I've been with AdSense for 3 years, and make a few hundred bucks online a month, by rarely working. I want to hook you up with a few free and simple tips, so you don't make the same stupid mistakes I made. These tips will save you literally hundreds of hours! 1) Get AdSense Template Set Up NOW! - If you have a low CTR, you need to figure out what you're doing wrong, and figure it out, now! Otherwise, you'll be spending hours and hours at a time fiddling with your AdSense ads, instead of creating content. 2) Best AdSense Colors: Blending is best. Your ads should match your site, exactly. This means, no borders, backgrounds, or funky link colors. I've been with AdSense for 3 years and have tested many different things, and blending works best. PS: Blue link colors and a white background seems to work best. 3) Best AdSense Placement: Originally, I believed above the fold and below post titles. In a recent study, I actually found that a 336x280 block blended below your first paragraph, works best. If you're placing your ad blocks in the sidebar areas, you're wasting your time. Remember, people came to your site to look at the main content area - not the sidebars! Best AdSense Formats: 336x280 is the BEST AdSense format. I don't care if you have a horizontal layout. The 336x280 block will ALWAYS perform best. In terms of link units, just place them in navigational areas. That's where they work best. After you've gotten your AdSense situation squared away, let's get crackin on the content. Understand On Page SEO: Look at Matt Cutts Blog to see how his title and heading tags are formatted. He's the SEO God, so he must have his pages optimized! That's how I learned, and my results have been great ever sense. Make Every Post Count: I believe it was Darren Rowse who said that new Bloggers should write about 5 blog posts a day? SAY WHAT? If you want to make every post count, you need to get them ranking on Google. What's the point in writing a post if nobody is going to view it? Build backlinks to all of the posts you write -- make every post count, and never just build backlinks to your homepage. A good routine to follow: Day 1: Choose 1 main topic and 5 different related sub topics. Day 2: Write first 3 posts. Day 3: Write second 2 posts, + main post. Link all posts together. Day 4: Build Backlinks Day 5: Build Backlinks Day 6: Build Backlinks Day 7: Build Backlinks Day 8: Repeat By following the above routine, you're creating 6 related post topics. You're then linking them altogether (extremely good for SEO). The next few days, you'll make your posts even more powerful, by building backlinks. That's my success strategy. It's simple. It's hott. And It Works!
Building backlinks to a variety of pages makes you rank higher for the keywords on those pages. You want to rank for your articles don't you? Building links to only your homepage will help - just not as much. (No offense, but maybe you shouldn't be running an SEO site just yet..)
because building links for your inner page posts is crucial as well, to rank them. Else they will get buried with millions of other pages targeting those same keywords.
@ttomp13.. great tips regarding ad sense..I am still working with different adsense placement and channel but your feedback must work well for me & others too. thank you..
You mean to say that 336x280 ad block just below the title of the blog post will not work when compared to that of the 336x280 block blended below first paragraph? Should I align it right or left?
I fully agree about building links to inner pages as well, but you said: "never build backlinks to your homepage". Main keyword = homepage, long tail words = inner pages. However man, I'm not saying you're wrong, that's not why I "whyed" you. I just want to hear how other people do it ;-) (And if you find any information that you think is really incorrect at my blog then maybe you could leave an explaining comment there)
Great tips. I wonder sometimes if people are not somehow oversaturated by adsense ads. Because if so, clicks will become fewer and fewer (regardless of templates and other things). Now, of course, if you don't follow the rules and step into the blackhat techniques the sky may be the limit. But mother Google TOS are also quite a limit people are facing these days by getting banned
If you are a 3 year adsense veteran, what is your CTR? If yours is not as high as mine 20-25% CTR almost everyday, then don't call yourself a veteran. If you think my adsense account will get banned soon... I've been doing this for over a year, but sorry I am not a 3 year veteran.
Hey, ttomp13, nice post! I'm 2 years in adsense and I have learned such rules by myself - and I'm sure if beginners read it and implement, they won't "waste time" as we did. I have blogs with 200 posts and, only two or three monthes ago, I realized only 20 or 30 posts had good visits.
Agreed, backlinks are so much more important than new content. I've had a lot more success with building links slowly, a few per day but consistently over time.
You're definitely right about making every post count. Whether it's once a week, a couple times a week, once a day or a few times a day, each post should be meaningful and quality.
Thank you for the good tips. I have a question about the different sub topics. I have absolutely no idea how to do that on my site. I list hyper local deals and bargains, and I cannot see how I can create subtopics. For example, on a given day, I might post 7-8 posts, each about a different local deal, bargain, or freebie. Some might be dining deals, but mostly there is little relationship (except that all the deals can be found in my city). Any advice? Thank you.