What is Google Adsense?

In the first of a series of articles on Google Adsense, we ask What is Google Adsense?

Worth noting that Google Adsense currently generates about a third of my monthly income, and at times I have earned more than $15,000 a month from it alone. I mention this because it's important that you consider three things as you read this and other articles here on my blog.

1. I'm only writing from experience.
2. I don't display advertisements on Thumb Lounge, so you know I'm not trying to make money out of your visit. You may be interested in my post 'Blogging for Money vs Blogging for Pleasure'
3. I encourage you to comment on your experiences with Google Adsense, or use the comment form to post any questions you may have. I'll do my best to answer them.

So, what is Google AdSense
At it's very basic Google Adsense is a very simple way of generating revenue from your website or blog by featuring adverts that are relevant to your content. You'll earn money every time a visitor clicks one of the adverts and/or for every 1000 impressions adverts receive on your site. You are known as a 'Publisher'.

How do I get Google Adsense to show Ads on my site?`
After you sign up at www.google.com/adsense and you/your site(s) are accepted, you'll be given a snippet of code that you place in the HTML of your pages.

You choose the ad sizes and color schemes to suit your personal taste. All of industry standard ad sizes are covered, with one or two unique ones thrown in for good measure.

Once the code is placed on your site, google 'reads' what your site is about by analyzing the text on each of the pages so it can build a list of keywords/phrases that best describe the content of that page.

• Example : www.doipod.com is a blog/site about Apple's 'iPod'. The pages contain lots of keywords, phrases and references to iPod and associated terms such as MP3, MP3 player, iPod Accessories, iPod Accessory and iPod Cases etc. Google Adsense has analysed each of the pages on the site and stored a list of what it considers are the main keywords/phrases for each page.

The Advertisers
Now on the other site of the coin, there are the 'Advertisers' (using Google AdWords). They have a web site/page that they want people to visit. What they want the visitor to do once they get to their site is of little consequence to you and I. Buy something? Fill out a form? Just look around? At this point we simply shouldn't care. All we concentrate on is sending the visitors.

• Example: XYZ Company sells an iPod Carry Case. They create an advertisement for the product. This can be a simple text ad or a swanky industry sized banner ad. Next they put in a list of keywords/phrases that best describe the product. So they might choose 'iPod Cases' and/or 'iPod Accessories'.

At this point I don't want to get too tied up in advertisers and their Google AdWords, but I should mention that the advertisers needn't be aware of your specific site. Just by simply signing up and placing the code your site, you are added to the network of Publisher sites. The advertisers (many 1000's) just create the ad campaigns and specify that they want to show their ads on the network of Publisher sites.

Are We Ready?
You have the snippet of code in place on your site. The advertisers have already got their ad campaigns running. So we're off.

Tomorrow, we'll look at 'Reporting and Getting Paid.