My First Check From Google

my first check from google adsense

Woohoo!!! I received my first check from Google!

I added Adsense in February and made $3.44 that month. At that rate it would take quite a while to cross the $100 threshold. Fortunately, we kept working on the blog and was able to gain more readers and increase our earning from Google every month. Thank you readers for supporting Retire By 40!

I made a graph to show the monthly and total earning from Google Adsense. It looks like the monthly earning will stabilize at around $50/month for now. I would be quite happy to get a Google check every other month or so. That total income graph looks great and I hope it can continue that exponential shape. 😀

google adsense monthly and total earning

Recently I’ve been making some money with direct advertising, but I still like Google Adsense for passive income. It’s completely passive so I don’t have to do anything extra to generate this income. Well, I tweaked the ads here and there, but it’s pretty stable now. $50/month passive income is actually quite good in the grand scheme of things. If I want to make $50/month with a 12 month CD at my credit union (0.8% interest), I would have to use $75,000! I wonder if I stop blogging, would the Adsense income continue? Does anyone know the answer?  In any case, we’ll continue to add new content and increase our exposure.

Improvement Plan

  • Improve SEO. Currently, I set title tag and meta description on every posts and try to link internally as much as possible. I’m sure I can improve though. I need to research a bit more and work on this.
  • Continue to add content. The more content a site has the more chances a page will show up on a search engine and the more chance the ad will get a click.

It’s quite gratifying to get a check from Google.

Readers, do you have any suggestion for improving Adsense earning?

2015 Update: Wow, I’m generating $2-3,000 per month from online advertising. I will break down the online income and expenses in our monthly newsletter so if you’re curious, sign up with our email list. You can also get a quick view from my monthly cash flow update.

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Joe started Retire by 40 in 2010 to figure out how to retire early. After 16 years of investing and saving, he achieved financial independence and retired at 38.

Passive income is the key to early retirement. This year, Joe is investing in commercial real estate with CrowdStreet. They have many projects across the USA so check them out!

Joe also highly recommends Personal Capital for DIY investors. They have many useful tools that will help you reach financial independence.

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79 thoughts on “My First Check From Google”

  1. Hello I just want to know, how can you get Google ad sense to send a check to your home. I am new to blogging and got a 10 dollar domain a year from Google. I was hoping by having ads eventually the site would pay for it self and more. I updated my Google ad sense info and only see their is a bank card only option. Can I not get a check like I see above in your photo. Nice blog BTW. I plan to blog and have it pay for it self and possible save a couple bucks a month. I am 18 now so saving a couple bucks a month would make me have a lot of money in the future. Also, please check out my site and tell me what you think. If you know things about technology please tell me and I well let you post about it as well. Are you using Blogger by any chance?

    Reply
    • Sorry, but I’m not sure how to set it. Can’t you email support? The last time I used Google Adsense, they default to checks.
      I’m not with them now so I’m not sure how they do things.

      Reply
  2. I recieved my adsense check last Month, it’s really very difficult to sustain website, their are many issues, scratch from getting the account, to maintain hosting. and lot’s more

    Reply
  3. Today I got my adsense check. I started my blog in 2008 but in the starting I did not work on it. But from 2011 I am continuously working on it.

    Reply
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    • Unfortunately, I have no idea why they banned the site. They don’t give any information and was very obscured. That’s one of the many things I am finding out about Google. 🙁

      Reply
  5. Hi, you said you made over 100 dollars and you were sent a check? are you in the US? reason I ask is because I made over 10 dollars (31.00) so far with adsense on my blogs, but I haven’t gotten a check yet. I thought they would start paying once you reach over 10 dollars. and yes I cleared everything for my payment to be issued but I havent seen anything yet. So you have to make atlease 100 dollars to get a check?

    Reply
  6. Congratulations. The first check is always so satisfying. It not only proves that your efforts are paying off, it also shows you that the potential is limitless. Keep working hard and continue to build those paydays!

    Reply
  7. Congrats on hitting that first check – I know this post is a month or two old now, but thought I’d chime in anyway.

    That first check is always the hardest to get, and it seems like it takes forever. I got my first check way back in 2008, and I think it may have been a bit easier at that time to cash out. I cashed out in my 3rd full month of blogging, and I’ve made at least $100/month every month since. I know some bloggers who before Google’s Panda update were making $7-8000/month from adsense – not as much now. But it can be a big income stream.

