ALL-NET – Tech & Webmaster blog

Using Google AdSense is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to monetize their blog. In addition to the ease of use, AdSense offers a reliable source of income to many.

AdSense takes the confusion out of blog monetization and allows bloggers to concentrate on writing quality content instead of worrying about making money.

Well, that’s the idea anyway.

Unfortunately most bloggers fail to earn a decent income from AdSense. Some bloggers end up waiting a year or two to reach the US100 threshold. Many more would never reach the $100 figure. As you may already know, AdSense publishers can only collect their check when it exceeds $100.

So what mystery is concealed behind blog monetization with AdSense that seems to prevent ordinary bloggers from earning decent income from it?

There’s no mystery. The following reasons might give you some ideas why your blog fail to make money from AdSense.

1. You Are In The Wrong Niche

If you write about your cat, or what you ate for breakfast this morning etc, you can’t expect to make a lot of money from AdSense, can you?

Personal blogs usually do not do well with AdSense simply because there’s no focus on any particular topic. On these pages, Google will show non-targeted ads which typical have low pay per click because of the poor conversion rate.

Traffic is also hard to come by, unless you are some kind of celebrity already or you know what you are talking about, it’s tough to build loyal followers to a personal blog.

While there’s nothing wrong writing about yourself, you’ll do better with AdSense if you write about a subject that your visitors want to read.

The subject you choose to write about determines the ad prices on your pages. Choose a specific niche and stick with it. However, do not select a niche simply because it’s popular or it has high earning potential. You’ll do better if your choice is based on your own interests or one that satisfies the need for such information.

Certain niches, such as the Internet marketing niche will likely generate lower click through rates because your marketing savvy audience knows what AdSense ads looks like and is less likely to click on your ads.

I wouldn’t recommend choosing a subject which is too narrowly focused. It may be easier to achieve top search engine rankings for less competitive terms and become the authority in that niche but if you plan to attract traffic from the organic search engines, it helps to cover a wider range of topics within a niche.

As an example, instead of focusing your subject on running shoes, try to widen your focus by including other sport shoes such as tennis shoes, running shoes, bowling shoes etc.

2. You Don’t Have Enough Content

You can’t expect to make money if your blog contains a few posts or you only post once or twice a month.

It’s important to maintain a consistent posting frequency in order to build up your content for the long run. The more pages you have, the better your chance to achieve top search rankings. This will draw in more traffic to your blog. Only when you have enough traffic can you expect to earn decent income from AdSense.

However, quantity is nothing without quality.

Google use something called �smart pricing� as one of the factors when determining your ad price

The most successful AdSense pages are those with high quality, original content. This will not only attract the search engine but also attract other sites or blogs to link to yours.

Quality content draws relevant ads on your pages. Quality content usually equals a good experience for the user and advertiser. At the end of the day, this helps to increase your ad price.

3. You�ve Got The Wrong Placement For Your Ads

Another reason why you do not make money from your AdSense ads is because you have placed your ads outside the hot spots. The hot spots are places where the users pay the most attention to.

You have to understand where to position your ads to optimize their earning potential. Placing your ads above the fold, or the middle near the content is the location that gets the most of the attention.

Google has written a guide here to help you optimize the ads on you blog.

But like everything else, you need to test to find what works best for you.

4. You Are Using the Wrong Ad Units

There are several ad and link units you can choose from. Each unit performs differently relative to your page design but in general the larger the ads the better it will perform.

Their best performing unit for according to Google is the large rectangle (336×280). Alternatively, you can go for the medium rectangle (300 x 250), Wide Skyscraper (160×600) etc. Click here to see all AdSense ads formats.

Then again, you need to test to find what works best for you. The best performing ad unit will not perform well on a site if it does not suit the page layout.

5. Nobody Is Reading Your Blog

You have your mom, your sister, your friend and your friend’s friend reading your blog and you wonder why you are not making money from AdSense.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. If you do everything right except getting traffic to your blog then you are already destined for failure.

Having a blog with the best content in the world means nothing if no one knows you even exist.

To get traffic, you need to promote and seek links to your blog. Blog promotion is a big topic. I’ve written an earlier post about getting traffic to you blog here.

It takes hard work and patience to build your blog for AdSense. Your success depends on how well you master each of the subjects above. It takes time to rise to the top and a steady and consistent effort will ensure your success isn’t a short term either.