Tutorial explanation:
This tutorial will explain how to generate code for multiple color palettes for 1 certain ad.
What do you need?
An Adsense account.
Step Number One:
login and go to the AdSense for content setting.
Step Number Two:
Select Ad unit- text and image ads (default). (it actually doesn't matter if what you choose there..)
Step Number Three:
Select an Ad format. It doesn't matter which one..
Step Number Four:
In the color palate, choose 'use multiple palettes'.
Step Number Five:
Select by holding down the 'ctrl button, the palettes you want to use. (you get a preview of 4 different palettes, on the left. If you select more than 4 different palettes, it will still work, but you won't see them all in the preview.)
Step Number Six:
Copy and paste your code into the suitable place.
And that rounds up this tutorial!
Hope it helped you out,
Amigo!
Tutorial #4: Setting Multiple Adsense color palettes!
Tutorial #3, AdSense Referral Setup.
Tutorial explanation:
In this tutorial we will learn the basics of the AdSense referral setup.
What do you need?
An AdSense account.
Step Number One:
- Login to your AdSense account.
Step Number Two:
- Go to the 'AdSense Setup' tab.
- Select referrals.
Step Number Three:
- Choose the product you want to refer to.
(In this tutorial we will refer to Google AdSense)
- Click Continue.
Step Number Four:
- Choose the referral button or link you want.
- Click Continue.
Step Number Five:
- Click inside the code box to highlight it.
- Copy Paste the code into the place you want it to be on your site.
That's it. Wasn't that simple??
Hope I could help,
Amigo!
AdSense Click Fraud in India - How The Whole System Works?
A recent report on Click Fraud suggests that the maximum number of invalid clicks on Pay Per Click ads originate from India. And this is not the first time - its widely believed there there exists a large “work from home” crowd in India who want to generate “quick cash” by clicking Google AdSense ads.
During a recent trip to Google Hyderabad for BarCamp, I met someone who explained me the whole modus operandi of these secret ad clickers.
Pick any issue of Deccan Chronicle newspaper (the English Daily of Hyderabad) and open the Classifieds section - you will see dozens of ads that promise you regular Google AdSense income while working from home. (see this newspaper clipping on the right).
You basically create a website and then write a few articles to get accepted into the official Google AdSense program. Once you become an AdSense publisher, you join any of these “bogus” AdSense network and are introduced to other members who are in the same boat as you.
Now Google would quickly ban your AdSense account if you click Ads on your own website so what these networks do is ask members to click on Ads appearing on websites of other members. So it like a reciprocal behavior - you click my ads and I will click yours.
Do members of such local AdSense networks make money? I have doubts. They may make a few dollars before Google discovers the click fraud activity, bans the account and returns the accumulated earnings to advertisers.
But in any case, the fraudulent clicks have been generated and added to the global “Click Fraud Index”. No wonder, India tops the chart.
Tutorial #2: Tweak the AdSense BG Color!!!
Tutorial Explanation:
I will show how in a few simple steps, you can change your AdSense Background colors, to suit any part of your site!
Needed Tools:
- An AdSense Account.
- Adobe Photoshop.
OK! Lets Begin!
Step Number one:
- Open Photoshop.
- Open your website in your browser.
- Press the Print Screen (PrtScn) button, on your keyboard.
- Open a new document in PhotoShop (CTR+N). (settings don't matter..)
- Paste the printed screen into Photoshop. (Simply press CTR+V)
Step Number Two:
- Click on the Brush tool in Photoshop.
Step number Three:
- Hold down the ALT button, on your keyboard.
Step number Four:
- While holding down the ALT button, select and click with your mouse, the color you want your Ad to be.
- After choosing the color, Click on the color palate. (The colored box in the picture)
Step number Five:
- You should now be in the Color Setting. (Like in the picture)
- Copy the content of the box I marked in the picture. (Simply select it, and press CTR+C)
Step number Six:
- Go into your AdSense Account.
