If you have ever browsed the Internet, you must have come across Adsense ads.

Before Adsense (and similar solutions) came around, the advertisements in a website were very simple.

However, Google came across a very clever solution: you add Adsense ads to your website, then their code will find out what your website is about, and display relevant results.

Let’s say your website is about babies: then all ads will be about babies, so, they are relevant to their readers.

The way it works is advertisers place a bid (ie, they are willing to pay a max of $1 per click). The top bidder wins, and their ad is shown (this is a bit of an oversimplification, as there are also other factors, like CTR [click through rate], relevance, etc).

Then you, as a publisher, are paid a % of that price (in 2010 they revealed that the amount you get to keep is 68%; the other 32% is for Google themselves to keep), every time a visitor clicks on an ad.

So, in exchange for giving the big G $32 for every $100 you make, you get access to the highest amount of advertisers posible, which is always a good thing. And you don’t have to worry about finding advertisers, negotiating deals, etc.

Just sign up to Adsense, grab their code, put it on your website, and wait for their checks to arrive.

Some of the benefits of Google Adsense are:

• Easy to Implement on your website (just copy and paste)
• Huge number of advertisers (more than in any other network)
• Good profit per click

The cons:

• You have to comply to their rules (Google is known for closing Adsense accounts for no apparent reason)
• You have to share your earnings with Google

 

So, in order to maximize the profits with Adsense, before you build your website, you should aim for 2 things:

1. Get the highest possible amount of clicks on the ads.
2. Go into a niche with high CPC (Cost Per Click)

We’ll leave 1 for now, so let’s focus on number 2.

How do I know which niches / keywords pay the most?

Well, let me introduce you to your new friend, the Google Keyword Planner

You can use the Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas, and also to get an estimate of how much you are going to receive per click.