Forget the ad networks, AdSense just makes sense
Q: Of the billions of sites on the web, what is the one thing just about every site has in common?
A: Almost every one is trying to make an extra buck off of advertising in some fashion.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but many years ago when affiliate programs seemed innovative, I too tried to cash in by linking to Amazon.com books and music. Did that actually work for anyone? Chances are most will say no. Didn't work for me either. Not only did I not make an extra buck, I didn't even make an extra penny. In fact, even my site mrcgiguy.com (shameless plug), which receives around 500 unique visitors a day does not produce particularly good results from affiliate programs. The bottom line is, most affiliate programs won't work for most web sites. Vague, I know. But from my experience, unless your audience is very general, you'll need to find affiliate programs that are very specific to your niche in order to produce even the slightest result. Though, these days, even well targeted affiliate programs don't seem to produce much.
Like myself, most modern day web developers have opted not to join affiliate programs and have instead turned to ad networks such as FastClick, TribalFusion, Burst, etc. I joined FastClick since it was said to have the highest CPM rates. And for a long while, I was pretty happy with the results. I was able to make a breath-taking 50 cents a day. Yes, I was happy with that. I wasn't expecting millions...reality sank in long ago...somewhere between the days of being an "Amazon affiliate" and having my job dissolved after the dot.com crash. So, 50 cents a day, or an approximate $15.00 a month was great. Every bit helps when you're self employed.
Now let me get to the point. Forget about affiliate programs! Forget about the ad networks (or at least reduce them to being a secondary form of ad revenue)! Google's AdSense is where it's at! What was once offered only to the largest of the web, is now available to those of us running smaller niche sites. And how could there be any form of advertising cooler than one that uses your own content to determine which ads to display? I mean, this is what we've all been waiting for. This is the answer. Highly targeted ads, non-intrusive, routinely shuffled to maintain freshness, and they pay well. And when I say pay well, I mean, the potential exists to make in one day what I had previously been making in an entire month via FastClick. While, I'm not allowed to discuss any particular figures (part of the agreement in using AdSense), I will say that it's not even been a month now, and I've already made more from AdSense then I made in the entire duration of running ads for FastClick. Needless to say, I've waived bye bye to ad networks and affiliate programs.
Don't get me wrong, AdSense is not perfect. There are some things that could definitely be done to improve the system. One of the biggest gripes I have, and I've noticedothers with the same opinion, is the overall lack of tracking. It sure would be great to know which ads are being clicked and how much those ads are producing. But at the sametime, I can understand why that information may be counter-productive for Google. The lack of control over the border color and link color is a bit undesirable too. All other factors aside, the purpose of the ads is to make some extra money. On this point, Google's AdSense are definitely successful and in my humble opinion should immediately replace any current 468x60 or skyscraper ads you are running via ad networks or affiliate programs.
The future for affiliate programs and ad networks has become very bleak. It's going to be very interesting to see how AdSense matures, as the initial product is already undeniably far better than said competition.
The Author:
Mike Ramirez is a freelance web developer and is best known in the web community as Mr CGI Guy. Mike is the sole developer of several free CGI scripts as well as the popular commercial link management script Hot Links Pro. Visit http://www.mrcgiguy.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | 0 Comments
The One Simple Trick That Can Double Your Adsense Revenue
Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.
I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.
Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?
Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colors on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.
After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one color combination that seemed to work the best.
Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colors of the label. What were these colors? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colors has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.
My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's color scheme may work better with a slightly different color combination. Try lots of different color variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colors. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the color scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.
After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colors even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of color combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.
The Author:
Brad Bahr is the author of the NEW eBook: "How to "Really" Make Money on the Internet". It's filled with no nonsense, practical information. To get your FREE copy of the book, go to ==> http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com/ brad_bahr@no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | 0 Comments
Google AdSense: 7 Tips for making money with blog
Google Adsense is one of the most easiest making money from your website or blog. It’s simple to join as it is completely free without spending a cent. Just create a blog (which is free) and start to write content. Once your blog approved, then you can run the Adsense into your blog.
