Yes, but if you want to make really good money with Google AdSense, you either have to have a ton of traffic or you have to be in a unique niche in which advertisers will pay a lot for clicks on their ads.
Google AdSense with niche sites
Finding those unique niches takes a bit of keyword research and usually doesn't happen by accident. There are many people in the business of hunting for these high-paying niches, creating websites strictly for the purpose of capitalizing on valuable keywords and making a lot of money in the process. If you want to see a real life example of building a site like this, check out Pat Flynn's very interesting series, Niche Site Duel.
There are tools to help you find great keywords. A free and popular tool for keyword research is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Court gave an overview of how to use it at the end of the video in this post.
A more robust tool for keyword research is Market Samurai. If you want to see how it works, check out their very informative tutorial videos.
Google AdSense with high traffic
For those of us blogging in niches without valuable keywords, high traffic is the key to making good money with AdSense. I know plenty of bloggers making hundreds (and in many cases thousands) of dollars every month with AdSense.
In my case, as of this writing I don't have my main AdSense ads up (I'm always experimenting you know). However, before I took them down, I was making several hundred dollars a month. My highest AdSense payout was $640.89 (April 2012). Otherwise my monthly payments in 2012 have hovered in the $400 range.
But that's just peanuts compared to many.
I recently bought Laurie Turk's online course called Mom Blog to Money Blog. Laurie gets 7 million pageviews a month on her craft blog (TipJunkie.com) and makes over $12,000 a month from Google AdSense alone.*
Another excellent (and free) resource to learn the ins and outs of Google AdSense is TentBlogger's A Blogger’s Guide to Earning More with Google Adsense series. If you're interested in getting more details about AdSense, this is a great place to start. Free is always nice.
Takeaways
There are no magic bullets. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another and vice versa. There are no guaranteed, across-the-board results either.
Google AdSense works well for some and not so well for others. It really depends.
If you're just starting to monetize your blog, I still think the best way to figure out what might work for you is to look at well-established bloggers in your niche and take note of the monetization methods they use. Start there.
But don't limit yourself either. Always experiment. Don't be afraid to try new things. And aim for a diverse number of income streams.
*If you're interested in Mom Blog to Money Blog, I definitely recommend you start a website first (I will shamelessly plug my How to Start a Blog series here) and only consider taking her course once you gain some good traction. Her course is definitely more suited to someone who has been blogging for a while and has a solid understanding of blogging basics. I believe the coupon code MONEY will still give you a 10% discount. Remember, she's been blogging since 2007 so she's been at it a while. Also, 7 million pageviews a month would be really, really hard to duplicate for the vast majority of us so our results are likely to vary drastically.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Other posts in this series
- Q&A: How Do I Get Started Making Money as a New Blogger?
- Q&A: How Do I Network Effectively to Help Gain Name Awareness and Visitors?
- Q&A: Can You Really Make Money with Google AdSense?
Hi Amy – isn't it great to hear about earnings of $12K, but very very rare for die-hard bloggers, the traffic is unreal to get that kinda traffic, I wonder if she's doing paid advertising to get that kinda traffic too, perhaps out of $12K, she's spending $6K, it's a really tricky business…
Kate
What I liked about AdSense is that it is very simple to sign up for, and use, so if you are new at blogging, you can have it up and on your site in minutes, and get your readers (even if at that point they are just family) use to seeing ad's on your site. It might not be a great income earner for those just starting out but I am noticing that every month I earn just a bit more than the last month as my numbers are increasing.
Great article, Amy! As usual.
We make a pretty good income with Adsense….I'm thankful that it's around, because I do better with it than advertisers.
Have you considered doing some posts on how to get bloggers to find advertisers for their site? How to find sponsors, etc.?
Hi, Amy,
Can I ask why you don't have them up now and what your page views were like when you were in the 400.00 a month range?
It's o.k. if you don't want to share!
Oh, I'm doing a super secret, highly unscientific experiment. Not really, I just decided to take them down while I concentrate on some of my other income streams. Mostly I'm just addicted to tweaking things.
