Google AdSense Master in Business Consulting Summer Semester 2009 Submitted to Prof. Dr. Eduard Heindl Prepared by Naresh Gourishetty( 232386) Fakultät Wirtschaftsinformatik Hochschule Furtwangen University Google AdSense BCM SS-09 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Understanding Google adsense .......................................................................................................... 4 3. How to create Google AdSense account? ........................................................................................... 4 4. Advantages of Google AdSense ........................................................................................................... 5 5. How does it work? ............................................................................................................................... 5 6. How to Get Traffic on your site For More Adsense Profits? ............................................................... 7 7. Ways How You Can Boost Your Google AdSense Earnings ................................................................. 7 8. Types of Google AdSense Ads: ............................................................................................................ 8 1. AdSense for Content ....................................................................................................................... 8 2. AdSense for Search .......................................................................................................................... 9 9. The Pros and Cons of Using Google Adsense for Extra Income! ....................................................... 10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 12 References ............................................................................................................................................. 13 2 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 1. Introduction If your goal is to make money with your site then I always recommend the simple approach. I know you would love to create something like the next MySpace, but due to all the programming and technical knowledge needed to build and maintain a site like that, it's not a good idea for the average person. Even if you are going to pay a programmer to create your site, it would cost you thousands of dollars. I don't think people realize the amount of resources that go into creating a site that offers user interaction and profiles. Not to mention you'd probably need dedicated hosting space, which can cost you hundreds of dollars per month. You can forget the $10/month hosting plans. Yes, these sites look cool on the surface but there are a lot of hidden headaches the average person does not see. So what do I mean when I say "the simple approach?" using Google AdSense. The AdSense movement is gaining momentum every day. The driving force in the Google AdSense system is Google’s AdWords ads. The AdSense program enables website owners to monetize their site and make additional income. Although Google has made it simple and easy to implement AdSense on your website, you have to spend your time and effort to develop a central theme and the supporting content- rich web pages for your website. As an example, the central keyword theme of your website might be “fishing.” Each associated web page that supports the central theme would have a single unique keyword theme like fishing lures, fishing rods, fishing reels and so forth. Google uses proprietary algorithms to determine the content theme on each page of your web site with an AdSense box. As a result, each web page, with an AdSense display box, must have interesting and informative content for your website visitor. Google will determine the keyword theme from the content and display AdWords ads in the AdSense box that are relevant to the web page keyword theme. You are paid a portion of the fee paid by the advertiser to Google when a visitor clicks on an AdSense ad. It is possible for a web site to make significant money with the AdSense program if they have a high-quality and focused web site with a lot of targeted traffic. 3 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 I believe you will find the information in this report packed with valuable insights that you can use to start making money with the AdSense program. 2. Understanding Google adsense Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content relevant advertisements on web pages. If the visitor clicks one of the Ad Sense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral. Google's AdSense program essentially allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click AdWord results. Website maintenance related to AdSense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert a Google generated java script into the web page or website template. Google's spider parses the AdServing website and serves ads that relate to the website's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served. The java script calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the web page. Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on any websites in their account. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitor's ads from being dynamically served on their websites. Google provides a wide variety of ad formats to match the most suitable option with a website. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted towers, inline rectangles, banners and buttons. The ad boxes can be modified by webmasters to resemble the website's colour scheme. 3. How to create Google AdSense account? You can visit to http://www.google.com/adsense website and you can select the language in which you wish to view AdSense webpage. To use this, you must create a Google AdSense account in which you have to provide information about your website where you want to display the advertisements. Also you must provide your personal information. After you provide Website information and Personla information, you must link you AdSense account with your Google mail account. Once you have submitted all the necessary information, Google will verify your AdSense login request and approve your request in 1 or 2 days. You will receive approval mail on your linked Google mail account. 