Is Google Adsense Overrated?

I remember when I started blogging a while back. I thought to myself, I am just goint to put Adsense in front of my readers, and they are going to click on them, making me a fortune while I do my favorite job in the world. That didn’t quite work out for me a couple of years ago, and to be honest hasn’t worked out for me anytime. I have given Adsense enough opportunities to prove itself as a viable source of income for my blogs, but the most that I have made with Adsense is about in the range of $500-$1000 a month. So here is why you shouldn’t put your eggs in the Adsense basket:

• Content: Adsense does work for some sites better than others. For instance, a deal site may get a lot of clicks from their adsense account but in most cases, adsense money does not amount to anything significant. Let’s remember that the goal is to make a living from blogging and not just paying the rent.
• Looks: Google Adsense is the ugliest form of “blog monetization.” There is no question in my mind that most professional sites don’t even consider using Adsense unless there are very short on cash. So you won’t see SI.com or ESPN adding Adsense to their sites anytime soon.
• Control: going back to the last point, many big publishing sites do have sponsored links on their pages. But having your own sponsored links can be more lucrative, and could also give you more control as far as look and feel is concerned. In most cases, Google will not allow you to dramatically change the look and feel of Adsense ads. So you are stuck (remember the keyword “almost).
• Risk: for me personally, adding a new channel of advertising to my blogs is all about balancing the risks and rewards. There are a lot of people who claim they make millions with Adsense, and good for them. But most people I know and many marketing legends have talked about how Adsense is not a viable source of income for bloggers. You can make into thousands a month from Adsense, depending on your traffic, but you can make much more money if you direct your traffic to other channels.

Adsesne is far from perfect, but you should definitely give it a try to satisfy your curiosity. Now it would be hypocritical of me to say that you should never use Adsense. I have sites out there that have Adsense on them, but they are not blogs and are definitely not designed to provide any specific value to my users. But as far as my blogs are concerned, I try to minimize the use of Adsense. I just can’t stand the looks.