key to earning an income with Google Adsense is to have your ads match the rest of the site, making them look like part of your content. Your focus is to avoid having the Adsense blocks look like blatant advertisements.

The following are six ways that you can do this and increase your revenue at the same time:


1) Find the right place- Most website visitors read content that is in the middle of a webpage. As a result, the best place to put your Adsense block is in the top part of the page, at the beginning of your web content. You want to weave the Google Ads into your web content to give the appearance that they are extra links which expand on the information of the page.

2) Use the Large Rectangle-With Google Adsense, you have the option of picking different ad formats. Most of the time people opt to use the Leaderboard (728x90) or Wide Skyscraper (160x600) style ads. Unfortunately, this is the wrong choice, because both look like blatant advertisements. Instead smart webmasters have found that using the Large Rectangle (336x280) yields the best amount of click-thrus.

3) Ditch the border- Many people experience a sharp increase in Adsense revenue when they changing their border. What they change is very simple they get rid of the border on their Adsense blocks. This is another way to make the advertisements look like useful web content.

4) Adapt the font- Whenever you write content, it should be the same font size and style as your Google Adsense block. This will help make it appear that the advertisements are a natural part of your website.

5) Match the colors- In addition to changing the fonts, you also should match the colors of your website. For instance, if your content is written in black, and your hyperlinks are blue, then the Adsense blocks should also be the same color. Again, this helps the advertisements appear to be normal web content.

6) Don't have too many distractions- On a webpage, it is important to give web visitor a limited number of options. By having too many links and graphics, the web visitor might go to a section that doesn't help increase your profits. While it is important to inform and entertain your web visitor, it is also vital that you monetize your site. So if the main focus of your site is to earn an income through Google Adsense, then get rid of all non-essential links and graphics.

By taking the time to implement these six simple steps, you'll see a dramatic increase in the click-thru ratio of your ads. If added to all of the content of your site, your Adsense income will skyrocket!



About the author:
Scott J. Patterson earns over $12,000 a month, mostly through Google Adsense. To read about this and other home businesses you can try, download his fr*e ebook, The Secret-Guide to Home Businesses: http://www.duncemoney.com/adsense.html

How Big Is Adsense Potential ?

Google AdSense is an easy way to make extra money. Violating the terms of service could result in your Google AdSense account being terminated. It’s very important that you should follow Google AdSense Program terms of service because Google is serious about the maintaining the integrity of this program. Once your account is terminated, you are banned from using Google AdSense program and you can’t use your name and postal address to apply for another Google AdSense account.
It is a good idea to communicate with Google AdSense team or ask help from the forums if you want to be sure that whatever you do with your AdSense web site comply with Google AdSense terms and conditions. You should not worry too much if you understand the AdSense terms of service and follow them.
More adsense potential inside your site will affect overall your earnings and will give more weight to your website behaviors. I will explain some methods to make your adsense become potential and you can follow the methods for your success. Here are today’s tips :

Adsense hotspot placement
Position your AdSense ad block in the top section of your web page which can be viewed by your visitor without scrolling down. However, you should do this without putting off your visitors. This area is called “above the fold” and this is the hotspot placement for the AdSense ads.

Understanding the Terms and Conditions
You must understand and follow their terms and conditions completely. You’ve probably heard a lot of terminations of Google AdSense accounts due to violation of terms and conditions. Google has a very good monitoring system and if they find out you’ve violated their terms and conditions, your account will be terminated immediately. Once your Google AdSense account is terminated, it is very difficult for you to get back your account without a good reason.

Provide a good environment for advertisers and users
You should understand what your visitors are looking for. You should try to provide a positive user experience for all of them. Positive user experience encourages your visitor to come back more often. You should make your AdSense site easy to navigate so that your visitor could get the information they are looking for easily. Advertisers would have a better chance to promote their products to these happy and returning visitors.

Get some unique, fresh, and consistent content inside your site
Getting good content for your Google AdSense site is not as difficult as you think it would be. You can have a number of content pages about different topics but with a consistent theme for you AdSense site. You should always focus on providing quality and unique content to your website. With this way you will have different types of ads to choose from. This could be very effective and possibly maximize your CTR (click through rate). The more specific the content is, the more targeted AdSense ads you will get.

Use relevant keywords inside your site
The keywords you have used should be relevant to your content pages. Higher paying keywords will usually yield more rewards, but you can not depends on the high paying keywords since bunch of competitors out there. You should use variations of keywords to gain more advantage inside your site. Combine the high paying keywords with medium paying keywords will be a great idea.

Make some test and tracking
You should test various ad formats on your web page and choose those that suite your website. Different ad formats will produce different results. Same ad format will produce different results on different web sites. You can use Google channels and other external tracking software to evaluate your site performance on a regular basis.

Understanding Adsense For Feeds

Google AdSense program offers more than one way of earning revenue from serving Google AdSense Ads. Though ‘AdSense for Feeds’ is one of the more recent ways of advertising using Google AdSense Ads, it’s in no way less effective than the others. Here, Google places the Ads of the advertisers in the relevant feed articles (again, note the most important characteristic of the Google AdSense program comes into play here too i.e. ‘relevant feed’ not just any feed).