4 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 4. Advantages of Google AdSense 1. Simple and Quick: Google Adsense provides a simple and quick method to earn for people looking for residual income. A person having access to the Internet needs to make an account in Adsense through Google. This process hardly takes minutes to complete and is free of cost. After creating a Google Adsense account and specifying the web site content and purpose, Adsense targets the specific audience and advertisers to visit that site. 2. Advertisement: Google Adsense provides an inexpensive technique for advertising products, where advertisements can reach millions of people, who access the Internet. It also enables to divert the traffic flow of customers to that particular site for increasing the revenue. One can easily access other sites to enhance personal knowledge of online advertising. 3. Controlling the Site: With Google Adsense, one can easily control the contents and ads that may appear in a web site. It blocks certain ads from appearing in the web pages, depending on the owner's requirement. The owner may ask Adsense to block certain competitor ads and select certain ads to be displayed as default on the web pages. 4. Payout System: Google Adsense offers greater percentage of payment to the publisher than any other web site. It follows an easy and reliable payment system. There are no checks or money orders in this process, and the mode of payment is ETF (Electronic Fund Transfer) to the host's bank account. For this, a site owner requires to have a legal mailing address and URL that is acceptable by Adsense. 5. Huge Network of Advertisers: Google has a huge network of advertisers, who are keen in investing in a site that suits their product and service types. Thus, site owners looking for ads that match their site content and purpose, have an easy access to desired advertisements through Adsense. 6. Google Search Box Technology: Google search box facility in the web site is to attract more public and to enable web site visitors to stay at that site for longer duration. Whenever a visitor types a term in the search box, that site displays the search results below the search tool. Every result probably has related ad links and thus, this increases the chances of a customer clicking on an ad and increasing the host's income. 5. How does it work? First when signing up to be a member, web publishers gave permission to Google on posting ads on their website or blog. Once the ads are posted, web publishers will either get remunerated for several quantities of ad impressions or the amount of web visitors clicking on the ads posted. Google makes use of their modern technology to “read” the substance of the pages of what the web publisher has allowed to post. This intensifies the tendency of having the ad related 5 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 to the topic of a specific blog entry which in turn increases the opportunity to get noticed by the reader. While Google has the final input in which ads to appear on which pages, the web publisher will still be the one to decide how the advertisement should look like and what page they want it to be placed. Adsense users can choose from variety of styles of ads that can either be links or full ads with text or even with pictures. Apart from choosing the type of ads, a user can also choose from different sizes and shapes of ad boxes known as ad units. In the final pace, the user can completely customize the color of the ad units, including the borders, links and text. In recent months, Adsense allowed their users to publish advertisements on their site in an entire new way with Adsense embedding YouTube players. As a way of getting an attention grabbing ad and enhancing interest to their sites, a lot of web publishers are keenly placing videos for an added effect. This can also be an added profit for the publisher. The exact amount of profit a person can earn through Adsense varies from different variables. Since a person generates income through the amount of clicks they are receiving or the number of people viewing the ad, a website owner having a huge amount of traffic has the greater tendency of earning a considerably amount of money. To website owners, Adsense is one of those programs generating an additional stream of income. However, joining the Adsense program is not an assurance of future profit; but it is only a prospect or possibility of future income. Adsense on the other hand is doing every possible way in providing tools and equipments for users to take full advantage of their income potential. One modern technology they use is called Channel. This gives the users a chance to be creative by creating different styles of ad units and place them on different pages on their site in order to track and generate great results. This is also a way of giving the user an impression of which shapes, sizes, and content of ads that stimulates the maximum amount of revenues AdWords is the Source of AdSense Income AdWords ads are the source of all the AdSense income you are able to generate. As a result, you need to fully understand the AdWords system in order to appreciate how the AdSense system works. Google describes AdWords as “a quick and simple way to purchase highly targeted cost-per- click (CPC) advertising, regardless of your budget.” These paid ads (sponsored links) are displayed by Google on the search engine results page along with the non-paid (natural results) for a given keyword search. In order to create a Google AdWords ad, it is necessary to specify what keyword or keyword phrase must be input by the visitor before your AdWords ad will be displayed. In addition, you need to set the maximum amount that you will pay to Google for each click on your AdWord. 6 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 There is a nominal activation fee but Google does not have a minimum monthly charge. Google provides an account Control Centre that allows you to track the performance of your ad. The ad will be displayed within minutes to the searchers after your account billing information has been submitted to Google. AdWords ads must adhere to specific Google requirements. The title can contain up to 25 characters, the ad text can have up to 70 characters and the display URL must be less than 36 characters. 