"Playing" with AdSense - Waste of Time Hey guys. I have been playing around with ads for quite a few days now and would like to say that my income had gone way down since then. It was as if I had forgotten how to use the program. I had a brain fart. Yep. A major brain fart. AdSense isn't rocket science - It's basics This is when I got on Youtube, watched some Joel Comm, and put the basics back into my head once again. I set up my ads about 7 hours ago, woke up this morning, and have had more income in 7 hours, then I did yesterday total. The basics will make you the most money with AdSense. It's as simple as that. AdSense Placement - Non effective placements. 1) Since the early days of the internet, there have been flashing, annoying, crazy, leaderboard ads at the top of most pages. Do you ever click these ads? No. So why are you advertising them? 2) Image Ads for must of us pay out a really low PPC. If you want to make some money on AdSense, you must use text ads. AdSense Placement - Effective Placements!! 1) AdSense blended with the content. It's been proven that putting an ad block, 336x280 under your post titles and pushing your content under the ad block will make you the most money by getting you the most clicks. Now, don't be misleading. You're never supposed to put AdSense directly under a title that doesn't say "advertisement." Make sure there's separation between the two. I like to use my title, the date I made the post under the title, and then a top and bottom border on social bookmarking links under the date, and then my ad units under that. 2) AdSense in the content. A 300x250 ad unit mid way down the content with the text wrapping around it. 3) At the end of the content. A 336x280 ad unit at the end of the content. 4) In the sidebar or top navigation - Link Units are most effective here. (PS: I heard that when people click link units, it simply takes them to a search results page. Apparently, you don't get money until they click a result on the search results page also. Anyone heard about this?) AdSense borders and colors Don't go crazy on me. Borders aren't effective. Ever. No matter what. Borders suck. I don't care if it's the theme of your site, borders suck. When you browse a website, you click things in the content, that look like content. Borders will separate the ads from your content, thus lowering your ctr. Colors are simple. Links should be blue, the ad description black, and the URL either a light gray or black. I have been more successful with my URL being light gray. Either way will probably work. Just don't go crazy on colors. You're wasting your time if you do. Final Note IMPORTANT - Less is more theory Recently, I told you guys that less is more with AdSense. Now this is true to some extent. Lets say you have two ad blocks stacked. AdSense reads the HTML in your site from top to bottom. The top ad unit and the top link on that unit will pay you the most. The bottom ad unit pays less then the top ad unit because people are paying less to rank for the bid. If you have an ad unit on your page that has a higher ctr then the ad unit above it, then you need to delete the ad unit that's highest on the page. Why? Like I said, your highest ad unit will make you the most per click. If the unit under it which has a lower cost per click is getting clicked more then the top unit. Then delete the top unit and the cost per click will move to the next ad on your page. (the ad with a higher ctr) thus making your more money. Finally. Everyone. There is no AdSense secret. I have tried to increase my cost per click so many times by getting rid of ads, and making ads smaller. Sure, I got more per click. But at the end of the day, I was making less money total then I was when I had ads all over my page. IMPORTANT ARTICLE NOTES 1) Be simple 2) No crazy leaderboards 3) Image ads (usually) pay less 4) 336x280 Ad at the top of the content. 5) 300x250 Ad in the middle w/ text wrapping around it. 6) 336x280 Ad at the end of the content. 7) Link units in the top horizontal nav, or in the sidebar nav. 8) No borders 9) Link Color - Blue ; Description - Black ; URL - Light gray or black 10) Less is only more if you have a higher CTR ad unit under a lower CTR ad unit. Final Tip - If your sites content background is some wacky color, change it to white. There's a reason why the newspaper you get every morning is white with black text. It the easiest to read!!!
Great post i'll try a few things out later tonight. I too have been playing with my ads for some time now and still havn't found what works well.
TWO Good Videos to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dxiVqrM-Ms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQoeLDvtOsc
Thanks a lot for those tips but I think one should blend the title wih the colours of the site as if they seem like links of site. The blue title thing is an oldie now.
Very true, back when links were always blue, blue would be the way to go. I still use blue, because I haven't changed the color of the links for my site. And since blue links are aesthetically pleasing in the context of that site, I'm keeping them that way As in all things, YMMV and there is NO set rules about what always works best. And sometimes, things may surprise you which is why controlled experimenting with placements etc is not futile. The type of people who view content of a certain "niche" may have a different mindset than those who view content of another "niche"
Good tips, thanks for posting. I think it's good to do testing though, how else will you ever know what will work best for you? However, focusing your time on developing quality content is probably more important than constantly tweaking ads.
Sorry ttomp13 !! These are the basics that most of the adsense publishers know. But to use these metods effectively we need traffic and traffic is all just matters. So next time post some new traffic tactics that are less known. But not article submission, forum posting, site submission, youtube etc... Something new and inovative for the beginners. So that they can atleast check the effectiveness of their site.
Essai4u - The point of this post was to point back out the basics. Many people have been victims of losing money because they play with their ads so much, that they forget the way that was once making them the most cash. Hopefully, this post will make you or at least help make you the most money out of AdSense. -ttomp13
Those are good basic tips, if someone would follow them and work on their traffic sources, then they would make the most money possible out of adsense.
Thanx for the tips m8.. Basic indeed but always good to see them all in 1 post. Its never wrong to go back to the basics or atleast read them again.