Adsense Tips for Bloggers 1

How do you make money from the Google Adsense Program? What AdSense Tips can you share with us?

I have been asked this question so many times in the past few weeks that I thought I should write something on the topic. It seems increasingly bloggers want to try to cover their hosting and ISP costs with some revenue from their blog - and increasingly they’re doing it and are able to make a few (or quite a lot) dollars on the side. Many are turning to Google’s Adsense program.

Covering costs of my Digital Photography Blog is why I originally signed up with Google Adsense - blogging can get expensive when you have high levels of traffic and a lot of pages.

Whilst the agreement you sign with Google stresses that you are not allowed to give specific information about your earnings from the program I can say that I’m glad I’ve signed up because its well and truly covered my costs - and then some. In fact I think its quite feasible to expect that Adsense coupled with other strategies for making money from Blogging could quite easily generate a decent living. It takes time and hard work, but I think its very doable. (Update: Since writing this series I’ve revealed that I am now looking at making over a six figure income this year in 2005 from blogging).

So how do I make money from Google Adsense? Let me share some AdSense Tips that heve helped me.

This will be the first in a series of posts on this topic. Let me say up front I’m no expert - there are a lot of people out there making a lot more money than I am using Adsense - however most of them are not telling their secrets - well not for free anyway. I’ve got no secrets to hide and am willing to share what I’ve learnt since I signed up for the program 8 months ago. If you want a REAL expert’s opinion on Adsense I’d recommend buying Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense E-Book. Joel earns $15,000 per month from Adsense and has some good things to share.

I know some bloggers are put off or offended by the idea of making money from blogging so I’ll try not to let these posts dominate my blog - however if you are not interested in the topic, simply skip over these posts.

I am going to assume a few things in this series to cut down the amount of introductory comments I have to make. Here is what I am assuming:

• You have a blog. Whilst most of the following tips will apply to other types of websites I run Adsense on blogs and will speak from that experience.
• You have (or will) read a basic overview of Adsense and have some understanding of what it is.
• You have(or will) read the program policies as outlined by Google. These give details of site eligibility, ad placements and other requirements for using the system.

Enough introductory comments - lets get stuck into the Adsense Tips for Bloggers!

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

The next element of this Adsense equation to be examined is how to get high paying Adsense Ads running on your site. Obviously in any business one way to get higher profits is to charge more for your product - whilst you have no direct say in how much is charged for ads run on your site - there are ways of targeting types of ads that might bring in a higher return than others.

As we mentioned in our initial explanation of the equation, the PVR Blog is one example of a blog that targets a well paying ad type - ads for PVR technology. Whilst I do not know specifics of earnings I would suspect blogs like Gizmodo who run Adsense ads would also be generating a higher paying ad, due to their focus on technology.The lesson we can learn from blogs such as these is that they attract specific ads (that presumably are well paying) by keeping their content targeted on the same topics. To over simplify what we’re saying - if you want ads about Camera Phones blog about Camera Phones.

Finding High Paying Ads is not as easy as it sounds (is anything?). Do a search for Google on High Paying Adsense Ads and you won’t find too many sites listing the best keywords for Adsense. The top Adsense users in Adsense discussion forums tend to be pretty secretive about not only what keywords they focus on, but also what sites they run. I don’t blame them either - its good business sense really.

Having said this there are a number of strategies and tools that you might like to employ to help find high paying keywords.

