Money with Google….What?? How do People Make Money with Google?

Did you know there are many many people that make money with Google? Most of us use it all the time to search for this and that, its a great search engine, the most widely used world wide receiving some one billion search requests a day (someone searching for something). With a user base that HUGE of course people are making money, not just Google. There are a number of ways this is being done;

• Increasing traffic to ones own business,
• Selling ad space to Google on your own website(s) (Google Adsense),
• Promoting affiliate sites/services/products via Pay Per Click,
  • Through the search engine front page,
  • Through the content network on other sites with Google adsense active,
• Selling Google advertising management/optimization to businesses.

Of these different methods, one of the best know and popular (historically) is Google Adsense. Folks create/develop (or purchase) information websites and include adsense spaces within their sites. Chances are you have seen this in your own surfing. on many sites you’ll see at the bottom of an advertisement "ads by Google". This type of ‘Google money’ is still making some sites a lot of money. But beware the ’snake oil’ sales page that claims you buy their Adsense Website and plug it in for fat fast cash. It just isn’t usually the case, Google is pretty smart and it knows when a site is a "feeder site". A feeder site is a content site that a bunch of people purchase and launch, quickly creating duplicate information sites all over the web. Google ’sees’ this and buries these sites at the bottom of search results. The only potentially profitable Google Adsense site is one that is unique and, of course, popular. There are still ways to get these type of sites to rank well, but they require customization, search engine optimization and marketing (PPC and/or social marketing). I wouldn’t personally recommend chasing this type of ‘Google money’.  The challenge with these sites is to drive traffic to them and keep them coming back. As mentioned before, this requires an aggressive marketing plan and a site that visitors like and want to come back to.

If you already have a brick and mortar business or an e commerce website, then implementing the Google Pay Per Click (PPC or Adwords) network is a fast and easy way to get visitors to your website(s). In fact, PPC is the fastest way to drive massive traffic within the same day a Adwords campaign is set up. This of course costs money. Google charges users every time one of thier ads are ‘clicked’ (hence Pay Per Click). The cost can vary from $0.10 per click to more than a dollar per click based on the maximum bid(s). So if a keyword is ‘hot’ it will cost you. The benifit comes back to the website owner if their product/service is presented in such a way that users will wish to make a purchase or otherwise initiate business with you. So getting traffic is pretty simple with Google Adwords, but turning that traffic into profit for your business depends soly on your websites ability to convert visitors into customers. This is another topic unto itself, website design/development, and one worth some study prior to giving too much money to Google. Once your confident your site is ready for traffic you can set up an account free with Google Adwords and have fun watching the ‘clicks’ and your site vititor count climb. I have written a couple of other posts on the basics of PPC. They are;

Google Adwords 101

PPC Marketing Home Study Courses

Training with Google Adwords and Marketing Online

A increasingly popular way to use Google to Make money is affiliate marketing. This is promoting someone elses product or service through the Google Adwords (PPC) network. A prospective affiliate marketer can make money every time visitors (traffic) they bring to the merchants website converts into paying customers. Some affiliate marketers have made literally millions (and continue to) using Google Adwords and the affiliate networks. What is cool about this type of "Google Money" is that the marketer doesn’t have to have a product to sell/ship or handle nor do they have to worry about much of the typical overhead that most other business models carry. It takes a fair bit of knowledge and research to successfully impliment this business model. But the basics are, conduct market research to determine what is "hot" (what you’ll promote), establish affiliate relationships with your prospective merchants(and get your links), conduct in depth keyword research, build/develop your landing pages (unless your doing a Direct Linking campaign), research and develop ad copy and develop and monitor your Adwords campaigns. The experienced affiliate can go through this process relatively painlessly, creating campaigns, making them profitable, then find another.

An experienced marketer will have campaigns within a number of different niches and/or multiple campaigns within one niche. A well known pro in the PPC/Affiliate marketing field is Jeremy Palmer. He has won awards and is an adivsor member with Commision Junction. He also was involved in the development and launch of PPC Classroom 1 (no longer available, unfortunately even PPC Classroom 2 is closed). Jeremy developed another program that was limited to only 1000, the Black Ink Project 1 and 2. Both of these are rated quite high in the forums. What was going to be Black Ink 3 is renamed as Blueprint for Profitability. This is a very very good program and Jeremy does a stellar job of creating the videos and course content (and tools). I would say this is the best all inclusive PCC and affiliate/internet marketing course available hands down.

If you are (or become) a PPC/Adwords expert, you can make money by providing the service to other businesses. There are many creative ways to add considerable benifit to an existing business/website through knowledgable implimentation of Adwords. This differs from an affiliate relationship because you are payed for a service fee as oposed to a performance insentive (commsions through affiliate sales). The obvious downside here is you can only charge so much for this type of service and you can only service so many clients (without hiring employees) at a time. However, the upside is a more predicable and stable income (once established) than the affiliate marketer. Personally I wouldn’t think to market this sort of service, primarily because I don’t feel I have the level of expertise that I would expect if I was a customer. But if you are a PPC guru, there are only a handful of really good companies offering this service, so there is a lot of room still.

Google is not the only PPC network. While it represents the majority of searches, there are some other big player worthy of your time. It is best to start by learning Google Adwords first. Once you have done that, start learning about Yahoo and MSN’s PPC networks. Both of these are very profitable networks to work with. Do note that these networks do not function in exactly the same way as Google Adwords, so make sure to do some studying before jumping in. Working Google, Yahoo and MSN is making a good number of folks all kinds of money.

If you don’t already have a Google Adwords account (or if you wish to open a new one) you can get Google(Adwords) Credit through most web hosting services. Web hosting is a required tool for a successful PPC marketer. If you already have hosting, check and see if they include a Adwords Credit. If you don’t already have web hosting, check to see if it is included before you purchase hosting (if you do).

Also be sure to download and install Googles Free Adwords Editor Software. It makes the process of managing your campaigns much easier and will save a lot of time. It is free and, since I have been using it, stable software. Googles free Keyword tool is a site you should have bookmarked as you’ll use it a lot.

Many people are making money with Google. It is a very real and legitimate business, nothing fishy about it. But it does take considerable work to learn, research and impliment/tweek profitable campaigns. An investment in time to learn the ropes and ‘do it right’ will put you miles ahead and closer to your slice of Google Money.

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