Photo of me and my third Google Adsense check
82My third Google Adsense cheque arrived in the post today!
(and I've already been to the bank to deposit it as it takes about two weeks for the cheque to clear.)
I wanted my boyfriend Tony to take a photo of me holding my Adsense cheque the first two times too, but clean forgot. Even today, we were about to leave home to go deposit the Adsense cheque at my bank, when I remembered to ask him to take a photo.
Me and my third Google Adsense check, received in South Africa in July 2010
Check or Cheque?
When a part of getting Adsense checks (or cheques?) includes using some SEO techniques to draw traffic to blogs and websites, or articles on the pages of other sites, I have to now wonder if I am to refer to that piece of paper from Google Adsense as a check, or cheque.
I'm going to be using cheque hereafter, as I'm South African, and have lived in South Africa all my life. I have never travelled outside of South Africa, and, even though I'm already 41, have also never travelled anywhere in an aeroplane. I believe UK and SA residents spell the word "cheque."
South Africans and Google Adsense payments
In South Africa, we have to earn R1000 with Adsense before being posted a cheque. This is about $166. After bank charges, I get out about R800 on a R1000 Adsense cheque, which is about $133.
My Adsense earnings so far has not included HubPages, as I joined HubPages less than a week ago. I'm enjoying HubPages and it's community, am pleased I joined, enjoy writing, and thought why not add my Adsense publisher ID on HubPages too, and see what happens?
Once a South African's Google Adsense account reaches R1000 in any given month, they must wait until the end of that month, plus another month, before the cheque is posted by Google Adsense. Then, it can take up to a further three weeks to arrive in your postbox - as my first one did. In the meantime, though, one can continue earning, and start building up to the next R1000.
My second and third cheques arrived within the first ten days of a month, instead of taking as long as 21 days like the first one did.
How long did it take me to get my 3 Google Adsense cheques?
It took me a year to get my first R1000 cheque from Google Adsense.
Then it was three months before I received the second one, and a further three months before I received the third one today! (9 July 2010.)
The most Adsense earnings in any one month so far, was R500 (about $83.)
How did I earn my Adsense cheques?
I had just one website, at first, but then added a WordPress blog to that website, on the same server. This seemed to make a huge difference. That website and blog still seem to bring in the most money from Adsense, but another Wordpress blog I added to the same website is catching up fairly quickly too. I have since added two more Wordpress blogs to the same server, and also have another website, another 3 Wordpress blogs on their own servers, and two Blogger blogs. My boyfriend Tony also has his own Blogger blog, and I allow him to use my Adsense code on his blog.
The Blogger blogs bring in very little compared to the other sites, and it is also hard work constantly trying to find the time to add new content to all my sites. I sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with just one website and one blog, but as they were on a variety of topics, I wanted to create a few niche sites too.
I spent a lot of time reading about Adsense, and learning more, but, even so, I know I still have so much more to learn. Just off the top of my head, I do remember that a video by Lisa Irby inspired me quite a bit, and more recenly, reading and learning about how John Chow makes money from blogging about making money blogging :)
Lisa Irby's video about how to make money with Google Adsense
Lisa Irby's 2 Create a Website Blog
- WordPress Posts vs. Pages and SEO
Have you ever paid attention to how your WordPress posts perform in the SERPS vs. - 5 days ago
- A Nifty Online Tool That Will Improve Your Writing
Have you ever written an article and wished you could find a better way to phrase something? - 12 days ago
- The Absolute Worst Advice I’ve Ever Received Online
Affiliate Marketers Don't Create Their Own Products! - 2 weeks ago
- What Do You Do When Rejection/Criticism Online is Taken Too Far?
Last Thursday, I published a video about rejection. - 3 weeks ago
Video about how John Chow makes money blogging
John Chow's book
 | Amazon Price: $9.30 List Price: $15.95 |
Why am I so proud of my Adsense cheques?
R1000 for each of my 3 Google Adsense cheques and that it took one and a half years before I had all 3, may not seem like a great achievement to some people, so why am I so proud that I managed to earn a little bit of extra income online?
I left my now ex husband three years ago, and, along with my two sons, moved in with my parents, where Tony, myself and my boys are still living.
