Tips for Improving AdSense Performance

Tear Down the Borders



Remove borders on your AdSense ads. Web visitors eyes wander around the screen; borders stop them from wandering.



Removing borders from your AdSense ads can lead to a significant boost in CTR.



Use Matching Fonts



Match the font of your site content to the fonts of your AdSense ads.



Use Matching Colors



Match the colors of your AdSense ads to the colors of your site content. Make the ads look like content and more visitors will look at them.



One exception to the color matching rule is sites that are designed to appeal to scammers and spammers. Those sites sometimes perform better with highly contrasting colors.



Use Blue Links



Another exception to the color matching rule is to set the links in your AdSense ads to blue. Blue links tend to have a higher CTR than other link colors, because people have become used to clicking blue links.





Use Large Ads



Larger ads outperform smaller ads. Wider ads also outperform more narrow ads.



The Large Rectangle (336x280) is the best performing ad unit.



Use Lots of Ads



Google allows you to use three ad units and one link unit on each page.



Use them all. The more ads you have, the higher your Page CTR will be.



Place Ads Above the Fold



"The fold" is industry jargon for "the part of the page that the user sees without scrolling down". This will vary depending upon the resolution of the users screen and the size of their browser window.



Place as many ads as possible above the fold. Ads placed below the fold are seldom seen and seldom clicked.



Place Ads on the Left



Web users are accustomed to seeing menus on the left side of the web page. Move your menu to the right and place your AdSense ads on the left.



Use the Heat Map



Use the Google AdSense Heat Map to determine where to place ads. The darker spots are areas where users spend more time looking. Place your ads in the darker areas.



Integrate Ads with Content



Visitors will be reading your content. Keeps your ads as close to your content as possible to ensure that the visitors also look at your ads.



Use Custom Channels



Use AdSense's Custom Channels to test the performance of different ad sizes, placements, colors and fonts.



Don't use Low-Paying Competing Ads



Don't clutter your page with competing ads that don't pay. If a user clicks on an ad that pays you $.01, they are not clicking on an ad that pays you $.30.



Use URL Channels



Use AdSense URL Channels to determine which pages are making you the highest CTR, CPM, and earnings. Focus your efforts on building pages like those.



Use an AdSense Reporting Package



Google only supports 200 channels. If you have more than 200 pages, use AdSense reporting software to give you more insight into your AdSense earnings.



Don't Compete for Other Peoples High Paying Keywords



If a keyword is on a list of high-paying keywords, that means that thousands of spammers are already competing for that keyword.



Don't be a follower. There is no money in being one of the crowd.



Do Compete for Your Own High Paying Keywords



Monitor your AdSense URL channels to determine which keywords are making you the most money. Compete for those keywords. Build more pages optimized for similar keywords. Get inbound links for those keywords. Spend your time and efforrt on the keywords which are making you money.



Increase Traffic



In the long run, the best way to increase your AdSense revenue is to increase traffic to your web site.


Hope you enjoyed it,
Amigo!

Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets- PART 2/2

Site Design and Integration

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.



Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

• 336×280 large rectangle


• 300×250 inline rectangle


• 160×600 wide skyscraper

From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.
Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.
The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

Using Images

One of the latest ’secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but
came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.
As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.
Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.

Multiple Ad Units

Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.

Adsense in RSS

With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

• You only get to place one ad unit.


• You have no control over finding the ’sweet spot’ for the ad unit.


• The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).


• People develop ‘banner blindness’.

I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.

Affiliate Sites

Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.

PPC Arbitrage

This is a dicey subject so I’m going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to ‘add some value’ along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.

Google gives out secret trick to Improve CTR!!

One of the best tricks to improve your CTR (click threw rate), is to constantly make changes to your ads.

I don't know how many of you even know about the option you have in your Adsense account, to select multiple color palettes, for 1 Adsense ad.

What does this option do, how does it work, and why should I use it?

It's very simple. Instead of you manually changing the way your ad looks every now and then, you can set it to be automatic, so it changes constantly with out you needing to do a thing.

You'll have to ask Google exactly how it works.. But what I know is that it simply modifies the code which is generated, to have the option of changing the color palette.

Why should you use it?! That's a good one..
Ok Ok.. I'll explain..

Assuming your site has visitors who come back to your site, or even if you don't, and most of your visitors are first timers and will never come back again, it is good to have a variety of ads.
Different ad colors attract different people, and it is good to mix and change constantly.
People who come back to a site they have visited before, will suddenly notice a slight change in your site, and then they will look for the change, and see the different ad. Which means they got attracted to the ad (which is good).

Now, since I know you'd love to have a screen shot tutorial of this terribly complicated process, I have created one.. I made it extremely easy to follow so you'll all be happy.

You can find it right Here.

That's the end of this tip/trick..
I know you liked it, but I still like to hear comments..!
Amigo!