AdSense in a Nutshell

If you surf the internet and if you’re reading this, then you must do, you will see on the majority of websites, blocks of text with links or pictures or movie clips with the legend “Ads by Google”. These are advertisements from the Google AdSense program.

I remember when I first saw Google ads, I occasionally clicked on one that interested me, but it never occurred to me to wonder why webmasters would put them on their websites. However, when I learnt through the MPAM 20 Steps program how to monetise a website (i.e. make it make money for you), it became clear why one would want to put Adsense on one’s website……. the advertisers pay you when someone clicks on their advertisement. The amount you are paid varies depending on how much the advertiser has bid for the relevant keyword - it can be cents or it can run into tens of dollars for a single click. It’s also very dependent on the content of your site and the keywords you have used, both in your meta tags and in your text because Google use that information to provide ads which are targeted to your site. Likewise, if you decide to feature a Google search box on your site, the Adsense which appears on the search results page are also targeted to your site content.

So how do you get AdSense on your website? First you need to apply for an account. This is a simple process which involves you providing the url of your website and your personal contact details. You will also need to select whether you sign up for AdSense for Content and/or AdSense for Search - I recommend that you choose both. You will need to wait a short while for your application to be approved, but this shouldn’t be a problem as long as your website meets Google’s terms of service and has plenty of keyword-rich content. You need to have at least half a dozen pages fully populated with relevant text otherwise Google’s spiders won’t have enough to look at.

Once your application has been approved, you need to log into your AdSense account and take a look around. I recommend that you sign up for the AdSense Team emails as they contain lots of useful information about terms of service, new features and so on.

I also recommend that you check out the Optimisation Tips. These will show you the best places on your page to place your AdSense blocks. The best will be “above the fold”, in other words, in a position on your page which doesn’t involve your visitor in scrolling down. Ads which are integrated with your text will also attract more clicks than those which are placed quite separately on the page. However, you will need to test what works best for you. To help you do this, AdSense provide what they call Channels, which give you the facility to track which of your ad blocks are doing best. For example if one of your websites sells toys and another sells gifts, you could have Channels called toysright and giftstopleft signifying the site and the position on the page of the adverts. When you run reports, you will be able to see whereabouts on your page the ads attract the most clicks. Having said that, you can have three ad blocks per page plus one lot of text ads, so there’s plenty of scope.

To set up your ad code, just select AdSense Setup, then you must choose the format of your ad block; you can change the background, border, text and link colours to match your site then select your Channel and the code will be there for you to paste into your web page.

Next time, I’ll go into a little more detail about how Google provide the ads and how to place them on your pages.

Liz Canham
As well as a love of Asian Food and Cookery, Liz seeks to help newcomers to the world of internet marketing with tools, tips and training from her Liz-e-Biz.com website.

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Writing a good ad is the very lifeblood of the internet marketing world. It can mean the difference between someone clicking on your link and going to your website or a big fast exit.

The first thing you need to do when writing an ad is to think about who your target audience is.

What are they looking for?

What age group are they?

Are they male or female or both?

WHY are they looking for whatever they are looking for?

You need to try and get into their head and give them what they want.

Think about what ads you relate to and what made you open certain ones and not others.

You need to GRAB their attention with a great headline. If the headline is not an attention grabber you have lost that person before they even look at your ad.

Don’t make your ad too long or people get bored reading it. The best thing to do is to make it short and sweet and get to the point.

Something that helped me a lot when I was first starting out is a simple, yet powerful statement that I heard from another marketer.

Now, really think about this…

“Nobody Who Bought A Drill Actually Wanted A Drill – They Wanted A Hole”

Writing a good and effective ad is not nearly as hard as it may sound! Once you understand these basic concepts it’s actually quite easy!

If you use these methods in your business, as I have used in mine, you can’t help but write great, attention grabbing ads!

If you would like, by following the link below, you can take a look at one of my websites that I have successfully driven traffic to using the above ways of advertising.

LGN Revolution

You may also take a look at one of my Squidoo Lens for other helpful information.

http://www.squidoo.com/work_at_home_online_internet_business

The traditional marketing techniques like trade shows, seminars, email marketing, cold calling, outsourced telemarketing and advertising are getting less and less effective. People the world over are using more creative ways like caller id, spam filtering, Tivo, Sirius satellite radio, etc. to block them out. They want to isolate themselves from every kind of advertising bombardment so that they can concentrate more on their daily activities.

To get over this, marketers started using search engine marketing and this has in turn produced very significant changes on how we use the web. Marketers realized that the web is not a read-only platform and can be used for a variety of marketing purposes where anybody could publish, share content and communicate with each other.

If you look into consumers and buyers behavioral pattern during the last couple of years, you will notice that they now seek help from the search engines for most of their requirements. You will also notice that targeted search-engine advertising is far more effective than display advertising on large media sites.

These have become the main stream of cost-effective internet marketing over the last couple of years.  Using these marketing techniques the scale of any business can be unlimited. You can compete with the biggest advertising budgets, if your product is good and if you have good marketing skills to communicate with your customers.

