That’s why lots of people just set up a website, add Adsense to it and wait for the dough to pour in.

Well here’s a surprise: monetizing your site using Google Adsense isn’t THAT easy.

In today’s guest post, Deborah Dera from Write on the Edge gives some very important tips to maximize earning potential from Adsense.

Read them carefully and enjoy!

Making money from Google Adsense is an extremely popular way for webmasters to monetize their site.

However, monetizing AdSense ads is a trial and error process.

Photo Credit: dr_XeNo

There are no hard and fast rules that apply to every website, but there are important tips to keep in mind that can help you figure out how to maximize your website’s earning potential.

• What is a Good Ad Size?
  Wider ads are easier to read than longer ads.
  The 336×280 large rectangle and 300×250 medium rectangle ad sizes work well because people can read a couple lines of text at a time.

  With narrower ads, visitors can only read a few words at a time before they have to go to the next line. The interruption is distracting.

  However, whatever size ad(s) you pick should compliment your website’s design.
  A wide ad that cuts into your content too much may be distracting.
  A 160×600 skyscraper ad running down the left or right sidebar works also well when used in conjunction with other ads.
  A decent advertisement size that is visible without taking away from the design of your page will have a greater affect on your ability to making money from Google AdSense.

• Where Should Ads Go?
  Optimal ad placement varies depending on the type of website you have.
  Visitors primarily focus on the website’s main content and navigational menu so ads near these areas typically perform very well.

  Ideally, your ads should appear high enough on your website that people see them before they have to scroll down.
  Although, if your website has an article or blog post that people are interested in reading, people may skip ads at the top of the page. In these cases, it is best to put you ads below your content so that people see them when they are done reading and thinking about what to do next.
  People naturally read from left to right, so ads on the left side of a page attract more attention.

• What Colors Should I Use?
  It is never a good idea to try to hide your AdSense ads by picking colors that make them look like part of your content.
  You want your AdSense ads to stand out enough that visitors notice them, but not so much that they clash with your website’s design.

  A good rule of thumb is to pick colors that work well with your existing color scheme. You can use colors that your website already uses and switch them around, such as using a white background with black text ad on a page with a black background and white text.
  Another method of choosing colors is to look at a color compliment chart and pick different colors that compliment your website’s color scheme such as ads with an orange background on a blue page.

Even the most experienced web designers often experiment with different AdSense sizes, placement and color palettes before they figure out the most effective combination for making money with Google Adsense.

The key to success is persistence. Take the tips here and try implementing various combinations on your website, monitor your click-thru rate on a weekly basis and it will be easier to find the most profitable AdSense layout for your website.

How about you? Are you making money from Google Adsense?
What are your experiences.
Post your comments below.

Making Money from Google Adsense – Monetizing Your Site is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

To help Adsense detect what keyword you’re talking about, you therefore should have them
- in the title of a post,
- in the H1 heading and
- a couple of times in the text, preferably close at the top, in the middle and near the bottom of your content.

Emphasizing one keyword occurrence by making it bold or italic may be very helpful too.

So far, these are usual and common practices to help Adsense decide the main keywords it should publish ads for. But there’s more! Read on.

Of course, to get the most out of your Adsense income, you must first find the best Google Adsense ads.
But once you’ve found them, you must also put full emphasis on keywords you’ve selected. And that’s exactly what Google Adsense allows you to do using…

Section Targeting
This feature allows you to enhance your ads results. In their Adsense Help department, Google explains this as follows:

Section targeting allows you to suggest sections of your text and HTML content that you’d like us to emphasize or downplay when matching ads to your site’s content. By providing us with your suggestions, you can assist us in improving your ad targeting. We recommend that only those familiar with HTML attempt to implement section targeting.

Positive Section Targeting
Basically there are two ways to tell Adsense what to look for: the part you consider important and the part of your page you consider irrelevant.

To tell Adsense about the important part of your content, just add this line of HTML comment to your content:

<!–google_ad_section_start—>

and end that section with this line:

<!–google_ad_section_end—>

If you’re showing Adsense ads on each post, I would suggest placing the first line above the post heading. Look for a line in single.php or index.php that starts with:

<?php if (have_posts()

and place the google_ad_section_start just below that line, because the next line will show your post headers.

Placing the ‘end’ tag strongly depends on your blog content. I prefer to place it before my comment section, but you may decide to put it below that or even somewhere else. Test which placement does well for your blog.

Downplay Keyword Adsense Targeting
Equally, you can show Adsense which parts of your site are irrelevant for keywords by adding this HTML comment to your template file:

<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>

and end that section again with

<!–google_ad_section_end—>

Again, where you put these HTML statements is up to you, but I use it at the start of my sidebar and end at the bottom of the source code of each post (at the end of the footer), because that’s the part of my pages that isn’t interesting when it comes to search engine optimization or keywords.

