If you are interested in trying to earn revenue with your blog these instructions may help.  I’ve outlined the steps below for adding Google Adsense advertisements to your site.  Each time a user clicks an ad you will earn a small amount of revenue from Google.  The more visitors you get to your site the more likelihood you will receive legitimate ad clicks which can translate into $$$.  This is not a get rich quick scheme!  With an amateur site you’d be lucky if you were able to cover the monthly costs of your website hosting. Considering that I pay only $6.95/month for web hosting with Bluehost and have only ever been able to cover the cost of hosting when I had an website that had a few thousand visitors a day!

Step 1 – Setup a Google Adsense Account

Navigate to https://www.google.com/adsense/ and click the Sign up Now button.  You will need to provide your personal information as well as tax information so that you can receive income from Google.

Step 2 – Install the Google Adsense WordPress Plugin

WordPress has a number of plugins that you can install to get new functionality within WordPress.  Managing plugins is really quite easy thanks to WordPress’s great plugin manager.  In this example we’re going to add a plugin that will allow us to show Google Adsense ads on our site.

1. Navigate to your WordPress’s login url.  This is your website plus /wp-admin
2. Provide your login credentials and login.
3. In the left hand column select Plugins > Add New then click the Add New Button.
4. Type Easy AdSense in the search box and click the Search button.
5. Click the Install Now link when Easy AdSense is shown in the search results.
6. When done you will have to click on the Activate plugin link. 

Step 3 – Get your Google Ad code

1. Login to Google AdSense
2. Select AdSense Setup > Get Ads > AdSense for Content
3. Change the Ad type to Text Only and click Continue.
4. On the next page you can select all kinds of different ad shapes, sizes, and colours.  It’s a best practice to make ads that match your site as much as possible.  Selected a Medium Rectangle sized ad.  When done click Continue.
5. You will be prompted to select a Channel for tracking your ad’s performance.  Click the Add Channel link and enter the name of your blog.  Click Continue.
6. Name the ad then click Submit and Get Code on the next page.
   
7. The next page will show the Google AdSense code that we will need to insert into our WordPress site.  (I haven’t shown the page since it has my personal info)  Copy the code and paste it someplace convenient like Windows Notepad.
   

Step 4 – Configure Easy AdSense

1. When the plugin is activated you should be directed to the Easy AdSense setting page.  If not look for the Easy AdSense plugin link in the Settings area on the WordPress admin page.
2. Click on the Yes button to confirm that your site adheres to Google’s content policies.
3. Insert the Google Ad code into each of the three AdSense Text blocks.  (Left hand column)
4. Navigate to your blog and Voila!  You should see your ads posted in your blog entries.

Step 5 – Play Around

You may want to go back to Google AdSense a few more times and try out different ad shapes, sizes, and colours.  Also, you can configure Easy AdSense to display ads in your blogs right hand column where the Recent Posts, Archives, and Categories sections are shown.  Good luck!