What is Google adsense?

If you look at the Internet a few years back, you'll see that advertising was
done in a way that was very similar to other types of media like television, or
actually, more like what you see in a newspaper.

You'd enter a site, and in some location you'd get to see a banner (often these
were quite numerous and very large), which would present and ad for whatever
company was paying for adds on your space.

But there was one problem with this kind of advertising. It really wasn't
exploiting the fact that the adds weren't in some newspaper, but were instead
presented over the Internet.

You've probably noticed a lot of things like this over the pages you've
browsed. You're looking at an on-line shop, looking for a watch but you get a
banner that advertises a car.

While you might, at some later point want to buy a car, right now you're
looking for a watch and it would have surely been nice if the banner were
advertising a watch, because then you would have probably clicked it.

Well that's also what the folks at Google thought of, so they came up with a
killer idea. This is knows as Google AdSense, and it's known as a targeted
advertising program

What you do (as a web designer / website owner) is, instead of jumping through
hoops to get some banner on your site that your visitors won't even care about,
is you just allocate some region of the screen.

You then sign up for the Google AdSense program, you insert a small snippet of
code in your webpage and Google ensures that in the location you specify, a
banner will appear, presenting adds relevant to the contents of your site.

It's very easy for Google to do this because Google is a search engine company.
It looks for the key words in your page, searches a database of websites to find
the ones related to whatever is on your page and presto: a targeted ad.

You (the webmaster) get a fee for each visitor that clicks on an adsense banner
on your site. Now that's bound to happen more often then with a traditional
banner because people are actually interested in what's in that banner
(otherwise, they wouldn't be on your page would they?).

But, this also does wonders for the people who want to advertise. And it's
because of the same reason. The greatest thing about Google AdSense is that all
the content in a banner is relevant.

This relevancy is the key to the programs success, and also the reason why
everyone remains happy. The advertiser has a relevantly placed advert, the
publisher earns money from their content and Google take their cut.

Of course, as always, Google has set some high standards for its AdSense
program, in terms of looks and functionality. You can't have more than two such
banners on your website and Google only inserts text in these banners.

So an extra benefit is that AdSense advertising is a lot less obtrusive then
regular advertising. But this also means you should position the banner better
because it's possible that visitors might miss it altogether.

So in the end, Google AdSense is an advertising program that is unique because
the ads are relevant to the content on the site. Anyone that wants to advertise
pays Google for it. Anyone who wants to place ads on their site does this
through AdSense, getting paid by Google in the process.

All transactions are run through Google, and the advertisers and publishers get
access to statistics which help them to understand and moderate the
effectiveness of their campaign.

The whole process is elegant, simple and effective from anyone in the chain,
from site visitors to advertisers, and it's one of the reasons Google are known
for their innovation and new thinking.

Success on Adsense -- 5 Quick Tips

As you use Google's AdSense for more and more time you begin to learn from the
mistakes of the past, and you slowly begin to realize which of your actions
kept your site from reaching its full potential.

But an important part to making a mistake is telling people about it and
teaching them how to avoid making the same mistake. So this is a list of the
top five mistakes people using AdSense make.

You should read them well, and see if any of them is applicable to your
contents. If it is, you must stop and attempt to fix such errors as quickly as
possible.

The first major no-no that everyone seems to be hitting at one point or another
has to do with breaking the rules. Google's AdSense is a great program but it
relies on you respecting a few set rules.

The most important thing is not to create "artificial clicks" through any means
possible. Never click your own links, never ask your friends or close ones to
click the links and never, by any means have your content encouraging the
visitors to click the links. You run the risk of being permanently banned, and
that will definitely damage your revenue.

Failing to comply with Google's terms could have your AdSense account
suspended. And this is why this rule is by all means the most important one of
all. It's because this is the difference between life or death.

The second thing users get wrong a lot of time is having a bad color palette
for ads. Many times this happens because the publishers aren't knowledgeable
enough to change default color palettes.

Others just can't seem to spend enough time in changing those defaults. Having
bad ads that stand out is sure to push people away from clicking; whilst having
something which is clearly visible yet distinctive will.

Third, of course, the position of the ads is probably the key element you
should get right if you want to maximize your profits with AdSense. This is
noted in a lot of places on the web and Google talks about this as well. Google
can provide you with statistics which illustrate what positions work
particularly well on your website.

Fourthly, banner ads are also a very bad idea if you're using AdSense. 480x60
type ads are a sure way to drive many people away as most Internet surfers have
developed a natural resistance to such means of advertising.

And last, but clearly not least, is not taking care of the site running the
ads. Because ultimately it doesn't matter how cool the site is itself. If it
doesn't have updated contents and a lot of daily visitors it will probably
never earn you any serious AdSense revenues.

So these are the most important five things people get wrong while using the
AdSense program. But of course if you don't like this means of expressing the
issues, here are the top five things you should do to ensure your AdSense ads
are constantly bringing in that revenue.

Never break Google's policy. Don't make visitors create "artificial clicks" on
your website regardless of the person doing so or the reason. Make sure your
ads have the right colors that blend in with your site, and make sure they're
positioned in the right places to attract as many customers as possible. Always
try to avoid using banner-like (480x60) adds unless you really know what you're
doing and constantly keep your site fresh and up to date.

So with that in mind you should be raising your AdSense revenues in no time.

Positioning of Adverts

After using AdSense for a while you must have begun to ask yourself if there's
anything you could do to improve your AdSense based earnings. But before you go
on experimenting with this and that setup you have to realize a couple of things
about positioning.

The first thing you should know is that there is no universal position that is
guaranteed to improve your earnings. That being said, the part above about
experimenting is meant to be taken literally. You have to try as many setups as
you can to find the solution with the greatest benefit.

But, of course certain places usually work better then others. Of course,
Google recognizes this and they publish a "heat map" of how much revenue ads
placed in certain portions of the page can bring you. Experimenting is often
the best way you can find, what suits the sub conscious mind of your audience.

Generally the most profitable ads are placed within the main content, generally
right above it. But this is by no means a rule and there are some exceptions to
it. One known exception is having a news site or something similar to a new
site.

If this is your case, you will often find that you generate more earnings by
placing your ads at the bottom of the content, right before comments begin.
This is because as users finish reading a story, they have a short moment where
they're looking for something more to do. And your AdSense ads can offer them
that something.

Also, placing ads to the left side of your page seems to work better almost all
the time. Of course, this is logical because text is generally written from left
to right (unless you come from certain countries where it's the other way
around).

People will finish a sentence and return their eyes to the left position, which
means they have a higher chance of spotting your ads.

Also, there's a bit more to this then just having ads visually in the right
place. If you have more then one ad you have to worry about where they're
located in the code as well. And there's a very good reason for this concern.

AdSense fills the ads in the order it finds them in the source. That means that
if the first add you have in the code isn't the one generating the highest
revenue, you may soon start to lose money, rather then earn more.

This is because if AdSense doesn't have anymore ads it will supplement your
space with public service ads or just leave it blank altogether. That means
that, if you're unlucky, you could end up with your most profitable locations
not having any good ads at all. To supplement your revenues

There are other issues with how many ads you should place in your site. The
problem is that if you have too many, rather then generate more income, you'll
have a lower click through rate, as visitors tend not to follow ads from the
places where these come in excess.

You have to constantly keep track of how the users interact with your site.
Keep an eye out for where the visitors will be looking at your site most. This
is generally the place where you want to use your first ads. Also try not to
place ads in annoying positions as that can guarantee a lower click through
rate.

Of course, you always need to have ads that blend in with your content and
generally don't make the visitor's presence on your site an unpleasant one. The
key is providing an enjoyable experience for your visitor, whilst generating
revenues from their exploration.

And again, ultimately the best revenue will be earned through a lot of
experimentation. Be sure to use AdSense's channels feature and be on the look
out for how certain ads in your pages are doing whilst altering the positions
to better supplement your earnings.

Where Adsense Should Appear

When deciding whether to incorporate Adsense into your website there are
several factors to consider. Many feel that it diminishes their brand, whilst
others see it as a useful tool for visitors which creates revenues and makes
their content profitable.

The choice can largely come down to the commercial goals and the purpose of
your website. Many businesses who sell products decide to place Adsense adverts
within their website. This would appear to be a strange choice, opening up
opportunities for rivals to promote their service or product to your potential
customer base.

Many publishers claim that they are only doing this to allow companies who
provide ancillary services to advertise. These claims have some merit, as those
who for example sell pillows could provide those who sell bedding with an
opportunity to advertise.

Although this would make sense, there are still those online retailers who
allow rivals to penetrate their audience. Many claim that there are still
benefits in allowing your direct competitors to advertise within your website.
One of these is that ultimately if visitors wish to see your competitors they
would be able to see them through a Google search regardless. This may be true
however the thought of an established brand like coco-cola having a Pepsi
advert in their website is not even a possibility.

Another factor which is considered in this situation is that publishers do not
feel that Adsense is effective in making conversions. They feel that visitors
who would click on adverts are not highly qualified customers, as they would
quickly navigate to the materials or products that interest them if they were.

Despite Adsense being a questionable choice for online retailers, it is surely
a good supplementary service for other varieties of online publishers. For
example, a website which provides a free service like dictionary.com gets high
levels of traffic, and is able to make their service profitable through
adsense. This has been the case for Bloggers who originally provided content
free of charge, being unable to reach the scale that is necessary to contract
with advertisers directly.

This could also apply to other previously free services, including wider forms
of information broadcast, and news for example. In 2006 a man who later
published a selection of Videos claims to make $19,000 a month through adsense,
claiming that he was also contacted through Google to help him increase the CTR
(Click Through Rate) that he achieved. The thought of success like this has
been a major factor in stimulating online publishers to opt for Adsense.