The feeds are in the form of articles, headlines or summaries. These content formats allow the users to easily access the content from several publishers (content owners) at one place. This is achieved through feed aggregators like Bloglines etc. Again, Google uses its technology to determine what advertisements would be contextually suited for a particular feed. You get paid as the publisher of original content and hence make easy money. As for the readers, they as such get a rich experience because they can see the relevant advertisements with the content that they are interested in. Moreover, they can also choose the feeds that they want. Users can click the advertisements to visit the advertiser’s website and check if their products and/ or services are of any use to them. Of course, the Advertisers benefit too. They get targeted advertising which means only the really interested people get to know about their products and services (and hence there are more chances of a better conversion rate for sales).

So, the prime concept for ‘AdSense for feeds’ remains the same as the Google AdSense program; only the orientation changes a bit. But note that Google is currently beta testing ‘AdSense for feeds’. Beta test for the program quickly got fully subscribed, so Google is not accepting any more applications for AdSense for feeds.

It’s only a matter of time before Google AdSense for feeds hits the internet and opens another revenue earning opportunity for website owners.

Top 4 Tips For Getting The Best Results From Your Adsense Ads

The revenue that you earn from Google AdSense program is totally dependent on you and your abilities. Here are some tips that you can use to get the best results from your AdSense Ads:

1. Use channels: Channels help you in conducting a better analysis of the performance of your AdSense Ads. You can use custom channels to check what web pages are making more revenue and which ones are not doing so well. In fact, custom channels can be used for conducting analysis on multiple aspects at the same time. You can use this analysis for making amendments to your AdSense Ads or website content in order to get better results.

2. Ad customization and positioning: Shape, Size and color are the three properties of your AdSense Ads that you can easily control and customize in a way that the Ads don’t look out of place when served on your website. You can either make your Ads stand-out from the rest of the content on your webpage or you can make them blend with the overall webpage. Moreover, you can identify the hot spots on your website and position your Ads accordingly. Ad customization and Ad positioning are, in fact, the best ways to attract more clicks to your AdSense Ads.

3. Content quality: ‘The best generally overcomes the rest’ – is a very true saying. If you host quality content on your website and provide regular updates to your visitors, you can expect more traffic to your website. This will in turn lead to more ad impressions and possibly more clicks.

4. Use AdSense Ads on all pages: If you have multiple web pages on your website, you should include AdSense Ads on all of them. Since the visitors can enter your website through a number of different pages, having AdSense Ads on all the pages will surely increase your earnings.

Tips For Adsense For Feeds

AdSense for feeds is currently in beta testing phase and the content publishers are just waiting for the flood gates to open in order to start earning revenue through the AdSense Ads in their feeds. Here are the top 3 tips that will help you fully capitalize on this revenue earning opportunity:

Content quality: You will earn Google AdSense revenue only if people subscribe to your feed. The more subscriptions you get, the better are your chances of success with AdSense for feeds. Since most people would be looking for quality content, you need to make sure that your feed contains up-to-date quality information that is presented to the users in an easy-to-understand language. Besides that, the feeds should be free from grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Content quantity: Include as much content in your feeds as you possibly can. Again, the aim is prove that the feed is useful and comprehensive (so that more users subscribe to it). If you feel that the complete article cannot go into the feed, include a good summary of the article.

Limit the ad units: If the users find that your feeds contain too much Ads, they might not subscribe to your feeds at all (and the whole purpose of feeds would get defeated). In order to ensure that you get good subscription to your feeds, you should limit the ad units to one per feed. Another good way of ensuring that your feeds don’t look like an advertising medium is to place the Ads either at the end of article or after having sufficiently discussed the topic.

So, get ready for enhancing your ‘AdSense for feeds’ revenue with these tips. Your wait may soon be over. Keep the tempo going and keep checking Google’s AdSense blog for updates about the launch of AdSense for feeds.

Performance Tracking Through Reports

Google AdSense program provides you reports which you can use for tracking the performance of your AdSense Ads. There are certain basic reports which are as such available on all AdSense accounts. These reports will show you the total number of page impressions, ad unit impressions, ad clicks, cost per thousand impressions (effective CPM), click through rate (CTR), and your earnings of course. You can view the reports for the date range of your choice. However, do not expect the report to be updated every second. Typically, the data is updated by Google AdSense program after every hour.

You can customize these reports for advanced performance tracking. Though simple customization of basic reports is useful too, it’s the ‘channels’ that really help in conducting a detailed performance analysis. Using channels you can get data broken down and presented in a number of different ways e.g. you could compare the performance of one set of pages against another, you could compare the performance of one ad format against another etc. There are various options available with channels and it’s just a matter of exploring them and using them to your benefit.

