How to start monetizing your blog with Google Adsense?

You are DEFINITELY now asking this question as you are done with setting up your website and would like to start monetizing it through Google Adsense.

That’s all good!

But before cutting to the chase…

Let’s define what Google Adsense is, first!

What is Google Adsense

Google Adsense, as its name suggests, is a program that is run by Google and that enables publishers to display ads of advertisers on their websites in exchange for money. Adsense is, in fact, one of the easiest ways to earn money online.

In this guide, I’ll show EXACTLY how to start monetizing your website through Google Adsense…

And this…

From the very beginning and in an effective and easy way.

Keep reading…

How to Get Started with the Whole Process?

You have taken the decision to start monetizing your blog or website through Google Adsense and wondering how to get started now? Well, here’s how you can go about it:

• Step 1 – Create a Google Adsense Account and Link it to WordPress
• Step 2 – Submit it for Approval
• Step 3 – Create your ads in Google Adsense
• Bonus tips…
• Best Practices…

Before explaining each of these 2 steps, HOWEVER…

let’s see what is SO GOOD about Adsense…

Good Things About Google Adsense

Google AdSense is so reputable amongst other advertising networks.

This is because it’s FIRST a free program where everything gets handled through Google’s platform from helping you create your ads to be displayed on your website to collecting your money from advertisers.

Therefore…

it’s TIME and MONEY SAVING.

Furthermore, using Google AdSense is INCREDIBLY easy as it doesn’t require any specific or high skills.

Google AdSense is definitely the way to go for anyone wanting to earn easy money provided to have a WordPress website that is run by a reliable provider, and to have your AdSense ads nicely implemented along with quality produced content.

Also, when it comes to creating you ads, Google Adsense offers lots of flexibility.

This means…

Google’s platform makes it easy for you to customize your ads and the way you want them to be displayed.

For instance, you can opt for using image-rich ads or just plain text ads or a mix of them.

Another advantage, especially for those people owning multiple websites, is that they can place ads on them all from a single account. That is very useful if you want to monetize all of your websites with ads.

Also, the good thing about Adsense is that if you manage to build a very large audience, you’ll be able to just make lots of money.

All you’ll have to do then is to look for ads relevant to your brand or niche and carefully place them on your website, in a way that will appeal to your visitors.

What Can Be “Frustrating” about Adsense?

While Google Adsense is good for the many advantages we have just seen, there are also some bad things that many of you wouldn’t necessarily be happy about.

Amongst the bad things about Google Adsense is that there is a minimum amount of money to reach before you can proceed with any withdrawal. That amount is set to $100 minimum.

Also, to be able to earn a decent amount of money from Adsense, you should drive a lot of traffic to your website which is definitely not that easy to do.

For instance, to drive much traffic, your website should have valuable content that is SEO-optimized, it should be highly ranked on SERP and should have a good domain authority.

Besides, your ads should be very carefully placed on your website. In other words, your ads shouldn’t be placed in a way that can be considered as annoying of unprofessional by your visitors.

Furthermore, the unpredictability of Adsense accounts is another frustrating aspect about Adsense for many website owners.

According to Adsense policy, Adsense accounts can be shut down at any time for multiple reasons ranging from policy violations to click frauds.

For many who don’t have any other source of living, this can be a huge income loss, not to mention the huge frustration you feel after putting in a lot of efforts working on your website and ads. Clearly, this will not happen to everyone or even most people, but it’s still difficult to think that you have so little control over your AdSense account.

Step 1 – Create a Google Adsense Account and Link it to WordPress

Let’s assume you have already a Google account created. Otherwise, start by creating one.

Then, begin with creating a Google Adsense account and add it to your WordPress.

Linking your Adsense account to WordPress is as easy as adding a code snippet to it. Once the code is added, Google adsense will start reviewing your application to join the program. At this stage, you’ll have to just wait till you get approved to the program.

Let’s NOW show you how to proceed step by step…

The first thing to do will be to create an Adsense account as we’ve just said.

And here is HOW….

Creating Your Google Adsense Account

To create a Google AdSense account, just visit Google AdSense website, and click “Sign up” button.

After that, you’ll land on a signup form, where you’ll have type in some information like your URL website and your home country and check the Terms and Conditions box to proceed. Once you’re done with, click on “Start using Adsense”.

Activating Your Google Adsense Account

Once you click “Start using Adsense” button, you’ll land on your Google Adsense homepage.