- Go into the AdSense Setup page, and select the AdSense for content (or Search..)
- Choose the settings you like for the Ad, and finally, get to the Ad color settings. (it should look like the picture..)
- Select the content of the Background box.
Step number Seven:
remember that when we were in Photoshop, we copied something? Now is the time to use it.
- Paste the content into the Background box. (Notice the ads background change.)
Step Number Eight:
- Simply copy the ads code, into the place you want it, in your website. (Like you always do..)
That's it. Hope it helped you out! I tried to make it as easy as possible!
Amigo. =)
US finance humor
Some humor before the markets open!!
1. The US has made a new weapon that destroys people but keeps the
building standing,. Its called the stock market - Jay Leno
2. Do you have any idea how cheap stocks are?? Wall Street is now
being called Wal Mart Street - Jay Leno
3. The difference between a pigeon and a London investment banker. The
pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW
4. What's the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las
Vegas and an investment banker? A tie!
5. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left
side nothing's right and on the right side nothing's left.
6. I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be watching our show,
if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it's a scam.
Don't fall for it - Jay Leno
7. Bush was asked about the credit crunch. He said it was his
favourite candy bar - Jay Leno
8. The rescue bill was about 450 pages. President Bush's copy is even
thicker. They had to include pictures - Jay Leno
9. President Bush's response was to meet some small business owners in
San Antonio last week. The small business owners are General Motors,
General Electric and Century 21 - Jay Leno
10. What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my
cheques is returned stamped 'insufficient funds'. I won't know
whether that refers to mine or the bank's
Poker Affiliates: Use PPC Ads For A Traffic Boost
As a poker affiliate, you should always be on the lookout for ways to generate more player sign ups. PPC advertising is one such technique that can deliver in this area. Here is a quick rundown of exactly what PPC advertising is and how it can benefit your poker affiliate marketing business.
Pay per click advertising is a search engine marketing technique that involves bidding on keyword phrases and paying a fee when visitors click on the ads. Here are some of the benefits that PPC advertising can provide for your business:
1. You don't need to be a computer genius or SEO guru to run a highly profitable PPC ad campaign.
2. PPC advertising gives you the ability to test ideas and see results immediately.
3. No need to worry about tedious search engine optimization.
4. You can instantly target any keyword phrase that you choose.
PPC advertising is not without negatives however. Here are the downsides to using PPC advertising:
1. Monthly advertising bills to pay.
2. PPC ads are at risk for fraudulant clicks.
3. Pay-per-click pricing can become very expensive over time.
PPC advertising gives advertisers complete control over their ad campaigns. Advertisers can effectively target their audience and determine how much each visitor is worth to them. Pay per click ad networks provide an excellent platform for identifying a desired target audience by geographic setting and subject.
Advertisers have access to various tools provided by PPC ad networks to monitor the effectiveness of their advertising. It is easy to use these powerful tools to track campaigns and tweak them for optimal profitability.
When you begin using PPC advertising to promote your websites, your keyword phrases are extremely important. Choose as many specific keyword phrases as you can and then write an attention grabbing advertisement that uses as many of those keywords as possible.
Also, it is important to remember to stick to your advertising budget. Start slowly and work on improving the effectiveness of your advertisements, avoid placing high bids right out of the gate.
PPC advertising has really caught on in popularity and should continue to grow. It is a relatively new form of online advertising and in my opinion, hasn't yet reached it's full potential. Try using PPC advertising to promote your poker websites today!
How To Boost Blog's Traffic- And Make Money.
Ok. This is probably the most interesting and exciting part for most of you.
You might be:
- Just an ordinary blogger, and you would be happy if more people visit your blog.
- Just an ordinary blogger, but you would be happy to make some money out of your blog.
- A little more than an ordinary blogger. You write well, and think you deserve a large amount of cash for you blog.
- An exclusive writer, who thinks he can make tons of $ from his blog.
