What is Google AdSense Program?
Google AdSense is an ad program by Google which give content creators the opportunities to ‘place’ ads on their websites (and other content types) and get paid for doing so. Google Adsense is the most popular advertising network online and can be a source of passive income for websites that don’t readily have other revenue sources.
Google AdSense: How It Works
As more and more people turn to the internet for information, entities seeking to sell their products and services online pay Google to have their ads placed on websites within the Google Network of content sites. Website owners who wish to benefit from this program must first express interest by ‘presenting’ an application.
If your request is not approved (not every website gets approved), you will be duly notified by email.
If on the other hand your application is approved by AdSense, you’ll receive a couple of emails to that effect, indicating how to get started, and outlining step by step how to go about with the process.
Google AdSense Application
Before proceeding with your Google AdSense application, you need to have or create a Google account (a gmail address – in simple terms) and be logged into it.
Once logged into your Google account, apply for the Google AdSense program by creating a Google AdSense account. On the AdSense homepage, click on TO START in the upper right-hand corner to access the account creation page which requests – among other things – the URL of the website you wish to get approved, as shown below.
You will also need to select your country and agree to the terms and conditions before signing up (i.e. before clicking Start using AdSense):
Submitting your application gives you an AdSense account where you will be greeted with a three-point summary of the process involved in getting ads to appear on your website:
Firstly, you’ll need to provide information about yourself.
IMPORTANT: AdSense does not have a customer service to offer any kind of help in case you encounter problems. So make sure you correctly provide ALL the pieces of information requested. Failure on your part will lead to your first payment being very much delayed. A quite frustrating experience!
Next, you’ll be shown how ads will look on your website.
Then you’ll have to connect your website to Google Analytics to get the ads appearing on your site.
AdSense Welcome Email
Submission of application also prompts the following email from AdSense:
. . . welcoming you and providing detailed instructions on how to connect your website as well as how to complete the activation process.
Connecting your site
Connecting your site to AdSense actually involves:
1. customizing your ad unit in your account
2. saving the customized ad setting
3. getting your code and copying it and
4. pasting it into your website.
This final task tend to be a daunting one for most new AdSense users. However, at the end of the email, you’ll find links to relevant help pages (see final image below) aimed at simplifying how to deal with your code. In case that is not still okay, you may need to request the help of a developer or acquire a plugin when it comes to getting the code properly inserted into your website.
And then
Activation
Read and follow the directions under the second point below to complete the activation process.
After activation, what’s next?
Most new AdSense users tend to become impatient when they don’t receive an instant reply from AdSense after activating their account. This email takes that reality into consideration in its conclusion and indicates what you need to do during that period, as follows:
“Once you complete these steps, wait for your site to be reviewed by specialists. This process can be as quick as a day, but may take longer. Your site should be live, contain enough content, and meet AdSense policies to start showing ads. Expect an update in your inbox soon.”
The “update” mentioned in the above excerpt concerns the completion of the reviewing of your site.
Applying for AdSense: The Final Part
After your site has been reviewed, you will be duly informed by AdSense that all is set.
And will be presented with the choice between having ads appear automatically on all pages . . .
or placing them on specific pages on your site:
Once you’ve indicated your choice, you’ll want to . . .
With the entire process set up, the ad forms you choose (whether text, images, video, or interactive media) will begin appearing on your website. And you’ll get paid a percentage of what the owners of those ads paid Google every time a visitor to your site clicks on the ads (and in some cases, only views them).
A word on AdSense Approval
Experience has shown that approval for the AdSense program depends on several factors including – but not limited to – number of pages or posts. What I refer to as ‘ad prospect’ (the likelihood that ads will perform well on a site) seems to be an even more important factor.
That is why one site may have more pages / pages yet be rejected while another with fewer pages / posts is accepted as was my experience with my AdSense site. While everyone was insisting that you needed to have more than 30 pages / posts to be approved, I had as little as 12 – yet get approved. What made it possible – from what I deduced – was simply the ‘ad prospect’ of that site.
So the number of posts and pages which everyone seems to be concerned about is not always the ultimate determining factor of whether your website will get approved.
A piece of advice to conclude
Therefore, do not consider another person’s website approval experience (which is most often expressed in articles like this one) to predict yours. Websites are created in different niches, and therefore have different ‘ad prospects’. What Google ‘sees’ in one website may not be observed in others.
It is therefore advisable not to rush into applying for Google AdSense. Unless you are quite confident of the ad prospect of your website (most people will never know it), I would advice that you allow your site to ‘mature’ as much as possible before submitting your application.
Good luck as you try out Google AdSense!