Besides viewing the reports online, you can even download your reports (in CSV format – comma separated values format). If you don’t want to login to your AdSense account very frequently, you can set up email-able reports which automatically get emailed to you or whoever you designate.

Misuse Of Google Adsense

Google AdSense advertising system stands like a star among the other advertising system. The popularity of Google AdSense program can be judged from the fact that most websites today serve Google AdSense Ads. In fact, some of the websites are just so full of Google AdSense Ads that the rest of the content on the website is much dwarfed. These are the websites that are especially targeted at earning revenue through Google AdSense system.

Some website owners use wrong/ illegal tactics in order to increase their revenue from Google AdSense program. One example of misuse of Google AdSense program is websites that do not contain any useful information but, instead, have a lot of keyword based content that is targeted at fooling the search engines. Such websites are categorized as “AdSense Farms”. Sometimes website owners might use a large number of websites in order to create even bigger “AdSense Farms” that have completely useless content. However, this might lead to disqualification from the Google AdSense program. Another misuse of Google AdSense program is seen in the use of free content e.g. content from Wikipedia to attract traffic to the website. Google is always on the lookout for such websites and they keep upgrading their technology in order to bypass such websites. So, never use such methods that can get you barred from Google AdSense program. And remember, it’s difficult to outsmart Google on this front.

There are sufficient tricks and legal tactics available for getting more traffic to your website and for increasing the earning potential from your website. Use those tricks and track the performance of your websites in order to increase your revenues.

Google’s Ad Filtering Mechanism.

Google’s filtering mechanism for Ads is based on a number of factors. Let’s take a look at some of these factors:

1. Relevance to content: This is the single most important Ad filtering criterion that is used by the Google AdSense program. In fact, it is this filtering concept that gives Google AdSense program an important edge over the other advertising programs. The Google AdSense program determines the main topics/subjects of the website content and serves the Ads that are relevant to the same. Since Google AdSense is a global program, the relevance of Ads is also checked with respect to geography and the language of the content on the website. Note that AdSense can actually be used in a number of languages not just English.

2. Appropriateness of content: Websites are based on varying themes. There are websites that are based strictly on Adult themes while the other sites are family friendly ones. Since Google’s AdSense program is open to all website owners and advertisers (who comply with the AdSense program policy), Google also controls the content of Ads to prevent Offense to anyone who sees the Ads. Google does this by using sensitive language filters and language experts. Google uses strict rules and guidelines for conducting an editorial review on the content of Ads. It also asks you to provide information about what kind of Ads (e.g. sexually-oriented, war oriented etc) you deem as inappropriate for your website.

3. Competition filter: Since Google serves Ads based on the content of the websites, it’s quite possible that the Ads of competitors get displayed on a website that sells a particular product or service. To avoid this, Google provides a facility to the website owners wherein they can specify competitors or advertisers whose Ads should not be displayed on the website.

4. Choose your own: You can also choose default Ads to be shown in case Google AdSense program is not able to serve Ads to your website (due to unavailability of suitable Ads, etc)

Getting The Maximum Out Of Google Adsense: Strategy Classification

Google AdSense program has given an altogether new purpose to websites. Besides serving content or selling products and services, websites are now being used to generate revenue through serving Google AdSense Ads. The webmasters employ various strategies in order to extract the maximum out of Google AdSense program. There is no formal classification available for these strategies (nor can all the strategies be determined), however, the following 3 classifications are said to be more prevalent than the others:

1. Traffic Generation: Since the revenue generation from Google AdSense Ads is based on the CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, the more traffic your have to your website the better are your chances of getting good revenue through AdSense. Most webmasters are fully aware of this fact and employ various tricks to generate high traffic to their website. All such tricks fall under the category of ‘Traffic Generation’.

2. Converting traffic to Clicks: Clicks seem to be the best way of increasing AdSense revenue. Prompting the website visitors to click on the AdSense Ads can make a big difference in terms of the AdSense revenue that you earn. A good copy can make the website visitors more confident about your website and hence encourage them to go ahead click the AdSense Ads. Besides the website copy, the website owners apply several other means for getting more clicks. These form the ‘Converting traffic to Clicks’ category.

3. Attracting High Value AdSense Ads: Besides the traffic to your website, your AdSense revenue is also based on the value of the AdSense Ads. So, some Ads produce more revenue when they are clicked/displayed than the others. This is determined using the Adwords system. Some webmasters develop websites primarily for AdSense revenue generation. These webmasters choose the website topic and orient the content in such a way so as to attract high value AdSense Ads. These tricks form the “Attracting High Value AdSense Ads” category.

