Despite what the naysayers say, Google's AdSense program is still one of the best -- and easiest -- systems for monetizing a web site. If you have quality content in a niche that advertisers are interested in, you can turn a profit with AdSense. You just have to be smart about it!

The biggest problem with AdSense is that the per-click earnings tend to be fairly low. There are some exceptions, of course -- many legal- or health-related topics have relatively high click values -- but it's not unusual to make twenty five cents or less per ad click. Don't be fooled by the high-paying keyword lists that promise tens of dollars per click -- Google can make that kind of money for ads on its search results pages, but you won't see anything near that amount for the ads displayed on your own sites.

Low per-click earnings doesn't mean you can't turn a healthy profit with AdSense, however. You can still make money if you focus on traffic. Especially free search engine traffic. The more visitors you get to your pages, the more money you'll make, even if you have a relatively low clickthrough ratio.

This is where the quality of your content comes into play. Search engines do their best to filter out irrelevant, duplicate and/or garbage content from their results. They want to present the very best pages that match a given search query. Original, focused content that solves problems or answers questions is what they attempt to to display, especially in the top ten results.

But getting a single site to rank well across all kinds of topics is hard to do.

A better strategy is to create a network of content sites, with each site in the network focused on a specific niche. It requires more work than managing one or two sites, but it's not a lot more work -- the hard work in both cases is the creation of high-quality content.

Even though they're more work, there are some definite advantages to creating a network of content sites. For example, sites can be individually and separately listed in very targeted web directories. As well, ad targeting -- which with AdSense is based partially on the keywords in the domain name and on the content of the entire site -- can be more accurate and relevant. Finally, individual sites in the network can be sold to interested parties if the opportunity develops.

All you need to get started is an AdSense account, a hosting service that can host multiple domains, a few topic ideas, and the ability to write quality content. If you create even one site per week, you'll have a 10-site network in less than 3 months and you'll see earnings climb steadily upwards. Anyone can do it if they follow a plan and put in the necessary effort. What's stopping you?