How to Add Adsense to Your Website

Author: Lars Lofgren / Source: Quick Sprout

I recommend installing AdSense on any website that’s not selling a product

You’ve spent countless hours designing and updating your website. But you’re not getting paid for all of your hard work.

Rather than letting your efforts go to waste, you can monetize your website by adding Google AdSense.

What is Google AdSense?

In short, AdSense is an advertising network run by Google. It’s a free way for websites to make money by displaying targeted Google advertisements on their sites.

Advertisements come in all shapes and sizes. Your site can display images, videos, text, and interactive ads as a monetization strategy.

Arguably the best part about Google AdSense (aside from the cost — it’s free) is that you won’t have to deal with advertisers directly. Everything gets handled through Google’s platform, so you don’t have to worry about collecting money or maintaining relationships when you’re hosting ads.

Google does all of that work for you. It collects money from the advertisers, keeps 32% for its role in facilitating the process, and the remaining 68% goes to the publisher (you).

It’s essentially a hassle-free way to earn money by displaying ads on your website.

How AdSense works

AdSense is based on a bidding system, which is referred to as an “ad auction.”

Advertisers determine how much they are willing to pay for their ads to be displayed by setting a maximum bid price. Google automatically connects advertisers with publishers who have relevant users for the advertisements.

For example, if you run a blog for new mothers about getting through that first pregnancy, your website visitors won’t see ads related to skateboarding targeted at teenage boys.

If more advertisers bid to be displayed on your site, bids will increase as well in order to stay competitive. In this case, you’ll be able to earn more money as a publisher.

Google uses a tool called Ad Rank to determine which ads will appear on your website. This is the basic formula used by Ad Rank.

Quality score is extremely important, which is why it equally weighted with the bid. Quality score is measured by predicted click-through rates based on past performance as well as other relevant factors, such as keywords.

This means that an ad with a lower bid could win an auction if they have a high quality score, even if other advertisers had a higher bid.

That’s because Google wants to make sure that the ads get clicked, which is a win-win-win scenario for your website, the advertiser, and Google.

Getting paid with AdSense (bid types)

Website owners get paid based on various bid types for the ads they display.

• CPC (cost per click)
• CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
• Active View CPM (active view cost per thousand impressions)
• CPE (cost per engagement)

CPC

With the CPC monetization strategy, you’ll get paid for each time a website visitor clicks on an ad displayed on your website. Depending on the content of the ad, some advertisers are willing to pay higher rates for clicks than others.

CPM

In the advertising world, the “M” in CPM stands for mille, which is Latin for thousand. So, Cost Per Thousand — or the cost per 1,000 impressions. In this case, publishers are paid for displaying the ad, regardless if a user clicks on it or not.

CPM bids are typically lower than CPC bids since the fee structure is not contingent on the user taking an action. Google will display whichever ad type (CPM or CPC) is expected to earn more revenue for the publisher, which is in Google’s best interest, since they take a 32% share of the revenue.

Active View CPM

In order to get paid for Active View CPM ads, the impressions must be measured as “viewable.” This means that at least 50% of an ad needs to be shown on the screen for at least one second.

These bids will be higher than traditional CPM bids since the chances of a website visitor actually seeing the ad are increased.

CPE

Cost per engagement is based on how active a user is with an advertisement. For example, let’s say an advertiser decides to run a lightbox ad. These formats are expandable — they take up a large portion of the screen if they’re clicked on. If a website visitor hovers over a lightbox ad for more than two seconds, the ad will expand. This is the type of engagement that is required for CPE payouts.

How to add Google AdSense to your website in 7 easy steps

Now that you understand the basics of AdSense and how it works, it’s time to get it set up on your website. Believe it or not, this actually isn’t very complicated. You can put AdSense on your website in just four steps.

Step 1: Set up your site

Before you get started, you need to have an existing website. You can’t apply for AdSense on a hypothetical or future site. So for those of you who are in the process of creating a new website or have an “under construction” landing page, you need to hold off before applying.

If you’re at this stage, I have a few guides that can help you out:

Step 2: Make sure your site is in compliance

Google does not just accept any website into this program. You need to meet their eligibility requirements to be considered.

This means that you must have an easy to use navigation. Elements need to be lined up properly. Text…

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