Google AdSense: Why bloggers in Kenya like using it to make money online with their blogs

Google Adsense, the ad network by Google, is a popular way for bloggers in Kenya and around the world to make money online with their blogs.

It is popular with online media companies and bloggers around the world. It’s no doubt Kenyan bloggers like it as well. As part of the how to start a blog in Kenya series, today we look at ….

Why Kenyan bloggers like using Google AdSense to monetize their blog content

They don’t need much content and web traffic to start monetizing their blogs with Adsense

Once you start your own blog and have some content published and some traffic flowing to your blog, just use your Gmail account to apply for an Adsense account.

If your website meets the requirements set out by Google for publishers, your account will be approved and you will be able to start adding Adsense ad blocks to your site – and making money from your blog depending on how much traffic you get per day and the number of clicks you get.

Also note that once your Adsense account is approved, you can use the ads on other blogs you own as well. Meaning you can monetize multiple blogs with ads from your Adsense account.

How did my Adsense account get approved

This was many years ago. Before I ever had my first self-hosted WordPress blog, I had a Blogspot blog (Blogger.com) – another service by Google for people who want to create free blogs.

I had less than 15 articles on that blog if I remember correctly. In the admin dashboard area, there was this section where I was prompted to apply for Adsense so I could show ads from the ad network on my Blogspot blog.

Soon after, my Adsense account was approved – and I added some ad blocks on the Blogspot block. Later on when I started different self-hosted WordPress blogs over the years (some failed and I never renewed their domain names once they expired) I just got different ad dimensions from my Adsense account and added them to my blogs – inside the content area and the sidebars.

The Adsense ads being displayed on this blog are all from that account. So, the good thing with Adsense is that once your account is approved, and you are running multiple blogs, you can add Adsense ads on one, two or all of your blogs / apps or YouTube channel – without need to be approved every time you plan on setting up a new blog where you plan on using Google Adsense as a monetization method.

Adsense payments are guaranteed so long as you adhere to the ad network’s ToS and have enough traffic

All you need to get paid and receive your cheque every month from Google for you Adsense earnings is running your site in adherence to their terms of service.

Of course you must have enough traffic to make any money. The more traffic your site gets the more people will click your ads – earning you more.

Remember you can’t click your own ads or tell your friends (coerce or give incentive to your site visitors) to click your ads. Doing this is grounds for your Adsense account getting banned.

Kenyan bloggers like Adsense because they know they will get their money as long as they keep publishing awesome content that gets traffic, draws in readers who leave satisfied with the information they find – and most importantly adhere to Adsense policies.

Readers coming to their blogs just have to click on ads for them to get paid

With Adsense every time someone clicks ads on your blog, Google keeps a portion and a percentage goes to you as the publisher whose blog the ads are displayed.

The more valid ad clicks you get on your blog, the more your earnings from Adsense will be. Different niches attract different amounts per click and sites that focus their content to audiences in countries like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom may earn more per click – depending on the niche one is operating in.

But this doesn’t mean that blogs that publish content for audiences in other countries – like Kenya – can’t earn decent money with Adsense, though it bears repeating that to earn decent amounts with Adsense you need to attract lots of traffic to your blog from search engines and social networks (if you are at the point where you can ramp up the number of people you send to your blog on a daily basis using Facebook advertising and the like).

You only need to reach US$ 100 in your Google AdSense account to get your money sent to you

The minimum amount your AdSense account needs to reach for you to receive your money via Western Union is 100 US dollars.

Most bloggers in Kenya, consistently putting out good content, do that. That is why making money with Adsense is enticing to many bloggers.

Bloggers know that every month they hit the 100 dollar pay out limit Google will be sending them a cheque – in the mail.

How quickly one reaches or even goes beyond the 100-dollar limit is largely influenced by the topic they cover, ad placement, blog design, the source of their traffic, the number of valid clicks, adherence to Adsense ToS and the amount of traffic their blog gets.

You can easily increase how much you earn with Google AdSense by publishing more blog posts

To earn more income with Google Adsense a blogger can publish more articles to their blog, consistently. Doing this results in more traffic – and therefore a likelihood of earning more money per thousand views (revenue per mille – RPM).

