Adsense Blogger

There are several Adsense formats which you can use and Adsense images are one of them. These are Adsense ads which show pictures and not text. I’ve tested these on several of my websites and…

They’ve failed pretty bad. Once I changed the images back to text such as Adsense leaderboard, the CTR (click thru rate) increased noticeably.

I’ve tested this with different websites and with different places. I’ve come to the conclusion that they look too much like banners and people ignore them.

Another reason is that it proves once and for all that text works better than pictures. I remember John Reese tested that having a graphical header actually lowers the number of sales compared to a web sales pages with no graphic header.

I suspected the result would be the same for Adsense but I had to test it. The results prove I was right. I’ll be interested to hear of anyone who has different results. As always, test things on your own website. You may be able to come out with a combination that works. Test, test and test.

I’ve been receiving emails from subscribers who questioned what the maximum number of Adsense ad units they can place on a webpage. Reason being that they have seen 5 ad units on some webpages.

So are those pages breaking Google’s policies? Well the answer is no and you can only place a maximum of 3 Google Adsense ad units. Confused? Don’t be. All is cleared with my explanation below.

You can only place a maximum of 3 Google Adsense ad units on a webpage. That is clear and no one can argue with me on that statement. However, you can also add Adsense link units.

These are a new type of Adsense ad formats and they look like a menu bar. If a visitor clicks on them, it will not count as paid in Adsense. The click will bring up a new page that will consists of Adsense ads that is related to the category clicked on the Adsense link unit. If the Adsense on this page is clicked then it will count as a paid click.

Adsense link units are not counted as Adsense ads because clicks on them will not get you paid.

Next is the Google Search bar. If the visitor uses the Google Search bar to search your website, the Adwords that appear on the right hand side after the search will count as a paid click when clicked by the visitor.

There you have it. You can have 5 types of Google Adsense ads on your website but only 3 of them when clicked will pay you directly. The other 3 Adsense ads will only bring up more Adsense ads for the visitors to click on. You will not get paid for those clicks only the ones afterwards.

Too many people concentrate on placing the Adsense on their website and then posting their content regularly.

This is of course very good practice - but not enough. You also need to rank high in search engines to get traffic and also think of any other way to get traffic.

One of the most important routine tasks to do for your Google Adsense sites or blog is link building. You need build links to your site.

Links are needed to:

• increase your Google PR so that you can sell one way links from your website
• increase in traffic coming from other sites
• make your website rank higher up the rankings especially with Google as backlinks has a great weight of importance

Your links should not come from link farms or any other unnatural ways. For example, getting thousands of links in one month is unnatural. What you need is to build the link naturally which means slowly.

The more links you have which are of high quality and with high PRs, then you will have more of a chance of ranking high in the search engines.

If you do a lot of research on the internet for Google Adsense sites, you will see that a lot of people now place images next to the Adsense.

For example, an Adsense Leaderboard unit of 4, may have 4 small images above it. This has been mentioned in a lot of forums that it increases the click thru rate of Adsense. I myself have tested this and after 2 weeks of monitoring, the results are postive.

I think the reason for this is that, the images draw attention around that area and some times the visitors looking at that area, overlook that it is an advert.

This is a good example of taking advice from forums and acting on them. Notice that I took the advice and tested it. Don’t take all advice as real. Test and test and test.

The appearance of your Adsense will determine the size of the Google Adsense check you will get. No matter how good your content is, if the Adsense is near hidden, or if it looks too much like a blatant ad, you’ll not get many clicks.

Learning how to make your Adsense placed effectively is a continuous art. There’s always room for improvement and also people adapts and know more things. For example, the Adsense skyscraper format is now overly used. One look and you will know that it’s a Google Adsense. What webmasters are always trying to do is blend the Google Adsense to their website so that it does not look obtrusive.

One you should consciously do when you browse websites next time, is study how Adsense are placed and colored in websites. Adopt the techniques which you think will be effective and then monitor the click thru rate. Keep in mind that Google’s terms and condition will not be broken such as persuading the visitor to click on the ads.

