Inside AdSense: AdSense 101: What you need to know

Inside AdSense

Google's official blog for news, tips and information on AdSense.

AdSense 101: What you need to know

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Over the next five weeks, our blog we’ll be covering everything you need to set up and manage your account to the highest standard. So if you think joining AdSense is right for you, then keep an eye on our social channels.

In this post we’re going to cover the fundamentals of AdSense, and give you clear steps on how you can earn extra income from your content without disrupting the flow of your website.

AdSense is a free, simple way to make money by placing ads on your website.

AdSense is Google’s ad network that does the hard work of bringing together the parties that participate in online advertising, making it simpler for everyone involved to succeed. It builds relationships with businesses looking to advertise, and websites like yours looking to make money by selling ads. Through an ad network, AdWords advertisers can get access to a wide variety of different online inventory at scale. And, they also help publishers find advertisers quickly. By working with an ad network like AdSense, you can spend less time marketing and selling your advertising space and more time focused on creating the best content for your users.

After you sign up for an account with a policy compliant website and are approved by AdSense, AdSense works behind the scenes to manage advertiser bids, inventory, and placements while focusing on increasing your earnings. It’s important to know that in order to maintain ad serving on your website and keep an AdSense account active, it's the responsibility of the publisher to keep up to date with, and adhere to, the policies posted here.

It’s like an automatic car -- it removes most of the manual adjustments, allowing you to cruise along with less effort. You still need regular “tune ups” to get optimal performance, but you won’t need to shift gears to get from point A to point B.

Put AdSense to work for you.

To make money from AdSense, you’ll need a steady stream of website traffic. It’s a best practices to consistently post high-quality content, as it can attract more loyal visitors with fresh, relevant content.

If you have a website that you update regularly, then why not sign up and see if AdSense works for you? The process is completely free and easy to add to your site. See the steps below or visit our help center to learn more.

With AdSense, you’re in complete control of the type of ads that appear on your site.

You call the shots on the ads that appear on your website.

Choose the ad formats you’d prefer (text, display, rich media etc.), then highlight where on your website you’d like them to display.
Block specific categories of ads that you don’t want to display, so only products or businesses relevant to your content can bid on your inventory.
Adapt the look and feel of text ads to match the style of your website.

Measure and optimize performance.

Performance reports provide key insights into how users engage with your content by measuring both your earnings and your performance across key engagement metrics.
Leverage these insights with the Optimization page within your AdSense account. It’s a one-stop shop for improving your account performance, providing you with tailored recommendations and A/B experiments to help you make more informed decisions.

Mobile friendly for you and your users.

For you, the AdSense mobile app provides you with an account overview, as well as access to detailed performance reports on all key metrics.
For your users, AdSense has mobile-friendly ad formats like responsive ad units that automatically adapt to different screen sizes or page-level ads that are displayed at optimal times when they’re likely to perform well for you and provide a good experience for your users.

AdSense is time efficient. Publishers that use our QuickStart feature only need to place a snippet of code in the <head> tag of their policy compliant web pages, then we’ll will take care of the rest.

Here’s how you can get started.

Before you can start earning money from your content, you’ll have to submit your website for approval. Follow these best-practice steps before the application to increase your chances of a quick and easy approval:

Make sure you include an ‘About’ page, ‘Contact’ page, and a ‘Privacy’ page on your site.
Include as much original content as possible; websites that post duplicate content will not be considered.
Make sure you have full ownership of the website you’re submitting, or permission from the owner.
Ensure that your site adheres to the AdSense program policies.

If you think AdSense is a fit for your website, then sign up now. After you’ve signed up you can submit your site to begin the approval process. To begin the approval process, log into your new AdSense account, click on Settings in your account page, then click My Sites and then Add.

Once approved, your final step is to add the a provided snippet of code to your website (find detailed instructions here).

If your site averages more than 300,000 monthly views, then contact an AdSense specialist for help that’s specific to your business. And if you’d like additional support with your account you can join an #AskAdSense support session on Twitter every Thursday 9:30am PT for our specialized guidance, tips and account support.