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.