Part of making money with AdSense is avoiding common pitfalls that will cost you money and could even cost you your AdSense account. Here are a list of the top mistakes that new AdSense website owners make and how to avoid them:

1. Violating the Terms of Service. The TOS, also known as the rules, govern what you can and can not do in relation to AdSense. It is essential that you read the TOS and understand the TOS. You can get your account terminated for violating anything in the TOS.

If you are unclear about anything in the TOS you can ask Google or go to one of the many websites out there that discuss AdSense. Also be sure to keep checking for updates to the TOS. Google should alert you to changes, but it is your responsibility to make sure you understand the changes.

2. Selecting the Wrong Topic.

While Google will not care muchwhat topic you select it is important to you. You can not earn money when you choose the wrong topic.

You need to follow all the advice in the previous sections about researching keywords and selecting a topic that will pay you well. You want to ensure that you have chosen a topic that you can work with and one that will pay you well.

Make good use of tools to find popular topics and good AdSense keywords. Try out the AdWords Traffic Estimator Tool from Google to get you started.

3. Having Too Many Topics.

Some people think that by including multiple topics on their website that they are able to cash in on all the top paying keywords. This is dead wrong and having too many topics is actually a great way to limit your profit.

Google has a complex method of determining what you get paid for each click. Part of this process involves the use of something called Google Smart Pricing.

Google Smart Pricing helps Google determine just how valuable your website is. When you get a good review by Google Smart Pricing then you will be sent the higher paying ads.

Smart Pricing prefers websites that are targeted. The more exact and focused your website is the better you will come off to Smart Pricing. When this happens you get the best paying ads.

Besides how your site comes across to Smart Pricing, having too many topics will make it hard for you to manage your site and optimize it. It can be tricky dealing with a lot of keywords and trying to get your website advertised and listed on the search engines.

4. Buying Traffic. Most of the sites that will sell you traffic to your websites only guarantee that you will get hits to your website. What they usually do not tell you is that those hits are not by real people.

Instead they use bots that stimulate hits. All you get is hits and no actual traffic. Sometimes a bot may accidentally click an ad but this type of traffic will not get you anywhere near what real life hits will get you in earnings.

5. Avoid Pay-to-Click Programs.

Many website owners use these services to help with their advertising, but they are not acceptable under the AdSense TOS. You will get in trouble if you use these services.

Keep yourself in good standing with Google and do not cut yourself short by making any of these major mistakes. You need to focus on building a good website and optimizing it to be the best possible stage for your AdSense earnings.

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