Get started with Google Adsense

Google AdSense is a program from Google, that allows you to show ads on your website and earn money on ads, just like affiliate marketing. The service is for free and it is easy to participate in the program.

Actually, Google AdSense is a link between you, called a Publisher, and the companies that delivers the ads, called the Advertiser. The Advertiser pays Google AdSense an amount to get there ads exposed on different websites and in Google search results, which should give the advertiser leads and sales. Then Google AdSense pays the Publisher to show the ads on there website.

Stick to the rules (AdSense program policies)

AdSense has a program policy that is very strict. The reasons for this is that Google wants to guarantee their advertisers that when someone click on their ads, this will have a high possibility to convert to a sale and that the ads only will be showed on high-quality sides and that the advertiser will not be associated with something they don’t.

Google enforce their program policy completely, so don’t break the rules. Google has very intelligent algorithms to discover if someone break their policy and when that happens they will block your AdSense account immediately and forever. There is a way to appeal their decision, but only VERY FEW succeed doing this. So the conclusion is: don’t break the rules in AdSense Program Policy.

The most important rules in AdSense Program Policy is:

• Don’t click on your own ads.
• Don’t tell your visitors to click on ads.
• Don’t pay for others to click your ads.
• Don’t use click exchange programs.
• Don’t show ads on pornographic websites.
• Don’t show ads on websites containing content that are protected by copyright law.
• Don’t alter the ads code – the ad code must be original.
• Don’t show ads in popups.
• Don’t show ads in e-mails.
• Don’t show other ads, that looks like AdSense ads.

See the whole Google AdSense Program Policy here.

Create a profile

To get Google AdSense, you must have a Google Profile. Then you can go to the Google AdSense website and register your account to Google AdSense.

After you have registered  an account at Google AdSense, your account must be approved initially by Google. This usually don’t take very long time, and you will get a mail in your Gmail when you have been approved.

When you have been initially approved, you must log in to Google AdSense, and place the ad code on your website. This allows Google to crawl to your site and see if you don’t break the rules. If you don’t do this, you will get approved finally (which usually happens after approximately 1-2 days).  But remember, that Google from time to time crawl to your site and see if you break the rules: so don’t break the rules after you have been approved.

When your account has been finally approved, the ads shows up on your website after approximately 2 hours.

Setup payment method and verify account

You can in AdSense setup which payment method you prefer (mostly through bank account). You enter your bank account number and then you have to verify your account. You do this by going to your account after approximately 2 days and look at your transactions. Google has paid you a little deposit and you have to copy the amount of deposit and enter this into AdSense to verify your account.

AdSense is intelligent

Google’s AdSense mechanism is very intelligent and world famously. This is because Google, through a lot of its services and on websites with ads, collects a lot of statistical information about the visitor. Which gender is the visitor? What are they interested in? What websites has they been visiting earlier?  What language do they speak? What have they been searching for earlier? And a lot of more information about the visitor.

Google uses all this information to pick the right ad for your site. The choice will be a combination of which visitor is visiting your site and the content of the particular site. If a visitor, e.g. is visiting a website with AdSense about cars and has earlier been searching for a Ford car, then Google would properly show an ad where you can buy such a car. This is an intelligent mechanism, and always makes sure that the best ad is showed for the visitor.

Show ads on more sites

When you have been approved by AdSense, you can show your ads on any website that obey the Program policy. In this way you can have more websites and show the same ad on all of them. You can also write guest blog posts on some websites and place your AdSense ads there, and then earn the money that your article drives.

The difference between Google AdSense and Affiliate networks

Google AdSense is not the same as affiliate networks. Actually Google also has an affiliate network, that you can use if you are an AdSense member. When you uses ads from Google AdSense, you will get paid when someone clicks your site. When you uses ads from an affiliate network, your could either get paid per click or if the company that the ads leads to sell something.

Estimated earnings and finalized earnings

When someone clicks on your ads, you will see an amount on your AdSense statistic under Estimated earnings. But this is only an estimated earning, because it has to be confirmed by Google and then become finalized earnings. If, e.g. Google finds some invalid clicks on your ads, then these earnings under estimated earnings will not convert to finalized earnings.

When do I get paid?

You get paid monthly, but only when your have earned more than about 100 $ (the precise amount is in AdSense). If you violate with Google’s Program Policy you don’t get paid!

CTR, CPC and Page RPM

CTR stands for Click-through-rate and is a number that measures the success of an advertising. It is defined as the number of clicks on ads divided by the number of times the ads has been showed. If this number gets to big, this could indicate to Google that your are clicking on your own links and then violating there program policy! This is one way Google can detect that you are breaking their rules.

CPC stands for Cost-per-click (is also called PPC or Paid-per-click) and is defined as the amount you have earned divided by the number of clicks. This number shows how much an ad is worth.

Page RPM stands for Page revenue-per-thousand-impressions. Impressions is the number of times the ads has been showed on your website. It is calculated by taking the estimated earnings and divide them by the number of page views, and you then get the number of earnings per page view. This is a number that indicate how good your site is to converting visitors to money.