When people come to visit your blog, read your articles and have a high probability of being interested in the targeted ads. Every time people click on an ad, you will get paid. It’s simple. Now, all you have to do is, design your blog well to maximize Adsense money!
Take a look at this 7 tips for making money with blog:
#1: Keyword Density
Before you place ads on your site, be sure your keyword density is good. You will want to be sure that the right kinds of ads are placed on your site. A free way to determine what the ads will look like on your site is to go to http://www.resultsgenerator.com/adsense/ and type in your keywords. You will then be able to see exactly what ads would show on your site.
If you don't like what you see, then you know that you need to make changes to your keywords! You can get keyword suggestions from Results Generator from Overture or from the free trial version of Word Tracker.
#2: Focused
Not only will the ads be based on your keywords, but they will also be based on your content. You definitely want your keywords and your content to match as closely as possible.
#3: Write Often
The more information you have the better. Why? Because the more content you have, the more visitors you get. Many people suggest that you write a new article every day since no one wants to come back to your site to find the same old messages!
#4: Choose The Right Format
AdSense allows you to choose many different ad formats. Research has shown that wider ads are more successful. The top three formats are:
" 336x280 large rectangle
" 300x250 medium rectangle
" 160x600 wide skyscraper
Additionally, the 468x15 horizontal ad link under the navigation bar is also a good bet.
#5: Color Counts
You have the option to create a Google AdSense ad in any color of your choice. The best thing to do is to make your ad blend well with your site color scheme. You should make the border color and the background color the same color as your web site. You will want your text color to either be black or the color of your main content.
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.
#6: Position Counts, Too
It is well known that visitors to a website scan the site to determine if it is worth reading. You definitely want them to see and scan your AdSense ads. Therefore, the best place to put them is in the top left part of your page or directly under your headlines.
#7: Increase The Number
AdSense allows you to use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes, and one unit of ad links. Using all that you can increases the chances of earning money.
Keep these seven tips in mind when creating your AdSense site and you will find that your clickthrough rates increase, thus increasing your money making potential.
Thursday, August 21, 2008 | 0 Comments
Adsense Tips: Tips 11 - tips 15
AdSense Tip #11: Show images above or next to your ads
Placing images above AdSense ads is not necessarily prohibited by program policies. However, depending on the method of implementation this could be considered encouraging users to click on ads. So you should include a border line between the ads and the images. Don't show specific products in your images, in order not to mislead the visitors. Just use generic images that will increase the visibility of your ads.
AdSense Tip #12: Use section targeting
Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page. On your site, place this code where you want to emphasize.
Content you want to emphasize.
If you want some content to be ignored, use
AdSense Tip #13: Alternate the colors of your ads
AdSense allows you to have up to 4 color variations for each variable for which you can specify color. You should do that if you put AdSense ads on pages that receive many impressions from the same visitors (for example forums) to reduce ad blindness. For example:
google_color_border = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_link = ["000000","BBB90C","BBB90C","628098"];
google_color_url = ["000000","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_text = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];
AdSense Tip #14: Your Google ads should be visible
Make sure your text ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. If you put the ads in a table, give sufficient breathing room, i.e. proper cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.
AdSense Tip #15: Use AdSense channels
You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best. Instead of buying an AdSense tracker, you can enter the most important pages in your site and see how they are doing. Create up to 200 channels for AdSense.
Let's recap our AdSense tips
· create interesting to read pages, focused on a theme
· integrate AdSense in your layout
· put yourself in the shoes of your visitors and experiment with the ads
Thursday, July 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
Adsense Tips: Tips 6 - tips 10
AdSense Tip #6: Color tips
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color. Create a custom AdSense palette:
· border color = background color of your web site
· background color = background color of your web site
· link color = blue, color of your links
· url color = black, #999999
· text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.
AdSense Tip #7: Position tips
Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.
AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much
If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.Link units allow the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won't lose your visitors.
AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads
You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target="_top"). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.Read more about alternate ads.
