How to Use Google AdSense
Google AdSense is one of the most popular ways through which you can earn money from your website.
Google AdSense is an online advertising program run by google. The program was initially released in 2003 and is still functional till date; although it is constantly modified by google in order to serve its users better. This program allows website publishers in the Google Network of content sites to upload texts, images, videos or interactive media advertisements that are targeted at the site content and audience. The advertisements uploaded are administered, sorted and maintained by google. These advertisements are used to generate income via 2 ways; the per-click or per-permission basis. Over 11.1 million websites use Google AdSense.
The technology embedded in google is used to serve advertisements based on; the content of the website a user is currently surfing, the user’s geographical location and other factors. AdSense does not only create and place responsive Ads on websites, it also places these advertisements on blogs. The Ads on display on these platforms usually adjusts their size depending on the size of the user’s device. Apart from the use of AdSense in building an advertisement network, many websites use it as a way to make revenue from their web content (website, online videos and online audio content). Also, AdSense is used by many small websites that do not have a major source of revenue to generate advertisement revenue.
Types of Google AdSense
Content AdSense
These ads target users with certain interest and contexts. Various Ad sizes are available for content ads. The Ads may be in form of simple text, images, animated images, flash videos or videos and rich media Ads. In content Ads, users can choose to allow both text and multimedia ads to be shown or just one of them.
AdSense for search
This type of google AdSense allows publishers to display ads relating to search terms on their sites and receive 51% revenue generated from those ads. These custom searches add can be displayed either together with results from AdSense Custom Search or alongside internal search results, through the use of Custom Search Ads. However, custom ads are only available to “white-listed” publishers. Note that the revenue shared from AdSense for search is lower than that from AdSense for content. But higher returns can be achieved as a result of the potential of getting higher click rates from users.
AdSense for video
Publishes who have video content (video hosting websites) use this type of google AdSense to generate revenue using ad placements from the extensive advertising networking on google. The publisher is left with the burden of deciding what type of ads can be shown with their video inventory. There are different video formats available for video AdSense. These video formats include; linear video ads which can be pre-roll or post-roll, overlay ads that display AdSense texts and displays ads over video content, and the True View format. Companion ads can also be displayed here. Companion ads are display ads that run alongside video content outside the player. AdSense for video is not for YouTube publishers.
Link units
Because users interact directly with the ad unit, this type of google AdSense closely targets the interest of the users. Thus, they become interested in the ads they eventually see. The ads on the link pages are usually in form of pay-per-click.
How does AdSense work?
The AdSense JavaScript code is inserted in a webpage by a webmaster that wishes to participate in AdSense.
Every time the webpage is visited by a person surfing the internet, the JavaScript code uses inlined JSON to display the content fetched from Google’s severs.
For context adverts, google servers use a web cache of the page created by its mediabot crawler to determine a set of high-value keywords. In situations where keywords have been previously cached, based on the AdWords biding system, the advertisements serve in place of those keywords.
For advertisements that are targeted to websites, the advertiser usually chooses the page or pages on which the adverts would be displayed. Payment is made by the advertiser based on cost per mille or the price advertisers have chosen to pay for every thousand advertisements displayed.
Money is added to advertisers account by google every time a visitor either downloads the referred software or subscribes to the service. This only applied to referrals. However, the referrals program was stopped in august, 2008.
Search advertisements are added to the list of results after the user performs a search.
It is possible for the other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their webpages because, the JavaScript is sent to the web browser when the page is requested. To ensure that there is protection against this type of fraud, AdSense publishers are demanded to specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. This then causes AdSense to ignore clicks from other pages other than the ones specified by the publisher.
Getting Started with Google AdSense
First, you need to sign up for a google AdSense account. To do this, you need to have a Gmail account. But in case you do not have one already then you can sign up for one.
After submitting your application on your google AdSense account, google will review the information on there and you will then receive an email within 6-8 hours. This email serves to let you know if you have passed the first step of the review process. If you have passed the first check, then you can log in to your AdSense account and get your ad code.
Once you log in your AdSense account, start by clicking the “my ads” tab and then click on “new ad unit”. When you do this, a “create new and add” screen will pop up on your device and you would be asked to choose an ad type.
You would need to fill in your AdSense contact information. You would be expected to fill in the payee’s name, the country, the type of account you are creating, the state and town you are operating from.
Google AdSense will also require that you provide a name for the ad unit alongside the size, type, style, and colors of the ad. Note that the name of the ad is only used for internal purposes. So, you can name it whatever you like. In choosing the ad size, be sure to go with a size under the listed google recommendation. Because, these listed ad sizes are the most popular among advertisers thus, they are more likely to gain higher inventory and thus a better pay out. The ad style feature enables you to control the display of your texts-based ad units. It is advisable to use the color scheme of your website to gain better results.
Once you are done with the ad setup, next is to click the save and get code button.
Your ad has been created successfully. Now your ad code will be on display for you to see.
Copy your ad code to your website or blog. All of these would take an estimated duration of 1-2 months. Depending on your geographical location.
In order to get paid from AdSense, you need to submit your tax information and enter your tax pin on your AdSense account. AdSense would send you a tax pin via email once you reach a threshold of 10 dollars. You would start receiving payment once your account reaches a threshold of 100 dollars.
I have learned that the biggest mistake people make is; throwing ads on any type of website they get their hands on. Your ads should be relevant to the content of the website you want to throw it on. Do not allow your time and efforts go to waste on sites that would not bring in cash.
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