Nowadays, everybody knows that blogging can work as a lucrative career. The media is crammed full of information about bloggers who earn thousands a month and, when you’re in the trenches writing blog posts for free, this information can come as a blow. However, there is a bright side to these success stories – blogging is a viable career right now. The question is, where exactly is all of that money coming from?
As you’ll already know, there is no simple answer. Often, bloggers have multiple income streams that include brand deals and affiliates. These options can be frustrating because they’re unreliable, but there are slightly more stable financial alternatives available, and Google AdSense is one such option.
Without necessarily needing a whole load of new input or content from you, Google AdSense is a program that makes it possible to monetise your blog posts and pages using contextual ads. This is a top option for bloggers at any level. Keep on reading to find out what exactly Google AdSense is, and how much it might pay to sign up.
What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is a Google advertising program that allows you to display and get paid for, advertising across your blog posts and pages.
Unlike direct advertising deals that see you offering ad space to specific businesses of your choosing, AdSense ensures Google sells that space on your behalf. Luckily, this doesn’t mean that you’ll receive a handful of random ad offerings. Google AdSense still operates by serving ads that are in some way relevant to the content on each of your blog pages. If you’ve just uploaded a blog post about beauty products, then you can rest easy that AdSense will most likely recommend ads from a skincare or makeup brand.
Far from more variable options such as brand deals and affiliate links, Google AdSense provides ongoing income from your uploads. You also won’t need to write specific blog posts advertising these products – you can just set the ads up alongside your existing blog plan and reap the benefits.
Google AdSense is also beneficial because it brings profitability to your content backlog – as long as people are clicking on those posts, you can still expect to see some income from them this way.
How to Sign up to AdSense
AdSense offers a lot of earning potential, but this program does come along with some eligibility requirements. However, these do tend to be quite standard requirements about the need for you to be over the age of 18 and for you to be uploading content that’s entirely authentic and unique to your blog. Approval also depends on things like the quality of your posts and traffic, as well as site elements such as ease of navigation.
Signing up is relatively easy once you’ve met the eligibility criteria. You simply need to sign in with your Google account and enter the URL of the blog you intend to show ads on. Then, you’ll need to select your payment or territory and review AdSense’s terms and conditions before applying. Google will then review your application, and you should hear back within a couple of weeks.
After approval, you’ll be able to access your AdSense account to set up and manage your ads, build a list of your sites, and even get to work optimising your content to boost AdSense earnings. To ensure payment, you should also fill out your payment information, which may require details like your tax and personal information, as well as your chosen payment method.
How Much Does Google AdSense Pay?
There are many variables involved when considering precisely how much a blogger stands to earn from signing up to Google AdSense.. However, based on averages, we do know that most bloggers earn around $0.2 – $2.5 per 1,000 views, or between £0.16 – £2.03, through AdSense.
Google provides an AdSense calculator that can help you get a more specific idea of your blog’s earning potential. The calculator gives you a figure based on your blog’s category, region, and monthly page views. To give you an idea, we queried about a sports blog in Europe with 50,000 views (the minimum requirement for the calculator) and received a yearly earning estimate of roughly $600/£488.13.
Getting Paid With Google AdSense
While you might be excited by the prospect of an ongoing income with Google AdSense over one-off payments like brand deals, there are still variables to take into account.
The good news is that the relevance of AdSense placings makes these pretty lucrative marketing spots. However, AdSense operates on both a pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis. In other words, your earnings will be directly impacted by how much traffic and interest your blog posts generate.
The good news is that, with a popular enough blog and high enough levels of traffic, this means you can ensure some degree of monthly income based on page impressions alone. AdSense also pays roughly 68% of the click amount on each ad to the publisher, making click-throughs undeniably beneficial. However, AdSense income can be slow for small-mid-sized bloggers as a result.
When Can You Expect Payment From Google AdSense?
If your AdSense application has been approved, you might be ready and waiting for your first payment, but when can you expect it? Unfortunately, payday might not come as quickly as you’re thinking.
AdSense operates within a payment threshold that you must reach before you can receive your first payment. In the UK, that means you can’t verify your payment method until your ads have earned £10, and you can’t withdraw payment until your earnings hit the £60 mark. That might seem like a small amount of money but, if you have a relatively small or niche blog, it could take you a while to get there.
That said, if you are past the threshold, AdSense payments will quickly become your blogging best friends, as they provide guaranteed money into your account every month. As you likely know too well, that’s unique in the blogging world, and it can make a huge difference to your monthly finances and planning.
Like any regular paycheck on a monthly cycle, you’ll receive the finalised AdSense for a given month on the 21st and 26th of the month. You can also track your posted AdSense payments in your account from the 3rd of the month.
