The Lazy Man's Way to Google Adsense Riches by Claire Suanders - HTML preview

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Chapter 1: Introduction

You’ve probably heard a lot about Google AdSense (which is

actually more accurately known as Google AdSense V1), but you

may not know just what it is. Well, for one thing, it’s a one of the

hottest new ways to make money online without having to do a

whole lot. If you’ve read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad, Poor

Dad,” you know that passive income is the best kind of income to

have.

Passive income is income that you get without having to

work for it. I know this may sound like some kind of “pie in the

sky” get-rich-quick scheme, but passive income is for real. In fact,

every single billionaire on earth uses the power of passive income to

keep money coming in while he or she jets off to parties and resorts

and such.

The best example of passive income in the physical world is

real estate. When you own an apartment building and hire a

property manager and a maintenance crew to take care of it for you

and collect the rents, all you have to do is cash the checks that roll

in.

Of course, passive income doesn’t just happen overnight, or

everyone would be getting it. In the case of the apartment building

owner, it took money, time, and knowledge to set up an S

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corporation, find a building to buy, put up the cash to buy it with

and get a loan for the rest, renovate it, then screen and hire the

property manager and maintenance crew. But once that was all

done, checks began rolling in with little or no effort.

Well, Google Adsense is the online equivalent of that. You’ll

have to invest just a little bit of time in learning about it, but once

you get it set up you can look forward to seeing those nice checks

roll in. Or, if you’re totally online, seeing money flow into your

PayPal account.

1.1 So Just What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is a fast and absolutely ridiculously easy way

for people with websites of all types and sizes to put up and display

relevant Google ads on the content pages of their site and earn

money.

Because the Google AdSense ads relate to what your visitors

came to your site to read about, or because the ads match up to the

interests and characteristics of the kind of people your content

attracts, you now have a way to improve your content pages AND

make some serious bucks off of them.

Google AdSense is also a way for site owners to provide

Google search capability to visitors and to earn even more money by

putting Google ads on the search results pages. Google AdSense

gives you the ability to earn advertising revenue from every single

page on your website—with a minimal investment of your time

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So what kind of ads do you have to put up? That’s the good

part—you don’t have to decide. Google does it for you. AdSense

always delivers relevant ads that are precisely targeted—on a page-

by-page basis—to the content that people find on your site. For

example, if you have a page that tells the story of your pet fish,

Google will send you ads for that site that are for pet stores, fish

food, fish bowls, aquariums…you get the picture.

If you decide you want to add a Google search box to your

site, then AdSense will deliver relevant ads targeted to the Google

search results pages that your visitors’ search request generated.

If you’re into upgrades, Google is now offering “AdSense

Premium”, which is CPC based and, for the time being, offers less

flexibility in terms of ad sizes -- only banners and skyscrapers are

currently available. You can apply using existing AdWords

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accounts, or you can request a new account. Applicants are usually

notified within a day as to whether they’ve been accepted for the

program.

Here’s the thing you need to know: Google has no strict

criteria for acceptance into the AdSense program, and Ad Sense

doesn’t hit you with a minimum traffic requirement. The only

criteria they’re really sticky about is the standard “acceptable

content” requirements, and that’s pretty standard almost anywhere.

Google AdSense says they’re serious about attracting quality

content sites, and because of that they only allow AdSense members

to serve one ad per page. This means you can’t use AdSense for

both banners and skyscrapers.(Note: banners are those horizontal

ads that run up top and down bottom. Skyscrapers are the tall ads

that run vertically, on the left and right of your page text.)

Once you’ve been accepted into Google AdSense, you’ll be

able to get the AdSense advertisements on any site you own using

the same ad code, provided you obey the Google guidelines. (And

that’s very, very important—more on that later.)

Your reporting doesn’t occur in real time, but is updated

regularly throughout the day. Right now, you can’t view reports

based on a domain or site basis if you run the AdSense on more

than one site.

Before you sign up, you really ought to read the lengthy and

detailed FAQ on the AdSense site.

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1.2 What Can it do for Me?

In three words, earn you money. More relevant ads on your

pages translates into more clicks—and more money that you

receive. Because when users click on an ad, Google will pay you. If

you’ve set up your own sales team, you’ll get an additional benefit:

AdSense complements their efforts. It doesn’t compete with them.

With AdSense, you get a reporting page that gives you a breakdown

on how your ads are doing and what they’re bringing in.

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Google has a huge advertiser base, so they have ads for all

kinds of businesses and for just about every type of content no

matter how broad or specialized it is. And since Google provides the

ads, you don’t have to spend time talking to your advertisers.

AdSense represents advertisers that span the spectrum.

These advertisers range from large global brands to small and local

companies. And ads are targeted by geography so global businesses

can display local advertising easily. One more thing: you can use

AdSense in many languages.

So how does AdSense figure out how to do all this targeted

advertising? Well, AdSense has the ability to deliver relevant ads

because the gurus at Google understand how web pages really work

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and they’re continually refining their technology to make it smarter

all the time.

For example, some words can have several different

meanings depending on context. You’ve seen th is happen with

“two” and “too” and “to.” Google technology is smart enough to

understand these distinctions from the context that the word

appears in, so you get more targeted ads.

