Adsense Tutorial

So, you have decided to go ahead and use Google AdSense for generating revenue from your website. Google AdSense doesn’t need you to sell any products or services. With Google AdSense, you are just selling advertising space on your website. And the best part is that Google doesn’t discriminate between websites; so, any website owner can enroll with Google AdSense program (as long as it adheres to the Google AdSense program policies). Moreover, setting up a Google AdSense account is so easy that you can literally start generating revenue within 15 minutes.

For enrolling to the Google AdSense program, go to https://www.google.com/AdSense and click on the ‘Click here to Apply’ button. You will be presented with an enrolment form where you need to fill-in some details like your website information (URL and website language), the Google AdSense products that you wish to use (i.e. AdSense for Content or AdSense for Search), your contact information, your email address and your preferences. You will also need to select an account type (business/individual) for your AdSense Account and agree to the various policies, terms and conditions of Google AdSense program. The account type will not affect your revenues in any way; it is there just to determine if the payment is to be made in the name of a company or an individual. The email address and the password that you provide during the enrolment process will be required by you for logging into your account later on. Note that you will be referred to as publisher by the Google AdSense program; so when you return back to the Google AdSense website, you will be asked to enter your login details as an ‘Existing Publisher’.

That’s it. You can now submit your application form for Google to evaluate and get back to you.

Once you are done with setting up your Google AdSense account and once Google has approved your application, you are ready to use Google AdSense for earning revenue from your website. Just login into your account using your email address and password, click ‘AdSense Setup’ in the top menu and select the product type (i.e. ‘AdSense for Content’ or ‘AdSense for Search’). You will be presented with various options for customization of your AdSense Ads. Here we will take a look at setting up ‘AdSense for Content’ only (however, the setup for ‘AdSense for Search’ is quite similar and equally easy).

The first thing that you need to choose is the Ad type (Ad unit or link unit). Based on the Ad type you choose, you will need to specify the type of ad (text, image, etc for Ad unit) or number of links per link unit too. Google AdSense program allows you to use a maximum of three ad units and 1 link unit per web page (and you must use both, in order to maximize your AdSense revenue).

The next thing is to choose the Ad layout. There are various layouts available but large rectangle (336x280) and wide skyscraper (160x600) are preferred over others (since they help get more impressions for you and hence help you make more money).

Customizing the colors of various parts of your AdSense ad is the next thing you need to do. Even though customizing colors is optional (as far as the Google AdSense program is concerned), it’s strongly recommended for making your Ads attractive and more effective. Your choice of colors must be governed by the look and feel of your website so that the Ad doesn’t look out of place.

These are the essential customizations that you surely need to do before you can start using Google AdSense Ads on your website.

Besides the essential customizations like selecting the Ad type, Ad layout and colors, there are some other customizations that you can apply to your AdSense account. In fact, some of these can quite easily be treated as essential customizations (based on the context of your website) e.g. ‘filters’ is one such customization that is quite important. Let’s take a look at what these additional customizations are:

Filters: Google allows you to set-up custom ad filters for your website (note that this is in addition to the screening of ad content that Google does by default). By setting up filters you can block competitive Ads and other Ads that you don’t want to display on your website. In fact, filters are a must if your website sells a product or a service (unless you want to promote your competitors through your website).

Alternate Ads: This is something that can help you in preventing underutilization of the ad space on your website. Alternate Ads are the Ads that you would want to show up on your website in case sufficient content-relevant Ads are not available. If you don’t specify alternate Ads and if there are insufficient content-related Ads available, Google AdSense program will serve charitable Ads to your website (Ads which don’t earn revenue for you).

Reporting and performance tracking: You can even customize the reporting and performance tracking options for your AdSense account. One important tool in this regard is the use of channels to study the performance of AdSense Ads from various perspectives. However, you might decide to take this up later down the line (maybe 1 month after setting up your AdSense account.

