Make Money with Google Adsense Guide

Written by Zac Johnson
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When Google introduced Adsense to the world, it changed everything for internet marketing. Not only did it bring in a massive source of income for Google, but also for all of their partner websites, and a new source of traffic and leads for their advertisers. A decade late and Google Adsense is still rocking and one of the best forms of advertising out there. Every day new websites are learning about Adsense for the first time, and loving the ease of setup and collecting their checks at the end of the month.

This post is more focused towards the beginner affiliate/internet marketer but is a topic I receive a lot of emails on. Google Adsense isn’t going anywhere, and it’s one of the easiest ways to start making money on your website if you don’t know how to monetize it yourself.

Google Adsense Tutorial Videos

Since Google owns YouTube, you will occasionally see Adsense being displayed on videos you watch on the site. This has also been a huge source of revenue and volume for Google and their advertisers. Google has taken advantage of their ownership of YouTube and also created a video series on how to use your Google Adsense account.

  • Creating An Ad Unit
  • Custom Channels
  • AdSense Performance Reports
  • Advanced AdSense Reporting
  • Ad Review Center
  • Allow and Block Ads

There are a ton of Google Adsense videos on YouTube, besides the ones directly from Google. Make sure you go through the videos sometime, as their are real testimonial videos of people talking about how they are making money with Adsense on their own web sites, and a few useful videos on tips and best monetization methods. If you are a complete newbie when it comes to making money online, or using Adsense, just watch everything on YouTube and follow the links within this guide. There is no need to purchase high-end guides or software on the topic, however, if you would like to learn the basics of Google Adsense while also having me walk you through the process of what’s currently working best with content creation, monetization, and ad placements, be sure to check out my Google Adsense guide on Udemy.

Using Google Adsense During the Holidays

Every year around the 4th quarter the advertising and ad spending across the internet just goes nuts. Everyone is fighting for advertising space and bringing in new customers during Halloween, Black Friday and Christmas. This is no secret to Google and their Adsense users. Around the same time every year, Google sends out a mailing to all of their Adsense partners, telling them about the importance of using Adsense to bring in premium advertisers during Q4 for their websites.
Here’s what their most recent email looked like:

Most of our premium advertisers have started to plan for the holiday season and you should too! By opting in to placement targeting, advertisers will be able to target your ad units directly.

In order to ensure your site is getting the highest-paying available ads, we recommend that you also keep these best practices in mind:

  • Implement your ad units above the fold near your content, where users are engaging with your site without scrolling down.
  • Opt your ad units into text and image ads so that all relevant, available ad inventory is competing to appear on your site. (more on placement targeting)

If you’ve ever run a website with Google Adsense on it during the holidays, you will almost always see an increase in your average CPM. No matter what industry you are in, the Q4 spending increase will usually affect you. By the way… we are nearly in Q4 2011, are you ready?

Creating Google Adsense Mini Sites

Over the past several years, the addiction to marketers creating mini websites focused on one niche product or search term has been huge. The way you can market these websites is through your own product, pushing your traffic to a cpa (cost per lead) offer, or even using Google Adsense. There is a whole slew of websites selling on Flippa for usually 10-20 times earnings, that are strictly “Made for Adsense” websites.
I previously wrote about a bunch of free “Adsense Ready WordPress Themes” that you can use to create your own mini-site, or there are plenty of premium themes out there that look much better and offer more customization. You can see an example of the CTR Theme being used on the web site about. As you can see, the Google Adsense ads are placed prominently on the site, which would increase the likelihood of someone clicking on the ads. The focus on these mini-websites is to have 500-600 word content articles that really focus on a niche topic, then receiving free search traffic from the search engines. I cover all of this in detail in my Flip This Web Site guide.

More Google Adsense Resources

Over the past few years, I’ve written a good deal about Google Adsense on the blog, and you can read a few of those articles below. There’s also a lot of helpful blog posts and videos out there about improving click-through rates, best Adsense placements and maximizing your profits with Google Adsense. I’ve listed some great resources as well.

The common thought on Google Adsense is that the business model is for suckers, as you will only earn a few pennies (usually more) per click, but also sending a visitor away from your website. The bottom line is that Google Adsense is as good as you make it. As a website owner and marketer, you need to understand your website concept, business, audience and when you should or should not be using Google Adsense. Hopefully, this guide has helped you in the process.

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27 Replies to “Make Money with Google Adsense Guide”

  1. Nice Info!!!!!

    I will definitely try it as soon as possible, i hope it will prove beneficial for us.
    My recent post Goa Carnival 2012

    2. Yeah I remember the term QueryAds but they can't be better than Google's Adsense because you know the reason that Google is the search engine king along with many other products running on it's back end. So it's hard for any other add program to beat Google Adsense. Not even Face Book able to defeat Adsense.

  5. Very nice review there Zac, I haven't used Adsense for a while but I might have to give them another try ….. if they will let me back in. 😛
    My recent post Will a Facebook Search Engine Be a Reality?