Factors That Impact AdSense Earnings
Your AdSense earnings depend in large part on how popular your blog is, but that’s not the only thing to consider. Other factors that could also impact AdSense earnings include –
- Blog niche: Your blog niche can greatly impact how much money you make with AdSense. This is because high-demand topics like beauty and travel attract far more lucrative advertising bids, and higher viewer numbers, than a more niche or specialized topic.
- Ad placement: Ad placement has a huge impact on AdSense viability. Headers tend to be the most lucrative AdSense options as they’re fully visible to all viewers. Equally, options like responsive ads that don’t hinder viewer experiences on even mobile devices can make a huge difference in maintaining lucrative high viewing figures, and all-important clicks.
- Content quality: The quality of your content will also impact your AdSense earnings, with high-quality postings ensuring that readers visit multiple pages and return for future posts, thus boosting your ad impressions and click-throughs.
Understanding AdSense Earnings and Your Blog Niche
As mentioned above, the niche or topic of your blog will have more of an impact on your AdSense income than you might think. This is for two primary reasons.
For one thing, advertisers are naturally more willing to pay big for advertising spots on popular, high-performing blog topics. There’s also likely a lot more advertisers bidding for these spots in the first place, which increases earning potential.
That said, high traffic won’t necessarily secure your top earnings if you’re writing in a saturated field where advertising competition is rife, and readerships are harder to come by.
To help you find the right balance, it’s worth considering the following most lucrative AdSense blog niches for publishers as follows –
# 1 – Insurance
Insurance might not be the first subject you think of when you consider blogging popularity, but it is an industry with high return on investment (ROI) potential. As such, cost-per-click (CPC) for AdSense placements tends to be higher than elsewhere in the blogging sphere. To add fuel to that earning fire, keywords like ‘insurance quotes’ have a monthly search volume of up to one million, meaning a high-rank CPC of around $54.13.
# 2 – Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency bloggers are currently making ripples in an industry with a high-ranking CPC of as much as $111.76 in some cases. Largely, this niche’s popularity comes from soaring interest, and a general lack of understanding amongst the public – people want to know what Cryptocurrency has to offer, and advertisers can clearly see that most of them are heading to crypto bloggers to make that happen. That’s resulted in an incredibly lucrative blogging niche where AdSense is concerned.
# 3 – Health and Fitness
A study has previously revealed that 7% of daily Google searches were health-related. From self-diagnosis to self-improvement, this is a niche that’s relevant to all of us in some way, and CPC is inevitably high as a result of that. That said, it isn’t all sunshine and smoothies for health and fitness AdSense. Bloggers in this niche tend to struggle to operate within AdSense standards that may require the publisher to be an expert in the field they’re writing in before they can gain AdSense approval
# 4 – The Automotive Industry
Automobile companies invest billions in advertising annually, meaning that automotive blogs can quickly earn big bucks with AdSense. What’s more, publishers working in this field have a large range of relevant niche topics to choose from, including everything from comparing auto insurance online to deep-diving into the best automotive parts on the market. As such, despite this niche’s popularity, even new bloggers could find an in-point that secures them a lucrative AdSense spot.
# 5 – Personal Finance
Like health and fitness, personal finance is a topic that impacts us all, and bloggers in this niche can easily reach wide audiences that advertisers want to invest in. Unfortunately, also like health and fitness, personal finance blogs also come under scrutiny from Google’s regulations, and should base their published post on verified facts and professional advice. Achieving this goal can see bloggers securing themselves a CPC of up to $100.
How Does Location Impact AdSense Income?
While AdSense income doesn’t change a great deal based on your location, it can vary depending on where your readership is coming from. This is true in a literal sense, with AdSense income varying depending on simple elements like the devices your consumers are using to access your site.
Physical location is also a factor, with many advertisers willing to pay premiums for key locations. On average, you’ll find that audiences from ‘tier 1’ countries like the US, UK, and Canada are a lot more lucrative than ‘tier 2/tier 3’ countries elsewhere in the world.
Can Payment Holds Impact AdSense Income?
