by Leo Dimilo

Created on: January 07, 2009

When I first came online and started to look at the internet as a means to making money online, the first thing that jumped out at me was Google Adsense. After all, what could be cooler than to be able to build a website and throw some ads on it and passively make money by people clicking on the ads, right?

Well, the truth is that it doesn't get any easier than that. The way that adsense works is you build a website or blog, place some content on it and then place a little bit of code where you want the ads to show. Google, in turn, crawls your website (they do this to see where they can categorize your content) and places ads that are relevant to your content.

Someone will come to check out your site or find you in the organic search and then, maybe...just maybe...they will click on an ad. If they click on an google ad, you will get paid. It is really as easy as that.

...but is making money with adsense REALLY that easy?.....

The answer is yes...and...well, no.

How the professional adsense marketers make money

The key to really profiting from adsense involves how relevant your content is to the ads. For example, if your blog is about dogs in the general sense, then matching the ads to the reader will be very general. Advertisers know this and as a result, the "bids" they place on the keyword won't be as targeted. Alternatively, if you have content on your dog site about how to train your labradour to retrieve, then the ads will be more targeted toward the visitor and the likelihood of them clicking an ad is much higher. Plus, if the advertiser is selling something that involves training labradours to retrieve, then the visitor would be worth more to the advertiser and thus, the ad "bid" would be higher. Obviously, the higher the bid, the more money that your adsense site would make.

Another factor that is proven is search engine traffic will, in all likelihood, click more ads than someone that arrived at your site via a social platform. The reason for this is simple. Someone searching for "how to train my labradour to retrieve" via the search engines are VERY targeted. They may reach your site and not find exactly what they are looking for. Instead, they may find an adsense ad that they do like and click there instead.

Because search engines play such an integral part in adsense marketing, simple search engine optimization skills should be developed if you are planning on making your money via contextual ads.

Can you make money with Adsense? Yes you can. But in order for the average webmaster to really make money, they will need to hone their skills. Making money with adsense is easy. Making a lot of money with adsense requires a little more strategy.

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