How to Get Adsense Approval for Your Blog? My Own Experience + Ideas : Beauty Blogging Vol.6

Hello, people!

Last April, I talked about money making with your beauty blog. (I’d also shared my income report!) Today I’ll be writing about getting adsense approval for your beauty/fashion blog! (or any other blog!) I’ve been using Google adsense on this blog for the last 5 years! (I got my approval within 2-3 months of starting MABH!). I must admit Adsense is one of the main sources of my blog income today.

Though not an expert, (there are many techie bloggers out there who knows/writes better!) I’ve acquired some knowledge about how adsense works on a beauty blog, or any other blog. This is one of the most requested posts and here goes, I’m sharing my experience with you all!

Why adsense?! : If you ask me, adsense is a free, most-used ad-publishing program on the internet to generate advertising revenue from your blog. It’s a Google product hence you do not need to worry about the reliability one bit. Top bloggers use Google adsense on their blogs and it indeed contributes a huge part of their monthly earnings. Of course, there are MANY other ad providers available; (such as media net!) but I prefer adsense over everything. I pretty much started with adsense; I still use adsense. I’ve never liked any other ad network even 50% close to adsense! The CPC (cost-per-click) rates are believed to be very good with adsense compared to the other ad-publishing networks. (But again, it depends on your blog’s niche and the country you live! Who knows, you might find a better fit for your blog sometimes!)

Is it easy to get an adsense account?: Easy in the sense?! Yes, if you have a decent blog with a good number of posts (if not, at least 10 in depth, high quality posts!) and a good amount of organic traffic. Note my word, ‘organic’ traffic – means traffic right from the search engine! If you created a blog in a jiffy, (just for the sake of money making!) posted 2-3 articles, gained traffic through social-media updates/using ads/any other shortcut way, then it’s unlikely you will get an ‘instant’ approval from google! Again, beauty blogging isn’t for you if you’re expecting ‘quick’ money. It’s more like a passion!

Trust me, Google needs QUALITY over quantity. This is how they can make their search engine a better place! In order to approve your blog and let you be their ‘publisher’, they should believe advertising on your blog will benefit their ‘advertiser’. Hence, while trying to get an adsense approval, keep in mind to build a blog where you’d be willing to advertise your product, if you have any.

Can I make a living out of blogging using adsense? What are the benefits and the risks? : First up, I do make a living out of my blog revenue! Of course I handle business and stuff now but that’s another story. Before 2014, all my earnings were only from the blog. So, yes! You can make a living out of your beauty blog but the question is – Will it be steady?! Now, it’s is a big to be considered. I don’t want anyone to go through what I had gone through, back in 2013. I was making about $900 each month with adsense and the next month, zero! Yes, no cheque from Google because I didn’t even manage to make $100 (minimum threshold). I lost all my traffic (at least 90%) to a google algorithm update. (If you’re serious about making blogging your career and believing adsense as a stable income, you should read about google algorithms NOW!)

With my traffic, the money has gone too! No traffic – No revenue. This is how adsense works! It wasn’t necessarily the worst part of my blogging journey, as I still had my readers who trusted in me. I know I’d come back. It took me two whole years to gain back the traffic and now, I’m back on the track. I now am concentrating on improving my blog’s traffic + the revenue. (No SEO! I stopped doing it. I only believe in quality content!)

Mind you, I did not share my experience above to scare/discourage you! It’s just a precaution. I might have done things wrong with my blog (the theme, seo etc); it was also a competitor’s negative SEO strategy (how cheap people can get!) so it doesn’t mean you will go through the same. If you believe you won’t be make blogging mistakes, if you believe you will be able to create a content-rich blog with no short cuts, then yes, you can make a living with adsense without worries! By the time your traffic increases, you will also start making money with your blog by other means – working with brands, PR firms etc. So the slight ups and downs with adsense won’t be affecting you much. But you should know adsense is not a stable/fixed income each month! So, if you’re planning to quit your day job for blogging, think twice. You can definitely quit later once the blog picks up but decisions should be made wisely just in case..

So how do I begin? Google keeps rejecting my application! Help me!: As I mentioned earlier, I’m not an expert here. So I cannot really write a tutorial on how to apply to get the approval instantly. They’re many tech blogs out there for that! But as a blogger, I shall share my own experience with you. I strongly believe it will help you in someway, if you’re a newbie blogger/or a blogger who struggles to get adsense approval!

When did you get your adsense approval? How did you get it? : It was 2011. I was 16 years old back then.. I’d just given my 10th board exams. At that time, I loved reading beauty blogs (and food blogs!) on the internet. I spent all my time reading the reviews and DIY posts..

After sometime, I wanted to start my own blog! I got to know it was free with blogger. I had to pay nothing for a blogspot blog! With too much of enthu, I created my first blog blog (Let’s call it Blog 1) that focused on everything that I liked – beauty, pets, cooking etc. A mutli-niche blog! I wrote content, copy-pasted a few from wikipedia, used images taken from ‘the Google’ ; promoted the posts on social media and finally, applied for Adsense. Sure shot result – Rejection!