In rare cases, you may experience payment holds on your AdSense account. This can result in missed payment dates, and may even see you facing deductions on your income. All holds of this nature will impact your AdSense earning potential to some extent, and could include –
| Hold Type | What it Means | Steps to Take |
| Tax Information Hold | If you’re claiming AdSense from an account in the US, Canada, or Mexico, you’ll face a hold if you fail to provide tax information prior to the 20th of the month during which your payment is due. | Submit tax information by signing into your AdSense account and accessing the ‘Manage tax info’ tab in the settings on your payment’s page. |
| Payments, Identity, and Self Hold | You may receive a payment hold if you haven’t verified your payment method or identity before the 20th of the month during which your payment is due. Equally, you can pause payments on your AdSense account with a self-hold. | Make sure your AdSense account is fully up to date and verified using information like an address verification PIN and valid payment type. Remove any self-holds on your account in order to begin receiving AdSense payments again. |
| Compliance Hold | Your account may be subject to a compliance hold if you have failed to confirm your identity despite repeated warnings, or your content has breached AdSense program policies. | Either go to your Google payments centre to verify your identity, or remove any content that falls outside of AdSense program policies which forbid prohibited, adult, or fraudulent content. |
Steps You Can Take to Improve Your AdSense Income
Top AdSense earners can accrue millions from their blogs each month, proving that true profits are possible with this outlet. The best way to secure the best possible AdSense income include –
Improving Content Quality
High-quality content is key to AdSense’s profitability, especially if you’re creating content that sets you apart as an industry leader. As well as helping to build your audience and thus boost your traffic, well-researched articles that contain images, trusted resources, and unique ideas, can increase the amount advertisers will be willing to pay for clicks from your site.
Simplifying Site Navigation
Visitors who only visit one page of your blog are less likely to click on an AdSense placement than those who head from one page to another and see more relevant ads as a result. Simplifying site navigation can encourage ‘sticky’ readers who will put money right back into your AdSense account.
Increasing Web Traffic
Increasing web traffic is perhaps the most obvious way to boost AdSense earnings, as it will increase the clicks and impressions that AdSense payments depend on. Techniques like SEO can be a huge help here, as can social media marketing campaigns and regular upload schedules.
Improving User Experience
As well as impacting your ability to gain AdSense approval in the first place, a poor site experience can impact your AdSense earnings when Google conducts follow-up site quality checks. Slow loading times and unresponsive pages can prove particularly problematic and are issues that you can check using tools like Test My Site, which might suggest improvements such as optimising images and limiting internal scripts.
Reducing Ad Density
AdSense is all about advertising, but pages that are inundated with ads are off-putting for both viewers and AdSense bids. Because of this, sites with as many as 7-10 ads will typically earn less than those with 3-6 ads. Reducing ad density can help to ensure the ads on your page are relevant and appealing to your audience. Taking this step also makes sure that your readers don’t click away when ads get in the way, making the ads you do have a lot more likely to attract click-throughs.
Exploring the Top Earning AdSense Websites
While real examples of AdSense income are difficult to come by, it is possible to determine roughly how much top-earning sites receive from AdSense each month using basic statistics. While it’s unlikely that individual bloggers will earn this kind of AdSense income, it can be useful to gain a true insight into AdSense’s monetary potential as follows –
| Website | Blog Niche | Estimated Monthly Traffic | Estimated Monthly Earnings |
| CNN | News | 120.6 million visitors | $420,000 – $470,000 |
| Forbes | wikiHow | 105.2 million visitors | $370,000 – $400,000 |
| wikiHOW | Instructional/How-to | 78.8 million visitors | $275,000 – $300,000 |
| Business Insider | Business news | 39 million visitors | $135,000 – $150,000 |
| Mashable | Global news and entertainment | 14.4 million visitors | $50,000 – $60,000 |
Is AdSense the Right Ad Network For Your Blogging Income?
While AdSense is one of the most well-known ad networks, it isn’t the only option that bloggers should consider for an income boost. Alternatives like MonetizeMore and Media.net are also worth considering, and in some cases, they could even lead to potentially higher returns.
Choosing between ad platforms is far from easy, especially if you’re a blogger just starting out. Some considerations that can help you choose the most lucrative ad network for your site include –
- Click-through rate (CTR): Generally speaking, AdSense performs best for sites with a CTR of 2% or more, meaning that you need high traffic to secure earnings. By comparison, many alternative platforms like MonetizeMore offer a customised strategy based on each blog’s current position, making low CTRs potentially more lucrative.
- Location: As mentioned, location matters to ad earnings, and AdSense is typically best for securing higher incomes for bloggers in tier 1 countries like the US and UK. By comparison, more localised or specialist ad networks may be more lucrative for bloggers in tier 2 or 3 countries, such as China and India.
- User experience: AdSense offers a generalised user experience that exists conveniently within your Google account and offers basic capabilities to you as a publisher. This is great for bloggers with no real understanding of ad specifics, but if you have little marketing experience, you may prefer a more customisable, complex alternative network.
- Revenue Share: AdSense will typically claim between 32-49% of your revenue. This is by no means an industry high and is offset by the fact that your ad revenue may ultimately be higher with AdSense if your site is performing well. However, if your blog is still growing, or you’re keen to start earning more, then alternatives like Header Bidding Partners, which only takes 15-30%, might be preferable.
Grow Your Blog With AdSense Earnings
Despite what you might have heard, Google AdSense is certainly not a guaranteed way to make money from your blog. However, if you’re looking for a regular income stream on a high-quality blog with a decent audience, Google AdSense could still be a lucrative string to add to your blogging bow.
