Blogging is now a renowned word worldwide unlike 5 years back when getting Google Adsense approval was easy as creating a Whatsapp account.
People know it's a legit way to make a living online, which is something awesome! Previously when I started blogging, the first question I used to get was "what is blogging"?
Then you'd go talking from scratch and explain the difference between a general website and a blog. With people getting interested to create a living online, one of the very first platforms they get to learn about is the Google AdSense advertisement program.
AdSense is a CPC (Cost per click) program from Google which is in fact the source where Google earns most of its revenue, which is Ads! It might be striking to you, But that's how powerful AdSense is, and still getting Google Adsense approval is not easy for the publishers.
As Google says:
For displaying ads with AdSense for content, publishers receive 68% of the revenue recognized by Google in connection with the service. For AdSense for search, publishers receive 51% of the revenue recognized by Google. These percentages are consistent, regardless of a publisher's geographic location, and are not in any way averaged between publishers.
from Google's official blog post
This blog post is primarily for bloggers who have started new blogs and are looking to start making money out of their hard work. I assure you before we start on, that if you'll follow these steps religiously, there is nothing that can stop you from getting approved by Google AdSense.
Not even Google! 😛 But no, they can if they'd get personnel with you.
So without any further due, lets get lay down the most important factors that would help you to get approved by Google AdSense.
Note: Kindly go through AdSense prerequisites that you need to fulfill before you plan to build up your blog professionally. Also, make sure you absorb webmaster's quality guidelines thoroughly so that you don't take any action against Google's policy. It's also important to know all the prohibited content types that would only sink your blog down if you don't make note of them.
Step #1 Make Your Blog Look Professional!
I'm sure by now you'd be fed up by now, to read this again and again! Though, no one likes to get information from a blog that doesn't displays any authority in it's design! Would you ever take content from Mashable or any other popular blog seriously if it's design sucks? I won't.
When you go ahead and apply for Google AdSense, the first thing the person at Google's office sees is your blog's design! If it's not impressive or at least fails to look professional, your request would be turned down right on.
Why to apply without being fully equipped?
What I would do?
If I start a new blog and doesn't know much of programming, I would suggest you to get a professional looking template for your blog. May that be WordPress or on Blogger.
You can get professional-looking templates for both Blogger and WordPress for free. Check our collections for both, Blogger and WordPress themes.
Professional blog design covers a lot of design aspects. Firstly the overall first impression of the blog, is it cluttered, use of colors and text size etc. How images are processed, whether they are crispy or blurred out.
This very video goes through the design aspect that you can implement and give your blog a getup of a professional blog.
Step #2 Getting At least 500 Visitors a Day!
Generally 1000 visitors is a good call, though we can easily get approved with 500 visitors a day too in most cases. Try to publish quality blog posts on your blog. Avoid copying content which would only do harm to your blog and no good.
Checkout 25 Must Read Blogging Tips For Successful Blog where you'll get a couple of pointers InshaAllah.
For 500 visitors a day, you could choose between 2 different posting strategies. Either you could post relatively short blog posts about 500-700 words daily or every other day, OR you could publish 5000 plus words blog posts once a week!
I would suggest you to go for longer posts version if your blog is informational blog where users come by to gain in depth knowledge on a topic. If your blog is in Tech or news niche, then you'd want to go for shorter posts but with higher frequency.
For posting frequency, you can also read: What Is The Best Blog Posting Frequency?
When we talk about getting 500 visitors a day, that means your blog has proper OnPage optimization for search engines done correctly. The basic metrics among these are your meta and title tags of the blog.
Step #3 Getting Custom Blog Domain
If you're not yet using a custom blog domain like (www.yourblog.com) and are still using free domain names either like blogspot.com or WordPress.com, then it's time for an upgrade.
You would know this popular saying that 'Money makes Money' and it's true in Blogging too.
Invest only a few dollars to get a professional looking blog domain name and you're all set to get AdSense approval.
Hey...Are You With Me? I hope you're not bored yet! If you're following these tips by now, I'm sure you'd be having an AdSense account pretty soon InshaAllah. Keep reading..