Read more about optimizing keywords for Adsense at:
Section Targeting
Adsense sandbox
How To Really Make Money With Google Adsense
Slightly Advanced AdSense Optimization

That’s it. Try it and let me know what you think of it.
Post your comments below.

Optimizing Your Keyword – Adsense Help: Section Targeting is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

1. Focus on one Adsense ad format. The the Large Rectangle (336X280) is a format that worked well for the majority . This type of ad has the tendency to result in higher click-through rates (CTR). Why select this format? Basically because these ads look like usual web links, and people click them, because they’re being used to click on links. They may or may not be aware of the fact that they are clicking on your Adsense but they DO click and that will be for your advantage.
2. Make a custom palette for your ads. Select a color that will go well with the backgroundcolor of your site. If it’s a white background, test white as the color of your ad background and border. The idea behind modeling the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages.
3. Do not hide your ads. Remove any Adsense code from the bottom of your pages and put them at the top. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.
4. Link to relevant pages. If you think some pages are better off than the others, put your ads there and maintain and manage these pages.
5. Surround your ads with as many of your main page keywords, using as much H1, bold and italic tags as possible. Thus, the Adsense system will be able to better recognize the important keywords and insert relevant ads.
6. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website. An even better solution for this is to use PHP as the extension of your webpages and use an ‘include’ statement to include your ad textfile.

These few tips have worked well for lots of webmasters. It is important to realize though, that ads are clicked on because they fit the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic using specific keywords or keyphrases, should be your primary purpose because the ads displayed will be especially targeted on a topic that persons want to view already.

6 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Profits is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

If you use Internet Explorer as a browser, Google has an excellent Adsense preview tool to help you preview the possible Adsense ads that may appear on your page.

This tool allows you to preview the sample ads and formats, preview colors on your page, check the address of the ads and geo targeted locations to see what visitors in other countries will see.

For Firefox users there’s something similar in the form of an add-on. Just visit the Firefox Extensions and search for Adsense. You’ll find it there. Installation is a breeze. Unfortunately the options of this add-on aren’t as good as for the Google Adsense preview tool, but at the time of writing this Google didn’t have a Firefox version.

To be sure that you make the most from your Adsense efforts, you should always take the time to experiment with your Adsense ads to improve your CTR (click through rate).

That’s it.

Did you find these quick Adsense tips series useful?
Add your comment.

Wishing you all the success with your Adsense efforts.

How Do Your Adsense Ads Look Like? Adsense Tips 7 is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

A good free tool is the Overture (Yahoo!) Keyword Suggestion Tool.
There you can type in phrases that are related to the topic of your page content and see the (estimated) monthly search volume for that phrase in Yahoo, Google, MSN and AOL.

And there’s an extra column for the Adwords Traffic Estimator, showing you the estimated amount of Google Adwords traffic and cost per click (CPC) that keyword is receiving. This helps you select the keywords that will yield the best results on your Adsense pages.

Other great keyword tools are WordTrend from Nichebot, where you can sign up for the free Keyword Masters Course and Wordtracker.

Joining Adsense forums is a fantastic way to learn how to get the most out of your Adsense efforts. Many ideas, thoughts and experiences are listed in there and it’s always a good idea to keep abreast with what is happening. Participating in these forums can get you some really good tips and information on the best way to fully monetize your Adsense ads.

Once you join you will be able to search for help and ask questions. The forums have many members that make a full time living from Adsense and who can really give you good advice on how to improve your earnings.

You’ll find some of the best at Digital Forums, Webmasterworld and Warriorforum.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=33" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">The Warrior Forum.
Check them out, sign up and learn!

That’s it for today. Stay tuned, cause there’s more to come.

How To Select The Right Keywords – Adsense Tips 6 is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

But sometimes Adsense keeps putting up a different type of ad that is NOT closely related.
If that happens, make sure that the keyword -that you are targeting the ads for- is repeated enough in the page so that Adsense knows that is what the page is about.

If possible, place your ads near a H1, H2 or H3 header, or a bolded keyword phrase.
Always use the Alt-tag when using images.
Also the use of Meta Tags is very important for Adsense to recognize the topic. See my Customized Title Optimization Alternative to better optimize your pages.

Make sure you optimize each page with the keywords that are most relevant to type of ad that you want to show on that particular page.

Adding pictures about the same subject as the ads that show on your page can drastically improve your click through rates.

But make sure that you do not put pictures of people facing the ads or in any other way indicating that people should click on them. Adsense program policies do not allow you to channelize the attention of your visitors to the ads by using arrows or other graphical images. It’s a fine line you have to walk there.

That doesn’t imply that you can’t use some artwork on your Adsense pages.
It just signifies that you have to use them supplementary to the content of the page and not for the exclusive purpose of getting visitors to click on your ads.

