I remember when I first saw Google ads, I occasionally clicked on one that interested me, but it never occurred to me to wonder why webmasters would put them on their websites. However, when I learnt through the MPAM 20 Steps program how to monetise a website (i.e. make it make money for you), it became clear why one would want to put Adsense on one's website - the advertisers pay you when someone clicks on their advertisement. The amount you are paid varies depending on how much the advertiser has bid for the relevant keyword - it can be cents or it can run into tens of dollars for a single click. It's also very dependent on the content of your site and the keywords you have used, both in your meta tags and in your text because Google use that information to provide ads which are targeted to your site. Likewise, if you decide to feature a Google search box on your site, the Adsense which appears on the search results page are also targeted to your site content.

So how do you get AdSense on your website? First you need to apply for an account. This is a simple process which involves you providing the url of your website and your personal contact details. You will also need to select whether you sign up for AdSense for Content and/or AdSense for Search - I recommend that you choose both. You will need to wait a short while for your application to be approved, but this shouldn't be a problem as long as your website meets Google's terms of service and has plenty of keyword-rich content. You need to have at least half a dozen pages fully populated with relevant text otherwise Google's spiders won't have enough to look at. Once your application has been approved, you need to log into your AdSense account and take a look around. I recommend that you sign up for the AdSense Team emails as they contain lots of useful information about terms of service, new features and so on.

I also recommend that you check out the Optimisation Tips. These will show you the best places on your page to place your AdSense blocks. The best will be "above the fold", in other words, in a position on your page which doesn't involve your visitor in scrolling down. Ads which are integrated with your text will also attract more clicks than those which are placed quite separately on the page. However, you will need to test what works best for you. To help you do this, AdSense provide what they call Channels, which give you the facility to track which of your ad blocks are doing best. For example if one of your websites sells toys and another sells gifts, you could have Channels called toysright and giftstopleft signifying the site and the position on the page of the adverts. When you run reports, you will be able to see whereabouts on your page the ads attract the most clicks. Having said that, you can have three ad blocks per page plus one lot of text ads, so there's plenty of scope.

To set up your ad code, just select AdSense Setup, then you must choose the format of your ad block; you can change the background, border, text and link colours to match your site then select your Channel and the code will be there for you to paste into your web page.

Next time, I'll go into a little more detail about how Google provide the ads and how to place them on your pages.