If you already have a heavy traffic website (or if you have an idea to build one) you can easily generate revenue from relevant advertisers. Google AdSense is the best product for this because the advertisements are so precise to what the person is looking for; they’re very likely to click on your link and make you more money than any other service. When marketing your website for SEO, generating revenue from relevant advertising is a must, but it should not be used when marketing your website for PPC.
You have to be very careful when placing these ads on your website. Google’s terms of service are very specific on what you can and cannot do. When you sign up for AdSense, you agree that you:
- Will not click on the Google ads you’re serving through AdSense.
- Will not place ads on sites that include incentives to click on ads.
- Will not place ads on sites that include pornographic content.
- Or otherwise encourage your visitors to click on your ads by driving special attention to it, this includes:
- Placing graphics next to each advertisement
- Placing the ads within a popup window
- Telling your customers to click on the linksGoogle allows you to place up to three advertisement sections to your content. I recommend having your ads placed in a position where your visitors are likely to click on the links. My AdSense pages have ads placed right below the navigation menu, somewhere throughout the body of the content, and the footer of the page.
Now what if you don’t want to place advertisements throughout your website to generate revenue? There is another way and it’s one of the best kept secrets in the industry. Have you ever visited someone’s website and they had a Google Search box where you could search within the website? You’re able to type in your query and when you hit submit it brings you to a custom designed page where you can see the results. What your visitors don’t know is that you are potentially making money from the “Ads by Google” section of the search results. This is especially powerful because the ads that are shown are related to the query the visitor typed into the search box.
Setting up an AdSense Account
- The first step is a preliminary one. You need to fill out an application with Google to serve their ads. Go to: https://www.google.com/adsense and click “Sign up now” to fill out an application and get started. It takes a few days for Google to review your website and grant an approval. I have seen websites get disapproved in the past, but usually for reasons of fraud or spam.
- Once your account is approved login to your account with the username and password you supplied at sign up. Google AdSense may require a different password than the Google account for AdWords and Gmail, so you need to be sure that you’re using the right account.
- Click the “AdSense Setup” tab Choose AdSense for content as the product
- Select the ‘Ad unit’ radio button and click Continue
- Select your ad format and click Continue
- Click in the grey box under “Your AdSense code” to highlight your code
- Copy the code you’ve just highlighted
- Paste this code into your web pages using your HTML editor
- Save your pages and publish them to the web
- Rake in the dough!
