Do you know you can use your website to earn some extra cash? Yes. It’s entirely possible. It doesn’t matter whether you created that website for engaging a hobby, sharing something funny with the world or as an income source, you can convert it into a cash-cow very easily.
Google AdSense is a tool for website monetization that can enable you to do just that; earn money from online content. And, the best part is, Google handles the biggest share of the workload that pays you. The advertisements that are your income source from Google AdSense are administered by Google. Plus they also handle the sorting and maintenance of these ads.
AdSense was initially released in June 2003, had earned $3.4 billion for Google in Q1 of 2014 alone and at the moment more than 2 million publishers earn their income with this program.
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Requirements a website has to meet to qualify for Google AdSense
Google AdSense has a set of requirements that determine whether or not you are eligible for this program. These eligibility requirements are outlined to a certain extent here. However, we have done the necessary legwork, broken down the whole thing into something that you can easily understand so you don’t deal with anything ambiguous.
So, before you sign up for an AdSense account, you should check the following:
- The site you want to use with AdSense must be owned and controlled by you. This means that the content must be yours except in some exceptions such as if your site has syndicated rights to republish a variety of content from other selected sources. If not, you will be violating the terms of service from Google.
Controlling your site implies having access to your site’s source code.
- Make sure your content complies with the policies upheld by AdSense. Google has a myriad of policies you are supposed to operate by if they are to monetize your content. These policies bar such content as pornography, malware, adult content, and excessive profanity, and so on.
- You have to be 18 years of age or over. This might be a bummer if you are a 17-year-old with a site that has crazy traffic. If you were lucky enough to read Google’s terms and conditions before registering your site, then you hopefully used your parents’ or older siblings credentials. This hack ensures you can monetize your site. Otherwise, if you skipped reading the terms and conditions like the rest of us and you are below 18 years of age then am sorry honey. Wait for the right time.
- Your site has to have clear navigation. Before your application for AdSense is approved, Google first sets a team for your site review. If the team finds your site hard to navigate they assume other users will also encounter the same difficulty and that alone makes it bogus. If you need clarification on this requirement and the next one below, use this link.
- Your content must be interesting and unique. Google only allows content that they consider worth monetizing. If your content is copied, makes little sense, or is considered of little value to readers then they will most likely decline your application.
- Avoid the circulation of fake traffic. This is an important policy that Google takes seriously. Violation of this might lead to an eventual banning. See the screenshot below for more info.
- Make you are not circulating content that is copyrighted. Copyright law has to be something you are aware of. The display of content either text, image or video has to adhere to this law.
- If your site has an abusive experience, don’t even bother considering AdSense. Google bans any site they consider to have an “abusive experience”. For your site to have an abusive experience it means you have included a set of harmful, false, misleading or manipulative practices.
- You have to be using a language that is supported. Google doesn’t support every language in God’s green earth and for them to approve you for AdSense, your content must be in a language they support and believe to be readable by as many people as possible. No need to publish content in a language readable by only 5 people in a world. So, if you’re a fellow nerd with a love for, and a site that uses, Orc language, sorry. You can check the supported languages here.
Can free web hosting allow Google AdSense?
Free web hosting can and does allow for Google AdSense usage. However, if your main objective is to earn a substantial amount from AdSense then free web hosting is far from anything that will help you towards achieving this end. For one, you can only earn an impressive amount from AdSense if you have impressive traffic on your site. High traffic is something that is incompatible with free web hosting.
So, if you want a steady source of income, we highly recommend a premium domain. If you are not in a position to do this don’t fret; you will still be able to earn something depending on your site’s content.
How much can you make with Google AdSense
You can check your potential earnings from AdSense by using the tool provided on their website by using this link. All you have to do is select the region of the visitors of your site and enter your site category and the tool handles the calculations.
In a nutshell, AdSense uses criteria formed from two bases: revenue sharing and cost per click. Google charges its advertisers and pays website publishers per ad click. For search, when it comes to AdSense, Google pays you as a publisher 51% of the amount from clicks (you, as a publisher, generally get 68% of the click amount).
You should note that your commission is heavily dependent on competition and the niche CPC (cost per click). The range for a commission per click is usually $0.20 to $15 and most publishers usually get not more than $3 per click for most of the niches. This doesn’t mean that all niches pay poorly, no. Some niches like insurance are very profitable.
Best Web Hosting for Google AdSense
We have compiled a list of the best hosting providers for you. You can view any of these platforms in detail by simply clicking on the links provided.
