AdSense for search

A companion to the regular AdSense program, AdSense for search, allows website owners to place Google search boxes on their websites. When a user searches the Internet or the website with the search box, Google shares any advertising revenue it makes from those searches with the website owner. However the publisher is paid only if the advertisements on the page are clicked: AdSense does not pay publishers for mere searches.

AdSense

Google uses its Internet search technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted advertisement system may enroll through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the advertisements are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website.

Many websites use AdSense to monetize their content. AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small websites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and sales people. To fill a website with advertisements that are relevant to the topics discussed, webmasters implement a brief script on the websites' pages. Websites that are content-rich have been very successful with this advertising program, as noted in a number of publisher case studies on the AdSense website.

Some webmasters invest significant effort into maximizing their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:

1. They use a wide range of traffic-generating techniques, including but not limited to online advertising.

2. They build valuable content on their websites that attracts AdSense advertisements, which pay out the most when they are clicked.

3. They use text content on their websites that encourages visitors to click on advertisements. Note that Google prohibits webmasters from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. The phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program, which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction. AdSense commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (i.e., a bid not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.

Howto: Maximize AdSense Earnings

Recently I wrote about how you can monetize your blog, and one of those ways was through Google AdSense. So to continue on with that train of thought I decided to give out a few tips to help you maximize your AdSense earnings.

Just one point though to start with. This is not intended for a webmaster about to setup a new site. I am writing this for those of you who already own a blog or website but have yet to see AdSense perform for you.

On Topic Content

If you have a blog about the iPod, then stick to writing about iPod news, iPod accessories, iTunes etc. There is no point writing about iPod and then starting to talk about your day at work within the same page. AdSense works through a contextual assessment of your page, so try and make it as easy as possible for the Mediabot to ascertain exactly what you are writing about.

Optimize Tags

Making Mediabot’s job as easy as possible also means optimizing your HTML tags, from your meta tags to your header tags. Place your target keywords in the page title, meta description and keywords tag, as well as in your header tags. Don’t forget to bold or italicize your target keywords throughout the content.

Ad Placement

Consult the AdSense heatmap and apply it to your layout. You’ll find that CTR will increase when you place your ads above the fold. Placing ads down the left (where users are used to seeing navigation) and in central locations will also increase CTR. Don’t forget to place ads at the bottom of a page for readers who have scrolled down to the bottom of a long article. I would not advise placing your ads down the left hand of a page as CTR in this location is normally quite low. So keep them above the fold and smack bang in front of their eyes.

Colours

The basic premise with regards colours is to match your ad colouring as closely to the colour scheme employed through out your site. I recommend using the same colours for text and links for optimum CTR.
Borders or No Borders?

Answer, no borders! Keep reminding yourself that your ads need to slot in with your existing layout and appear to be part of the page. A border immediately separates the ads and decreases

CTR.

There has been a lot of talk on the boards for quite some time about using images alongside ads to improve CTR. Overall, images placed beside your ads will increase CTR. Here’s a handy tool to generate the code you’ll need, courtesy of Shoemoney.
Section Targeting
Use the section targeting tags, they make it easy to specify what content Mediabot should spider and what to ignore.

Use Alternate Ads

On occasion AdSense will not be able to display any ads in an ad block on a particular page. Unless specified AdSense will display Public Service Ads (PSAs) that do not earn you anything. So when you are creating your code, specify an affiliate link or image linked to an affiliate product. Therefore you can rest assured that no matter what happens, you’re earning!

Use Channels

Track your performance by channel, a technique that is especially important when you have place multiple ad blocks per page. Assign each ad block a unique channel so that you can see what performs best over time, allowing you to further refine ad placement and increase revenue.

Noscript

Statistics remarkably show that approximately 10% of browsers do not have JavaScript enabled. Unfortunately for AdSense publishers, a browser with JavaScript disabled will not even show an ad block. The solution? Ad the

How long will AdSense last?