My pageviews were right around 100,000 a month.
Hi Amy! When you say your page views were 100,000 per month was that unique viewers or total views? Actually separate question, the difference between unique views and total viewers is unique views is separate views from different ip addresses correct? Total viewers may be the same viewer clicking on different posts from the same ip address? Am I understanding that correctly?
That was pageviews per month. Yes, you have the second part correct.
Amy, thanks for pointing us to these resources. I looked at the niche site duel and realized that my niche, while I enjoy it as a hobby and would like to grow my readership is not going to make a ton of money. I get 10x the visitors on my site that the one security guard training one does yet make about 1/2 on Adsense that he did.. It's obvious there are really two types of blogs for making money. Cold calculated niche sites that can make you a few hundred bucks and if you have 20 of them, you can make some decent money! Then there are the ones you are passionate about and pour way more time and energy into them hoping to make a few dollars. Thanks for showing us the way!
My big beef with Adsense is that it grossly undercounts page views/impressions. I mean to the point that the undercounting is ridiculous. I took my Adsense ads down, I am not going to give them free impressions because they aren't counting them. And I've been around a while, I exclude spiders and feeds from my numbers when I compare my stats to what Google reports. This seems to be a pretty widespread issue.
Thanks Amy for the info. It is always nice to hear about success stories. Looking forward to reading the Tentblogger series you recommended.
I guess I need to read more and understand keywords and Adsense better because I understood and see ads based on my recent online history and the ads I see are not related to the topic on my page. For instance, if I just paid bills I get banking ads or search for a hotel I see vacation/hotel ads. So, maybe I am doing something wrong ?
If I'm understanding you correctly, I don't think there's a problem. Google shows ads to you based on what it thinks you're interested in, thus the banking ads after you've done banking. For someone else, it might be different.
I recently switched just the placement of my adsense ads, and couldn't get over the difference in adsense income with only a small increase in traffic. I hated they way they looked (which is why I didn't switch them sooner), but when my adsense income literally quadrupled the first month I moved them, I decided I could get over the way they looked!
It definitely helps to experiment, and now I'm kicking for not moving them around sooner.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Laurie! Awesome!
Hey Amy, it's interesting you mentioned the Mom Blog to Money Blog program. Have you read/heart about Copy Blogger's Teaching Sells (teachingsells.com) program? Registration recently closed for the recent class, but I'm wondering if you've heard anything about it in the past. It's very pricey, but makes some big promises!
Yes, I have been receiving the free downloads and emails about Teaching Sells. I don't plan on signing up myself, but CopyBlogger has an excellent reputation and Brian and Sonia are great.
Hey Amy, I'm curious what your thoughts on Laurie Turk's program are a few months later? I bought it to help monetize an established niche site of mine and I had high hopes. I have to say I was kind of disappointed in the overall quality (the videos and printables were very, very blurry), the quality of the "tips," and the overall presentation/navigation of the material (the interface and all the new windows opening for every link [one of her tips for whatever reason]). Also, I emailed a question about a broken link over a month ago and I never received a response. How'd it work for you a few months later?
I appreciated her insight as an AdSense user and learned some great insights regarding her blogging model. I don't use AdSense myself very much, so I didn't feel it directly applied to my situation so much but I know there are a lot of bloggers using this model that have really benefitted.
I went back and looked at Tip Junkie's site. I used to peruse her site well before I even thought about blogging. It is great. What I find interesting though, is I can go to her site and block out the ads and focus on the content and it doesn't bother me at all, but when I consider putting ads like that up on my own site, I feel like it would look horrible or it would be shouting I'm more about the ads than the content. I guess, I judge my own site more critically than I do others. Ha! Ha! With the views she has, clearly she can do pretty much what she wants and visitors will continue to visit. Also, when you did have your adsense ads up, I thought they blended beautifully with your site. Thanks for more food for thought.
