Use with sense – Google Adsense

We all know Google Adsense has provided a platform to make money with ease. It has helped millions of webmasters / website owners to monetize their website. There were many content rich website before google adsense came out and it provided an easy way for these website owners to integrate their website with google adsense and make money with minimal effort. However with its immense success, many people started website to make money with Adsense. There are thousands of individuals who are living with Adsense. In todays world, I personally believe that 90% of the websites using google adsense are made to make money using it, while less than 10% are websites, where they are using Google adsense to make money from their websites.

Let it be whatever, the point is to achieve what you aspire for. I have seen many individual trying to utilize this opportunies and making a website or blog and put Google adsense code in their webpage. They even do web page optimization to get search engine traffic but still they fail to earn good income due to low CTR (click through ratio). So One of the key to make money from Google Adsense increasing your CTR.

There could be various ways to increase your CTR and I would like to underline few ways, which will help you to increase your CTR significantly.

(1) Most of the time, you will find Google adsense in your webpage different from your content page. However to get high CTR, you have to make sure that adsense appearing in your website should be very similar to your webpage theme. If Google adsense does not serve the relevent ad, there are less possibility that user will click on that. To improve on this, I will advise following tips.
(1.a) First thing first, you should never compromise on content. You should try your best to get loads of content and there are several ways to make your website content rich as explained in my other post.
(1.b) As explained in my other post, keyword should be the main focus of every webpage. The site theme and specific webpage theme may be different. For example the site may focus on health and a particular web page theme could be pregnancy. So you should also concentrate on keyword rich content pages to get right adsense served.
(1.c) Continuing to previous point when you are dedicating a page for pregnancy, you should make sure that this keyword is concentrated in your webpage. You may also give a try by making your keyword highlighted. But not all over the pages. Making it bold or highlighted 2-3 times in a page should serve the purpose.
(1.d) You also need to make sure that the title of this webpage also consist this keyword. It will be good, if you could also use this keyword in your content title.
(1.e) If Google adsense does not serve the right ad even after doing the above step, there could be possibility that google does not have ad related to that specific keyword. If this is the case, just change your keyword and you will hit the spot.

(2) You should try to blend your google adsense ad based on your website theme. In google words “If you want the biggest revenue impact for the smallest effort, we recommend optimizing your color palettes. Choosing the right palettes can mean the difference between ads your users will notice — and click — and ads they’ll skip right over.

We’ve outlined a few strategies below that are designed to decrease ad blindness, the tendency for users to ignore anything that’s separate from the main content of your site. By making these changes, you’ll be making your ads more visible to users. The goal isn’t to confuse users into thinking ads are content, but to get users to see and read the ads so they can click on those that interest them.

The color strategy you should use on your site varies depending on the ad placement and the color of the background where the ads are placed. Review the table below for a quick reference about which strategies we suggest will work well on your site.”

You can see the complete advise in the following link:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17957

(3) Always try to use wider format ad because it always works well and google too consider it best performing ads. In Google words “As a rule of thumb, wider ad formats tend to outperform their taller counterparts, due to their reader-friendly format. Readers absorb information in thought units (that is, several words at a time). The wider format lets them comfortably read more text at a glance without having to skip a line and return to the left margin every few words as they would be forced to do with a narrower ad. The wider ad format also lessens the likelihood of readers leaving the ad unit altogether.”

You can see the complete advise in the following link:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17955

(4) You should not place all your ad unit in one place. Instead you should place it in different places based on your webpage design. You could place the ad either on Top of the page or/and middle of the page or/and at the end of the article each having its own advantage. Google has advised the same in following link:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954

(5) You should never miss putting link units. It is very effective and result in a very high CTR if placed properly. You should put this unit where you have navigation menu. This will result in these units looking more like a link of your website to get more information on that topic and user get served with tens of ad under each link. As per Google “Link units are particularly effective for more focused content, where visitors tend to be seeking specific information. Their varied formats are space-efficient, too, so we recommend incorporating link units into new and unusual locations throughout your site. Remember that three link units per page can be placed in addition to the existing three standard AdSense ad units on that page.” You will find details on the same in following link:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=18300

I hope these small steps will help you to attain higher CTR. There are many more which are on the way and will be posting very soon. Wish you all the sense to use Google Adsense.

Importance of Google adsense ad can be compared directly with your interest to run and perform the ad in your website or blog. They provide enough information to let you understand about the optimization of AdSense. The interesting part is that no one is bothered to read each of their advice. And even if they do, they never try to apply it with them.

However, you should understand that simply using their tips does not guarantee successful ads and decent CTR (Click-through rate). How many times have you heard this? You should check. You have to try alternatives and see what really works best for you, on your pages, with its contents and your guests. Test, the test yet. Track your results, analyze them, try variations. Too many of us do not test. We hear the mantra, but we do not work.

In general, above the fold, at the top center of your content, below top navigation is the hottest place to put your adsense. Not immediately, below which is good, but not so hot. In the left sidebar to the left of the main content or below the main content are also good. Most other places are usually cooler.

Again, you need to check, and you should consider your users behavior – and their behavior may vary on different pages with different kinds of content. Google believes that in some cases, such as articles, the best place may be at the end of this article. To quote Google “It’s almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves what do I do next?” Targeted relevant advertising will give them an answer. Do not blindly assume that sticking Nice large rectangle in the center will do it. It might, but depending on the content of your site, it may annoy or inconvenience to users. Users tend to focus on content, navigation, and to a lesser extent graphics. Placing your ad in these elements will often work well – if those ads are targeted to the needs of visitors.

Top performers among the three formats of Google ads are the 336×280 large rectangle, 300×250 Inline rectangle and 160×600 wide skyscraper. Google says that the wider format, as a rule, better than above them. One reason may be that this is perhaps easier to read, because they have fewer line breaks and require less eye movement. But, you need to use formats that meet your pages well. Once again, you need to check and redoing your pages to suit a particular ad format may not be a reasonable alternative, and you may find that a different format actually gets better results.

Now lets talk about color. Conventional wisdom says that colors which tend to merge into your content do better. Some go so far as to suggest that the colors that make the kind of advertising as part of the content are best. Personally, I think anybody really believes that these ads nothing but advertising, but who knows. Google suggests that you may find that colors that are distinguished from the content do better – or maybe vice versa. This is absolutely an area where you need to test alternative color schemes. Going with generally accepted as a rule, works pretty well, but without testing you can leave a lot of money on the table.

Google allows you to have up to three ad units and one link unit on your pages. If you have long pages with lots of text, you can only use small ad units or in a niche with a big advertising, multiple units can pay off. Keep in mind that the way ad works is that the higher cost of advertising delivered to the first ad unit block encountered in your code. Always make sure that this is the first ad unit is displayed in the best place (Yeah – test). You want higher paying ads are in the prime hot location on your page. Weaker places you can get cheaper ads. And if none is available, then nothing will show, if you turn on your alternate ad URL in Google Code. To maximize monetization you should be including alternate URL, ad, especially if you put a few blocks on the page. Use of alternative ad URL also eliminates the possibility of being served PSAs (public service announcements). It is your property and increase profitability.

There is nothing secret. Except for the use of alternative ad URL, all this information available to optimize the Google page for the note – http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html. You can buy books and courses, visit the dozens of forums and, in the end it all comes down to what visitors are doing on your site. The best thing you can get is general guidance. This means average results at many sites, many types of content. If you are serious about doing everything that can really optimize returns AdSense, there is only one way out – a test. Whether it’s AdSense, choose the modules, copy, headlines – anything with measurable results, which you can track – then the way to improve is to test and keep testing.