Using Google AdSense to make money is a simple concept that people tend to over-complicate. In this hub we'll look at a series of steps to increase your Google AdSense earnings.

First of all we'll look at how to attract web traffic that converts into AdSense revenue. Secondly we'll work on increasing the keyword rankings of your hubs on search engines. Finally, we'll work on getting a grasp on how to use Social Networks to promote your hubs intelligently.

Prerequisites

1. Have an ability and interest in writing quality content.
2. Have a free HubPages Membership that's configured to Google AdSense.
3. Be willing to follow this tutorial.

To make money using Google Adsense we have to consider one very important factor:

Traffic... Traffic... Traffic

Most of us agree that web traffic is an important component of effective writing online. If no-one is reading your hubs then you're probably not getting the best results, at least not in terms of feedback from readers and revenue from Google advertising.

However not just any traffic will do. High amounts of search engine traffic (especially from Google) is essential to being able to make money from Google AdSense. People coming to your articles from the Google search engine are much more interested in the advertising around your content than individuals coming from other sources. For example, if you send out your article link to 1,000 friends on Facebook or Twitter many of your friends will be interested in reading what you've written, but none of them will be interested in the advertisements.

As I've mentioned in my articles before, I receive 10,000-20,000 visitors from StumbleUpon.com every month to make grand total of less than $10 from this source. Social networking and referred traffic is not interested in the advertising, and search engine traffic is. The simple explanation is that people who use search engines are looking for something. Your article will probably not provide the exact information a person is looking for 90% of the time. Rather than hitting the back button, many people find that the Google AdSense advertising in the article may well benefit their needs.

So firstly, consider that people use search engines to find information, as opposed to social networks which are more based on entertainment purposes where people are actually interested in reading articles to connect with each other first and foremost.

Step One - Get Organized

Building traffic from a variety of different sources is a good idea, however you might be able to see now the importance of specifically increasing your Google search engine rankings to improve the effectiveness of the advertising around your content.

Building a Topic Bank

Many people struggle coming up with topics to write about at Hub Pages. Many others write impulsively without really considering whether people are searching for the topic on Google. The Topic Bank is a Word document or Excel document on your computer that contains a list of topics you like writing about.

Sometimes you may like to write just for the purpose of writing, just for fun. However I highly recommend that you spend a few hours building a topic bank of content that you can pick from at any time that is almost guaranteed to be picked up and ranked by Google. Your topic bank is a list of articles you could write about over the next few weeks or months that:

• You enjoy writing about.
• You know a lot about.
• Have good potential to be found at Google.

The first 2 points I don't really have to explain in great detail. Sit down for 20 minutes and ask yourself what you enjoy doing most, and spend another 20 minutes jotting down what people always ask you for advice about or what you enjoy explaining to others most. These are topics you are likely going to enjoy writing about.

That brings us to the 3rd point - 'how do I know which topics will be ranked well at Google and which won't be?'

I use a tool called 'WordTracker' which tells me which topics people are searching for and how many searches are made every day. The professional version of WordTracker also tells me how many other people have written articles about the topic so I know which topics my articles are likely to succeed in and which areas are too competitive. However the processional version with Supply and Demand scales is fairly costly, so to start with I recommend using the WordTracker Free Tool to see what people are searching for.

Enter short one or two word phrases that generally describe the area you want to write about. If WordTracker comes back and tells you that 20 or more people are searching for related phrases every day, then you have an excellent chance at getting high search engine traffic to the article. Even results with less than 20 searches per day may be worth writing about, but if you've gotten back 'No Results' you may want to re-write the phrase so that people actually find your article on Google when it's online.

Step Two - Find Profitable Topics

I normally have at least 20-30 keywords in my Topic Bank. These are keywords that I can factor into the topics I enjoy writing about. These are also keywords that have some estimated Google traffic based on the data I receive from the WordTracker Tool.

