Adsense Tips and Tricks

With personal and commercial blogs, community websites, and social pages becoming the hot topic of the Internet in the last few years, many people have become more Internet-literate and are always looking for ways to make a few hundreds or even thousands from their websites.  This is when Google Adsense comes into play.  Google Adsense, unlike Affiliate Programs, is CPC (Pay-Per-Click) and the good thing about it, is you can still earn some bucks without making a sale. 

As with any other things in this world, it takes time, effort and dedication before you could earn some decent amount from Google Adsense.  And here are some of the tips and tricks to help you with your Google Adsense journey. 

Layout

1. Blend your ads to your website layout
This could be considered as one the most important things which is often overlooked.  Instead of using predefined colors provided by Google, try changing colors of your ads to match the website layout.  For example, if your website uses white background with green text, make sure you use the same colors for your ads. 

2. Do not display a border
While you can't get rid of the border around your ad, you can make it invisible by changing the border color to that of the background.  Researches have shown that ads without a visible border generate much higher clicks than those with one. 

3. Do not place your ads in normal spots
Internet users have become accustomed to the normal ad spots (eg: a Leaderboard above your header, a Skyscrapper outside the content) and hence, any ads placed in those normal spots will often be ignored. 

4. Choose the right ad formats
There are a few ad formats which perform better than others.  Some of the recommended ad formats are Wide Skyscrapper, Medium Rectangle and Horizontal Ads Links.  However, these ad formats may not necessarily work for everyone, so choose the ones that work for you. 

5. Good layout design
Although a good layout design does not necessarily increase your Adsense revenue, it is important for the first impression and also for the professionalism.

Content

5. "Content is the king"
The fact that Google Adsense is contextual advertising implies that the ads being generated are often relevant to the website content.  That simply means you will not get any relevant ads if the content does not focus on a certain topic or the content is not text based.  For example, if your page does not have any copy/text but an image, it's unlikely to get relevant ads.

6. Pick a high paying topic
It took me a while to find out that some keywords are being paid more than others.  While Google does not tell you how much advertisers are paying for their keywords, it is pretty easy to guess.  For example, ads about credit cards, home loans and insurance are being paid more than those ads about free blogging tool, yellow pages, etc.   It is also recommended to pick a Niche topic and provide a narrow focus than to pick a general topic. 

7. Update your website frequently
Updating your website frequently enables you to get more visitors checking out your website which increases your page impression and the probability of ad clicks. 

8. Write quality content
Not everyone possesses a natural talent in writing, and I can say for sure that I don't.  However, if you offer something useful, interesting, and put your heart into writing, your readers will enjoy what you have to say.  And they will be coming back for more. 

Organization

9. A good organizer is the winner
With Google Adsense, you can organize your ads and have a clear idea about their performance by using Channels.  This way, if a particular ad is not performing well, you could always replace it with a difference one.  There are quite a few things you could do with Channels and this is just one of them. 

10. Monitor your statistics
Checking both your website and Adsense statistics enables you to get better ideas about your audiences.  From your website statistics, you can find out which pages are being viewed the most, where most of your traffics come from, what the peak day of the week is, etc.  Similarly, Adsense statistics will tell you which ad formats are being clicked the most, how many page impressions you receive, how much you are making each day/week/month, etc.  You can then make improvements based on these figures to maximize the performance. 

Traffics

11.  Link Building
No matter how good your website is and how relevant your Adsense ads are, without a decent amount of traffics, you will only be making a small amount of revenue, if any.  It is not easy to achieve a decent amount of traffics, but it is not impossible.  Some of the most common ways to gain traffics to your website include Link exchange, Directory listing, participating in online communities and making use of social bookmaking systems.     

12.  Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most successful and recommended methods of gaining traffics to your website and it is more than just a buzz word.  Optimizing your websites for search engines increases your website visibility and ranking, which in turn generates significant amounts of targeted and relevant traffics to your website.  Combined, search sites reach more than 130 million Americans or approximately 85 percent of all Internet users each month, ranking Search/Navigation among the most popular categories on the Web. (Source: comScore Media Metrix) 

Miscellaneous

13. A little maintenance goes a long way
Many people tend to overlook the maintenance part of the website.  In this case, rather than sticking to the same ad formats, or the same positioning of the ads, try experiment with different formats and positioning.  If they do not work, you could always revert the changes.  But if they do, that’s a bonus for you. 

14. Do not click on your own ads
Honesty is the best policy.  Be honest with yourself, and do not try to increase your Adsense revenue by clicking on your own ads.  Google is really strict when it comes to fraud clicking, and before you knew it, your account could be banned and you could be owing some money to the advertisers. 

15. When in doubt, ask
If you have some questions in mind, or are unclear about certain stuffs, don't hesitate to ask the Google Adsense Help Team.  Before asking them, though, you could do them a favor by checking out their Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page.

I hope you will find the above tips and tricks useful in improving your website to increase your Adsense revenue.  While it is always good to earn some cash from your website, do not let it rule you or your website.  And remember that no money is easy money and it takes a considerable amount of time, effort and dedication before one could see a marked improvement in his Adsense revenue.

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— Ei Sabai Nyo