Getting paid through AdSense program

Once you have setup your AdSense account and updated your website with AdSense code, you would surely be looking forward to earning some revenue from the AdSense Ads. Though revenue will start accruing to your AdSense account almost immediately, the actual payments to you are based on certain rules that Google has laid out for all website owners that have an AdSense account.

1.    The first and the most important rule is that Google will make a payment to you only when your account balance is $100 or more. Also, these payments are made by Google within 30 days of the last day of calendar month during which you attain an account balance of $100 or more. If your account balance is less than $100 on the last day of the month, the balance just rolls over to the next month and this continues till you actually have at least $100 in your account. You can easily check your account balance by logging-in into your AdSense account.

2.    Obviously, Google will only be able to pay you only if you provide them with the information that is required for payments. This includes the Payee information and contact details that you specified at the time of signing-up for an AdSense account. Though you can edit most of this information, country and Payee name cannot be changed at this stage (i.e. after the account has been approved by Google). If you need to get these changed, you will have to close your AdSense account and open a new one.

3.    You will also need to submit your tax information using the Tax information link on the My Account tab. This information is required irrespective of your location and, in any case, Google would not process your payment without the tax information.

4.    You also need to specify the mode of payment. This can be done through the ‘Payment Information’ link on the ‘My Account’ tab. Just check the options available for your location and choose the one that best suits you.

5.    As soon as your AdSense account balance reaches $50, Google will mail (snail mail) a PIN number to your payment address. You will need to enter this PIN into your account before you can become eligible for payments from Google.

Any website can become a bill-board through Google AdSense program

We all know that Google’s AdSense program is one of the most reputed internet advertising programs around. AdSense is one advertising program that brings a number of people (websites) into its fold as advertising media and hence helps them earn revenue (advertising revenue). These people are webmasters who own websites and it’s their websites that function as bill-boards and serve advertisements.

With Google AdSense program, any website can easily become a bill-board:

1.    No experience necessary: Google AdSense program offers earning opportunity to every webmaster. The only criterion is that you should have a website (and your website should be compliant to the AdSense program policies). You don’t need to know anything about advertising or advertising media etc. Just enroll with the Google AdSense program and Google will take care of designing the Ads and serving the relevant Ads on your website. So, no special designing skills or coding skills are required for getting enrolled and using Google AdSense program.

2.    No need to look for advertisers: When the commercial value of websites for advertising was recognized, webmasters started looking for increasing traffic to their websites in order to make their website worthy enough to attract advertisers. Even then, getting advertisers was not easy. So, they could not really derive any monetary benefits from the traffic to their website until an advertiser actually bought advertising space on their website. However, with Google AdSense program, webmasters start earning revenue from the day they join the Google AdSense program. As the traffic to their website increases, so does their revenue.

3.    No need for tracking revenue: Google AdSense program will also take the responsibility of tracking the revenue that you earn from serving the Ads on your website. You can just login to your Google AdSense account and check your earnings. Moreover, you have various reports and statistics available to you that you can use for enhancing the performance of your website on the Google AdSense program.

So, Google AdSense program has really made it easy to convert a website into revenue earning medium.

Getting the Maximum out of Google AdSense: Strategy Classification

Google AdSense program has given an altogether new purpose to websites. Besides serving content or selling products and services, websites are now being used to generate revenue through serving Google AdSense Ads. The webmasters employ various strategies in order to extract the maximum out of Google AdSense program. There is no formal classification available for these strategies (nor can all the strategies be determined), however, the following 3 classifications are said to be more prevalent than the others:

1.    Traffic Generation: Since the revenue generation from Google AdSense Ads is based on the CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, the more traffic your have to your website the better are your chances of getting good revenue through AdSense. Most webmasters are fully aware of this fact and employ various tricks to generate high traffic to their website. All such tricks fall under the category of ‘Traffic Generation’.

2.    Converting traffic to Clicks: Clicks seem to be the best way of increasing AdSense revenue. Prompting the website visitors to click on the AdSense Ads can make a big difference in terms of the AdSense revenue that you earn. A good copy can make the website visitors more confident about your website and hence encourage them to go ahead click the AdSense Ads. Besides the website copy, the website owners apply several other means for getting more clicks. These form the ‘Converting traffic to Clicks’ category.

3.    Attracting High Value AdSense Ads: Besides the traffic to your website, your AdSense revenue is also based on the value of the AdSense Ads. So, some Ads produce more revenue when they are clicked/displayed than the others. This is determined using the Adwords system. Some webmasters develop websites primarily for AdSense revenue generation. These webmasters choose the website topic and orient the content in such a way so as to attract high value AdSense Ads. These tricks form the “Attracting High Value AdSense Ads” category.

Google AdSense: Understanding Alternate Ads and PSAs

We all know that Google AdSense works by serving targeted Ads to the websites that are enrolled with the Google AdSense program. However, there are instances when no targeted Ads are available for a website e.g. the website might be catering to such a topic or subject for which no relevant Ads/advertisers are available. In such a case, Google serves alternate Ads i.e. content of your choice. If you have not specified any content as Alternate Ads, Google AdSense program treats PSAs i.e. public service Ads as alternate Ads and serves them on your website. These PSAs are charitable Ads that don’t contribute to your revenue. So, unless you are looking to do charity (which could mean lessening of revenue for you), you must specify Alternate Ads upfront.
Here are the options that you have for alternate Ads (your choice of content):

Color: A number of people use color for alternate Ads. This involves specifying a valid hexadecimal color code (or you can choose from the color palette provided by Google) for the alternate ad. The choice of color would be such that the ad becomes invisible. This is easily achieved by setting the color of the ad same as the background color of the page.

