Earning passively via Google AdSense or WordAds?

Middle of the summer in London. Cold and gloomy weather, no signs of summer but what warms up my heart ❤ is the fact that I managed to start earning on my website, or at least I have created a potential. What did I have to do?

explore WORDADS

I was playing with free of charge Google Adsense option. What it however requires is for you to have access to your webpage html code, so you can insert Google’s code between the two <body></body> tags on your blog. So if you have your own webpage with full access to the code, this should be easy even for a lay person (literally copy and paste code generated by Google).

It appears that you cannot do it within a basic WordPress.com plan. Furthermore you cannot even add it into your code within the Premium package (which I have purchased to upgrade my plan for the whole year now). So after several attempts I found an alternative.

views, not clicks

WP gives you an option to earn within different plans.

I am testing it now but the only things it requires apart from the Premium (or higher WP plan) is your PayPal email address and… TRAFFIC! All you do is you set it up and save changes. I am sure it will be a piece of cake, but if you need someone to screenshot it for you, let me know and I will demonstrate, how I did it. More about traffic on websites you can find here in one of my previous posts.

So… WordAds do not count clicks, but views of your website. And from the initial exploration, you need quite a few of them (hundreds if not thousands) to see the decent income on your PayPal account. There are certain rules around pay offs too, your balance has to reach a certain level and the payments are usually processed 45 days after the relevant month so you need to be patient…. and creative!

But if it is a passive income, let it do the job for you in the background. I am sure that if you are a dedicated blogger, you work on attracting people to your blog content anyway so why not having something else (this precious technology ❤ ) to work for you and keep your PayPal account busy?

A scale depends on your results, but having lots of visitors (and visits) and not earning anything versus the same visits creating some pocket money for a treat from time to time is what we like and aim for!

what does it look like in real life?

The example is below – you have options to customize the area(s) the ad(s) will be displayed on your blog. In WP you have the options in your Menu, on your own website you can locate it by pasting it in the desired area of your code.

**Example of how WordAds are displayed on your WP blog**

You do not have any tool to adjust the content, but the WP Team works hard to make sure to cooperate with reliable and family-friendly providers and there is some kind of targeting for your ads. Here for instance you can see the add on the right (above my sidebar) attracting you with content about how you start earning on WordPress – and I think it is very relevant bearing in mind that this whole blog aims to teach us to earn passively from diverse resources.

Who is it for?

I have been observing it for a few days now and also contacted WP helpdesk to make sure I get most relevant information. What they recommend is:

“best recommendation is to focus on writing content that attracts an audience to your site” (TRAFFIC!)
“focusing on getting a larger audience (more views/visits on your site)” (TRAFFIC!)
“you may also find value in the upcoming virtual WordPress.com Growth Summit. It is a 1 day interactive event to help your site grow (as per WP helpdesk) https://wordpress.com/growth-summit/“

Details below:

Americas & EMEA

August 17, 2021
11:00am – 4:30pm EDT
(see in your local time)

Asia Pacific

August 18, 2021
11:00am – 4:30pm JST
(see in your local time)

“You can view how we calculate views and visits here: https://wordpress.com/support/stats/#views-and-visitors” – if you want to trace your TRAFFIC
“You will want to review how earnings are calculated here: https://wordads.co/faq/ We can’t go into specific numbers, but you generally need to have tens of thousands of views per month to earn any meaningful income from advertising” – this is an important information for those, that would expect income instantly – yes it is possible but you have to be pretty famous 😉
when asked about the EARNING THRESHOLD as to how many views my site needs to have monthly to generate any income, I was advised as follows: “I can’t really give specific numbers here. Earnings vary a lot. Generally, you’re paid per impression (when the ad is seen by a visitor), not by click. That means the more visits you get, and the more each visitor uses your site, the more you’ll earn” (TRAFFIC!)

So this is the first of my ways to monetize mine and yours “LOOP”

I think the nice summary and additional explanation comes from our last aspect discussed:

“Advertising rates fluctuate constantly. The online ads system is similar to the stock market where advertisers bid in real time. Unless you have the same exact number of visitors from the same countries every single month and advertisers are valuing those visitors equally every month, you’ll never be able to calculate a consistent rate just by earnings vs. impression totals. What you earn can vary greatly per site, depending on the following factors:

* The amount of traffic.

* Where the majority of the traffic is coming from. (North American ad placements currently pay out at a much greater level than ads from other regions.)

* How much advertisers value your users based on their cookies.

* How many visitors are using ad blockers.

* The actual ads that are displayed.“

My conclusion? If you have a great audience already, thousands of clicks or you advertise your blog elsewhere by creating organic and non-organic traffic, you do not need to put extra effort to gain something from this solution – so have it! If you are at the starting point, you may want to engage other ways of earning (as mentioned in my post here), which in conjunction with this solution can pay off sooner AND can motivate you to attract more traffic – also have it! Create that potential, don’t wait for others.

For me personally this is a ‘nice-to-have‘ thing rather than something that you can firmly rely on as a source of predictable income. But ‘nice-to-haves’ are often those little things, that when put together, can bring a significant result – and again help us build earning diversity.

PASSIVE – isn’t it exciting?

I am a big fan of the term ‘PASSIVE‘ – which in my case originates from being a fan of a renewable energy sources and resources as well as PASSIVE BUILDING in addition. Per Passipedia: “Passive House buildings are also praised for their high level of comfort. They use energy sources inside the building such as the body heat from the residents or solar heat entering the building – making heating a lot easier.“ So it uses what already exists, essentially it is a smarter way of using existing sources or resources do gain more without investing loads!

I truly love things, that I invest in once and they bring me multiple sources of savings/income/extra benefits for a long time, which I would not have without those solutions in place, and which normally should be at relatively low cost to maintain.

But would work for me 24/7/365 even when I rest and enjoy my life 🙂

Main points:

relatively low cost of implementing,
technical knowledge is not required,
they work when people visit your website,
it does not have to be a unique visitor every time for the views to count,
lots of information is available on WP website
you can chat with WP helpdesk in a real time and ask as many questions in regards to this functionality as you require
you can trace your earnings via the dashboard
it can be a factor that will motivate you to attract more traffic
extra money is always welcome, especially if you put some in, and they get it back with a top-up with no extra effort in this area 🙂

I hope this is a useful article for you showing more practical aspects of earning on ADS on your website.

Once again – let the world discover who you are and let it make your life better and induce a smile on your beautiful face! ❤