Google AdSense is easy to install on a web page or blog and constitutes additional source of income without spending anything. You have to apply on-line for Google AdSense Program and generally approval comes from Google within two days. Those having AdWord account can use AdWord e-mail address and password for AdSense account also. After acceptance of application, Google confirms creation of your Adsense account thru e-mail. You get a code for AdSense text ads and another code for AdSense search. These codes are to be installed on web page or blog and within minutes the page will start displaying ads from Google, and a Google search bar. AdSense is available in dozen languages worldwide.

The code for AdSense can be placed on any of your web pages. I think placing it on your blog will give you distinct advantage because blogs have several points in their favor. They are easily indexed by search engines. Recently two of my simple blogs were indexed by Google within 2-3 days of submission of URL's which I think is quite fast. With Yahoo! it is even easier - just add the URL of your blog to your My Yahoo page and Yahoo! will start accessing it immediately. GoogleAlert is a free tool that can be used to know when your blog is indexed by Google.

You can have your blog up and running in minutes free of cost from several sites that provide this service. I personally use blogger.com. With blogs you do not need to worry about designing websites, registering domain name or hiring web site hosting service. You simply write your content on the blog and it is ready for publication.

An excellent article by John Taylor on creating blog is re-published here:

http://sanjay-j.com/art1ab33.html

With AdSense wide range of options is available - number of ads for display, shape and size of display, color schemes. More than 200 colors are available from which you can choose color for border, background and text. 24 pre-set color palettes are readily available; in addition you can have your own custom-palette to match with the appearance of your web page. Similarly, color schemes are available for Google search bar.

When the web page is opened, Google ads are placed which match with the content of the page and are highly relevant. Google finds right ads for the web page from 100,000 AdWord advertisers.

Several options are available for the ads that you would like to be displayed on your page. Ad filters can be activated which will block up to 200 URL's of your choice which you do not want to show on your page. You may like to filter away ads from your competitors. You can even choose your own default ads for display. Google uses sensitive content filters to prevent display of sensitive material. If you find that your page is not really getting relevant ads, it may be time to look critically at the content of the page, particularly the keywords used in text, links and tags. Little SE optimization of the page should resolve this problem.

Sometimes Google places public service ads when no target ads are available. To suppress public service ad, it is possible to specify your own image ad or HTML page ad which will appear in place of public service ad. This ensures that some ad is always present there. Or, if you like, the space reserved for Adsense ads can be made to collapse.

AdSense tracker is another useful feature which tracks the ads on your pages and generates report for you. The reports can be customized based on requirement. Typically reports can give page impressions displayed, number of clicks and click-thru rates. It is also possible to check earnings any time.

Web page owner can make use of all these facilities and try to get best results. With the help of Ad tracker lot of useful information can be obtained - which ads are doing well, which color combination gets better results, which location of the web page is best for showing ads and so on. This analysis can be used to improve traffic as well as click-thru rates.

With AdSense you have virtually nothing to lose. If you have not yet installed AdSense on your website you can perhaps give it a thought. Any free space which can be created on your website to accommodate AdSense can be used to generate additional income.