Many publishers also claim that adsense makes their website look more
professional. Those who are able to contract with advertisers are generally
seen to provide a service with large appeal, and therefore those unfamiliar
with the program may feel that the Adsense advertiser is in this position.

Adsense however, is also aligned with those publishers who use the service
purely to provide links to adverts. Everyone has done a Google search, clicked
on an Adwords advert and came into a website which reads top ten resources on:
This is a major problem, as is generally something that surfers find
frustrating. If people see that it says adverts by Google, and they then see
adverts by Google on another site, they may align that site with consumer
unfriendly practices. This is therefore an issue which Google has to address,
to maintain Adsense as a reputable service.

Regardless of the disadvantages and the websites for which the service may be
inappropriate it is still a useful tool for website visitors. Those who visit a
website, and click on a link provide revenues for the publisher, whilst those
who provide free services are able to generate revenue.

The only fear that Google has, is that rival PPC programs offer better deals to
publishers and they decide to go elsewhere, therefore taking advertisers with
them. However, ultimately it is best for advertisers and publishers if they
largely remain in same PPC circuit.

The Advantages of Adsense For Search

Adsense for search provides publishers with the opportunity to provide a search
tool through their website. The search tool provides results which contain
adwords adverts, and therefore publishers can generate revenues.

The effectiveness of this tool for publishers comes in its functionality for
website visitors. Those who have browsed resources on a website may return to
Google to complete a search. If this resource is contained within a website
they are currently on, then they are likely to use the publisher's website for
search, and therefore the publisher can receive returns.

Publishers often claim that having a search tool within their website is a good
way to generate Adsense revenues without the concern of diminishing their brand.
In the way that a company who sells a product would not want a rival provider
having an adsense advert within their website, they will not feel that this
disadvantage is relevant. The advantages of adsense for search also lies in the
space that it occupies on screen. The results are displayed on a separate page,
so publishers do not feel that they are sacrificing space where Adsense would
previously appear.

The tool may also lead to visitors selecting the given website as their
homepage. If the website contains relevant resources, and still has the
functionality associated with Google then the website has broader general
appeal. Those who are visiting the website for the first time, and realising it
will not satisfy their needs may still use the websites search function.

Adsense publishers often state that they receive less per Click Through with
Search. Although this is the case surfers are more likely to be targeted
towards adverts than with Google Adsense. If a visitor has have changed the
item or topic they wish to search for, and isn't compelled by the adverts; they
can still find what they are looking for as the publisher earns a percentage.

It is also a good tool as publishers can allow their site to be searched using
the same technology. Therefore surfers are more likely to also find the
resources within the publisher's website that they require.

Google has a lesser database of advertisers for Adsense through the
selectiveness of advertisers. The search toolbar provides results which include
advertisers that do not want to appear in Adsense for content.

Google for search is also used by large market leading websites where this is
rare with adsense. Companies who provide a service or sell a product are more
regularly opting to incorporate the search toolbar into their website whilst
not feeling that it depreciates their brand.

In fact; many businesses actually feel as though their brand is strengthened
through it's alignment with the Google logo. Other's who choose not to use the
Google logo, may benefit from the customers assumption that the search
technology used belongs to the website they are on, and therefore further
benefits are reaped by the publisher.

As adsense is plagued with click fraud, the same is less likely to happen with
search. Click Fraud would require the person or persons committing the crime to
follow realistic searches, and to avoid any suspicious behaviour. This could be
particularly hard, and with less revenue per click those committing click fraud
are likely to stay away from search all together.

How Much Money Will I earn Through Adsense?

If you're looking at Google's AdSense program you're surely asking yourself how
much you could make from such a program, and you probably think you can't make
as much as you can from traditional advertising schemes.

Google, of course, keeps a great deal of secrecy regarding how much AdWords
advertisers pay per each click directed to their site and the same applies for
how much AdSense banner holders make from their websites.

While there's nothing official, rumors circulate around the Internet concerning
the amount of cash a website can earn by using AdSense. And many people
(illegally) disclose how much they have been making with AdSense. There are
stories of people raising over one thousand dollars per month using AdSense.

There are also stories of people exceeding $100,000.00 per month but it's a bit
hard to believe such stories. The truth to the matter is that if you have a
small website and you just want it to support itself, and don't wish to reach
your pocket for its maintenance costs you can probably do this with AdSense.

AdSense is also very good for people who host a lot of pages. Even if the said
pages don't generate a lot of traffic individually, every click counts and you
can earn up with a lot of money by doing this. And that just goes to prove that
sometimes quantity matters nearly as much as quality.

There's no telling how much money you're going to make by using Google's
AdSense but you can sort of tell for yourself, before actually starting, by
taking a few things into consideration.

First, is the amount of visits you get every day. While there's no way to
estimate precisely on this, you can generally make a safe assumption that if
you have a lot of clicks per day you'll be making good money.

Also, this depends on what exactly your site is about. If your site is about
anything popular (music, sex, whatever) you're bound to get a lot of banner
clicks. These have a coefficient associated with them, called the CTR (click
through ratio).

Basically, what it translates to is that if a large proportion of your site's
visitors click the ads you'll be making more money. And the best way to do this
is to have some popular content in your site, ensuring the links direct users
towards popular items as well.

Then of course, there's the position and number of ads on your website. While
you don't want to overdo it, having many links will undoubtedly generate more
income for you as a webmaster. Do not however believe, that if you just add a
lot of ads in an important portion of your site, visitors could always just
skip them (and be assured that many do just that).

There's something between an art and a science to positioning your ads. People
generally look in certain places and never look in others, and knowing this a
website author and/or webmaster can do a great deal of things to increase his
earnings with AdSense.

All in all, the amount of money you make with AdSense depends on many factors.
But if you have a site with interesting contents and/or many pages, and if you
see a constantly large amount of traffic every day, you can bet you'll be
making a lot of money with AdSense.

Even if you aren't in the above categories, AdSense is still worth using
because there's very little hassle in setting it up, and many times it can help
financially support the site, whilst being a nice bonus to get through the post
at the end of the month.

How Adsense Changed the Internet

Ever since Google came up with the master idea that is AdSense, the web has
transformed in a variety of ways no one would have ever suspected. Some of
these are good changes others aren't.

This is a small exploration of how a brilliant marketing scheme has taken the
web by storm. It deals with the changes advertisers and publishers and even
website visitors have undergone ever since AdSense has become a daily part of
our on-line lives.

Even before AdSense came out a lot of people were advertising through AdWords.
It ensured a lot of publicity through getting your site listed at the top in
Google search queries. It took away a lot of the pain and price of SEO and the
large amount of time you had to wait until you were finally on top. It made
launching a website, a realistic way to instant profitability instead of a long
term strategy with no immediate returns.

Through the use of AdSense, the possibility appeared of having your ads appear
on just about any site on the Internet that has anything that even resembles
your company is all about. And so it's for that reason that AdSense has brought
a new sense of advertising to the Internet. Before PPC poorly ranked web pages
had to advertise offline to get any real initial exposure.

Companies no longer have to hire expensive professionals to create extremely
elaborate advertising campaigns. There are no high costs of running your ads on
websites which you have to personally look for.

All you do is come up with a couple of meaningful words for your business, sign
up with Google AdWords and let Google take care of the rest of the equation.
Although it requires day to day management automation saves significant time
for advertisers.

Of course, probably the largest change in the way the Internet works due to
AdSense comes from the publishers' point of view. Whereas one would previously
have to jump through many hoops to get a website to even support itself now
people are making fortunes off their sites. This leads to motivation for
content, and resources for web surfers. That generally means site publishers
have to worry more about what content lies on their site, and the overall way
their pages look rather then be concerned with the economic specifics of
maintaining a site's profitability. Although time is invested in adsense, a
large capital investment is not.

It's no surprise that the blogging phenomenon exploded when AdSense came out a
few years ago. Anyone could just write a page about a subject he was passionate
about and making a living out of it through AdSense. And thirdly, one can't
ignore the impact AdSense has had over the casual everyday web surfer. Whereas
people used to not even notice banners altogether (which psychologically is a
very interesting thing to observe) the situation is completely different for
text ads.

People nowadays will take a long look at a sponsored ad. Why? Well because the
whole setup brings forth a feeling of confidence about the advertiser. People
don't ignore a text ad as easily as they do a graphical banner. Another thing
to note is that graphical banners have become even less profitable nowadays. It
is because of this that many people are walking away from affiliate type
networks to AdSense.

Of course, there are bad effects as well, with people making websites solely
for the purpose of running AdSense on them and just as well, with a large
phenomenon of 'click fraud', people creating artificial clicks for various
reasons. But Google does try to control such behavior, and really isn't to be
blamed for such individuals' actions. All in all Google AdSense is transforming
the way the Internet works and it's doing so mostly in a good way.

Now those with ideas can write them down, and make money from them. Those
looking for content can find it easier, and those looking to attract a customer
base can do so in a targeted way. Adsense has changed the internet through
supporting the economic interests of businesses, and the utility of consumers.

Text v Graphic on Adsense

Google Adsense provides advertisers and publishers with the opportunity to
place adverts in both text and graphic format.

As advertisers decide to put adsense into their website over banner
advertising, the question still remains. Which is the best for advertisers and
which is the best for publishers?

On one hand advertisers may feel that image adverts are more responsive yet
less likely to stimulate a sale. On the other hand text adverts may convert
more, whilst being less visible to the consumer.

