Getting a decent return from Adsense

I took Adsense off this blog some time ago. It’s in a niche where adverts generally aren’t clicked and I had better things to place on the available space on each page. However, we also run a travel blog and that does very well with Adsense. I’m also aware that many new and learning bloggers use Adsense as their first venture into earning some money from the blogs, so I felt it was time to post some tips on how to get the best return.

“Driving more traffic to your website is the single most important way to increase your income from Adsense”

How Adsense works

The Adsense crawler looks at each page of your site, and then tries to serve adverts that are relevant to that page. This is important to note, because it’s easy to confuse the crawler! If you write posts that cover a multitude of topics on one page, or if you have a repeating keyword in your sidebar, you may end up with ads that simple aren’t relevant. If you’re using Adsense, get into the habit of checking what ads are being served each time you post, in case you need to change some wording in the post.

Essentially, you get a small payment every time someone clicks through to an advertised site. The amount varies on the niche and could be a fraction of a cent, or it could be several dollars.

Placement

Adsense ads are available in a number of sizes and styles, so you can incorporate them into various parts of your blog. Experiment with what looks best, but bear in mind that like any advert, if the eye isn’t drawn to it, it won’t work! Hiding the ads at the bottom of the page because they look ugly won’t get you many clicks! Basic common sense suggests that any ads need to be “above the fold” and in a place that attracts a reader’s eyes to them.

If you read other posts about Adsense you’ll find lots of conflicting information about where is the best place to put them. Some argue you should have a tower style ad, others that you should place the ads in the middle of content. It seems to vary from niche to niche and blog to blog. I would advise you to try three or four positions and carefully record your CTR (Click through rate) via the Adsense control panel, and you’ll soon learn where to place them for best results on your own blog.

Placement is the most important element that will define how often people click the ads, and therefore how much money you will earn. Test, test, test and test again to learn what works on your blog.

Colour

You should make Adsense ads match the colours of your website, so that they blend in. Ideally the links should almost exactly match the links that appear on your own site. You’ll get many more click throughs by doing this because the link doesn’t scream “Advert!” The colour of the ads is infinitely customizable in the Adsense control panel.

Don’t go overboard!

With several different options of adverts, ranging from Towers to link units, the temptation is to fill every available space with a unit. This just creates a crowded, messy landscape to visitors and is likely to adversely affect your traffic.

Size Matters

Strangely, the larger units seem to perform well, probably because more adverts can be put on them, therefore creating more choice for people. So go for the largest unit you can comfortably accommodate on a page.

Lose the Borders

Ideally select “No borders” on your ad unit – anything that seems to separate the ads from the content creates a barrier. If you can’t take them out for aesthetic reasons, then rounded corners work better than square ones.

Get rid of irrelevant ads

You can tell Google if you don’t want certain ads to run on our blog, via the ad’s URL. If you are seeing something inappropriate or even a competitor’s advert, then take them off as soon as possible.

Use Ads in your Feeds

Google provides the option to insert Adsense into your blog’s RSS feed. I’ve found this to be effective, and it’s well worth doing and isn’t intrusive for the reader.

Change things around

Mix things up and change them around from time to time. Regular readers will soon develop “ad blindness” and they simply won’t even register the ads any more. If you change things around regularly, you may attract them to click, but keep an eye on it and put things back the way they were if your CTR goes down.

There’s a bit of voodoo surrounding the whole Adsense scene, and I don’t profess to be an expert. I originally set out for it to cover my hosting costs and it does a lot more than that for me. Overall, I think the secret is to keep experimenting with it to see what works for you, BUT, driving more and more traffic to your site is the single best way to increase your earnings from Adsense, so keep writing those posts!

Also check out:

1/ How do you sell an affiliate product?

2/ How I doubled subscriptions to my email list

3/ How does Clickbank work?