When you put a Google search box on your site you start

making money off of web searches that people do on your site. This

ability to search off of your page keeps them on your site longer—

since they can search from right there where they are—and it will

only take you a few minutes to get AdSense up and running. The

best part, of course, is that AdSense is free for you to use.

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1.3 What Kinds of Ads Will I Get on My Site?

Obviously, there are some kinds of ads you wouldn’t want to

have on your site, such as pornographic ones or ads for sleazy

multi-level marketing schemes that scream “Make $30,000 a

month just for watching TV!” in big red letters.

Well, you can put your mind at ease. Google has an ad

review process that checks the ads they send to your site. This

process ensures that the ads that you serve up are family-friendly

and that they comply with Google’s strict editorial guidelines.

Google’s ad-screening team combines sensitive language

filters, input from site owners like you, and a team of linguists with

good old common sense to filter out ads that could be inappropriate

for your content. And if that’s not enough, you have to capability to

block competitive ads and choose your own default ads. That’s

another nice feature: Google kind of lets you run your own show.

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Now, another thing you might be concerned about is whether

the ads will clash with the look, feel, and colors scheme you’ve got

going with your site. Don’t worry. You can customize the

appearance of ads and choose from a wide range of colors and

templates. Same thing goes for your search results page. And

reports are customizable, too. Google provides flexible reporting

tools that allow you to group your pages any which way you want.

That means you can view your results by URL, domain, ad

type, category and more so that you can figure out where your

earnings are coming from.

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1.4 How do I Get Started?

It’s easy to get started with AdSense and it only takes a few

minutes. You fill out one single online application and that’s it.

Once you're approved, it takes only minutes to set up AdSense; all

you have to do is copy and paste a designated block of HTML into

the source code for your site. Once you do that, targeted ads will

start showing up on your website.

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To fill out the online application, go to:

https://www.google.com/adsense/application-

1?apply=Click+Here+to+Apply/

1.5 What are Users Saying about AdSense?

It’s one thing to hear about all the great advantages Google

AdSense offers, including how it can make money for you in your

sleep. But it’s another thing to hear comments from real, live

people. Here are a few of my favorites.

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“We’re seeing this impressive new revenue stream

without incurring any cost. We’re maximizing our

previously unsold inventory, and our revenue per

page figure continues to grow.”

- Scott Zucker, Executive VP and COO, Intelligent

Content Corp, PetPlace.com

“It took no time at all to copy and post the code on

individual pages, and it fits well with our content

management system and with the look and feel of all

our pages.”

- Steve Larson, Founder, Our-Hometown.com

“Instead of spending money to hire an additional

sales rep to sell ad banners, Google ads have become

a virtual sales tool for us. Now we’re able to reap

thousands of dollars in additional advertising

revenue each month that we would very likely have

missed without Google AdSense.”

- Robert Hoskins, Editor and Group Publisher,

Broadband Wireless Exchange

“Google shows targeted ads reflecting the sorts of

information and services SeatGuru visitors want.

For a small business like mine, this is the best

approach to advertising. You set it up easily, it

automatically serves relevant ads, and it takes very

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little of my time.”

- Matt Daimler, Founder, SeatGuru.com

“At the beginning I was very concerned that I might

lose traffic to competitors. I only used AdSense on a

limited number of the site’s pages, and I watched the

stats very carefully. If the traffic, pages per visitor,

or conversion rates dropped I knew I could easily

pull the ads...Since implementing AdSense, our ad

revenue has increased more than tenfold, and 100

percent of my available inventory is now sold

through AdSense.”

- Vik Kachoria, Entrepreneur, Real Adventure.

1.6 Am I Going to Make a Lot of Money Off of This?

While we can’t guarantee results, of course, since a lot of

your success lies in your own hands, we wouldn’t have written this

book if we didn’t believe in the power of Google AdSense. A lot of

webmasters are making a lot of money off of AdSense, and there’s

no reason you shouldn’t be one of them.

The amount of money you can make with Google AdSense

mainly depends on what user needs your Website fills. For instance,

a site about women’s issues can make some serious bucks on

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AdSense because of the high level of competition for related

keywords.

The CPC (cost per click) is the amount you get paid every

time a user clicks on one of those ad banners. CPC rates for

competitive keywords can be more than $1, which translates

directly to your site’s earning potential within the program.

However, if you’re in a less competitive market, you’ll make

less money—that’s just a fact of life. Still, it’s unusual to see anyone

using Google AdSense report earnings of less than an effective $1

CPM (cost per 1000 impressions), and the average runs in the range

of $4-$5 CPM. Some people are making an effective CPM of $15 or

more with AdSense. Oh, and best yet, this is all after Google takes

its commission.

About that commission…commission is definitely one thing

is that’s a little bit ambiguous with AdSense. Google doesn’t

publicize it’s “cut”, and only displays the publisher’s cut in

proprietary member reports, so getting good, accurate information

on this has been difficult.

To date, comparisons of AdWords rates with AdSense

earnings add up to commissions of between 40% and 60%. People

speculate all the time on user boards as to why Google refuses to

publish its commission rates, but no one has the answer. It might

have something to do with legal reasons or it could just be that

Google wants to retain the ability to change rates without having to

send out an announcement about it each time, which costs money.

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