Wow, it’s been quite a while since I put a post up here on my blog.  It’s amazing how fast time flies!

Anyways, I thought I would start a little (I’m thinkin’ it will consist of 3 parts) mini-blog series on the topic of AdSense.  Within the past month, I have been encountered by some people about learning how to monetize their website and while there are numerous ways that this can be done, AdSense is one of the easiest methods to implement.

Not only that, but it is also one of the easiest ways to make money!

That being said, some of you may be interested in AdSense and what it will do for your website (providing you have one, of course).  Here, I will discuss some of the benefits and downfalls of AdSense on your site.  Hopefully it will provide some insight for you as to whether or not you think it is worth implementing.  So let’s get started!

What the heck is AdSense anyways?

Simply put, AdSense is a marketing system developed by Google that allows people who own websites to generate an income off of them by displaying advertisements from Google’s advertising network.  All you need to do is sign up for an account, do some various configuring for the type of ads you want, and paste some code on your website (all this will be discussed in the second part of this mini-series).

AdSense is categorized as a cost-per-click (CPC) monetization method, which means every time someone clicks on any of the AdSense ads on your page, you make money.  It doesn’t matter what the user does once they click on the ad, just so long as they click on it, you get paid.

Believe it or not, it’s really that simple.

Even though AdSense may sound amazing, you should really think about if it is right for your website and the goals you are trying to accomplish.  To figure that out, you really need to analyze the positive and negative effects of AdSense.

AdSense: The Positive Stuff

I have actually already discussed some of the benefits of AdSense already, but it never hurts to reiterate them.

The first and most obvious method is that it can be pretty darn easy to make money with it.  Heck, all a user has to do is click on one of the ads on your website and you make money.   It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Another nice benefit of AdSense is that the Google network will only serve relevant ads which relate to the webpages they are on.  Granted, there is the occasional situation where if AdSense can’t find any relevant ads, it will display a public service ad (which won’t pay you if people click on them) but hey, you have the option of changing that.  I’m getting too ahead of myself though, that’ll be discussed more in part 2 of this series...

Also, you actually get to choose not only where the ads should be placed on your site, but you can also choose what size, color, style and format they should be in.  That being said, you can really customize your ads any way you want them.  Some ways work better than others, which will probably be discussed in part 3 of this series.

The last main benefit of AdSense is you can literally be making money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (including holidays!).  I don’t think anyone would have a problem with a little extra residual income in their lives, especially since it all automatic.

AdSense: The Negative Stuff

With all those benefits, it can be hard to think of any negative things, but there are. 

First has to do with the payouts.  A couple years back, Google implemented a new feature that seriously hindered the amount of money people could make off of AdSense (I won’t get into the details).  This allows advertisers to directly state how much they will be willing to pay for AdSense advertisements, which is not nearly as much as it used to be back in the day (oh what beautiful days those were…). 

Now while it is not certain of the breakdown (as it has never been disclosed), a lot of research has stated that Google pretty much splits the advertising revenue in half with you.  That means if an advertiser was willing to pay $1.00 for each time someone clicked on an AdSense ad on your site, Google would get roughly $.50 and you would get roughly $.50 for each click.

Now that you know about the revenue breakdown of AdSense, it’s important to know how much and how little money people can spend for AdSense advertisements.  When it comes to advertising via the AdSense network, advertisers can bid as low as $.01 for every click (they can bid as much money as they want though).  Fortunately, due to the high demand of real estate-oriented advertising, you probably will not get any $.01 ads on your site. 

Knowing how much (or, how little) people can pay for advertising via AdSense comes probably the largest negative aspect of AdSense: the opportunity cost of leads.  By putting AdSense on your site, you are really enticing people who visit your site to actually leave it and go somewhere else.  So, if advertisers are only willing to spend a couple of bucks, that means you are automatically turning away a potential lead for $1.00.  Is it worth it?

Now that you know some of the positive and negative effects of placing AdSense ads on your website, it is up to you to choose whether or not you think it would be something worth implementing.  For those of you who are interested in pursuing it farther, I’ll be writing the second installment of this series in the not-too-distant future, which will discuss how to put AdSense on your site.