AdSense is considered one of the most powerful tools in a website publisher’s arsenal for a number of reasons. It enables you to easily monetize your site at no cost to you . . . how great is that?  If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for you.  However, by not taking the time to study and research this tool it is difficult to maximize the possible income you can gain.  This means you could be leaving a lot of money on the table, something everyone hates doing.

The road to earning money with AdSense can be reached fairly quickly.  You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in a short period of time.  Following are the top three basic areas you should concentrate on starting out:

1. Keyword search – Do some research to find some popular subjects, keywords, or phrases.  Select the ones which have the most people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just starting their AdSense business.
   
2. Write articles. Start writing quality, original content articles with the keywords, subjects, and phrases that you have selected from your keyword search.  Note that search engines have become picky about the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.
3. Quality content site.  Build a quality content site incorporated with AdSense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and website. This is where all your hard work comes into play and your research proves its value to you.

The next area to consider is the positioning of the AdSense ads on your website.  The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them.  According to research, the place that surfers look first when they visit a site is the top left. The reason behind this is not readily known. It could be because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings (top left). So visitors tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and try different methods.  The whole point is to build your clickthrough rates and CPM figures.  By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will likely see your income from AdSense double, triple . . . the sky is the limit!

AdSense has some excellent tracking statistics and tools that allow webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of sites on a site by site, page by page, keyword, or any other basis you want.  Make the most of this capability because these are powerful tools that will help you determine which ads are performing best (and worst). With this knowledge you can tweak your AdSense ads and focus on the successful ones while deleting or changing those that are not working as well.

Remember that AdSense is not costing you anything, you have no risk.  Take your time, research before you begin to decide on what area you will concentrate on (and if there is enough interest in that area to make it worth your while), and then get started.  Once your website is up and running and you are becoming successful with AdSense keep working and researching and molding, even if you can only spend a few hours a week on it.  Remember, it will be well worth your time.