#1. Siteground
SiteGround is our first and overall best recommendation for Google AdSense. This platform is cheaper than most, easy to start with and we highly recommend it for beginners and small businesses. SiteGround incorporates fast speeds and powerful easy-to-use tools that will make your experience worthwhile. Plus, you get 24/7 customer support and all their plans come with unmetered traffic. If you aren’t wowed yet, then this ought to do the job- SiteGround hosts more than 2 million domains worldwide.
You can go through our review of SiteGround on our article here.
SiteGround has a variety of pricing plans for web hosting with accompanying features. These plans are:
- StartUp
This plan has a special starting price of $6.99(normally $14.99) per month. It includes 1 website, a webspace of 10GB for storage, and unmetered traffic. They limit the traffic on this plan to no more than 10,000 visits per month. You also get daily backups.
This plan is SiteGround’s bestseller.
- GrowBig
GrowBig starts at a special discounted monthly price of $9.99 per month (normally $24.99/month). This plan has no cap on the number of websites. It also comes with a webspace of 20GB, unmetered traffic, and a limit of 25,000 visits per month. You also get everything else included in StartUp plus copies of backups on demand, Caching optimized for boosting speed and you can add collaborators.
- GoGeek
GoGeek starts at a special discounted price of $14.99 per month down from a normal monthly price of $39.99 per month. This plan includes everything in GoGeek plus a webspace of 40GB, white-label clients, and priority support. The limit of visitors on this plan are 100,000 visits per month.
All the plans on SiteGround come with 30-days money-back guarantee.
#2. Bluehost
Bluehost is our second-best web hosting option for Google AdSense. We have done an extensive review of Bluehost in our article here.
In a nutshell, Bluehost is great for any business sizes and you can scale wonderfully with it. Bluehost currently powers more than 2 million websites globally. They have managed to get such a humongous and faithful crowd from such amazing advantages as being officially recommended by WordPress, offering 24/7 support, availing easy scaling, and being relatively cheap.
For web hosting, Bluehost offers the following plans for shared web hosting:
- Basic
Starts at $3.95 per month. It includes 1 website, a storage of 50 GB SSD, and no cap on bandwidth amongst other features.
- Plus
Starts at $5.95 per month. It comes with no websites, SSD storage, and bandwidth. On top of this, you get unlimited domains and subdomains.
- Choice Plus
This starts at $6.95 per month. You get everything in Plus and an additional CodeGuard basic for site backup and domain privacy and protection.
- Pro
Pro starts at $13.95. It includes everything in Choice Plus plus high-performance features, 2 spam experts, and Dedicated IP.
Bluehost also has three hosting tiers as shown below.
- Shared
This is the most popular of their plans. It is priced at $3.95 per month and is suitable for beginners since it is very easy to use and it offers a solution that is fully managed.
- VPS
VPS starts at a monthly $19.99. If your traffic ranges between moderate to high then this plan might be great for you. It offers a scalable feature and for more control, you get full root access.
- Dedicated
This hosting plan is an absolute yes for high traffic sites. It comes with optimized security and absolute customization options. The plan is priced at a starting price of $79.99 per month.
Bluehost also offers WordPress hosting. Their WordPress hosting has three plans: WordPress Hosting, WP Pro, and E-commerce.
#3. A2 Hosting
A2 hosting comes third on our listing of the best web hosting for Google AdSense. This platform brags a whopping 20X faster web hosting on top of such awe-inspiring features as uncapped SSD space, anytime money-back guarantee, 24/7 expert support they call “Guru Crew” and automatic backups free of charge.
We have done a thorough review of A2 Hosting in our article here.
A2 Hosting is great for beginners and professionals alike. And, you get free site transfer.
This platform has the following hosting plans for web hosting services:
- Startup
Startup starts at $2.99 per month. It includes 1 website, storage of 100GB SSD, and migration options at no cost at all.
- Drive
Drive starts at $4.99 per month. It has no limit on websites and SSD storage and also includes automatic backups free of charge.
- Turbo Boost
This is the most popular of A2’s plans. It starts at $9.99 per month and on top of all the features in Drive, this plan adds a Turbo for a 20X faster speed.
- Turbo Max
Turbo Max starts at $14.99 per month. It is the fastest service that A2 has at the moment. On top of everything in Turbo Boost, this plan has an additional 5X more resources.
A2 also includes the following hosting packages:
- Shared Hosting
Starting at $2.99 per month you get Shared Hosting which comes with WordPress, Turbo Servers, and no-cost site migration.
