Whateverlife

The article Girl Power by Chuck Salter in September’s issue of Fast Company is a really interesting read. Before reading this article I had some knowledge about Google’s AdSense, but I had no clue that someone could actually make a decent amount of money from it. It is really quite amazing that anyone, including a 17 year old, could actually turn a profit from something so simple. The most amazing thing about the whole situation is that Ashley Qualls, as of yet, doesn’t get paid for the services that she offers. Every single cent that she earns is simply due to advertising. AdSense crawls your website’s contents and then places text or image ads where you choose on your site. It’s really an interesting process and Google does a good job of explaining it.

Although AdSense does a good job of placing ads linked to key words located on sites, it is not always the best solution. For Ashley’s website, whateverlife.com (screenshot to the right), it has become clear that if she were to place ads that are more relevant to her target audience than what AdSense has to offer than she would be able to make more of a profit from it. After reading the article it is very clear to me that advertising online, whether it be an elaborate microsite or a simple text ad, is a growing option for advertising agencies and their clients. Advertising online is not only very profitable, it’s also very cheap and fast compared to more traditional media such as magazines or newspapers. I also think that with website tracking cookies it is really easy for most companies to see what other websites a person visits besides theirs, and by using this data they can see what advertisement would work best. I think that overall advertising online is one of the best ways to get your name out there. It is cheap, fast, and easy, and in this day and age, I think that that is what most people are looking for.