When you are creating valuable content and getting considerable traffic to your website, you do not need to have a brainstorming session to find the best ways to monetize your target audience’s attention.
Let’s say you have begun implementing digital marketing best practices, from SEO techniques to rank high on SERPs to social media marketing that puts your product or service where your audience is and directs them to your website.
You start thinking: “How do I get the most out of this traffic?”
Google AdSense helps you make a profit from prospects that visit your website to take you a step further towards achieving your business’s financial goals or paying your bills more conveniently.
This article will help you:
- Understand the definition of Google AdSense
- See how you can make more money from Google AdSense
- Know how to get started with showcasing trusted ads on your website
First, let’s talk about what Google AdSense is.
What Is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is an advertisement system that allows you to host trusted third-party ads on your website. Such ads include video or image content and mostly involve brands or products that are related to your business.”
Why would you want to show others’ ads on your website?
When your website visitors click on any of these ads, they generate revenue for you.
As for authenticity, Google checks and enables all AdSense ads to ensure that they are appropriate and relevant to your audience. Visitors would lose trust in your website if it is clustered with irrelevant ads, so you can lose traffic and make less money.
Your website or blog is not the only platform where you can use Google AdSense. You can generate income from your videos by hosting ads if you have a YouTube channel. While you will need to apply for the YouTube Partner Programme to get access, you don’t need to worry about paying a fee.
You can use Google AdSense on your website or channel for free. Once you apply and settle the registration process, you are ready to start displaying ads and getting money from clicks and impressions.
How Can I Earn Money From Google AdSense?
Earning from Google AdSense is as simple as ABC. Yeah, that’s right:
- Creating spaces on your website where you want ads to appear
- Ads pop up where you want them
- Google pays you for providing advertisers with digital spaces
But first, you must have AdSense enabled for your website or channel.
However, how much you can earn from Google AdSense depends on your website traffic, readers’ location, ads placement style, niche and how much advertisers pay.
Your earnings will most likely be the highest possible bar other factors. This is because of the fact that only quality and high-paying ads make it to your site.
This doesn’t mean you should have a strategy in place to make the most of this opportunity.
Here are a few ways to optimize your monetization strategy.
Narrow and Specify Your Target Audience
Focusing on a smaller segment helps you make more relatable content and solve specific problems your readers face, increasing the time readers spend on your website.
Websites with these qualities typically rank higher and are more inviting to advertisers because they stand out. Plus, advertisers find it easier to match ads to sites with a well-defined audience.
Put Your Website Out There
Plug your website shamelessly everywhere and anywhere you can. Send out newsletters to notify readers of new content on your website, update your social media channels and pay for ads.
This creates multiple back channels to your website, making your site the first thing that comes to mind for the topics you cover.
Place Ads Where They Will Be Visible
Place ads where readers can see them as it increases ad clicks.
You should not be tempted to place too many ads for higher earnings. It messes up readers’ satisfaction, and you may lose substantial website traffic you have worked hard to gain.
There’s no rule to ads placement. Tinker with the ads’ order; study your website visitors’ metrics and infer your readers’ satisfaction from them.
Study Google AdSense Guidelines and Stick to Them
Having your website blackballed for disregarding Google AdSense policies can be hard to overturn, especially if you are a serial offender.
These rules are curated to guide website owners who would concentrate on maximizing their AdSense earnings rather than providing value for their audience. Study the policies to understand how to prevent Google from disabling AdSense for your website.
If you are just starting out or unsure of what content categories to cover, use the Google AdSense revenue calculator to estimate potential earnings. It factors in your website niche and readers’ location.
How Do I Start AdSense?
Need a few more details on how to get started with Google AdSense? We’ve got you.
You can set up your AdSense account to get paid on your website and YouTube channels, and we’ll cover how for categories.
AdSense for Websites and Blogs
Here’s how to get started with AdSense for websites and blogs:
1. Create a Website That Ranks
Websites with traffic and valuable content rank higher than those without either or both. These factors are essential if you want to hit your Google AdSense revenue goals.
High-quality content takes time to make. As a newbie, you need a balance of content that attracts new visitors and content that retains these visitors.
If you focus too much on the former, you won’t have a loyal readership. Focusing too much on repeat readers won’t improve your traffic numbers.
Examples of sites with a perfect balance of both content forms are news forums, blogs, social networking platforms, online tools, websites and discussion boards.
2. Create Your Google AdSense Account
Click on this link to get started. Select the Google account you want to be tied to your AdSense account, or create a Google account if you don’t already have one.
Here’s a screenshot of the page that follows:
Enter and mark the options as they apply to you, and click on the “Start using Adsense” button.
If the creation is successful, it leads you to the next page, pictured below, from where you can add your site.
Click on the Payments tab and follow the prompts that follow to set up and verify your payment account.
3. Vary Website Ad Formats
Use different ad styles, as audience preferences vary as your website traffic increases.
Allow for text ads, image ads and video ads. The format of ads you choose can influence how they are placed on your website.
Use Google Analytics to test which ads work best and where they are more likely to get clicks without obstructing readers or popping up annoyingly within the site’s written content.
Adopt what works best and adjust as time goes by.
4. Utilize AdSense Custom Search
Ensure you have AdSense Custom Search enabled on your website if your website has a lot of content. That way, ads are displayed beside the search results whenever visitors search for specific content.
AdSense for YouTube Channels
The monetization process is a little different for YouTube channels. To set up Google Adsense for your YouTube channel, follow these steps:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio
- Click on the Monetization tab to get started with AdSense. Note: You must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to be eligible for monetization.
- Click the “Start” button on the “Sign-up for Google AdSense” popup
- Enter and re-authenticate your YouTube account password
- Choose and verify the Google Account you would want to be associated with the AdSense account
- Appropriately attend to the prompts that follow. Provide your contact, mail address and other information while ensuring their correctness.
- Submit your application.
- Once your Google AdSense account has been approved, pick the videos you want to monetize and tweak the ad settings as desired via your Video Manager.
Level Up Your Income With Google AdSense
Google AdSense helps you get more rewards for creating great content. When your audience visits your website or channel and clicks on ads that are relevant to their value, you get paid for it. You can use this extra money to create better content.
The application and registration process may seem rigorous for the first time, but with the right support from experienced professionals, you can finish it quickly and efficiently.
Rock Content helps you develop scalable, high-quality content experiences that go beyond engaging your audience and hitting your marketing objectives. With our innovative marketing products and services, exceeding your marketing goals is possible.
Contact us to learn about how we provide an in-depth and extensive marketing solution tailored to your business, which leaves no stone (rock) unturned.
If you would like some further reading, check out our article on conducting a Google Ads audit to understand how to review your Google Ads account, discover what is working and spot changes you need to make to maximize your ROI.