Payment In Progress - November 2007!

Well it took a while (a long while!) but the infamous payment in progress (PIP for short) showed up! This happened on November 26th for this month. Since I'm located in the US on the east coast this should give you a good indicator to see if your PIP line showed up yet.

For some strange reason it seems that some people located outside the US get their PIP lines before those in the US do.

Well next month looks interesting in that the last full week in December is the week of the Christmas holiday. So if Christmas is going to be on a Tuesday its going to be real interesting to see when the PIP line will show.

Did You Get Your Adsense Payment For October 2007 Yet?

Everytime that I wonder about my adsense payment I go to the following discussion board:

Adsense Discussion Forum

Whenever someone receives their PIP (payment in progress) line on their adsense account they will post to this board so that others (like me) can compare the status of our own accounts.

So far it looks like the PIP line has shown for adsense publishers outside the US. Nobody in the US has gotten their adsense payment notification yet.

So the waiting continues..................................

Think I Can Make $10 More Dollars Before The Week Is Over?

I'm currently $10 away from earning the $100 minimum that's needed to get an adsense payment next month. Think I will be able to get there by the end of the week?

Stay tuned and see.............................

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Thursday, November 15, 2007*

I Did It!

It took me 2 days but I managed to earn at least the $100 minimum needed to get an adsense payment next month (and I still have the rest of the month to go!

The Poll Results - so far....................

So far over 14 people have voted in the poll that appears on the side of this blog. (Just scroll down if you can't see the poll). The poll asks how much money have you made per month using adsense and the majority of votes seem to be that people have made $49 or less with their blog monthly. Now $49 isn't all that bad and you could get an adsense payment at least every 3 months if you made at least $49 dollars a month with the adsense program.

But I'm sure that people are interested in making much more than $49 a month with adsense!

The way to make more money with adsense is to optimize your blog (or website) for the adsense program. You can do that while still remaining "true" to your blog. You will just have to work a little bit harder on your blog. Things like working on the content of your blog so that your blog's content attracts higher paying advertisers and increasing the traffic to your blog so that you get more visitors to your blog and that means more potential clicks on the ads.

One of the very first things that you should do is find out where your traffic is coming from. When you find out where your traffic is coming from then you can work on increasing your traffic flow. I note several instances of how traffic comes to my blogs and sites on my SEO Consultant Blog.

I think the question that the majority of people ask is whether or not their blog can become an adsense moneymaker and of course the answer is yes. But you do have to work on your blog. I know a lot of people say to treat it as a business but you can do that but still remain true to your blog. It's sort of comparable to having your own magazine that has ads in it. The ads are there but so is the general content and objective of the magazine itself. You can do that same thing with your blog.

You have to take a good look at your blog to see how you can optimize it for earning more adsense money. The best way to do that is to make sure that your blog or website has a theme. It targets the advertisers more and it gives your blog a reputation (hopefully a good one) as a good blog to go to when one is looking for information that is related to the content that is on your blog.

You may think that its impossible or hard to make adsense money with your blog or website but really its not - You just have to work at it and keep working at it.

Why Does Adsense Ask Me For My Social Security Number?

Why Does Adsense Ask Me For My Social Security Number?

What Is A Taxpayer ID? / I Don't Have A Taxpayer ID

I Feel Uncomfortable Giving Adsense My Social Security Number

Adsense requires your social security number simply because when you start earning over a certain amount of money (I believe now its $400 - $600) you have to start paying taxes on it. Adsense is obligated to provide information on how much money they pay you (if its over a certain amount).

The Taxpayer ID is the number that businesses use as their tax identification number when they are filing their tax-related paperwork. If you operate as a business then you have to have a taxpayer ID number. However if you are working as an individual then your social security number acts as your taxpayer ID number.

Many people have said that they feel uncomfortable giving out their social security number but the bottom line is that you have to provide that information if you want to collect your adsense earnings.

If it makes you feel any better, rest assure that adsense publshers have to provide that information too. Adsense is not singling you out. It is required information.

Can I Add Other Ads To My Adsense Site?

or

"Can I Place Non-Google / Non Google Ads On My Website or Blog?"

In a word, yes you can have other types of ads on your adsense site BUT according to Adsense's terms of service agreement you have to make sure that your other ads do not look like your adsense ads.

Basically you can solve this problem by having your other ads in a different color scheme from your adsense ads color scheme - meaning make sure that they both don't have the same color scheme.

Other "ad" programs like Amazon and Ebay's Auction Ads can be placed on the same site or blog that you have your adsense ads on. Just make sure that they don't have the same color scheme as your adsense ads!

The Sad Truth Is...........................

The sad truth is if you are not making ANY adsense money on your blog then you are probably not doing it right!

