So you want to make money with AdSense. That’s a smart idea. It is one of the easiest ways to quickly start making some money online. All you do is allow Google to display ads on your site and get paid a share of the revenue that advertisers pay it every time someone clicks an ad on your site.
It is a very simple online business model that anyone can successfully use. But although it is simple to implement, it can be very profitable if you do things correctly.
So please do not be fooled by its simplicity. To paraphrase billionaire Warren Buffet, in business you don’t get any extra points for the complexity of your enterprise. All that counts is the bottom line. So keep that in mind as you read this article. It will reveal 7 steps that you can take in order to make money with AdSense in very short order.
Let’s get right into it.
You Need to Apply
In order to make money with AdSense, the first thing you need to do is apply to join the program. This is a simple and straight forward process. But before you apply, there are a few things you need to have in place in order to maximize your chances of acceptance.
Firstly, you need a full-fledged content website (or blog) that is fully up and running. A website that is under construction will not cut it. So have your website completely built first. Secondly, make sure your website has a sufficient amount of content.
Exactly what constitutes a sufficient amount of content is debatable. But personally, I wait till my site has 20 to 25 pages of content before applying. That way, the guys at Google know that my website is providing value to people and that’s the type of site they want to include in the AdSense program.
Thirdly, provide unique value. This means that your content must be original. Private label content that a bazillion other websites are using may not cut it.
If you follow these simple guidelines, it is almost certain that you will get accepted. Unless maybe you have personal issues with someone at Google, I don’t know. J The beautiful thing about Google AdSense is that once you are in, you don’t have to apply again before you display ads on any other website you build. You can use your code from hence forth onwards o make money with AdSense on any site you own.
By the way, it goes without saying that if you have a site on any undesirable topic – you know what I mean - you will not be accepted into the program and rightly so.
Now, you have just seen how important the nature of your website is in enhancing your chances of getting accepted into the AdSense program. But it does not end there because your site’s nature is also crucial in determining whether or not Google AdSense will be profitable for you. So let’s look at that for a moment.
Build a Content Rich Themed Website
Over the years, it has become crystal clear that those who make money with AdSense start by building a themed content rich website. What does that mean?
A themed content rich website is a website that is all about one tightly themed topic. So for example, it could be about fishing in Antarctica. It could be about dieting for women. It could be about exotic get away destinations in South America. But whatever the topic, it is a highly themed one and your whole website is completely and discriminately devoted to that single topic alone.
There are many reasons why this is the case.
Firstly, a website that is focused on one theme topic with laser beam intensity will invariably get more free traffic from search engines. That traffic will also build more quickly than it would if the site was not highly themed.
Secondly, a themed website will attract targeted visitors. These are people who are highly interested in your content. Why is this vital? The next point will illustrate why.
And it’s that, a tightly themed website will have ads that are highly related to its content displayed on it by Google. This means that the people who visit your website, the people who are interested in your content, will also be interested in the ads that are displayed on your site. After all, the ads will be about the same topic as your content.
Can you see how a highly themed website ties everything together and multiplies the amount of money you can make with AdSense? It will attract targeted visitors who will be highly interested in both your content and the ads displayed within and around it. Hence, they will click on the ads.
So if you want to make money with AdSense, start by building a content rich site that is really, really themed. The best way I know to build a themed website is by following the step by step instructions provided within Solo Build It.
Choose a Profitable Theme
While it is imperative to theme your site around a single topic, your task does not end there. The reason for this is that if your website focuses on one topic as it should, but that topic is one for which AdSense pays very little, you will not make as much money with AdSense as you could.
You will still make some cash, but why not make as much as you possibly can?
So you have to do some research to find out what people are paying per click for their ads in various niches. The more they are paying, the more Google will pay you as well. Of course, your research must be confined to topics you are passionate about otherwise you will get bored quickly and run out of steam. Trust me, in the long run, very very few people can sustain effort just for the money.
So within the safe confines of your passions, pick a niche where people are paying more per click for their ads. This will help you maximize your revenue. In order to find such a niche set up a test campaign using Google Adwords. You don’t need to run the campaign. All you want to do is set everything up so that you can find out how much on average you will be charged per click.
