Web Design

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, 336×280 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 300×250 ad unit mid way down the
content with the text wrapping around it.

3) At the end of the content. A 336×280 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) 336×280 Ad at the top of the content.
5) 300×250 Ad in the middle w/ text wrapping around it.
6) 336×280 Ad at the end of the content.
7) Link units in the top horizontal nav, or in the sidebar nav.
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!!!