THE BOYS' BRIGADE

AdSense’s Place In The Online Advertising World

Let’s start our journey in the world of Google AdSense by first understanding how
the online advertising came into being and how Google AdSense is place with
respect to the other online advertising concepts:
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 AdSense will continue to hold its
place at the core of online advertising.
What Is AdSense?
Now that we know how Google AdSense program is placed in the world of online
advertising, let’s delve a bit deeper into the concept of ‘AdSense’ and understand
what it is about and how people make money by using this concept.
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). W hen 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.
HOW PEOPLE MAKE MONEY THROUGH THE INTERNET
BY DOING ALMOST NOTHING?
Well, the secret lies in various online advertising programs. And one of the most
popular programs is the ‘ADSENSE’ PROGRAM. AdSense program
works by serving ‘targeted’ ads on websites. Whenever someone visits your
website, those ads are displayed and you earn $$$$s. If someone clicks on those
Ads, you again earn $$$$s. This means that once you have setup your website
with AdSense ads, the flow of revenue is automatic without you doing anything
else. Of course, if you do a little bit of tracking and performance analysis of your
AdSense ads, you can enhance your profits many times.
AdSense is an online advertising program that is run by Google (the specialists in
search engine technologies). This program is different from the other advertising
programs in the sense that here the ads are served based on the content of the
website. So, a website that contains articles or content on shoes, would display
AdSense ads for shoes, shoe accessories and other shoe related products.
AdSense program benefits all the involved parties i.e. advertisers, website
owners that show AdSense ads and the website visitors (or consumers) that see
the AdSense ads. Advertisers get an easy and effective advertising medium for
targeted advertising, website owners get $$$$s for displaying Ads on their
websites and the website visitors get a richer experience because the ads that
they see are actually related to their field of interest.
Google’s AdSense program actually comes as three products: AdSense for
content (which is the most popular one), AdSense for search and AdSense for
feeds. Currently, AdSense for feeds is in beta testing phase and Google is not
accepting any more registrations for it.
However, the other two products are open for registration. These products offer
great earning opportunities and if you apply some tricks and tips, you can really
see your bank balance swell very fast.
Registering on the Google AdSense website is really easy and most people are
through with it in 15 minutes straight. Owners of the websites are required to add
a small and harmless piece of Google AdSense code to the source code of their
web pages and they are ready to start earning revenue automatically without
really doing anything more. You can use certain tools (that Google provides for
free) in order to customize the Google AdSense ads and make them more suited
for your website.
Google AdSense program also provides you with various reports about your
earnings and the performance of your website. You can even create customized
reports that help you in conducting very detailed analysis of what is working
(earning good money for you) and what is not. By analyzing these reports, you
can formulate new strategies or tweak the existing ones in order to get better
results in the future.
AdSense program is really one of the smartest ways of earning money and once
you understand it fully, you will find that using AdSense Ads for earning a lot of
money is not only easy but also a LOT OF FUN.

AdSense Related Terms That You Should Know
We now know what AdSense is. As is the case with any concept, Google
AdSense program also use certain terms and phrases for relating to various
things Knowing these terms upfront will make it easy and smooth for you to read
and understand any AdSense related material:
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: W henever 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.
AdSense Ads Can Be Hosted By Any Website
Now that we have an overview of the Google AdSense program, we are ready to
take the next step. So, let’s go ahead and check the suitability of Google
AdSense program for various websites:
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:
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.
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.
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.
What Makes Google AdSense System So Special?
By now you must have got an idea about what the Google AdSense program is
and how almost every website owner can benefit from it. So, it has started
making some ‘Sense’ to you. But what is it that makes Google AdSense program
really so special? Let’s take a look:
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.
AdSense Account Setup – Part 1 (Enrolment Form)
As the benefits from Google AdSense program start getting clear to you, you (as
a website owner) would be inquisitive as to how you can setup your Google
AdSense account and whether it takes a lot of time to set up an AdSense
account. Let’s take a look at how you can setup your Google AdSense account:
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.
F or en r o l l in g to th e Goog le AdS en s e p r o g r am, g o 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.
AdSense Account Setup – Part 2 (Essential Customizations)
The second step in setting up your Google AdSense Account is to do
customization (some essential customizations). Let’s check when you can start
with the second step of setup and what you need to do as part of 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.
AdSense Account Setup– 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 contentrelated
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.
AdSense Account Setup – Part 4 (AdSense Code)
This is the final step in the setting up of Google AdSense account. In this step,
you will get the AdSense code that you need to use on your website in order to
start earning revenue from Google AdSense program. Let’s go ahead and work
on this final step:
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.
AdSense Code Guidelines
As highlighted earlier (in the final step of Google AdSense account setup), you
need to follow certain guidelines when you are adding the AdSense code to your
web pages. Remember that if you don’t do it in the right way, you would not be
earning Google AdSense revenue. So, pay heed to these guidelines:
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 (W hat 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.
AdSense For Search: What’s That?
Now, with account setup things over, let’s move on to further enhancing our
knowledge about the Google AdSense program. Let’s start with checking what
this ‘AdSense for Search’ is:
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 For Feeds: What’s That?
Here is another thing that you need to understand when learning about Google
AdSense program. Let’s take the plunge and check out what ‘AdSense for feeds’
means:
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.
Tips For AdSense For Feeds
You now know what ‘AdSense for Feeds’ means and you must also understand
that it’s a big opportunity in the offing. Acquiring more, upfront knowledge on
AdSense for feeds can really get you ahead of others in the race for benefiting
from 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 sufficient discussion on 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.
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:
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’.
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.
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.
Making The AdSense Ads Suit Your Website – Part 1 (Shape And
Size)
We have learnt about the various kinds of strategies that you can apply for
maximizing your benefits from Google AdSense program. However, all that is
possible only if your AdSense ads suit your website in all different ways. Let’s
check the importance of making your AdSense ads suit your website and what
your do for making them suited:
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:
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.
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)
From shape and size of your AdSense Ads, let’s move on to check the
importance of Color of Ads and how they influence the suitability of AdSense Ads
on your website:
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.
Google’s Ad Filtering Mechanism
Making your website/web pages suitable for AdSense ads is one interesting thing
that is also a lot of fun. Another interesting thing about the Google AdSense Ads
is the filtering mechanism used by Google to filter Ads for displaying them on
your (website owner’s) website. Let’s check it out…
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. sexuallyoriented,
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)
Misuse of 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: Alternate Ads And PSAs
Let’s take the concept of AdSense a bit further and check out 2 special case Ads:
One that is served by AdSense as per its wish and the other that is served by
AdSense as per website owner’s wish:
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.
AdSense Ad Variations: Link Units And Themed Ad Units.
Moving on from the special cases - Alternate Ads and PSAs- let’s check out two
important AdSense variations:
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.
Top 4 Tips For Getting The Best Results From Your AdSense
Ads
Now we come to some of the most interesting bits about AdSense program. Here
we will talk about some tips that can help you enhance your AdSense revenue.
After all, “It’s all about money”…
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Getting Paid Through AdSense Program
Once you have setup your AdSense account, updated your website with
AdSense code, applied tips etc, 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.
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.
That brings us to the end of our study on the truly Fascinating, Google AdSense
program. Now, it’s the time to start putting this knowledge to use and start
earning money using the Google AdSense program.
Best of luck and have a lot of fun learning and earning from the Google AdSense
program.