Make Money With Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a great way to make money with your blog. After adding some code to your pages, the ads will automatically appear – like magic. Once readers start clicking on your ads, you can start making money. An added bonus, it’s free to you.

If you’re comfortable adding code to your pages, adding Google AdSense to your website or blog is easy.

You’ll first need a (free) Google account. Filling out the application form, takes less than five minutes. Once approved (usually within 24 hours), you will receive an email from Google, that you’re approved to place ads on your site.

The following (referral) link, will take you to Google AdSense. There, you can start to

Once you’re approved by Google, sign into your Google AdSense account.

To create an ad for your site, go to “AdSense Setup”.

Today, I will explain how to add “AdSense for Content”. so, click on “AdSense for Content”. This will give you ads that match your keywords.

Next, hit “continue”.

Next, click on “Ad unit” – these are ads of different sizes, ranging from a 728 x 90 leaderboard (a large vertical ad), to a 160 x 600 “skyscraper” (large horizontal ad), and many sizes in between. This is the “format” of the ad.

Once you choose your “format”, you’ll continue on to “Colors”.

Here’s where you can have some fun.

Click on the “palettes” arrow, and you can see all of your choices. There are many.

Take time to learn the different palettes. Later on, as you’re feeling more comfortable with creating ads, you can also experiment with creating a custom palette.

Once you’ve chosen your palette, move on to the colors.

By clicking on the colored box, you will be given a color graph that contains several dozen colors. As you move your cursor over each color, the “Sample” will change color. This gives you an idea of what your ad will look like. You can choose colors for the ad border, title, background, text and URL.

Next, you can choose “Corner Styles”, or skip this step,

Your final step on this page is listed under “More Options”. By default, the “show public service ads” is checked. I normally just leave this box checked, however, you can change it to your liking,

Once you’re done formating your ad, hit the “continue” button.

The next page gives you an option to “choose ad channels”. A channel is actually tracking code, that tells you how each ad is performing (generating income).

You can skip this step, by hitting “continue”.

If you decide to add custom channels, click on “Add New Channel”, and type in the name for your channel.

I name ad channels by where the ad is going to be placed, i.e. “top of post”, “right sidebar”, “bottom of post”, “header”, “footer”, or post specific, etc….
Name your channels in the manner of how you will best remember them.

Once you start generating income, you can run reports based on your best performing channels.

Note: If you select a channel for your ad, the name of the channel will appear in the HTML code for the ad.

Click on “continue” and the next page will contain your AdSense HTML code.

Left click on the “AdSense Code” and it will be highlighted. Then “right click” and hit “copy”. You’re now ready to copy this code to your chosen “page”.

For an example, I created an ad, which shows below.

I’m using a “468 x 60” banner format, a “shadow” palette, black border, yellow background, a purple title, blue text, and orange URL. (sometimes the URL does not show up, but the advertisement is still active)

Here’s a 160 x 600 skyscraper ad: Note, I used the “blue mix” palette, different colors and I skipped the “corner” option. It defaults to square corners.

If you look at the above ads, since I’m writing about blogging in this post, you’ll notice a lot of the ads are for blogging. Google has that magical way of targeting your posts, with ads specific to the topic of the post. If you’re writing about photography, you’ll get ads about photography, etc….. This is where your content (what you write about) comes in. Good content is essential for Google AdSense.

If, while creating your ads, you change your mind, or make a mistake, just hit the “back” button, on the Google AdSense page. Using this back button will save the existing information, If you edit your ad, use the “continue” button, until you get your revised HTML code.

I’ve discovered an easy way to work with Google AdSense, and wrote about it a post named Blogging Just Got Easier. Check my previous post, and download the Firefox split browser. It makes “grabbing links”, super simple.

Remember: Do not click on your own AdSense ads. This could get you banned from Google.

Read the Google terms and conditions with regard to placing ads on your site. Google also has a great tutorial, that’s well worth viewing.

After pasting your Google AdSense code, check your site, and see how it looks. If you’re not happy with the result, delete the code you just inserted, and go back to “AdSense for Content”, and make the necessary changes. Remember to save your changes.

If you’re new to inserting code, save a copy of the page you’re inserting the ads into………….just in case you make an error.

Note: When you first paste a Google ad, you may see a “public service ad”, i.e hurricane relief. It takes Google a short amount of time to assign the appropriate ads to your site. If public service ads show up, check your site again, in 5 to 10 minutes.

On Google’s AdSense pages, you’ll also find information regarding how many of each ad unit, you can place on one page. Currently, you can have up to three “AdSense for Content” units. A unit is equal to, for example, three 160 x 600 skyscraper ads. Or, one skyscraper, plus two banner ads; or, three half banner ads, or, three 125×125 ads, etc…… The examples I included earlier in this post, are equal to three “units” for “AdSense for Content”. The other Google ads I have on this page are called “referral” ads, of which I can also have three.

Then, to answer the all important question, “Can you make money with Google ads?”. Most definitely! As your readership and traffic increases, you will experience more clicks from readers. Each time a reader clicks on one of your “AdSense For Content” ads, income is generated. The amount generated from a click, is dependent on the ad.

As your site matures, and your traffic numbers increase, so should your earnings from Google AdSense.

UPDATE: As of 10/9/07, Google added a new advertising feature. It’s called “Google AdSense Video Units. I have a demo of it here.