Affiliate marketing is certainly an effective way to make money from a blog or website. But these aren’t too reliable enough to be used as the only money-making tool. Most webmasters, therefore, team up affiliate marketing with Google AdSense.
AdSense wonderfully complements or serves as an alternative to affiliate marketing.
AdSense leads to increased revenue, without interfering with affiliate marketing
I was initially hesitant to implement AdSense on my site as clicking the ads meant losing my customers to advertisers. However, after having implemented AdSense, it’s become clear that AdSense didn’t negatively affect my affiliate sales.
All it did was increase my revenue earning potential and made me not depend only on a single revenue stream.
AdSense adverts go on specific areas of your site – Google gets paid by the advertisers – you get a cut of the pay
Despite Google AdSense being in existence forever, many people still don’t know much about AdSense and the ways to get started.
I currently own a multi-author news site relating to WordPress. The articles get uploaded with relevant ads showing at designated spots. Most of my writers still don’t know how to setup AdSense.
Let’s first understand Google AdSense. Basically, advertisers sign up for Google’s AdWords program. When advertisers choose their ads to be part of Google’s Display Network, their adverts show up on sites participating in Google AdSense.
In case of a single-owner site, all the ad slots are owned by the webmaster. Sites with multiple authors have ad revenue shared among writers – the actual income of a writer depending on the money their articles or blog posts bring in.
To be a part of the AdSense program, you should own the site. But, once accepted, you could use your account credentials to have ads posted on other sites
In the past, an individual can send in a random website on the web for the AdSense application process. Google has now incorporated a second layer of verification as per which the publisher must prove he owns the website that he intends to post ads on.
Owning a website is a rather vague statement. The publisher should be fine if he has access to the backend of a site and knows a bit of coding to post AdSense code into the site. A site owner can provide backend access to his site to multiple individuals. And as per a recent Google ads regulation, the publisher must own the site’s domain at the time of applying. The ability to show up ads on various sites exists only once the application is approved.
If you know someone who’ll let you use his site’s credentials for your AdSense application process, getting through the process shouldn’t be tough. However, after some time, Google disallows usage of specific domain names for the application. Because it seems Google’s goal is to ensure a single AdSense publisher has at least one site, and this approach lets them attain the objective.
Purchase an inexpensive domain name; append it to a free site creation service and you’re in
Thankfully, owning a web domain and creating a site isn’t difficult at all in today’s times. And this is fairly inexpensive too. You need not necessarily take hosting responsibilities into your own hand and get a site built (even though that could be cheap when working with WordPress).
Realistically, for example, you can buy a domain name at namecheap.com for an annual fee in the $10-$15 range and build the site on Weebly.com. Attach the domain and site together.
Be doubly sure when picking up a service. There are some sites that won’t have any qualms about attaching domain names to a site, but they won’t let you run AdSense. For instance, sites hosted by WordPress cannot run ads. Long story short, buy a domain name and build your site with online site-building tools, such as Weebly.
Once done, start publishing good quality content on your site and have at least 10-20 article posts on your site before knocking at Google AdSense’s doors. Ensure all the fundamentals of a trustworthy site are in place, such as an “About Us” and “Contact Us” page before applying.
Don’t worry if your application gets rejected, for there is no limit on the number of times you may apply for AdSense. Make sure that you adhere to Google’s guidelines and adopt recommended changes with every subsequent application.
What are the kinds of AdSense ads and how do they make money for your site?
Being an AdSense publisher program participant means you allow Google to actively interact with your site. As a publisher, you may change the size, appearance, etc. of the ads. You could even block certain ads. In addition, you also choose your ads’ presentation format: images, text, animated, etc.
The kind of ads that show up hinge on a few aspects – First, Google will look into the content and display an ad related to the content. Google also uses cookies which helps the search engine learn user browsing patterns and display ads that interest them the most. The third way is running ads in particular ad slots, on certain pages and sites. Google may also adopt other ways to display its ads.
And if you were not aware, you get paid when a visitor clicks your ads. But don’t indulge in self-clicks – Google would easily detect the practice and ban your site out of AdSense for life. Google doesn’t pay publishers for the number of impressions per ad, despite Google AdWords using both the pay-per-click and pay per every 1000 impression model.
In my opinion, Google AdSense tracking isn’t up to the mark
Tracking your AdSense ads’ performance isn’t detailed. This may change in the future, but at the moment, the publisher creates an “ad channel” which helps him determine the ad’s performance. Several sites allow you to place the ad code within plugins or widgets, which means the whole site is usually served by the same ad. As a result, the tracking becomes site-wide and not particular to a specific page. People who track ads on the website level don’t mind the current feature.
Manually creating an ad channel and ad for every page on the website is also possible. However, this is not very convenient, but there is a better way to get things done. We shall talk about the same sometime later, probably in another post.
Use your Gmail account to apply for a publisher account with AdSense
Before applying, your site must have all the ingredients of a live website active. Then, go through the application process by using your Gmail account (YouTube or Gmail).
Once Google takes a good look at your site, it will let you know whether your site qualifies for the AdSense program or not. If approved, the next step is placing the ad code provided by Google into your site. Initially, the code will not show up ads for a brief moment as it’ll be working on learning more about your content and picking up relevant or matching adverts from its repository.
Once the ad shows up, you can be certain about your AdSense account being active. Once active, you may create new ad channels for different spots on your site.
Sending in the application usually gets wrapped up within a few minutes. The approval nod from Google may take some days, weeks, or even a month – but that’s extremely rare. Your job is to stay patient and await Google’s verdict on your site. Google does not send individual emails. It sends them in batches. So, if there are many websites undergoing the inspection phase, you’ll have to wait out the due process.
But this is pure insider information – something you’ll not be exposed to as a publisher. At times, your Google email may get lost or end up in your spam folder. In such cases, it’s better to check your AdSense account dashboard for messages. If there’s any communication from Google’s side, it should appear as messages.
Once your application is confirmed, start enjoying the benefits of AdSense. Google AdSense is a huge online ad network and the most popular. Other service providers have tried aping or even bettering the network, but AdSense has always reigned supreme.
This is primarily for its massive parent company backing and the variety of publishers in its stable. Google AdSense income may, initially, supplement your regular income, but if you really do a good job, it may turn into your primary income source.
