Complete Guide to Google AdSense for Beginners and How to Earn Thousands of Dollars
In this guide, we will explore different aspects of Google Adsense. First, we will start with a brief introduction to Adsense. Then we will talk about the relationship between Google Adwords and Google Adsense.
Next is to understand how the Adsense program works. Further, we will also discuss the role of advertisers and publishers in this program. We will also talk about Adsense users and their profiles.
We then move on to discussing how publishers, advertisers, and Google itself can benefit from this program. Next, we will look into the reason why advertisers and especially publishers love Adsense.
The guide would be incomplete without a discourse on the competition that Google Adsense faces. Then we will compare this program in Egypt and the USA. In addition, you will also get to know the top beneficiaries of the Adsense program in Egypt.
Finally, we will finish this guide on discussing issues such as lack of transparency on the part of Google, misuse of the Adsense program by users, and then criticisms of Google followed by this program in the future.
So let’s get started
What is Google Adsense?
There is no point in reinventing the wheel. That is why I will only give my definition as available on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, “Google AdSense is a program operated by Google Inc. It allows publishers in the Google website network to display text, image, video and rich media ads that target site content and audiences.”
I hope the definition is quite clear but I will repeat it again in my own words.
When you go to the Internet and visit a website, you may have noticed advertisements appearing within the web page you are reading. These ads are nothing but Google Adsense ads. It is also known as contextual advertising. Check the image below for displaying AdSense ads on websites –
Now, before we move on, I should clarify the meaning of some terms that will be used over and over again in this guide.
Publishers – Publishers are bloggers or website owners who create content that Google allows to display various ads on behalf of advertisers.
Advertisers – As I indicated in my previous paragraph, advertisers are individuals who pay Google to have their ads displayed on the publisher’s blog or website.
In other words, you can say that publishers are the thousands of bloggers and web owners who create content for money and advertisers are the business owners who want to sell or advertise their products with a publisher blog.
The relationship between Google Adwords and Google Adsense
In order to have an inside understanding of Google Adsense, we need to know about Google Adwords. That is why a new term has been introduced here, Google Adwords.
Now, what is Google Adwords?
Google Adwords and Google Adsense are basically two sides of the same coin.
By reading the above paragraph, you might have got an understanding of Adsense. So, here we will only discuss Adwords.
Google Inc generates 90% of the revenue from Google Adwords. All large, medium and small business owners want to sell their products to customers all over the world.
To reach the target customers in a quick time, business owners make use of the Adwords program. Here, they pay Google to display their ads either on the search results page or on blog (Adsense) content.
Therefore, Google Inc is entirely operating only on the money paid by these business owners.
In the next paragraph, we will discuss about the Adsense program.
By just reading the following paragraph, you will get a clear idea of how Adwords and Adsense programs intertwine with each other.
I’m going to talk a little bit about Adwords ads. They are two types. The one appears on the right side of the search engine result. You may have noticed it when you are searching for something; A column of ads will appear on the left side of the screen. Those are Adwords ads, and business owners pay Google to display those ads.
Secondly, content ads are shown on publisher content which is nothing but Adsense as shown in the first image in this article taken from “Get Sarkari Naukri” website.
How does Google Adsense work?
Good! It is very simple. As I explained in the last paragraph, business owners pay Google to display ads on the publisher’s site.
Google Adsense is a program designed only for bloggers and website owners, unlike Adwords which is for business owners.
The publisher (usually called blogger) of the Google application must approve it from Adsense. If approved, Google will allow him to display ads on his website.
When people or visitors come to the publisher website in search of good content and click on the Adsense ad, Google pays money for each click to the publisher.
Google pays publishers the money it takes from advertisers. Advertisers pay Google per click. Google pays publishers 68% of what advertisers pay and 32% profit.
To put it in a simple way, if an advertiser pays $100 to Google for one click on Adsense Ads by an online visitor, then Google gives $68 to the owner of the website where the ads appear (publishers) and the remaining $32 is their profit.
Thus, Google takes money from advertisers and gives a large portion of it to publishers and keeps a little for itself.
Hence, it will now be clear how Adwords and Adsense are related to each other.
Let’s take a look at different ways to display Adsense ads on a website:
- Adsense for content: Nothing but contextual advertising
- Adsense for Feeds: Ads will appear on feeds
- Adsense for Search: Ads will come up on search
- Adsense for Domain: Place ads on domain names
- Adsense for video: ads on videos on Youtube
Some of the commonly used terms in Google Adsense are:
Cost Per Click: CPC – the amount that publishers get when visitors click on ads. It can be from 10 cents to $2 or more.
CTR: CTR – the number of visitors who click on these ads. If 100 people come to your site and only one of them clicks, then the CTR is 1%, if you get 2 clicks then CTR 3%, in the case of 3 clicks then 4%.
Views: The total number of impressions a blogger has for visiting his blog.
Visitors: The number of people who visited the blog.
Eligibility (Terms) and Role of Publishers and Advertisers on Adsense and Adwords respectively
Eligibility for publishers and advertisers
Not every publisher gets approved for the Adsense program. The early rules for getting approved for the Adsense program were very convenient, but Google has made it a bit difficult.