All things being equal, the blogger that gets 350,000 pageviews per month is likely to earn more with Adsense compared to one that only gets 50,000 pageviews per month.

So, one way bloggers in Kenya have been able to earn more is to publish more content to their blog. Some blogs put out at least one blog post per day. The really mega blogs in Kenya put out something like 2 to 25 blog posts per day. Granted some are short posts. But they do know how to get people to their sites – and then get those people to spend even more time on their site looking at more and more webpages, increasing the likelihood of their site visitors clicking on more ads.

Publishing more articles also means that one has more content they can promote for free or via paid advertising – which results in more traffic (and, in occasion, virality), more pageviews, more shares on social networks, email and messaging apps like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, more ad clicks = more income.

Google Adsense has a variety of ads to show on the different niche topics a blogger may choose to write on

Many advertisers use Google Adwords to place ads on search engine results pages – so that people using Google to search for things related to what they are advertising can see their ads – and decide to click them and check out what they are offering.

Some of the advertisers, using Adwords, decide to display their ads on websites that are part of the Adsense networks (content publishers – website, app and blog owners that have been approved by Adsense and allowed to display ads and earn from clicks / RPMs).

There are a lot of advertisers using Adwords – advertisers selling lots of different things. Meaning that whatever topic you write about, there is someone using Adwords to place ads that are related to the content you are publishing.

As a publisher, there will be relevant ads displayed to your readers by Adsense. That’s why bloggers in Kenya publishing content in different niches use Adsense to monetize their sites.

Even if there are no relevant ads suited to the readers in the niche you blog about, Google will try to display ads on your blog that are related to your readers’ interests – using their browsing behaviour as a guide (hint) to show ads that are relevant to them.

So, in most cases, regardless of a niche you operate your blog in, there are always relevant ads to show your readers – and earn you an income.

You can easily tweak your blog design, Adsense ad sizes, types and layouts to increase your income

The reporting feature in Adsense dashboard makes tweaking ads easier. The reporting feature tells you how your ads are performing – and occasionally Adsense offers tips to optimize your ads to increase your earnings.

Bloggers in Kenya like Adsense because there are a variety of ad dimensions (medium rectangle, responsive ads, large rectangle, link units, larger skyscraper among others) to choose from – with the ability to display text ads, rich media or a mix of both.

Bloggers can change the colours of their ads, colours of the font used in their ads – and make the relevant changes that work well with their WordPress theme to ensure more revenue from ads displayed on every webpage on their blog.

You can also exclude ads from certain niches and categories from showing on your blog – if you don’t want your readers to see them.

And I bet many bloggers find this feature handy, because there are some dark ads that one must block in their Adsense account – however much such ads may earn them when curious readers click to see what’s on the other end.

It’s easy to start earning with Google Adsense once your blog gets good traffic

Adding Adsense to a blog is as simple as copying the ad code from your Adsense account and adding it to your blog (for example adding the large skyscraper ad to your sidebar by dragging the Text widget to your blog’s sidebar and pasting the ad code in the Appearance > Text widgets section of your blog).

There are many WordPress Adsense plugins to add Adsense ads to your blog, some with the ability to exclude certain ads from showing on specific posts, post types, pages, categories and tags. These plugins include Ad Inserter (which I use to add Adsense ad code inside post content and float them left or align them to the right, while excluding the ads from displaying on my WooCommerce product pages), Quick Adsense, Google Adsense official plugin among others.

There are also great WordPress Adsense themes – some free and some premium – that makes it easy to add Adsense ads to your blog and blend them well with the content you publish. Some of these themes have a Theme Settings / Options / Customize section to quickly add the Adsense ads in the top of the fold area, in the content area and sidebar section of your website.

These themes include but are not limited to Eleven40 Pro theme (works with the Genesis Theme Framework), Newspaper magazine theme by Mythemeshop and SuperAds by ThemeCountry.

The variety and ease that comes with these plugins and themes makes using Adsense even more enticing for different bloggers – the ones with low traffic and the ones whose blogs receive lots of traffic on a daily basis.

