When Google introduced Adsense to the world, it changed everything for internet marketing. Not only did it bring in a massive source of income for Google, but also for all of their partner websites, and a new source of traffic and leads for their advertisers. A decade late and Google Adsense is still rocking and one of the best forms of advertising out there. Every day new websites are learning about Adsense for the first time, and loving the ease of setup and collecting their checks at the end of the month.
This post is more focused towards the beginner affiliate/internet marketer but is a topic I receive a lot of emails on. Google Adsense isn’t going anywhere, and it’s one of the easiest ways to start making money on your website if you don’t know how to monetize it yourself.
Google Adsense Tutorial Videos
Since Google owns YouTube, you will occasionally see Adsense being displayed on videos you watch on the site. This has also been a huge source of revenue and volume for Google and their advertisers. Google has taken advantage of their ownership of YouTube and also created a video series on how to use your Google Adsense account.
- Creating An Ad Unit
- Custom Channels
- AdSense Performance Reports
- Advanced AdSense Reporting
- Ad Review Center
- Allow and Block Ads
There are a ton of Google Adsense videos on YouTube, besides the ones directly from Google. Make sure you go through the videos sometime, as their are real testimonial videos of people talking about how they are making money with Adsense on their own web sites, and a few useful videos on tips and best monetization methods. If you are a complete newbie when it comes to making money online, or using Adsense, just watch everything on YouTube and follow the links within this guide. There is no need to purchase high-end guides or software on the topic, however, if you would like to learn the basics of Google Adsense while also having me walk you through the process of what’s currently working best with content creation, monetization, and ad placements, be sure to check out my Google Adsense guide on Udemy.
Using Google Adsense During the Holidays
Every year around the 4th quarter the advertising and ad spending across the internet just goes nuts. Everyone is fighting for advertising space and bringing in new customers during Halloween, Black Friday and Christmas. This is no secret to Google and their Adsense users. Around the same time every year, Google sends out a mailing to all of their Adsense partners, telling them about the importance of using Adsense to bring in premium advertisers during Q4 for their websites.
Here’s what their most recent email looked like:
Most of our premium advertisers have started to plan for the holiday season and you should too! By opting in to placement targeting, advertisers will be able to target your ad units directly.
In order to ensure your site is getting the highest-paying available ads, we recommend that you also keep these best practices in mind:
- Implement your ad units above the fold near your content, where users are engaging with your site without scrolling down.
- Opt your ad units into text and image ads so that all relevant, available ad inventory is competing to appear on your site. (more on placement targeting)
If you’ve ever run a website with Google Adsense on it during the holidays, you will almost always see an increase in your average CPM. No matter what industry you are in, the Q4 spending increase will usually affect you. By the way… we are nearly in Q4 2011, are you ready?
Creating Google Adsense Mini Sites
Over the past several years, the addiction to marketers creating mini websites focused on one niche product or search term has been huge. The way you can market these websites is through your own product, pushing your traffic to a cpa (cost per lead) offer, or even using Google Adsense. There is a whole slew of websites selling on Flippa for usually 10-20 times earnings, that are strictly “Made for Adsense” websites.
I previously wrote about a bunch of free “
Adsense Ready WordPress Themes” that you can use to create your own mini-site, or there are plenty of premium themes out there that look much better and offer more customization. You can see an example of the CTR Theme being used on the web site about. As you can see, the Google Adsense ads are placed prominently on the site, which would increase the likelihood of someone clicking on the ads. The focus on these mini-websites is to have 500-600 word content articles that really focus on a niche topic, then receiving free search traffic from the search engines. I cover all of this in detail in my Flip This Web Site guide.
More Google Adsense Resources
Over the past few years, I’ve written a good deal about Google Adsense on the blog, and you can read a few of those articles below. There’s also a lot of helpful blog posts and videos out there about improving click-through rates, best Adsense placements and maximizing your profits with Google Adsense. I’ve listed some great resources as well.
The common thought on Google Adsense is that the business model is for suckers, as you will only earn a few pennies (usually more) per click, but also sending a visitor away from your website. The bottom line is that Google Adsense is as good as you make it. As a website owner and marketer, you need to understand your website concept, business, audience and when you should or should not be using Google Adsense. Hopefully, this guide has helped you in the process.