Making money with Adsense and Blogger

With so many “get rich quick” stories floating around online, it seems like more and more people are searching for ways to get their own piece of the action. After all, if other people are making money on the Internet, then it can’t be all that hard, can it? It is this line of thinking that has people from all around the world starting up blogs and hoping to make some fast cash.

Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sure, it’s not at all hard to sign up with Blogger and set up a free blog (this blog, Mr. Robertson's Corner, is a Blogger blog, and all I pay is $12 per year for the custom Web site address) – all you need to do is fill out a few forms and select the template you like best. The catch is, maintaining a blog is a lot of work and you’ll need an established blog before you can apply for a Google Adsense account. Google declines applications for blogs that do not contain enough quality content, so you want to avoid applying for the program too early.

To ensure that your blog is of high enough quality to be accepted into the Google Adsense program, you’ll need to find an interesting angle to your chosen topic and create many worthwhile posts about it. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication before you start to see a steady stream of visitors to your blog, so be prepared for the long haul. This is where your patience and writing skills are really going to come into play.

So, for example, the interesting angle of this blog, Mr. Robertson's Corner, is to serve as a helpful career and life skills resource for both high school and college undergraduate students. That's the niche I'm largely writing in here. I want to help students really get the most out of their classroom educations, hobbies and passions, first jobs, and volunteer and informal work experiences by showing them how to connect the dots between all of these facets and to "real world" skills and dispositions that will pay off - that can lead to meaningful employment and life's work. In short, I want to help students get a strong head start on life and work after their school years by supplementing their formal educations and informal learning experiences in the here and now.

This period between writing quality blog posts and waiting for the visitors to arrive is where most new bloggers ultimately give up. It can be discouraging to spend so much time adding interesting and informative content, only for it to sit there unread. Unfortunately, your first posts will likely go unseen until you have established yourself as a quality blogger.

That leaves us with the question, “How does a person establish themselves as a quality blogger?” Well, you can do this by continuing to add useful content to your blog and implementing various marketing strategies to bring in more visitors. As you add more posts and work on marketing your blog, your readership will gradually increase.

Once you have a steady stream of visitors and a substantial number of quality posts, it will be time to apply for a Google Adsense account. Luckily, this step couldn’t be simpler. With Blogger now owned by Google, you are encouraged to apply for an Adsense account from directly within the Blogger interface.

Once your application has been accepted, you will be able to select the size, shape, color, and location for the Adsense ads that will be displayed on your blog. Testing various combinations of ad types, colors, and locations will help you maximize your Adsense revenue potential.

As you can see, making money with Adsense and Blogger will require a lot of time and effort. Fortunately, if you are willing to add quality posts and market your blog, it can become a lucrative venture. Just be prepared to stick with it long term and wait until you have an established blog before applying for a Google Adsense account.