Best Google Adsense guide for Beginners

Adsense is a Google advertising service that lets publishers earn money from clicks or views on adverts placed on their respective websites. I though of writing a Google Adsense guide because most newbie bloggers opt for it as a primary source of income which is a good thing. It’s always good to start off with Adsense before you explore other monetization networks.

For all the years i have used Adsense I’ve realized one thing, you have to work hardest if you wan’t to reap big from it. You have to build a quality blog, get good traffic, have a good organic rank and maintain original information on your blog. So many factors affect Adsense earnings and besides, they are very strict when it comes to program policies. So many accounts have been shut down because of policy violations but that shouldn’t scare you because i will will tell you the exact things you need to do to keep your account in good standing.

I never followed any Google Adsense guide when i was joining but i will talk about the some of the pros and cons of Adsense basing on my personal experience with them. This article is a complete Google Adsense guide for beginners and will help you as you start off with Adsense.

Who can apply for Google Adsense?

Anyone can apply for Google Adsense supposing you meet all the requirements for joining their program. Some of the requirements are:

• A good standing Google Account
• A website that complies with their Terms of Service
• Minimum of 40 Articles (not necessary at times)
• Users in locations like China and India are required to have a site that has been active for at least 180 days.

It’s not a must you should have a minimum of 40 articles but i included it on the list because it helps speed up the approval process.

So what are the Pros of Using Google Adsense?

Adsense is one of the best PPC networks in the world and pay the best commissions so far. This Google Adsense guide highlights some of the major benefits that comes with Adsense right from the usability perspective to the earning perspective.

1 – Easy to use. Adsense is very flexible and easy to use. Their dashboard is very simple and makes it easy for newbies to get familiar with it in the shortest time. Me myself got use to Adsense’s dashboard just minutes after logging in which was quite a good experience for me.

2 – Multisite. You can place Adsense ads on multiple websites (Up to 500 websites) and manage them from one single dashboard. Despite the number of websites you place the ads on, you will also be sure of getting accurate results on your reports.

3 – Payment. Despite setting their minimum payment threshold to $100, Google Adsense supports one of the most efficient and easiest payment systems which is Western Union. Up to now i still receive my earnings through western union since my country (Uganda) doesn’t support Paypal withdrawals. Other forms of payment supported by Adsense include Electronic Funds trasfer (Usually takes a maximum of 10 Days) and Check (Might take up to 5 weeks to arrive depending on your location). They are also very consistent when it comes to payment. I received my first payment on the 22nd day of the month and up to now i still do.

4 – Approval is easy. If all the requirements are met then getting your blog approved on Google Adsense shouldn’t be hard. One more thing i like about them is you don’t need any minimum amount of traffic to get an approval and when rejected, you can always re-apply until you are accepted.

5 – Flexible Ads. Through your dashboard, you can easily customize the appearance of your adverts. You can either settle for only images ads, only text ads, modify appearance of text ads and create responsive ads.

Cons of Using Google Adsense

That wraps up the positives cited by this Google Adsense guide. How about the negatives? Every good has a bad which brings us to the negatives as per this Google Adsense guide.

1 – Termination of Accounts. You can get banned from Adsense anytime and no clear reason will be given for the ban. They can only send you an email claiming your account violated some of their policies but won’t mention the exact policy you violated. All the earnings on your account will be refunded to respective advertisers meaning you can lose all your earnings over night. Most bloggers lose their accounts because of invalid clicks which might be initiated by someone other than you. Upon termination, Google gives you a chance to appeal for your Adsense account and if the accept is accepted, you can have access to your account once again.

2 – Traffic. Low traffic websites can hardly make any reasonable income from Adsense. To make a reasonable amount from Adsense you have to be having high organic traffic. Am saying organic because social traffic will hardly get you high CPC. Its always advisable to monetize your blog after reaching a certain traffic level.

Read: Ways to increase Website Traffic without Marketing

3 – Changes in Earnings. Very many factors affect earnings. Up to now scores of bloggers still complain about getting Cost Per Clicks as low as 1 cent. Traffic from US, UK and Canada tend to bring convert into high CPCs and not every niche will give you the same results. Some niches get very low CPCs. This shouldn’t turn you off because there are very many ways to increase Adsense CPC

4 – Smart Pricing. Your account might get smart priced any time and you will be left to earn close to no cents per click. Smart pricing has affected so many bloggers and it takes time before the feature can be lifted from your account.

5 – Drives visitors away from your Blog. When visitors clicks on the ads, you account is credited but you lose a potential visitor who would have earned you more page views on your website which is more like a win lose scenario.

What if i fail to get an Approval?

In case you fail to get an approval all you have to do is keep making adjustments on your blog as you keep reapplying. If everything is in place they will eventually accept you to join their program. A couple of factors influence the google Adsense approval process. You refer to this google adsense approval trick for fast approval.

Can i make money without Adsense?

The answer is Yes! You can make a lot more money than Adsense could make you from Affiliate Marketing. Recently i shared the best alternatives for Google Adsense but i always recommend affiliate marketing more because i can only see positives from it. I’ll give you a scenario, imagine you had an affiliate banner and a google ad on your blog and 200 visitors click on either banners. Lets assume the affiliate products commissions $65 per sale and your average google CPC is $0.10. 200 clicks on the google ad will earn you $20 (200 x $0.10) but if only 10 of the 200 visitors who clicked on your affiliate banner purchase the product you will earn $650 ($65 x 10), you see the difference?

When i was new to blogging i thought i wouldn’t make any money from Affiliate Marketing but at the moment i prefer it more and it’s become my primary source of income. You can think of giving Adsense a try and see what you get from it. Truth is every blogger out there has a difference experience and that shouldn’t discourage you.

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