Google Adsense: Understanding Alternate Ads And Psas

We all know that Google AdSense works by serving targeted Ads to the websites that are enrolled with the Google AdSense program. However, there are instances when no targeted Ads are available for a website e.g. the website might be catering to such a topic or subject for which no relevant Ads/advertisers are available. In such a case, Google serves alternate Ads i.e. content of your choice. If you have not specified any content as Alternate Ads, Google AdSense program treats PSAs i.e. public service Ads as alternate Ads and serves them on your website. These PSAs are charitable Ads that don’t contribute to your revenue. So, unless you are looking to do charity (which could mean lessening of revenue for you), you must specify Alternate Ads upfront.
Here are the options that you have for alternate Ads (your choice of content):

Color: A number of people use color for alternate Ads. This involves specifying a valid hexadecimal color code (or you can choose from the color palette provided by Google) for the alternate ad. The choice of color would be such that the ad becomes invisible. This is easily achieved by setting the color of the ad same as the background color of the page.

Image: An image can also be used as an alternate ad. You can either have this image link to some other web page (in such a case you will need to specify an html as alternate ad) or you may just use it as such (for, maybe, enhancing the beauty of your web page).
Another good option is to use ‘Collapsing ad units’. ‘Collapsing ad units’ code will squeeze the ad units that are not utilized (instead of showing the PSAs) on your website. This approach helps in giving a cleaner look to the web page (since the blank areas or non-ad-based images are done away with). It also helps in bringing more emphasis to the AdSense Ads that are displayed on the website.

Getting Paid Through Adsense Program

Once you have setup your AdSense account and updated your website with AdSense code, you would surely be looking forward to earning some revenue from the AdSense Ads. Though revenue will start accruing to your AdSense account almost immediately, the actual payments to you are based on certain rules that Google has laid out for all website owners that have an AdSense account.

1. The first and the most important rule is that Google will make a payment to you only when your account balance is $100 or more. Also, these payments are made by Google within 30 days of the last day of calendar month during which you attain an account balance of $100 or more. If your account balance is less than $100 on the last day of the month, the balance just rolls over to the next month and this continues till you actually have at least $100 in your account. You can easily check your account balance by logging-in into your AdSense account.

2. Obviously, Google will only be able to pay you only if you provide them with the information that is required for payments. This includes the Payee information and contact details that you specified at the time of signing-up for an AdSense account. Though you can edit most of this information, country and Payee name cannot be changed at this stage (i.e. after the account has been approved by Google). If you need to get these changed, you will have to close your AdSense account and open a new one.

3. You will also need to submit your tax information using the Tax information link on the My Account tab. This information is required irrespective of your location and, in any case, Google would not process your payment without the tax information.

4. You also need to specify the mode of payment. This can be done through the ‘Payment Information’ link on the ‘My Account’ tab. Just check the options available for your location and choose the one that best suits you.

5. As soon as your AdSense account balance reaches $50, Google will mail (snail mail) a PIN number to your payment address. You will need to enter this PIN into your account before you can become eligible for payments from Google.

Any Website Can Become A Bill-board Through Google Adsense Program

We all know that Google’s AdSense program is one of the most reputed internet advertising programs around. AdSense is one advertising program that brings a number of people (websites) into its fold as advertising media and hence helps them earn revenue (advertising revenue). These people are webmasters who own websites and it’s their websites that function as bill-boards and serve advertisements.

With Google AdSense program, any website can easily become a bill-board:

1. No experience necessary: Google AdSense program offers earning opportunity to every webmaster. The only criterion is that you should have a website (and your website should be compliant to the AdSense program policies). You don’t need to know anything about advertising or advertising media etc. Just enroll with the Google AdSense program and Google will take care of designing the Ads and serving the relevant Ads on your website. So, no special designing skills or coding skills are required for getting enrolled and using Google AdSense program.

2. No need to look for advertisers: When the commercial value of websites for advertising was recognized, webmasters started looking for increasing traffic to their websites in order to make their website worthy enough to attract advertisers. Even then, getting advertisers was not easy. So, they could not really derive any monetary benefits from the traffic to their website until an advertiser actually bought advertising space on their website. However, with Google AdSense program, webmasters start earning revenue from the day they join the Google AdSense program. As the traffic to their website increases, so does their revenue.

3. No need for tracking revenue: Google AdSense program will also take the responsibility of tracking the revenue that you earn from serving the Ads on your website. You can just login to your Google AdSense account and check your earnings. Moreover, you have various reports and statistics available to you that you can use for enhancing the performance of your website on the Google AdSense program.

So, Google AdSense program has really made it easy to convert a website into revenue earning medium.

An Introduction To Adsense For Search

While talking about Google AdSense, we must not forget that Google is primarily known for its search engine capabilities (in fact, it is one of the most powerful search engines available today). So, how could Google leave out it search engine capabilities from its AdSense program?

‘AdSense for Search’ is how Google includes search engine bit into the Google AdSense program. ‘AdSense for Search’ can actually be termed as a sibling of Google AdSense program and is one great way of increasing website revenue for website owners. To implement ‘AdSense for search’, you just have to include the Google search box on your website. Again, Google offers the code that you need to use for including Google search box. You just have to paste the code at whatever place you deem as the most appropriate place for Google search box.