Do this for various topics until you are satisfied with the amount that people are potentially paying for ads within a niche. Then settle on that niche and start building your site.
Now, in order to build your site, you will need to do a bit more research to find several sub topics you can write about. So for example, if your chosen niche is body building, your research may unearth sub topics like “bicep building”, “bench press”, “shoulder muscles” and so on.
Write about those topics because they will help you build that all important themed website. In fact, I highly recommend you use keywords that people are paying more for when selecting sub topics to write on. So essentially, it is a good idea to find out how much people are paying for each sub topic that you want to write about. You can use a Google Adwords test campaign for his as well.
If this sounds like hard work, just remember that it is worth it in the long run. Alternatively, you can use Site Build its research software to do the work for you and show you which keywords people are paying the most for. Personally, that’s how I do things nowadays.
Create a Sticky Website
In order to make money with AdSense, you want people to stick around long enough on your site so that they click on your ads. If they arrive at your website and then quickly hit the back button as if they have just run into an impenetrable wall of bad breath (J), they will not get the chance to see your ads and click on them.
So make your site sticky. In order to do this, create a design that is visually aesthetic to look at, yet simple, uncluttered and elegant at the same time. Make your content helpful, interesting and valuable as well. Structure your website so that your visitors can easily move from one topic of interest to another. Allow comments and content submissions as well.
All these things will make your visitors stick around a little longer. Long enough to click on one ad or so and make you some moola!
Ad Placement
As simple as Google AdSense is to make money with, where you place your ads can have an impact on how much money you make. For example, you need to place them where they will not distract your readers. Sure, you want to get the click. But remember, your visitors came to your site to read content, watch videos and so on.
They did not come to click on ads. So if you place ads where they will destruct your visitors from what they actually came to do, you will lose out in the long run. Your visitors won’t stick around long enough and they definitely won’t come back.
Yet, as much as your ads should not destruct your readers, they should still be noticeable. So place them, for example, in the left or right navigation of your website. Alternatively place them just under the header.
That way, they will be highly visible but unobtrusive.
Get Traffic
You cannot make money with AdSense without traffic. You simply can’t. So come up with a plan to get traffic to your website, preferably lots of it.
We have already talked about how creating a tightly themed website will help you attract a lot of targeted traffic quickly. That is an seo (search engine optimization) strategy. It is the best way to get traffic to your site if your primary way of making money is with AdSense. And it’s free too.
Other free ways of getting traffic include forum marketing, guest posting on high traffic blogs and websites, viral marketing and social media. Exhaust the free traffic methods first so that you can start making some money before you ever spend any money on paid advertising.
Once you are getting some free traffic, engineer repeat traffic. In other words, find ways of making your visitors come back over and over again. So for example, add RSS to your site and an email newsletter. This way, you will be able to alert your visitors whenever you have something new and interesting for them to see. And the more they visit your site, the more ads they will click, and the more money you will make with AdSense.
It’s a profitable chain of causes and effects!
AdSense Policies
Last but certainly not least, if you want to make money with AdSense stick to its policies. So don’t click your ads or incentivize or encourage others to click them. That will get you banned fast.
Google does not want people to click on ads just because you have promised them a gift of some sort if they do. It wants people clicking on ads because they are interested in the content of the ad. That’s the nature of Google’s business so respect that and avoid getting banned for click fraud.
Conclusion
So you have just discovered how to effectively make money with AdSense. As you can see, it’s a really simple business model that can be profitable if you do things correctly. So take some time to set up your themed website correctly. Please do not rush through this. Laying a proper foundation will help you stay profitable for the long term.
Lastly, don’t stop at AdSense. Add affiliate marketing to the mix. If you can make money with AdSense chances are you will probably also make money with affiliate marketing. Later on, add your own ebook.
You can gradually incorporate more and more ways of making money once your site is running at full throttle. But start with AdSense. It is a very low risk method to use to start making some money online very quickly.
Learn more about how to make money with adsense here.