How To Make More Money With Google Ads

Published

September 20, 2021

A well-executed Google AdSense campaign can make this tool one of many revenue streams of your business. However, to make more money with Google Ads, you will need more than just basic knowledge. If you want to learn how to make Google AdSense work for you, we will give you some tips to increase your expertise.

How To Make More Money With Google Ads

If you own a website, you’re probably already familiar with Google AdSense. In fact you may be using it right now as one of many revenue streams, but chances are it’s not the main thing that’s keeping your site afloat. Google Adsense can be a tricky tool to master, but if you’d like to know how to really make money using it, we’ve got you covered.

When Should You Use Google AdSense

One setback of using Google AdSense is that the service relies on heavy traffic before it begins to pay out in a way that makes it worthwhile. This means that newer sites that are still focused on building traffic won't see the returns they are hoping for until they achieve a higher clickthrough rate (CTR). A CTR of 1% to 2% is considered good, but as you can probably guess, this works differently for smaller sites than it does for the larger ones. For example if your website or blog only has 100 daily visitors, a clickthrough rate of one percent can still result in extremely low returns from Google AdSense than a site with 1,000 or 100,000 daily visitors.

In short, Google AdSense is a tool that is far more useful for established blogs and websites, rather than a revenue stream or source of startup funding for those who have just launched their site.

Google AdSense For Website and Blog Publishers

If you plan to start a website with Google AdSense as one of it’s main revenue streams, you may want to re-consider the type of website or blog you want to launch and look into which topics receive the highest returns.

Match Your Content To The Ads

When it comes to Cost-Per-Click tools like this, your choices are often restricted to what users are looking for and what they are willing to click on. This means that you’ll have to craft your blog or website to flow seamlessly with the ads and may have to tweak your content to get the desired results. It’s all about knowing your audience and providing exactly what they want to ensure the highest CTR possible.

When you essentially create a loop between the content of your ads and the content on your website the ads can flow more seamlessly with your content rather than interrupting users with messages they don't want to see for products they aren't looking for.

Create More Content

Another thing you’ll need in order to make Google Adsense work for you is content, content, content. Larger websites and blogs perform far better because there is more content for users to engage with and more opportunities to get eyes on the ads. This is why it’s recommended to have at least 20 to 30 pages available on your site to help Google AdSense do its thing effectively.

When you create more engaging content, users will spend more time on your site and offer the potential for higher CTR. In fact, better quality content could be a more effective way to achieve a higher CTR and higher returns from Google AdSense than just saturating your site in ads. After all, your users don’t want to feel bombarded with ads. If they are visiting your website or blog it’s because they are interested in the content you have to offer and content that keeps them interested will draw them to the ads.

Optimize AdSense Periodically

When using Google AdSense, it’s important to experiment in order to find out what works for your site or blog. This means giving the ads a couple of weeks to work. Users need time to engage with the ads and you need time to collect enough data to confirm whether each ad type is driving enough traffic to be worthwhile. 

It’s also important to make changes incrementally. Any number of things could affect the success of an ad, from the placement of the ads on the page to increase visibility, to the colour of the ads which may clash with the colour scheme of your site and make the ad look out of place.

However, making too many changes too quickly can make it difficult to determine why a particular ad type is not working. Some things to consider could be changing the size of your ads so they are not too intrusive or too easy to miss. Running sticky ads that scroll with the page and remain in the user’s view. Hardcoding or using AdSense as backfill to help your ads compete more intuitively with ads on other sites.

Person analyzing web traffic with Google Ads

Google AdSense For Advertisers

As with publishers, Google AdSesne for advertisers is all about traffic, but those looking to use the service to advertise their products will find that it’s a far more useful tool. That’s because, as an advertiser, your ads can appear on several sites at the same time, making Google AdSense a way to drive traffic to your site rather than relying on your own site’s traffic to drive views to the ads.

Match Keywords To What Users Are Searching For

Firstly, as Google is primarily a search engine, everything is about keywords. Keywords are the direct link between your ads and what users are looking for when they’re browsing. This means that the most effective ads are the ones that can accurately predict the keywords users are typing in when they are looking for your products. 

In order to do this you’ll have to familiarize yourself with the different kinds of keywords. Here is a list to help you identify the types of matches you’ll be looking to make.

  • Exact Match: this is the main way Google will match your keywords and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Google will match words that are contained in your ad with words that are typed into their search engine, so if your advertising a french press and coffee lovers type those exact words in, your ad will likely appear. Of course, Google also makes accommodations for things like misspelled words.
  • Phrase Match: this method is similar to exact match, except that it targets phrases over keywords. This means that users have to search for a phrase that matches with one included in your ad exactly. For example “stainless steel french press.” 
  • Broad: As the name suggests, this is the broadest option available. It catches all keywords related to yours and other ads including similar words, misspelled, misused and misphrased keywords.
  • Modified Broad Match: This option is a little more refined than broad match. It allows you to narrow down certain keywords within a broader category while still catching similar phrases and words.

Provide Complete Backend Information

When creating your Google ad there are a variety of fields to fill out in the backend. While it’s possible to leave a few of these blank and still launch an ad, the most effective way to ensure that users engage with your ad is to provide as much information as possible.

Note that it’s not just about the URL that the users land on when they click through or the main headline of the ad. Secondary headlines provide context that the user may be interested in. Clear and concise descriptions and path fields that make use of the proper keywords can ensure that your ad is the one that’s shown when a user searches for those keywords when browsing.

Use Negative Keywords

This is a rather simple way to optimize your use of Google Adsense. Just as you can tell Google what keywords to flag when users are browsing, you can also identify phrases and keywords to exclude.

These are known as negative keywords. They let the search engine know what your product is not and keep your ads from appearing in searchers where it may be totally irrelevant.

Use the Geotargeting Feature for AdSense

One of the most useful features Google AdSense allows you to use is its geotargeting. Essentially, Google allows your ads to be shown wherever you would like them to be shown and excluded elsewhere.

While it may seem like showing your ad to as many users as possible in as many places as possible is the best way to get your product out there, that is not always true of all products. For example, if you sell winter sports gear or alternatively summer sports gear, the relevance of your ads depends entirely on what season it is. This means that you may even want to change your geotargeting over time, advertising in the northern hemisphere one season and in the southern hemisphere the next. In this way, targeting your ads based on geographic location can help you find your customers more effectively.

Match Your Landing Page With The Ads

As an advertiser, it’s important to remember that the ads are only an invitation. They are the beginning of the sales process. When someone clicks through on an ad the next step is to greet them at the door and follow through with the sale.

It may seem like a no brainer, but it’s no less important to remember to keep your website updated to match your ads. The landing page is the first thing your potential customers see when they click through and so it should be easy to navigate and guide users toward the product.

Some simple steps you can take are to match your ad copy with the content on the landing page, using the consistent keywords and repeating the key points of the ad that brought users to you site in the first place.

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