So far you've got a great strategy plan for receiving search engine traffic to your hubs and articles. Next time you have an impulsive idea to write about a particular topic, why not go to your Topic Bank and see how you can factor in one of your existing keywords? This search engine traffic strategy is effective, however it's only half of the process. By making it this far and missing the concept of keyword-cost you will not be able to make as much money using AdSense as you could with the use of expensive keywords.

Keywords that receive a lot of search engine traffic aren't necessarily going to be expensive for advertisers to buy around your article content. Your aim is to add keywords to your Topic Bank that are going to cost advertisers a lot of money to put their ads on. This second part of the process is the key to successfully increasing how much money you are making with Google AdSense.

Some advertisers will pay very little to have their ads appear on your articles, while others pay a lot more. How can you determine and predict this? It's all based on keywords and content. Each keyword with Google AdSense has a certain amount of competition among advertisers, the more competition, the more an advertiser will pay to put their ads on articles surrounding this topic.

Download a list of 400,000 off-hand keywords that pay up to $20 per click

There are a number of ways to discover whether your Topic Bank contains profitable or not so profitable keywords. The first way is to simply buy a list from an existing web marketer who has spent months researching which keywords are worth a lot and which ones aren't.

Click here to visit the Top Keywords company site

This option isn't cheap, but it is rewarding on a very practical level. If you are getting 20-30 clicks every day worth 8 cents each, then you're only earning $3 or so daily from Google AdSense. But if you are earning $2 per click with the same traffic then you'll be earning more like $60 daily. Realistically, the database gives you about 800 keywords that earn over $3 per click across both search and content networks. In practical terms, this is going to save you a heck of a lot of research time. However there is a DIY alternative that I'm going to discuss right here.

Remember the Topic Bank we discussed? Take a pre-filled excel file like the one you can purchase above and weed out all of the keywords that you know nothing about and have no interest learning or writing about. Then, weed out all the keywords that earn a low amout of income per click. Some people here at Hub Pages average 8 cents per click for their topics. That's outright painful, and it will take months before earnings accumulate into anything substantial, even with a steady stream of clicks. So look at your existing average Per-Click-Earnings and set a goal of, say, double that amount. Go for keywords around that figure.

If you don't have an excel list of top paying keywords, here are some DIY ways to generate one yourself without having to pay anyone to do it for you. The process is slow and is based on 'guess work', but it can be done.

Option One - Analytics

If you've installed Google Analytics onto your Hub Pages account and have been collecting linked AdSense data for the last 2-3 months then you're in luck. Simply log in to your Google Analytics panel and select Content, and then AdSense. You'll be able to see which articles are earning little from advertising revenue and which ones are earning well. From here, you can add the profitable keywords to your Topic Bank and delete the not so profitable ones that you've already tried.

Option Two - Pretend to be the advertiser

By searching for advertising options with Google AdWords you'll be able to find lots of tools and resources that estimate how much you would have to pay to advertise on particular keyword topics. By pretending to be the advertiser you can 'test' keyword ideas and see if they are good earners or not. Do a Google search for 'adwords' to access advertiser resources.

Step Three - Build Content Authority and Traffic

Providing that you've followed these steps so far, you have almost all of the required information to create a hub page or an article that's going to provide solid Google AdSense money making potential. Some individual articles may even bring you as much as $20-30 per month or more per article. That's how much some of my top earning hubs make, while I'm sure many other people here make even more than that following these steps. One of my hubs in that range in particular took me less than 20 minutes to write, so the possibilites are on the up side.

To be able to really earn well using Google AdSense you'll want to make sure that your hubs have more authority than all the other articles in Google search for a particular topic. Reaching No.1 in the Google results means that you'll have a lot more traffic than from just following the first two steps in this hub. The final step involves establishing your article as a high ranking authority on the search engines.

This is easier than it sounds, however it requires some creativity. To establish your article as an authority all you essentially have to do is convince other authority websites to link back to it. Google takes backlinks very seriously in its ranking process, and a single link to your article from an authority website can drastically improve your search engine rankings.

Since this is the final step of mastering Google AdSense I'll outline the features of authority sites clearly to avoid any confusion when implementing this strategy. In the social networking section at the bottom of this page I'll discuss exactly how you go about convincing an authority to link to your articles.