If you can fit yourself in one of the description above, follow these steps.
First step- Look and Feel.
If you enter a blog, and the writing in poor, the outlet is messy, the colors are disgusting and the topic is boring, wouldn't you just leave?
One of the most important things about a successful blog, is first of all the way it looks. When you start your blog, or have already started one and want to improve it, you should first of all think about the person visiting your blog. Ask yourself 'would I like to visit this blog?'
Important rules you should keep:
- Write about interesting stuff.
- Make sure you keep your Blog updated.
- Keep the blog organized:
Make sure your outlet- backgrounds, pictures, text color, text size, all look nice and clean.
- Make sure, or try your best, your punctuation is correct. Look for your spelling mistakes, if you find one- correct it.
If you make sure you keep the rules above, I assure you your Blog will be a great one to visit and read. People will start talking about it, and it will start spreading as fast as the wind. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
Next- Make Sure your Blog is easy to Search for.
Their are plenty of different search engines. The main one are Google, Yahoo, Msn and so on. Make sure you let them know about your Blog!
How? For example, log onto google.com, and search for submit site. The site you will find will be the following-
http://www.google.com/addurl/?Continue=/addurl.
Start there, and follow the same process for any search engine you find.
Make sure you don't miss special Blog Searchers! For example- http://blogsearch.google.com/ or
http://www.blogsearchengine.com/ or
http://www.ysearchblog.com/.
And their are plenty more. Just search for 'Blog Search' and submit your site to them.
Check out sites that incourage people to visit your blog. Sites like- http://www.blogmad.net
Next Step- Google Adsense. (coming soon, really soon.)
Amigo.
Why Does Google Allow Ads for AdSense Ready Websites?
Search for something like "work from home", "Internet jobs" or "make money online" on Google and you’ll see a flood of ads promising easy money through the AdSense program.
If you have ever tried AdSense on a site, you probably know how tough it is to make that first dollar but these ads, which are surprisingly served on the Google network itself, make things look so simple. Just order an "AdSense kit" for a few dollars and the money will start rolling in.
So how do these "get rich quick" schemes work? I called the owner of GoogleCashSense.com - they advertise pretty heavily on Google and here’s what he told me about their program.
The whole package costs around Rs 1,100 and in return, they’ll provide you a readymade website with some 110 pages of content. You then put your AdSense Publisher ID in these pages and wait for others to click on your ads.
When I asked him if people can click their own ads, his advice was to "avoid it" or use another computer. He also shared a couple of websites - websyite.com and 66marketing.com - that seem to use the "Cash Sense" program.
As an active web user, you probably won’t believe any of the "promises" made by these schemes but there are real people (and lots of them) who actually fall prey to them.
And GoogleCashSense aren’t just the only player in town - there’s netjobsinindia.com, GoogleCashCow.com, eJobsJunction.com, myGoogleMoney.com and numerous other sites here that use Google’s own AdWords network to trick people into buying their "Made for AdSense" kits. All have similar websites with fake testimonials and photographs of AdSense checks.
Google policies do not allow ads related to promotion of "miracle cures" then why allow ads that promise "miracle cash". True, you can’t prevent people from running such sites but you can at least block them from using your own ad network to promote their sites.
How Does Google Detects Invalid Clicks - A Must Know For AdSense Publisher.
A lot of Google AdSense publishers are banned from the Google AdSense program for invalid clicks. Some of these Google AdSense publishers manage to get their AdSense account reinstated. However, majority of them failed to do so. As a result, they are banned from the Google AdSense program.
Google does not reveal any specific details about invalid clicks in order to protect their proprietary clicks fraud detection technology. Hence, you would not know who is generating these clicks on your site or where these clicks come from.
If you are not getting any details of the invalid clicks from the termination letter, it may be a good idea to learn how Google defines these clicks and ways to detect them.
Google defines invalid clicks as:
* Manual clicks intended to increase publisher's advertising
* Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software.
