What Is AdSense?

Before signing up to AdSense, it’s important to understand what you’re
signing up to. Many of the principles and strategies that I describe in this
book make the most of the way that AdSense works. If you can understand
where AdSense are getting their ads, how they assign those ads to Web
pages and how they fix the prices for clicks on those ads or for ad
appearances on those pages, you’ll be in a great position to manipulate
AdSense in a way that gives you maximum revenues.
Unfortunately, I can’t really do that.
Much of the way that Google runs the AdSense program is kept under wraps.
I know a few things — and enough to do a great deal with our AdSense ads.
But I don’t know it all. No one outside Google does. And for good reason. If it
was clear how Google figured out the content of each website and which ads
suit that site best, there’s a good chance that the Web would be filled with
sites created specially to bring in the highest paying ads instead of sites built
to bring in and inform users.
People do try to build sites for ads not content, but they tend to make less
money than high quality sites that attract loyal users who click on ads.
The fact is, we can make the most of both AdSense and our own ad space
without knowing the algorithms that Google uses to assign ads and pay sites.
That’s because AdSense is pretty simple. At the most basic level,
AdSense is a service run by Google that places ads on websites. When
you sign up to AdSense, you agree to take the ads that Google gives you and
receive a fee each time a user clicks on that ad (or for each thousand ad
appearances the ad receives on your site, depending on the type of ad).
The ads themselves come from another Google service: AdWords.
If you want to understand AdSense, you will need to understand AdWords.
Advertisers submit their ads to Google using the AdWords program. They
write a headline and a short piece of text — and here’s where it gets
interesting — they choose how much they want to pay.
Advertisers decide on the size of their advertising budgets and the amount
they’re prepared to pay for each click they receive. Google then decides
where to put those ads.
So a company that has a website selling handmade furniture might create an
ad that looks like this:
Handmade furnishings
From baby cribs to walnut
bookcases, we do it all.
Traditional quality, low prices.
www.handmadefurnishings.com
The company’s owner might then say that he’s prepared to pay $1000 a
month for his advertising budget but not more than $1 for a click. He can be
certain now of getting at least a thousand leads a month.
But that’s where his control over the ad ends. Google will figure out which
sites suit an ad like that and put them where it sees fit, charging the
advertiser up to a dollar a click until the advertiser’s budget runs out. (Of
that dollar, how much the publisher receives is a Google secret. The New
York Times has reported Google pays publishers 78.5 percent of the
advertising price per click. The figure hasn’t been confirmed but it is around
what most people in the industry expect that Google pays.)
That makes AdWords different to more traditional form of advertising. In the
print world, an advertiser chooses where it wants to place its ads and decides
if the price is worth paying.
The newspaper too decides how much it wants advertisers to pay to appear
on its pages. Any advertiser that meets that price gets the slot and the
publisher always knows how much his space is worth.
Neither of those things is true online.
When an advertiser signs up to AdWords, he has no idea where his ads are
going to turn up. When you sign up to AdSense, you’ve got no idea
how much you’re going to be paid for the ad space on your page.
You leave it to Google to decide whether to give you ads which could pay just
a few cents per click or ads which could pay a few dollars per click.
Google says that it always assigns ads in such a way that publishers
receive maximum revenues, and that advertisers get the best value
for their money.
So if you have a site that talks about interior design and which mentions
"homemade furnishings" a great deal, Google will assume that your readers
will be interested in the sample ad above. But that won’t be the only ad that
could appear on your page. There could be dozens of others. Google will give
you the ads that it thinks will give you the highest revenues.
That might not be the ad with the highest possible click price though. If a
lower paying ad gives you more clicks and higher overall revenues, you
should find yourself receiving that ad instead.
In theory then, you could just leave it to Google to decide which ads to give
you and at which price.
In my experience though, that just cuts you out of a giant opportunity. You
can influence the choice of ads that you get on your page, both in terms of
content and in terms of price. You can certainly influence the number of
clicks you receive on those ads. Google leaves that entirely up to you — and
it’s a crucial part of the difference between earnings that pay for candy bars
and earnings that pay for cars.
In short then, while signing up for AdSense can be both the beginning and
the end of turning your site into income, if you’re serious about making
serious money with your site, it needs to be the beginning. You’ll want to
make sure you’re not getting low-paying ads, and you’ll want to make sure
that you’re getting the clicks that turn those ads into cash.
