Saturday, April 25, 2015

Google AdSense: How To Make Money With Your Blog!

Google AdSense is something you’ve probably heard can make you a lot of money, but how do you make it work for YOUR blog?
In our modern economy, finding more ways to make money is important. In fact, being able to increase your earnings on your own is one of the most important aspects to surviving such treacherous economic times. Knowing how to generate Google AdSense revenue is one way that you can boost your bottom line every month.
While Google AdSense was initially designed with website and blog publishers in mind, anyone who creates and maintains their own blog or website can take advantage of the incredible opportunity. Whether you have a full-time job and are building a web presence for yourself in your free time or run a web design business, for example, you can generate a great deal of revenue using this tool, if you know how to use it to your advantage.
By allowing advertisements on your blogs, you create a static revenue stream. It’s basically that simple, yet there are important considerations to be made.

The Advertising Effect

Traffic coming to your blog, regardless of how they found it, is going to judge you and your business based on many factors. The design, layout, and navigation of the blog is one factor. Another factor has to deal with any advertisements that you post on the site.
If you visit some of the larger media outlets in the world, such as CNN, you have probably seen plenty of advertisements throughout their sites. When an ad is front and center, though, it takes away from the purpose of the blog itself and can drive visitors away.
You’re not CNN, so any new visitor to your site will be important. Some blog owners don’t understand the basic concept that consumers can and often are turned off by too many ads on a site or ads that overtake the blog itself. Ads need to be secondary to the content of the blog.
It serves no purpose to you or your business to have ads that grab more attention than your blog design or content. You haven’t worked hard on internet marketing and done all the legwork to bring visitors to your site only to have them click on an ad and leave your site, never to return again. You want them to focus first and foremost on your site, and then take a look at the ads you post.

Building A Quality Blog

You may not consider the design factor of your blog to be all that important, at least not when it pertains to ads, but it is crucial to success. The design of your blog should always be directed toward keeping visitors on your site. There are three main areas to which you should focus your design efforts.
The first is where a visitor looks as soon as the page loads on their web browser. Most people look to the upper left corner of the screen. This is where your business name and/or logo should be. Placing an ad here is tantamount to saying, ‘Thanks for stopping by, but why don’t you check this other business’s website out instead.’
Next, the eyes will travel toward the upper center of the screen. You’ll find that most websites tend to place their mission statement or slogan here. This is where you tell your visitor why this website is exactly what they’re looking for.
This is also where navigation tends to originate, and for good reason. You want your visitors to be able to find their way around relatively easily; you don’t want them to struggle to find the other pages of your site. Having an ad within this zone may work, but if it gets in the way of your message, or the navigation, then it’s being counterproductive.
Then a visitor’s eyes tend to drift down the page. Many visitors won’t scroll down unless they really like the content. Placing ads below the bottom of the viewable area will often mean that your visitors never even see it.
The best placement for ads will be to the right and bottom of the screen. That way your website and your message still remain the focus of attention. Then, if an ad captures attention, then when someone clicks on the link, you earn money.

Keywords And Google AdSense

When it comes to Google AdSense, you will be building your campaign around your website. While you don’t want to have ads for your direct competition on your site, you want to keep within the same genre. In other words, if you sell auto parts, advertising for used car dealers would be a good fit.
If you choose the represent keywords or keyword phrases that have nothing to do with your website, then visitors to your site are not likely to follow those ad links and you’ll be wasting valuable space. It’s a balancing act to choose the right keywords to represent. But when you get it right, you will be earning revenue every single month.

The More Traffic You Get, The More Money You Will Earn

Google AdSense revenue will not happen by simply being static with your website. Just because you build a website, have a web hosting company maintain it, or take care of some of the other aspects of launching it does not mean that anyone will come to your website. If they don’t come to your website, then they will not see the ads that you have posted on it and therefore you won’t be earning any extra money.

It’s important to keep in mind that you can have up to 3 ads on your site at any given time. Some people would want more in order to maximize the potential earnings, but more than 3 and visitors will begin to navigate away from your site before they even have a chance to see what you offer. You don’t need to post 3, either; you can post 1 or 2 ads if that’s your preference.

You still need to employ all of the same marketing strategies for your website that you would normally do. Google AdSense revenue is all about earning money from visitors who might be interested in other topics than what they searched for. If you bring in visitors who realize they should have entered something else into your search, they can certainly go back to the search engine or they can follow an ad from your site to something more in line with their needs.

Evaluate Your Strategy Monthly

When you are looking to generate Google AdSense revenue, there will be a balance between targeting the right keywords to supplement your website and avoiding giving your business away to your competitors. Determine whether you’re targeting the right keywords every month and make changes accordingly. It’s much better to make changes quickly rather than wait and lose out on all that potential revenue.