You can read their terms in detail by going here.
I’d just like to add that Google wants good content from publishers.
Advertisers have no direct relationship with Adsense. They depend on Adwords.
For Advertisers, there is no eligibility for advertisers to use Adwords programs ie anyone can use Adwords without conditions. The only thing they need is money to bid on keywords on a daily basis. Google will display ads at the top depending on how much money you are willing to pay Google. Compared to other advertisers if you pay more Google will show your ads on top.
So, eligibility is how much you can pay Google.
The role of publishers and advertisers
The role of publishers is to create unique and relevant content. They need to write content that solves the problem of online visitors. Creating great content has always been a challenge. Moreover, if publishers create good content, Google will reward them in return.
The role of advertisers is crucial. Only because of them does Google exist. If Google does not have advertisers, then there is no Adsense program.
Google Adsense Users – Demographics
Now we will talk about Adsense program users. As you already know, its users are also called publishers. who are they? What is their demographic? How many? how much does he earn These are some related questions that anyone would like to know.
Most of these publishers are young bloggers from all over the world. Their age ranges from 16 years to 34 years. They are very young and like to do things that are different from the mainstream.
Most of these bloggers come from the urban parts of a particular country. It is still very rare to find bloggers in the rural part of the country. In Egypt, these bloggers are mainly confined to metropolitan cities like Cairo, Alexandria, etc.
Their income varies because it depends on the content. The average blogger usually makes $200 to $300 per month. Good bloggers can earn $800 to $1000 per month and top tier bloggers make $10,000 to $50,000 per month. Just check out this AdSense earning strategy.
100,000 bloggers join the WordPress blogging platform every day. So you can get an idea how many are they?
Bloggers are basically individuals who create content on their own. However, there are publishers who do not blog as individuals. They have a team of writers to produce content on a regular basis. In fact, they employ hundreds of writers and editors. These publishers earn 10 to 20 times more than an individual blogger.
Their monthly income may reach millions of dollars.
Some examples are
Solo Bloggers – Problogger, Labnol etc
Publishing house – Mashable.com, TechCrunch.com. About.com, Times of India etc
Just check this link to know the Adsense secrets to multiply your AdSense earnings
Profit earned by publishers, advertisers and Google
As I said earlier, both publishers and advertisers benefit from the Adsense program. And Google itself is the ultimate beneficiary of all this.
So, here we will talk about their earnings in more detail.
PUBLISHERS
Publishers earn a lot from Google Adsense. If we are talking about small publishers, who are mainly bloggers, they are able to live a decent life as a result of the money they earn monthly.
In fact, these bloggers join blogs after leaving their normal work of 9 There are 5 and I am one of the vivid examples. These bloggers have a lot of confidence that after quitting their regular jobs, they can earn enough money to live on. Moreover, there are individuals who start their careers as bloggers. It means that after graduation or high school they don’t choose a job but start blogging.
Now, if we get to even the top publishers they are getting everything from Google Adsense. Aside from the money they get in the millions every month, they are also able to build their company brand.
With a strong brand, these companies are able to reach their customers in an efficient manner.
Advertisers
Like publishers even advertisers benefit. The proof of this is that the entire Adsense program runs on the advertiser’s money, while the publishers and Google itself earn on their money.
Thus, advertisers will pour in a lot of money only if they get something out of it. Therefore, small business owners also benefit from selling their products to customers online.
Earlier, small business owner could not reach customers, now with the help of Adwords, he can reach out to them very quickly.
Google
Finally, Google also benefits with 32% of the amount paid by advertisers. Google sits between advertisers and publishers, so they take the profits with 32% commission.
Thus, Google is not only benefiting, but also generating a lot of revenue from both Adwords and also Adsense programs.
All three parties: publishers, advertisers and Google earn from Adsense.
Other Google Adsense competitors or alternatives to Adsense
Good! Google Adsense is not just one program when it comes to contextual advertising. Adsense program is one of them.
So the question arises, does Adsense face competition from other programs in the market? The answer is yes, it faces some kind of competition from other contextual advertising platforms.
Publishers and advertisers don’t always go for Adsense, sometimes they might try other programs as well.
Some of the other programs on the Adsense line are as follows:
- Chitika
- Clicksor
- Kontera
- Adbrite
- BuySellAds
- eClickZ
- Amazon Associates
- Tribal Fusion etc
- Media.net
- Infolinks
To find more information about these programs, see – AdSense Alternatives
There are other ways to advertise such as:
1. Text Link Ads – You pay to create a link.
2. Infolinks – Here you also get paid to create a link that displays ads.
These programs may offer competition to Google Adsense. But they can be alternatives for publishers and advertisers alike.
If for some reason publishers and advertisers don’t like Adsense, they can try one of these programs mentioned above.
Hence, these programs give competition to Adsense, but for publishers and advertisers, these platforms can be an alternative.
Why is Google Adsense the first choice for publishers or bloggers?