When your website visitors use Google search bar on your website, they get almost the same results as they would by using Google separately through Google.com. When these website visitors click the search results, the website owner earns revenue (CPC revenue). You can even include AdSense Ads on the search results page and earn CPM or CPC revenue from them. Also, you can customize the search results page to suit your website’s theme. So, Google AdSense for search is one great way of making money just by including the Google search bar on your website. Besides that, the visitors to your website get an additional functionality through your website i.e. the facility to search the web using one of the most powerful search engine (without leaving your website).

‘AdSense for search’ is a great way of earning revenue through your website (and, in fact, one of the easiest ways too). A number of website owner actually use both the ‘AdSense for Search’ and the regular ‘AdSense for content’ in order to maximize their revenue.

Adsense Tips That You Might Have Missed Out On

Google AdSense program is one of the best online advertising programs that are in use today. AdSense program is beneficial to all the involved parties i.e. the advertisers, the website owners and the website visitors. The popularity of AdSense program seems to be the most among the second group i.e. website owners. A number of website owners today use AdSense Ads on their websites in order to earn good revenue on a regular basis. They use a number of tricks and tips in order to maximize their revenues.

Besides the regular tips, there are some other AdSense tips which a number of people miss out on unless they are very careful:

1. Use multiple ad units: Google allows you to use up to 3 ad units and one link unit per web page. Since your revenue earnings are dependent on ad clicks and ad impressions, a higher number of ad units can potentially increase your AdSense earnings. However, do not go with the maximum allowed ad units if you don’t have enough content on your web page; this might offend the website visitors.

2. Use wider Ad format: Though Ad formats yield different results for different websites, the wider Ad formats (like rectangles) are generally known to be more effective than their narrower counterparts (there is a scientific explanation for this, but we can leave that out since we are more concerned with the results).

3. Limit the filters: Filters are useful for blocking the Ads that you don’t want displayed on your website e.g. Ads of competitors. However, too many filters can seriously limit your revenue earning potential from AdSense Ads. So, limit the use of filters to minimum.

Adsense Related Terms That You Should Know

Here is the list of AdSense related terms that you should know for sure:

Page impression: A page impression is generally the same as a page view but the number of page impressions can sometimes be different than the page views. This happens when the page is viewed by a visitor but the AdSense code is not executed for some reason (which means that the Ads are not displayed to the visitor).

Ad unit impressions: Whenever you get page impressions, you also get Ad unit impressions. However, the ad unit impressions are dependent on the number of ad units you have on your page i.e. number of ad units that get executed when the page loads on user’s browser. Note that the link unit impressions are also counted as ad unit impressions.

Click: A click (for the purpose of AdSense) is recorded whenever a website visitor clicks on one of the AdSense Ads. Note that a click on a topic in a link unit is not considered as a click.

Click through rate, for the purpose of AdSense, is the number of clicks received by an ad unit divided by the total number of ad unit impressions for that ad unit. So, a better CTR can mean more revenue for you.

Effective CPM: It is calculated as the cost per 1000 impressions. However, do not confuse effective CPM with your earnings. In fact, effective CPM is calculated by dividing your earnings by the number of page impressions and then multiplying the final figure by 1000. Effective CPM is generally used to compare various channels and determine which channels are more profitable for you.

Adsense Ad Variations: Link Units And Themed Ad Units.

Link units and themed ad units are two variations of AdSense Ads that are meant to further increase the quality of AdSense Ads that get served on websites. Let’s take a quick look to see what ‘Link units’ and ‘themed Ad units’ actually are:

Themed ad units: As their name suggests, themed ad units are the ad units that are based on particular themes. These themes could be depicted by colors or special type of graphics that are representative of the event or occasion portrayed by the theme. The events and occasions could be things like Christmas, New Year’s Day, etc. Of course, the themed Ads can only be displayed if they are available from the advertisers and if you have enabled the themed Ads on your AdSense account (in ‘Ad Type Preferences’). Also, since the events vary across different locations, the themed Ads are displayed based on the location of the website visitor. Besides this minor difference, themed ad units work in the same way as the normal ad units.

Link units: Link units are another useful way of advertising through AdSense program. Though the basic premise remains the same (i.e. targeted advertising), the way link units operate is slightly different. Link units are meant to provide even more meaningful advertisements to the website visitors by presenting them with a list of topics (ad keywords) to choose from. The website visitors are then presented with only those Ads that are related to the topic selected by them; hence making their website visit more meaningful. The list of topics presented to the website visitor is based on the website content. So, the topics are relevant to the context of website. However, the ‘clicks’ on the topics doesn’t make any revenue for you; it’s the clicks on the Ads for that topic that earns you revenue. As far as implementing of Link units is concerned, it’s done in the same way as other AdSense type products -- you copy and paste AdSense code in the html code of your webpage. Note that you are allowed to implement only one link unit per web page.

Guidelines For Adding The Adsense Code To Your Web Page

Adding the AdSense code to your web page is a very straight forward process. You just need to copy the AdSense code from your AdSense account (as seen in the AdSense code box) and paste it in your html code. However, there are certain guidelines that you need to follow when pasting the AdSense code in your web page.

