gatorpressure.com

Google Ads

Last night I got my e-mail from Google saying that my site was approved for their AdSense program. So, this morning I set about getting the rest of the stuff set up for it and making a place for them on my main page.

I thought that this would be an interesting way to make a little extra money, but so far I have no idea of how much money this will make. Most people I talk to are thinking that I will just make a few cents each month. This means that I won’t make anything at all, because you need to accumulate $100 before they even cut you a check. (I set my account up for direct deposit though… I shouldn’t make myself another reason to do work.)

The way this thing works is that I get paid some negligible amount for every 1,000 visits I get. I also get paid a different negligible amount for every time someone clicks on an ad. In theory, I would have lots of visitors to my site and a good percentage of those people would click on the ads to the right. Then I’d get some money deposited into my account every month. In actuality, I probably won’t see any money before the end of the decade — unless my site suddenly becomes very popular.

This is exactly why I set this up. In the unlikely event that my site does start to generate undue amounts of traffic, I will need to start paying for Internet hosting. This will make this site cost more than the yearly domain name registration. With Google’s ads in place I will be able to offset the need for more server capacity with the ability to generate the money to pay for it.

(OK, the truth is that I just wish I could get paid for doing all the things that I already do. You’re probably the same way, so don’t pass any hypocritical judgments my way.)

You may have noticed that these ads blend in well with my site. That makes me pretty happy. At first I was concerned that they would stand out too much. I was thinking that there would be a large white rectangle with black text. That wouldn’t look all that great with the grey-black/grey/purple thing that I have going on here. So far people seem to think that the ads are fairly “unobtrusive” and “barely noticeable.” I like the sound of that.

The next thing that I can add to the site is a Google search bar. This too can make me negligible amounts of money. It would work only if my visitors decided to search for something using google without first leaving my site. THEN they would have to click on an ad — I think. Maybe I’d get the impression rate for any search done. I don’t know. Help please?

Posted by David under Blogging |