With AdSense you can add up to 3 ads to your blog template [NOTE: now you can add more than 3 Google AdSense ads in a web page]

This, as many bloggers have found, gives readers more chances to see and click on your ads. One can easily add different Adsense ads – one at the top of the post, another in the middle / end of the post and one more in their blog’s sidebar area.

For the Kenyan bloggers who have put a priority in making money with ads (Adsense in this case) and not other online money making methods like affiliate marketing, selling of products and services, collecting leads / building email list, selling ebooks, selling online courses, selling coaching or consulting, selling apps / software, selling physical products, flipping blogs / websites / houses / cars / online businesses, this works well for them – three ads spread out in different sections of their sites to increase clicks and total earnings.

Google Adsense ads can be displayed on tablets, smartphones, desktop computers including laptops and netbooks

Adsense ads display well on the variety of devices people use to access the internet – desktop PCs, tablets, laptops, smart TVs even some feature phones.

Bloggers who use Adsense therefore can increase the amount of money they make across different types of electronic devices people use to access their blogs.

Whether the same readers check one’s blog with the various gadgets they own, they still are presented with a chance to see ads relevant to them – which some click on earning the blog owner more from the content they publish.

Some bloggers in Kenya use Google Adsense in conjunction with other blog monetization methods and Google is OK with that

…as long as blog owners going this route stick to Adsense policies, they are free to bring other monetization methods into the mix.

Publishers can use affiliate marketing to increase the amount of money they make from their blogs.

They can use ads from alternative ad networks (like Outbrain, RevContent, PropellerAds, BuySellAds, Media.net, Chitika and others) to supplement the income they get from Adsense.

Google has no qualms with that as long as you stick to their terms of service and give readers a good experience every time they visit your site. So, your site shouldn’t just be loaded with ads. It should have great content, load fast and give readers what they want.

You can use Adsense and also sell your own products by linking to them in whatever online marketplace you are selling them. Or sell your products right from your blog using WordPress ecommerce plugins like Easy Digital Downloads plugin or WooCommerce.

You can sell your own services – and get paid to your Safaricom M-PESA mobile money wallet, bank account, Skrill or PayPal. For example, any freelance service you decide to offer online will earn you some money, on top of your Adsense income.

You might even be surprised that you earn more from the work you put in as an online freelancer. Or even earn more from the sales of your own products or products and services you promote as an affiliate.

Bloggers in Kenya, love this, because it gives them room to test different blog monetization methods, to see the ones they like, the ones that work for them, their readers – and fits in well with their short and long term plan for their blog.

More and more companies and businesses in Kenya are using Google Adwords (either through digital marketing agencies or their marketing arms) to advertise their products and services online

Meaning that Kenyan bloggers that publish content for Kenyans (inside the country and in the diaspora) and those interested in Kenya (citizens of other countries) now have more and more ads by local brands Kenyans are familiar with showing on their blogs – increasing the likelihood of readers clicking the ads, which results in more earnings.

In Conclusion

Bloggers like Adsense because of all the reasons mentioned above – among many other reasons. Once you publish content and promote it, most people see their ad earnings as passive income. Which they like.

Some bloggers make a full time income from Adsense. Others make hundreds of dollars a month and growing, soon to reach their first ever one thousand dollar payout.

With all the advantages it should also be noted that there are some bloggers who don’t like Adsense as a monetization method. These are bloggers who say the earnings from Adsense are too little.

That Adsense requires a lot of traffic to make any decent amounts of money monthly. And that Google can ban one’s account on a whim, with all the accrued but not yet cashed out earnings gone just like that.

And they are right.

Different strokes for different people.

There are bloggers who prefer making money online via affiliate marketing.

Some like selling their own online courses, seminars and ebooks.

Others like making money doing freelance jobs – work they prospect for on sites like Upwork, Textbroker, Fiverr, among other sites – or those they get from direct clients that land on their blogs.

So, if you want to use Adsense on your site, weigh your options, know the reason why you are starting your blog, test the different monetization methods – and if you settle on Adsense work on your site to increase your income.

Also realize that you can use these other monetization methods in conjunction with Adsense.

To you: Have any questions, tips, stories or relevant info you’d like to share with me and other readers concerning Adsense and the other blog monetization methods mentioned in this post? Share them in the comments section below.