Welcome once again.
In the first installment of this series, we defined what ‘monetising’ a website means. We
then quickly listed some of the ways you can do this. To recap, we mentioned:
- Google Adsense – (today’s topic)
- Direct Advertisement sales
- Affiliate marketing
- Own product marketing
- Paid reviews
Google Adsense – (defined…)
- Google Adsense is an advertising program run by Google Inc, the search engine giant.
- Chances are that you may have arrived at this website using Google Search.
What does it do?
- This program places advertisements on your website or blog depending on your subject matter.
- Simply put, what you write about on your website will determine what sort of advertisements appear on it.
- This subject matter is what numerous internet (marketing) gurus (but we aren’t) refer to as the ‘content’ of your website. (Why don’t they just simply say it like that?)….
How does it work?
- When you write about your subject, be it sports, cars, fishing, etc the Google Adsense software places advertisements on your site that are related to that subject. e.g. say your site is about cars, you will see that the advertisements that get displayed will be about cars, car dealers or mostly car related stuff.
- The Google Adsense software obviously does this as a result of some very clever and complicated calculations which you and I do not need to know.
- We do need, though, to understand the mechanics behind the driving force behind the type of adverts that end up getting displayed on your website.
- Suffice it to say that: ‘what you write about will determine what type of advertisements the Google Adsense software places on your site’.
Who chooses the advertisements?
- The Google Adsense program does.
- You do not directly have any choice over the advertisements that display on your site.
Who pays for the advertisements?
- The companies, organisations or individuals whose advertisements appear on your site pay Google to place those advertisements on Google Adsense enabled sites (like yours). It works like this:
- Say you have a product that you would like to market (at a lower cost as compared to traditional advetisement channels).
- You can then sign up for a Google Adwords advertising account.
- You then create your advertisement(s) choosing the wording that potential customers will see.
- Then you pay Google.
- Using its Adsense program, Google then places those the advert(s) on a site (or sites) whose subject matter is related to your product.
It’s that simple.
NOTE:
- Just like traditional marketing, this is done in the hope that someone will see the advert, and end up buying the product from the advertiser’s store or other channels the product is distributed through.
How do I make money with Google Adsense?
- Say for example, I create a product, then create an advert for it (through Google Adwords).
- I then pay Google for the advert.
- Google’s Adsense software will look for some websites whose subject matter is related to my product – say your website.
- You then get visitors to your website who see the advert and end up clicking on my product’s link.
- You, as the website owner, will get (paid) some (of the) money from Google that I initially paid Google for my Adwords advert – this is just for those clicks regardless of whether they buy my product or not.
What does one need to do to get Google Adsense adverts on their site?
- Firstly, one needs to apply for a Google Adsense account. If approved then,
- One has to create what are called Adsense channels.
- One simply copies some pre-made / pre-created lines of instructions that web-browser software understands – ‘javascript’ (as referred to by the web technology savvy gurus) – and pastes it into their website page or pages where they want the adverts to appear. The Google Adsense software does the rest of the job.
NOTES:
- The best place to start looking for this type of information is the Google Website itself.
- Just click on the Advertising Programs link.
- Click on the Google Adsense or Learn More link(s) and proceed from there by following the instructions given.
Some Google Adsense advantages – (this list is not conclusive)
- It’s offered for free
- Qualifying for the program is almost automatic so long your website or blog sticks to the stipulated Google Adsense conditions
- You do not have to scour countless (affiliate) websites nor chase companies/organisations to get them to advertise on your site
- You do not have to worry about writing some software to place and track the advertisements on your site.
- You do not have to worry about tracking payments for the advertisements (if people click on the ads)
- You do not need to sell anything in order to make money – if people visit your site, and click on a Google Adsense advertisement that catches their attention, you get a certain amount of money (from Google). Of course the amount you get varies depending on how much the advertiser pays Google. Also the placement of the advertisement on the page will determine how much money you get paid for the click.
Some disadvantages – (this list is not conclusive)
- Since you do not choose the advertisements, you do not have (direct) control over them and the revenue generated.
- You really have to have massive volumes of visitors (also referred to as ‘traffic’ by the internet marketing gurus) clicking on the advertisements. The principle is simple: No visitor no money. Millions of visitors, no clicks, no money as well (though that’s very unlikely!!).
But this does not have to put you off. Concentrate on getting those visitors to your website, and you will eventually start making an income.
WARNING:
- Google does not allow you to click on the advertisements appearing on your own site.
- Nor does it condone asking friends or family doing the clicking for you. You may earn some money by this ‘cheating’ but I would rather you earn a genuine income stream from genuine visitors!
- You are not allowed to add pointers or text telling your vistors where to click.
- Breaking any of the Google Adsense rules will get you banned from participating in the program.
How does one get visitors to their website?
- That is a discussion for another article.
- For now, concentrate on finding what you would like to discuss on your website (if you haven’t done so already) and get cracking on that first post. It may not be the final idea, but start something. I still gravitate between ideas and just go with the flow – whatever I feel good about, I write about. I strongly believe no one person is an absolute authority on any one subject – we learn, unlearn and re-learn. That is how we grow.
I would therefore like to point you this great and insightful article on a blog that I admire and like to read. It ’s called 13 Blogging Lessons Learnt From Stephen King’s On Writing.
If you write something I will definitely read it, comment on it, and make any suggestions if you tell me about it. Just send me a link to your site and I will surely add it to my site.
I hope this made things simpler.
Next, we will look at how to write good articles that will make people come to your website and eventually do some ‘click click’ or buy some ‘affiliate’ (yet another zinger that we need to unravel) product that you are promoting.
Till next time, nice blogging.
|
Comments on this entry are closed.