Text based adverts are considered the least intrusive of the two formats.
However does that mean that Graphic advertising is better? Consumers are used
to graphic advertising from signing into free email accounts, and from using
other web based services. Through being used to graphic advertising they have
almost programmed their selves to ignore it. Through the adverts being
untargeted, the consumer is used to brand advertising which they feel is
generally less purposeful. This may cause the consumer to ignore the graphic
advert from the assumption that it will be the same.

Text adverts are not forced upon surfers. Through being less obvious some
people will not see them at all, however those who do see them, and read them
are significantly more likely to click on them. This is for a number of
reasons, but the first is that they provide more information. Generally,
someone who is reading text on a page is not going to be fully satisfied by
what they read, and if they check adsense adverts they will most likely read
something which will further supplement whatever their intention is next. With
an image advert, it is far more of a gamble for the surfer.

Graphic advertising is often paid per impression. This is because the
advertiser may be trying to promote their brand, instead of promoting a
specifically useful service. They therefore are assumed to have worse
conversion rates, and with this text adverts are in the consumers eyes more
effective. However, if the text contained within an advert was placed in
graphic format, which would be the most effective? Well firstly it can assumed
that the surfer will be more likely to view it, however if their were multiple
image adverts appearing next to each other they may feel overwhelmed.

Graphic adverts are also harder to regulate. Let's consider Google allowing
adverts to be changed frequently and without regulation. The advertiser could
claim affiliation from the website they are advertising on, and contain
keywords such as "ipod" which cannot be contained within a text advert.
Although more regulation and quality control could be in place, a pornographic
image for example could be made to appear in an advertiser's adverts
unknowingly.

Text adverts also have a broader market appeal, as advertisers don't generally
have the in house resources to create an image advert, but do have the in house
resources to write a text advert. This could mean that a wider array of
advertisers find text advertising accessible, through text adverts being less
burden on the advertiser, and being easy to change.

Text adverts are also cheaper for the advertiser to create, where as a
graphically designed advert may cost in excess of $200. Through removing this
fixed cost advertisers may be willing to allot a higher rate to advertising
itself; thus benefiting the advertiser and the publisher.

Text advertising appears to be the preference of the advertiser. They pay a CTR
(click through rate) and only receive targeted traffic. This removes risks from
businesses that previously had to worry that adverts were not only seen, but
clicked on and stimulating sales. As CPC (Cost Per Click) is more relevant to
text adverts, advertisers are able to gain exposure without needing a high
click through rate to be effective.

The big brands are willing to advertise in both formats however the broad
market appeal of text inevitably makes it the winner. As flash websites
disappear with image adverts, it is becoming clear that text and information is
the preference of the website users.

Click Fraud

If you're using AdWords or AdSense you must have heard about an emerging
practice in the underworld of computing called "click fraud". But what exactly
is click fraud and how is it accomplished?

Well AdSense uses a payment mechanism that awards a certain amount of money to
a publisher (someone who holds an AdSense banner on their page) every time a
person clicks on the said banner. So click fraud is the attempt to have people
clicking the ads just so that they can earn a greater income.

There are people setting up sites for the sole purpose of fraudulently
generating revenue through Google's AdSense program. These users achieve an
incredible number of clicks through many methods, some complex and
sophisticated and some rudimentary and simple.

One of the most complex is through the use of so called "hitbots". These are
automated programs who emulate clicking the links in AdSense banners (there are
some that actually click the banners as well).

Google's AdSense protection scheme is by no means perfect and nearly anyone can
find the details of surmounting the protection mechanism, ironically just by
doing a Google search.

Another, more rudimentary method is to hire a lot of people in a poor country
to click the links on your site. This means these people will actually sit all
day and just click links so you can earn a fortune. They come from very poor
countries like India, and they're prepared to do so for just $0.50 an hour.

Of course, there's a problem with this mechanism. Once Google receives a large
number of clicks from a single address, the address and the site that had the
AdSense banner will be banned, and the illicit behavior might even get the
fraudster sued.

To prevent this from happening, many people use a large number of proxy servers
for the purpose of clicking. These are basically trojans, located on computers
throughout the world (though mostly in the US). What's even more daunting is
that these clicks will appear to originate from an actual computer so such
scams are really hard to detect.

And don't think this happens only in isolated instances. There is a great deal
of illegal activity in this domain.

In fact there's so much that if search engine companies don't increase their
security with such programs as AdSense, such criminal behavior could become
more become even more damaging.

Google has a very strict policy regarding click fraud, and it has sued those
employing such techniques in the past. But while the search engine giant tries
its best to minimize the risk of click fraud there's certainly room for a lot
of improvement.

It is estimated that more then 20% of the clicks that follow an AdSense link
are just done in order to get money from the person paying for the ad. Some
people believe the number of fraudulent clicks to be even twice as large.

There are a great deal more schemes involving click fraud, such as groups of
AdSense publishers clicking each other's links (which is referred to as
"clicking rings", or spamming people so that they click such links.

Despite Google still holding click fraud on a leash, the phenomenon is
certainly raising concerns for the advertisers on AdWords, but despite this
advertising with Google's AdSense still remains more profitable for the
advertiser, as opposed to traditional untargeted advertising schemes.

There are some means of protection against such schemes and all advertisers
should be savvy enough to employ them. Many advertisers choose to avoid the
content network all together for fear of click fraud.

Top Paying Keywords

In people's search for higher incomes from Google AdSense a lot of AdSense
publishers are looking to find those keywords that really bring the best income
possible. The higher an advertiser pays for a keyword, they more the advertiser
receives when they click on a link.

But how can you find such words for your site? Well, the answer to that
question depends a little on who you are and what you're prepared to do to get
those keywords. But the general good news is that you can indeed find such
words if you need them.

Of course, if you can afford such a solution, one of the best ways of getting
your hands on those words would be to pay for them. There are specialized
companies that do business by finding people good keywords, not only for the
purpose of more AdSense revenue but for search engine optimization as well.

Of course, if such a solution does not work for you, you can ultimately resort
to a method of personal investigation. That means you try out keywords by
yourself and see which ones work better or worse for yourself.

While you might also be doing this for the first method (paying someone else to
get the keywords) it would probably be better then this because you'd at least
be narrowing down search to certain items.

While you're trying this make sure to keep using AdSense's 'channels' feature
along the way as it can be a very good way of letting you know which sections
of your site are generating income and which aren't.

Of course, you can also yield a great amount of help from AdSense's arch enemy
Overture. Overture gives you the possibility of entering keywords and finding
out not only how much advertisers are paying to get them on your page, but how
much people are clicking on the words as well.

You can also try out a tool called Word Tracker. What this tool can do is tell 
you how many sites are already using the same keywords. Learn from this lesson 
and don't try to use the words that a lot of people are already using.

Also, a great aid may very well be found in Google itself. Search Google for
any keywords you may wish to include in your pages and look at the results. The
results on the left will probably be your competitors (and if they have Google
AdSense ads on their page you can bet then are) while the links on the right
display ads relevant to your search.

If your search doesn't yield any AdSense results then you might want to
reconsider including those keywords in your site.

Make sure you don't use any dead words (words that don't get any links on
AdSense other then public ads. That is probably the most important thing you
should be doing.

Of course these are only a few methods of getting out of the dead zone and
starting to make serious money with AdSense. If you've seen a lot of people
with "not so hot" websites generating a lot of AdSense revenue, using these
tips can get you right behind them (or in front if you're really smart) very
fast. Although this is the case it is also very important to remember that
having the highest paying words does not mean that you make the most money. You
have to also consider how many times the advert is clicked on.

Adsense -- Pros and Cons

You have that site on-line for quite a while, its generating a good number of
hits every day and you're thinking whether or not to use AdSense advertising on
it to make it generate some form of income.

Well this is a description of the pros and cons of this approach to Internet
advertising. AdSense has definitely hit the Internet like something from
another planet and people are very excited about it everywhere. There are
negative aspects to Adsense and alternatives to consider.

AdSense is generally a great tool for webmasters. Whereas, they would use to
worry about how to raise enough money to keep their sites profitable, or at
least keep them on-line those worries are gone.

AdSense allows webmasters to forget about those worries and concentrate on
creating good content for their sites. In fact, the emphasis is now on creating
quality content (often associated with the top-paying words) which will bring
you many visitors.

AdSense can also very well integrated with your website, it's easily
customizable in terms of colors, size and position which means you can
experiment with it in any way you like to maximize your income.

AdSense is a very good means of generating a constant revenue on your site. All
you need to do is create some quality content and keep it updated constantly and
you can literally live off your website. A lot of people are doing just that
nowadays with AdSense, so it's become sort of a business in itself.

It's also a great program because you can have the same account advertising on
all your pages. This is great for webmasters wit a lot of content because it
means they don't have to create many accounts unnecessarily.

But as stated, above, there are some negative aspects to advertising with
AdSense and here's a small list of such cons.

Clearly the largest negative impact the AdSense program can have on you is
through Google closing your accounts. Most of the time this happens because of
so called 'click fraud', which means somebody would be producing artificial
clicks on your page.

There's one really nasty side to that. It doesn't have to be you making those
artificial clicks. It could very well be your competition doing this in order
to shut you down, or the competitor of whoever is advertising on your page,
looking to drive their marketing costs up.

The earning AdSense brings you are by no means constant. In fact, they're not
even close to that. Anything you do to your site could end up being a big
mistake costing you a great deal of money. It's that kind of pressure that has
a negative impact on you.

First of all, you constantly need to make sure your site is in the spotlight of
search engines when people are searching for whatever it is your site is about.

If you fail to do that you won't have any visitors, and that of course means
you won't have any AdSense revenue. In a way this is nothing new, as any form
of generating revenue on the Internet with advertising has such a drawback.

