I still remember when blogging was so new to me, that the whole concept of Google Adsense and how to get ads on my blog was like learning a foreign language. You are not alone! I will try and make this as easy as possible.
First, apply to Adsense. I had a problem when I first applied, and so they had me in their system as rejected. Once you are rejected, there is no reversing that. The only solution is signing up for Adsense with a new email.
Once you are in Adsense, it all looks strange, so just go to “My Ads”. There you will see a button that says +New Ad Unit. Click that. Here is the screen that comes up to create your ad:
- First, you need to name your Ad. I would just name it the same as the Ad Size – 728×90.
- Choose Ad Type. I always choose “Display ads only” because I don’t like text ads on my site, personally.
- Skip over Backup Ads for now. It is not necessary for initial setup. Set up back up ads after you get the hang of Adsense and want to fill the blank spaces they leave when they don’t fill. Here is my article on Adsense Backup Ads.
- Custom Channels is another one to skip for now. Plus, your box will be empty (unlike mine in the picture, because I have set up Custom Channels). Again, just get your ads going, and then come back for the Advanced tutorials! Here is my article on setting up Custom Channels.
- Now, the bottom part of the picture above will change when you choose “Display ads only”. You won’t have all those formatting options. So now you are ready to SAVE AND GET CODE.
Now you have the ad code and we go back to your blog. You can set up all your ad sizes at once if you want, and then get the ad tag codes anytime. You won’t lose the ad code if you don’t copy it right then.
Getting Adsense to show on your Blog
First, I want to tell you that the easiest way to get started is putting an ad in your sidebar. If your sidebar is wide enough, the 300×250 is the most popular size. I know you want a Header and a Footer, but that is a more advanced placement. Some blogs come with a pre-made place for ads in your Header…awesome! If not, you will need to do tinkering in your Custom CSS to make changes, and that is an advanced topic we will not go into in this post. Read here to get started on making changes to your CSS and how to start tinkering.
You may need that information to get your Header and Footer Ads to look right after you place them. Just get your sidebar ads working, and then move on to the Header and Footer. Okay, this is really a lot easier than you might think. Let’s do it. First, all WordPress.org blogs come with a Text Widget. Go to “Appearance” in the left column, and choose “Widgets”. The Widget interface will come up.
- Open up the Primary Sidebar Widget Area on the right with the arrow in the top right of the box. This will open up a small space to drag a widget to.
- Find the Text Widget in the left hand list of Widgets. Click, hold and drag it into the Primary Sidebar Widget.
- The Text Widget will auto-open. It will be Blank. (See the image below)
- DO NOT fill in the Title, unless you want to say something like “Advertisers” or “Sponsors”
- In the large box under that, paste your ad code that you copied from Adsense.
- I have the Dynamic Widget Plugin installed, which allows me to customize which pages to show my Widgets. If you have that, you can use it to control where you want your ad to show.
- Save.
You’re done.
You don’t believe me? Lol! Your ad is not showing up, is it? Well, no worries…you will have to wait up to an hour to start to see ads in the space. I would actually not change anything else until you have given it 24 hours.
For further reading, these are some important things to know about Adsense:
How do I get rid of the spammy or download ads that Adsense is serving on my site?
What is the difference between CPM (that most networks use) and RPM (that Adsense uses)?
Where have you been this last year as I have tried to get my blog started? Oh my goodness. I can’t wait to read every one of your posts to learn from you. I think I have a nice looking blog, my content is getting better, and now I just need to get readers so I can begin to make a little money doing this thing that I love!
Kerry
Kerry, LOL! Glad you found me! I love helping…the blogging is a constant “what next” job. But fun!~
Thank you Jill for sharing. Quick question. If i still use blogpost.com and i was rejected is it still possible to use a different email add but with same blogpost to sign up for ad sense? I’m a recent fashion blogger still dont have my own domain. Please help. Thank you
http://Www.fizardstyle.blogspot.ca
Yes, you can still apply again with a different email address but you may be rejected again.
Ahhhhh! Thank you for this! I just switched to wordpress.org and am really going to be making an effort to monetize this month and next. This is soooo helpful!
Angela, I am so glad! This post seems to be just what everyone needs when they are starting out!
Once again, you have saved the day! Just set up Adsense and with your tutorial I walked right through it! You are the BEST! xoxo
Nikki…I’m so glad people are finding this tutorial easy to follow! Yay for more money for our work!
OMG, this was the most helpful guide I have every followed. Thank you so much and I really appreciate the post. I’ve been searching on the “how to” and never found help until this post.
I will definitely follow along:)
Yay! Thank you Barbie Jane! That is what I want to here…that my tutorials are easy to follow for the regular, non-techy people!
Do you know what kinds of things will get your blog rejected? I haven’t applied yet because I’m a little terrified my blog will be rejected. Do you have to have a certain number of views/month or /post or something?
Thanks!
Jaclyn, I think I was rejected because the original site I signed up with was a commerce site for selling products. And so then once they rejected me, I could not contact them to change anything. I think, for the most part, most people are accepted.
Hi Jill,
Wow! Thank you so much for this post. I must have applied to Adsense 4 or 5 times and was rejected everytime, though I continually tweeked my blog to comply with their policies. Now, after using another email address I was accepted. Yay!
I so appreciate this post of yours. Now to work through the rest of the post to get the ads in place.
Donna
I am so glad you got it to work Donna…how is it going?
Thanks for this post Jill! I’m just getting started blogging and everything is so confusing and overwhelming. This made it really easy to understand!
Great! How is it going? Glad it helped!
Thank you Jill! that really is easy
You are welcome Gretta!
Thanks for posting! This was very helpful – I’m going to try it! However, does this same process apply to adding ads to YouTube How-To videos?
Lanise, sorry, I don’t know anything about monetizing YouTube!
I have just signed with hostgator and not sure how the email works do I use my current personal email? Or use an outside email such as mail chimp this is my first blog. @ should I name the email the same . .Com as my blog will be named when it’s up and running? I am not sure how to get an b email with my . Com same as my blog name . And still working on installing b wordpress having some issues there ugh. Great site you have I love the help you have provided!
Pam, I have never made an email that matches my blog name through the host. Most people do, but I just always wanted to deal with one email address! Sorry I can’t help here!
wow this is awesome! I put Google Adsense up last week and am still learning! thank you for the post!
Thank you so much for the fabulous guide! AdSense is just so darn complicated… no way I could have survived without your post!
I remember getting rejected over five times for different reasons like insufficient content, but it all worked out after several weeks of consistent posting once a week. If you get rejected, it’s fine as you can reapply again after fixing the reason for your rejection.
Once you get approved, there are many good third party plugins to insert ads into your posts and pages anyway.
I loved your tutorial and followed it step-by-step. I am not very technologically inclined and am not seeing any ads, just a blank box (I put the code in two days ago), Do you have any idea what I could have done wrong? Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! At first my ads were not showing up after following all of the steps. Then, I received another e-mail from Google and they started appearing. I suppose there was some sort of second inspection. I really appreciate how you really broke down each step for those of us who are not the most technologically inclined!