  6. Great Article Zac!!

    I prefer AdSense over al of the AdNetworks combined. Google is a monopoly that's yes to get broken up because the government isn't smart enough to catch them in "anti-trust" practices.

    The trick is creating a website that pulls in tons of traffic organically.

    We have sites that are cranking out thousands a day in AdSense revenue, here's a few suggestions:

    – create an authoritative design that when people see it they automatically trust it.
    – make your content VERY controversial. Offend people. Get them MAD as Fu$k. So long as they're coming back and reading you're in the money. i.e. Ed Madgeson from RipOffReport.com. His site is super controversial – and he makes millions in ad revenue every year.
    – create a niche topic and blow it out.
    – register a domain name with authority that is either a .com, .net, .org. It's a major plus if the domain name matches the top keyword you're trying to rank for. Avoid sites with hyphens in them.
    – Keep consistent high quality content going to your site.
    – take out press releases from PRnewswire.com and PRweb.com on your site.
    – guest comment on relevant blogs/news sources with links to your page.
    – get paid reviews.

    Just a few tips 😉

    Again, great article Zac. I love this blog.
    My recent post Retargeting – What Is It and How Does It Benefit Us?

  7. Hey Zac,

    Thanks for mentioning AdSenseFlippers in the resources section! We're pretty new at this ourselves (Started in Dec 2010) but have found some success in creating niche sites with AdSense attached. We're far from experts, but we do share our journey in the hopes that it will inspire and help others as well. Another guy we've come across is Spencer from Niche Pursuits…he has some great info on his site as well.

    Thanks again!
    My recent post Crazy Philippines 1: Dead Chicken In My Taxi And Pigs In Sidecars

  8. I just wanted to put my quick 2 cents in Google adsense blows away the competition. I tried out infolinks just to see how it would perform I did a review of it on my blog. My conclusion: Adsense pays a lot more per click and does not clutter up your blog with double underlined links. Infolinks is not bad, but if I had the choice between the two adsense would win by a landslide.
    My recent post How To Make Money On The Internet?

  9. Hi, Zac,
    I agree that Adsense is as good as you make it. However, I also know a few persons that had it, and obviously some people got jealous of them or their success and kept clicking on the google ads until their account got blocked. Kinda weird that there is almost no way to protect from this sort of issue.
    My recent post K2 Skis Coupon Code

  11. There's no real alternative to Adsense. The other networks pay very low compared to Adsense. You must have to play by their rules if you really want to earn descent money with Adsense.

  12. I am no stranger to Google Adsense, having used it for more than two years myself. Still this article taught me a lot. I tried to do the niche mini site thing once, but failed miserably. Also you do have to be very careful with what you put up on a site with Adsense. Don't want the account getting banned for some one else adding content that violates their terms and conditions.
    My recent post Birthday Cards inspired by Snehal

  14. What PERFECT timing Zac! I spent most of my day yesterday adding adsense to several of my sites. Now I'll go through all this information carefully to see how I can improve on my efforts.

    Thank you!

  15. Good tips Zac. Everybody's monetization tools can't be of the same cookie-cutter or there would be no other agencies out there.
    My recent post Wordless Wednesday – Night Creatures Video

  17. Thank you Zac! Yes Google Adsense is simple, easy and profitable if done the right way. Of course, you should not rely only on Adsense for your income.
    My recent post Google Adsense – Simple Way to Make Money Fast?

  18. Great article. I have used the CTR theme on several sites and I must say that it was a good theme to use for adsense. My CTR climed about 5% for every site I used it on. If you have many sites I belive the CTR theme is a were good investment.

    My recent post Begagnad bilbarnstol

  19. Eh, I used adsense for a while made over 200k with them over the last year. however once you start earning the money that I make with them you will start seeing a lot of adjustments to your income and no way to get in contact with them.

    I am actually trying 2 other ad networks earnings are comparable, no adsense great, but at least I can contact a service rep to discuss issues.

    I think, the way is build now, adsense is good only for small niche sites, anything bigger and you will run into troubles, (trust me I know), adsense is just not set up for medium size publishers, either you are very small or very big (from which you have a contract)

    Sorry guys to burst your bubble, but you can still build your tiny mini sites, that still works, for now…

  20. I'm one of those blogger who really want to learn about Adsense and I really love the video you shared here Zac. It answer most of my question about it . I believe that this will be a good start for the upcoming New Year.
    My recent post Should You Buy Solar Deck Lights?

  21. I'm seeing lot of people making good money with adsense by creating niche sites. I think adsense do will with niche sites instead of general blogs.
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  23. Zac great info , also if your new to the online work Adsense may not be a good idea.
    My recent post Rice, Beans and More Stuff

  24. Funny i landed on this post, I remember landing on your website years ago. Good post though the onkly problem with adsense is that the amount you earn is small. It can be good for monetizing content that is otherwise hard to monetize though.

    https://marksherris.com/

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