    The keys to adsense I think are having a lot of search visitors (they’re the most clicky), and always knowing what kinds of topics are the best for creating adsense income. Hook your adsense and analytics accounts together and you’ll be able to see what posts are making the most income, and what topics pay the best. Then write more of those topics.. 🙂

    Best of luck on cashing out every month now!

    Reply
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    • Thank you! The first check was great and it seems like the 2nd check will arrive much quicker (2 months.) It’ll be even better if we can break $100/month.

      Reply
  9. Congrats on the adsense earnings! $50/month is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve had adsense for a few months now, but the $100 mark still seems miles away. I have a decent cost per click so the months where I do get a couple of clicks I can get $10 – $14, but that doesn’t seem to be trending upwards (yet!).

    Reply
    • I think once you hit a certain number of posts – 100? Then you’ll have more chances to get Google SE traffic and the adsense revenue should go up. Keep working at it! 🙂

      Reply
  10. It took me about 15 months to get to my first Adsense check, so well done on getting your first one in much less time than that! It’s a great feeling. This morning I went to the bank to deposit my 10th Adsense check 🙂 Just continue blogging, with perhaps a little more attention to keywords and search volume for those keywords, and your earnings should not only stay similar each month, but actually grow each month – like mine are a bit. Before you know it, you’ll be receiving your second check. Keep up the great work.

    Reply
    • 15 months is a long time to wait! I’ll work on the keywords and search volume. I haven’t paid much attention to that actually. Thanks!

      Reply
  11. I remember those first few months with AdSense. Congratulations on getting your first check! I would just tell you to see what keywords are earning you the most money and focus on those. It’s great to use on-page SEO techniques on all your posts, but don’t focus on the keywords that aren’t worth much money, or those that have too much competition.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the tips. I haven’t done much keyword research yet, but it looks like something that will help a lot. I’ll work on it.

      Reply
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  13. Congrats! I remember when I got my first check from Google…it just doesn’t seem real until you cash in the check 🙂

    Also, now you can tell others that you work for Google lol

    Reply
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  15. That’s awesome! I got my first ‘check’ this summer, but it was directly deposited to my bank…didn’t even notice it until a week after the fact, but I was stoked! Would have been cool to get an actual check, but I’m happy either way.

    Keep it up and you’ll see even more checks. My tip: experiment with the small text boxes on the sidebar. You might be surprise with the response.

    Reply
  16. Congrats; the only suggestion I’d give is using a plugin like ozh-who-sees-ads to show a block ad before posts only to search visitors. Regular readers won’t see it, but you’ll still get AdSense income.

    Reply
  17. Congrats on that first check. Keep on posting great content and your Adsense income will continue to grow. Although it has taken me a while (I have been blogging two years) I recently went over $100 in a month for three months in a row. Very exciting.

    Reply
  18. Congrats Joe!!! I remember when I got my first cheque, it was a GOOD feeling (especially after getting $0.05 a month when I first started).

    I think that if you forgot about your blog, the clicks will still come if you have good SEO and some key words.

    Most of my adsense income is from 5-10 key posts (from 1-2 years ago) and I have like 250 posts.

    Reply
    • Thanks Everyone!!! That first check feels like such a big hump to get over, but I’m pretty sure it will be much easier from now on.

      Reply
  19. If you stopped blogging you would still make money from Adsense but it would likely decline quite a bit. It is hard to know though. I have one site I haven’t updated all year that made $20 this month which was its high for the year.

    Reply
  20. Congrats! We recently got our 2nd check!

    Since most adsense income comes from search engine visitors I think your site would still make money. It would go down a bit to adjust for the odd referral click you get i’d think.

    Reply
    • How long did the 2nd check take? 1-2 months? SPF is really popular too so I imagine you would get a check every month soon.

      Reply
  21. Congrats!!! How much ever we hate google, doing pretty much nothing and getting a check is awesome, isn’t it? I am sure it will grow faster from now on as the archives grow.

    First 2 payments I got a check in March this year, I made a copy, scanned it into pdf AND took a photo, lol. I went overboard but that was the first time I made money out of my regular job.

    Reply
    • Really? You probably need to make the ads more in-your-face. I think there is a plugin to select who to display ads to. You can display big ads to search engine traffic for example. I need to do this at some point too.

      Reply
  22. Congratulations on that first check. I wish I had some sort of brilliant insight into Google AdSense but I don’t. I would like to get more involved with direct advertising but haven’t a clue on how that works.

    Reply

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