Lessons from other forms of advertising (banners, interstitials, popups and popunders) show that users have learned to ignore advertising on the Web.

However, text ads like AdSense are benefiting from a novelty effect. It is still so new that users haven’t yet learned to ignore them. According to Jakob Nielsen, users in the long-term can “develop box blindness, ignoring little text boxes just as they've long ignored banner-shaped areas of the screen.”

Nonetheless, Google AdSense has brought back to small publishers the opportunity to leverage their content through advertising. It is bringing an excellent earning stream to some Web owners, with monthly revenues reaching the thousands, even more. Not since dot-com "boom" times had the Internet world seen CPM and click through rates this high.

Are you riding the Google AdSense wagon?

Are you right for AdSense?

Alas, AdSense is not for everybody. Just as the initial euphoria has leveled off, complaints of AdSense’s inability to serve them the right ads or any ads at all can be heard on various discussion boards and forums. Some sites complain of not getting any relevant ads. Worse, some are getting ads from charity organizations, which are non-paying ads.

Who is Google AdSense especially suited for? It's EXCELLENT for those who already have, or for those who want to start, high quality, theme-based content sites, with excellent keyword-focused content pages. Better yet, your site must have keywords where advertisers pay a premium to reach. That can range from a wonderful little hobby or passion site to a full-blown information site by a major company.

Your income will also be commensurate to the level of traffic that your site generates: the more traffic you have, the greater the potential income. A site that attracts 1 million impressions has the potential to earn more (even at a 2.5% clickthrough rate) compared to a site that attracts 1,000 impressions per month unless the smaller site has higher paying keywords and better clickthrough rates. Higher clickthrough rates, however, are subject to tighter scrutiny by Google. A site suspected of fraudulent clicks can be kicked out from the program.

How will you benefit from AdSense?

One Internet guru described AdSense as a “money machine where you simply sit back and watch the money roll in.” And for the right Web site, AdSense is proving to be a most welcome cash generator.

Free and easy to join and implement, AdSense offers Web site owners a source of ongoing advertisers that will never run dry (well, at least for now). You now have access to a new set of advertising spenders and marketing companies who have advertising budgets to work with.

Instead of spending your time hunting down your own advertisers, you can focus more in creating solid content for your site. You can work the content of your sites without worrying very much about the costs of self-publishing information on the Web.

The reduced workload and potentially good income are enough incentives for small publishers to apply in droves to the program.

What is AdSense?

AdSense is a text-based ad delivered by Google, today’s leading search engine. The ads come usually in the form of the leaderboard (728 x 90), standard banner (468 x 60), skyscraper (120 x 600) and inline triangle (300 x 250). The colors of the ad box and fonts can be customized to fit or contrast with the site's color scheme, whichever the user chooses..

What sets this program apart from other text-based ads is that it delivers ads that are contextually relevant to your audience. It uses an advanced and proprietary technology that determines the content of each of your site’s web pages, and then delivers the ad based on that content. Just as readers of special interest magazines welcome ads on topics of interests to them, the visitors of special-interest web sites are happy to see ads relevant to their craft, business, hobby or interests. A Web page on home business would likely receive targeted ads on “starting a business,” while a music site may receive targeted ads on music CDs. The ads automatically adjust for each page’s content.

The underlying thinking is an ad targeted to the audience of a Web page will generate higher response. Ads placed in context ultimately become a content point, seemingly blending with the content of the page that the user is visiting. This in turn increases the ad’s relevancy. The more relevant an ad is to the page, the higher its effectiveness and click-through rate, and the greater the income potential. That means more click-throughs for the advertisers, and more dollars for the publisher!

Google AdSense: Earning from Online Advertising

Advertising as a revenue source dried up for small web publishers. But thanks to a new program from Google called AdSense, online advertising for the small publishers is alive and well again. 

Advertising as a revenue source dried up for small web publishers. But thanks to a new program from Google called AdSense, online advertising for the small publishers is alive and well again.

