Introduction

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion and information concerning Google’s Adsense program at

http://www.google.com/adsense.

There have been truckloads of eBooks and articles written on the topic.

But in the grand scheme of things, it is a profitable program that still gets overlooked by many who are just coming online to start a business, as well as those who have been around a while.

First, let’s take a look at exactly what Adsense is and what it is all about:

“Adsense is a program for webmasters which was implemented by the famous Google some years ago.”

Essentially, a webmaster (a person who owns and builds one or more websites) signs up for an account with the program, and once they are approved, they paste the Google Adsense javascript code into the pages on their websites.

Google then starts serving ads to those websites, based on the keywords that it finds in the text of the page. When a visitor clicks on one of those ads, the webmaster makes money – usually a few cents per click.

However, when a site has a great deal of traffic, and when the webmaster knows which keywords are the most profitable to target, there is a lot of money to be made.

It sounds simple enough, but it’s really NOT that easy. First of all, you have to be approved – and Google is picky these days. The good news is that once one site is approved, and you have a Google Adsense account, there is no need to seek Google’s approval to use Adsense on any other site that you own, as long as that site is within the Google’s terms of service guidelines.

Once you are approved, you have to know which keywords to target – the ones that will make you the most amount of money per click, and how to write (or have written for you) content that makes those high paying ads appear on your site.

Finally, you have to learn how to drive traffic to your Adsense site. Without the traffic, you won’t get any clicks, and without clicks, you won’t be making any money.

 

You may have heard gurus say that Google Adsense is dead? If you haven’t heard this, there will come a point when you will. But that really isn’t true. In fact, there are thousands of people just like you that are making very nice livings from the Google Adsense program.

Usually when a guru says that you should not use Google Adsense, they generally mean that you are better off not using it, especially when you are promoting your own product, and your website is tightly focused on that product.

However, you can use Google Adsense for a site that was built specifically for the Adsense program (Adsense Ready Sites), or on sites that you are using to promote affiliate products as well.

You should also note that many successful Adsense publishers have more than one website. They typically have numerous websites, on a variety of topics on which they display the Google ads. However, there are also those that simply have one high traffic website, from which they make money from the Adsense

program.

Regardless of this, all Adsense publishers start with just one website, and grow from there, and this is what you should be doing as well. You have to get the basics down, and learn the secrets that surround the profitability of Google Adsense before you can be successful with more sites.

Topic Selection?

Topic Selection?

Next you need to learn how the experts select topics for their Google Adsense sites. Choosing the right topics (keywords) is the difference between success and failure!

Let’s take a look at the various tools that you will use, and how you will use them. First, you need keyword research tools. You can find out what the top keywords that are being searched for are with a web based tools such as Word Tracker, at http://www.wordtracker.com. There is a fee for using this tool, but you can sign up for a free trial.

But finding the most frequently searched for keywords isn’t enough. Once you have a good list of what people are searching for the most, the next step is to find out how profitable those keywords are.

Not all frequently searched for keywords are profitable, and if you hope to make a full time living with Google Adsense, you need high paying keywords.

Now, before you rush out in search of a list of high paying keywords, note that even if there was such a list, it would constantly be changing, just as the list of frequently searched for keywords changes.

Furthermore, you don’t seriously believe that other Adsense publishers are going to share such a list, if one even existed, do you? They wouldn’t. You have to find this information yourself.

Here is where having a Google Adwords account will come in handy. You can see what the advertisers are paying to get in the top position of the search results for their keywords. Simply log in to your free Google Adwords account, and click on

‘tools.’ Next, click on Keyword Tool.

...or in case you don’t have an Adwords account, just go to:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Enter your keywords, and then in the drop down box below that, select ‘Cost and Ad Position Estimates.’ (it’s only available if you are logged in to your Adwords account) .

Type 5.00 in the last box, and hit ‘calculate.’ Now, Google will display possible keywords, based on the main keyword that you entered. Next to each keyword, you will see the estimated average CPC (cost per click) and the estimated position.

 

You want to view the CPC for the keywords that will fall into the top five on position, stated as 1 – 3 or 1 – 5. As of this writing, using the keyword phrase

‘weight loss’ you would see that the estimated CPC for ‘weight loss operations’ is

$5.95. Now, as an advertiser, that is what you would pay per click for an ad that is being run on position 1 – 3 when that keyword phrase is searched for.

As a publisher, however, you would not make $5.95 per click. Google wants their share as well. Google doesn’t state what percentage is earned by the publisher, however. It varies, and how that percentage is figured is Google’s secret, and they are not sharing that information!

You basically have to pull a percentage out of the air to work with. Try using 30%

as a guide.

Once you start getting clicks, you can then look to see what the estimated CPC is in Adwords, and then see how much you were paid for that click in Adsense to find out how much Google is paying you per click for that keyword. Again, this varies from one keyword to the next, so there are no set guidelines here.

Keep in mind that it’s maximum bid that’s displayed, meaning that’s what the advertiser would have to pay per click on an ad being shown on positions 1 to 3 in the sponsored search results.

Now imagine if you have lots of ad blocks on your page -- that will enable the cheaper ads to be displayed as well. You will discover that most of the time you’ll end up getting clicks on those, thereby making only a few cents...

“My suggestion: Less Ad Blocks!

- This Will Get You More Revenue Per Click!”