Making the decision to 'go commercial' with your blog is a big one. One of the most common dilemmas for educationalists, is 'Will it be worth the money?' This quick tutorial will show you how to add Google AdSense to your blog and should give you some idea of how much money it will help you to make.
How to add Google AdSense
- Inserting AdSense advertisements to blogs made with blogger is very simple. Just log im and go to your blogger dashboard. Here you should see a 'Monetize' link.
Clicking a the link will take you to a page where you can choose where the ads are inserted into your blog.
You can change and customize these later so don't worry too much about which you choose. Once you've made your choice click on 'Next'.
- This will take you to the part of the site where you create your AdSense account. This is quite a simple process.
You just need to add some information about your location and where you would like the payment sent to. You need to enter a physical address and your payments will be sent by cheque.
- Once you have created an account you will see your payment details and how much money your blog has generated each time you click on the 'Monetize' link on your blog.
- It could be a while before your account is approved and your earnings start to show.
Once your daily earnings start displaying you can click on 'AdSense Reports' link to find out more about your earnings and get more data.
So now the question that everyone asks.
How much money will Google AdSense make for you
This will vary enormously depending on the type of site you have and the kinds of marketing it can attract, but to use my own blogs as an example, I'm averaging around £0.50 per 1k page impressions. So to make £100 I'll need to get around 200k page impressions.
This of course isn't that great, but it is early days and this isn't the only way you can generate money from your blog.
How about you?
- Have you tried using Google AdSense on your blog?
- Have you tried other ad revenue generation?
- Do you think it is a worthwhile way to generate revenue?
6 comments:
Hi Nik,
I've used adsense on a couple of my blogs - and as you say, it's not going to make any serious money until you get pretty amazing visitation. Still, it's certainly better than nothing, and those daily cents/pense can help a lot in the longer run!
I removed ads from my main blog recently, because I was worried about sidebar over-clutter and looking too overtly commercial. I will probably re-add them later once I can find the right balance.
I use Typepad for my blogs, and I have to admit - adding Adsense units is considerably more complicated than it looks to be with blogger (as per your instructions and examples).
Cheers,
~ Jason
Hi Jason
Thanks for the comments. Yes the commercial bit really worries me too, but it's partly experiment for me on my blogs and partly a feeling that in the long term they have to bring me some kind of income to be sustainable.
Using Blogger does make so many things easier, like AdSense integration. I'm certainly on the side of keeping things simple.
Thanks again
Nik
Hi Nik,
I think edubloggers should not monetize their blogs as this gives them the sense of being sold out. But, then again, one should benefit from the time allocated in posting. For instance, you maintain three blogs for language learners, ESL/EFL teacher, and for social media. These take valuable time to post, design... so it is better to at least gain some from this time.
On a side note, there are other monetization models than Google adsense. The link http://www.deitel.com/eBook/Web20MonetizationModels/tabid/2497/Default.aspx#Raa59178 might give you or anyone out there links to these web 2.0 monetization models.
I have just started two new blogs. Currently they are not taking a lot of time to maintain since they are still new and I am just experimenting, but later when I have more traffic, more comments to reply, and more content to display, I might think of monetizing my blog just to compensate for the time allocated.
Ammar
I think there's a bit of a difference between featuring some ads on your blog and "monetizing" or "selling out". One ad bar somewhere is not going to disrupt the overall look and feel of a blog, but several may. I think it's important for bloggers to also realise that three ad bars is probably not going to make you any more income (in real terms) than just one, but it will hurt the look and feel of your overall content.
My opinion - go ahead and feature some ads somewhere, but show some restraint!
~ Jason
Quick additional link here... I've written a post on my own blog about why I click on the ads on other teachers' blogs and websites:
http://3.ly/7Go
I think one ad bar won't hurt the reputation and look of a blog. Besides, the time and hard work spent maintaining blogs and sites is worth monetization. I think I am going to insert adsense in my blog and website. Thank you for your tips Nik :)
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