Google AdSense is reinvigorating the online advertising landscape. After a few years of drought, people can earn money from advertising again this time, real money and not just pittance barely enough to cover hosting fees.

The dot-com crash brought along with it the fall of online advertising, particularly for small publishers. Rates plummeted to all-time lows. Whereas small publishers could earn as much as $50-100/cost per thousand (CPM) in the mid-to-late 1990s, ad earnings precipitously dropped to $0.20-0.60 cents per thousand impressions in 2002. Site owners had to scramble to find other means to earn a living from their Web sites!

Internet Home Based Businesses Anyone Can Do

If you’re serious about having a home based business, then you need to prepare. The eading reason for a failing home based business is the lack of preparation people ommit after they’ve made a decision to start a home based business.

So what kind of home based business opportunity should you take on? Do you want to have an internet-based home business? Millions have done it, are doing it and are rning good livings doing so.

Here are three different kinds of Internet based business models you can try:

1) Be an online retailer for reputable companies. Your home based internet business can give reviews about all the products and services of these companies. Your customers ill browse around your website, and then click on to the link. The link will send the ustomer to the company’s customer service website, which takes care of processing and shipping their order.

Your home based online business website does the marketing, promoting and dvertising aspects for these companies. Your commission comes from the proceeds of the sale. You don’t even have to spend money for expensive e-commerce software.

2) You may not be able to bear the pain of separating from your oldest possessions, but how about auctioning these things off? For a minimal entry fee and closing fee, you can ut your prized possessions on auction at Ebay or other spin-offs found on the net. This is a virtually free home based business since you don’t pay for web presence. You’ll get affic since Ebay receives as many as 4 million visitors a day, and you won’t need to orry about your e-commerce software. Plus your small home based internet business stays open even when you go fishing!

3) Sell information. You can start your home based internet business by writing on a subject that you enjoy or are knowledgeable about. If you can do this, then this small home based internet business is for you. Write your e-book and sell it on sites like Ebay.com, ebookAd.com, or Clickbank.com.

These home based internet business are all simple and easy enough to do. You can earn a living on these ideas if you view this small home based business with passion and commitment.

Just remember these home based internet tip:
Constantly fine-tune your marketing strategy and always test new ad copies to see what brings you the most sales!

Winning the (r) Google AdSense War

Some owners of content sites are earning four and even five-figure incomes per month selling "nothing." They're doing this by selling their targeted traffic to other websites through Google's AdSense program.

If you're not familiar with (r)AdSense, it's where (r)Google pays website owners ("publishers") to run ads on their sites. Google accepts paid ads from advertisers, and then shares this revenue with the publishers who allow these ads to be displayed on their sites. They pay based upon clicks generated from the publishers' sites.

Many publishers have discovered that running Google AdSense ads is more lucrative, and less trouble, than marketing their own products or services. So an entire industry has sprang up around monetizing websites using AdSense and other pay-per-click programs.

The "industry" is mature enough that seminars are even held that teach how to best monetize your content sites. I'll be attending a seminar, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 9th - 11th, 2005, that has this very focus. You can read more about it at: http://WillieCrawford.com/new-orleans-seminar.html

Since MOST people I've communicated with aren't earning four or five-figure incomes per month, let's examine how you increase your chances of earning these amounts.

First of all, your website has to be on a topic (a niche) where people are spending lots of money. There are niches where advertisers often spend $40 - $50 per click... just to get visitors to their websites. Obviously, these visitors buy "things" on these websites that make it worthwhile to pay that much for the traffic.

In case you're wondering what keywords any "sane" marketer would spend $50 on a single click for, read on...

Certain visitors to websites, that later convert to customers, could literally be worth thousands, even millions, to marketers. These marketers know the lifetime value of their visitors, and have the conversion rates calculated! Markets where customers can be this lucrative include legal/lawsuits, medical, higher education, real estate, new and used vehicles, investments, travel, and products offering residual income. There are many others.

I actually have a list of over 9000 keywords that I consult when building a new site, or optimizing an existing site. Doesn't it makes perfect sense to create sites that attract visitors with a high value-per-visitor?

