What is Google AdSense?

If you look at the Internet a few years back, you'll see that advertising was done in a way that was very similar to other types of media like television, or actually, more like what you see in a newspaper.

You'd enter a site, and in some location you'd get to see a banner (often these were quite numerous and very large), which would present and ad for whatever company was paying for adds on your space.

But there was one problem with this kind of advertising. It really wasn't exploiting the fact that the adds weren't in some newspaper, but were instead presented over the Internet.

You've probably noticed a lot of things like this over the pages you've browsed. You're looking at an on-line shop, looking for a watch but you get a banner that advertises a car.

While you might, at some later point want to buy a car, right now you're looking for a watch and it would have surely been nice if the banner were advertising a watch, because then you would have probably clicked it.

Well that's also what the folks at Google thought of, so they came up with a killer idea. This is knows as Google AdSense, and it's known as a targeted advertising program

What you do (as a web designer / website owner) is, instead of jumping through hoops to get some banner on your site that your visitors won't even care about, is you just allocate some region of the screen.

You then sign up for the Google AdSense program, you insert a small snippet of code in your webpage and Google ensures that in the location you specify, a banner will appear, presenting adds relevant to the contents of your site.

It's very easy for Google to do this because Google is a search engine company. It looks for the key words in your page, searches a database of websites to find the ones related to whatever is on your page and presto: a targeted ad.

You (the webmaster) get a fee for each visitor that clicks on an adsense banner on your site. Now that's bound to happen more often then with a traditional banner because people are actually interested in what's in that banner (otherwise, they wouldn't be on your page would they?).

But, this also does wonders for the people who want to advertise. And it's because of the same reason. The greatest thing about Google AdSense is that all the content in a banner is relevant.

This relevancy is the key to the programs success, and also the reason why everyone remains happy. The advertiser has a relevantly placed advert, the publisher earns money from their content and Google take their cut.

Of course, as always, Google has set some high standards for its AdSense program, in terms of looks and functionality. You can't have more than two such banners on your website and Google only inserts text in these banners.

So an extra benefit is that AdSense advertising is a lot less obtrusive then regular advertising. But this also means you should position the banner better because it's possible that visitors might miss it altogether.

So in the end, Google AdSense is an advertising program that is unique because the ads are relevant to the content on the site. Anyone that wants to advertise pays Google for it. Anyone who wants to place ads on their site does this through AdSense, getting paid by Google in the process.

All transactions are run through Google, and the advertisers and publishers get access to statistics which help them to understand and moderate the effectiveness of their campaign.

The whole process is elegant, simple and effective from anyone in the chain, from site visitors to advertisers, and it's one of the reasons Google are known for their innovation and new thinking.

Adsense is for Everyone

When Google's AdSense appeared, there were a lot of people who doubted Google's idea would be marketable and actually generate any profits. Yet as we stand here today it's probably the most well known pay per click venture in the world.

Yes, all those nay sayers ended up eating their own words in the end. And that is because the folks at Google never go and do something without assessing whether or not it will be profitable, or exactly how profitable it is.

But of course, as you might very well know, AdSense isn't just profitable for Google. It's also profitable for the people who advertise via AdWords and very profitable for publishers who use it to make earnings which are sometimes just enormous.

So one must ask himself why this is such a good deal for everybody. And the question in itself is very justified because you hardly ever come across something that's profitable for everyone in the chain. So why would AdSense be any different.

Well, AdSense is where it stands today, giving benefits for everybody in the game because it exploits a gap in the Internet's advertising model.

You see, the Internet is a very interactive environment, and its interactions come from the people who are browsing. They choose whether or not to follow a certain link and the term "navigating" is probably the most precise one at describing this situation.

So AdSense is great because it links together buyers and sellers. Yes, you have to hand it out to Google for a brilliant idea. They know there are people out there that want to buy stuff and people who want to sell them what they're interested in. And Google AdSense helps members of the two categories find each other.

It works for the visitors, because the model is very transparent. You don't see a huge graphic banner which tries to lure you into buying something. You just see a few words. And if you like what you see you can just click it. It works because visitors don't have that feeling of someone trying to lure them into spending money. Ironically, however, they're wrong.