- Reseller Hosting
This plan starts at $13.19 per month and allows you to host your own customers. It includes the option to set up accounts for hosting individuals, a full white labeling feature, and a Turbo option optimized for up to 20X speeds.
- VPS Hosting
Starts at $5.00 per month. VPS Hosting is equipped with more power than Shared Hosting and you get such options as choosing your level of management, more speed, better security, and more features that are developer-friendly.
- Dedicated Server
You can get Dedicated Server hosting starting from $99.59. It comes with everything from all plans plus root access and a panel for cPanel control.
#4. DreamHost
DreamHost has earned this spot on our list due to various determining factors. It offers speeds, security, and an uptime guarantee that although cannot beat that of such giants as Bluehost, is still considered good as far as AdSense is concerned.
You can find a complete review of DreamHost from our article here.
DreamHost offers you the following deals:
- WordPress Hosting
Starts at $2.59 per month.
- Website Hosting
Starts at $2.59 per month.
- .COM Domain Names
At a price of $7.99.
DreamHost also offers WordPress Migrations free of charge.
For web hosting, DreamHost has the following annual plans for you:
- Shared
This plan is for starters and starts at $3.95 per month. It has 1 website and provides no limit on traffic and bandwidth.
- DreamPress
This plan is tailored for WordPress and starts at a monthly price of $16.95. It comes with 1 WordPress website, a storage of 30GB SSD, and a limit of 100,000 visitors per month. You also get on-demand backups and restoration with a 1-click feature.
- VPS
This starts at $13.75 per month. It has no limit on the number of websites, traffic, and bandwidth. You also get most features present in DreamPress plus unlimited email.
#5. InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is our final choice on our listing of the best web hosting providers for Google AdSense. Although this platform couldn’t top our list, its performance is far from disappointing. They offer powerful and easy to use tools, together with top-notch security and 24/7 customer support.
To see a detailed review of InMotion, visit our article here.
InMotion starts you off with the following packages:
- WordPress Hosting at $6.99 per month
- VPS Hosting at $29.99 per month
- Dedicated Servers at $99.99 per month
- Shared Hosting at $5.99 per month
InMotion also avails the following pricing plans for your online businesses website hosting:
- Launch
Starts at $5.99 per month billed biennially. It comes with 2 websites, a storage of 50GB SSD, free SSL, uncapped bandwidth, and 10 email accounts.
- Power
Power starts at $8.99 per month, billed biennially. This is InMotion’s best seller. It comes with 50 websites, storage of 100GB SSD, 50 email accounts, and performance and speed that has been optimized up to 3X.
- Pro
Starts at $14.99 per month billed biennially. This plan offers you ultimate speed and performance and it comes with 100 websites, a storage capacity of 200GB SSD, and uncapped email accounts and bandwidth. You also get a 99.999% uptime guarantee and NGINX caching.
How to put ads on a website and get paid
Google AdSense is just one way you can earn money by incorporating ads on to your website. Other than AdSense, there is a myriad of ways for earning from your website including:
- Selling ad space directly to clients looking to buy space for advertising their brand and products.
- Ad networks other than AdSense also pay publishers for advertising. Most of these other networks vary from AdSense because they choose to pay publishers on a PPC basis. Some of the best networks include Infolinks, Media.net, LinkWorth and Pulsepoint.
2 Free Web hosting with Google AdSense
If you need a hosting provider that is free and supports Google AdSense, you can try any of the two providers listed below.
How much traffic required for AdSense approval
AdSense doesn’t have a fixed minimum amount of traffic that your site requires to be approved. Unlike other ad networks, Google doesn’t use a traffic threshold but instead relies on its policies and stipulation to determine whether an application for AdSense is accepted or rejected. You should, however, note that small traffic won’t be that profitable with this program.
Is AdSense free?
AdSense doesn’t charge you anything for participation. All this program does to you constantly is make your pockets a bit heavier.
Alternatives to AdSense
If Google AdSense hasn’t impressed you yet, you can always try a variety of alternatives that include:
My name is Nate Reiner and I am the editor here at 10Webtools. I have 8 years of experience using 50+ different web tools ranging from podcast, web hosting, email marketing, and much more. I previously managed a team offering support services to a large conglomerate that utilized tens of software solutions. I now run this blog full-time and when I am not reviewing or testing software, I enjoy riding bikes and supporting my clients achieve internet success. You can reach me directly at [email protected]