• Buy them - Finding high paying keywords for your blog is possible by yourself for free - but as with everything a few entrepreneurial types are willing to do the leg work for you to save you some time and give you a comprehensive result. One service that you might like to try to find good keywords is Top Paying Keywords.
• Trial and Error - I know this will frustrate some of you who want a nice and easy quick fix but overall it is one of the best pieces of advice I can give. Try writing on a topic - track the results - if it pays off do it again….lots. Adsense allows you to track specific pages or sections of your blog using its ‘channels’ feature - if you’re smart you’ll watch which sections of your blog are generating the highest ads by dividing your overall earnings by the number of clicks and comparing it to other channels. Keep trying new topics until you strike gold and then dig in like crazy!
• Are there Any Ads? - This is a good first question. Despite the many thousands of advertisers using Adsense there are some topics where the answer to this question is no. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.
• 7 Search has a list of the 100 of the top paying keywords (in their advertising program - not Adsense) at the moment. Its a bit depressing actually to see a list like this because you’d have to sell your soul somewhat in order to go with many of them. Its an interesting site to check out though.
• Also from 7 Search (and more useful) is their Keyword Suggestion Tool which gives you an idea of what people are paying per click on different tools (again this is not specifically for Adsense but it will give you an idea of what the going rates are). Find What also has a similar service.
• Google Adsense’s biggest competitor are Overture (they run the ads on Yahoo) - they offer a service where you can enter your keywords and they will not only tell you how much advertisers are paying for the words but also how many people are searching for the term. This is a very useful tool.
• Sign up for Adwords - One way of getting a feel for how much people are willing to pay per click is to sign up with Google as an advertiser yourself. It doesn’t cost much to start a mini campaign and do some research this way. You’ll get a feel for what people are bidding on different words very quickly this way.
• Word Tracker is the best tool I’ve seen to help in finding keywords that people are searching for in the major search engines. The excellent thing about Word Tracker is that they also tell you how many other sites out there are targeting the same words! This is very handy as it will stop you targeting ‘Britney Spears’ as a Keyword phrase even though its one of the most searched for keywords on the web because literally hundreds of thousands of other sites have beaten you to the punch. Word Tracker has a free version to trial it and their paying version is even better - well worth the investment.
• I’m told Keyword Sleuth is a similar program to Word Tracker however I am yet to trial it.

generating any traffic your research into the right ads will be useless. Likewise it is one thing to identify which ads you want to target - but it is another thing to actually get these relevant ads showing on your site. It is to this topic which our next post in this series will head - Finding Relevant Adsense Ads.

Simple Ways to Make Money Online Fast

Are there really ethical ways to make money fast? Yes, but they are primarily short term solutions. They'll help you raise some cash quickly, but don't think these are get-rich-quick plans. With that in mind, here are a few ways to make money fast.

Sell More Time

This is one of the ways I like least, but one of the most reliable. Working longer hours at work, or getting another job is one of the surest ways to make money fast. It has the added benefit of taking away time that you might otherwise use spending more money. Take shifts from other employees, stay late (if you are paid hourly), volunteer for holidays. Don't like this plan? Keep reading...

Sell Time For More

This is somewhat better than the last way. To sell your time for more money, you will have to do one of three things. First, you can look for a higher-paying job. Second, you can negotiate a raise (this works best after the first option, by the way). Third, you can get paid for what you produce, if you are a productive worker. This can mean getting paid by the piece in some jobs, or getting paid commissions in a sales job.

Engage In Arbitrage Based On Your Knowledge

Arbitrage is the buying and selling of things in markets that have pricing inefficiencies. For example, if a used car of a particular model and year normally retails for $4,500 - and you know this - you can watch for an opportunity to buy this car for less, and sell it at retail. I know people who regularly make $2,000 per vehicle buying and selling cars out of their front yard.

This isn't about cars, however. It is the principle that matters. Where is your expertise? More specifically, what can you put a price on and find a buyer for? I knew a guy who regularly bought used restaurant equipment for half of what others were paying. Even things you wouldn't expect, like engagement rings and dogs are "turned" for a profit in this way.

No cash for this? Try credit card advances. What's $100 in fees and interest if you make $1000 buying and reselling a coin collection? No credit cards? Find a partner. If my friend who knows boats ever tells me he can get a $5,000 boat for $3,000, he knows I'll put up the money for half of the profit. I like making hundreds of dollars in a few weeks just by playing with my money. Others do too.

Use everything you've got to make money fast. Look at your life and assets. If you have a home, you could rent rooms. If you are single, you can rent a room for a while instead of an apartment, and bank the difference. If you have extra time, you can start a business on the side. I can make more money fast by mailing an offer to my lists now, but then that is because I put in the time to build my internet business. That brings up an important point.

If you expect to start a business today and be rich a few months from now, you are probably doomed to struggling for money forever. It isn't that it's impossible. In fact, if you take away a rich man's last penny, chances are he'll have more money than you three months from now. He has spent the years learning about money, and making contacts, you see.

Ironically, it is those who hope for ways to make money fast and easy who are least likely to make it that way. Opportunity seekers are always chasing an easier way instead of making strategic plans and commitments. So use these ways to make money fast, but don't think you'll attain real wealth without some kind of commitment to learn and do what is necessary.