-So how does Google detect these clicks and how would they know which clicks are invalid?
Google AdSense team uses three powerful tools to detect invalid clicks:
* Detection and Filtering Tool: Each click on an AdSense ad is monitored by Google system. Google will record the IP of each click, the time of the click, duplicate clicks and various click patterns. Google will use these factors and filter out potential invalid clicks.
* Advanced Monitoring Tool: Google uses its proprietary software to monitor clicks fraud activity. They are constantly working to improve their technology.
* The Google Team: In addition, Google has a team that uses specialized tools and techniques to examine individual case of clicks fraud. When Google system detects potentially invalid clicks, a member of this team will examines the affected account.
Despite the effort that Google put in to improve their clicks fraud detection technology, there are few innocent publishers whose AdSense account has been suspended or banned temporarily for different reasons. For example, a sudden spike in your AdSense earnings would probably raise the red flag in their system and cause your AdSense account to be suspended. If your AdSense account is suspended for invalid clicks which you did not commit, Google provides you a way to make your appeal:
http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_appeal
A Piece of Advice
When you are making your appeal via email, you should stay calm and plan the right strategy. You should be patient when dealing with Google and most importantly you should be polite when communicating with them. You may take initiative to provide them with all the documents they need.
The author of this article is Casey Yew, Thanks!
Amigo!
Adsense; Improve Your Earnings by 5 Folds
You may find many Adsense Gurus on the net, offering you thousand ways to improve your Google adsense earnings! Mind you guys, just buying some genius adsense template and expect it to produce thousand dollars a day is a sure impossibility!
I am telling you with my practical experience that nothing would work unless you are prepared to go that extra mile. You should get hold of the adsense secrets that are unique to your site. You must be prepared to make continuous changes and measure effectiveness on a continuous basis.
Following are simple but effective steps successfully followed by the author, which may help you to improve your adsense earnings by five folds or even more! However, keep in mind that nothing would work unless you customize these options to suit your requirements.
The Best Position - This is always the demarcation point which decides you should be earning in hundreds or thousands! You must identify the most likely position where the reader would be most tempted to click. At first you might have to follow what Adsense Gurus have suggested. However, you must keep in mind that what they have said is not unique to your site.
You should be bold enough to do your own research and identify the best positions unique to your site, 'cos there could be exceptions to what Adsense Experts have proposed. Best example I can quote is 'Plentyoffish.com' a dating site which earns half a million Dollars a month just by displaying a single Google ad in each page with completely different link color format than the rest of the site using!
White Is In Demand - Having more white space around the article and the Ad will definitely increase your click through rate. In my case, this is one of the real secrets behind the high click through rate in my Adsense ads. Your objective should be to get the reader's attention to the Adsense ad and the article. Therefore, it is important to have other areas blank as much as possible to centre reader's attention to the Ad and the article. Remove all unnecessary items which are cluttered around the article and the Ad and have more white space on either side of the page.
What is Your Ad Size? - Highly effective Ad formats are 336x250 and 768x120. However, it is up to you to find out the best size for your site. These are the widely tested and accepted sizes. Tyr them out and see the outcome.
Be Discreet - I personally don't prefer to server image ads in my Adsense campaigns because they dilute the effectiveness of the Ads. It is starkly obvious to the reader that they are clicking on Ads and the sole purpose of putting them is to make money! Just don't make it so obvious! Instead, include text ads which are relevant to the theme. Place the ads where the reader is likely to seek a break while reading the article or your copy.
Artistic Way To Be Discreet - The font, color and texture should match with the rest of the page. This will make the ad looks like part of the article. You have the options to use either an ideally matching color or a contrasting color. Either way is effective.
Use The Maximum but Have a Balance - Always try to use maximum number of adsense ads in each page. Don't lose balance however! Ads should not dominate the page.
