what it is and how you can make money

In this guide I am going to show you what it is Google AdSensehow it works (both for the web and YouTube) and what the procedure is like until you can start generating income online.

Everything is based on my professional experience, after more than ten years monetizing websites and YouTube channels with AdSense, so I hope all this information is useful to you.

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense It is Google’s platform that connects advertisers with online publishers. That is, it allows companies to advertise on other people’s websites.

Therefore, it is a tool with which you can earn money with your website or YouTube channel.

How does Google AdSense work?

The advertising system with which AdSense works is programmatic advertising. This means that rotate ads from various advertisers automaticallythrough a bidding system.

The process is the following:

1. You insert blocks on your website where ads may appear.
2. Advertisers bid for appearing in said blocks of your website.
3. Those who pay the mostthey will appear in your blocks.
4. This process is constantly repeated, so they will rotate the advertised companies.
5. When someone clicks on the ad, you will earn money.

The best thing about all this is that it is an automatic method, that is, tYou do not have to contact any advertiser or process bids. You simply have to enable ad units on your website, and wait for the first advertisers to appear.

Every time a person clicks on an ad, you will earn money (usually a few cents). That amount is the result of what the advertiser has bid to appear on your website, subtracting the part that Google AdSense takes as an intermediary.

How much does Google AdSense pay?

Google AdSense will pay you for each click you receive on the ads, but lThe amount will depend on what an advertiser has bid to appear on your website.

Normally, these variables are taken into account when assessing the profitability of advertisements:

• What is the target country: As a general rule, if your users are from the United States, they will pay you much better per click than if you cover a Spanish audience. The same thing happens with Latin America: they are normally much worse paid than others.
• What topic do you cover: If the sector your website deals with has a good economy and good advertisers, that will have a positive impact on what you receive per click. For example, locksmith themes are usually very well paid, or pet themes (since there are many companies advertising for pets). However, others, such as information about plastic, may not be such a sought-after topic.
• The Google AdSense commission: you will take 68% of what the advertiser has bid for your website according to the AdSense revenue share. For example, if an advertiser has bid €1 per click, you would get €0.68 per click.
• Ad Visibility: Although it is important to have visitors to your website, it is even more important that they click on the ads, since otherwise, you will not receive income. So giving them good visibility is crucial to increasing the percentage of clicks towards them.

If you want an estimated figure, Revenue per click in Spain is usually around €0.02 – €0.3, although as we say, the amount can fluctuate depending on the niche and target audience. What we can assure you is that it is usually a few cents per click.

How to install Google AdSense to make money with your website?

The process to sign up for Google AdSense and insert your first ads is very simple. You just have to follow the following steps:

Sign up free

The first step is to register for free in Google AdSense as a publisher. That is, as the owner of a web page on which you want to place ads.

You will have to log in from your Google account, with a Gmail account.

Enter the verification code

To verify that you are the owner of the website, you must insert an HTML code in all the URLs where you want to show ads.

If it is going to be web-wide, you can include it after the code or before . In the case of using WordPress, you can find this code easily from the left side menu, in Appearance > Theme File Editor > header.php

Request approval of your website

Even if you have the code inserted correctly, ads will not be displayed if your website is not approved by AdSense. Therefore, It is important to pass the AdSense approval phase and that, unfortunately, in some cases is complicated.

Specifically, the most important thing to get your website approved for AdSense is that your website is accessible, with a good user experience, and that most of its content is of quality (better than what already exists on the Internet).

I advise you to visit your website as if you were not its creator, and see the design and content aspects that you could improve if it is not approved.

However, you can submit it for review again if it is rejected. I know people who have submitted it even more than 10 times, trying to get it approved!

Create ad units

Although AdSense has a automatic adswith which their artificial intelligence will place the ads for you on your website, in the locations that they consider most profitable, you you can choose exactly where to show the ads using ad units.

If you always want there to be an ad below the first paragraph, or in the sidebar, etc. You can create an ad unit for each location, and this way you will ensure that ads will appear wherever you insert the block code.