I had not worked for an employer for about ten years, and wanted to stay home for my boys, even though I needed to earn an income somewhere!
Tony joined the household about two months later, and was also looking for work, having moved to East London (in South Africa) from Bloemfontein, also in South Africa. Work was scarce and it was frustrating not finding any.
We decided to try doing something ourselves, from home.
We started a little freelance work from home web designing business, as Tony knew how to handcode html. We started this little business about two and a half years ago now, in February 2008.
The first year was absolutely awful, but we stuck to it, even though we owed my parents some money for helping to look after us.
The last three months have also been awful, but February 2010 was great! Leading up to February 2010, we saw much improvement in our little business, had paid off my debt to my parents, and were learning so much on the Internet, for free!
About 4 years ago, I did not even know what a blog was. I could not distinguish between a file and a folder on a computer, and could not send an email.
I've come a long way, and am proud I never gave up learning. I still learn something new every day. Tony has taught me to do some web designing too, but what we're really proud of, is the fact that we never gave up, and that we are keen to learn all the time.
The amazing thing about the Internet is that there is so much one can do, to earn a little extra income, or even a fulltime income, if one just READS. The information is there, and it's free.
We get a little upset, or sad is a better word, perhaps, when we tell other people who are struggling to make ends meet, that they should just read the free information on the Internet about how to do it - and sometimes even give them links to follow to where that information is, but then they don't, and are still struggling.
We ourselves are once again struggling, but we continue to try, learn, and improve, and we know that somehow we will soon be okay again.
Update (early March 2011)
I was really pleased to write about receiving my third Adsense cheque, and am now even more pleased to announce that I've now received 5 Adsense cheques, the 6th one is due to arrive this month, and I just just missed making payout (by just under $3/Aaargh!) for my 7th Adsense cheque at the end of February 2011 - I would have received that 7th cheque next month (but it will now only be received in May) and it would have been the first time I would have gotten a cheque the very next month after receiving the previous one. Adsense earnings continue to grow, though, the more effort I put in, and I suspect/hope that after I receive my 7th one in May, that I'll be receiving them every month thereafter.
I encourage everyone who is trying to make some extra income from Adsense to be patient, not give up, and to keep working at it.
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Thanks, Money Glitch, you too!
Thanks for all this info,I have my own site and my husband has been working on it but so far I have not tried for any money, couldn't hurt and was nice to see your check, lol, kind of makes me want to do the Adsense,but I really like keeping my identity hidden because I get an enemy now and then on things I like to scream about, lol, can I do that and not give my real name here? Probably so huh? Cause come to think of it there are some really odd names here that couldn't be real!
@ Pollyannalana
Lol, yes, certainly some very odd names on HubPages. Good luck with that site!
Thanks,even when I get it going I will come back here to vent, lol.
Your situation is almost the same as mine. I haven't worked in about 7 years now. I haven't got my 1st check yet, but I'm working on it. Great hub I would be happy to follow you.
Thanks for the comment, Angelique, and thanks for following Tony and myself. Good luck getting that first cheque, and just DO NOT GIVE UP!
Good Shot :-). Keep working
Thank you, Good luck123
I'm not going t give up. I have put alot of time into my hubs. I'm learning different thing everyday just like you have done. I want to be able to be a stay at home mom also.
love lisa irbys videos and i really enjoyed the second one
imma follow you
Theresa, congrats on your cheque. You are an inspiration to others. Your sons hopefully appreciate you for choosing a long and slow road, just so you could be able to be with them. I wish to you a payment like that and more on a more regular basis. How about weekly!
Good luck.
Thanks equealla - lol, Adsense doesn't send cheques weekly, only once a month, but if I was earning R1000 a week via Adsense, I'd be really thrilled to get a monthly R4000 cheque! Maybe I'll get there one day, if I keep working at it!
Keep working at it and you just may get that check every month. I do at most months, but they mainly come from my website. I'm struggling trying to get Hubpages to make more income so I can earn that much from it too.
@ Barbara - thanks for the encouragement, and if you keep at it, your income from Adsense will surely just continue to grow. Good luck!