After the first rejection, I applied for my Google Adsense account multiple times, providing the same blog URL, every time. Every time, my application got rejected and BAM! One fine day, (No, you’re guessing it wrong!) the blog got deleted from the google index! Yes, Google has the right to delete your blogger blog anytime if you violate their terms! (No offense. If I were Google, I’d delete a blog like that without a second thought!) Too much of copied content, duplicate images, too many topics.. messy. Ain’t it? Not even one bit professional.

I was disappointed for the first time. I thought I wasn’t going to make it. After giving a small break, I created another blog. (Blog 2!) By this time, I had read too many articles on the tech blogs on do’s and don’ts of blogging. So I was aware of few things. I managed to write my own content this time without copy-pasting a single line! Though it was not the best, the content was unique! I started to love writing. This time, I focused only on a single niche to keep it neat. I didn’t want to mess it up like the previous time! After gaining a good amount of traffic (say 200 readers per day) I applied for adsense. This time, I was sure my application was going to be approved. But it happened otherwise. Again, a rejection!

What was I doing wrong? I kept on thinking. I still am not sure but I strongly believe it were the images taken from Google! They were NOT mine! Though I had written all the content by myself, Google still hesitated to believe my blog for all the copied images. (I had given the image credits but still.. what is the future of my blog if I can’t even strain to click my own pictures and add uniqueness to it? Blogosphere is indeed a tough world. Competition is heavier than expected here!)

This time, I deleted the blog! The blog wasn’t that worst to be deleted by Google, but still without a second thought – The Blog 2 was deleted by me! I wanted to start fresh. I sometimes turn into this perfection freak. I won’t stop until I get it right. And hey.. it helps! (may be not all the time.. people label me ‘adamant’!) I created another blog, (Blog 3!) swearing to myself that I would NEVER use content or images from any other source than my own ‘mind’.

I worked on the blog (Blog 3), day and night! I’d sleep at 3 AM. My dad never liked it! People thought (some said it to my face!) I was wasting my time with the blogging thing because I was literally living in front of the PC, putting all my hard work to earn NOTHING! Not even a single penny! I didn’t have a camera by then; not even a simple digi-cam. I used this bad quality phone camera that even failed to click clear swatches. My beauty blog was a joke among the other blogs! I convinced myself ‘it was okay’. Again, I was only using my own content (my own brain!) even if it’s not the best. I continued blogging! I did not rush it up this time. I wanted to gain at least 500 views each day before I proceed. The blog did not look very professional or neat (with all the bad pictures and my ‘funny’ writing style! What more could you expect from me when I was 16?) but it was unique.

I managed to gain the desired traffic in less than two months! (I used to post more regularly than now!). Those were the times I only wrote about DIY and natural stuff. I did not get to purchase/review many cosmetics! And then, after gaining the traffic, I applied for Adsense. This time, I wasn’t even paying much attention to my adsense application status as I was too busy with my new readers and the blogpost-works. Only this time, I managed to gain my true readers. People believed in my blog and started reading my posts! I was more than excited!

One night in 2011, I was checking my emails and this happened!  ‘Welcome to Adsense’

By the way, the Blog 3 is MABH!

Hard work (and the stubbornness!) paid off! I was actually glad for the ‘adamant’ label I’d received all the years! If I should start a blog from scratch now (thinking to start a gardening blog!) and get the adsense approval, I will do it in the shortest span because now I know what works and what doesn’t. But, as a 16 year old, adsense approval was one biggest achievement for me! I told mom, Mr.M – they were all happy for me!

Overall, I’d say – put in your effort! Don’t worry about the perfection when it comes to your content; you cannot start with a perfect blog post. If you wait for it, you will never become a blogger! Write your heart out. You will learn, eventually. But expect perfection when it comes to the ‘uniqueness’ of your content. Try not to copy even a single line/single picture. Try to pull the traffic with YOUR own effort and the adsense approval won’t be a big deal, anymore. After getting the approval, I had used google images (stock images, I made sure to give credit to the original source every time!) for a while; that did not affect my adsense account but I stopped using them as they added less to no value to my blog.

Now I’ve a better life. A better blogging platform. A team of wonderful writers. A good online presence! A DSLR camera (remember my blurry phone camera pictures?!) and all other blogging accessories but still, I feel I lack ‘that’ enthusiasm’ I had as a 16 year old! May be I work on too many things at once now? I guess, I should work on improving my ‘stubbornness’. Why care about what others have to say?! :)

I hope I helped you with my ideas that I’d gained over my years of experience with Google Adsense! If possible, try to incorporate the same into your blogging journey! Do write to me at lancy@mabh.in once you get that happy email from Google confirming your new adsense account. I also won’t mind if you send me some chocolate cookies!

Last but not the least, trust your own instinct. What worked for me might not work for you. Experience the joy of blogging yourself. Be prepared to spend a LOT of time. Be prepared to put in a lot of effort! There will be ups and downs but you will never regret! Taking up blogging as my career was one of the best decisions I ever made it my life!

Happy blogging!

P.S: On the next volume of beauty blogging, I’m thinking to write about how and when I started making a decent income with my blog through Adsense. (+ what I did to improve the $$$) A small hint – it took me 6 months to reach the $100 threshold. Do you’ve an idea on what I should write about next? Drop your suggestions on the comment section below! I’m all ears!