Making money with Google AdSense seems like a simple thing to do. Create a website, put some advertising on, and wait for the clicks and money to start rolling in.

Unfortunately it does not work this way. Most people do not make money. The reason is that they do not understand how AdSense works. Things are never as simple as they seem – this also applies to AdSense. this post is about How To Make Money With Google AdSense.

The key to Google AdSense is this: Get visitors to leave your site by clicking Ads. This seems obvious but it is not. The reason is that it goes against everything most webmasters have been taught and believe to be good website design practice.

General practice and understanding of a good website is that it is well designed, pretty, and has good content. Make the visit pleasurable for the visitor: nice graphics, easy navigation, and interesting content. Make sure the visitor comes back: frequent updates, big RSS button, subscriptions to a newsletter, etc.

But if you want to make money with AdSense then the above is all wrong. Actually it is the opposite of what you should be doing.

Standard thinking is that you want people to stay on your website as long as possible. That is why you try to make it a pleasurable experience. With AdSense the idea is to get them off your website. You want them to not have a pleasurable experience, to not be wowed by your pretty website, to not be reading your content, to not be subscribing. You want them to leave by clicking on an Ad.

To make money with AdSense you need to completely change your thinking. Instead of thinking about how to get your visitors to stay, think about how to get them to leave by clicking ads.