Adsense For Beginners

You can make money with AdSense on any blog or web site. It doesn’t matter what you niche is - or what you’ve been told before…

I’m tired of people saying either you can’t make money with AdSense, or you can’t make money in certain niches, such as ‘blogging help’, ‘making money online’. I think some bloggers feel that bloggers, webmasters, and people that work online for a living won’t click on AdSense ads at all. That’s not been my experience at all. Google AdSense can make you money on any web site or blog in any niche passively and easily. How much money depends on your niche and if you’ve setup your blog properly.

I started thinking about a comment I read awhile ago. The comment author said that the ads detracted from the actual content, and most people in my “niche” wouldn’t put AdSense on their site at all. He went on to say that my target audience was someone who probably know and uses AdSense - and chances of them clicking are actually “very low”. It’s funny to me, because the way the comment was phrased you would almost think that someone clicks a google AdSense ad they’ve been “tricked” into doing so!

I think a lot of bloggers feel this way. I don’t feel this way though, and I’m ready to tell you why. You should think of AdSense as a “compliment” to your web site and something that can offer your readers potential value. They have landed on your blog or web site in search of some type of information. What if you can’t offer it? What if you don’t have it? Have you ever gone to a realtor or car salesman that didn’t have what you wanted - but they “referred” you to someone who did? Think of AdSense ads as “paid referral”. If visitor’s see something they think will benefit them (bloggers and webmasters or not) - they will click to see what it’s about.

Another point that I learned a few years back is about leaving money on the table. This was a phrase I first heard from AdSense guru Joel Comm a few years back (just google him). He’s an AdSense expert that feels that he shouldn’t be leaving small amounts of money laying around if he can collect them - because it adds up! Day after day, week after week, month after month - it all adds up! That phrase is so true, who wants to leave money laying around?

Think about this in perspective for a moment. What stage is your blog or web site at? A hundred visitors a day (if that)? Five Hundred? A thousand? When do you think you should be making money? How much money will be you making? I am a firm believer in monetizing your blog from day one. I am also living proof that you can make money from day one on a blog that only gets 20-30 visits per day. I’ve had several blogs and web sites with very low traffic (they get more now) that made $1-2 per day from AdSense alone.

I think that AdSense can be profitable as well as an indicator. My catch phrase is: “Use AdSense so your bounce rate doesn’t hit you on the can on the way out the door, but instead drops a few coins in your jar.” Everyone has a “bounce rate”. This is a term you find in google analytics when you setup web site stats for your site. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that visit your site and rapidly leave without doing anything (probably because they didn’t find what they wanted). Because of the variety of ways people can visit your blog (and find you in search) everyone has a bounce rate. It’s a google analytic “to watch” because you surely don’t want nearly everyone that comes to your blog rapidly leaving. What good are 500 unique visitors a day if 90% of them quickly leave because you didn’t have the content they wanted? I think (a bounce rate of) 90% and up is pretty bad, 60-90% is to be expected once you get 25+ quality posts, 40-60% is excellent, and under 40% is amazing!

Let me give you a game plan regarding your “bounce rate”…

1. You should be using google analytics and you should check your bounce rate at least once per week for an active blog.
2. Take steps to reduce your bounce rate:
   • List recent and popular posts in your sidebar
   • Have a working prominent search box
   • Have both a contact form and an about page
   • Offer “related posts” on every page
   • Link similar and complementary posts and categories on every page
3. Once you’ve done everything you can to keep them on your site monetize the bounce rate you can’t control!

There always seems to be some purist or lone holdout who says to my argument - “that’s unprofessional”, or “it detracts from your content”, or “there’s better ways to monetize a site like this…” - you get the picture. I say to you - first of all I am not an A-List blogger (yet) so I’m not worried about it ruining my “image”. I can certainly make more money (at a time) by other means on this blog - but I’m not making any money now from bounced traffic anyway! In other words - AdSense is setup on this blog (and most of my other ones) to make money from visitors who WERE LEAVING ANYWAY!.

What kind of person are you? Are you a saver or a spendthrift? Have you seen these commercials where they offer to “round up” your purchases on your VISA card and deposit the change from every transaction to a savings account in your name? I knew a woman once who did this (rounded up every purchase in her checkbook register) and in one year she saved $5,000! If you passed the same table every day and it had loose change that would be gone the next day - would you take it? Don’t leave money on the table - it could be your biggest blogging mistake! Not making money with AdSense is really just money that you’re throwing away…a