I put google ads on one of my sites last March and my pay out this month will be $500 for the first time. I could kick myself for not doing it sooner but it never crossed my mind. I would never depend on Adsense for my entire income but it's a nice way to make some extra cash. It's now paying my hosting fees and any extra business expenses.
Awesome! Congrats, Janet.
Wow, that's crazy! I make about $5/month with about 10,000 pageviews a month.
I wish I could say the same. I tweaked my ad placements, and started making quite a bit more ($5 a month verse 10 cents). And then, out of the blue, I got an email from Google saying they were banning me from the program – and they would not give any further details when I inquired. It was really disappointing, because I know I wasn't doing anything illegal – and I took it personally that they said I was. I was very disappointed, but, I'm glad for those that can make it work!
Oh Kristen, I'm so sorry. I know for sure it's not just you–I've heard many bloggers who've had the very same experience. Did you try appealing? I've heard of people getting reinstated so I know it's possible. I'd google it and see if I could find any help from anyone who has gone through the process.
Indeed, I did appeal, but they said they could not disclose any information about why I was being banned. It was awhile ago, when I was still new at blogging, so I didn't know enough about finding the statistics to back my appeal. I'm hopeful that with the new Google announcement of changes to adsense that perhaps I can try again. Although, now I'm a little cautious to try…
My biggest problem with Adsense is that you can end up with ads that disagree with your values. For instance, I've seen dog blogs dedicated to animal rescue with internet puppy sales ads that support puppy mills.
I know that my first home buyer blog has lots of advertising possibilities. But the last thing I want to see are ads for predatory lenders who violate the fair and responsible practices I'm promoting.
Adsense can be fast and easy. But I prefer to keep control over any message appearing on my blogs.
Yes, very true, although you can block specific URLs and you can allow and block ads on the Allow & block ads tab as well.
I got banned from Google Adsense, and tried so many services that paid so low
but I came across a site that pays me well, and it shows adsense ads as well. The service is serious and trustworthy, I got paid by them for a long time now. And another thing that I like from this service is that when you have doubts, you can email them and they answer you! UNLIKE other sites that I don't want to mention here…. I'm happy with this service now. You may want to try the service, just follow this link: http://goo.gl/rkjGA
thanks alot for your informative tips. well, i was getting good payment via adbrite. the adbrite is close. now i have to concentrate again on chitika and google adsense.
Hi Amy,
Do you know anything about how Google crawls a web site and determines that you have copyright material? They've rejected my site, "Copyrighted material: We've found that your website contains copyrighted material." I am an affiliate selling some books and I host some link parties – is that what they are talking about?
Thanks for your help!
Monica
I think it could be a whole lot of things, but I would google "how to get accepted to Google Adsense" or something similar and see what tips you can find. I know I've seen articles written about getting accepted after being rejected so you might google something of that nature as well.
I found that if you have a number of blogs or websites you stand a better chance with adsense earnings. When starting a blog or site with adsense it is very important to do your keyword research to find out the amount of visitors and competition, it's hard to get to the top.
Big help!
Nice article, Adsense is hard for me,,, I did everything and still nada…
If it helps at all, I've all but ditched AdSense myself at this point.
There are a lot of good tips there relating to Adsense.
I think it is well worth a try once you have some traffic coming in.
The only thing I find difficult is the ad placement. On my other websites I can place
the AdSense code anywhere, but with blogs I am restricted to side bars and under text
and I find the clickthrough rate is lower, whereas on my other websites I could merge the AdSense code in so that it looked like normal text and I could receive really high click throughs and higher earnings.
I am still creating niche sites and making some money.
There is definitely scope for good earnings.
a lot of sites dropped of the map when Google updated last year.
That means there is a little less competition.
I think that next year will be a better year than this year for adsense.
especially when Google see's how much their Adsense revenue must of dropped since penguin and panda updates.
I am now creating sites that are based around local business's.
I am able to sell them on to a business if I feel the adsense income is to low.
most business's will buy if the price is right and they are getting hits.
Great blog