As we discuss, Google is facing stiff competition from other advertisers’ platform in the market. But even Google Adsense is the first choice for bloggers.
So why do publishers only go for AdSense?
The first answer is that Google is the king on the internet. Google dominates every other search network. Therefore, Google has absolute power. So, publishers or bloggers trust Google blindly.
Moreover, the Google Adsense program is very easy to use and Google provides all its support that it can give. If you have any doubt or issue regarding placing ads or payments, reach out to Google without hesitation.
Google is always ready to help you.
Google now also allows other third party ads to be placed on your website, which are the alternatives we talked about in the last paragraph. Publishers can place ads from other programs alongside Adsense ads and earn more money.
In order to reduce the competition that Google faces from other platforms, Google now allows advertisements from a third party, earlier they were not allowed.
Google wants to make sure that publishers don’t migrate to other platforms.
But the best part of Google for publishers is that Google is the best paying owners. Google delivers what it says. You get the same amount as you earn in time. So, the paycheck always reaches your home address in time.
Hence, these are some of the reasons why Adsense is highly preferred by bloggers.
How do advertisers see Google Adsense?
Although advertisers do not have any direct relationship with Adsense but still this program affects them.
As we know that Adsense and Adwords are interrelated. An advertiser will only benefit when their ads are shown on good content and we know that publishers are always creating content.
Google must place advertisers’ ads on the most relevant content so that the advertiser can get the most out of it.
Therefore, an advertiser will always be interested in how well the content is generated by the publishers. If publishers are paid well by Google, they will eventually create good content, and good content will help advertiser growth.
Google Adsense in Egypt and the United States of America – a comparison
Now we will compare the Google Adsense program in the USA with Egypt. How are publishers in Egypt different from their counterparts in the USA? Is there a real difference?
Yes, there is a difference between a publisher in Egypt compared to the USA. The first difference is the profit margins. In the United States, publishers make two or three times more income than a publisher in Egypt.
CPC in the USA is 4 times more than in Egypt. On getting a click in the US you get $1 and in Egypt a blogger gets only 5 cents. So a blogger in the USA makes more money even though the traffic or visitors coming to the blog is less than the traffic coming in in Egypt.
Again, the reason is simple that in the USA advertisers are willing to pay more. There’s an advertiser who might be willing to pay Google $2 for a click, and then the publisher gets $1.36.
But in Egypt, advertisers only pay a few pounds per click. Thus, the cost per click in Egypt is less than 5 cents or 10 cents.
After all, the United States is a developed economy, so advertisers have more money to spend, but Egypt is still a growing economy, which has advertisers spending a lot less.
Hence, this is the major difference between Adsense users in the USA and Egypt.
Lack of transparency on Google’s part
We discussed good things about Google Adsense. But there is a side to this program. Doubt can arise in the mind of every publisher.
Although Google explicitly states that they give 68% to publishers of what advertisers pay and take 32% from them. But don’t tell Google how much the advertiser is actually paying per click.
Publishers don’t really know how much advertisers have actually paid Google.
Google may pay publishers less because it does not disclose the money paid by advertisers.
For example, an advertiser pays $5 per click to Google, so Google must pay $3.40 per click to the publisher and get only $1.60.
But it can happen that Google pays less than $3.40 just say $2.00 to publishers and thus takes another $1.40.
The reason for this suspicion is that Google does not report that the advertiser has actually paid $5.
Therefore, this lack of transparency is questionable. This could be the flip side of the Adsense program.
Abuse of Google Adsense
There are frivolous bloggers using Adsense from all over the world. Because of the greed of storytelling they start clicking on their ads.
It is naive to even think that a blogger can earn money by clicking on their ads. Google will know about this blogger and terminate his Adsense account forever.
Google is very strict when it comes to showing ads. Publishers can only display 3 ads on their page. If they try to click on those ads or tell others to click on them, Google will consider it illegal and permanently take down your account.
Google also prohibits the use of content that talks about custom programs and hackers to display Adsense ads, but frivolous bloggers use these tricks and end up on the wrong side.
Criticism of Google Adsense
Many publishers from Asia and Africa criticize Google for not paying as much as it pays publishers in the USA.
The bloggers then criticized Google for banning their account without a specific reason.
Sometimes Google terminates their accounts without paying the $100 threshold.
Google is also criticized for showing explicit sexual advertisements on websites.
But the most honest criticism of Google Adsense is the lack of transparency which we discussed in the last paragraph.
The future of Google Adsense and its impact on publishers
Finally, we will talk about the future of Adsense and how it affects publishers.
According to me, the future of Adsense is great in the US and outside the USA. With the growth of the Internet, more and more people are joining it. They are looking for good content that they can read.
Thus, the Adsense program will ensure that the publishers create quality content because they will get a decent reward.
Moreover, Google’s revenue depends entirely on advertisers and to make them happy, Google needs to display its contextual ads on good content. So Google needs the Adsense platform to do this.
Hence the Adsense program is very essential for the survival of the company.
So, the future of Adsense is very bright for publishers as well as Adsense itself.
Thus, we conclude the article with a brief yet power-packed analysis of Google Adsense.