5 Tips To Maximize Your Adsense Earnings

Can you see those two rectangular ads located on top of my blog title? These are advertisements from Google Adsense. Every legitimate clicks each of them receives has a corresponding dollar amount usually (less than a dollar) and when it reaches a minimum of $100, I will get paid! Yesterday, I just received my first paycheck worth $102.99 or Php 4, 407.56 via Western Union Money Transfer.

Google Adsense is the advertising platform obviously from Google where publishers and advertisers are its main components. Publishers are websites that show advertisements from Adsense. Advertisers are businesses that pay every time their advertisements are clicked through Adsense.  

Notice the word "legitimate" I used to describe "clicks" in my second sentence above. Google has internal algorithm that can track if the publisher is clicking the ads by purpose. It is really very tempting to click those but I hope you don't be like me before.   I first setup my Google Adsense account in 2010, out of doubt I clicked those ads showing in my blog. After a few weeks I noticed the space where the Adsense ads show become totally black! I was banned, tried to appeal a few times but still nothing happened. It took me more than a year before I was allowed to get another Google Adsense account. I lost my previous earnings and the amount I would have earned during those time I am not allowed to do Adsense.

Screenshot showing the amount and where to withdraw my earnings

Google wants to make sure that their advertising platform is used the way it is meant to be. It is designed to protect the integrity of the publishers and to make sure that the ROI (return of investment) of the advertisers are utilized maximum. In my three years of using Google Adsense, I would like to share the tips on how to maximize earnings. Disclaimer: I am not an expert regarding this, I just want to prove that Google Adsense is a way to make money if not big money legitimately online. 

1. Make sure your ads are positioned in the space of your website where viewers can see it right away. There is a study that ads located on top right gets the most clicks. That explains why I put two ad spaces there just above my most recent blog post. The layout of my blog is designed not really to make it more visually appealing but I took great consideration of my ad placements.

2. Add more content regularly so that you get more views. Remember legitimate clicks  give more chances to expand hundredfold when you have more traffic to your site.

3. Do not add some text that obviously acts like a solicit link like "Please click here" or "Click my sponsors below" etc. The clicks should be of genuine interest generated from your readers.

4. Monitor the performance of your ads to determine if they are getting valid clicks. From the Dashboard of your Google Adsense, you can view the detailed report you need to decide if you have to rearrange the ads, experiment and what is the ad format/size/type that works best for your site. FYI: Only three ads are allowed to show at the same time in one webpage.

5. Avoid contents about pornography, gambling and anything not ideal to general public consumption. Most advertisers don't want their brands be associated with these.

The dashboard where you can see every nitty - gritty detail of your ad performance

Google Adsense VERSUS Direct Advertisers

I once joined a major blogging event where one of the speakers who is an noted blogger in the metro discouraged everyone not to patronize Google Adsense because it is "very cheap" compared to direct advertisers that can pay higher even negotiable rates. I was on the verge of heading his advice but I realized my blog is not that famous like his and I don't think a  big advertiser will go head over heels to get a space in my blog. What I did is let the Adsense ads "sit there" and then through time I managed to get clicks and reached the minimum threshold of $100.

I also discovered a leading tech website in the US that prefers Google Adsense over direct advertisers. Sure the pay is way higher he said even some wanted to bribe him with lots of freebies. He preferred Google Adsense because he wanted his site to be neutral since its contents are unbiased reviews of latest gadgets and software.

Google Adsense is considered as the biggest advertising platform. The earnings that Google make out of Adsense is enough for other Google tools to be free (Gmail for example) . The biggest takeaway once a website with millions of views per month that patronizes Google Adsense is receives  an invite - only for a Google Adsense premium account. Not only the earnings become way, way more is it gives a lot of flexibility compared to the usual Google Adsense account. For example, the number of ads that can appear to the website can be more than the usual three, websites with contents about pornography/gambling is now given a chance to show these kinds of ads etc. Also there are options to tweak the ads a little to make it appear less ad but kind of a part of the website itself.

Mashable's founder, Pete Cashmore is rumored to be the top earner of Google Adsense. Go check his site and count how many ads he has in one webpage. And yes he is earning thousand dollars per month just because of Google Adsense!