And finally, another major problem is that you constantly have to feed your
site with better and better content. Now, of course, certain sites are very
well geared towards doing this but with some types of content this is rather
hard to achieve. This is often why the services of a copywriter are employed to
generate more and more content.

When writing original content, the best thing a website owner can do is
research a topic thoroughly and then return to writing with lots of information
they can out in their own words, and show their own opinion on.

So there are the pros and cons of using the AdSense network for generating
profits through advertising. Now the choice of whether or not these work for
you is yours.

Adsense and the Surfer

AdSense is an easy program to grasp: it's a great form of an advertising
bringing a lot of benefits to every person in the chain. And of course, seeing
the results it can have on a business (and a publisher) people encourage this
form of publicity.

For the browsing audience this is probably the most straightforward model
available, because they can be directed to a lot of new sites they wouldn't
have otherwise found. Needless to say, if you have an AdSense banner on your
site, and a large number of visitors you'll know it offers a great financial
benefit.

But why does it work for the people clicking the links, as opposed to a
standard approach?

It is aided by today's society. With bloggers and information based articles on
the internet, people may be encouraged to complete purchases, which adsense can
provide links to relevant suppliers whilst also benefiting the publisher.

And the good thing about this is that it works for site visitors as well. In
fact Google realized that by pleasing the people who are looking for something,
and directing them to what they need faster, everybody wins.

It is because of this that a lot of websites promote through AdSense in both
content and search. They do it because they ultimately learned that it works
for everyone.

If we look in the past, we can realize that this kind of publicity has a great
impact over the people, especially in the last few years. When we enter on a
web site and we see a graphical banner, our first idea is to cancel it out of
our mind, because it's of no concern to us.

That's why traditional banner advertising is wrong. It's precisely because
people are becoming savvy that they don't look at a flashy banner because they
think they'll be losing their time with it.

We've gotten accustomed to banners that don't interest us. And we're accustomed
to them having nice graphics. So we naturally associate the two things and think
that a banner with nice graphics has nothing to tell us.

But we might look at a text-ad because we've grown accustomed to them being
targeted at what we're looking for. Basically these advertisements have
marketed themselves into being looked at by any visitor.

This is a typical "no fluff, just stuff" situation. And in the end it means the
visitors will see what they're interested in, not some random cool graphics you
throw at them.

As stated above, site visitors adopt this advertising mechanism, because it is
efficient in leading them to pages of interest and can offer ton of things they
really want to see. Someone coming across an article on adsense was probably
looking for shoes or doing research on shoes when they came across the article.

And most importantly for everyone, including visitors, this scheme can only
improve as the process gets further refined to make ads more relevant to what
you're looking for, not just a couple of keywords on a site.

Nowadays, it is because of AdSense that Internet surfers are looking after more
interesting related things from banners, and the companies behind the site
(Google and the advertiser) need to have better ideas to display, as
expectations have increased a great deal.

So could "Do no evil" actually work in today's cut throat competitive
marketplace? Well, as you can see it can and it does. And you, as a visitor are
the one who gets to enjoy this the most. Advertising becomes less of a burden
and more of a benefit, and is still a benefit you can choose to ignore.

Less obtrusive banners; banners that you're actually likely to be interested in
and click means you'll be less annoyed by surfing the web and feel like you as a
visitor being offered a relevant service.

Although some may feel reluctant to read articles that are there purely to
compel consumers, undoubtedly without this consideration they are useful.
Ultimately the adverts mean that you don't have to go back to your homepage
every time you are compelled to complete a purchase.

Why Use Google Adsense?

Undoubtedly, you've heard about Google's AdSense and you are thinking about
giving it a go. But is it really worth placing an AdSense banner on your site?

The answer is a definite yes. You could always have some other banner on your
site, or even use some search of affiliate ad program and that would probably
make you some money, given of course that your site enjoys a healthy amount of
visitors. However with affiliate marketing, it is expected that the visitor
from your website completes a sale before you are remunerated.

But that's nowhere near what you get for using AdSense. There are people who
earn in excess of 100.000 dollars per year by using AdSense. And it doesn't
just stop with making more money. Firstly, the ads are text only. That means
they're by far less obtrusive on your visitors then your average, flashy banner
that's designed to catch the eye of the visitor.

Sure, you'll have to ensure they get better placement, so as to be noticed but
despite that they don't bother viewer's as much as traditional ads. Think about
the many sites you've seen using pop-ups, floating banners and many other
schemes that will have visitors screaming in anger every time they visit the
said website. You can actually do better then that, annoying people less and
still making an amount of money.

Secondly, the ads are generated based on the contents of your site
automatically. When you use an affiliate ad program, you have to specify
certain categories that your sites belong to.

However, if any page on your site falls outside of these categories, the
banners aren't targeted anymore. And what that means is that you're potentially
showing ads to people who don't have any interest in them and that can lead to
inefficiencies.

With Google AdSense that just about never happens: the ads present on your site
will always be in sync with whatever your visitors are interested in and that
adds to your site's value and to the revenue it produces.

What's more, the look of these banners and their size is customizable, which
means they will feel more integrated with the rest of your site's content,
which brings an increase in your site's overall visual quality as opposed to a
traditional approach.

For many people, there's also a great problem with finding people to advertise
on their site as well. AdSense is clearly the easiest solution available to
this problem today.

It's free to join the AdSense program and it almost takes no time at all. The
potential database of websites from AdWords is larger then anything you might
encounter from any competitor, numbering over 150.000 users. This means as more
people compete the CPC or cost per click for search terms will inevitably rise.

Also, setting up AdSense on your site is a breeze, and you can complete the
whole process in less then an hour. It takes a lot less to do then any form of
affiliate advertising which is yet another reason to choose the easy AdSense
approach.

All you need to do is add an AdSense banner on your website (other then
registering with the program of course) is to copy & paste a few lines and
you're all done, you get to choose where the banners go, how large they are and
how they integrate with the rest of your site.

For any webmaster out there, that's a killer scheme because it lets you draw
the line between your site's usability level and the amount of advertising you
wish to have. Some people need the money badly while others just keep AdSense
running to pay for the hosting of their website.

AdSense is a great advertising program because a lot of thought has went into
making it "just work for everyone". It works great for the people who use
AdWords, for the webmasters using AdSense, and most importantly for the
visitors of the websites.

Why Advertisers support Adsense

Google is the biggest search engine on the web. It controls over 40% of
Internet searches, and with that it controls pay per click advertising (pay per
click). PPC involves the advertiser paying a rate for every click through (CTR)
in which the advertisers set. As their budget increases, their position
increases, and as their position increases, they get more traffic.

This has lead to over 140,000 companies choosing to advertise with them, and
they advertise in a number of ways. The first way is through is through
appearing on Google searches, the second is through appearing on distributors
websites, and the third is through appearing in distributors search results. As
advertisers appear in Google searches, the question is sometimes asked. Why do
they choose to advertise with distributors as well?

One reason for this is scalability. Those who originally choose to advertise in
search results and who were getting a ROI (return on investment) will decide at
one point that they need to identify other advertising opportunities. With
thousands of websites which have the capacity to display their adverts the
advertisers can gain further exposure very quickly.

Another reason why advertisers choose to advertise in Google distributors
websites is that it gains them further exposure. 60% of internet users do not
use Google, so the advertiser can appeal to a wider audience through choosing
to opt for distribution channels. Many website users may be looking to buy a
product such as a phone, yet instead of coming across a website which sells
such a product, they come across an article. If the article is on a website
which contains Adsense then inevitably advertisers can use this channel to
penetrate their audience.

Another reason why advertisers choose adsense is because they trust Google. The
company is renowned for being an ethical company who are fun to work whilst
providing free services to millions worldwide. Advertisers feel that money
invested with Google is safe. Despite the evolution of click-fraud and its
inevitable disadvantages for advertisers they appear to understand that this is
an issue which Google wants to stop and hopefully will eventually. Advertisers
are happy that Google admits a problem exits and provides refunds accordingly.

The trust in Google also stems from a trust in pricing. The pricing is set by
market forces and therefore advertisers never feel that publishers or Google
are overpricing the service. This means that as long as advertisers are able to
advertise they will continue to do so, if not at the same rates.

Another strong advantage for advertisers is that they can appear where
publishers promote their service. An example of this can seen if you consider a
publisher who is discussing the benefits of new IT software. If a software
retailer appears on the website then inevitably they will be the likely source
from which the web surfer will purchase the product. If the surfer is not
interested then you could argue that they would not click on the advert.

The service which Google provides has created an opportunity for businesses of
all sizes to advertise. Although the issue of click fraud still plagues the
service it is till widely regarded as the best. New businesses attempt to
promote themselves on the web, whilst established brands alike choose to
attract interest in their service using the same technique.

Ways to Identify and Tackle Click Fraud

Identifying and tracking examples of click fraud is the first step to
eradicating the problem. Click fraud is an enormous drain on the resources of
advertisers operating on a national and international scale, estimated to
occupy around 30% of all pay per click advertising spend. With so much at
stake, its no wonder the search engines are investing so much time and effort
into devising solutions.

One way in which Search Engines and other pay per click programme providers
have attempted to curb the growing click fraud problem is through introducing
IP address repetition algorithms. These formulae are designed to pick up on
suspicious click patterns emanating from a singular IP address, which can help
to uncover the existence of click farms and competitor-led sabotage, as well as
identifying potential fraudsters at source.

