Blogger Help - the quick and easy way start to Monetize

Once you have a Google Blogger account, while you are signed in, click on the help link. Inside Blogger help, the first subject is:

Monetization
About AdSense for your blog
How do I show ads between my posts?
How to put AdSense in your blog's sidebar
All about the Blogger 'Monetize' tab

If you read these four links, they are pretty easy. If you have any questions, please leave my blog a comment and ask me. This way we can start a discussion thread, and we all can learn from this together.

Once you've decided to sign up for Google AdSense, go to the Dashboard (link is in the upper right corner) Dashboard My Account Help Sign out

Scroll down to the bottom of your Dashboard home page . Under Tools and Resources, click on AdSense to sign up.
Tools and Resources
AdSense
Blogger in Draft
Google Reader
Webmaster Tools
Signing up is pretty easy. The one confusing part I found was when it asked for your email address. If you have a Gmail email account, select the first one. If you don't select the other one. (In case they change it by the time you sign up, read carefully, and pick the right one for you. If you pick the wrong one, it will let you know later on in the sign up process.)

Somewhere in the process, you get to pick where in your layout the AdSense will appear. If you want to preview how it will look, take a look at the different layouts. I think the most popular one is the first one, and the second most popualre is the second one.

Personally, it depends if you want lots of ads, or a visually pleasing looking site. I looked at either just the AdSense sidebar, or the AdSense sidebar plus the AdSense bar between the posts. I opted for just the sidebar. Does this mean I get less Ads? Probably so. You decide.

This morning, I went into my Dashboard to see if I could change my mind on the AdSense layout, but could not find how to get there. Intuitively, I went to the Layout tab, and as of this writing, there is no link to take me back to the AdSense layout selection. So for you, be warned. Make your selection carefully. I suppose, as they say, you can always unsubscribe to AdSense and remove it from your blog, and then add it again.

A note of warning again: Once you sign up for AdSense, there is a review period. I guess someone reviews your blog for integrity. I'm thinking that if you unsubscribe to AdSense and then resubscribe, this starts the process all over again. If I ever find a way of changing this layout, I will write about it on this blog.

Good News:
This morning when I opened my blog, there was an AdSense sidebar filled with ads! :) Notice that there are up down scroll arrows ( see image in this blog post above) which allows you to scroll through the ads.

Warning:
Somewhere in the Terms and Conditions, it says that you cannot click on your own ads (the ads presented on your blog). Tempting, yes, but because you get paid per click, they don't want us upping our own clicks. BTW, it also says that we cannot ask viewers to click on the ads either. Viewers have to decide themselves if they want to click on them.

Monetize Tab:

Now that we have been on AdSense for a day, When you click on the Monetize tab, it shows the progress of your account looks something like this:

Today's Earnings: 0.00			View payment history
Page impressions	Clicks	Page	CTR Page	eCPM	Earnings
AdSense for Content	8	0	0.00%	0.00	0.00

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