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You have undoubtedly spent long hours building, designing and updating your website.

It’s now time for you to get paid for your hard work, right?

Well, one of the best ways to get paid for your efforts is to monetize your blog or website by adding Google AdSense.

Okay…, but what is Google AdSense?

In a nutshell, Google AdSense is an advertising network that is run by Google. Google AdSense is a free way to help websites owners earn money through the display of targeted Google advertisements on their websites.

Advertisements can be of different sizes and shapes. Your website can display videos, text, images or interactive advertisements as a monetization strategy.

The best thing about AdSense, apart from the cost as it’s free, is the fact that you will not have to deal directly with advertisers.

Through Google’s platform, everything is going to be handled for you from collecting money to maintaining relationships when you are hosting advertisements.

Google will take care of collecting your money from the advertisers. It will keep 32% off it, however, as a payment for its role in facilitating the whole process. You as a publisher will get the remaining 68%.

All this makes of Google AdSense a hassle-free way to make money by simply displaying ads on your website.

7 Steps to help you add AdSense to Your Website

Well, the whole process of adding Google Adsense to your website is actually not complicated at all. You can add it easily by following these steps.

1. Create your website
2. Make sure your website is in compliance with Google Adsense guidelines
3. Apply for an Adsense account
4. Configure your ads
5. Copy and paste your Google AdSense code onto your website
6. Update your privacy policy section
7. Verify your address

Step 1: Create a website

The first and most important thing you’ll need to have is a website that is up and running. You can’t apply for an AdSense account without having an existing website. If you are one of those still in the process of setting up a new website, just hold off till you get your website live and then go ahead with your application.

Step 2: Your website should be in compliance with Google Adsense guidelines

In order to be eligible to Google Adsense program, your website should meet a number of requirements.

For example, your website must be easy to navigate through. Its elements have to be properly lined up. Its Content must be interesting, useful and easy to read.

Also, websites that are selling, for instance, counterfeit products or receiving traffic from sources like unsolicited emails or paid to click programs won’t be accepted to the program.

Google has a responsibility towards its advertisers who, generally, don’t accept their ads to be associated with certain types of websites. Therefore, Google will review your website content before you get accepted. Some examples of content that are not allowed on pages with Google ads are:

• Shocking content
• Mature or adult content
• Malware or adware
• Drugs or drug paraphernalia
• Excessive profanity
• Sales of tobacco, alcohol, weapons, prescription drugs
• Illegal activities
• Hateful content or discrimination against race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, gender, etc.

For the complete list, you can consult Google’s eligibility requirements for AdSense. Your website needs to be in compliance with all of these guidelines before you proceed with your application. Otherwise, you will simply be refused to the program.

Step 3: Apply for an Adsense account

Now that your site is set to go and in compliance with the program’s guidelines, you can proceed with your application to AdSense.

To begin with, you will have to navigate to Google AdSense website.

Once on Google AdSense website, look for the “Get started” button and click it to start with the application process.

Step 4: Configure your ads

At this stage, you will have to determine the type of advertisements you would like to be displayed on your Site.

Once on your dashboard, go to the “content” section which is on the left side. Once you click on it, you’ll get a drop-down menu displayed with more options. Go ahead and click on the “Ad Units” menu as shown on the screenshot above.

It’s in there where you can select things like the ad size, the ad type, style and other things associated with the advertising space that advertisers will be bidding for.

It is advisable to always go with one of the options recommended by Google when choosing a size. While there is a variety of choices, Google will be always giving you recommendations with regards to the most popular sizes for advertisers.

When it comes to the ad style options, you can control how the ads are going to be displayed on your Website. It is recommended to always match the style with the website’s color scheme.

Step 5: Copy and paste your Google AdSense code onto your website

Go ahead and click on the “save and get code” button.

Automatically a code will be generated that you’ll have to add to your website, this will look like this:

Now, you’ll have to copy paste this generated code onto your website. You can do this by using widgets if you’re using WordPress.

On the administrative dashboard, go to the “Appearance” section and find Widgets.

Paste the custom AdSense URL. After that, you just drag and drop the code into the widget area where you want it displayed on website.

You can use, alternatively, plugins to help you manage your ads. One of the best plugins for this is the AdSanity.

Step 6: Update Your Privacy Policy Section

Now that Adsense is enabled on your website, you need to update your privacy policy with information telling your visitors that you’re using an ad network that is displaying ads on your website.

You can find the full Google resource for the required content in the privacy policy section in here.

Step 7: Verify your address

As soon as you start earning money from your Adsense, you will receive from Google a card in the mail. To be able to withdraw your earned money, you’ll have to first verify your address.

When you open the received card from Google, you’ll find that it is including a PIN code that is associated with your Adsense. Along with that, you’ll find some instructions to help thru the process of verifying it online.

After verifying the PIN and address, you can begin cashing out your earning as soon as you reach the specified payment threshold.

How AdSense Program Works

The AdSense program is based on “ad auction” which is a bidding system.

This means that advertisers can determine how much they’re willing to pay for their advertisements to be displayed by setting a maximum bid. Then, Google will take care of connecting them automatically with publishers who have relevant visitors for their ads.