However, there is an array of problems with this method of attempting to
identify the fraudsters. Firstly, fraudsters logging on through a dialup modem,
DSL line or cable modem can almost completely bypass this check, as with every
new online session, a new IP address is generated. Furthermore, there is an
extensive range of software available to alter IP addresses, which again can be
used for 'cheating' the algorithm. Cookie and session tracking are other methods
by which search engines can attempt to uncover potential fraudulent activity,
but again there are ways around these for the fraudsters.

More comprehensive software is being developed which profiles and reports on
the browsing habits of each click-through to enable companies to track and
monitor suspicious behavior, although this could be seen by many as intrusive
and ineffective as anything on a small scale is still likely to go unnoticed,
based on the vast coverage of ads across the internet.

The problem of click fraud recently hit the headlines with a class action
raised against Google, prompting Google to offer $90million as a potential
settlement. Perhaps an acceptance of their responsibilities, Google's offer
goes some way to suggest the extent of click fraud, and its vast costs to the
internet economy.

There are a number of self-help remedies that can be implemented to keep an
organization out of trouble. The first of these remedies is the reliance on
search engine optimization and organic listings. If a site is well and fully
optimized, it could eventually realize a ranking that another site is willing
to pay $2.50 a click for. Similarly, with organically high rankings there are
no clickthrough rates, therefore the costs associated with PPC are not
applicable. Although the process is significantly more laborious and takes
significantly longer to see results, the SEO process is much cheaper in the
long run, and with an estimated 25-30% of all clicks being performed
fraudulently, an organically high listing can save money which would otherwise
be drained by click fraud for more beneficial reinvestment.

Year on year, as the pay per click advertising market continues to grow and
expand, surely click fraud will follow suit. Unless an effective means of
preventing click fraud is developed and successfully implemented, buyers will
steadily lose confidence in the advertising medium and turn to more effective,
less wasteful marketing methods, which would seriously hit the search engines
and could potentially threaten the online economy as a whole.

Getting Started With Adsense

A very important element in the rapid adoption of AdSense is that it has been
very easy for publishers to get the ads on their site as quickly as possible.

Integrating AdSense in your website takes only a few minutes, and you can be on
your way with one or more nicely integrated AdSense ads.

The first thing you need to do is navigate to http://www.google.com/adsense and
either apply or log in with your existing account and password. What follows is
a page presenting the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions which you must agree
to in order to proceed.

You are presented with a report page which you can use to get a detailed status
on how your AdSense advertising is doing. This allows you to improve your site's
contents and layout to maximize your AdSense earnings.

On the top of your page you also have link to the setup section where you can
generate the code that will need to be pasted on your website in order to have
AdSense banners on your page.

You can use AdSense for text (the said ads), using a search box or with
referrals. Your choice among these options depends on how users will navigate
your site.

Finally, there is a "My Account" tab which allows you to set up details
concerning your account, payment and tax information.

To add a text ad on your site, go back to the "AdSense Setup" tab and click the
"AdSense for content" link. Make sure you have cookies enabled in your browser.

You can make a choice between ad units and link units. The former contain text
and or images concerning a certain site for each unit, most with a detailed
description, the latter only contain links to certain types.

Of course, it's a bit hard to know which type you should use so you should
probably experiment with both for a while before you decide.

You can also view an example of how the unit will look to the right of your
page. However, you may only use three ad units and one link unit on any given
page. This is believed to be a step which Google takes for quality control.

The next step is to choose your add format and colors. You can basically select
any color palette you choose with Google offering some of its own if you don't
have the time or skill to create one. You can constantly view how the palette
will look through the aid of an example. The one that works best in terms of
appearance and revenues will vary with the look, feel and content of a website.

However, your ad formats are limited to a choice of eleven formats. There's an
"Ad Formats" link which takes you to a page that lets you see all even of these
in action so you can decide best which one suits your site. Sometimes the most
intrusive, doesn't work best however again, this can vary from website to
website.

After you finish with customization, you can click "Continue" from the bottom
of the page.

You are now presented with a section entitled "AdSense for Content". You can
click anywhere in the text and that shows the JavaScript required to get
AdSense running. This will automatically select the text in the box.

You can then copy it and paste it into your pages directly. If you use dynamic
pages, you should paste this code within your template so as to ensure that it
gets displayed on any page of your website. Some advertisers choose not to
display Adsense on every page, and this is understandable. An example of this
is a company that has adsense, may also have terms and condition which would
inevitably provide legal resources which would probably be deemed inappropriate.

What is then left for you to do is get content on your page (provided you
didn't have any already). Google AdSense crawlers will soon visit your site,
making sure that the ads displayed are relevant to your site's content.

And you're all done. For a simple page this should indeed be a matter of a few
minutes, which is precisely what makes AdSense the choice for so many. Although
it is quick, its mass appeal also makes it the best. Through being the most
popular, advertisers and publishers alike see Adsense and Adwords as their
natural first choice.

Adsense is for Everyone

When Google's AdSense appeared, there were a lot of people who doubted Google's
idea would be marketable and actually generate any profits. Yet as we stand here
today it's probably the most well known pay per click venture in the world.

Yes, all those nay sayers ended up eating their own words in the end. And that
is because the folks at Google never go and do something without assessing
whether or not it will be profitable, or exactly how profitable it is.

But of course, as you might very well know, AdSense isn't just profitable for
Google. It's also profitable for the people who advertise via AdWords and very
profitable for publishers who use it to make earnings which are sometimes just
enormous.

So one must ask himself why this is such a good deal for everybody. And the
question in itself is very justified because you hardly ever come across
something that's profitable for everyone in the chain. So why would AdSense be
any different.

Well, AdSense is where it stands today, giving benefits for everybody in the
game because it exploits a gap in the Internet's advertising model.

You see, the Internet is a very interactive environment, and its interactions
come from the people who are browsing. They choose whether or not to follow a
certain link and the term "navigating" is probably the most precise one at
describing this situation.

So AdSense is great because it links together buyers and sellers. Yes, you have
to hand it out to Google for a brilliant idea. They know there are people out
there that want to buy stuff and people who want to sell them what they're
interested in. And Google AdSense helps members of the two categories find each
other.

It works for the visitors, because the model is very transparent. You don't see
a huge graphic banner which tries to lure you into buying something. You just
see a few words. And if you like what you see you can just click it. It works
because visitors don't have that feeling of someone trying to lure them into
spending money. Ironically, however, they're wrong.

It works for the AdWords advertisers because their ads go everywhere. Not only
will they find themselves listed in Google's search which gets gazillions of
hits per day, up front without working as much for SEO and waiting so much.

Their ads can reach any website that deals with anything similar to what
they're trying to sell. Now you must realize they could never pull of such
great advertising by themselves. And that brings us to the thing that makes
Google's AdSense a publisher's best friend.

It comes from the fact that the ads are contextual, that they somehow related
to the keywords you deal with on your page. Because people or on your site,
which deals with a certain topic, you already know they're interested in that
topic.

But, hey, wait a minute, Google knows some companies which want to sell your
visitors something related to their topic. Google wants your visitors, you want
Google's advertisers and the visitors just want to buy stuff. And that is the
essence of what makes AdSense a great deal for everybody.

This is by far the most profitable hook-up deal you're ever going to see
anywhere on the Internet.

So you have to appreciate Google for realizing a killer deal. You have to
appreciate how well thought out, yet simple this scheme really is. Sure, in
practice it has a few quirks but those are minor and, up to this point everyone
seems to be enjoying Google's AdSense.

Google PPC: Content or Search?

When advertising with pay per click Google gives the advertiser two broad
options. Advertising in search results, advertising in websites content or
indeed many choose to do both. Advertising in search means that results are
displayed in Google under searches, and in its distributors search results.
Google content advertising applies to those websites who choose to incorporate
"Adsense" into their websites. As adsense rapidly expands, it is now viewable
on millions of web pages throughout the web. However, many advertisers are
shunning this in favor of merely advertising in search results. There are
several reasons for this, and the first is trust. This has been a result of
smaller websites, through to adsense empires choosing to embark on Click Fraud.
Although this issue occurs in search it is far less dominant. Those who commit
Click Fraud on search are those trying to weaken a competitor's ROI. With
Adsense the same applies, along with the website owner trying to increase his
revenues using similar tactics.

Another reason why website owners are choosing to market out with content is
the motivation of the buyer when he is on a website. Someone who is on a
different website, other than the advertisers might be there for entirely
different reasons. For example a website discussing the disadvantages of
Adsense, would actually return adverts for those selling "Adsense Websites" for
example. People may click on it, but they are unlikely to buy after reading a
negative review. The other reason could be that the person on the adsense
website was actually looking for what is the best color palette to use. The
person therefore would not find the advert relevant, but might click on the
advert in a care free manner. Adsense websites are also often rejected by the
advertiser because they feel it involves more administration. Checking through
websites to see how relevant they are, and editing their bids to ensure they
still appear on a page. With some words having a network of over 500 websites,
it is surely a tedious and expensive task. Although this is the case, many also
find that their Adwords account returns websites, that don't even appear to be
trying to support their keywords. The example which is ripe, are those
advertising under legal phrases who appear on adsense websites "terms and
conditions" and "privacy policy" pages.

Although many are rejecting content advertising, there are still those who feel
it provides a similar ROI to search. A reason for this can be found through in
the fact that more and more advertisers are only choosing search. As this
occurs the advertiser has less competition so the price of the word reduces.
Advertisers are also finding a good ROI from publisher's websites who decide to
actively promote the advertiser's services within their content. An example of
this can be realized from when someone is discussing printing services, and
actually directly recommends the advertiser's services. This is a positive move
for both the publisher and the advertiser, and a good way for publishers to move
forward. Despite this, publishers still have to remember, to not be too obvious
in doing this, or savvy buyers will definitely calculate the publisher's
intention.

