Adsense is a product created by google which enables subscribers to upload contextual advertisements onto their websites. When you add adsense adverts to your blog, you receive a certain amount of cash per click on each advert (be warned the clicks must be generated authentically, and google are incredibly well adapted in the art of detecting ‘false’ clicking).
More information can be found here:
www.google.co.uk/AdSense
The amount of revenue this brings in depends on the type of advert and several other determining factors, most of which you have no control over, making it somewhere between difficult and impossible to predict how much cash this is likely to generate. Google's own advice is to 'try it and see', and so I have!
I've taken an existing blog I made whilst travelling, and tailored it specifically to one particular popular tour in order to then promote it in forums and send some traffic my way. I am thus far very impressed at the relevance of the adverts google has selected for me, and also at the estimated earnings of £1.21 in the first day I started to promote the blog in travel forums. I’ve also taken the liberty of adding adverts to this blog, which have again proved impressively relevant (lots of content on making money online).
As well as contextual adverts, google also allows website owners to place a customized search bar into their sites, which generates additional income when users click on advertisements as a result of a search made from the engine.
As exciting as the earning potential of adsense may be, let’s come back to reality for a moment and look at a few draw backs. Firstly, it seems to be a popular complaint that 'estimated earnings' can be far higher than 'finalised earnings'. When added to concerns of meeting a threshold before a payout is made, and other quibbles over wild differences in the amount of money paid for clicks, I am remaining quietly un-optimistic about the likelihood of this making me the next Mark Zuckenberg.
To draw some very premature conclusions, the entire advertising process seems rather technical from my neophyte stance, but I am sure that the more time you put into reading the help forums the higher the chances are of optimizing your profits. So if you are thinking of doing something similar my advice is to dust your reading glasses off.
If it does indeed prove in time to be a tidy source of extra cash then I will attempt to branch out into affiliate advertising, and also the use of Amazon Associates to see how much that boosts income, and update this blog as appropriate. But for now I am right at the very start of my journey with online advertising.