The Five Features of Authority Sites

Sites which have been online for over 12 months

It takes Google a long time to fully archive a website. Most websites have zero authority with Google for the first 6 months of being online, and only begin accumulating authority over the following 6 months and into the future.

Sites which are updated at least once a week

Google considers websites that are updated several times a week as having much more authority than websites updated any less often than that.

Niche-specific sites

'Hub Pages' is an example of a general authority site, it covers all sorts of topics. In this step you are looking for an authority site that covers your topic specifically, the topic that you have just written about.

Sites with high quality content

Google has a complex scanning mechanism that determines what high-quality content is, however just by reading the website you'll be able to be the judge of whether it is a high-quality website or not.

Sites with a low link diffusion ratio

Finally, if the website is linking to everything and anything, then even if your article gets linked to, it's not going to count for much. If the author of the website only links to external resources that are exceptionally useful, then the weight of the link substantially increases.

Spotting an Authority Site Easily

• To check how long a website has been online simply use Google to find a 'WHOIS' service and enter the domain of the website.
  Most WHOIS services retrieve the age of the domain. Since this doesn't indicate how old a website is it's not totally accurate, but in most cases it gives us a good idea.
• Look for an Orange RSS icon on the website, if you click on it and scroll down you'll see roughly how many times per week a new article is added to the site.
• Look at the categories on the left hand side or at the top of the website. Are they all sub-categories of the topic you are writing about? If so, that's a good thing!
• Read through 2 or 3 of the articles on the site thoroughly. Is the content high quality? You be the judge.
• Look at how sparingly the webmaster links to other websites. The harder it is to get a link on an authority site the more the link is worth once you get it!

To give one last example, if your article is about books and publishing, then look for a website about books and publishing that meets the above five criteria. There are 2 ways to ask for an authority site to link to you - directly and indirectly. Just e-mailing the webmaster with your article URL isn't going to work, it's considered spam, so avoid doing this. For direct methods, you'll just have to get creative. However here are some indirect methods that do work:

Social Networking Smarts

To establish your articles as authorities on search engines you'll have to first establish them as 'good content' on existing websites that are in fact authorities (match all five of the above criteria) in your niche-area or topic of choice. To do this you are essentially going to establish yourself as an authority - as a person. You provide quality content about a specific subject. Right? Right :)

Don't worry, you don't have to do this directly or in any way stand up and say 'I'm an authority' - this will happen automatically when you follow these social networking steps.

First of all it is important to follow individuals on Twitter (Twitter.com) who are writing about the same things that you are writing about and have a strong following (over 80 followers), if you share interests and participate by responding to their Tweets intelligently then they may follow you as well.

To find people on Twitter who microblog about your topic of choice use the Twitter Find People page and begin following individuals who share your interests and seem to provide quality conent about the topic as well.

One other way that you can do this is by replacing the Topic with your topic and going to this URL: http://twitter.com/#search?q=Topic

Eventually a handful of experts in your topic area will be following you and they will be notified each time you post a new hub and submit it to Twitter. You may also like to follow friends and fellow hubbers who are interested in the same topics. Some of those individuals will have blogs that qualify as authority sites. Your hub may inspire them to link back to it in their next blog post.

The bottom line is that social network traffic doesn't increase search engine performance or Google Adsense profits, but connecting with social networkers is useful because many of them have authority blogs or friends with authority blogs who can influence both the former and the latter elements of your article performance.

Conclusion

You've learned:

• The indirect role of social networks in boosting search engine traffic.
• The types of traffic that earn well with Google AdSense.
• How to build your own Topic Bank.
• How to find which topics rank well on search engines.
• How to find profitable keywords.
• The concept of content authority and how to increase your article's authority.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you've gotten something useful out of this hub. :) Subscribe to my fan club to receive an e-mail when I write on related topics. I was really inspired by the comments I got on my previous AdSense article '3000 words on maximizing adsense profits with hub pages' so I decided to write another 3000 words with more AdSense strategies. Your feedback, questions, and comments are welcome.