For those of you that would like to learn how to make money with adsense, it's pretty straight forward. Some say even easy. The folks at Google came up with the idea back in 2003, if they could figure out a way to display ads on any website, according to the subject matter, they could sell more ads.

So they came up with Adsense. With Adsense, a webmaster can display the same ads that appear on Google's search results with common subject as the search results. When a visitor clicks on the ad, Google gets paid for the activity. So Google gives a portion of the ad fees to the webmaster, the advertiser gets more exposure to targeted viewers, Google gets more places to display ads, and everyone is happy.

Sounds easy, and it can be. But there are a few other aspects that you need to know. Google has a very strict set of rules you must follow. So the first thing you should do if you want to learn more about Adsense and how it works is to go to Google's web page and click on advertising programs at the bottom. Once you click there, all the Adsense info is on the right side.

OK, so now you know the rules. Let's get to the money making part. There are a few necessary elements to making money with Adsense. Due to the nature of the business model, you have to have traffic (people who visit your website). You need to have information that has some merit for the visitor. And you need to make it as easy as possible for that visitor to see something of interest in the ads that are displayed, so they will click on the ads.

The first two go together, if you have good information of value to a visitor, the search engines will help you out by sending traffic to your website. The third part (the clicking on the ads) gets a little more tricky. Here's where some of those strict Google rules come into play. You can't “trick” visitors into clicking, you can't display the ads in such a way that is not acceptable with the terms and conditions.

Speaking of the website, you should also provide a constant stream of new information, specific to your theme, and update frequently. You also want to be able to do this updating in an organized and easy manner. You will need a lot of visitors and the best way to get those visitors is more fresh content. The more the search engines see you update with quality content, the more they will serve your website up in search engine results.

The amount of money or revenue you can make is entirely dependent on the cost of the ads displayed, and the number of clicks. Prices or fees for the ads can run from as little as .20 to $40 per click based on the going competition in the Adwords fees. So the more competitive the subject area, the more the website owner gets for a click.

There is a lot of speculation what percentage of the fee that Google pays. Most agree that it's probably around 40%, so if Google gets a $1.00, then the webmaster would get .40 of that dollar. So the higher the ad cost, the more the webmaster makes per click. As you can see, if you get 20 clicks a day at .40 that's about $8.00 per day.

The first step in getting into the Adsense business is to choose your subject matter. The subject should be a popular one (you want a lot of potential visitors), and a competitive subject matter so that the cost of the ad is high enough to provide a good return on your efforts.

Once you have determined your subject matter, the next part is designing your website. There are many opinions on what the best layout might be in regards to updating, getting the maximum clicks per visitor (position of the ads), and attracting the traffic. Very small changes in the layout can have dramatic impact on the number clicks per visitor.

Everything about the layout and design should be constantly tested to determine if you can improve on the click rate of your visitors. Testing is the key to find out how to get the maximum yield out of your visitors regardless of your traffic volume (number of visitors per day).

There are two major schools of thought on how to run an Adsense business. One is to create as many websites as possible, spend limited time in development and move on to the next. The other is to create one very large and elaborate website (500 plus pages) and continue to develop the content.

There are pros and cons on both. Some say having 100 websites that make $20 per month and don't require additional work is the way to go. Others want one website that produces $1000 per day and you constantly update to increase the visitors and clicks.

There are software programs available to do the many website method that help you create multiple websites a day. Of course that's why we have so many websites these days, as with most money making opportunities, people have abused the system and created a lot of worthless websites.

Both methods can be effective if the websites are well designed, researched, and content is of value to the visitor. Throwing up a bunch of websites of no value will not make you any money. And spending time on a subject area that produces a low click fee most likely will not provide a good return on your time invested.

There's a ton of bad information out there too. A lot of experts tell you to find a low competition subject since it would be easier to attract visitors. Look for an area where there are only a few hundred searches per month. Three to four hundred visitors a month won't make you much money since your market is so limited. And since the area has no competition, the ad fees are probably low too.

And then there's the opposite end of the spectrum where they suggest you go for the highest competitive terms and ad fees. There are subject areas that Google gets up to $40 per click, therefore you as a webmaster can get $16 per click. That's the good news. The bad news is you will be competing with some of the best in the business and it's very difficult to build any traffic.

The best suggestion I can make is to find some point between these two extremes. Find a subject that gets a good enough ad fee to provide a good return on your efforts, and low enough competition that you can achieve the necessary level of traffic.

So if you want to learn how to make money with Adsense, follow a few basic rules. No matter what method or model you use for your Adsense business, make sure your content is fresh and meaningful to the visitor. Do the proper research to determine the value of the ad fees and popularity of the subject matter. And always test different layouts to make sure you are maximizing your click rate.