AdSense Tip #10: What not to do
· Don't click on your own ads
· Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
· Don't manually change AdSense code
· Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
· Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
Thursday, July 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
Adsense Tips: Tips 6 - tips 10
AdSense Tip #6: Color tips
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color. Create a custom AdSense palette:
· border color = background color of your web site
· background color = background color of your web site
· link color = blue, color of your links
· url color = black, #999999
· text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.
AdSense Tip #7: Position tips
Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.
AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much
If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.Link units allow the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won't lose your visitors.
AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads
You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target="_top"). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.Read more about alternate ads.
AdSense Tip #10: What not to do
· Don't click on your own ads
· Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
· Don't manually change AdSense code
· Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
· Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
Thursday, July 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords
Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).
AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords
Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.
AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme
Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don't forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day
One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.
AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format
Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:
1. 336x280 large rectangle
2. 300x250 medium rectangle
3. 160x600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 468x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
The next AdSense tips will show you the importance of positioning the ads and how to increase your revenue by adding multiple AdSense units.
Thursday, July 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords
Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).
AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords
Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.
AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme
Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don't forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day
One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.
AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format
Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:
1. 336x280 large rectangle
2. 300x250 medium rectangle
3. 160x600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 468x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
The next AdSense tips will show you the importance of positioning the ads and how to increase your revenue by adding multiple AdSense units.
Thursday, July 17, 2008 | 0 Comments
More Adsense Tips
Tip #1: Don't put ads on empty pages.
When I reworked my site, I built a skeleton set of pages that had no content, just titles and some meta tags. I displayed ads on those pages, however. Although all you see are public service ads at first, the very act of displaying ads on a page causes the AdSense web crawler to quickly fetch that page for analysis. A page with good content will thus begin showing relevant paying ads fairly quickly.
If you don't have any content, then, Google will have to guess as what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant. You'll have to wait until Google re-crawls the site for the ads to correct themselves.
Tip #2: Don't be afraid to ask questions
If you're wondering about something, don't be afraid to ask Google. So far, they've always responded to my questions within a working day.
Tip #3: Avoid non-English characters on English pages
This one is a bug, to be honest. My surname is French, and I prefer to write it out correctly with the accent grave on the first "e". Every page on my site would then include at least two accented letters, because my name shows up twice in the footer. On some pages my name shows up two or three more times.
Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. But on some pages the presence of the accented characters is enough to cause AdSense to display non-relevant ads in French. This happens whether the browser indicates a preference for French or not.
Tip #4: Check your keyword density
Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do tell us that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags. Before serving ads on a page, then, you might want to check its keyword density. A good, free tool for doing this is found here: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html
This lets you fine-tune the page before exposing it to the AdSense crawler.
Sunday, July 13, 2008 | 0 Comments
Make money from your website/blogsite with Google Adsense
First of all...get to know what is Google Adsense.
Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts — you'll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages.
It's also a way for website publishers to provide Google web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.
For more information:
http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/
Get started with Google Adsense
Now that you’ve know what’s Google Adsense and you are ready to start, here’s your step-to-step guide (assuming you already have a website or blogsite).
1. First, signup at Google Adsense. You can do so by clicking on the linkbelow. You’ll need your mailing address and website ready… just fill up standard forms, nothing fancy.
http://www.google.com/adsense
2. Go to Adsense setup and setup your ads outlook - the border color, background color, as well as the text colors. Assign channels to your ads if you wish to monitor your ad performance individually.
3. Copy the adsense code (piece of java script) at the bottom of setup page and paste it to your webpage.
4. Load it to your server and preview it.
5. At first, you might be seeing no ads or Google community ads. This is because Google bot has yet to crawl your site content and has insufficient info about your site so they will just serve community ads that will not earn you any money. Once your site is crawled (normal within minutes) and they realize what your site is about, they will put on related ads.
It is simple. In fact, there are tons of better guides with Google officials and it’s definitely helps a lot for the starters. You can check them up at here: Adsense Basics.
Saturday, April 26, 2008 | 0 Comments
