Can you make money with AdSense?? Maybe

Can you make real money from AdSense?

I don't do a lot with AdSense, but it pays for my coffee, and a few bottles of Champagne, and it's growing.
Some people do make serious money with it though, although its glory years may be past.

With AdSense, you sign up with Google, add snippets of code to your blog/Web site, and Google automatically displays hopefully relevant ads based on your content.

When someone clicks on an ad (and it better not be you, read the terms of service carefully) you get between perhaps1 cent and 100 dollars, usually a few cents, When and if your balance reaches US$100, they eventually send you a check.

Can you make money with AdSense?? Maybe.

I've screwed with it for years, and have found a few things to be very true.

1) The ads need to be in your face. Ads in the left sidebar down low, for example, won't get clicked.

2) Some niches, think targeted Web sites/blogs, get far more clicks than others. Consumer goods, things people buy, tend to be good niches. This blog is not in a great area for AdSense.

3) You need to experiment with placement, colors, etc. Find what works for your blog/Web site.

4) Search engine traffic converts (clicks) far better than social traffic. This doesn't mean blogs don 't work, in fact they do, but your regular (social) readers tend to be ad blind. they not only don't click on them, they don't see them.

Of course there are other things to be concerned with, like Google can always throw you out of AdSense and refuse to even tell you why - and yes, they quite well may. And I'm rather have a $1.50 click rather than a bunch of 5-10 cents clicks, and I got both yesterday.

It's a minor income for me, but the occasional check for a few hundred dollars isn't bad, and of course a lot of people make much more. Those who make serious money either have a site with serious traffic in a great AdSense niche OR have a whole mess of small targeted sites.

You might want to read this long thread on AdSense on the Warrior Forum
6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned) - and yes, it's worth reading the whole thing and taking notes.

Comments

[Reg]

Ted, this post makes a nice overview of adsense. I'm still tweaking my use. I've adjusted to include ads in the body of the posts rather than in the side bars. Mine are block sections but I prefer your set up which has no borders around the embedded ads.

[Help desk software]

Fabulous blog about Adsense and its earning methods. And thanks for providing related forums links to us. Thank you.

[Email Marketing Software]

Excellent informative blog.Thanks for providing such a wonderful topics to make more money from Google Adsense.

[Womens Basketball Shoes]

Great post on Adsense. IMHO Adsense is one of the easiest business models to create substantial income online. Yes it will still take work to get traffic, but product based websites can convert well over 20% of that traffic into clicks. Easy money!