Recently I wrote about how you can monetize your blog, and one of those ways was through Google AdSense. So to continue on with that train of thought I decided to give out a few tips to help you maximize your AdSense earnings.
Just one point though to start with. This is not intended for a webmaster about to setup a new site. I am writing this for those of you who already own a blog or website but have yet to see AdSense perform for you.
1. On Topic Content
If you have a blog about the iPod, then stick to writing about iPod news, iPod accessories, iTunes etc. There is no point writing about iPod and then starting to talk about your day at work within the same page. AdSense works through a contextual assessment of your page, so try and make it as easy as possible for the Mediabot to ascertain exactly what you are writing about.
2. Optimize Tags
Making Mediabot’s job as easy as possible also means optimizing your HTML tags, from your meta tags to your header tags. Place your target keywords in the page title, meta description and keywords tag, as well as in your header tags. Don’t forget to bold or italicize your target keywords throughout the content.
3. Ad Placement
Consult the AdSense heatmap and apply it to your layout. You’ll find that CTR will increase when you place your ads above the fold. Placing ads down the left (where users are used to seeing navigation) and in central locations will also increase CTR. Don’t forget to place ads at the bottom of a page for readers who have scrolled down to the bottom of a long article. I would not advise placing your ads down the left hand of a page as CTR in this location is normally quite low. So keep them above the fold and smack bang in front of their eyes.
4. Colours
The basic premise with regards colours is to match your ad colouring as closely to the colour scheme employed through out your site. I recommend using the same colours for text and links for optimum CTR.
5. Borders or No Borders?
Answer, no borders! Keep reminding yourself that your ads need to slot in with your existing layout and appear to be part of the page. A border immediately separates the ads and decreases CTR.
6. Images
There has been a lot of talk on the boards for quite some time about using images alongside ads to improve CTR. Overall, images placed beside your ads will increase CTR.
7. Section Targeting
Use the section targeting tags, they make it easy to specify what content Mediabot should spider and what to ignore.
8. Use Alternate Ads
On occasion AdSense will not be able to display any ads in an ad block on a particular page. Unless specified AdSense will display Public Service Ads (PSAs) that do not earn you anything. So when you are creating your code, specify an affiliate link or image linked to an affiliate product. Therefore you can rest assured that no matter what happens, you’re earning!
9. Use Channels
Track your performance by channel, a technique that is especially important when you have place multiple ad blocks per page. Assign each ad block a unique channel so that you can see what performs best over time, allowing you to further refine ad placement and increase revenue.
10. Noscript
Statistics remarkably show that approximately 10% of browsers do not have JavaScript enabled. Unfortunately for AdSense publishers, a browser with JavaScript disabled will not even show an ad block.
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We all want to receive large cheques from Google Adsense, but without taking into consideration certain important factors this is unlikely to happen. Throughout this article I will discuss six tips which shall help to increase your Adsense revenue. These include: ad placement, blending, targeted traffic, general traffic, ad formats and keyword based ad targeting.
Where you place your ads directly effects whether people will see your ads or not. If people don�t see your ads, they won�t click on them. One very useful tool released by Google is the Google Heatmap. The areas coloured darker are areas in which people look and click most frequently. Based on this map we can see that if you place an ad beneath your footer you will receive almost no clicks while placing your ads above or within your content will receive a lot more clicks. Remember that revenue is directly proportional to clicks so good ad placement will increase your clicks and revenue.
Ads which stand out are much less likely to be clicked than ads that blend in. Google gives you the option to modify Border, Title, Background, Text and URL colours. I recommend you make the border and background colours the same as your content area background so there's no border around your ads, make the title the same colour as your links, the text the same colour as your text and the URL a suitable colour. There is, however, a balance which has to be found where the ads are blended enough to fit your content while not making the user feel tricked when they click your ad.
Make sure your traffic is genuinely interested in your website. As Google targets your Adsense to fit your content, if your visitors are interested in your content they will also be interested in your ads increasing the chance that they'll click them. This means that you should make sure you have inward links displayed on relevant websites, do not advertise on irrelevant websites.
High traffic is the most important step in making money through Adsense. Your Adsense revenue is directly proportional to your traffic. Although the rest of the steps will increase your CTR (Click Through Rate), without traffic you won't receive any clicks. The most important thing to note when building traffic is to have high quality content. If you have high quality content, people will return to your website and other websites will link to yours. (Although you will still have to advertise even with high quality content.)
Your choice of ad format will drastically effect your CTR (Click Through Rate) There is no one ad format which works best on all websites, I do however recommend an ad format that is roughly as wide as an article title (or whatever else you offer). To test ad formats on your website, you could switch formats once per day then record the CTR at the end of the day.
Once you have high traffic and blended, well placed ads, you may want to increase your CPC (Cost Per Click). As you may know, each ad pays a different CPC and your ads are based on your content. This means that if your content is related to something expensive (e.g. Photoshop CS2) your ads will pay more per click. Some strategically placed keywords throughout your articles may help you to display more expensive ads.
Now that you have maximized your Adsense revenue, go out there and build traffic, stay within the Adsense TOS and enjoy your money.
