AdSense overviewWhat is AdSense?There's nothing better than Google's own Quick Guide to AdSense, available here: AdSense's advantagesAdSense is simple to join.
If you own a small web site you can now plug a bit of code into your site and almost instantly relevant text ads that are likely to appeal to your visitors will appear on your pages. If you own several sites, you need apply only once. This makes AdSense much simpler than joining a bunch of affiliate programs. As you can see, I'm really keen on this revenue sharing service. DisadvantagesOne problem is inappropriate ads. You don't want spammy junk advertised on your site. Google's standards probably aren't as high as yours. You can filter out 200 URLs, but in some industries that won't be enough.The stats Google supplies are inadequate. They're easy to understand at a glance. However, they don't tell you which ads people are clicking on, or which keywords are involved. That's frustrating. Also, I'd like to be able to identify and block ads that have very low payout rates, without doing a lot of sleuthing and messing around. The ad panels say "Ads by Google" – free advertising for Google. You don't earn anything if someone clicks on that link. The minimum payout is $100, which is regarded as too high by sites which don't receive much traffic. That won't worry experienced webmasters. Also, sites that want to display AdSense ads may not include "other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads." However, human beings review the sites. Rejected sites have been able to appeal successfully. Another disadvantage is that Google doesn't want you to share your stats with other webmasters. The AdSense Terms and Conditions say: "Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: ... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to you by Google..." That's really weird. Web site owners need to be able to share such information and discuss successes and failures. A big disadvantage of the service is that Google doesn't say how much its AdSense partners will receive. You'll just receive an unknown share of the revenue. Only a company with the goodwill and respect Google has earned could get away with such a cheeky offer. Google says: "How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks." So the only way to know how much you'll earn is to try it and see. If you want to bail out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site. Don't put all your eggs in the AdSense basket. If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed. Some webmasters who claim total innocence have had this happen to them. Google has made several changes to its AdSense FAQ, clarifying varying things. For example, you CAN apply for separate accounts for separate web sites. I've done so, and checked with Google that it's OK. Read the rules – they look ambiguous to me. If in doubt, ask first! Google has added "channels" which improve the tracking. I strongly recommend that you experiment with these. Sites with "excessive advertising" are being rejected. PLEASE read the rules and FAQ. When I looked, some advice in the rules contradicted advice in the FAQ. If in any doubt, ask their support staff. They're very helpful. Experiences with AdSenseThe payment you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying per click to advertise using Google's AdWords service. Advertisers can pay as little as 5 cents per click and as high as $10 or $12 in profitable niches, perhaps even more sometimes. You earn a share of that.So your payment rates can vary enormously. The rules forbid me from revealing my stats. However, in the tests I'm doing on five sites, the results have been startling – far better than I expected. The results are much better than I receive from many affiliate programs. In the past, I've talked to affiliates who were happy to receive $5 or $6 CPM (per 1,000 page views). My results from AdSense leave such affiliate revenues far behind. I've increased my use of AdSense. It's a winner! If my results are typical, it helps enormously if you build very simple, uncluttered pages so that the ads catch the visitor's eye more than anything else. Will those ads appear?Publishers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites.Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads. You can also use AdSense's preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries. Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity. Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs. For a full list of topics you may wish to avoid see: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US How much can you earn?Let's say you have a goal of earning $100,000 a year from AdSense. Is that possible?Let's see ... $100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day. So your goal is to produce either:
400 visitors, 5% click-through rate (CTR) and average 5c payout. Or 200 visitors, 10% CTR and an average 5c payout. Or 100 visitors, 10% CTR, and an average 10c payout. Or 100 visitors, 5% CTR, and an average 20c payout. Or 50 visitors, 10% CTR and 20c average payout. Or 25 visitors, 20% CTR and 20c average payout. Or 20 visitors, 10% CTR and 50c average payout. Or 10 visitors, 20% CTR and 50c average payout. Or 5 visitors, 20% CTR and $1 average payout. Let's assume you choose a goal somewhere around the middle, say aiming for 50 visitors per page and want 274 pages earning $1 a day. You'd need 274 x 50 = 13,700 pageviews a day. Does that sound too tough? If so, you'd better look for more profitable keywords and ways to improve your click-through rates. Let's try a different scenario. You choose more profitable keywords and make your $1 on average per page from, say, 10 visitors. 274 x 10 = 2740 pageviews a day. That's looking easier to achieve. If your average visitor sees 3 pages, you now need 913 unique visitors a day. Is that too tough to achieve in your niche? If so, create two sites, each attracting half that number, 456 unique visitors, a day. Can't achieve those click-through rates and payouts? Then you'll either need more pages on your sites on more niche sites. Some affiliates have a goal of writing one article a day and building one site a month. Need a little more help reaching that $100,000 goal? Add affiliate commissions into the equation. Add a newsletter for repeat sales. Choose the goal which best matches your site or sites. Then start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site. Please note, because of the AdSense rules, these are all hypothetical cases. I'm not allowed to give real cases. Real CTR rates and payouts vary hugely. It's fastGoogle usually approves web sites in less than a day.After your site is approved, within a few hours a special Google spider will spider your site. Then it's time to paste the code into your site and the text ads will appear. You can choose between either horizontal or skyscraper AdSense ads. How AdSense matches ads to web pagesGoogle is doing a good job of finding ads that are highly relevant to the web pages.Google says: "We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page." Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising. Also, watch out for your anchor text – the words in the links on your page. We've found that sometimes if irrelevant ads are being served, you can fix the problem by rewriting anchor text. You can check the relevance of the ads by looking at the text ads near the top-right of this page. Sites using AdSenseSites using AdSense include large information sites, affiliate-driven sites, forums and blogs."Chat" sites are considered not suitable. Some blogs are being rejected, but information-rich blogs are being accepted. GoogleGuy explains AdSenseGoogleGuy, an anonymous Google employee who contributes to discussions on the WebMasterWorld.com forums, explains how AdSense will help information sites:"...sites that provide solid content, especially niche sites that don't want to hunt down their own advertisers, should really benefit ... there's a whole universe of people who ... mostly produce informational sites, and the chance to recoup their costs without much effort is nice. I hope AdSense does encourage more diversity and voices on the web, because now smaller sites can work on what they're interested in – the content of their sites – without worrying very much about the costs of self-publishing information." How to choose sites to blockYou'll probably want to block some of the AdSense ads from appearing on your site. As well as blocking rubbishy sites, you may want to block tough competitors.The ability to block sites is especially important for sites that are not purely affiliate-income driven. For example, if you're selling a service or a product you won't want competitors' ads on your site. You can find such competitors by doing some searches on Google for key phrases that are important on your site and looking at the AdWords ads that appear. Affiliate programs versus AdSense earningsAffiliate programs are often compared by looking at the EPC – earnings per click.However, if you want to compare affiliate programs commissions with AdSense earnings, a more precise way is to calculate the payout you receive per 1,000 page views (CPM). Here's how to calculate your CPM: Let's say you earn $180 in affiliate commissions from 30 thousand (30,000) page views. $180 divided by 30 = $6. You have a CPM of $6. Not very inspiring, but not uncommon. The AdSense stats display the effective CPM you earn. Remember, AdSense doesn't have to replace your affiliate commissions. You can earn affiliate commissions AND AdSense commissions from the same page.
If you have a very efficient site with a high conversion rate, AdSense may not be right for you – or perhaps it would be suitable for SOME pages, but not others. Remember, the more choices you give people, the more likely you are to confuse them.
09:23 PM, June 24, 2006
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