Another reason why advertisers are opting for content is to increase their
scale, however this can also be done across other search engines. The fact
however still exists that those who choose content advertising should choose
the Google Adsense network. It is regulated far and above yahoo's and others
equivalents whilst its superior network of publishers means the advertisers
will benefit from being able to spread their message through a diverse range of
websites. Despite Adsense being the best PPC content distributor, it certainly
doesn't compare to search for the advertiser. On search the leads are more
qualified, more regulated, and less fraudulent. This has seen advertisers
consistently choose search over content. Despite this advertiser's should
always test adsense and see if it can provide the ROI they are looking for.
Some advertisers say that content provides a better return for their business
than search. This varies, however in general search remains King for PPC
advertisers.

The Disadvantages of Adsense

As adsense becomes the most popular publisher program for Price per Click
advertising, flaws and disadvantages still exist. Since its inception
advertisers have chosen to advertise in search because they felt that visitors
would be less targeted. This is a genuine concern and one that makes perfect
sense. If you are visiting a website, and notice an advert then the chances are
you are not particularly concentrating on its content.

Adsense has also become so popular that people can distinguish them from other
adverts. Therefore people may choose to ignore them without even paying them a
thought. This has been a hot topic discussed by Bloggers and one that could
contain a lot of truth. Many have blamed Google for this, and their decision to
include text that says "ads by Google" beneath the advert.

Many publishers also fail to ever gain the revenues they anticipated when
starting the program. Those only gaining 30 -- 40 visitors a day to their
website would be unlikely to earn even one dollar a day. Many advertisers talk
of rates such as 1.5%- 5% for traffic to click conversion, whilst only gaining
around $0.10 per click. The maths doesn't work out great, but you can hardly
blame advertisers or Google if you are not bringing enough traffic. The key is
to bring targeted traffic to your website that are likely to click on adverts,
however it is said that it may be easier on other programs which allow figures
such as 75% share of advertising revenues for publishers.

Another disadvantage in adsense is that it has almost become tacky. Its
appearance on websites that generally appear to be designed in a DIY fashion
has lead people to associate them inextricably. This can only be tackled
through adsense evolving to be more attractive to the bigger brands, whilst
those who currently use adsense are restricted.

Google Adsense also has to tackle the issue of click fraud which is anticipated
to count for over 15% of click through rate in content. This has meant that
advertiser's who have been particularly affected, have moved away to other
programs or have restricted their advertising to search.

This has meant that there is less competition in content and therefore smaller
revenues for publishers. Publisher's who previously had high yielding ads, are
now having to alter their content to ensure they get any adverts at all. This
has largely been the fault of the publishers themselves however the issue is
one that; if not addressed could bring adsense to its knees.

Google Adsense also has the disadvantage of not paying enough for their search
program. Other similar programs pay higher rates, and if publishers decide to
go elsewhere then problems will occur for advertisers and publishers alike.
Although Google fail to pay enough for search another major problem with
Adsense is that it does not have a powerful database of graphic adverts. Many
advertisers prefer showing graphically drive advertisements, however this has
yet to materialise. As several other programs exist for PPC graphic
distribution problems could occur.

Whilst this may not be a problem for all publishers, many complain that the
adverts within their site do not change, so their repeat visitors fail to see
fresh adverts so therefore fail to visit them. This is a problem which could be
addressed through making adverts rotate. However if adverts rotate then how will
that be linked with advertisers paying a rate per click? These are all problems
which Google has to address to ensure that Adsense remains the market leader.

Adwords on the other hand also has major advantages, and remains the best in
the market. It's CPC rates can be chosen by the advertisers so that even when
they feel that they are not getting the results they expect they can lower
their prices whilst still using the service.

Whilst many issues remain with adsense the program still remains the most
popular amongst publishers, whilst Google Adwords remains the most popular
amongst advertisers; with a database of over 140,000 Adwords will remain on top
for the time to come.

Tools for Adsense

If you're just boarding on the AdSense train, and looking to find a quick way
to make the profits you've seen all being pulled of all over the Internet, you
might be interested in a couple of tools.

These software tools are designed to aid AdSense publishers in getting a better
understanding on how traffic flows through their site. Some will help you in
understanding which keywords gain you more money and which locations give you
the best AdSense payment.

One of the best such tools available is AdSense Gold which allows you to have a 
better understanding of which ads and formats actually get more clicks and which 
are useful or nearly useless.

This program works by tracking views and clicks on all the publisher's pages.
It even goes as far as offering you the possibility to see which referrer each
visitor came in through.

There's a free tool called SynSense which is more of an AdSense monitoring tool. 
This sits in the tray and offers actualized AdSense stats as you hover your mouse 
over its icon. It's a very nice tool for those which like to be informed on how 
their AdSense is doing at all times of the day.

Google provides you with stats in a csv format on their site. So someone made a
tool that can automatically download such files and extract a lot of information
from them. The name of this tool is CSV AdStats.

It has a large number of features, including the possibility to highly
customize reported stats, exporting data and charts to other formats. It's in
French but the language can very easily be changed to English.

Of course any tool can only access these stats as often as 15 minutes but the
authors are well aware of that fact and none of these tools will get you in
trouble with Google because of that.

If, however, you're browsing content most of the time, and your tool of choice
is the Firefox Internet browser, there's an extension for this program that
allows you to view the stats in your status bar.

Again, this software is aware of Google's 15 minute rule and enforces its
usage, 15 minutes being the minimum time between updates. The Google AdSense
notifier for Firefox can be obtained from http://code.mincus.com/?p=3

There is also a program called Golden Keywords out there that helps you in
getting the best keywords for your site. It's really efficient and very easy to
use. It does come with a price tag though, it costs $49.95.

So as you can see, software developers are making more and more programs meant
to help you in your quest to maximize your AdSense profits. But before you go
out looking for them remember that Google has a few features of its own as well.

It does offer some reports (albeit a bit more limited) and using the 'channels'
feature is a good way of finding out which ads on your site are really bringing
in most of the revenue.

Be on the look out as new tools appear daily and make sure to invest time in
your site, as that is the real key in success with AdSense.

Adsense Alternatives 2

Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/) Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays
text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid
over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly
can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more
cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use
tool and detailed reports on your site's status.

Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm) Quigo AdSonar
achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site's categories. It
also offers you on-line reports of your site's status and the possibility to
add your own custom ads replacing ads that don't gain you any revenue. The
setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense's and quite customizable
as well.

Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.intellitxt.com/site/web_01a.html) Vibrant
Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within
the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his
mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be
used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places
you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with
some simple JavaScript.

Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners) Nixie claims to hold
a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the
most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price
comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It's very easy to
implement and has a good payment policy as well.

MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp) MIVA
AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It
implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category
Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with
your page using a simple on-line wizard.

Fastclick (http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html) Fastclick offers you an
impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your website. Payments
are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you
wish, and Fastclick even offers a free support serice for its members and no
fees are required to register with the service.

contextWeb ContextAd
(http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml) ContextAd
offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will
change as soon as your page does. It's very easy to use and free to sing up for
and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customizable and
real-time reports are available 24/7.

AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/) AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of
integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the
websites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic
advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a "Your Add Here" button
that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used
in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering
advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense
space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally,
you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.

So, as you can see there are many offers for this kind of advertising, and many
hybrids based on AdSense like advertising. Also, a lot of services can work
together with AdSense to earn you an even greater amount of revenue for your ad
space.

Turning Traffic in to Adsense Traffic

If you've been running AdSense ads on your site for quite a while and you feel
that you aren't making as much cash as you could, in 99.99% of cases you're
right. Most people feel frustrated that they cannot generate the revenues they
expected, and this is down to traffic levels as well as click through rates.

There are many ways to turn traffic into AdSense traffic and here is a short
list of them with a description for each.

The first thing that you need to do is tune up your site's contents. While for
some people this isn't an option (if you're running a forum for example it's a
lot harder) most people can make their AdSense sites veritable cash cows.

To begin, you should find out what your site's keywords are. This is a basic
technique in SEO (search engine optimization) known as keyword density
verification. A good tool for this job is SEO Density Analizer.

You should then take this list of words and search the Overture Search
Inventory or Google AdWords Sandbox to find out what other words could be doing
better then what you currently have.

From that point on try to keep your site focused on the things that appear
mostly in the keyword suggestions you receive. Try to include those keywords,
or at least some related keywords as often as you can in the links on your site.

Because of the way Google AdSense works this is a sure way to increase your
earnings because you'll get better ads in your AdSense banners, similar to how
you would get a better Google PageRank

It's also important that you continuously add new pages to your site. This is
very important, as the more pages you have, the higher the chance is that
you'll get more hits on your ads.

It's also very important that you choose the appropriate formats for your
AdSense banners and the best locations for them. While this is a much wider
subject you should generally know that the top three Google AdSense formats
are: 336x280 large rectangle 300x250 medium rectangle and 160x600 skyscraper.

Make sure you choose the appropriate colors for the ads, as making them too
different from your site's content
(or just different in a bad way) is sure to make visitors regard them as
banners which have nothing to do with the site itself.

Make sure these ads are positioned where they'll generate the highest amount of
profit. Most times, that location is said to be right before the beginning of
your site's actual content.

On pages with a long text body, you might find skyscrapers to do better, simply
because users get exposed to them for more time. Also, for sites with news or
similar items, you might find a good position to be at the bottom of your
content, because that's when people are finished reading your story and are
looking for something else to do.