Hi Teresa,
I'm hoping you can help me out with this question. I use adsense on my sites; will receive my first cheque soon. (We spell it this way in Canada too!)
There is one adsense unit that I wanted to take off my site as it wasn't being clicked on and I want the space for something else. However I have discovered that you cannot cancel an adsense unit - you can only hide it. I have clicked on "hide" on my adsense account, and I have disabled the adsense widget for that location on my site, and still the adsense remains there, but it cannot be clicked on. As soon as you roll your mouse over it, the space goes blank and just says "Ad Unit".
What can I do?
Thanks,
Peggy
Hi Peggy - I'm not sure Tony or I can help - do you mean the Tutoring Online site? We design our own sites (or use Wordpress or Blogger for some sites) and we simply take out the Adsense coding if we don't want an ad to display any more. With Wordpress, we simply delete the widget. We think you may be using a Wordpress Adsense plugin which we don't know too much about - other than if you deactivate and delete the plugin it will solve the problem and your ad will no longer appear - but then neither will any others, I guess. We prefer to use text widgets in our sidebars (for Adsense or other ads) and then can move the ads around as we please (or delete them.) We also sometimes put the html Adsense coding directly beneath or below our posts. Sorry we can't be of more help.
Nice work! thanks for sharing your experience. I have yet to achieve that magical payment! Working on it.
Love and peace
Tony (the other one!)
Hi "other one" Tony :)
Thanks for the comment. You WILL achieve that magical payment. Just keep working at it.
hi Teresa Schultz,
i want to ask you about google adsense i have one website and daily about 70 visitors, one year ago.. what i earn is 9.80$ !!! so i need to have 1000 site to depend on adsense as an additional income !!!
Hi hemaya and welcome to HubPages.
You don't need to have 1000 sites to earn a decent extra income from Adsense. Even one site can earn you a decent income from Adsense. You need to have a lot of content, and have links from other sites pointing to your site's pages to get more traffic. There are lots of articles right here on HubPages that can offer you great advice about getting more traffic, what to write about, and more. You also need to have patience and not give up trying! Good luck!
Hey Teresa Congrats on your cheques. I'm super stoked for you :) I just need R100 until my first payment woo hoo!
That's awesome, Lis - getting that first one is a fantastic feeling. It's frustrating waiting for it though, lol. I do hope you get that R100 before the end of the month. Then, it will be issued at the end of September and you should receive it in the mail 10 to 21 days into October. Enjoy it!
Teresa hi :-)! just wana say thanku for inspiring me to use adsense on my website agapesingles.co.za im so proud to know u as a fellow south african i have known the pain of a failed marriage.I pray God bless u! lovies. JOY MAY
Hi Soneblom
Thanks for the comment - I do advise that you go through the program policies of Google Adsense carefully as not all sites are considered acceptable, and Google Adsense has very strict rules. Although your site is NOT an Internet dating site, and is Christian based, please be careful with using Adsense on it - go through every word of the Adsense program policy and Adsense TOS first.
Good luck with the site!
hi teresa, Why do u think i should not use adsense? its been aproved, and iv got my code pasted.
Hi Soneblom - sorry, no, I didn't mean don't use Adsense at all - and, hey, congrats on the Adsense account approval - I meant always go through every last detail of the program policies and TOS, to avoid being banned from Adsense. I've heard it's extremely difficult to get unbanned, and to be allowed to start using Adsense again. For example, I don't see a privacy policy on your site. I didn't have one at first either, and it didn't seem to be a problem, but as I started to get more traffic to my sites, I decided to thoroughly check out the TOS and program policies (perhaps Adsense would be doing some more checks on my sites now that I was getting more traffic)- and saw I needed to have a privacy policy. I'd hate to have gone to all this trouble with my sites, then get banned from Adsense for something I wasn't even aware of - so I try to read and abide by all their rules etc. so, apologies if it sounded like I said not to use Adsense - I just meant take the time to read through all the rules, so that everything works out fine. Good luck with the site :)
Ok. I'm extremely new to all of this. I have a question about SEO. What is it? I have seen it mentioned many time on different hubs but have no idea what it is. Help?