If you want an in-depth look at Google AdWords, I recommend Perry
Marshall’s training materials.
2.2 Signing Up Made Easy
First though, you have to sign up. Here’s how you do it.
The sign-up page asks for a relatively small amount of information, not all of
which is as obvious as you might like.
First, you’ll have to tell Google whether you want an "individual" account or a
"company" account — whether you’re a company with more than twenty
employees or practically a one-man show that’s just you and up to nineteen
others. That’s important for just one reason: it tells Google where to send
the money. Take a business account and the payments will be made in the
name of your company; take an individual account, and they’ll be paid
directly to you.
You’ll also be able to choose between three different ways of receiving your
money: Electronic Funds Transfer, local currency check or Secured Express
Delivery. In general, it’s better to get your money by direct deposit
using the Electronic Funds Transfer; Google charges for express mail
checks.
(What you won’t be able to choose is whether you’re paid per click—on a
"CPC" basis—or for every thousand times you show an ad—on a "CPM" basis.
Google decides that for you. Some ads will be CPC and others will be CPM.)
The next piece of information that Google demands is your URL. There’s only
room for one URL, which can be confusing if you have more than one site
and want to put AdSense on all of them. Don’t worry about it. It won’t affect
how you use AdSense at all, so just submit your biggest site for now.
The next question is about whether you want content-based ads — the type
of small text ads I’ve been discussing so far, search ads or both. (Content-
based ads are better but I’ll tell you how to benefit from each so I
recommend that you choose both.)
Once you’re approved, you’ll just have to copy and paste a small piece of
code into your website and you’re done!
2.3 Google Policies
AdSense works. I know it works because I’ve got the stats, the checks and
the bank balance to prove it. And all of the methods that I used to increase
my AdSense revenues were completely legitimate and in line with Google’s
policies.
That’s important. It is possible to cheat AdSense. But you’d have to be crazy
to do it. You can make so much money working within Google’s rules that to
risk getting thrown out by putting ads on pages without content or by
persuading users to click on the ads is just plain crazy.
I’ve put a detailed list of Google’s "do’s and don’ts" at the back of this book.
The things to look out for in particular are:
Code Modification
You have to paste the AdSense code onto your site as is. And you don’t need
to do anything else! Your AdSense account will let you play with colors and
placements (and getting those right is what will really rocket your income) so
why bother playing with Google’s HTML? It’s not necessary and it could get
you a lifetime ban.
Incentives
When the ads appear on your page, you have to leave them completely
alone. You might be tempted to tell your users to "click here" or support your
sponsors but if Google catches you, they could well cut you off. They want
people to click because they’re genuinely interested in the ad. Get your
strategy right and they’ll do just that.
You can encourage your users to download the products your referral buttons
promote or to use your search bar, but never encourage your users to click
your ads.
Google is pretty picky about where the ads are displayed. They don’t want
advertisers complaining to them that their services were being promoted on
a site that supports gambling or is filled with profanity or contains more ads
than content. If your content doesn’t come up to scratch, you’ll need a site
that does.
Prohibited Clicks
And nastiest of all are the people who either click on their own ads or create
programs to do it for them.
The bottom line is that you don’t need any of this stuff. Maximizing your
revenue within the rules is a breeze! As Easy as 1-2-3!
The bottom line is that there are three ways to increase your AdSense
revenue.
1. By Tweaking the Ads
to make them more appealing to your visitors;
2. By Optimizing your Website
for better AdSense targeting (or what the Google folks call 'content
relevance');
And the only sure-fire way to get 1 and 2 right is by
3. Tracking Visitor Response.
If you don't know what works (and what doesn't work) in trying to increase
your AdSense revenue… you're shooting arrows in the dark!
The right tracking tools can reveal a great deal about your visitors and
answer fundamental questions such as what they're looking for and
what makes them 'click'. Once you've figured that out, bingo! You're on
your way to big AdSense bucks!
But it isn't as straightforward as it seems. If it were, there wouldn't be so
many grumpy people on AdSense forums, complaining about their low
AdSense earnings.
It's not that they aren't doing anything about it. They simply aren't doing the
right things.
Let me assure you that in the time that I have been using AdSense, my
earnings have only gone up — and so will yours, if you apply all my
techniques seriously.