Monday, June 4, 2007

Google Adsense Tools....

I was hoping to find more adsense tools to review and recommend, however I never received anything so we’ll go with what I was able to find.

Adsense Script Tools

These are the tiny little programs you install on your server (blech!) or locally on your machine that help you analyze your adsense clicks, CTR and earnings. Some of them are easy, some of them are difficult, and some of them help you make pretty graphs. To be honest none of them are worth recommending. You could do just as good a job by setting up your channels properly and dumping a CSV file into excel. If someone has a specific one or wants to send me a review copy of thier software, I will look at it. DO NOT send me anything that has to be installed on a server. I run multiple websites on multiple hosting companies, so I don’t need something that requires more maintenance thank you very much.

Adsense Preview Tools

The Adsense Sandbox comes via Digital Point. You put in a URL and it lets you preview what ads are most likely to appear on a URL. Pretty handy IMHO.

Adsense Tracking

While not set up to be an Adsense tracking tool per se, the free log analyzer from AddFreeStats is actually pretty good. You put a small graphic tracking bug on the bottom of each of your pages and it gives you standard logging reports. You can also activate adsense tracking to find out what ads are being clicked on what pages. Combine this with an excel spreadsheet and channels and you are good to go. You can upgrade to a paid version and get an invisible tracking bug. TIP: Lock down your stats under a password, I’m fascinated how many people leave that open.

Adsense in Action


Probably one of the best things you can do to increase your adsense earnings is to go and look how other people are doing things. The adsense case studies are one place. While these are Google approved you really don’t have an idea how successful they are. So you’d be much better off finding someone you know is in the UPS Club. Jason Calacanis who runs Weblogs Inc is on a quest to make 1 Million dollars a year from Adsense. While I do give Jason a hard time sometimes, I do actually admire what he’s built, and think there are some very valuable lessons to be learned from looking at the websites owns. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger also has two sites I really like the Digital Camera Review and Camera Phone Review. Don’t be a wanker and copy exactly what they’ve done, it’s bad form. Instead look at them, learn from them, and use it as inspiration.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

How you increase your wealth with GOOOOOOOGLE

About the Adsense

Let me start off by saying, any person who owns or is thinking about creating a website would be crazy to ignore this. Earning money with your site, no matter the topic, has become easier than it's ever been before.

If this program had been available in 2000, I would have NEVER shut down my soap opera fan site that received 200 hits per day.
I would have been able to earn money from that traffic and probably turned a small profit.
First of all,
Google.com earns most of its money by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns by placing these same text ads on your site.
In other words, you're helping Google advertise.

So if you are one of those people that don't like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some.

Even if you earned as little as $10 in a month, it would more than likely cover some or all of the costs for your web site. Perhaps you are simply looking for ways to add additional revenue to your website, then it's perfect for that situation too.

This program is getting so popular, people are creating websites just to display the ads and profit from Google's Adsense alone.

I don't usually like to use the term "easy money" because there really is no such thing. You still have to create your own website and learn how to bring in traffic in order to make good money with this program. I certainly don't want to make it sound like you get something for doing absolutely nothing.

However, I've got to say that Adsense is the closest I've ever come to "fast cash" on the Internet. It's almost like you're getting rewarded for having a website that receives traffic. What's even better...the program is completely free. You can add the ads to multiple websites and there is no limit to the amount you can earn.

How Adsense Works
If you go to Google.com and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you'll notice some "Sponsored Links" that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for. You'll also see similar results when you do searches in MSN and other sites.

Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer.

With the Adsense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it. All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila!

Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.

Once your account reaches $100, you'll receive a check in the mail.
"Is Google Crazy?"

I know what you're probably thinking...
"What's the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?"
The answer...
Because Google is very smart.
Now that I understand how Adsense works, I can see that it's a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google.

Let me explain...
Since the advertiser's ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google's site), they are getting much more exposure.
More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.

This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.
Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit. And of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.
What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.
Of course, I'd expect nothing less from the #1 search engine on the web. :)
How Google Matches the Ads to Your Site's Content
One of the main reasons this program is so successful is because the ads that are displayed closely match the content of your website. This increases the chances that someone will click on the ads.
Here's how Google accomplishes the content match (in their own words)...

"...We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."

So let's say you have an information website about yoga. Once you join Adsense and paste their ad code into your site, Google's technology will determine the topic of the pages by scanning for keyword repeats, page title, etc.

If successful, you will see ads that relate to yoga displayed on your web pages. Of course, the more related the ads are to your site's content, the better the click-thru.

Keep in mind, the ads may not be an exact match because it depends on the ads inside Google's database. So instead of seeing yoga ads, you may see more generic ads like exercise, healthy eating, etc. This is not a bad thing because these are topics your visitors will likely be interested in as well.