Be careful using graphics.
And stay tuned, because there’s more where this is coming from.

Targeting Keywords – Adsense Quick Tips 5 is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

If that is the case, there’s a tool that allows you to choose which ads not to show on your site. It’s called the “Competitive Ad Filter “.

This ad filter enables you to block ads that connect to specific URLs. You thus can easily block all ads that are linked to your competitors website using this filter.

You can also block all ads that link to subdirectories by entering a top level domain like www.my-competition.com. If both of you are selling the same products on your pages, this can come in very handy.

And here’s an interesting way to kill two Adsense birds with one stone.

Just by adding a Google search box to your web pages, you can be of assistance to your visitors AND increase your Adsense earnings!

Wonder why this works out so great?

Well, when someone uses the search box on your site they’ll be presented with ads concerning the exact search phrase that they typed in.
Geeezz, advertising can’t be more targeted than that!
Guess who’s getting the commission if they click on any of these ads? Huh? Huh?
Making money while helping your visitors, it doesn’t come any better!

By placing a search box on your site you will have the option to choose whether you want your visitor to be able to search the Net as well as your website. You can even have search
results that are tailored specifically to the topics on your site.

Powerful stuff if you ask me.
So, apply it!

And stay tuned, because there’s more coming.

Serve Your Visitors And Make Money – Adsense Quick Tips 4 is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

In addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units, you can also include two referral units from each referral product.

You should be very careful not to overload your page with more ads than high value content. You should attempt to create a nice balance that allows you to perfectly intermingle
your ads in with your content. You’ll soon notice that this will help increment your click through rate.

According to some tests that Google has run, horizontal ads in general work better than vertical ones. The reason behind that is that the eye is more accustomed to reading horizontally and therefore is more expected to be acquainted with this layout.

It has also been advised that bigger rectangular ads that read horizontally will get a higher click rates.
Testing and comparing your results is the very best way for you to determine which ad format will work best on your web site.

I would be very careful about this, but if you, after putting three ad block units on your page, still want more you can also add one of Google’s link units

If your visitors clicks these small blocks of links, they will take them to a page of ads that are related to the topic of your web site in the same way that the common text ads do.

Links units have a wonderful feature. They look much as navigation links and can easily mix in with your web page design. This will give your visitors the feeling that they’re clicking through a link on your page instead of an ad.

Stay tuned for another Adsense tip soon!

Which Adsense Ads Where – Adsense Quick Tips 3 is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

I’m going to assume your AdSense ads are wrapped around your articles and posts, ok?

In order to make a buck with Adsense, you need to select high-paying keywords, drive plenty of traffic to your Adsense blog or site (the more the merrier), and test the layout to figure out which produces the most clicks.

Generally this means placing your ads where your visitors can’t miss them (e.g., top left or in the middle of a post or article), making your ads blend in with the content, and even placing pictures near your ads to draw your visitor’s eyes to them.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Standard stuff if you’re dipping your toes in the AdSense pool.

But here’s another consideration: are your visitors MOTIVATED to click?
Sure, there’s a certain percentage of people online who will probably click on anything. But you’ll make more money if your visitors need and want information or products RIGHT NOW.

For example, let’s suppose you have a site for model trains.
Since it’s a site related to a hobby, many of the folks are probably fanatics and rather loyal customers. They’re fanatics, so they’re probably click happy when they see something that interests them. Ho hum, ok. You’ll probably pick up some extra coin and a loyal base if you provide good content.

Now instead imagine that you had a site related to unusual genital discharge.

Yuck, right?

If YOU had unusual discharge coming from your private parts, you probably won’t be leisurely browsing a site.

Heck no! You will be clicking around like a madman until you find your solution!

And so will your visitors. That’s AdSense and affiliate link “cha ching!” when you have visitors who are foaming at the mouth for solutions!

So think about situations that would cause people to click around in a panic — either from desperation, fear or because the topic is emotionally charged:

=> Hair lice
=> Fleas
=> Diseases and symptoms, especially those of a private nature
=> Even more desperate – childhood illnesses
=> Cheating spouse
=> Pet with tapeworms
=> Really controversial topics like abortion
=> Identity theft
=> Legal matters like being sued, bankruptcy, etc
=> Terrorism and disaster
=> Anything new that people want to research, especially where curiosity creates clicks (like rumors)

In short, finding topics like the above will improve your click-through ratio.

You can further improve it by making sure that you DON’T solve your visitor’s problems.
Don’t have comprehensive articles on your site/blog that solve everything and save the day. Leave your visitor hanging.
They’ll naturally see that your AdSense ads and affiliate links are the solution. Blend those ads into your content, and your visitor won’t even realize they’re clicking on an ad.

The Revenge of the AdSense Zombie is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.