How Much Traffic Do You Need To Make $100,000 With Google AdSense

Is it really possible to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense (or by selling ads on your website/blog)? If so, then the real question is how much traffic do you really need to make big bucks with Google AdSense?
While it’s true that we can’t predict the Google AdSense income exactly, we can optimize the ads in different ways so as to make the most out of it.
Also, you must make sure that your website category is advertising friendly because your AdSense income depends a lot upon the category of your website. You can use Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool to find out the competition in your industry.
If there is enough competition (i.e. if the suggested bid by AdWords for keywords in your niche is high) then we can assume that Google will fill your ad spaces with high paying ads (see how AdSense works).
For example, if you Google search “loans” then you’ll see a lot of ads so it means that if you have a blog related to personal finance then there will be enough competition for your ad space.
Now I’ve randomly added few keywords to Keyword Planner to find out its suggested bid by AdWords. Here they are:
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
As you can see, the competition for keywords related to “finance” is very high compared to keywords related to “food”. Of course, the suggested bid is just an estimate and the real cost-per-click varies a lot.
But still, even if it’s $5 then it means a lot. Why? It’s because the cost per click to advertise on Google is very high compared to cost per click on Google Display Network. So if an advertiser is paying $0.50/click on Google then he may be paying only $0.10/click on Google Display Network.

How Much Traffic Do You Need To Make Money With AdSense

Let’s say you want to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense and/or Google AdSense alternatives.
$100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day.
So, you have to create either: 274 pages that earn $1 a day OR 548 pages that earn 50 cents a day OR 1,096 pages that earn 25 cents a day (which sounds reasonable, right?). Let’s say you have 1,096 high quality blog posts and you earn $0.25 per click from AdSense.
I have analyzed the traffic and AdSense stats (using Google Image Search) of several websites including my own blogs and websites.
Google AdSense Earnings
From my analysis, I found that the average Page CTR is around 1% (or it’s something that we can achieve easily). But it really depends upon your niche, web site design and other factors.
In fact I have achieved a Page CTR of over 20% in 2007 for a niche website and was making $100+ a day from Google AdSense alone.

Let’s Do The Math To Make $100,000 A Year With Google AdSense

Let’s assume that you have a Page CTR of 1% and your average CPC is $0.25 (I believe it’s quite an achievable target unless your keywords have no advertiser competition – e.g. a recipe blog).
Some of the top paying AdSense niches are Finance, Internet Marketing, Technology, Web Hosting, Internet & Computers, Software, Health etc. and some of the lowest paying AdSense niches are Entertainment, Arts, Movies, Celebrity Gossips, News blog, Jokes, Wallpapers, Quotes, Recipes, Photo blogs etc.
As mentioned earlier $100,000 a year means you have to earn $274 a day. If your average CPC is $0.25 then you need 100,000/0.25 = 400,000 clicks a year (or approximately 1,000 clicks a day) to earn $100,000 a year from Google AdSense. Assuming that your Page CTR is 1% you need approximately 100,000 page views a day.
Now, let’s say your “Bounce Rate” (it is the estimated percentage of visits to your website that consist of a single page view) is 100%. It means that you need 100,000 unique visitors a day itself to generate 100,000 page views a day.
In a nutshell, you need 100,000 visitors a day to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense alone (with a CTR of 1% and CPC of $0.25).

Google AdSense Glossary

Page Views
A page view is what Google counts in your reports every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page view regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page.
For example, if you have a page displaying three ad units and it is viewed twice, you will generate two page views.
Clicks
For standard content ads, Google counts a click when a user clicks on an ad.
For link units, Google counts a click when a user clicks on an ad on the page of ads, after selecting a link in the link unit.
Page Click Through Rate (Page CTR)
The Page Click Through Rate (CTR) is the number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions or page views that you have received.
Page CTR = Clicks / Page Views
For example, if you received 5 Clicks from 100 Page Views, then your Page CTR would be 5%. (5/100*100=5%)
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser; some advertisers may be willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.
Page Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (Page RPM)
Page Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views you received, then multiplying by 1000.
Page RPM = (Estimated Earnings / Number of Page Views) * 1,000
For example, if you earned an estimated $0.15 from 25 page views, then your page RPM would equal ($0.15 / 25) * 1000, or $6.00.
Estimated Earnings
Your account balance (or earnings) for the time period selected.
But you are not using AdSense alone to monetize your website, right? You can make more money by selling direct banner ads, in-text ads, CPM ads, sponsored links, affiliate marketing, etc.