Firstly, you should never tamper with the AdSense code in any way. It should be pasted as such, in its entirety, without any changes or modifications; otherwise your AdSense code will not work. Moreover, you might end up violating the AdSense program policies.

Also, it’s important that you paste the AdSense code in the body tags of your html page. This is necessary for the code (java script) to run properly.

Further, you must ensure that you use a maximum of three ad units per web page (this is the limit specified by Google AdSense program) and not more than 1 link unit per web page.

Since content based Ad targeting is the main concept behind AdSense program, you need to ensure that you paste your AdSense code in the place where you have your main content pieces e.g. if you have your main content in a particular frame or a ‘DIV’ tag, your AdSense code should be pasted in that particular frame or ‘DIV’ tag.

Be careful when using WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get) editors. Such editors sometimes add few tags on their own. So, paste the AdSense code only in source code directly and not in the preview page or any other view of your web page. Always check the AdSense code for additional irrelevant tags before you actually upload your web page to your server.

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website Part 3 Positioning of Ads.

The four important properties that help in making the AdSense Ads look good on your website are – shape, size, color of the Ads and their positioning. While the first three can be customized using the customization options provided by Google, ‘positioning of Ads’ is something that Google can only give you advice on. You are the best judge of what position would be best suitable for your AdSense Ads.

The positioning of your Ads relative to the rest of the content is important in order to adequately emphasize the Ads. However, positioning of the Ads is also dependent on the size and shape of the AdSense Ads. Though shape and size are customizable too, large size Ads are generally preferred because they help increase the number of Ad impressions you can get. However, sometimes the structure of your webpage might not allow a big size Ad. In such a case you would need to strike a balance between the size of your ad and the best positioning for it. A number of website owners use other properties in order to make the big size Ads appear smaller e.g. they might use the background color of the webpage for the background and border of the AdSense ad thereby making it look smaller than it actually is (besides achieving the blending effect, of course).

Position your AdSense Ads in such a way that they look in-place with the general flow of content on your website. You can even position a block in the middle of the content in such a way that it adds value to the content (while it also serves your purpose of increasing the AdSense revenue through clicks) e.g. you could add an AdSense Ad block just after a statement that points to resources for a particular task – and your AdSense Ads could possibly form some such resources. Placing the Ads just above the heading of an article or just after the end of the article is another good way of positioning your AdSense Ads.

So, position your AdSense Ads intelligently and you would be in for a party much earlier than you would have expected.

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website Part 2 Color of Ads.

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website is an easy job that can really enhance the effectiveness of your AdSense Ads (and hence increase the AdSense revenue for you). The four properties that contribute towards making the AdSense Ads look in-place on your website are – size, shape, color and positioning of the Ads. Though none of these properties can be regarded as more important than the others, the color of Ads is surely one thing that can help a lot in making the Ads blend with your website or making them stand out. Let’s take a closer look at this Ad customization option that Google provides to all the webmasters who use the Google AdSense program for earning revenue.

Color of your Ads:

This is one property of Ads that is fully customizable. You can easily customize the color of your Ads using the color palettes provided by Google; and there are more than 200 colors available. You can choose from several different colors that are available on the color palette (and 200 colors are enough for any website). You can choose colors for Border, Title, Text and URL. You can also set a background color for your Ads. As you select various options, you can see how the ad looks in the preview tool that is shown on the same page as the options; and you can accordingly make adjustments. The color combinations for the various parts of the Ad and for the background should match the color combinations used in the other parts of the website. To make the Ad blend with the website, you can use the background color of your webpage as the background color and the border color for your AdSense Ad. If you want to make the Ads stand-out, you can use contrasting colors for your Ads; however, this is generally not preferred unless you have other elements on the website that use similar colors too e.g. you can have the same background color and text color as the menu options. Once you have the right color combinations, you can save them as custom color palette which you can use later.
Similar color customization options are available for Google AdSense search results page too (as in, Google AdSense for search).

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website Part 1 shape and size.

Google AdSense program can reap even richer dividends for you if you are able to attract more visitors to your website and if you are able to prompt them to take action (i.e. click on the AdSense Ads). Google disallows statements that ask the visitors to click on the AdSense Ads. In fact, Google AdSense Ads are to be marked in some way as advertisements. However, there are other authentic ways of getting the clicks on your AdSense Ads.

Besides the copy and quality content, you can also improve the performance of your AdSense Ads by either making them blend with your website or making them standout. The aim is to make the AdSense Ads more attractive/ appealing to your website visitors and to make them look in-place (not out of place). Google too recognizes this need and hence it provides you with customization options for making the Ads look the way you want them to.

You can make the AdSense Ads suit your website by controlling the shape, size, color and positioning of the Ads. Let’s have a brief look at the first two properties i.e. shape and size:

1. Shape of your AdSense Ads: This is one of the most important customizations options that you have at your disposable. You can make your selection from a number of Ad formats that Google makes available to you. These include skyscrapers, single ad blocks and banners. Just check the suitability of the shape with respect to the webpage where you wish to include the AdSense Ad.

