An A to Z Google AdSense approval guidelines for bloggers

There are many posts regarding Google AdSense approval tips on the internet.

Although the blog posts already found on the net are sufficient for you to get an approved Google AdSense account, I planned to write another Quick google AdSense approval guidelines based on my personal experience on it.

Meanwhile, there is a trend that a blogger is hurried to write this kind of posts as soon as AdSense approve his/her blog. And the funny yet best thing is I am not an exception to this trend. You may have seen some Advertisements running on this blog. If you're unable to see them, I might have opted out from adverts for some purpose.

Although Google AdSense is the industry leader in online advertising, some of us might be still unfamiliar with this.Yeah! it is true. I still hear the people asking how does one earn money from blog or website? How does one monetize his/her YouTube channel? and so on.

If you also fall into the same category, I will try to cover your opinions too. And on the other hand, if you are searching for how to get Google AdSense approval guidelines, I won't drive you up the wall, you will get them also.

The one thing you may feel tired while reading this post is, it is going to be a long read as I had to cover everything from beginner to expert level. Hold your horses for few seconds while I mention some beginner's idea. Hope you like my picks out here.

Table of contents

1. What is Google AdSense?
2. How one can earn money from GA?
• YouTube
• Blog or Website
3. Google AdSense Approval Guidelines for bloggers
• Content
• Design
• Static Pages
• Domain
• Traffic

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is the online advertising network powered by Google. GA allows the content owners to monetize their content by displaying contextual ads on their content. If you're unfamiliar with the term contextual, I will describe it in short. The term contextual means relevant to the content, that is, adverts displayed on a blog or website match the niche/keywords/topic on which blog owners have created their blog.

Google AdSense is Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Impression (CPM) based network. Mean that, when visitors click or view the adverts, content owners get paid for that click or impression.

If so, how does AdSense earn that money?
The answer is easy, but this is also a common question I get asked by beginners frequently. Let me describe it in short. The very first thing you must know that the ads displayed on a blog or website are not actually the ads of AdSense itself. Real advertisers come from Google AdWords (And its partners), another popular service for the advertisers, by the Google. That is, AdSense provides only the medium to serve ads on the websites or blogs.




Google Adwords is a place where advertisers create campaigns, target it to the potential consumers and pay Google for ad clicks or impressions. And, at last, Google AdSense pays its publishers (bloggers or YouTubers) after deducting its share amount.

How can one earn money from GA?

Earning from GA is a simple yet time-consuming process. At first, you should create a quality blog or YouTube channel, add valuable contents, grow it and apply for AdSense. And after that, you'll be able to monetize your blog or Youtube channel via AdSense. Alert! On the way to making money from AdSense, there arrives a mysterious thing often named as Google AdSense approval. And it is going to discuss in this post.

Well, there are two methods to earn money from GA:

Youtube Channel

Anyone can create a Google account and YouTube channel. Said so, you'll not be able to see your revenue booming in your AdSense account.

Gone were the days when one could easily monetize their channel not uploading even a single video. But the things have changed drastically nowadays. As of now, to be able to monetize your channel and get AdSense approval, you must fulfill the following criteria within one year:

1. Get 1K subscribers
2. Get 4K watch hours

If you could fulfill those criteria, you'd be enjoying your dollars!

These criteria, however, may seem easy on paper but are the source of headaches for beginners. But, if you create a viral video or advertise your videos on social media, it won't be hard to reach that goal instantly.

Website or Blog

The second option is creating a website or blog. Luckily! Starting a website or blog is very easy nowadays.  You can choose one blogging platform and start writing your articles. There are multiple blogging platforms on the internet, out of them, WordPress and Blogger are most popular.

Blogger is a free blogging platform where you can create a simple or complex blog easily and freely. Using Blogger, you can create posts, create pages, upload images, place ads and much more. I have already published a post about benefits of using Blogger. You can read that post to get even more information about it.

WordPress is another most popular blogging platform, used by several basic to established bloggers. Note that WordPress is of two types; wordpress.com and wordpress.org. WordPress.com is free to use but comes with several limitations whereas Wordpress.org is a paid (application is free, you pay for domain and hosting) platform where you buy a domain name and hosting to make your blog own.