In the event that you want to optimize these ad units to the maximum and maximize income, we recommend the AdSense course by Bruno Ramos, the largest Spanish-speaking reference in this field, with more than 4 hours of advanced training and lifetime access.

Top metrics

We know that if it is your first time using AdSense you may feel overwhelmed by the number of terms and metrics that can be measured within the platform.

Therefore, I am going to summarize the most important metrics to measure the performance and effectiveness of your AdSense ads:

• CPC (cost per click): It is the average profit you are receiving for each click on your ads. The higher the CPC, the more advertisers are paying, and the greater the possibility of generating greater income with your website. Here different factors are taken into account such as the theme, target country or location.
• CTR (Click Through Rate): is the percentage of clicks that your ads receive. The calculation is very simple: if out of 100 visits you have received, only 1 person clicks on your ads, you will have a CTR of 1%. Your goal should be to improve this figure by giving visibility to the ads so that more users click on them.
• CPM (Cost per thousand impressions): This metric tells you how much you are earning on average per thousand visits, taking into account how many people click on the ads of all those who see you and how much you generate per click. Although it is important, it is not the one we take into account the most in our analyses.
• RPM (Return per thousand impressions): This metric is the most important of all. It refers to income per thousand impressions or visits. Knowing this information is especially relevant because a website with a high RPM is more profitable than one with a low RPM, since it measures the profitability of average visits.

How does Google AdSense for YouTube work?

So far we have talked about making money with Google AdSense on web pages, but did you know that YouTube ads also work with Google AdSense? Those that are sometimes so annoying and that appear before playing a video, in the middle or at the end.

Furthermore, unlike AdSense for websites, On YouTube you also earn money for visits (not just for ad clicks).

So, if you have a YouTube channel and want to monetize it, this is of interest to you:

How to put ads on your YouTube videos

Before you start showing ads, you must meet these two requirements:

• 1,000 subscribers.
• 4,000 hours of viewing in your videos in the last 12 months, or 10 million views on your YouTube Shorts in the last 90 days.

A tip to reach these figures as quickly as possible is to upload extensive guide videos (20 minutes, minimum) to accumulate more minutes of viewing per visit.

Types of AdSense ads on YouTube

The ads that you can insert in your videos can be of several types:

• Display ads: appear in the sidebar of the video.
• Skippable video ads: These are advertising videos that can be skipped after 5 seconds, without the obligation to watch them until the end.
• Non-skippable video ads: These are the ads that cannot be skipped, so the viewer will have to watch the entire 30 seconds.

Regarding the appearance of the ads, they may appear:

• Before of the video (pre-roll).
• During the video (mid-roll).
• After of the video (post-roll).

How much does Google AdSense pay on YouTube?

The amount of money Google AdSense pays on YouTube depends on the theme of your channel, as well as the country it is directed to. The higher the RPM of a channel, the more it generates per thousand views.

How to invoice Google AdSense in Spain?

One of the most frequently asked questions if you want to earn money legally with Google AdSense is how to declare our income in AdSenseand that we can check them in Payments > Payment information. If you monetize with websites and YouTube, you can review both payments here:

The first thing is to register as self-employed, but more specifically, as intra-community operator, since we are going to invoice an Irish company that is part of the European Union. This bill must not include personal income tax, and is not subject to VAT.

AdSense billing details:

Google Ireland, Ltd.

IE 6388047V

Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4 Irlanda

Remember that, if you generate AdSense income through the web and through YouTube, you must generate a different invoice for each one, since two different payments will be made.

From here, the most important thing is to get visits to your website or YouTube videos to earn money with ads. And if you have any questions, I will be happy to assist you in comments.

Podcaster at Campamento Web, the most listened to Spanish-speaking SEO news and interview program for more than 5 years. Also, creator of Clave Podcast, the podcasting portal to train you as a podcaster. Graduated in Communication from Loyola University and SEO consultant, although currently focused more on his own projects focused on the field of communication and web positioning.