Step #4 Don't Present Your Self As Sammy! MFA - Made For AdSense
There are tons of blogs we all know, which use free hosted accounts like blogspot, weebly, wix etc that are primarily made to get Google AdSense approval. These publishers believe that posting a lot of low qulaity content would get them a long term AdSense account that we all wish for.
It no more possible! Back in around 2011 when I BloggingeHow got AdSense approval, AdSense approval policies were still not that tight as what are now. I got my blog approved with hardly any genuine content on it apart from over 1k links to YouTube channel for subscribe for subscribe techniques.
Still I was approved. This doesn't work anymore. We have to portray our selves that we are serious about that blog and it's made for long term purpose.
And that we aim to provide value to our readers via that blog.
Always note that people who approve your blog for Google AdSense are real people and NOT robots! They can sense spam far better that we do!
Step #5 Take Time & Prove
For china and India, Google have a policy that they won't approve AdSense accounts as long as your blog's domain is at least 6 months old. They have taken this step to avoid spam. As people make low quality blogs and submit their applications for AdSense which would for sure are bound to get disapproved.
Even if you're not part of these 2 countries, I would recommend you to work for 6 months at least if your blog is new. Work hard to produce quality content and attract 500 visitors a day at least! That's your bench mark! I'm sure once you reach there, you'll get approved InshaAlalh for sure!
Step #6 Focus On Organic/Social Traffic
Yes this says it all! Google doesn't prefer blogs that are involved in click exchange programs. Specially for AdSense approvals. They believe that such blogs have a higher tendency of invalid clicks on Google AdSense ads so they don't approve them in the first place.
Check out what Google had to say about such blogs:
We understand that our publishers are always looking for ways to attract interested users to their sites. But using third-party tools or services to increase your site traffic may lead to invalid clicks or impressions and result in your account being disabled.
You can read more about this here.
Step #7 Standard Blog Design
There are more chances for your blog to get AdSense approval if your blog has a standard blog layout. This consisted of a main content section and either one or two sidebars.
This is like a standard nowadays and even better if you could stay with a single sidebar on the right side.
Step #8 No Competitors Usage
Make sure that you're not using AdSense's competitor's ads on your blog (some adsense alternatives could help you too).
Its advisable to keep your blog clean of any sort of ads before your apply. This can play a role of catalyst in your AdSense applications' approval.
Step #9 Basic Blog's Navigation
It's also advisable to have the most important pages on your blog's navigation panel, which are again a standard now days.
- About page
- Contact page
- Privacy policy page
- Terms of Usage page.
Everything should be there that makes a website or blog look professional and legit.
Guaranteed Approval:
If you don't wanna wait and want to get your Adsense account approved instantly (in some days) here's the list of actual points you need to cover:
- Have a site on a .com (or other TLD)
- Install a clean and easy to navigateable theme/template
- Post at-least 20+ posts (one niche/industry) with free stock photos
- Your domain name should be at-least 2 months old
- Add your site to Search Console and wait for getting your pages indexed
- Create the pages like about us and privacy as we suggested
- Create a simple logo and a big header menu with categories
- Add your own info as an author
- Drive a little traffic from your social media accounts
- Apply for Adsense with a new gmail ID
Now wait, they will never reject your application, they may require some improvements, so keep an eye on Adsense team's email that comes with tips and suggestions.
That's the real recipe everybody is using right now.
Overall Advice
It's generally about your blog's traffic and layout design! Sometimes huge amount of traffic can still not get your approved with AdSense and when you dig in, blog's design is one of the primary factor that becomes the reason of sad news.
My advise for you is to focus on your content and layout! Work hard for 6 months and keep posting above 5000 words articles once or twice a week!
This should get your about 500 visitors a day if your articles target the right audience. Also, use attractive post titles which would help your blog posts rank higher.
You can read: 4 Tips For Choosing The Best Blog Post Title For Better SEO
Make sure you leave your comment below to let me know what you think of this and if there are any issues along the way. Best of luck! <3