Today I asked myself why I am still using Adsense to monetize my blogs and my websites with. After all I’m not the biggest Google fan out there and to be honest my space could probably be used more efficiently. But as I was thinking of reasons I shouldn’t be using Adsense something funny occurred to me. I want to use Adsense.

Why the hell would I want to do that?

First of all I’m lazy. I don’t want to spend hours researching and optimizing my sites to attract advertisers. I’d prefer to spend that time on content. Or sleeping. It is so easy to just throw a block or two of Adsense code up and let it generate revenue. That’s right, it still generates revenue. How much? Not enough, but not only am I lazy I’m also aware that just like hard work paying off being lazy pays off in its own way.

Beyond being lazy I’m also busy. Too busy for properly monetizing my sites? Apparently so. But here’s the bottom line - I use Adsense because it works for me. Because while I’m not getting rich I’m getting enough to pay for hosting each month plus a little extra. Which when you consider my hosting bill is $7.95 per months isn’t all that impressive. Would I like to make more? Of course I would. Would I consider dropping Adsense from my sites? At this point, no.

Is there any advantage to using Adsense?

For sites like mine that get less than 150 visitors a day each on average I’d have to say there is no monetary advantage except the fact that it makes me work even harder to try and get the sites ranking higher and higher for the keyword searches on the various search engines. I do know this as I work to rank the sites higher and I manage to do so my Adsense revenue increases. Magic? Hardly, just good old fashioned math. The more people see an ad the more likely they are to click on it. Simple as that.

As my sites gain readership however I will begin to notice an advantage to using Adsense which will be reflected in the numbers.

Should I use Adsense?

Only you can answer that question. Before you decide for or against using it you should take a good look at what your goals are in terms of monetization. Adsense isn’t a quick road to riches by any means and if you expect it to be you’ll just be wasting your time. There are several things you should think about when it comes to deciding if Adsense is right for you.

How well optimized are your sites for search engines?

The vast majority of people who click on Adsense ads come from search engines. Specifically from Google. If you have a very well optimized site that ranks high for your keywords you’ll do much better using Adsense than if you don’t. For example my site about snakes tends to rank within the first 1-15 results per article on Google. My click through rate is great (over 2.75% when I checked a little bit ago). At least it’s great compared to this site. On the other hand I get about 25-30 visitors a day there while well over 100 stop by here (despite not updating in what seems like months). That’s the power of keyword optimization when it comes to Adsense.

Is your website designed to maximize clicks?

Just throwing a few ads up isn’t going to get you clicks. They need to be presented in a certain way. If you’ve never taken a moment to look at Google’s Heatmap you should. One thing that has struck me is the fact that it doesn’t ever seem to change. Why not? Because it works. Google knows it works, and other Adsense publishers know it works. It makes money and that’s what Google is in business to do.

But it goes further than setting up your websites heatmap to emulate Google’s recommendations. You can have everything laid out perfectly, but if you don’t have good content you’ll get ads that don’t fit it. For example I’ve seen Adsense throw out ads about off shore oil drilling in an article I wrote on another blog about computers. I was at a loss for how that was happening until I read the article through a few times. I talked a lot about “drilling down to get to the problem”, “sometimes the cause of the issues are right below the surface”, “when you do this or that it’s like a geyser of power is released”… You get the idea. Adsense was doing its job and targeting perfectly for what I gave it. Now if Adsense was that far off track of what I was trying to accomplish I can only image how bad a search engine would have been thrown for a loop.

Do you ask people for clicks?

We all know it is against the rules to ask people to click on your ad spots whether Adsense or another, but you can encourage it without overtly asking. How? Write good content that is relevant to what the person reading the article wants to find. How do you do that? Good Great search engine optimization. How do you go about doing that? Write good content. What is good content? Content that gives the reader what they are looking for. How do you give the reader what they are looking for? Proper search engine optimi… Is it just me, or is this starting sound familiar? Do you understand?

If you want people to click on your ads give them reason to do so. Present good content and Adsense will 99.9999% of the time present good ads which will lead people to click. The very act of creating good content is the act of asking for clicks. Don’t create good content and see how many clicks you get. Produce good content and see how many clicks you get. Try it out and see if I lie!

Are you willing to use up valuable real estate for Adsense?

Sounds kind of odd, but will you willingly give your website real estate to Adsense when someone else might come in and perform better either at a flat rate or on a per click basis? Because that’s what you have to do during the duration while adsense is being shown on your site. I know for a fact that some potential advertisers won’t touch you with a 10 foot pole if you have adsense on your sites. So not only are you losing out on the space where Adsense appears, but also where it doesn’t in some cases.

Why do you still use Adsense?

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Tags: adsense optimization, why do you use adsense, why you should use adsense