2. Size of your AdSense Ads: Again, you can use AdSense Ads of various sizes. The size is important not only for making the Ads look suited to your website but also for determining the number of Ads that can be displayed on the webpage by the Google AdSense program. A large size generally means that more Ads can be displayed on the page (and hence presents the opportunity for earning more revenue with increased impressions).

Setting Up Your Google Adsense Account – Part 4

Once you are done with all the customizations, your AdSense code is generated in the AdSense Code box. You just need to copy this code (which is in the form of a programming script) from the AdSense Code box and paste it in your website as per the guidelines from Google. Since Google allows only three ad units per page, you can add the code at more than one place in your html code.

The next step is to save your web page to the designated web server (as per the instructions from your web hosting service provider). Please note that Google AdSense program does not require you to send over your website’s html code to them; neither does it ask to load it onto their servers or do anything else with it. The addition of AdSense code to your website’s code is the only thing that you need to do. Separate procedures are available with Google for people who want to use AdSense Ads with their blogs (you can check these on Google’s website for AdSense program).

Now that everything is done and dusted, you need to wait for a few hours (might be lesser than that) before Google’s web crawlers find your web page or blog that has AdSense code on it and you start seeing AdSense Ads on your web page or blog. You might see some PSA (charitable Ads) initially (almost immediately) but these will soon get replaced with the AdSense Ads that will earn revenue for you. If the content on your website violates the AdSense program’s policies, you might keep seeing PSAs even after few hours. In all such cases (or if you find objectionable Ads that don’t go even after you have applied appropriate filters), you will need to contact Google who will sort out the problems for you

Setting Up Your Google Adsense Account – Part 3

Besides the essential customizations like selecting the Ad type, Ad layout and colors, there are some other customizations that you can apply to your AdSense account. In fact, some of these can quite easily be treated as essential customizations (based on the context of your website) e.g. ‘filters’ is one such customization that is quite important. Let’s take a look at what these additional customizations are:

Filters: Google allows you to set-up custom ad filters for your website (note that this is in addition to the screening of ad content that Google does by default). By setting up filters you can block competitive Ads and other Ads that you don’t want to display on your website. In fact, filters are a must if your website sells a product or a service (unless you want to promote your competitors through your website).

Alternate Ads: This is something that can help you in preventing underutilization of the ad space on your website. Alternate Ads are the Ads that you would want to show up on your website in case sufficient content-relevant Ads are not available. If you don’t specify alternate Ads and if there are insufficient content-related Ads available, Google AdSense program will serve charitable Ads to your website (Ads which don’t earn revenue for you).

Reporting and performance tracking: You can even customize the reporting and performance tracking options for your AdSense account. One important tool in this regard is the use of channels to study the performance of AdSense Ads from various perspectives. However, you might decide to take this up later down the line (maybe 1 month after setting up your AdSense account.

Setting Up Your Google Adsense Account – Part 2

Once you are done with setting up your Google AdSense account and once Google has approved your application, you are ready to use Google AdSense for earning revenue from your website. Just login into your account using your email address and password, click ‘AdSense Setup’ in the top menu and select the product type (i.e. ‘AdSense for Content’ or ‘AdSense for Search’). You will be presented with various options for customization of your AdSense Ads. Here we will take a look at setting up ‘AdSense for Content’ only (however, the setup for ‘AdSense for Search’ is quite similar and equally easy).

The first thing that you need to choose is the Ad type (Ad unit or link unit). Based on the Ad type you choose, you will need to specify the type of ad (text, image, etc for Ad unit) or number of links per link unit too. Google AdSense program allows you to use a maximum of three ad units and 1 link unit per web page (and you must use both, in order to maximize your AdSense revenue).

The next thing is to choose the Ad layout. There are various layouts available but large rectangle (336x280) and wide skyscraper (160x600) are preferred over others (since they help get more impressions for you and hence help you make more money).

Customizing the colors of various parts of your AdSense ad is the next thing you need to do. Even though customizing colors is optional (as far as the Google AdSense program is concerned), it’s strongly recommended for making your Ads attractive and more effective. Your choice of colors must be governed by the look and feel of your website so that the Ad doesn’t look out of place.

These are the essential customizations that you surely need to do before you can start using Google AdSense Ads on your website.

Setting Up Your Google Adsense Account – Part 1

So, you have decided to go ahead and use Google AdSense for generating revenue from your website. Google AdSense doesn’t need you to sell any products or services. With Google AdSense, you are just selling advertising space on your website. And the best part is that Google doesn’t discriminate between websites; so, any website owner can enroll with Google AdSense program (as long as it adheres to the Google AdSense program policies). Moreover, setting up a Google AdSense account is so easy that you can literally start generating revenue within 15 minutes.

