Adsense: Is it worth bothering with?

Most blogs 99% have less than 100 subscribers/visitors per day. It really doesn't matter how much Google gives you, you are not going to pay the mortgage. On the other hand, those

The thing that's really magical about AdSense is that the ads are targeted to the specific topic of the blog entry, rather than just generically to the ostensible topic of the weblog.

So on my Intuitive Life site - http://www.intuitive.com/blog/ - instead of getting generic business ads from a network like BlogAds or Burst, I get ads very specific to the topic of my articles. This means that the ads are better, less disruptive, and, yes, are more likely to be clicked and therefore generate higher quality traffic for the advertiser and more revenue for the blogger.

Remember, also, that it's not about subscribers, but about the findability of your blog articles after the fact... that's where your highest quality readers come from because they're looking for exactly what you're writing about on your blog.

I recently went to a Webmaster World Search Conference and heard from most of the contextual advertising companies in many of the sessions. I found that while Google has the biggest network of advertisers with AdSense, Kanoodle and Quigo also have some interesting solutions worth further investigating. However, I cannot speak from experience when it comes to potential revenue numbers with these alternative solutions in respect to blog sites.

Having made a whopping $19 from AdSense from 115,000 page views last month on my blog (evans.blogware.com), I can heartily confirm AdSense not something that's going to pay the bills. A key issue advertisers and blog publishers need to address is how to deal with the rising use of RSS aggregators that strip out banner ads. I suspect it won't be long before you start to see text-based ads, or ads incorporated within text.

Yep, I agree with Mark and have written loads about this. AdSense, even AdSense for feeds, doesn't work but for a select few. Darn shame.

For now. ;-).

thanks for the link. You ask if people are making significant money from Adsense - I guess that depends on your definition of significant. I banked a five figure cheque yesterday for the month of May with Adsense (all from blogs), felt significant to me.

I did a poll on this at ProBlogger and found the %s of my readers who earned certain amounts per month:

33% earned under $30 per month
16% earned between $30 and $99 per month
11% earned between $100 and $499
9% earned between $500 and $999
4% earned between $1000 and $1499
2% earned between $1500 and $2499
4% earned between $2500 and $4999
3% earned between $5000 and $9999
1% earned over $10,000
13% do not use Adsense
4% did not wish to disclose their earnings

So the majority are not earning much, but there are a growing number who are doing reasonably well from it.

Poll is at - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/03/31/bloggers-adsense-earnings-poll-results/

I'm considering adding AdSense to my link partner page at http://www.abbutah.com/business-opportunity-classifieds.html not for the ad revenue but to get Googles Webot to stop by more often.

If you run adsense the lowest payment you'll see is $0.03. Asuming the publisher is paying the minimum $0.05 a click that works out to 60%.

There are lots of tips you can do to improve CTR such as play with formats, placement, and color combinations. For sites with repeat traffic placement is key, you need to incorporate randomness to keep users from developing banner blindness.

The bigger question is "is the blog format compatible with Adsense?". Obviously, you are not going to make money if the blog format and adsense are not compatible.

This may sound silly but, one of the basic requirements for getting targeted ads with Adsense is to have stable/fixed urls. And, with the popular blog software most of the A-list bloggers are using, a large percentage of their text has changing urls. For example, the text that flows from "page 1" to "page 2" to "page 3" etc. on blogs have changing urls. The information I've been given is that it takes only minutes to get targeted ads, but it can take days for the ads to adjust to new text at a certain url on our site.

What is the meaning of Epcm in GoogleAdsense.
How to calculate that?

I dont think anybody just makes money instantly overnight. You're using a service Google developed for their profit mainly, and trying to make a living off it. Making a living requires a lot of hard work. When youre trying to generate income in this manner, you have to re-work ideas, research and find what works. Simply creating a blog and sticking Adsense on it, won't get it done. I guess its the same notion as starting your own company, it won't be successful overnight and takes planning and alot of effort.

I have a blog dedicated to basketball: http://loveandbasketball2.blogspot.com

I find that viewers are interested in the content. Then maybe an ad related to the subject is something they would want to check out. Traffic is a major part of making it in the "Adsense game", its not simply a set it up and get millions deal.

I own 5 sites and a blog and have been using adsense on all but one of them for about a week now and the earnings although not huge are still earnings. I look at it like it's money for nothing. Why wouldn't someone want money for doing absolutely nothing? It's a no-brainer to me!

I continue to consider adsense for our site http://www.alpinebusinessbrokers.com, but am concerned that we will look like an ad site, instead of a business brokerage site.

`Why wouldn't someone want money for doing absolutely nothing? It's a no-brainer to me`

I tend to not use it because I can do the exact same thing and make 10 to 100 times more with the same click. Instead of making a connection with google; make the connection with the website which hires google. Very simple. For example, on one of my websites I promote a couple dating websites; my average PPC is over $6.80