Google Adsense, an advertising program which allows web masters to publish advertisements on their website has been around for quite some time. It has been a known way to monetize websites, mostly be bloggers and content based websites. However, in light of a debate whether using Adsense as a solid business model is feasible or not, I decided to write this post as to why I use Adsense and if I believe it can generate a solid income for others.
Although many people believe that making money with Adsense is no longer possible, due to high market saturation and general public blindness to Google ads, I do not believe this is true. Chances are these people have no idea how to make money with Adsense, nor do they know how to generate the necessary traffic to make a website Adsense profitable.
I for one have a network of websites which uses Google Adsense as the business model. These websites tend to fill in a void of a niche and I monetize by producing content for these niches then place Adsense Ads on them. These niches are usually non-competitive but have high to moderately high search volume on Google. So with this in mind, I can easily dominate these niches as it has little to no competition by generating targeted organic traffic via Google with different SEO and SEM tactics. I can then convert the traffic into a sustainable income stream using Google Adsense as well as a host of other advertising mediums.
There is of course a lot more factors to consider when using Adsense as a business model, however a general rule of thumb for me is the income generated via Adsense is only used to reinvest in my other ventures. The reason behind this is simple, the profit generated by Adsense powered websites are limited and should never be used as the only source of income. However, you can use this to further fund your other business ventures that could potentially earn you a much larger sum of money in the future.
As above, the reason why Adsense should not be used as the only source of income is firstly because of the nature of the advertising business, changes happen weekly and this may affect you in a negative way. For example, if Google decides to change one or two policies in their Terms & Conditions, it may affect your entire business, and the worse case would cause you to go OUT of business completely. Secondly, you cannot allow your business to be completely dependent on an external company, if anything happens to the dependent company, you will be directly affect even though you have done nothing wrong. Last but not least, it would not be wise to put all your eggs in one basket, as in have all your income via one source only, if that source gets cuts off temporarily or permanently, then you will be put immediately in the red zone.
Now that you know not to use Google Adsense as your only source of income, its time you know why you should use Adsense at all. I have been using Adsense for quite some time now to generate residual income to fund many of my other ventures, the reason why I use it is:
- Its simple to use and quick to register
- Google is trustworthy and provides great text links to relevant websites (depending on the content of your website)
- It increases visitor trust when your out going links are relevant and of high quality
- It provides a great source of income if used properly
- Ability to get the profit via Direct bank transfer
- Ability to customise the ads so you can blend it into your website (to help fight ads blindness)
- Great reporting features (but would be better if it tracks clicks)
- Great way to earn passive income without actually working hard
In the end, the main reason why Adsense works and has worked for is thanks to the fact that people like easy money. Google Adsense generates a moderately large amount of passive income for anyone who doesn’t have time to work full time on the internet. It provides a medium for bloggers as well as content generators to receive profit for the quality material they provide to the internet and it allows businesses to advertise their products to a large targeted audience at minimum costs.
However, remember that Adsense works a lot better on customised niche websites, where only one or two topics are being concentrated on and quality content are being posted. This helps Google return targeted ads, and with targeted ads means higher CTR, and with higher CTR means more money in your pocket. I will also post a tutorial on how to increase Adsense CTR as well as increase CPC.
One Comment
Bunmi Philips
Thanks so much for the piece. Pls, i’m a stack novice. Interested but knows virtually nothing about google adsense. Pls any assistance u can render? Thanx. Bunmi.