It works for the AdWords advertisers because their ads go everywhere. Not only will they find themselves listed in Google's search which gets gazillions of hits per day, up front without working as much for SEO and waiting so much.

Their ads can reach any website that deals with anything similar to what they're trying to sell. Now you must realize they could never pull of such great advertising by themselves. And that brings us to the thing that makes Google's AdSense a publisher's best friend.

It comes from the fact that the ads are contextual, that they somehow related to the keywords you deal with on your page. Because people or on your site, which deals with a certain topic, you already know they're interested in that topic.

But, hey, wait a minute, Google knows some companies which want to sell your visitors something related to their topic. Google wants your visitors, you want Google's advertisers and the visitors just want to buy stuff. And that is the essence of what makes AdSense a great deal for everybody.

This is by far the most profitable hook-up deal you're ever going to see anywhere on the Internet.

So you have to appreciate Google for realizing a killer deal. You have to appreciate how well thought out, yet simple this scheme really is. Sure, in practice it has a few quirks but those are minor and, up to this point everyone seems to be enjoying Google's AdSense.

Getting Started With Adsense

A very important element in the rapid adoption of AdSense is that it has been very easy for publishers to get the ads on their site as quickly as possible.

Integrating AdSense in your website takes only a few minutes, and you can be on your way with one or more nicely integrated AdSense ads.

The first thing you need to do is navigate to http://www.google.com/adsense and either apply or log in with your existing account and password. What follows is a page presenting the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions which you must agree to in order to proceed.

You are presented with a report page which you can use to get a detailed status on how your AdSense advertising is doing. This allows you to improve your site's contents and layout to maximize your AdSense earnings.

On the top of your page you also have link to the setup section where you can generate the code that will need to be pasted on your website in order to have AdSense banners on your page.

You can use AdSense for text (the said ads), using a search box or with referrals. Your choice among these options depends on how users will navigate your site.

Finally, there is a "My Account" tab which allows you to set up details concerning your account, payment and tax information.

To add a text ad on your site, go back to the "AdSense Setup" tab and click the "AdSense for content" link. Make sure you have cookies enabled in your browser.

You can make a choice between ad units and link units. The former contain text and or images concerning a certain site for each unit, most with a detailed description, the latter only contain links to certain types.

Of course, it's a bit hard to know which type you should use so you should probably experiment with both for a while before you decide.

You can also view an example of how the unit will look to the right of your page. However, you may only use three ad units and one link unit on any given page. This is believed to be a step which Google takes for quality control.

The next step is to choose your add format and colors. You can basically select any color palette you choose with Google offering some of its own if you don't have the time or skill to create one. You can constantly view how the palette will look through the aid of an example. The one that works best in terms of appearance and revenues will vary with the look, feel and content of a website.

However, your ad formats are limited to a choice of eleven formats. There's an "Ad Formats" link which takes you to a page that lets you see all even of these in action so you can decide best which one suits your site. Sometimes the most intrusive, doesn't work best however again, this can vary from website to website.

After you finish with customization, you can click "Continue" from the bottom of the page.

You are now presented with a section entitled "AdSense for Content". You can click anywhere in the text and that shows the JavaScript required to get AdSense running. This will automatically select the text in the box.

You can then copy it and paste it into your pages directly. If you use dynamic pages, you should paste this code within your template so as to ensure that it gets displayed on any page of your website. Some advertisers choose not to display Adsense on every page, and this is understandable. An example of this is a company that has adsense, may also have terms and condition which would inevitably provide legal resources which would probably be deemed inappropriate.

What is then left for you to do is get content on your page (provided you didn't have any already). Google AdSense crawlers will soon visit your site, making sure that the ads displayed are relevant to your site's content.

And you're all done. For a simple page this should indeed be a matter of a few minutes, which is precisely what makes AdSense the choice for so many. Although it is quick, its mass appeal also makes it the best. Through being the most popular, advertisers and publishers alike see Adsense and Adwords as their natural first choice.