Step 3 Worksheet: Finding Web Affiliates

Part One—Signing On To Google Adsense.

There are many reasons to sign on to the Google AdSense program, certainly far too many to go into here. So for now...we'll just walk you through the sign-up process, which is really quite simple.

Step 2) Once you have clicked on the 'Click Here To Apply' you will be on the 'Welcome To AdSense' page. On this page there are approximately six (6) information boxes to be filled out. They are:

1) Account Type: Refers to the question if yours is a 'business' or 'individual' account. It also requests the 'country' or 'territory' in which you reside or do business.

2) Website Information: Refers to the URL (domain name) of your website. It also asks for the primary language of the site.

3) Product Selection: Refers to the Google products you would like to sign up for; AdSense for content (ads) or AdSense for search (search box) or both. MyYawp.com recomends you sign up for both. It's easy to add the code for either or both, and it increases your chance to generate additional revenues by having both options.

4) Contact Information: Refers to all the basic information regarding you and how Google can either get hold of you, pay you, or both. Please note that the checks will be made out to the name you include in this box. So if you want the checks made out to your business, this is the place to make that happen.

5) Policies: Refers to your having read (or at least said you have read) all of Google's policies and fully understand them. You might as well just check the boxes whether you've read them or not, because unless you do check the boxes...you don't get to go any further in the process.

6) Login Information: Refers to how you would like to access your account (user name, password, etc). It also has a box to check if you want 'updates' regarding your account. Again, you might as well check it, if for no other reason to make Google feel like you care about these kinds of things.

FINALLY: All you have to do is click the 'Submit Information' and you have done all you need to do to set up your Google account (except to wait to see if you have been accepted).

And although it is tempting to wait until you have been accepted to Google (or Amazon) to start promoting your project, it's really not necessary. Your passion is about you, not the money, so there is no sense waiting on someone else to move to the next step.

Once you have completed your application and have been accepted to the program, it is time to enter your AdSense code to your blog so you can start work on generating revenues as well as generating awareness for your passion.

Part Two — Adding Google Adsense Code To Your Blog.

Step 1) The first thing to do is go to the Google AdSense sign-in page. This can be found at http://www.google.com/adsense/ . Once at this page enter your e-mail and password to gain access to your AdSense account.

This will take you to the main accounts page. Towards the top of this page (directly beneath the Google logo), there is a tab that say 'AdSense Setup'. Click this tab.

You will have 3 options: 1) AdSense For Content; 2) AdSense for Search; 3) Refferals. Here you have a choice to add each of these Google products to your site. The process of adding any one of these is similar to adding any other one, so let's go through the process of adding AdSense For Content to your weblog.

a) Click the AdSense For Content link.

b) Choose Ad Unit/Text Ads Only (you can change this to Image Ads or add Link Ads at any time).

c) Press the 'Continue >>' at the bottom of the page.

d) It will now ask you to choose your format. For now choose the 120x600 skyscraper (this can also be changed at any time).

e) Choose an appropriate color to match your weblog.

f) Skip over everything else (these options will all be explained in the 'Advanced Worksheet which lauches on April 28) and proceed to the bottom of the page and press the 'Continue >>' button.

g) The next page will have the AdSense 'code' that you need to paste into your weblogs code. It is in the area that says 'AdSense Code'. Put your cursor in the upper left hand corner of this box and click your mouse. This will 'highlight' the code (in deep blue). Right click on your mouse and choose copy.

At this point, it would probably be helpful to open up Word Pad or any other word processing program so you can have this code available to you as you need it for the rest of the process. However, this is not necessary.

h) Now go to Blogger.com and type in your user name and password and open up your blog.

i) Once you opened your blog (it should open to the Dashboard page) click on 'Change Settings'.

j) On the Change Setting page choose Template (the 3rd of the 3 tabs at the top of the page).

k) On the template page, go over to the scroll bar on the right that is associated with the block of text on the page (code) and scroll down until you reach this point (which is almost to the bottom of the page and right after the 'sidebar' code):

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Archives</h2>
<ul class="archive-list">
<BloggerArchives>
<li><a href="<$BlogArchiveURL$>"><$BlogArchiveName$></a></li>
</BloggerArchives>

</ul>
</MainOrArchivePage>

l) This is the point where you will paste the code you copied from Google AdSense. It should look something like this:

</ul>
</MainOrArchivePage>

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-00000000000";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 90;
google_ad_format = "728x90_as";
google_ad_type = "text";
google_ad_channel ="";
google_color_border = "603C1A";
google_color_bg = "000000";
google_color_link = "C8A46E";
google_color_url = "CCCC99";
google_color_text = "C8A46E";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

m) If your code looks like this, then go to the bottom of the page and click on the large orange box that says 'Save Template Chages'.

n) Once you do this, it will inform you your settings were changed successfully and that you will have to republish your blog (or index) in order for the changes to take affect. So click on the blue box that says 'Republish Index'.

o) You will then be informed that 'Your Blog Published Successfully', and at this point all you have to do is click on the viewing options (open a new window or view in the current one) and you should see AdSense ads being served up on your blog on the lower right hand side of the page directly under the archive section.

To note: it may take a bit (a few minutes to a few hours) for Google AdSense to get targeted ads to your blog. In the meantime Google will serve up Public Service ads to fill the ad space avaibable.

And that's not such a bad thing. Serving up Public Service ads at the outset of a project could only bring 'good tidings' to a project of passion.

So, now that you have your passion in a blog that has AdSendse ads running on it, you are ready to move on to letting the world know you have arrived.

So, Continue To Step 4: Finding Your Audience