The new marketing strategy put emphasize on helping yourself found by customers already searching and shopping in your industry. The best way to do this is to set your website up like a focal point for your industry which attracts visitors naturally through the search engines, blogosphere, and social media sites.

Because of world-wide recession, businesses are again seeking efficiency. They are shifting money out of expensive paid search advertising to optimization, content and social media that help them get found in organic search results.

The three vital components that you require on your new marketing strategy are;

• Content: With out doubt, content is still the KING.  This is the very essence of this new cost-effective marketing campaign. It is the content that attracts potential customers to your site or your business.

• SEO: Search Engine Optimization makes it easier for potential customers or buyers to find your content. You must remember that most of your customers begin their buying process using the search engines. SEO is the practice of maximizing your website rankings in search engines using various parameters, the most important of them being inbound links to your site. The higher the rank, the more visible your site is on the net.

• Social Media: Social media maximizes the impact of your content. When your content is distributed across and discussed on networks of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic and reliable and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site.

The advantages of using these new marketing strategies are;

• Cost-effective: Traditional marketing means spending money either by buying ads, buying email lists or renting huge booths at trade shows. The new cost-effective marketing means creating content and discussing about it. A blog costs nothing to start, twitter account is free, and both can draw thousands of customers to your site.  The marketing ROI from inbound campaigns is higher.

• More Efficient Targeting: Techniques like cold-calling, mass mail and email campaigns are notoriously poorly targeted. You are reaching out to individuals because of one or two attributes in a database. When you do this new cost-effective marketing, you only approach people who self-qualify themselves. They demonstrate an interest in your content, so they are likely to be interested in your product.

• Investment: In order to maintain a position at the top of Google paid results, you have to keep paying. However, if you invest that money in quality content that ranks in Google organic results, you will be there until somebody displaces you with more relevant content. You must realize that this is an investment and not an ongoing expense.

Today, because of world-wide recession, online marketers are using the tools of this new read-write web to become more efficient. They are using this new read-write web to; publish quality content, for search engine optimization, and using social media to discuss their quality content. They are using the new cost-effective internet marketing strategies more and more and they are reaping the benefits.

There are many reasons why you may want to write articles but in terms of publishing for profit, there are really only two.

The first is for direct and immediate profit. In other words, you write the article and someone pays you for it. At this point, you lose all rights to what you have written, so don’t imagine that you can regurgitate even one sentence and re-use it. Of course, you still have the knowledge and are free to continue writing and publishing on the same subject. Just make sure that the content isn’t recognisable and that you don’t inadvertently use an identical complex sentence to one which was in the article that you sold.

The second reason for writing articles is to attract visitors to your website and/or to purchase your product for longer term profit. In this instance, you can’t sell your article because to need it to carry your name and your business details and web address, not somebody else’s. You retain the rights and can do what you like with your masterpiece, but you will probably choose one or several of the following.

- Publish on your own website but use your blog or newsletter to tell people where to find your article. If you “ping” your blog, certain search engines will be updated and others will detect of their own accord that your site has new, original content and will send their spiders along to index it.

- Publish in an ezine. Many ezine owners are looking for content and may agree to a swap, otherwise you may have to pay for your article to appear. However, if you choose the ezine carefully, it can be well worth the expenditure.

- Publish in an article directory. This may well lead to other websites using your work for content or distribution via RSS feeds. Each time your article appears, so will your link, attracting even more visitors to your site or product.

If you join MPAM and follow the 20 Steps course, you will learn about all of the above. The course lays out a detailed plan for the successful creation and population of a content-rich, search engine friendly website.

Whatever your reasons for writing articles and wherever they end up, before you start to scribble or tap away at the keyboard, there are a few basic things that you will need to know.

A good standard of English grammar and spelling is required. Without that, your articles will remain unread and other than on your own website, where you can do what you like, unpublished. The major article directories check spelling and grammar quite carefully and will reject out of hand, articles which are not of a sufficiently high quality.

Original, informative content is a must. It’s worth doing some research to find out what the internet population are interested in before you even start.

A well-structured, cohesive piece of writing is necessary. There’s nothing more likely to lose your readers’ attention than muddled or contradictory ramblings.

If you would like detailed tips about the dos and don’ts of article writing, visit my Liz-e-Biz website and download my ebook.

ASD Ad Cash Generator is a 20 month old auto surf styled social advertising network based near Tampa, Florida. Alexa reports rank increase up to 26,000 recently, with mammoth growth in 2 months from 40k to over 100k members currently. June 2008 saw ASD host a convention in Tampa with many thousands in attendance.

Members and new sign ups in attendance were given 100% matching bonuses by ASD for making deposits to their advertising accounts on site. Says Andy Bowdoin, CEO of ASD Ad Cash Generator, “You can make money the very first day you join ASD”. In fact, ASD claims to pay 125% in rebates on all advertising package purchases.

Members have reported delays as servers are installed to accommodate rapid growth. This annoyance is offset handsomely however, as ASD pays rebates as though members performed the daily surf requirements.

All is still good in the land of OZ.