To complete your Adsense Account activation, you’ll need to:

• Provide your payment details
• Connect your WordPress site to Adsense

Linking your Adsense account to WordPress will be as simple as adding a snippet of HTML code to your WordPress site’s header. This code is to be found on your Adsense homepage.

To get to it, click on the “Home” button on the left menu, then click “Connect your site to Adsense” as displayed in this screenshot bellow:

After this step, you’ll land on the following page :

Start with copying this code out there by clicking “Copy” beneath.

Now that you got that HTML code copied, go to your WordPress dashboard and do the following:

• Start with installing “WordPress Code Manager” WordPress plugin.

• Go to the left menu on your WordPress Dashboard and select “Code Snippets” then ” Header & Footer“

• Paste the HTML code in the header section and click “Save Changes”

Another way to place that code is to go to your wordpress dashboard and then:

On the left side, you click on “Appearance” and then ” Theme File Editor” like in here:

After you click on the “Theme File Editor“, go to the right side of the new page and click on ” Theme header“.

Then, put you adsense code between these two “head and head” as shown in here:

Right after, you scroll a little bit down and click “update file“

Now that you have added successfully the code to your WordPress, you’ll have to go back on your AdSense account homepage to check the “I’ve placed the code” box and then click “Next” button as shown in the screenshot below:

Step 2 – Submit it for Approval

After clicking that “Next” button, you’ll get the following page where you’ll have to Click “Request review” to submit your application for approval…

Wait for your account to be approved

You have sent now your application for review. All you have got to do now is to wait till your application gets approved by Google AdSense program.

As shown in the above message, it usually takes up to 3 days for your account to be activated. But in some cases, it may take a little bit longer.

Once you got that notification from Google AdSense saying that your account has been approved, you can proceed with the following step.

NB: Google will not approve your Adsense account until it COMPLIES with its Adsense program policies. Therefore and before sending your website for approval, make sure you did everything the right way.

To make it SIMPLER…

Make sure you meet the following eligibility requirements before you hit that “Request review” button:

• You should be 18 years old at the minimum

• Start with publishing some unique and interesting content

• Make sure you’re providing a good user experience for your visitors.

• Make sure your website complies with these policies here.

By doing this, you’ll increase the chances for your account to be approved.

Step 3 – Create Your Ads in Google Adsense

Let’s assume that Google Adsense HAS APPROVED your application and your account is NOW ACTIVATED.

The next step is to start with creating your Adsense ads.

Don’t worry…

This step is actually SUPER EASY to do too.

To simplify the process of creating ads, Google Adsense has introduced a feature that helps add automatically Adsense ads to websites. From figuring out the best ad location and size to choosing the best ad type according to your WordPress Website, everything is going to be automatically done for your best comfort.

For those of you who still would prefer to go the manual way creating and placing Ads units, you can always do it.

What to Choose Now, Auto Ads or Manual Ads?

As we just explained, if you want to avoid doing it the hard way, you can opt for auto ads and let Adsense take care of creating and placing ad units on your website.

To do that, you’ll have SIMPLY to follow these two easy steps:

First, go to your Adsense dashboard and click “Ads” on the left side…

Then, click that “Pen icon” as shown in this capture here:

Second, click that “Auto Ads” and then hit “Apply to site“

And that’s it…

Within an hour, ads will start showing AUTOMATICALLY on your website.

To sum it up, you can opt for auto ads if you are one of those publishers who:

• Want to save time and avoid all the hard work that comes along with adding manual ads
• Want to focus on other aspects of your business.
• You are a beginner with less expertise at the moment.

For those who have the necessary knowledge and prefer to have complete control of their ad placement, the manual way is the way to go.

Bonus tips…

1. Update Your Privacy Policy Section

Now that you start showing ads on your website, you’ll need to update your privacy policy with information telling your visitors that you’re using an ad network now.

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

2. 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.

2. How Adsense Program Really 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.

1. CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
2. CPC (cost per click)
3. CPE (cost per engagement)
4. Active View CPM (Active View Cost Per Mille Impressions)

1. CPM (cost per thousand impressions)

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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 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 Ads 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 Start Monetizing Your Blog with Google Adsense

Everyone can easily start monetizing a blog or website with Google Adsens by following these easy steps.

I wouldn’t recommend Google adsense for only e-commerce 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 start monetizing your blog with Google Adsense. Follow these easy simple steps and you’ll be soon earning money with your displayed ads.

Recommended reading : “Ads.txt Not Found”- The Easiest Guide Ever

(Featured Image Credit(free) : wallpapercave)

Did you find this guide helpful?

Got any nifty tricks or suggestions for us?

We would love to hear from you!