For beginners, I suggest you use Blogger to create free blogs. Association of AdSense to blogger is very easy. You can directly signup to AdSense from Blogger dashboard.

After you create a blog, you should know some criteria to be eligible for GA program. Although there are several criteria, I am sharing only the useful tips that I had followed to get Google AdSense approval.

Google AdSense approval Guidelines for bloggers

You are finally on the intended topic. Before you start with the tips, you should first read and follow the official AdSense policies and eligibility criteria. If you already followed them, you are more likely to get fast Google AdSense approval.

But what? The world is not same. Still, getting a GA account may be a can of worms.That is, you may also need extra efforts to get your AdSense account approved.

No hassles anymore! I am to guide you the right tips. Here, I will discuss every topic to help you start with AdSense.

Content

The very first thing GA team look at your blog is blog content. Therefore, you should prepare well-organized, well-written, Search Engine optimized and engaging blog posts before you submit your blog to GA.
What is well-written and engaging content then?
Well-written and engaging content is the one that attracts the audiences, provides necessary details about what they are searching for, and encourage them to do some activity with it.

Another question that you be curious about is how many posts I have to publish before applying to GA?
There is no exact answer for this. However, in one of the questions in GA forum, officials have mentioned that you should have at least 20-25 posts published before you apply to Google AdSense.

But, this may not be true in all cases. As an example, they approved this blog which had only 18 blog posts published but, they denied my another blog until I reached the threshold of 26 articles. Thus we can conclude that they seek for Quality content rather than content.
So, here are some useful tips on writing blog posts that may help you to achieve quick AdSense approval.

• Become durable: Write informative posts containing at least thousand words which will be beneficial for both SEO as well as Google AdSense approval. That, in another hand, helps GA team trust your blog and believe you are a serious blogger.
  They want long-term cooperation with publishers. Mean that they are not likely to approve those blogs that grow continuously for few weeks or so and remain inactive for years. So, before applying to AdSense, write trust-worthy blog posts (at least 20-25) that reflect you are not going to quit it by any means. If you are feeling obstacles in writing language, then read: How to write a blog post? For non-native Englisher.
• Insert Images: Provide your blog posts with some feels by uploading relevant images. As images play a vital role in drawing visitor's attention, GA team also keep an eye on its use very seriously.
  The role of images in blog posts is best described using the following chart:
  
  
  Never use other's images. If you are sick and tired of finding free to use images then, Pixabay would be the best option. Pixabay provides royalty free high-quality images to use on your blog. You can check my full Pixabay review here.
  
• Copied content? Never!: Never copy other sites' content to your blog because AdSense takes this sorts of things very severely and may penalize your blog by refusing to approve it. So to be prevented from AdSense's penalty, you have to prepare your blog posts yourself, no matter how long will it take.
  
  
• Manage blog posts and pages: Your blog posts should be easy to read. To make your blog posts more readable, you can apply various formats such as line breaks, numbered or bullet list, headings and so on. It will enable the readers to get attention to your blog, while also increasing approval chances.
  In addition to this, you may provide audiences with an easily accessible table of contents in each post. It will give extra juices to get your AdSense approved.
  Also Read: How to create a table of contents in Blogger post?

Design

Blog design is another important thing you should care before applying to Google AdSense. Although the GA team has not yet described what type of themes do they accept, the one thing we can predict is that they prefer high-quality and professional theme rather than the simple themes.
Where can I find those themes?
Well, there are lots of sites which provide free and premium WordPress/Blogger themes. You may choose one among thousands and implement it into your blog.
I am using a free theme, does the third-party credit link reduce the chance of approval? Of course not. You are free to provide credits for the hard works of third-parties. However credited sites should not contain any pirated products, services and any other illegal kinds of stuff that violate the AdSense policies.