Image: An image can also be used as an alternate ad. You can either have this image link to some other web page (in such a case you will need to specify an html as alternate ad) or you may just use it as such (for, maybe, enhancing the beauty of your web page).
Another good option is to use ‘Collapsing ad units’. ‘Collapsing ad units’ code will squeeze the ad units that are not utilized (instead of showing the PSAs) on your website. This approach helps in giving a cleaner look to the web page (since the blank areas or non-ad-based images are done away with). It also helps in bringing more emphasis to the AdSense Ads that are displayed on the website.

Google’s Ad filtering mechanism.

1. Google’s filtering mechanism for Ads is based on a number of factors. Let’s take a look at some of these factors:
   1.    Relevance to content: This is the single most important Ad filtering criterion that is used by the Google AdSense program. In fact, it is this filtering concept that gives Google AdSense program an important edge over the other advertising programs. The Google AdSense program determines the main topics/subjects of the website content and serves the Ads that are relevant to the same. Since Google AdSense is a global program, the relevance of Ads is also checked with respect to geography and the language of the content on the website. Note that AdSense can actually be used in a number of languages not just English.
   
   2.    Appropriateness of content: Websites are based on varying themes. There are websites that are based strictly on Adult themes while the other sites are family friendly ones. Since Google’s AdSense program is open to all website owners and advertisers (who comply with the AdSense program policy), Google also controls the content of Ads to prevent Offense to anyone who sees the Ads. Google does this by using sensitive language filters and language experts. Google uses strict rules and guidelines for conducting an editorial review on the content of Ads. It also asks you to provide information about what kind of Ads (e.g. sexually-oriented, war oriented etc) you deem as inappropriate for your website.
   
   3.    Competition filter: Since Google serves Ads based on the content of the websites, it’s quite possible that the Ads of competitors get displayed on a website that sells a particular product or service. To avoid this, Google provides a facility to the website owners wherein they can specify competitors or advertisers whose Ads should not be displayed on the website.
   
   
   1. 4.    Choose your own: You can also choose default Ads to be shown in case Google AdSense program is not able to serve Ads to your website (due to unavailability of suitable Ads, etc)

Guidelines for adding the AdSense code to your web page

Adding the AdSense code to your web page is a very straight forward process. You just need to copy the AdSense code from your AdSense account (as seen in the AdSense code box) and paste it in your html code. However, there are certain guidelines that you need to follow when pasting the AdSense code in your web page.

     Firstly, you should never tamper with the AdSense code in any way. It should be pasted as such, in its entirety, without any changes or modifications; otherwise your AdSense code will not work. Moreover, you might end up violating the AdSense program policies.

     Also, it’s important that you paste the AdSense code in the body tags of your html page. This is necessary for the code (java script) to run properly.

     Further, you must ensure that you use a maximum of three ad units per web page (this is the limit specified by Google AdSense program) and not more than 1 link unit per web page.

     Since content based Ad targeting is the main concept behind AdSense program, you need to ensure that you paste your AdSense code in the place where you have your main content pieces e.g. if you have your main content in a particular frame or a ‘DIV’ tag, your AdSense code should be pasted in that particular frame or ‘DIV’ tag.

     Be careful when using WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get) editors. Such editors sometimes add few tags on their own. So, paste the AdSense code only in source code directly and not in the preview page or any other view of your web page. Always check the AdSense code for additional irrelevant tags before you actually upload your web page to your server.

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website – Part 1 (shape and size)

Google AdSense program can reap even richer dividends for you if you are able to attract more visitors to your website and if you are able to prompt them to take action (i.e. click on the AdSense Ads). Google disallows statements that ask the visitors to click on the AdSense Ads. In fact, Google AdSense Ads are to be marked in some way as advertisements. However, there are other authentic ways of getting the clicks on your AdSense Ads.

Besides the copy and quality content, you can also improve the performance of your AdSense Ads by either making them blend with your website or making them standout. The aim is to make the AdSense Ads more attractive/ appealing to your website visitors and to make them look in-place (not out of place). Google too recognizes this need and hence it provides you with customization options for making the Ads look the way you want them to.

You can make the AdSense Ads suit your website by controlling the shape, size, color and positioning of the Ads. Let’s have a brief look at the first two properties i.e. shape and size:

1.    Shape of your AdSense Ads: This is one of the most important customizations options that you have at your disposable. You can make your selection from a number of Ad formats that Google makes available to you. These include skyscrapers, single ad blocks and banners. Just check the suitability of the shape with respect to the webpage where you wish to include the AdSense Ad.

2.    Size of your AdSense Ads: Again, you can use AdSense Ads of various sizes. The size is important not only for making the Ads look suited to your website but also for determining the number of Ads that can be displayed on the webpage by the Google AdSense program. A large size generally means that more Ads can be displayed on the page (and hence presents the opportunity for earning more revenue with increased impressions).