How to Monetize Your Free Website

For some time now I have been aggressively marketing my Geocities
website without the prospect of any financial return. The site
is content based so I did not expect to generate any product
sales and neither was I able to lure potential sponsors.

But that has quietly changed. Google has decided to reward
webmasters with quality free websites the chance to rake in some
cash for their hard work.

Google’s contextual advertising program Adsense has been around
since June 2003. Back then the program was open only to
webmasters with their own domain names and many quickly took up
the opportunity to cash in on their labor of love sites.

When the Big G announced that they were expanding Adsense to
accommodate free sites, some people scoffed at the idea because
they believe that freebie sites are full of junk.

I first learnt of this move while browsing around a few webmaster
forums and to my surprise some persons were against this move by
Google. I believe that Google’s intention is to bring in as much
as possible quality websites under the Adsense umbrella.

My first application for Adsense was rejected and I got an
explanation stating that my site was still under construction. I
thought that this was a mistake so I reapplied the same day and
got accepted. Right away I was able to log in to my account and
start putting the code for the ads on my pages.

The control panel is easy to understand and Google provides stats
and figures in order for you to track your performance. You can
also add Adsense for search where visitors can search the web or
your site and you get compensated everytime someone clicks on the
ads displayed.

Developing content sites is key to success in Adsense. Why?
Because Google’s technology uses the content of each page to
guess which ads are most suitable. The higher the quality of the
content, the higher quality and paying ads you will attract.

Please note that getting accepted into Adsense does not guarantee
that you will receive a check from them. Your success depends on
many factors.

Some of them include the number of visitors, the placement of the
ads, the value of the keywords on the page where the ads are
shown and how many persons who will clickthru on the Adsense ad
panel.

For those with unscrupulous minds, Google has ways and means to
find out where each ad click is originating from. Therefore no
click spamming.

Adsense is a win-win situation for all the players involved. It
benefits the visitors with additional information, the search
engines because of higher quality websites and you with a check
every month.

It makes perfect sense to make dollars with
Adsense. With this source of revenue, you can upgraded your
website and take it to it’s full potential.