Google AdSense can be an incredible revenue source, if you do it right. Basically, you create a site about a niche, put AdSense ads on it, and then you drive traffic to it. Generating traffic will be discussed later on, since most basic traffic generation ideas are the same, regardless of your focus.
I do want to talk about AdSense limitations before moving on, though, because Google can and will freeze your account if your break their Terms of Service (TOS).
First, you are limited to 3 Ad blocks, 2 search boxes, and 1 links area per page. This shouldn’t be a problem, because if you put all of those on your site, your page will most likely be very cluttered and people won’t want to read it anyhow. You can’t put AdSense on any page that doesn’t contain content (I’m not sure you’d want to, anyhow) like login pages, “domain parked” pages, pop-ups, pop-unders, etc. You also can’t use them in email messages.
Second, you MUST NOT click on your own ads, or ask anyone to click on them for you. This is the fastest way to get booted from AdSense, and possibly even prosecuted. Click fraud is a big deal, and Google doesn’t tolerate it.
Third, you can’t build a page specifically for the purpose of showing AdSense ads. This is pretty easy to get around, because if you build a site about a subject, you’re providing the information to your visitors, and the AdSense ads are there to monetize your content, and provide your visitors with further resources.
Fourth, you can’t use anything to cover up parts of an AdSense ad. This one’s pretty self-explanatory, and unless you know JavaScript, you don’t have to worry about it.
Fifth, clicking on an AdSense ad can’t make a new browser window open. So make sure there are no <base target=”_blank”> tags in your HTML and you should be fine.
There are other items of interest in the AdSense TOS that I really don’t have room to go into here. But if you’re interested in AdSense, you’ll want to read the AdSense TOS for yourself.
Creating Your Site
Now that you have a niche in mind, and you have an AdSense account, it’s time to make your site. AdSense sites are just as they sound: A site that is created solely to get people to click on your ads. Don’t get me wrong, it has to have good quality content, or you’re not going to make much money from it, but your content will be there to get your visitors to click on the ads.
will want to gather as much informative content on your niche as possible. You can get this content by writing it yourself, outsourcing it (discussed later) or going to an article directory like ContentArticles.com and using one of the free reprint articles there. (When you use an article from an article directory, make sure you always abide by the terms and conditions of the site).
When you have more than 10 pages of content, or at least 1 page of content per keyword, break it up by keyword (if you’re using articles, this is pretty easy) and then create a menu to link them together. If you know HTML, this will be easy, but if you don’t, you’ll want to have another company do this for you. (Or go back and learn HTML first)
If you aren’t a great designer, or have absolutely no artistic ability (like me), you should check out Open Source Web Design for great,
open source templates. You’ll have to know HTML to use these, but if you do, they’re great to download and tweak to your liking.
How Do You Get The Right Ads To Show Up On Your Pages?
AdSense looks at the file name, page title, meta tags, (title and meta tags will be discussed later) and page content to determine what it should place on your site, so make sure they all contain your chosen keywords.
Name your file after the keyphrase it’s based around. Use a hyphen to separate the words in your keyphrase, because Google sees a hyphen just like a space. For example, if your keyphrase is “Great Widgets” your filename should be “Great-Widgets.htm”. That way, AdSense will be able to find out what the page is about.
Want To See An Example Site?
One of my AdSense sites is Professional Beauty Supply Online, I’ll sacrifice it for the sake of a learning opportunity. It’s not one of my best sites, but it will still work for giving you an AdSense site look and feel to check out. It has a simple design, and the ads are right where your eyes go first, at the top and the middle of the page.
The menu is on the left, and it’s very quick and to the point. Each link is one of my keywords, and when you click on the keyword, it brings up an article list. Click on an article, and it brings the article up for you to read. The layout is very easy to navigate, and there’s always a well-placed AdSense block right where your eyes are, and more importantly, right where your mouse is.
Don’t Fall For “Top Paying Keywords” Lists
The final thing that I want to mention about AdSense sites is that although there are sites and products that will tell you all about how they know the “100 top paying keywords for AdSense,” the top paying keywords aren’t always the way to go, for a number of reasons.
Many, many people have created sites based on these keywords, so the competition is VERY stiff. As a new marketer, you aren’t going to want to spend the time necessary to get a site to the top of the search engine rankings for a keyword with tens or hundreds of millions of pages in competition.
These “high paying keywords” also tend to make the advertisers turn off the option to display the ad for content sites (which is your site) and only enable it for Google partners (like Google search, other search engines, and HUGE sites like About.com, etc.) So a keyword that has a “high payout” of $50/click will most likely not pay even close to that for your site. And since Google takes about 70% of the CPC rate, you’ll seldom end up with clicks resulting in more than $0.50 or $1.00, anyway, and there are plenty of niches that pay out at that same rate. So take your time and find something you enjoy that doesn’t have a lot of competition. You’ll start making money much sooner than with the “Big Money Keywords” approach.
