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Making Money with Google`s ADsense

Is anyone earning real money using Google`s Adsense program?
I had signed up for an account sometime ago but never did anything with it until I saw a recent episode of the Today Show where folks claim to be making thousands of dollars per week.
I struggled with the idea of posting Google ads on my actual website feeling they would be distracting... so I thought my monthly newsletter would be a perfect vehicle to give it a try. I was earned $22 on my first try. Which I think is okay considering I only have about 400 subscribers to my newsletter. But since my newsletter is only monthly that is certainly not much money. I also struggled with how many ads to put on a newsletter... I would love to earn the extra money... but at the same time I want to avoid overkill with the ads. Please see: http://www.rookaps.com/newsletter_1207.htm
I am also thinking about putting the ads on my "Thank you" page that would appear after an order is placed.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
rookaps12/8/2007 1:14 PM
I had signed up for an account sometime ago but never did anything with it until I saw a recent episode of the Today Show where folks claim to be making thousands of dollars per week.
I struggled with the idea of posting Google ads on my actual website feeling they would be distracting... so I thought my monthly newsletter would be a perfect vehicle to give it a try. I was earned $22 on my first try. Which I think is okay considering I only have about 400 subscribers to my newsletter. But since my newsletter is only monthly that is certainly not much money. I also struggled with how many ads to put on a newsletter... I would love to earn the extra money... but at the same time I want to avoid overkill with the ads. Please see: http://www.rookaps.com/newsletter_1207.htm
I am also thinking about putting the ads on my "Thank you" page that would appear after an order is placed.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
rookaps12/8/2007 1:14 PM
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Comments
While I personally don`t use Adsense on my site, based on my own personal research, the answer to your question is YES. Some websites are making good money with Adsense. However, the vast majority aren`t making enough money to make it worth their time. The two keys to making money with Adsense are mega traffic and the positioning of the ads. At least those are my conclusions. The sites that I researched that are making money with Adsense all have mega traffic. Conversely, the sites that aren`t making money don`t have a lot of traffic. Regarding positioning of the ads, skyscraper type formats on the lefthand side seem to deliver consistently strong results. Eye level ads centered in the middle of the page are also strong performers. In addition, it also helps if the background color of the ad closely matches the color of your website. That being said, every website is different. And while the left side and middle of the page are good rules of thumb, there are always exceptions. So it`s best to experiment by moving your ads around from time to time, changing ad size and design and tracking the results to see what works best for your particular website. Dale King DKing12/8/2007 6:30 PM
Craig, clicking on ads that take you to another site is not just an option, it`s the whole point of having Adsense. She does get paid when someone clicks on the ads. That`s the main reason why website owners put Adsense on their sites in the first place - to make money. When an ad is clicked on, Google will pay the publisher (Roo Kaps) about half of what the Adwords advertiser is paying to run the ad. Google gets the other half.
Dale King
DKing12/8/2007 9:13 PM
So that being said, if you have a site dedicated to content I think the ad supported model works great. The perfect example is a blog. That allows you to capitalize on the traffic to your blog.
I agree. In fact, I started a thread on this exact topic a few months back titled "The Illogical Use of Adsense:
http://www.startupnation.com/forums/6308/3/1
The sites that I researched that were the most successful using Adsense were all high-traffic, free content sites...article directories, dating sites, blogs, etc., that weren`t selling anything. Not surprisingly, the sites that weren`t as successful didn`t have very much traffic and were trying to make money selling products in addition to using Adsense. If you`re selling something, to me it`s counter-productive to send your visitors to another website, just to make a few pennies per click. It`s just not logical to do that!
Dale King
DKing12/10/2007 7:18 PM
One site I have had online for a couple years has AdSense on it; it is a free classifieds site. It has taken time, and higher traffic levels, but the last 6 months it has probably averaged $150/month from AdSense. Not retirement level income, but for a site I basically have to do nothing to on a daily basis, I`m not complaining.
Webline12/11/2007 5:56 AM
In order to differentiate from the competition and see a healthy ROI in their online advertisements, advertisers are being forced to be innovative in their methods. According to DoubleClick, "Video is the hottest new format for online advertising." In a recent study, they found that "users click on video ads about five times as often as they do on image ads.”
Normally, video ads are very expensive. In this respect, the company I work for called AditAll might be a good solution for you. Its platform provides you with all the resources and services to complete much of the ad yourself, and quickly. In doing this, it helps small or medium business like yours to eliminate the traditionally large cost of producing these types of ads.
Good luck with your advertising. I hope this helped!
Alley12/13/2007 1:52 PM
I use the whole page to place ads.
here is an interesting article of making money from Google adsense by USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/i ... ense_N.htm
read the comments people have made - very interesting and varying viewpoints
there are some that say this is another Google PR move and that USA Today was paid to do this and do that. i don`t know what truly is the story but from personal experience i can say that there is alot of money to be made from adsense, but only with the right approach.
the right approach in my opinion is a content based, niche website that attracts heavy traffic levels. adsense is all a numbers game. the more traffic you generate the more successful you will be. your website must be fully search optimized and you must delve into external marketing efforts as well to bring awareness to your website.
it takes a lot of time and effort but once you are established, the money comes in passively and automatically. just like Webline said, his website is making him $150 per month with no added effort at all. i know many people with multiple information based websites. they make $100 here, $200 there and so forth but with all websites combined, this adds up to a significant amount of cash on the side.
read this for another example of how many others are making it work. it definitely helps to use a program that is compatible with adsense if you want to make money online with this method.
good luck to everyone and please keep us all posted on your success as well as what did not work.