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Cracking
The Google Adsense Code
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Google
Adsense has empowered web publishers of all
shapes and sizes to make monëy from their web
sites. Whether you own a hobby site that gets 100
visitors per day or a popular finance portal that
is flooded with millíons of visitors per month,
you can benefit from the Google Adsense program.
Fortunately, you can quickly increase your
earnings by reading every word of this article. I
will cover the basic necessities and also reveal
advanced tips that you won't find on every
digital corner. So, if you're looking to put more
monëy in your pocket with a few tweaks of code,
I urge you to read on.
As you are reading, keep in mind that Google is
actually one of the best resources for finding
information on Adsense optimization. Think it's
hard to believe that Google would give good
advice? Well, it makes sense when you think about
it. The more you make as a publisher, the more
they will make. Google has a big incentive to
help you perform well. Not to mention, they have
tons of data to research what works best.
So, for much of my research, I took quite a few
tips from Google. But don't worry, there are also
some advanced tips here that Google will probably
nevër reveal to you.
Most Effective Ad Formats
In general, wider ad formats tend to outperform
the taller ads. This is because the wider ads are
much easier on the eye.
According to Google, the following ad formats
result in the highest number of clíck-throughs:
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336×280
300×250
160×600
Tim Carter of AskTheBuilder.com increased his
revenues by 20 percent after placing the large
rectangle (336×280) in the upper left corner,
positioned within his articles.
Text links are another ad format that often work
well. Using text link ads, you can create Adsense
ads that blend in seamlessly with your
navigation.
For an example of this, go to
http://www.dealofday.com.
Tim Carter saw an 18 percent increase in his
revenues after placing link units in the upper
left corner under his site search bar.
Number of Ads
Multiple ad units can sometimes help optimize
your perförmance. This is especially true for
pages with lots of text, forums, and message
boards.
However, it could possibly lower your revenues as
well. When you show more ads, the ads that are
placed lower on the page often have lower bid
prices than the ones on top. Therefore, you must
test the number of ads on a page to see what
works best for you.
When using multiple ad units, make sure that the
ad unit with the highest clíck-through rate
appears first within your HTML code. This will
ensure that your prime real estate is occupied by
the highest paying ads. You can use CSS
positioning to get your highest paying ads placed
in the location with the highest CTR.
Colors
Ads that blend in with the colors of your site
generate the highest clíck-through rates. In
most cases, it is best to use the exact same
color scheme for your ads that you use on your
web site. To see some good examples of this,
visit:
http://www.lockergnome.com
http://www.worldvillage.com
By using ads without background color or borders,
your ads seamlessly integrate with your content.
Keep in mind that blue text links seem to perform
best for Google Adsense. Blue is the assumed
color of links on the Internet. Therefore, our
pyschie expects links to be in blue.
However, you may want to rotate your colors every
once in a while to spice things up. This way,
your visitors don't get used to your ads, which
can cause banner-blindness.
Ad Placement
Just like in real estate, location is the key to
success with Adsense. Fortunately, Google
provides us with a heat map, showing the best
spots for ads.
One of the best places for your Adsense ads are
at the top-left of the page. Because people are
used to seeing navigation on the left side of the
page, the eye naturally gravitates to this
section of your web site.
Many studies have been performed to see how the
eye travels across a web page. You can see a
demonstration at EyeTrack III. Knowing how people
view your web site will help immensely when
optimizing the placement of your ads.
In addition, you should also place your Adsense
ads next to rich content and navigation elements.
These ads often do well because users are focused
on those areas of a page. You can see examples of
this at EzineArticles.com and Lockergnome.com.
As you can see, these sites have placed their
adsense ads next to search boxes and navigation
links.
Keep in mind that you shouldn't change the layout
of your site to fit the ads, but rather use the
ad formats that best fit with your site layout.
Images
Many publishers have started using images around
their ads. As a result, many of them have doubled
their revenues.
One of the most successful implementations of
this techniques is to use the 728×90 leaderboard
with 4 thumbnail-sized images above each ad. You
can see some good examples at:
sg-God
DrawAPig
Of course, you can't use images of blinking
arrows because this would be enticing visitors to
clíck. However, it is perfectly acceptable to
place related pictures beside your ads.
For example, if you have a page about laptops,
you could place a leaderboard with 4 laptop
images above each ad. In this way, you are using
images to complete the story.
In fact, Google is currently testing an ad format
that would blend images together with related
text ads. It seems that even Google thinks that
images are a good idea to bring attention to ads.
To see an example of the Google ads in beta, go
to SearchEngineJournal.com
Forums
If you have a forum, I hope you are monetizing it
with Adsense. Many people include Adsense within
their web site, but when it comes to their forum,
they simply let the ball drop. Forums can
definitely be an extra source of income when
optimized properly.
To find out about the best placement for Adsense
within forums, I went to Google for some advice.
To my surprise, they also have a heat map for
forums.
One of the best ways to monetize your forum is to
place Adsense directly within the threads. To see
an example of this, go to Digital Point Forums.
Google advises that you place a skyscraper above
the fold on the left side of your forum and they
also suggest placing a leaderboard directly below
the top navigation and below the first post.
If you are looking for additional ad space, you
can place a horizontal link unit near the top of
the forum, just below the header.
The next Adsense tactic is one that isn't talked
about much. However, when used appropriately, it
can be extremely powerful.
Newsletters
If you own a newsletter list, then you can easily
leverage that list in order to earn more Adsense
revenue. Whenever you send out your newsletter,
simply link to an article on your site within the
email. By doing this, you can draw people to your
Adsense pages and easily increase your Adsense
revenue.
This is one of the best things about building
your own list. You are able to direct traffïc to
any place at any time.
In the end, the key to increased revenues is
testing. Not all sites are the same. You have to
experiment to find out what works best for your
particular site. What works for one site may not
work for another. Only by testing can you find
out which styles encourage your visitors to
respond.
About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim
at: kim @ seo-news.com .
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