Here are some additional things you should care about design depart:

• Make navigation menu easily accessible: This is one of the listed requirements in official GA criteria. Make sure you have added each and every categories and page in the navigation menu. So that, it will be easier for visitors (especially, AdSense team in this case) to browse your blog thoroughly thereby increasing the AdSense approval chances.
  In addition to this, your navigation menu should be easily accessible from anywhere inside the blog. So, it would be even better if you choose a theme having a sticky or floating navigation menu.
• Make static pages visible: AdSense requires some static pages such as Privacy Policy, About on your blog. These pages should be easily accessible and visible from all of the pages inside your blog. I have discussed this topic more in next section of this post.
• Remove unnecessary widgets: Make your blog neat and clean by removing unnecessary, repeated or crowded widgets/gadgets. If you wish to, you can insert them after you get an approved AdSense account.
• Fast loading and Mobile friendly: Choose only a fast loading theme. The load time of the website is also a parameter to determine whether the GA team approve that site or not. So, if you are using a slow theme, then remove and replace that with the new one.
  The use of smartphones is only increasing. So, your blog should also be mobile friendly to be approved by Google AdSense. If you can't assure your blog is mobile-friendly, you can check it using this tool. If you found the negative result, I recommend you to replace your current theme with a responsive theme.

Static Pages

To be approved by AdSense, you must add some static pages to your blog. Those pages includes 'About', 'Contact', 'Disclaimer', and 'Privacy policy'. Although all of those pages are of own value, the 'About' and 'Policy' page play keen role in Google AdSense approval process.
Wondering what to include in those pages? Wait! I have got that covered.
About Page

1. Who are you
2. Your location similar to that you provide them.
3. If possible, your social media URLs too.
4. Details about what your blog is and for whom it is intended.

Contact Page

1. Provide who can contact and for what purpose.
2. An email address (better if you provide the same email address that you are going to signup for AdSense.)
3. An easy to use contact form.

Privacy Policy

1. Which data (of visitors) your blog collects and for what purpose.
2. How the data are secured?
3. Use of cookies.
4. Third-party advertisements notices.

If you find creating a Privacy policy page harder, as a beginner, you may use third-party free privacy policy generators to create one for your blog.
After you create these pages, you should have to place these pages in easily-reachable place on your blog.

Domain

As far as I know, GA prefers top-level domain like .com, .net, .org and so on and Country Code TLD such as .com.np, .in, .pk and similar like that. Purchasing a domain name costs around 12$ per year. If you don't want to invest that money in your blog, you may also register a free domain such as .tk, .ml, etc from Freenom. But the one thing you should deem is that they may refuse to approve those sites with freely provided domains (.tk, .ml etc).




Do they approve my blog having .blogspot.com domain? Of course yes, if you have quality posts.

The next thing regarding domain name is its age. They have mentioned that publishers of some countries like China and India should have the site older than six months to be eligible to participate in AdSense program.
But no need to wait longer! There are several examples that reveal they approve the new domains too. Even I got the Google AdSense approved account with the 4-month-old domain.
Tip: If you are on WordPress, use the paid host only. Some bloggers had the issue that GA didn't approve their blog until they migrated to the paid hosts.

Traffic

Although there are no traffic requirements for Google AdSense approval, it is better to drive traffic to your blog via social media at least when your application is in the review. But to get the real pleasure of AdSense, you must have some traffic to your blog.
I know, blogger's ambition is to earn funds without compromising a bit on audiences' interest. So, I suggest you drive some traffic to your site by SEO or Social media promotion before or after AdSense. It would be both valuable and profitable for your blog's growth.
Also read:

1. Blogger SEO tips
2. Infolinks Review - The best alternative to Google AdSense?

Up to this point I have covered most of the tips I promised to cover. Still, there are some tips to beef up the AdSense approval chances, they are:

1. Make sure you are 18 years or older (Whattttt? Compulsion.)
2. Your site should not contain any malware or malware generating apps.
3. You should be updating your blog posts frequently.

Also Read: Top 5 Google AdSense alternatives for Nepali publishers
Well, these were some tips to get quick Google AdSense approval in the first trial. If you still have some question regarding this post, you can mention them in the comment section below. Do not forget to share this post via social media.