How to Earn Money With Google AdSense

How do I earn money with Google AdSense?" is perhaps the most common question I receive about the AdSense program. If I were to answer it at face value, I'd say: 

1. Sign up for the AdSense program.
2. Place the AdSense code (JavaScript) on your web pages. This displays contextually-relevant advertisements whenever someone visits the page.
3. You earn money whenever someone clicks an advertisement -- Google splits the ad revenues with you for each click.

Of course, this doesn't answer the real question that's being asked: "How do I make significant money -- hundreds or thousands of dollars per month -- with AdSense?" The answer to that question is quite simple: content and traffic.

Factor #1: Content

AdSense is a content monetization program. Google has developed sophisticated algorithms that analyze the textual content of a page (it can't analyze videos or images other than look at any tags you've associated with them) which in conjunction with related information (the domain name, the URL of the page, the anchor text of links pointing to the page) generates a set of keywords from which it draws relevant AdWords ads. Those ads are displayed on the page along with the content, at locations you choose.

Because of this, the adage "Content is King" applies even more to AdSense than it does to other advertising systems. The more content you have, the more ads you can display. The more content you have, the better targeted the ads will be. And that doesn't even count the ancillary benefits that good, unique and fresh content will bring you in terms of traffic.

But to make a lot of money with AdSense you have to choose the right type of content to publish. Topics about things that people buy are good choices, as are topics related to problems that people have and are looking to solve -- such as health problems (acne, weight loss) or financial problems (debt, retirement). Of course, most of the high-paying topics are ultra-competitive, so you have to find a middle ground that works for you. Just stay away from the topics that pay a few pennies per click, unless you think you can generate the kind of traffic volume that turns those pennies into serious money.

Factor #2: Traffic

Publishing the right content is key, but you won't make serious cash with AdSense without traffic. Think about it: if there are no visitors, there are no ad clicks.

If you really want to push your earnings through the roof, spend most of your time working on traffic generation. Writing content sometimes qualifies as traffic generation, for example when you write content that qualifies as "linkbait" or when you develop content for specific long-tail keywords.

Most AdSense publishers find that search engine traffic is the most profitable, so it's wise to spend time building links to your content (using good anchor text whenever possible, of course) and using simple search engine optimization techniques. The goal is to get the pages on your site to rank as high as possible -- ideally in the top 10 results -- for all the major search terms that relate to a topic. The more pages that rank, the higher the traffic.

You can also explore other sources of traffic. Some publishers try pay-per-click traffic, but it's a risky move (because you're spending real money to get the traffic) and it's not something that Google encourages. Getting bookmarked or linked to from Web 2.0 bookmarking and social networking sites is another way to get traffic. Building a mailing list of potential readers and letting them know when you publish new content is another way.

No matter what, your goal should be to get several thousand visitors per day to your pages.

That, in a nutshell, is what you need to make real money with AdSense: good, profitable content and lots of traffic. The devil is in the details, but with some planning and hard work anyone can do it

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