How much does Google Adsense pay? This is a very popular question among bloggers (especially beginners), and I will explain below why. Adsense is a medium for some to achieve a better quality of life by increasing their income; for others, it’s a total waste of time.
I have been using Adsense for almost 10 years now, and I am happy to say that I managed to stay in the first group after much effort and hard work. What I can tell you for sure is that Adsense is indeed a great way to make money online. What I cannot give you is a precise figure on how much money you can make with Adsense, and this is because many factors play a role.
Let’s take it step by step so you will understand what I mean better.
How do you make money with Adsense?
What does it take to make money with Adsense? If you research this on Google, you will find a lot of different answers, but in reality, you need 3 things:
An Adsense complaint website is a website or blog that meets Adsense guidelines. Adsense has policies related to website content, copyright laws, ad placement, traffic sources, and more. To make a career as an Adsense publisher, you must ensure that you will never violate these rules.
A website with a lot of high-quality content – Besides being compliant with Adsense policies, you need to have a lot of content published on your website. Although content can mean several things (videos, images, etc.), you need original and unique TEXT content (blog posts, articles, how-to guides). Of course, with the text, you can have images and videos, but text has to be the main part of the website.
A lot of traffic—To make serious money with Adsense, you need a lot of traffic. I think Adsense is unsuitable for websites that only receive a few hundred visits per day. You can still run Adsense if you meet the other two guidelines, but you should not expect to make a living out of it.
So, if you want to become a ‘professional’ AdSense publisher, you need a good website, a lot of original content, and many daily visitors. If all these are true, how much money will you make from Adsense?
Hint: Read my 10 Adsense tips for maximizing your revenue.
What factors affect how much you will make from Adsense?
For every click a user makes on an Adsense Ad, Google will pay you a certain amount (from a few cents to a few dollars). So, the amount of money you will make from AdSense depends on the number of clicks your ads receive.
How big that amount will be depends on the following factors:
Volume of traffic – Obviously, the more people visit a website, the more likely someone will click on one of the Adsense ads.
Type of traffic – This is equally important as the volume of traffic. When you have an AdSense website, you don’t just need any traffic; you need targeted traffic, i.e., people looking to buy something or solve a problem, and they come to your website for help. These people are likelier to click on a related Adsense ad than those who visit your website to read the latest news or hang out in your forums.
Type of Website – This is related to the above as the type of website makes a big difference in the amount of money you can make from Adsense. For example, a website with funny videos will make less from Adsense than a website with in-depth articles.
The reason is that people will visit the website, view the different videos, and then leave since they are not looking to solve a problem or buy something.
On the other hand, people visiting the in-depth articles website are likelier to click a related ad after they read an article that helps them understand a concept, make a decision, or solve a problem.
Ad placements – The type and location of ads are also important. Ads in the page’s main content get more page views and have a higher CTR (click-through rate) than ads in the sidebar.
IMPORTANT: While the ad position is important, you should not take risks to achieve a higher CTR. When placing your Adsense ads on your website, make sure that you read and follow the guidelines for ad placement given by Adsense. Also, keep in mind that Google is punishing websites that have ‘too many ads above the fold’.
In other words, you can have ads above the fold and earn more, but at the same time, you should avoid exaggerations. One AdSense unit in a similar way, as shown below, is enough.
From experience, one of the best positions to place an AdSense ad in content-rich websites is at the end of an article or blog post to get a good CTR and revenue without violating any guidelines.
Competition – The ads shown by the Adsense system come from Google Adwords. Advertisers using PPC campaigns to promote their products or services pay Google money every time someone clicks on their ads. Out of that money, Google keeps a percentage (around 40%), and the rest is paid to the publisher.
Now, the amount of money PPC advertisers pay for each click depends on several factors, one being competition. The higher the demand for advertising for a particular keyword, the higher the CPC and the higher the publisher’s earnings.
So, if your website topics are based on popular and high-competition keywords, you have a better chance of making more from Adsense than a website with general content that people like to read but do not search for on Google.
This is also why niche websites perform better in Adsense (if they have a lot of traffic and content) than websites of general interest.
Final thoughts and advice
To make real money from AdSense, make sure that:
You don’t ever violate any of their guidelines.
You create a website with lots of original and unique content.
Concentrate on getting organic traffic to the website since it converts better than any other type of traffic (regarding AdSense).
Your content should be mainly text and provide a solution to a problem or advice (how-to articles).
Position your ads above the fold and where people can see them (the best places are in the main content).
Use big-size ads without overdoing it.
Follow the above suggestions, sooner or later. You will be able to answer the question “How much does Google AdSense pay?” and also understand whether AdSense is the medium that will improve your quality of life.