Hi mieketownsend and welcome to HubPages :)
SEO is search engine optimization and can be quite involved. I learnt as I went along, and am still learning something new everyday.
Just to get started, it helps to understand that search engine optimization basically just means making a website's content, or your articles on a writing site contain words that people are searching for regularly on the Internet. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool can give you a good idea of how many people are searching for certain words or phrases on the Internet each month.
Then you include those words in your articles.
It gets tricky if everyone is writing about the same topics though - there's only place on page one of Google search results for ten results.
So then you start learning about getting links to your content from other sites, and not just getting links but where the links to your site or articles come from - are those sites related to your topics? Do those sites have a good page rank? Do those sites allow "do follow" links.
Or, you learn to include synonyms of main keywords in your articles, keeping groups of words quite close together.
Writing about something that people never search for is not the end of the world though. You can develop a following just because your stories or articles are interesting, and people like your style of writing and what you have to say. Or you stick to a certain topic and sub topics of it, there will still be words in your articles that people search for on a search engine.
It's a learning process, as you go along, but try not to worry about it too much, or else you risk losing the love to write. Just write and enjoy it, and the rest sometimes just follows :)
Good luck.
Thanks, Teresa!
Well done on the cheque. I have only started focusing my attention on Hubpages recently, but i write for other writing sites. It takes time to start earning by Adsense, but its worth it.
Thanks, MissDoolittle - yes, it does take time, but it's nice to know that its a passive income that grows the more effort is put in.
Great article, Teresa, I really enjoyed reading it! The John Chow video was good too!
Hi Paul - thanks for popping in (at one of my blogs too) and commenting. Glad you enjoyed the John Chow video - I think the Lisa Irby one is my favourite(UK/SA)/favorite(U.S. now that you're in Florida) though. Not sure why, perhaps because she's female ha ha. Both John Chow and Lisa Irby inspire me regards blogging and Adsense earnings though. Miles to go, still, or course!
Thank you for the encouraging words, very much needed by me. There's so much I don't know about how all this works! Thanks for the inspiration.
Debbie
Thank you for your useful information. I hope i will start earning something good out of HP
.
Hi Patkay - I hope you do too - good luck - I received my 7th Adsense cheque today, but my Adsense earnings mostly come from my own sites where I have quite a few more articles than I do here on HubPages.
Hi Theresa!
Thanks once again for yet another enlightening article. Do you have one on maximizing SEO especially with regards to Google?
PS Congrats on another cheque!
Hi Jade, thanks, and thanks for the comment. I included some SEO tips in the email I sent you on the 25th of May, but yes, a good idea to include something along those lines as an article on HubPages, that many can make use of, and I'll try get to that soon!
Hey lucky girl....I didn't any check yet but I am trying hard and thanks for sharing this videos..!
Thanks, shoaibgmail - keep working at it - that first cheque does take a while, but you learn more along the way, and use what you learn to get to that next cheque more quickly - good luck!
And there I was, thinking that I was the only one who would photograph a Google Cheque (check) for posterity, when all the while, it is perfectly normal behavior. Hurrah! Even better, you've written a hub about it. I get paid directly into the bank now, but still have that first photo.
@ Mark - I photographed my 6th one too, lol! It's published on one of my own sites with another article. I think quite a few people photograph their first Google Adsense cheques :)
Glad to found this hub. Very useful.
@Jason - I'm pleased you found the hub useful and thanks for popping in to read it.
Wow thats alot of information. Thank you.
@ mr-burns - thank you for the comment, and welcome to HubPages - yes, it is quite a bit of information, but I hope many people find it useful in their own quest to make money with Adsense :)
That is a great review, but I am wondering why Google doesn't make a direct deposit to your back account rather than issuing an check?
Hi Richard - thanks - I can't remember if direct deposit was available as a payment option when I first started using Adsense - but I think it is now (electronic transfer - to some countries). I prefer getting a check in the mail, though, for now - I still find it exciting - maybe I'll change my payment method later, though, not sure.
Money Glitch Level 2 Commenter 19 months ago
The two videos were interesting and thanks again for sharing your experience Teresa. Have a great weekend. :)