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Adsense Tips and Tricks Part 1

January 16, 2012 by Jeff Davidson 17 Comments

adsense tipsDecided to keep the adsense theme going in my posts as it is something I am working quite a bit on and my 20 readers (yep got a few more) seem to want to know what Im doing. So I will divulge some of the things I am currently doing to try an maximize my return with adsense. After working on this last night it became almost 1800 word so decided to do it in 2 parts.

I first would like to say that adsense is perhaps the best passive income source there is out there. Yes it may take some work to get it where you like but after that you don’t really have to do anything and you earn an income. May be small, couple bucks a month, or  even hundreds a month but every little bit helps.

I will assume that you already have an adsense account and are looking to fine tune your ads. One of the first is inserting your ads into your site and if you use wordpress I recently wrote an article on the Quick Adsense plugin which is a great tool for inserting your ads. We have also discussed shutting off the Interest based Ads on your account as well so that the ads are based on your content.

Colors of Your Ad

Some like to make their ads stand out from the rest of their site. In studies though it is shown that if a visitor knows it’s an ad they tend to avoid it like its a zombie (just watched zombie land sorry) rather than click on it. So the best thing to do is have them blend in and look like part of your site, and even better part of your content.

  • Start off with the background and border of the ad, you should make this match your background color of your site. If you have some funky image or texture it will make this hard but do your best.
  • Next make the title link the same color as your sites hyperlinks
  • Again make the description text the same color as your general text. This is not always black.
  • Finally the url at the bottom of the ad, make it the faintest grey you can. So its still visible but not so much

All this makes the ads look like part of the content of your site. Some may say you are tricking people to click, but not really. As the ad will hopefully be related to your content, which they searched for in the first place. So they will want to click on it to find more information.

Type Font

I wrote recently about the change adsense made to the Default Font Family. If you leave the font to the ‘Default Font Family’ adsense will now select what they feel is the best performing font for your site. I haven’t done a lot of performance testing here but have discovered that any of my sites where default was selected it tended to pick ‘Times New Roman’ even though the preview in set up showed a Tahoma font. To keep your site looking nice and flowing its probably best that you select the font that best matches your text. Not a lot of choices but unless you have a really funky font one of them will work. Along with font  you have the option to select font size. Again don’t leave this to default, set a size that matches your site best.

Size Does Mater (no mater what she says)

Sometimes you just can’t squeeze a square peg in a round hole, or a 336 wide ad block into your narrow sidebar. But it does seem that higher bid ads are attracted to the bigger blocks such as that 336×280 or the 160×600 skyscraper, or even that leader board. This of course results in higher payouts per click. So it may benefit you to make one of those 3 ad blocks per page a larger ad.

Location, Location, Location

Where you place your ad blocks can be equally important to your earnings as well. The number one location is above the fold, when your site first appears what ever is visible without scrolling. You also want to place ad blocks with in the normal reading course of your page. A common place is right at the top or your post. A lot of people just place a big ad block right at the top of the page and centered (and most don’t change the colors like above). This screams ad to me. So if you are going to place one up here (300 or 336 ad block recommended), left justify it so your post wraps around the ad and it looks more like your content.

You can also place these ads at the end of your post, again keep it left justified and be sure you do the colors as mentioned. This gives your visitors somewhere to go after reading your post. Done right it looks like follow up links to what they just read and it will be natural for them to click one. One of my best performers is to place a 468×60 text ad with in the middle of the post, looks like a nice referral link. Of course most of this depends on google serving up some good context ads and not interest based ads. Really screams ad if they are reading about hoe to get out of debt and a link pops up in the middle about weight loss.

Ok thats it for today, Part 2 will come later in the week so stay tuned! Cant wait? well grab the e-book over in my sidebar for lots of in depth strategies for adsense.

Filed Under: Adsense, Niche Marketing

Comments

  1. Carrie - Careful Cents says

    January 16, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    Awesome advice once again, Jeff! Can’t wait to read more of your tips in part 2.
    Carrie – Careful Cents recently posted..Pay Down Debt Faster: Part Two – Increase IncomeMy Profile

    Reply
  2. John@MoneyPrinciple says

    January 16, 2012 at 9:37 pm

    Good tips these. We are looking to monetise TheMoneyPrinciple soon so I will be interested to see Part 2…..
    John@MoneyPrinciple recently posted..Would I still be working when I am sixty four?My Profile

    Reply
  3. Financial Independence says

    January 17, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    I think it is very valuable, but the other thing is type of content on your website /blog matters as well.

    Funny enough, it it will be very sharp and specific you wont make a lot of money. You will need to be general and have various subjects, so visitors would be bored enough to click on the adds ; -)

    IMHO, of course.
    Financial Independence recently posted..Is real estate (property) worth investing as rental income?My Profile

    Reply
  4. Jen @ Master the Art of Saving says

    January 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    Thanks for the advice. I need all the adsense help I can get. Can’t wait for part 2. 🙂
    Jen @ Master the Art of Saving recently posted..Everybody Can Have an Emergency Fund!My Profile

    Reply
  5. Marissa @ Thirty Six Months says

    January 18, 2012 at 4:41 am

    I love the adsense advise. I am horrible with it!
    Marissa @ Thirty Six Months recently posted..Using Tools to Pay Online Bills and Save MoneyMy Profile

    Reply
  6. MyMoneyDesign says

    January 20, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    Thanks for the tips! I’m going to try tweaking some of my ads. I’ve got the basic 3 in there, but I have not given very much attention to the items you cover like font, color, background, etc.
    MyMoneyDesign recently posted..Is Your Job Awesome?My Profile

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      January 20, 2012 at 7:46 pm

      hope it helps you! need to get your share of googles $10 billion

      Reply
  7. AverageJoe says

    January 20, 2012 at 7:39 pm

    Our Adsense revenue has been horrible. This gives me a ton of great ideas to tweak it.
    AverageJoe recently posted..Networking 101: Meeting Basketball Industry Insiders (a How To Manual)My Profile

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      January 20, 2012 at 7:45 pm

      hope it works for you, don’t forget part 2 😉

      Reply
  8. John | Married (with Debt) says

    February 9, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    This post inspired me to check my AdSense and I realized I finally got my first click ever. I’m not banking on Adsense, but I think I have it optimized pretty well in accordance to what you have here.
    John | Married (with Debt) recently posted..Combining Finances and EffortsMy Profile

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 9, 2012 at 9:19 pm

      Always exciting to see the clicks (I check several times a day) even better that first payday!

      Reply
  9. Hunter - Financially Consumed says

    February 17, 2012 at 1:21 am

    The timing of this article is impeccable. I was just planning on overhauling my Adsense blocks this week. Thank you!
    Hunter – Financially Consumed recently posted..There’s No Escaping The Retail CalendarMy Profile

    Reply
  10. jefferson says

    March 20, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    awesome post.. great advice.
    i am going to try applying some of these strategies right away.
    jefferson recently posted..Why Have An Emergency Fund?My Profile

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Adsense Tips and Tricks Part 2 says:
    January 19, 2012 at 6:02 pm

    […] to believe that there must be a part 1 somewhere, and in case you missed it you can check it out at Adsense Tips and Tricks  Part 1. So lets get into a couple more tips […]

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    January 22, 2012 at 12:57 am

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  3. Sharing Saturday #8 | Daily Money Shot | Daily Money Shot says:
    January 28, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    […] and Jeff from My Multiple Streams has a great series on AdSense Tips and Tricks.  Start with the first post and work your way through the […]

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  4. Random Thoughts & Links: Winter is a Myth Edition | So Over This says:
    July 24, 2012 at 3:27 am

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