How to get started with Adsense

Getting started with Google Adsense was VERY easy for me. As I have mentioned in my two previous posts I already have a website and own a small business, but I was interested in ways to work at home online. I began reading about Google Adsense and became very curious about how I could create websites or Blogs to make a living online.

I was reading for weeks about people who were making a great living offering valuable content to their online readers and placing small Google ads on their websites. Since I already use Google PPC (Pay Per Click) I wondered if I might not be able to offset some of my own PPC costs by signing up for Adsense and offering related Ads on my own website. I felt that my business offering was good enough and if my customer wanted to check out my competition I had no issues with it. I also felt that this could be the starting point for me to learn how Google Adwords worked.


If you are not familiar with this subject let me just explain briefly -- Let's say you were searching the web for "dog food" -- you clicked on a link anywhere on the page and began reading all about "dog food." Somewhere in your reading you see a Google Ad for Alpo and you click on the link -- the website owner is compensated for that click. Pretty cool huh?


Since I was interested in how to earn a full time income online I decided I would add Google Adwords on my small business website and see if there was anything to this whole Adwords thing -- I was surprised to find that I actually received a few clicks and even made a couple of bucks! This got me thinking and so I decided I would begin researching out some key niches I was interested in, build other websites or Blogs and see if I could do what the big guys are doing.

So, how do you get started? Well, I believe Google has made the process pretty simple. One thing you should be aware of however -- you have to offer something of value to your reader. You can't simply create a bogus website, sign up for Adsense and start clicking your way to big profits. This is obviously not something that offers any value to Google's readers and will get you banned from Adsense in no time!

Now, if you have an interest, hobby or business that offers something of value to Google's audience then simply go to Google Adsense and sign up. You can even check out a Google video tutorial by clicking here.

After clicking the Sign Up page you will be brought to a page that asks you to enter in your website URL. If you don't have a website I would recommend going to http://www.blogger.com/ and signing up for a free Blog. It gives you a little experience in VERY BASIC design and get you to take some action.

So, after you enter in your website URL or Blog address, you will then be prompted to enter in other information such as Language, Personal Contact Information, and how you wish to be paid.

You don't have to worry about incorporating a business -- Google will ask you for your Social Security Number and you can select Sole Proprieter. I even signed up to receive my Google payments to my checking account. If you are worried about giving out your checking account number just sign up for a second checking account with your bank and put in the minimum deposit of $10 or $20 -- this will help you sleep at night knowing if your personal information is ever compromised you will only have $10 or $20 at stake. I am not overly worried about the security issues as I feel confident Google could not have much of a business if they could not offer their clients an incredible amount of security.

Now, once you sign up for Adsense you will have to wait a day or two to get approved -- I have read other forums where some people claim they were approved in a matter of hours, but I think a day or two is the norm.

Once you are approved for Adsense you are now free to login to your account and create your ad format. Simply select from the various options on the screen and Google will display the code needed to display the ad. Once you have found the right look for your site you can cut the code (easy, easy - I promise) and paste it right into your HTML. If you don't know how to do this just cut the code and send it to your website designer. Google will scan your website for content and serve up ads that are relevant to your site! Oh, and if you use http://www.blogger.com/ you don't have to worry about any code at all -- just "Add Page Element" and select "Adsense." Google will take care of the rest.

Hope this helps in some way.