Measure the effectiveness of Ad units - Always make use of Google Adsense channels to identify which position or format has produced high click through rates. Be prepared to change the Ad format, color and position according to your findings. These simple but effective methods surely drive you more income you never ever expect if you are prepared to follow those in your own way. Find out your way out today.
Adsense: Why Bloggers Don't Get It
In doing the research for my series of Adsense articles, two common ideas kept getting repeated:
- My Adsense ads are horrible, they only pay out (insert low dollar figure here)
- My Adsense CTR is horrible, I only get a (insert extremely low CTR here)
To be fair these comments weren't coming just from bloggers, but bloggers did make up an overwhelmingly large percentage. I think this stems from a misconception on the part of the bloggers that they are entitled to high payout and CTR. I'd like to spend a little time to share my feelings on this subject. In the early days a blog may just have been an online diary or journal, but like the days of the Nehru jackets, they are gone. What a blog is now is Chronologically Structured Content Management System, as opposed to the classic web hierarchical structured implementation. Let's be clear, you can still use a blog as your online diary or journal, but nowdays it's just as likely to be used as a commercial blog. Yes, I did just say commercial blog, and no the earth didn't open under my feet and swallow me whole for saying it. Let's take some time to look at a your typical blog.
You may post about commercial related subjects like your job, what you like to buy, or even your hobbies. However these posts are all about your life, they are no more commercially viable or attractive than say Aunt Millie's Holiday Newsletter. Yes we all have an Aunt Millie in our family, every year she sends out a finely crafted newsletter in a coordinating envelope she ordered from paperdirect.com telling us all about her family. We learn how hard her husband works, how many activities her kids are in and how good they are at them. We also read the details of how her scrapbooking business hasn't taken off yet, but she promises to spend more time on it right after New Years. So if you were a business owner would you want to advertise anywhere on Aunt Millie's Newsletter? Then why would a business want to pay you top dollar to advertise on your blog? What's that, you say your blog gets (insert a high number here) of readers per day, surely that has to be worth something? Well did you know Aunt Millie sends out over 800 copies of her holiday newsletter to 17 countries, on 4 continents? Now before you get all fired up about it, understand that I don't have a problem with you having a personal blog or sharing it with the public. However your expectation that it has value outside of your family/friends/community, is a serious misconception.
So what exactly is a commercially viable blog? Don't think of it as publishing a blog, think of it as publishing an online magazine. You need to start out with good content or articles about a small area or niche topic. You will need lots of content, and unless you are well known, don't expect much to happen until you've written at least 100 and more likely over 200 articles. Yes you will have to devote some time and effort to publicizing and marketing it as well. Once you've got a significant focused reader base, that's the time to slowly ad in the advertising. Now here's the one that causes lots of people to freak out. BE PREPARED TO GIVE UP SOME PRIME SCREEN REAL ESTATE, IN THE CENTER, ABOVE THE FOLD, TO ADVERTISING. If you've worked with print media at all you will know the middle of the right hand page is the most desirable spot inside of a magazine (excluding the cover pages). I've sat through meetings where people have said " … you know we need more right hand pages …". If you want people to click on your ads, you will need put them where they can see them, above the fold in the center of the screen, in a prominent location. Yes I can almost here the keys typing for the flame comments and emails now. Before you hit that send button though, ask yourself this, are you building a space sough after by advertisers, or are you working on Aunt Millie's Newsletter? No I don't think your pages should be filled with ads, in fact quite the opposite, there should always be more content than advertising, ALWAYS!
Next thing, lose the fancy graphics and eye-candy from your template. Yes I know you may have paid for a fancy template, maybe you had your niece who's a graphic artist design something for you, or you really like the way that spinning flaming platypus looks in your page header. Here's the thing, it's detracting from your content. Graphics should be simple, understated, and support the content, not overpower or compete with it. Now before some art student wearing a beret, corduroy jacket with elbow patches, and smoking a pipe or French cigarette, writes and calls me a Philistine, stop and think. Are you designing a commercially attractive and viable space, or are you designing an intricate macrame border for Aunt Millie's Newsletter? Remember keep it simple and to the point.