Once you are done with all the customizations, your AdSense code is generated in the AdSense Code box. You just need to copy this code (which is in the form of a programming script) from the AdSense Code box and paste it in your website as per the guidelines from Google. Since Google allows only three ad units per page, you can add the code at more than one place in your html code.

The next step is to save your web page to the designated web server (as per the instructions from your web hosting service provider). Please note that Google AdSense program does not require you to send over your website’s html code to them; neither does it ask to load it onto their servers or do anything else with it. The addition of AdSense code to your website’s code is the only thing that you need to do. Separate procedures are available with Google for people who want to use AdSense Ads with their blogs (you can check these on Google’s website for AdSense program).

Now that everything is done and dusted, you need to wait for a few hours (might be lesser than that) before Google’s web crawlers find your web page or blog that has AdSense code on it and you start seeing AdSense Ads on your web page or blog. You might see some PSA (charitable Ads) initially (almost immediately) but these will soon get replaced with the AdSense Ads that will earn revenue for you. If the content on your website violates the AdSense program’s policies, you might keep seeing PSAs even after few hours. In all such cases (or if you find objectionable Ads that don’t go even after you have applied appropriate filters), you will need to contact Google who will sort out the problems for you.

Link units and themed ad units are two variations of AdSense Ads that are meant to further increase the quality of AdSense Ads that get served on websites. Let’s take a quick look to see what ‘Link units’ and ‘themed Ad units’ actually are:

Themed ad units: As their name suggests, themed ad units are the ad units that are based on particular themes. These themes could be depicted by colors or special type of graphics that are representative of the event or occasion portrayed by the theme. The events and occasions could be things like Christmas, New Year’s Day, etc. Of course, the themed Ads can only be displayed if they are available from the advertisers and if you have enabled the themed Ads on your AdSense account (in ‘Ad Type Preferences’). Also, since the events vary across different locations, the themed Ads are displayed based on the location of the website visitor. Besides this minor difference, themed ad units work in the same way as the normal ad units.

Link units: Link units are another useful way of advertising through AdSense program. Though the basic premise remains the same (i.e. targeted advertising), the way link units operate is slightly different. Link units are meant to provide even more meaningful advertisements to the website visitors by presenting them with a list of topics (ad keywords) to choose from. The website visitors are then presented with only those Ads that are related to the topic selected by them; hence making their website visit more meaningful. The list of topics presented to the website visitor is based on the website content. So, the topics are relevant to the context of website. However, the ‘clicks’ on the topics doesn’t make any revenue for you; it’s the clicks on the Ads for that topic that earns you revenue. As far as implementing of Link units is concerned, it’s done in the same way as other AdSense type products -- you copy and paste AdSense code in the html code of your webpage. Note that you are allowed to implement only one link unit per web page.

While talking about Google AdSense, we must not forget that Google is primarily known for its search engine capabilities (in fact, it is one of the most powerful search engines available today). So, how could Google leave out it search engine capabilities from its AdSense program?

‘AdSense for Search’ is how Google includes search engine bit into the Google AdSense program. ‘AdSense for Search’ can actually be termed as a sibling of Google AdSense program and is one great way of increasing website revenue for website owners. To implement ‘AdSense for search’, you just have to include the Google search box on your website. Again, Google offers the code that you need to use for including Google search box. You just have to paste the code at whatever place you deem as the most appropriate place for Google search box.

When your website visitors use Google search bar on your website, they get almost the same results as they would by using Google separately through Google.com. When these website visitors click the search results, the website owner earns revenue (CPC revenue). You can even include AdSense Ads on the search results page and earn CPM or CPC revenue from them. Also, you can customize the search results page to suit your website’s theme. So, Google AdSense for search is one great way of making money just by including the Google search bar on your website. Besides that, the visitors to your website get an additional functionality through your website i.e. the facility to search the web using one of the most powerful search engine (without leaving your website).

‘AdSense for search’ is a great way of earning revenue through your website (and, in fact, one of the easiest ways too). A number of website owner actually use both the ‘AdSense for Search’ and the regular ‘AdSense for content’ in order to maximize their revenue.