Is it possible to have a blog and blog about something you love and STILL be able to make "adsense" money? Again the answer is

YES!

However one of the main things that people have to realize is that you can't just "slap" together a website or blog, add adsense to it and expect to make a lot of money! You have to continually work on your blog. Add new (and more) content. Increase the traffic to your blog. If visitors are not coming to your blog then you go to your potential visitors and get them to come to your blog! Monitor and analyze your visitor count! Add a tracking stats code to your blog so that you can see where your visitors are coming from - that way you will know what led them to your site and you can work on getting more of the same traffic.

If you have a blog and are not getting the results that you want (or even any results at all) then ask someone to view your blog objectively. They may see something that you may have missed.

Many people are making money with the simplest of blogs. Why them and not you? Find out why!

Is There A Fee To Join The Adsense Program?

There is no fee to join the adsense program. You can join it for free.

However before being able to put the ad codes on your site you will have to submit the url of your site so that adsense can review and approve it first.

Just What Are Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs are where a website has a product to sell and they offer you a commission when you display their product on your site and someone buys the product.

You can do an online search for affiliate programs and you will get a lot of links to different affiliate programs. However you also have to be careful. There are a lot of good and legitimate ones out there and of course that has spawn those that are not so good and not so legitimate.

Before you think about joining any of them you should do some research online and find out what others have said about the program - especially if its something bad about it.

When you join an affiliate program you are given a number and that is how your affiliate earnings are tracked and you can check your earnings by signing into the affiliate page with your account information.

With the exception of Adsense's program I don't like most of the other affiliate programs - but hey, that's just me.

Making "Good" Money With Adsense

Is it possible to make "good" money with adsense? Yes it is. I am assuming here that "good" money means making enough money with the adsense program to live on.

There are scores of people making over $5,000 a month with the adsense program and if you want to be one of them you have to realize that you have to work at it. You can't simply "slap" together a blog or website and put adsense ads on it and expect to make a lot of money without doing anything else.

Remember that the adsense ads that appear on your site are based on the content in your site and the more you update your site the more different ads you will have on your site - which provides different ads to your site visitors.

There is another thing too. It is generally advised to start a site on a subject simply because it is a subject that interests you or is a subject that you are passionate about. You would be amazed at what some subjects that other people will find interesting. If you find it interesting then someone else will find it interesting. Adding the adsense ads is almost an afterthought because the main objective (at least in the past) was for you to have a site of your own talking about a subject that you were interested in or passionate about.

Now comes the question of having a site solely for the purpose of making enough adsense money to live on. That is possible too. If you want to have a site purely for the reason of making as much adsense money as you can and not having a site on a subject that interests you or you feel passionate about then that is possible too. What you have to do is find a subject that has a lot of interest for others - the more popular the subject the more potential adsense money you can earn. Now there are people that are doing exactly this but there is a lot of work to be done because your adsense earnings will depend on your traffic and how many people are clicking on your ads. If your site is about a subject that interests high-paying keyword advertisers then you make MORE money with your adsense ads simply because advertisers will pay a higher amount to advertise on your site and you get more money.

Here is a link to a previous blog post that I made about just how much some people have already been making with the adsense program. As you will see a lot of people on this list have sites on subjects that they care about and they still manage to make "good" money using the adsense program.

So if you want to add adsense to your site but think that you can't earn money with it then - unfortunately - you are sadly mistaken.

As I always say - if you are not making any money with adsense then you are just not doing it right!

How Can I Track Invalid Clicks?

(More specific information about a tracking system to use was given to the person that asked this question)

Go online and do some searching for free tracking sites that only involve you copying and pasting some code to put on your site. Pick a stats tracker that will let you know where your visitors are coming from so that you can view that information.

I have such a code on my sites/blogs and when I get "invalid" clicks I check the logs and send the information to adsense.

The last time I did this I was able to get the date and time and location of the "invalid" clicks and I forwarded that information to adsense.

The Adsense Story Contest

Adsense is having a new contest. Before I tell you more about their contest I should tell you that the deadline to enter the contest is November 14, 2007

There are a lot of success stories from people who have been using adsense so adsense has decided to ask others about their own success with adsense.

You can find out the details about the contest by visiting their blog

Adsense Video Units

Yes I know that a new feature that adsense has is that now adsense publishers can add video ads to their sites. Besides the fact that a lot of people are having trouble with adding them there is another thing about adding video ads to your site because not everyone has high-speed internet access. Some people are still using a dial-up modem to get to the internet and it would be difficult if not impossible for them to be able to view the video ads - much less click on them.

If you want to know more about Adsense's new video ads feature you can visit their blog to find out more.