You should use more AdSense units if you have a lot of text on your page. Just
make sure not to overdo it because you might find that you will get a lot lower
CTR and lower revenues then you were getting in the first place by employing
this technique inappropriately. You can add as many as three units, so use them
wisely.

There's a Google AdSense Preview Tool that will let you visualize what ads
would get served on your page and it can come in very handy as a testing
mechanism.

Just make sure you respect the AdSense policy regarding click fraud. As a
pointer you could place a picture next to your adds, just make sure to leave
some room in between in order to make sure this isn't regarded as encouraging
visitors to click the link.

Of course there are more ways to increase AdSense traffic from your site, but
these should serve as a good starting point for income maximization.

Google Adsense - The Easiest Money To Make Online?

Google Adsense has been dominating forums, discussions and newsletters all over
the Internet. Already, there are tales of fabulous riches to be made and
millions made by those who are just working from home. It seems that Google
Adsense have already dominated the internet marketing business and is now
considered the easiest way to making money online.

The key to success with Adsense is the placing of ads on pages that are
receiving high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click
to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site.
Obviously, it does not pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them
on pages that do not receive hits.

With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder
why Google Adsense has become an instant hit.

For some who are just new to this market, it would be a blow to their pride
knowing that their homepage is buried somewhere in the little ads promoting
other people's services. But then, when they get the idea that they are
actually earning more money that way, all doubts and skepticism is laid to rest.

There are two major, and clever, factors that some successful webmaster and
publishers are learning to blend together in order to make money easier using
Adsense.

1. Targeting high traffic pages on your website. If you check on your logs, you
will discover that many of your visitors are taking advantage of the free
affiliate marketing resources and ebooks that you are offering on your site. In
simple words, your ads are working effectively and are generating more clicks.
It also means more money for you.

2. Placing Adsense links on pages that are producing little, or better yet, no
profit. By placing Adsense on a free resources page, you will reduce the amount
of potential customers being lost to other sites. Tricky, but effective
nonetheless.

When learned to work effectively, these two factors are actually a good source
of producing a minimal amount of revenue from a high traffic page. Many people
are using this strategy to pick up some extra and cash with Adsense. This is
also especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on
delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can
gain a monetary return on their services.

With the many techniques that people are now learning on how to make the
easiest money by their Adsense, it is not surprising that Google is trying
everything to update and polish their Adsense in order to maintain their good
image.

The possibility of adding is 2nd tier in Adsense is not impossible. With all
the people spending more time in their Adsense now and still more getting into
this line of marketing, there is no doubt about the many new improvements yet
to be made. Imagine the smiles on the faces of the webmasters and publishers
all around the world if ever they sign up for sub-affiliates and double or even
triple the amount that they are already earning.

The one particularly handy money-making feature that is available with Adsense
now is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. These gives webmasters the
option to block out low value offers from their pages as well as competitors to
their websites. Talk about taking only those that are advantageous and
discarding the ones that seem "useless".

With Google Adsense, the possibilities are limitless. Yet there is also the
possibility of someone taking advantage of the easy money process that this
internet marketing is doing. If you think more about it, these negative factors
may force Google to break down and thrash Adsense in the process. If that
happens, people would have to go back to the old ways of internet marketing
that does not make money online as easy as Adsense.

For now, however, Google Adsense is here to stay. As long as there are people
wanting to earn some easy cash online just using their talents, the future
ahead is looking good. Besides with all the strict guidelines that Google is
enforcing over Adsense, it will take awhile for the Adsense privileges to be
spammed and even terminated.

Why Do I Need Google Adsense?

Because it's there, it's fun and it's free. If you're reading this, you
obviously have some interest in the internet. You don't even have to have your
own site, although the more sites you use Google Adsense on, the more money you
will make. For example, anyone can write a blog even if it's just your own
opinion on something.

You can also make money referring other people to Google Adsense. By placing a
referral button on your site you increase your earnings potential. When a
publisher that you referred makes their initial $100.00 within 90 days of
sign-up and is eligible for payout, your account will also be credited $100.00.
Additionally, they must never have registered for a Google Adsense account
before.

Don't be intimidated by the html code. It's already formatted. All you have to
do is choose the language and kind of button you would like, and copy and paste
the html code to your site. Look for the referral code and more information
under Adsense support.

Tips for Using Google Adsense

Like anything else, you'll get out of Google Adsense what you put into it. The
following optimization tips can help you grow your Google Adsense dollars:

Write interesting content and write every day.

Have more than one site. The more sites you have, the more ads have the
potential to get clicked.

Set up channels and monitor your statistics across all sites. If one site is
performing poorly, consider changing the content or the ad layout. Experiment!

Change the ad layout and notice which layout works the best for you. There are
many different layout options and there's no way you can know going in which
one will perform the best.

If you're blogging, writingup.com has a list of profitable topics. They state
that you don't have to write on those topics but you might give it a try or at 
least plug some of them in to the search engines.

Google different key words and phrases and notice how much and what kinds of
content and ads you see. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

How Much Money Can I Make With Google Adsense?

How much do you want to make? How hard do you want to work? And how much time
do you want to spend working the Google Adsense program?

These are the questions you must ask yourself in order to answer that question.

Look at it this way: how many business opportunities come your way where the
only requirement is hard work and the time it takes to work hard? Not many.
Almost any business venture requires some kind of start-up money.

If your total earnings is showing 0.00 after a week, not to worry. Keep reading
and learning and working. If however, you're still showing 0.00 after a month,
it may be time to implement some of those optimization tips you'll find on the
Google Adsense Support Site. Play around with the placement of the ads on your
site. Consider changing the colors. Look again at the content. Is it
interesting?

As with any other business, with the Google Adsense program, the sky is the
limit. Work hard. Work smart. Have fun. After all, you're the boss.

What Are URL Channels and How to Organize Them in Google Adsense?

URL Channels allow you to view detailed information about the performance of
your Adsense for Content pages.

Suppose you have a blog at writingup.com and you also have a blog at
bloggerparty.com. It might be interesting and profitable to track which one is
getting more clicks. Log in to your Adsense account and click on Adsense for
Content. Scroll down until you see Channels and click on manage channels. You
may need to scroll up when the next page loads. Under Manage URL Channels you
would type writingup.com and click on Create New Channel. You will immediately
see writingup.com in the Active URL Channels dialogue box Now type in
bloggerparty.com in the same channel text box and again click on Create New
Channel. You now have two channels and you will be able to track your progress
on each channel. You can view channel reports from the Advanced Report page
under the Reports tab. Choose Adsense for Content, choose the date range and
then select the Channels Data radio button. Choose any number of active
channels by holding down the CTRL key. Next click on Display Report. It's as
easy as that.

Google Adsense: When Do I Get Paid Using Google Adsense?

Google Adsense pays you approximately 30 days after the end of the month in
which you become eligible to receive payment. You become eligible for payment
only when your Adsense account reaches at least $100.00. Suppose, for example,
you started in January and at the end of the month you had not yet accumulated
$100.00 in your Google Adsense account. You would then need to wait and see if
your January and February earnings combined equal $100.00. If they do, you
would be paid approximately 30 days after the end of the month of February,
that is, you could expect payment near the end of March.

Another good reason to also use Adsense for Search is that you get to combine
the earnings to reach the $100.00 payout minimum. So if your earnings for
Adsense for Content do not reach $100.00 in time for the current payout, but
when combined with your Adsense for Search earnings they do meet the payout
minimum, you will be paid accordingly.

Google Adsense: What Other Forms of Payment Does Google Adsense Offer?

You can elect to have your Google Adsense payments mailed to you via check in
your local currency. Google Adsense offers this option in 42 countries. Check
the Google Adsense support center to see if your country is included in this
list.

To select receiving your check by postal mail, log in to your Google Adsense
account, click the edit link near Payment Details and then click the Check –
Standard Delivery radio button. Then click continue. Now you can select your
currency, if available or you may select US dollars. When you're satisfied with
your choices, click save settings.

You may also choose to receive your payment through Secured Express Delivery.
There is a fee for this service but you can expect to receive your check within
5-10 business days after it has been sent. If you choose this option, you will
need to contact DHL (the courier service) to make sure they offer service to
your area and that your address is in the proper format. For more information,
log on to dhl.com.

What Is So Important About An Invalid Click and How Will It Affect Me?

More than anything, an invalid click is a big no-no and it will get your
account terminated faster than anything else. Having said that, an invalid
click is when a publisher clicks on their own ads to add to their earning
potential. It's also when a publisher asks others to click on their ads just
to raise their revenue. It also raises the advertiser's costs and Google won't
tolerate this. Google Adsense has state of the art technology and they know
what's going on.

Invalid clicks also happen when someone uses robots to click on ads or
automated software. It is any deceptive practice used to click on ads.

Invalid clicks are also unnecessary as there are plenty of money-making
opportunities with valid clicks. With an optimized website, useful content, and
attractive ads, there's no reason for anybody to even entertain the idea of
using invalid clicks.

Having Control Over Your Adsense Account

You the publisher, have complete control over the advertisement that runs on
your site. You can choose to run only image ads, only text ads, or a
combination of both. Google recommends that you choose a combination of both to
maximize your earning potential, but the decision is yours.

When making your ad decision, you also have the freedom to choose which type of
ads run across your entire account (image or text) or you can narrow that
decision to what type of ad might run on a particular page.

As of right now, you are not able to differentiate your image ad click rate
from your text ad click rate. You can of course, differentiate your click rate
from one site as opposed to another site. Say, for example, you run only image
ads on one site and only text ads on another site. By setting up channels to
track both sites, you can see which site has the better click rate. Of course,
you have to take into consideration there would be more factors than whether
you were running text or image ads. The content, the placement of the ads in
general, even the color could make a difference.