There is much debate on the layout of your Google Adsense. Did you know that there is no write or wrong formula for placing Adsense on your websites? Experts can give you advice and you can try them out. However, it does not necessarily mean it will work for your websites. There’s no harm in taking advice from experts and trying them out though.

The critical point is taking advice and taking action. Your Google Adsense layouts is very important. There’s no doubt about that. You should not be wasting traffic that is coming to your website.

You only have two continuous tasks to do after you have established your blog.
1. Continue to write good content and sprinkle those important keywords in them.
2. Continue to optimize your Adsense layouts to improve the CTR.

Repeat, repeat and repeat. Once you taste success with Adsense, you don’t want to stop.

There is much debate on the best Google Adsense layout to use and how effective one is compared to another. The tip is to visit a forum and get some ideas. Then implement the ideas and monitor the CTR of your Adsense clicks. Always remember, do not take other’s opinion as the bible as it may not be the same for your own website.
 
In a recent forum, I heard two people arguing on what Adsense format to use and also place it on the left or right hand side. One person mentions that having Adsense skyscraper is better than Adsense squares or buttons the other disagrees. The logic behind it was that skyscrapers are now so common, people tend to ignore them when browsing the website. He mentions that Adsense square are the way to go.
 
The other argues that his Adsense skyscrapers are performing much better than squares. He has placed them between navigational menus so it catches the users’ eye. They both could be right. Unless they both have the same website, we will never know because each technique may work for one and not the other.
 
One conclusion they did make was that the Google Adsense should be placed on the left hand side of the webpage. This is because people normally read from the left to right. We do it in newspapers, novels and also in websites. Therefore the top left is the most beneficial position for placing your Adsense.

For the Google Adsense layouts section let’s talk about the easy steps anyone can take to maximize their Google Adsense income.

1. Have a Google Adsense layout on your website for a week. Monitor the CTR and write down the metrics. For example, 300 visitors with 3 clicks which is 1% CTR. Then change the format of your Google Adsense layout to a skyscraper style for example and monitor the CTR. Do this continuously for a month or two until you have finally concluded what is the best Google Adsense layout for your website.
2. Change the colors of your Adsense units and see what combinations produces the highest CTR. Some ideas you can try out include:
- Changing the color of the text and background
- Hiding the border of your Adsense so that it blends with your website
- Change the title of the Adsense to match with your website
- Change the URL of the Adsense to match the same color as the ones on your website
3. Remove frames from your website and other flash files which are not relevant to your CTR. Frames may not be able to display Adsense inside them and also flash files are a distraction for the visitors reading your Adsense.
4. Do not place Adsense code on webpages that require login to access. Adsense cannot be served in these webpages.
5. Design your webpage so that it looks simple and clean. Remember, it is the words that attract the user to click on an Adsense site and not the graphics.

Perform these 5 things with your Google Adsense layouts and you should see an increase in the CTR which means more money Google is paying you.

Google Adsense layouts are quite easy to change which is good news for those who hate messing around with complex coding. When you log into your Google Adsense account, there is an interface where you can modify the appearance of your Adsense. The great thing about this tool is that you can see what your Adsense will look like as you modify the settings. After that it is just a copy and pasting of the code to your website.
 
Once you log into your Adsense account, go to the tab Adsense setup. There are 3 options which you can choose. You need the link “Adsense for content”.
 
For the ad unit, you can choose if your Adsense shows image or text or image and text. You can also choose link unit, where it offers a list of topics which further displays relevant Adsense for the topics chosen However, note that you will not get paid for click on the ad units.
 
Further on, you can choose the color of the text in the Adsense shown, the color of the URL and the header, the border color of the Adsense block, and essentially the format of the size of your Google Adsense.
 
You need to spend some time here playing around with the Google Adsense layout before choosing the one which looks right on your website.