Cost Per Impression (CPM) Ads

So let’s say you’re selling direct banner ads and is also selling CPM advertising which is again an effective way to monetize your website.
What are CPM ads?
CPM (Cost Per Mille) stands for Cost Per 1,000 Impressions. CPM networks pays for every 1,000 impressions you generate. If a CPM ad network is paying you $1 CPM then it means that they’re paying you $1 for every 1,000 page views you generate.
Advertising.
CPM Network earnings totally depend upon your traffic quality but you can expect anywhere between $1 – $3 per 1,000 impressions. So, if you generate 100,000 page views a day then you can make $100 – $300 a day from CPM Networks. Again, you can earn $100 – $300 (or maybe even more) a day by selling banner ads directly to advertisers.
Now, you can split the traffic into three as you’re earning $300 each from 3 advertising networks. It means that you need 100,000/3=33,333 unique visitors a day (with a bounce rate of 100%) to make approximately $274/day.
Again, if you have an authority blog then your bounce rate will never be 100%. In that case you can expect an average page view of 1.5 per user. It means that 50% of your visitors exit from the landing page and others visit more than one page on your website.
All in all, you need approximately 20,000 visitors a day to generate 30,000+ page views and it can earn $274 a day which translates to $100,000 a year in advertising revenues.
Need a little more help reaching that $100,000/year goal? Add commissions from Affiliate Programs as well into the equation and you can hit that $100,000 goal with much less traffic.
In fact, in 2008 I was averaging $200+ a day from less than 200 daily unique visitors with affiliate marketing. It was possible because when it comes to affiliate marketing it’s all about traffic quality and not traffic quantity.

How To Optimize Google AdSense

Google AdSense A/B Testing
You can optimize your AdSense ads in several ways. For example, you can try text ads only, image ads only, text & image ads to find out which ad format is performing better.
Google recommends wide ad formats like 728 x 90, 336 x 280, 300 x 250, and 160 x 600 as they’re more advertiser friendly.
When you use the recommended ad formats, your AdSense ads should perform well because of increased competition. Why? Because the recommended ad formats by AdSense are the most popular ad formats and hence almost all advertisers must be targeting those ad formats.
So it increases the competition naturally and Google will be showing the highest paying ads on your website. But it’s also a good idea to try different ad formats as Google is now offering a variety of ad formats (including responsive ad units).
I would recommend A/B testing on your website to find out the best performing ad formats. Like, you can do A/B testing by trying different ad types, ad formats, ad colors, and then by placing your ads at different sections on your website (above and below the fold) to find out which position is offering the best CTR).
But what if your AdSense earnings are low even though you have good a CTR? In that case, I would recommend ad controls though Google mentioned that blocking any ad will reduce our potential earnings.
Google says:
It’s a myth that filtering ads can prevent ‘low-paying ads’ from appearing, so as always, we recommend blocking only those ads that you feel are unsuitable for your users.
Finally, you can tweak the AdSense click-through-rate by using an AdSense friendly template for your website/blog. But make sure that your website is not ad heavy as it will impact the user experience in a negative way.
And as always, you can focus on creating awesome content and driving more traffic so that it increases your Google AdSense earnings (and your advertising revenues) naturally.
BONUS
I have recently published a blog post that was essentially a reverse of this topic. It’s basically about what it takes to hit your traffic and income goal (assuming a traffic goal of 1,000,000 pageviews and an income goal of $3,000 per month).
I have subcategorized the topic into:
  • How Much Traffic Does Your Blog Need To Make $36,000 Per Year In Ad Revenue — tells you how many pageviews are required to generate $36,000 (that is, $3,000 x 12) in advertising revenue (affiliate income will be a bonus for you) per year based on real case studies and examples.
  • How Many Blog Posts Do You Need To Generate A Million Pageviews Per Month — tells you how many blog posts your website might need to generate one million pageviews per month.
  • How Much Money Should You Invest In Content Marketing To Generate A Million Pageviews Per Month — tells you how much money should you invest in content creation to hit your traffic goal although it differs on a case-by-case basis.
  • How Long Does It Take To Reach Your Traffic Goal — tells you how much time your website will take to hit your traffic goal using my own blog as a case study.
In other words, it’s written to decode:
How Much Money Should You Invest In Content Marketing To Generate 1,000,000 Pageviews And $3,000 Per Month
Here you go:
It’s the result of a homework that I did with a goal to increase the traffic of my blog 5x from here. So, it’s written purely based on my own traffic insights plus few case studies and traffic numbers of different blogs in different niches.
There’s every chance that the actual figures applicable for your own blog could be a lot different from mine. Needless to say, it ultimately depends upon your website’s niche, authority, and marketing efforts.
Also, your final income levels could be a lot higher or lower than the figures that I have mentioned as again, it depends upon your website and its different metrics.
Happy Blogging and Happy New Year! :)