So I am setting up adsense for the first time. Adsense is google’s program to allow folks with websites to embed ads on the page and get paid for clicks from that page. The content of the page typically delivers ad results from a particular category, in this case presumably real estate.
I am not sure how many real estate professionals would actually take this step, but I am curious to try it since it is a very popular program. More importantly for my purposes is the fact that it is of course the reverse of adwords, which I spend a good deal of time working with, and so do many of the professionals I interact with.
So, in a nutshell; if you want to be able to display advertisements (the same ads you see on the top and right side of google search results) and get paid for doing so on your website, you can sign up for adsense for free.
It took me about 20 minutes total, over the course of a two day period. To start, simply go here and either sign in with your existing google based account, or click ’sign up’ if you have no gmail or other google account. You will read some legalese (sorry, didn’t include that in the 20 minutes), and then move on to complete your account.
You will complete a brief form about yourself, and also a brief form about your web presence. You can use adsense on as many of your websites as you want once the account is approved, so don’t fret too much about what initial url you submit.
After that brief interaction you will need to wait for your account submission to be reviewed. For me the turnaround time was from Sunday 5pm submission to Monday 10am approval, so about 16 hours. After that it is simply a matter of logging into the new service and getting running. After about 5 minutes you can have a customized google search on your site that also potentially generates revenue for you. Another 5 minutes and you can start embedding ads of your choice of size and complection.
For me this is actually where it gets a little interesting. Are wider banners more effective than taller ones? What color combinations will outperform others? By setting up channels of ads, with different parameters, you can easily parse out your various efforts and get that coveted feedback. For me this is the treasure trove. The ability to learn a little more about how to effectively modulate ads to get the click is invaluable.
So you make some quick selections about what height and width, color scheme and other visual elements that the ad should conform to. You can of course easily modify these parameters going forward, without having to embed the code on your webpage(s) again. Sample ads are visible here.
Once you have selected an ads parameters, you submit the ad and get the code to embed on your webpage(s). I won’t clutter up this site with an ad, but we have all seen them. If you are a practitioner who does a lot of work online, you may want to give it a shot on one of your sites. Blogs in particular would appear to be a good target to match ads to content.
That’s about it. Create and play, and potentially make revenue doing so. As a product I am quite impressed with the ease of use of adsense. I give it an A-. I look forward to seeing some more advanced functionality like the ability to clone and modify ad units.
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