You can grab a copy of my list along with a few personal notes on how to monetize these high-value keywords at: http://9000TopPayingKeywords.com

The keywords on the list above range from 93 cents to $108 per click. There ARE higher priced keywords but you probably don't want to focus on them since the competition can be incredibly cutthroat. There are niches where your competitors will actually sabotage your efforts. Money does that to some people :-)

It makes economic sense to build a site around topics where people are actually spending money already.

It makes sense to target a market where people have money to spend - and they expect to spend it on products similar to yours. In that sense, you can even set up site designed to generate traffic for governmental agencies, foundations, charities, etc. It's all about getting in front of the traffic and then re-directing that traffic to those willing to pay for it.

When setting up content sites, it's important that you not violate the terms-of-service at the pay-per-click management firm that you plan on using. For example, Google actually tells you that you should not build sites just for their AdSense program. Yet, they need sites to display their customers' ads in order for their program to work.

It's a delicate balancing act. Google wants to deliver relevant clicks to their customers. They know that traffic coming from "junky" or "spammy" sites may not convert as well for their customers. This would lower their customers ROI, and lead to many unhappy customers. This would drive Google's customers to their ever-growing competitors.

Google wants webmasters that have quality, targeted traffic to run AdSense Ads. When you set up a free blog on Google's Blogger.com they even have the AdSense invitation "programmed" into the signup process.

So how DO you win the Google AdSense War and get your share of that multi-billion dollar advertisers' revenue stream? You build high-quality content sites that focus on niches where people are spending money. It's as simple as that. You let those already doing it teach you what works best - it's a easy as that!

Whats Google AdSense ?

AdSense may be one of the fastest and easiest ways to monetize traffic to your web site whether you have products or services for sale or you simply provide free content to your visitors.

Simply stated, Google AdSense enables website operators to place some code on their site that connects to Google’s ad server content database and pulls keyword-relevant advertising onto the web pages. The webmaster gets paid a percentage of the fee that Google receives from the advertiser every time a visitor clicks on an ad. There is no charge for the webmaster to participate in AdSense. All costs are covered by the advertiser who participates in the AdSense sister program called AdWords.

Google’s sends out digital “robots” which use proprietary algorithms to parse the host web page and analyze the content in an effort to determine what keywords are relevant. It reports its findings back to Google’s ad server which then serves ads matching those keywords. Given that the entire process is automated, the “ad robots” do a pretty good job of getting the advertising content right most of the time.

The History of Google AdSense

Google AdSense has its roots in the old “Google Content-Targeted Advertising” program which they introduced back in March of 2003. Although this program was similar in concept to AdSense, there was no automated way of participating. Each webmaster negotiated a deal directly with Google, and websites that served less than 20 million page views per month were not welcome to participate.

As Google grew, they began to see how much money they were leaving on the table by excluding the smaller sites, which greatly outnumbered the sites serving over 20 million hits that were willing to serve other people’s ads. Their answer to that problem was AdSense which has no minimum traffic requirements and is open to all sites meeting Google’s content and decency requirements.

How much can you make running Google AdSense?

The answer to that question depends upon three factors:

1. How much traffic your site draws
2.How many visitors click on your ads
3.How much those ads pay per generated click

With some ads paying as much as $5 or more, it’s possible that you can generate a serious income with AdSense. There are relatively well documented cases of some people earning as much as $500 per DAY and more. Numbers like that are rare exceptions however. Even so, there is no reason why you can’t earn somewhere around $1,000 per month, or more, once you get the hang of it.

How to get started using Google AdSense

Make a visit to Google’s AdSense Site (https://www.google.com/adsense/) and sign up. Make sure that you read their Acceptable Use Policy and that you follow their content requirements. Google has their own “AdSense Police” who will have no problem booting you out of the program if you fail to walk the line.

Using Google AdSense on your site is like collecting free money. There’s no reason not to do it and potentially thousands of dollars worth of reasons to do it.