Refer to the Google Adsense Support Site for specific instructions on how to
enable or disable image ads. Remember, it's all up to you!

What is Google Adsense for Search?

Google Adsense for Search is different than Adsense for Content but it is just
as important to your earning power with the Google Adsense program.

Just like Adsense for Content places targeted ads on your content pages,
Adsense for Search places targeted ads on the results page of the search set in
motion on your page.

You can use the standard Google search box on your site and the user can then
search the web or even your site. When you feel more comfortable, you can
change the look of the Google search box, essentially customizing it by
changing the colors and using your logo.

The best thing about Google Adsense for Search is that you can track what your
visitors are searching for. That is, if the search has two or more hits. Unique
queries will not be tracked. But you can see the top 25 searches performed from
your website by clicking on the Advance Report from the Reports tab and
specifying a date range.

How Does Google Adsense Program Work For Webmasters Wanting to Earn Income?

Advertisers pay Google when someone clicks on their ads which are placed on
pages that contain text. For example, if you write content about lawn mowers,
you will likely see ads from lawn mower manufacturers and/or retailers on that
page. When someone clicks on those ads, the advertiser pays Google and Google
pays you. Of course, the advertiser is hoping the person that clicked on the
add will actually purchase the lawn mower or whatever they're offering.

In fact, Google is very strict about the integrity of this process. You are
forbidden to click on your own ads. If you do, your Adsense account will be
terminated and you might never get it back. You are also prohibited from asking
others to click on "your ads". It makes sense. Why would advertisers want to pay
just so your friends and family could click on your ads when no one is really
interested in purchasing the lawn mower or subject of the ad.

The good news is that it's not necessary to "cheat." Google Adsense is so easy
you'll make more money just going by the rules. Have or write interesting
content that will turn up in search engines and you have "targeted" the right
people to read those ads. Just think, somebody in Indiana buys a lawn mower and
you get a commission!

The Most Important Rule about Google Adsense

Sympathy only goes so far. Not only is it against the Google Adsense Program
Policies but if you rely on friends and family members to click on your ads
instead of diligently working the program, you're cheating yourself – and the
Google Adsense Program.

The "help me out" wail may work when your kid is selling outrageously expensive
candles for the end of the year school party but it has no place in the Google
Adsense Program.

Besides, if you're asking people to click on your ads, that means you're not
optimizing your site for valid clicks as well as referrals. Use that same
energy to polish your content and your site. When family and friends ask what
you've been up to, you can proudly show them your hard work. When they see how
excited you are, you'll see your referral revenue go up.

SEO for Adsense

If you've been using Google's AdSense on your pages you obviously feel the need
to somehow generate even more traffic for your website, which in turn would
translate to more AdSense click and a higher income.

But who do you do this? Well, the major way you'll get visitors to see your
website (other then using AdWords, which is encouraged as well) is to use some
techniques to have search engines send more and more users towards your page,
by ranking high in search results for your topics of interest.

Believe it or not this is a technique, better known as search-engine
optimization or simply SEO. So here are a bunch of tips that come handy under
every amateur or professional optimizer's belt.

The first thing you need to take care of is the actual source code and layout
of your page. This has to be kept as simple as possible. The problem comes when
AdSense and the search engines themselves begin to have troubles in extracting
the most relevant keywords on your site because of a too complex layout.

Secondly, try to have each one of your pages target only one specific topic.
This way it is a lot easier for them to get indexed properly and for the
AdSense ads to be consistent with the content of the site itself.

Also, try not to include too many hyperlinks in your page as well. This also
means you should try not to use too many AdSense ads on your page either.

If there are certain keywords you wish to target, make sure the word you wish
to target is present in the title, in the first paragraphs as well as in the
name of the file. While you're at it you might want to ensure the word springs
up in the page's last paragraphs.

And of course, it's very important for your content to have original and
compelling content. How do you do this? Well the easiest way to do it is to
find something you're really passionate about. That way, providing you give it
a lot of effort you're bound to have a great page quite fast.

If the content you use in your site is in the public domain (which is highly
discouraged) make sure that you at least give it an original title, and add an
opening and a closing paragraph of your own.

This takes a little while, but if, after waiting, you still can't find your
page near the top, you should try rewriting your title and your first and last
paragraphs. It doesn't take much, often just changing a few words will give you
the right results.

And of, course there's the use of keyword tools that may aid you in finding
some good keywords to include on your page that will drive visitors to your
site more and more.

So those are about the basic techniques in search engine optimization. You can
find a lot of computer tools to aid you in doing this, and of course, Google is
a great place to search for this.

In the end, you'll find that SEO is a complex topic, and entire books have been
written on the topic as well. You might find that you have a lot of optimization
you need to do in order to get more and more visitors to your site and clicking
those precious AdSense banners.

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.

Setting up your Google AdSense account -- Part 1 (Enrolment form)

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.

Setting up your Google AdSense account -- Part 2 (Essential customizations)

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 3 (Additional customizations)

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 4 (AdSense code)

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.

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).

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 Alternatives

Many people have started using Google's AdSense program, but there are some who
find it a bit too uncertain or simply not suiting their own requirements from an
ad program.

But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense which
attempt to alleviate some of its shortcomings. Here is a list of the most
noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one.

AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers) AllFeeds has a great pool
of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that
you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups
and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site
will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while
rolling over earnings for the next month if you don't. Another interesting
thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your
earnings with AdSense.

MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php) MarketBanker allows you
the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to
allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself
does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There's also a
statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The
ads are small just like AdSense's and they're just as easy to set up. Also,
registration for MarketBanker is free.

BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html) BidClix is different because it
has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to
generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large
pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your
site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As
most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started
with this service, but it's also very flexible.

Chitika
(http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+
Engine) RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant
ads for your page. And there's an extra feature which makes RealContext unique
as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections payed off
and which didn't. That means there's a constant feedback process that ensures
you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds
and child-safe filtering and many more options.

AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php) AdHearus is a very feature-packed
contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it
doesn't stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from
text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also
display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate
sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies.
There's a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual
with such services, starting out is free and it's a breeze.

AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/) AffiliateSensor has highly
customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use
on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page
and refferer. There's integration with Google AdSense as well, through the
google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for
Google PSA's (Public Service Ads).

Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool) Kanoodle's
offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not
the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with
advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of
revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of
money Kanoodle recieves for an advertiser.

TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com) TargetPoint is oriented more
towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads,
statistics over your site's overall performance and better revenue. It's free
to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get
payed with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.

Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com) Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from
the amount of money your website produces. What you get is about the same as
AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your
website in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every
two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven't made that
much, your earning roll over to the next period

The Future of Google Adsense

There are many ideas springing up concerning what AdSense will look like in the
future and how the system will change as opposed to what it is now.

Firstly, it's clear that targeting algorithms will become even better and more
powerful then they are now. This has clearly been seen with the Google search
engine itself over the last few years and it should be of no surprise as this
happens with AdSense. Advertisers will appear in more appropriate results and
those advertisers who manipulate their content to allow high paying keywords to
appear may struggle to do this unless it is actually appropriate to their
content.

Another thing which is bound to happen is more protection for AdWords
advertisers concerning click fraud. Google acknowledges this to be a very key
issue that it needs to address as quickly as possible and there's no doubt it
will happen as fast as possible. At the moment those who have high levels of
traffic, can easily disguise IP addresses and increase CTR ( Click Through
Rate).

Google is always keen on improving its products and this has been seen before
in AdSense. The search engine company has introduced site-targeted AdSense CPM,
"smart pricing" and domain blocking and there will probably be improvements that
have already been added by other similar sites.

One such example is the option for the advertiser to have more control over
where the content is being displayed. This could mean blocking your site from
displaying on several addresses that host AdSense banners.

Another idea that has been advanced is that Google will integrate AdSense in
other forms of media like newspapers or television and so on. While this might
seem to be more on the science-fiction side of the facts there's no indication
that this might not happen.

Google have access to an international array of over 150,000 advertisers of
whom may choose to penetrate offline markets in different countries. With
Google's strong network of advertisers, they may choose to appoint or allow
offline distributors to create a format for Adwords advertising in content, in
search and now offline.

More options could be implemented for AdSense publishers, allowing them to
specify keywords of their own. While Google has been reluctant of this there's
no indication that this will not happen in the future.

Also, a lot of people are demanding a clear specification of the pricing policy
of AdSense. Google has given no indication of why this isn't public information
but at this moment it seems highly unlikely that such information will ever be
present on Google AdSense.

Another feature that could find itself into AdSense would be letting website
publishers see which links are generating clicks on their website and based on
what keywords they arrive there.

This could end up being a major issue that could threaten the entire system as
it could perhaps encourage more adsense only websites as profits become more
transparent. A lot of people may make AdSense-only sites, designed just for
making profits through AdSense.

While this is already happening today, it might be foolish of Google to put
such tools in the hands of its publishers.

However, one thing that could happen is a way for users to fix their issues
with low AdSense generated income on their site. This could be done through an
on-line wizard or something similar that would make suggestions to website
owners based on their contents.

But the major buzzword of the day is RSS. The possibility of sending targeted
ads directly to users without requiring any navigation on their behalf is
becoming a reality with RSS. And there are clear signs that Google isn't going
to let such an opportunity pass by.

This is what "interactive television" and similar items have been trying to do
for quite some time now. But the Internet would be a much better medium for
this, because there are no mediums quite as interactive as the Internet.

But in the end, this is mostly speculation and we are bound to have Google
surprising us with new features we would have never thought of.

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