Google Adsense is something that every blogger entering the blogging world had heard about, and often thought about how much they think they could make with it. You’ve probably heard about some of the more successful bloggers who use Adsense. There are two sides to the coin, hopefully you will consider both sides before going with Adsense.

Google Adsense is one of the highest ppc (pay per click) advertisers out there. They make millions to billions of dollars a year simply with their Google Adwords and Adsense ppc advertising. You receive a code to paste into certain areas of your site, and then it will automatically refresh with ads displayed inside of them. Whenever somebody browsing your blog gets interested in the ad and clicks on it, you are paid a small fee for bringing them a potential customer. It’s as easy as that, getting people to click on your ads.

If you go with ppc, Google Adsense will be your best bet as they have the highest ppc out there. They have a minimum payout of $100 via check. You must be 18 years old to use it. They will also check your website out before allowing you to sign up for your first account. After that you can apply the codes wherever you want them. There are some very strict rules to the ads such as your account could be banned if you in any way try to encourage users to click on the ads by rewarding them or any other sort of incentives.

My personal statement about Google’s Adsense for blogs, ‘don’t use it’. The space you use to put up decently sized banners of Adsense ad’s could easily be filled with private ad sales. These tend to be more profitable towards you because they pay for time of advertisement versus traffic actually sent to them. With 3 125×125 which would take the place of a the Adsense banner in one side bar, you can easily make $120+ a month after you get some decent traffic and subscribers. $240 when you put the 3 next to them in your second sidebar.

Why is it not very effective? Well to the argument, there are browsers, and fire fox plug ins that automatically remove Google Ads from every page. So they come to your site and see a blank spot instead of the ads. Wasted space because to make money with them you must have people click on them which they can’t do if they can’t see them. Secondly, they pay very minimal per click. It first varies on keyword. Blogs generally don’t seem to get too highly paid keywords due to some varying content. It’s pretty hard to make close to what you could on private sales when you are depending upon traffic. Even if you had a high enough traffic level to match the $240 a month you could be making with private ads, at that point charging $40 per sidebar ad would be too low. The point is you can’t beat private sales where you don’t split the money with a middle man.

There are some instances where Google Adsense does seem to have a positive outcome. Niche blogs for example. By this I mean a niche blog you put up, throw up 10-20 articles and leave it be. You won’t have people interested in advertising there, but Google Adsense will. Over time your blog may get some decent traffic from search engines and you’ll make some money with it. Forums work well with Google Adsense due to limited room for private sales, plus nobody likes big flashy banners or ads on forums. Most people don’t have forums on their blogs, so for the most part, I’d stay away.

If you have a site currently running Adsense, or if you are looking into it for your blog, leave a comment with your blogs address and I will come take a look at it. I will help you decide which way you would be most successful in monetizing your blog.

Related posts:

  1. Make Money Blogging: Selling 125×125 Ads
  2. Choosing a Niche
  3. Starting A Free Blog: Introduction