Let’s suppose that your blog is about meals and recipes, your visitors will not see ads related, for example, to online marketing, SEO or any other thing that is totally unrelated to what you are blogging about.

If your blog is more solicited by advertisers to be displayed on it, you’ll be able to earn more and more money as a publisher because bids will increase as well in order to stay competitive.

To choose which ads to display on your blog or site, Google uses a tool called Ad Rank. The basic formula used by Ad Rank is as follows:

The quality score is very important and equally weighs with the bids. Quality score is measured by 3 components which are “expected click-through rates”, “landing page experience” and “ad relevance”.

This means that an advertisement with a lower bid can win an auction if it has a high quality score, even if other advertisers place higher bids.

Google will always display ads that are gonna be the most clicked which is a win-win-win scenario for Google, the advertiser, and you as a publisher.

There Are 4 Various Bid Types to Get Paid with AdSense

Publishers get paid based on different bid types for the ads that appear on their websites.

• CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
• CPC (cost per click)
• CPE (cost per engagement)
• Active View CPM (Active View Cost Per Mille Impressions)

CPM – (Cost Per Mille)

CPM also called cost per thousand is the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an ad regardless if a visitor clicks on it or not.

When it comes to CPM bids, they are lower than CPC bids as the fee structure isn’t dependent on the user taking an action.

CPC – (Cost Per Click)

CPC or Cost-Per-Click is the amount of money publishers earn each time a visitor clicks on ads displayed on their websites. The content of the displayed ad determines how much money the publisher is going to make as some advertisers are willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.

CPE – (Cost Per Engagement)

CPE or Cost-Per-Engagement is based on the activeness of the visitor with regards to a displayed advertisement. For example in case of a “lightbox ad” which is an expandable ad format, when a user hovers over it for more than two seconds, this ad will expand. That is simply enough as an engagement proof for CPE payouts.

Active View CPM (Active View Cost Per Mille Impressions)

Payouts under this type of bid are conditioned by viewing at least 50% of a displayed advertisement for at least 1 second.

This type of bids is higher than CPM bids as the chances of a website user actually seeing the advertisement are increased.

Best Practices Using Google AdSense

Now that everything is okay with your AdSense being correctly installed on your website, there are certain practices to abide by and be aware of to get the most out of being a publisher.

Adopting the following practices will enable you as a publisher to make more money from your Google AdSense and at the same time you’ll be avoiding to violate Google AdSense’s policies.

Never try to click on ads displayed on your website

Clicking ads displayed on your website(s) is considered fraudulent. So it’s important that you avoid clicking on them and don’t let any of your family members in your household do it neither.

Google will not be able to detect who exactly clicked an ad on your website, whether you, your spouse or any other family member since you’re living together in the same house. So any click coming from your house will be considered fraudulent and automatically you will run the risk of getting banned from the AdSense Program.

Avoid displaying advertisements on your e-commerce website(s)

This won’t be considered as a violation of Google’s policy but this won’t help you a lot with conversions on your site. By enabling ads on your e-commerce site you can possibly get ads from your competitors to be displayed on your website which is not in your best interest.

By doing this, you’ll be indirectly driving your visitors away from your websites onto one of your competitors which will impact your conversion rate.

Also, the amount of money you’ll make by enabling ads on your website won’t worth any lost sale. In addition, the displayed ads could distract users from your sales copy and CTAs, even if they are not associated with the competition.

That’s why I wouldn’t recommend publishers to enable ads on any of their websites selling products or services.

Don’t stick to one type of ad units.

Website users and visitors have definitely different preferences. Therefore, they might be interested or attracted to different styles and types of ads appearing on your website.

That said, displaying the same ad units would make you lose money which wouldn’t be the case if you opt for displaying different types of ads. For instance, in spite of running text and display ad units, you might probably make more money running native ads too.

The golden tip in here is to keep experimenting with different ad units until you settle on the best ads types that bring you the most money.

Always look for the best ad placement

Besides experimenting with different ad units, you will need also to try different areas of your website for displaying your ads. Keep testing till you find that areas where your ads will be performing the most.

I’d suggest you to check out these Google’s best practices for ad placements depending on the type of website you have. They provide different suggestions for:

• News sites
• Blogs
• Forums
• Gaming sites
• Travel sites
• Classifieds
• Sports sites

Also go ahead and browse thru your competitors’ successful websites to look at their ad placements and try to do the same for best conversions.

Keep creating quality content to drive more and more traffic

Making money from Adsense is 100% reliant on website traffic. Therefore, you’ll have to continuously create and publish some useful and interesting content for your audience and be always looking for legitimate ways to attract more traffic to your website.

The more traffic you attract, the greater chances for you to get your ads seen and clicked and the more money you’ll be making.

To sum up: It’s easy to add Google AdSense to your website

Everyone can easily add Google Adsense to their websites by following these easy seven steps.

I wouldn’t recommend Google AdSense for only ecommerce websites. Publishers are good to go with AdSense for any other type of websites. You can come across many other ad networks but AdSense remains the most reputable. In addition, Google AdSense is totally free so there is no reason why not trying it…

Just keep this guide as a reference and get back to it whenever you’ll want to set up Adsense. Follow its easy seven steps and you’ll be soon earning money with your displayed ads.

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