Google Adsense Ads
When using Adsense to monetize your blog, you don't have to do any selling. You are getting a commission and making money each time someone clicks on one of the Google ads displayed on your blog. You can earn money even if people don’t purchase anything.
Google Adsense pays high cpc rates for clicks compared to other ad networks. Google Adsense pays $0.01 to $5.00 for each click while other ad networks pay only $0.03 to $0.2 per click. The rate may vary depending on the geographical location of users, ad placement and advertisers budget.
The average commission per click is about 20 cents, but it depends on how competitive the keywords are. Advertisers pay more money for more competitive keywords. These are usually the keywords for topics that are very profitable such as insurance, credit cards, real estate, attorneys, etc. Competitive keywords (e.g. criminal attorney) can cost up to $30 per click.
The key is to choose advertisers who spend decent money on PPC. However, these are typically in highly competitive niches. To find high-paying keywords, check out my favorite keyword research tool: Market Samurai. This is the keyword tool I personally use the most. And you can check it out for FREE.
Google Adsense keeps 32% ad revenue for content ads. Google pays website publishers monthly if their Adsense account balance is $100 or more. Google Adsense provides different types of ads, including Adsense content, search, video, games, domains and mobile ads.
How to Get Started
To make money with Google Adsense ads, you display ads on your websites or blog. It's free to join as an Adsense advertiser. Once you apply for Google Adsense and get approved, Google will display relevant Adsense ads on your website or blog.
To sign up, visit http://www.Google.com/adsense and create your account. After signing up, you will get a code that you copy and paste into your blog pages that will feature advertising boxes from various merchants. You can customize the size and color scheme of your Adsense advertising boxes so that they blend well with your existing blog's theme. You can set up your ads to show image and text based ads.
You can also create campaigns within your Adsense account and have a number of different ads on different blogs, which will give you the ability to determine which ads are converting well and which ones you should tweak to perform better.
Size and Location Matters
In general, larger square ad boxes convert better when you modify the colors to blend well with your website. You don't want the ads to intrude on your visitor’s experience, but want to focus on creating ads that fit well within your layout and use a similar color scheme.
Start with the 250×250 square ad boxes or the 300×250 medium size if that works with your blog's theme. Use colors that blend with your design.
You can integrate the tower advertisements into the side panels of most blog themes.
The 728×90 leaderboard ad box is great for the upper portion of your blog's theme, right under the header, or at the very bottom, featured within the footer area of your website.
Caution: Don't overdo it. Don't put too many ads on your site. Remember that you want to provide your visitors with the best experience possible as you want them to return to your site frequently.
Also, Google's Terms don't permit to feature more than three ads on any page, so be sure to review their restrictions and terms before integrating Adsense on your website.
Several wordpress plugins are available to help you integrate Google Adsense advertisements into your blogs pages.
Test, Track and Adjust
Create individual channels for each blog that you want to have Adsense on so that you can determine what campaigns are working well, and track the CTR of each advertisement.
If you find that a particular ad isn't preforming well, try changing the placement, color scheme or size of the ad and make sure that the ads are targeted to your audience.
You need a lot of traffic to make money with Adsense. Your Adsense profits will depend on how much traffic you have and which keywords you're targeting. Some keywords and niche pay a lot more than others.
Also keep in mind that you'll make more money by monetizing your website or blog with affiliate programs than with Adsense as the Adsense commissions are small. Check the resource below to find out more about promoting affiliate programs.
RESOURCES
Here's the legal mumbo jumbo:
I only recommend products I believe in whether they have affiliate programs or not. I have used all the products I'm recommending here either for my own web sites or clients' web sites. Some links are affiliate links, and if you click on an affiliate link and purchase something, I might get paid a small commission.