Yes I know you feel like I just ripped off the band-aid, and now it hurts. Sorry but someone had to do it. I know some of you are still out there reading saying 'but can't I still have this … do we have to get rid of this … I really like that …'. Well I'm not your second grade teacher who's going to tell you everything's all right, that you don't have to change a thing, and put a scooby-doo sticker on your shirt to make you feel better. If you want a blog that makes you more money than you spend at Starbucks every Tuesday, you will need to get serious about what you're doing.
If none of this sounds incredibly fun, and really sounds pretty close to actual work, here's the way I see it, getting an Adsense check for $5 is fun, getting an Adsense check for $500 or $5000 is work.
Disclaimers:
I don't actually have an Aunt Millie, she's a fictional character. But like you, I do have relatives who send out holiday newsletters.
Yes I know the minimum Adsense payment is $100, so you never could get a $5 check, but I was just making a point, mmkay?
Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets- PART 1/2
Build an Empire?
When you're deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:
- Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
- Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit
The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm's, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you'll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.
General or Niche
You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.
If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it's currently zero).
Once you've gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don't try to run with the big dogs if you can't keep up. If you have to ask if you're a big dog, then chances are, you're not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).
New Sites, Files and Maintenance
When you're building a new site don't put adsense on it until it's finished. In fact I'd go even farther and say don't put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with "lorem ipsum" dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google's media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP's you will speed this process up dramatically.
I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it's only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.
Managing URL's and channels
Adsense channels is one area where it's really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:
- domain1.com - 728 banner
- domain1.com - 336 block
- domain1.com - text link
- domain2.com - 728 banner
- domain2.com - image banner
- domain2.com - 336 block
- domain3.com - 300 block
While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.
Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets- PART 1/2
Build an Empire?
When you're deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:
- Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
- Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit
The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm's, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you'll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.
General or Niche
You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.
If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it's currently zero).
Once you've gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don't try to run with the big dogs if you can't keep up. If you have to ask if you're a big dog, then chances are, you're not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).
New Sites, Files and Maintenance
When you're building a new site don't put adsense on it until it's finished. In fact I'd go even farther and say don't put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with "lorem ipsum" dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google's media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP's you will speed this process up dramatically.
I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it's only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.
Managing URL's and channels
Adsense channels is one area where it's really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:
- domain1.com - 728 banner
- domain1.com - 336 block
- domain1.com - text link
- domain2.com - 728 banner
- domain2.com - image banner
- domain2.com - 336 block
- domain3.com - 300 block
While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.
Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets- PART 2/2
Site Design and Integration
Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you're going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it's easier, if it's an existing site it's more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I'd say if you just slap the adsense code in, you'll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I've done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you're doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn't work out.
Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:
- 336×280 large rectangle
- 300×250 inline rectangle
- 160×600 wide skyscraper
From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don't really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it's own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.
Another 'trick' that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.
The one area where I've found blended ads don't perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One 'trick' to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it's a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it's better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.
Using Images
One of the latest 'secrets' to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be 'enticing people to click' and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn't, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google's perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being 'over the line' write to adsense and ask them to take a look.
As far as using the images, I've done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images 'complete the story the ads are telling'. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don't limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.
Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn't specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.
Multiple Ad Units
Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google's TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you'll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.
Adsense in RSS
With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you're starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn't work, and here's why:
- You only get to place one ad unit.
- You have no control over finding the 'sweet spot' for the ad unit.
- The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
- People develop 'banner blindness'.
I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.
Affiliate Sites
Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren't converting now it's definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let's say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You're going to need some related articles to 'flesh out' the site. Things like 'getting a shoe shine' or 'finding a shoe repair shop' these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won't get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.
PPC Arbitrage
This is a dicey subject so I'm going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to 'add some value' along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.