Adsense.

If you’re wondering why it’s taken me this long to get around to that hugely popular money-spinning program called adsense, there is a very good reason.

I don’t like it.

That might be end of post, but that would be a bit unfair of me, because lots of people make a good deal of money from adsense. So I’ll cover adsense in brief, because there’s so much information about it on the internet that I would just be spewing out what you probably already know anyway.

Adsense is a publisher’s perk because technically, all you need is a blog with some content on it and a decent readership and by placing some strategically placed text ads from Google the chances are some of those readers are going to click on the ads and you will make anything from a few cents per click to… well probably a few more cents per click.

Unless you are really cute with your keywords, and are up-to-the-minute on top of the current big payers, that’s about all you should expect from adsense.

Sure, there are lots of so-called gurus out there that will promise that if you pay them a fortune to get in on their adsense secrets they’ll show you how to make one or two dollars per click. But a lot of the research and hard work will still be yours, as those big paying keywords change practically day to day.

To top it all, not only do you have to be right there at the sharp end of the keyword merry-go-round, but you also have to have a sizeable readership in the first place or those precious ads are not going to get clicked on in the first place.

And woe betide any publisher who thinks he can trick the mighty Google by getting people he knows to click those ads for him. It doesn’t work because they will know what you’re doing and kick you out of the program, which means you’ll lose the $2.39 you’ve just spent the last three months accumulating (ok, I’m being a little sarcastic) but the worst of it is once they kick you out they won’t let you back.

I know from personal experience – I got the boot at the end of 2006 because enthusiastic friends decided to “help me out” and click my ads. I never got back into the program. Has something to do with why I don’t like adsense!

The other reason that I don’t like adsense (or any other contextual advertising for that matter) is that once someone clicks one of those links, that’s it.

They’re gone from your site.

So great, you just made two cents from the click but lost a potential customer who might have scrolled down your page a little further and saw your affiliate ad for a $97 ebook and bought it. You made two cents but lost $50 from Clickbank! It happens.

I’ll leave you with that thought, next time you’re spending hours tweaking and fine-tuning your page to get the absolute best possible placement for your adsense text ads, so people will want to click them straightaway…

Terry Didcott
MAKE MONEY