March 11, 2005
Google AdSense: Is your brand profiting from the program, too?
There's a good article today over in USA Today on bloggers making piles and piles of money with Google's AdSense. (Which, in reality, is really saying the Google is making even more money, since AdSense participants only receive a percentage of the ad revenue the program generates.)To hear them pitch it, blogging is the new dotcom bubble. We're all going to be rich. Hooray! With apologies to the Replacements and Paul Westerberg, I can't hardly wait. What's that? Wait a second. You need a ton of traffic to make it work? You need relevant content? What the...?
This is no get-rich-quick scheme. Phooey.
And while the Google AdSense targeting may work well, it's not perfect. And it's not for all bloggers. You see, the way AdSense was developed, it tends to help sites with focused content. So, people like me, who blog about completely random subject matter (one day I could be talking about Martin Lindstrom and one day I could be talking about Star Trek) will get completely random ads that aren't necessarily targeted to my reader base. While everything I write has a marketing bent, it's not consistent in terms of subject matter.
For AdSense to be truly effective, and here comes the marketing part for today, the content -- blog and ads -- needs to be relevant for both you and your readers. Relevant for you in that it's driving enough income to necessitate your dedicating Web site real estate to the advertisements. Relevant enough to your brand that what is advertised actually augments your blog content, and the service of providing convenient access to additional information is valuable to your readers. And relevant enough for your audience that they are actually going to click on the ads being presented to them. No clicks, no money. It's a cost-per-action model, not an impression-based one.
Do I seriously think that people looking for Star Trek paraphernalia are going to be reading my blog? Maybe as a side effect, but not as a direct course of action. (Well, and I take that back, because as of this posting, no one is even advertising on those terms.) And better yet, do I want those kinds of ads appearing on my site? As I've said before, who advertises with you and the way they advertise with you contributes as much to your brand as the content you create. Remember, your brand is articulated in the recipient's brain. And all the things that you offer up to that brain say something about you. Think about it.
So can you make money on AdSense? Absolutely, if you have a focused blog, with specifically relevant content for advertisers. And if you don't mind the ads being associated with your blog and its brand, or even better, if those ads accentuate your brand and add credibility to your stance. Sure you can make money. But I wouldn't quit your day job.
Have you had a good experience with Google AdSense, blog-based or otherwise? Enlighten me with a comment or two. And when you're rich, please return and brag about it.
Google AdSense: Is your brand profiting from the program, too?
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