Boy did I goof. I signed up a while ago for Google’s AdSense program, which, in theory, is pretty cool. You can pick keywords and geographic areas where your ad will appear in the Google network sponsored searches. You can control the budget and bid on how much you are willing to pay for exposure, which helps you control the budget yourself.

The problem is that I set up the dang thing very early on, and I used the keyword-generating application on Google to
start me off. I ended up with some very lame keywords, and I didn’t bother to change them. And then I became so fascinated with Google Analytics of my website, I forgot to monitor the AdSense stuff.

Bottom line: I just noticed that Google charged $89 and change to my credit card (which is under house arrest right now), for two month’s worth of clicks, mostly on very unhelpful keywords that were never going to lead to business.

Some examples:

• I paid $10.61 for people to find my website when they searched for “editing.”
• People who were searching for “writing jobs” or “writing help” clicked on my ad $7 worth.
• Variations of “writing” and “writer” cost me almost $16.

The problem is not in using Google AdSense. The problem is that I didn’t monitor what was happening and wasted $89 without getting any ROI.