6. How to Get Traffic on your site For More Adsense Profits? If you want to earn profit from your site through adsense, you have to get traffic to your site. From the following points you can get good number of traffic without investing a great deal of money. Always keep in mind that the traffic cannot be generated overnight, and you have to give your time to your site. Ø On page Optimization Ø Make your site search engine friendly (don’t over rule search engine rules) Ø Submit site to search engines. Ø Submit your site to major and important directories Ø Link popularity – Oneway and Reciprocal links – Avoid Link Farms Ø Write Articles and submit your articles to article directory Ø Email Marketing Ø Auto responder marketing Ø Blog Marketing Ø RSS Feeds Ø Create Forums And Massage Boards Ø Social Media Optimization – Book Mark, Tell a friend, Digg News Ø Give Something to your customer (for example - ebook, software etc.) Get your customers reviews - Start poll on your site Get paid visitors – Arbitrage, PPC, Adwords Always refresh your contents 7. Ways how you can boost your Google AdSense earnings Google AdSense is a great way for webmasters to monetize their websites. While many webmasters are struggling hard to earn $3 - $10 per day, some 'genius' webmasters have already enjoyed $30, $100, and even $300 a day from AdSense ads on their websites. How these ‘genius’ webmasters are differ from their counterparts? They think different! They think out of the box! 7 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 Here are some tips which have been responsible in boosting my AdSense profits by 700%. Here are 5 of them, and if you follow these steps, I'm sure you'll see a difference in your AdSense income. Here are the tips: 1. Concentrate on 1 format of AdSense ad, which is the Large Rectangle (336x280). This format has been proven to work with me in resulting high click-through rates (CTR). Why this format? Because the ads look like normal web links, and people are trained to click on these types of links. 2. Create custom palette for my ads. Choose white as the color for the border and background. This is because all of the pages have white background. The idea is to make the AdSense ads look like they are a part of my web pages. 3. Put all the AdSense ads on top of the page rather than putting it at the bottom of your Web page. 4. Maintain some links to other relevant websites, and put AdSense ads at the top of the links, so that visitors see them first. 5. Automate the insertion of AdSense code into web pages using SSI (server side included). You'll need to ask your web administrator whether your server supports SSI or not. Here's how to do it. You just put the AdSense code in a text file, save it as 'adsense.txt', and upload it to the root directory of your web server. Next, call the code on other pages using a one line SSI code. 8. Types of Google AdSense Ads: 1. AdSense for Content When your content changes, so do your ads. Google AdSense technology goes beyond simple keyword or category matching. We work hard to understand your content and deliver ads that are relevant to specific pages, automatically, no matter how many thousands of pages your site may have, or how specialised or broad your content. As your content changes, Google's ads change to match. And since our ads are also targeted by country, global businesses can display local advertising with no additional effort. We're committed to maintaining our customers' business standards. That's why Google AdSense features these safeguards: Competitive ad filters. You can block competitive ads, or other ads you want to keep off your site, simply by telling us which URLs to block. 8 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 Ad Review. Before ads appear on your site, they're reviewed using a combination of human and automated processes. The review process takes into account a variety of factors, including the quality of the ad and whether it's suitable for all audiences. Sensitive content filters. At times, certain ads may be inappropriate for some pages. For example, Google automatically filters out ads that would be inappropriate on a news page about a catastrophic event. Choose your own default ads. In the unlikely event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads on your page, we offer you the option of displaying a default ad of your choice. This ensures that your advertising space is always being used as effectively as possible. Figure 1 Google AdSense for Content 2. AdSense for Search Combine Google search with AdSense to monetize more web pages. It's a fundamental business rule: what's good for your customers is good for you. And that makes Google search a very good idea indeed. Adding the Google search box to your website puts our search engine at your visitors' fingertips. And combining search with AdSense puts Google's base of advertisers to work for your bottom line. 9 Google AdSense BCM SS-09 Figure 2 Google AdSense for Search 9. The Pros and Cons of Using Google Adsense for Extra Income! Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly if you earning reaches $100.00. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows them to monitor the earnings they actually get from a certain ad. Now that you understand what Google Adsense is, here are the pros: 1. They are great for webmasters creating content websites. It used to be these webmasters worried about how to cover the expenses of running their websites. With Google Adsense, these worries became a thing of the past. All they have to do now is write their content and add adsense to it and make money. 2. Google Adsense makes the internet better for the users. Webmasters can now concentrate on publishing quality content. Quality content makes the internet better for the users. 3. Once a webmaster creates quality content, it can generate income for years to come. All the webmaster has to do is update the content from time to time and the income will keep coming in. 4. If a webmaster has the time, the webmaster can publish multiple websites. You can use one Google Adsense account on multiple websites. You don’t have to go through the hassle of applying for another account with Google. 10