Another word of warning, if Google can’t work out what to display it will serve up ads for charities. It will also do this for first few minutes after putting a page live.

In two months of using Google Adsense on a few of my sites I have made a few hundred dollars. But other canny users, who have specifically targeted high value clicks by setting up portal sites with lots of traffic have made thousands upon thousands of dollars!

For more information see https://www.google.com/adsense/.

FAQs (262 words) Q. So with Google Adsense can I really make any web site generate money? A. Possibly. If you have a high traffic site with a particular theme you should be able to make it pay its way. The trick is in getting traffic in first place.

Q. What type of sites work well? A. Niché sites really. It is still fairly easy to get high search engine listings for way-out or niché search terms. Getting a high rating for word “vacations” is near impossible nowadays if starting from scratch, but something like “Anguilla beach hotels” just might be possible.

Q. Anguilla beach hotels – you’re kidding me? A. No, actually. http://www.anguilla-beaches.com/ is one of most visited sites on net and has generated a lot of income for its owner with Google Adsense and other techniques. Oh, by way, Nori Evoy, a 14 year-old teenager, runs site, although she did have a little help from her dad Ken, a well-known internet marketer and creator of SiteBuildit – see http://buildit.sitesell.com/newsdata.html

Q. So how hard is it to put ads on my site? A. If you can handle a little bit of HTML coding you shouldn’t have a problem. You can colour coordinate ads to suit your pages too.

Q. Can I change way ads look? A. You can choose from multiple ad layouts, designed to suit a wide variety of page designs.

Q. How will I know what pages produce most revenue? A. You can code each page differently so that you can tell which “channels” are producing what revenue.

Q. How do I get paid? A. Google will send you a cheque approximately 30 days after end of each calendar month if your earned balance is US $100 or more.

Q. Great! How do I start? A. Get over to https://www.google.com/adsense/ and see if your site is eligible. Once signed up it is a simple task to add necessary code to each page.

Then nip over to http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ukie/express/splash.html and either cough up £199 for guaranteed submission or risk free submission route. Commercial sites are supposed to be paid for, but I have successfully had commercial web sites indexed by Yahoo using free route. Yahoo takes a bit more time as you have to navigate to appropriate section before you submit.

Next stop is http://dmoz.org/ - Open Directory. This powers Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others and is still open to free submissions. Beyond this, submission is going to cost you money. For a more comprehensive guide to search engines see www.searchenginewatch.com . Next month we will look at how you can use paid-for advertising on search engines, such as Google Adwords.

FAQs (262 words)

Q. What is a search engine anyway? A. A search engine is a computerised way of tracking down relevant pages on web by looking for keywords that you specify.

Q. So as long as I have registered with a search engine will people find my site? A. Not necessarily. If your company has a unique name and people are searching for that name chances are that you will be found. But if you hope that people will find you with more generic terms like “corporate communications” you are sadly mistaken.

Q. Why is that then? A. A search for “corporate communications” on google.co.uk throws up more than 1,000,000 pages. On Google.com it is more like 7,600,000. To get a high placement for such a term you need keyword rich copy with term “corporate communications” very high up on page and tonnes of reciprocal links.

Q. What is a reciprocal link? A. It is where another site links back to yours. Search engines rate link popularity as an important factor in where it places you in its results. The more links better. It is always worth asking webmasters of relevant, but none competitive sites, if they will swap links with you.

Q. How can I check if sites are linking to mine? A. Use term “link:(yourURL)” on Google to find out. This works on other engines too.

Q. So what is secret to a high listing? A. Unfortunately, secret is to have deep pockets and go for sponsored listings or adverts. But if you apply all techniques in this feature you do stand a better chance of people at least finding you by your company name.