Meet AdWords, the twin brother of AdSense
AdSense is one of the best ways to monetize your web traffic. People see those little "Gooogle Ads" details and they click like crazy. Or at least that's the plan. But have you ever thought about where those ads come from? That would be AdWords, the pay-per-click program for people who want to advertise their products on Google.
They are the good men and women who are willing to part with some kingdom coin every time a visitor to your website chooses to click on an AdSense ad. Google takes the cash from the member's AdWords account, keeps some of it, and gives the rest to you. How much they keep and how much they give away is a state secret, but who cares; as long as we have ours every month.
How AdWords works
AdWords provides pay-per-click advertising to merchants who are willing to shell out from a minimum of 05.05 per click to a maximum of $ 100 per click. Can you imagine someone paying $ 100 just to have someone click on an ad?
Anyway, the advertiser joins the AdWords program and gets a control panel similar to the one we AdSense users have. They can write their ads, choose their keywords, and set an advertising budget. They get tools to track performance and to help them choose keywords. No minimum monthly expenses are required and they can turn their ads on and off at will.
Once an advertiser is happy with her ad, it gets published on the web and appears on websites like yours and mine. That's if the keywords on your site match the keyword requirements of the new ad, of course.
They can't "buy" to get to the top
Google doesn't just push people with the highest paying ads to the top of the SERP (search engine results page). They use a fairly fair methodology that takes into account not only the maximum CPC (cost per click), but also includes a secret recipe for determining an ad placement So, in theory at least, an ad that pays .05 per click could rise above one that pays $ 5.00 per click if it is more popular with Google's audience.
I say "in theory" because if the owner of the $ 5 ad is paying attention, he will see that he is being overtaken by a low nickel ad and will do some serious rewriting to get back to the top where they belong.
Personally, I'm not sure I have the guts to invest a lot of money in the hope that people who click on my ad actually buy something, as I still have to pay Google whether or not I make a sale. But, as a dedicated AdSense user, I'm sure I'm glad my AdWords brothers and sisters are worth more than I am. And you should be grateful too.