For enrolling to the Google AdSense program, go to https://www.google.com/AdSense and click on the ‘Click here to Apply’ button. You will be presented with an enrolment form where you need to fill-in some details like your website information (URL and website language), the Google AdSense products that you wish to use (i.e. AdSense for Content or AdSense for Search), your contact information, your email address and your preferences. You will also need to select an account type (business/individual) for your AdSense Account and agree to the various policies, terms and conditions of Google AdSense program. The account type will not affect your revenues in any way; it is there just to determine if the payment is to be made in the name of a company or an individual. The email address and the password that you provide during the enrolment process will be required by you for logging into your account later on. Note that you will be referred to as publisher by the Google AdSense program; so when you return back to the Google AdSense website, you will be asked to enter your login details as an ‘Existing Publisher’.

That’s it. You can now submit your application form for Google to evaluate and get back to you.

Online Advertising And Google Adsense

Soon after the advent of internet, it was realized that the website real estate (or the space on websites) had commercial value in the advertising world. The simple reason behind this was the soaring popularity of internet and the increasing number of eyeballs received by various websites. Thus, internet advertising (or online advertising) came into being. Today, internet advertising is treated as one of the most effective and most economical means of advertising. In fact, a lot of businesses, especially small businesses, use only this (affordable) medium for advertising their products and services. As technology progressed, so did the online advertising methodologies. Graphics based banner Ads and text Ads got their due recognition and were used quite extensively for online advertising. Even now banner advertising is one of the most popular forms of online advertising.

However, the real breakthrough in online advertising came with Google AdSense advertising program. This program helped in connecting advertisers to several website owners who were ready to offer advertising space on their websites. Through Google AdSense program, the advertisements were floated on the websites that had some relevance to the products or services offered by the advertiser. This type of advertising is also called targeted advertising since the Ads are served only to the interested audience and not just anyone or everyone. Soon, Google AdSense became a very effective form of targeted advertising. On Google AdSense program, webmasters are paid on per-click and per-thousand-Ads-displayed basis. And the advertisers can control the amount of money they wish to spend on advertising through Google Adwords program that works in conjunction with the AdSense program.

Google AdSense program has caught the fancy of a lot of advertisers and webmasters and its popularity continues to soar everyday. Until another, better advertising program comes into being; Google will continue to hold its place at the core of online advertising

What Makes Google Adsense System So Special?

The basic arrangement in which Google AdSense system works is such that Google has the basic control over the Ads that are displayed on the websites subscribed to Google AdSense system. Of course, the website owner can customize how an Ad looks and also block/filter certain types of Ads on their website. The Ads that Google serves are ‘Senseful’ Ads (these Ads are actually relevant to the topics that the website discusses/ caters-to). This is something that is not found in other advertising programs/systems. This creates a win-win situation for everyone.

The people who are visiting the website (that contains Google AdSense Ads) are doing so because they are interested in the product/service/topic that is discussed on that website. It would be of little use to them if you were to serve Ads that are not related to the topic in any way. On the other hand, Ads related to the topic of the website would really prove useful to the visitor. They might actually be interested in a product or service that is being advertised through Google AdSense Ads. So, website visitors get a richer experience due to AdSense program.

Website owners get revenue for displaying the Google AdSense Ads and for the clicks they receive on the Ads. So, they are happy too. As far as businesses/advertisers are concerned, they get a system (AdSense system) for targeted advertising that is both easy and economical to operate.

Moreover, Google AdSense Ads are presented in a much better way than the banner Ads or other types of Ads. Most of the Ads are simple text Ads that are clear and concise. The website owners find it easy and the advertisers find it easy too. Google AdSense is really one of the best advertising programs available today

What Is Adsense?

AdSense is a wonderful advertising concept that was conceived by Google some time back. Though new advertising concepts keep coming up all the time, this one is something that is altogether different.

AdSense (Google’s advertising program) presents an earning opportunity to the website owners by allowing Google to post advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are either text advertisements or image based advertisements. Of course, the website owners need to enroll to the AdSense program through Google’s website (https://www.google.com/AdSense). Google AdSense program requires you (the website owner) to include a piece of code (a programming script) on your website. You can add this piece of code anywhere in the html code of your website i.e. depending on where you want to position the advertisements (however, there are certain rules that you must follow while pasting this scripting code). This piece of code is what determines the structure of advertisements and their content (and this is what helps Google in floating the advertisements on your website). When people visit your website they are able to see these advertisements. Your earnings are based on how many Google Ads are displayed on your website and also based on how many times visitors to your website actually click on one of those Ads. The Google AdSense system calculates your revenue on per-click (CPC) and per-thousand-Ads-displayed (CPM) basis. The latter is also known as impressions.

For people who want to advertise their products and services through the Google AdSense system, it’s just a matter of signing up through Google Adwords program and letting Google know how much they want to spend towards advertising through Google AdSense. These businesses can specify the limit and Google AdSense system will accordingly serve their Ads so as to ensure that the specified limit is not crossed. Google AdSense increases the visibility of their business/ services and also increases traffic to their website; hence fulfilling their purpose of advertising

Online Advertising