Google Adsense is one of the best ways
to make
money from your site. You might not become a millionaire with
your Adsense monetized properties but with some luck, and above all
knowledge about what works with Adsense sites and what doesn't, this
could become a stable source of income for you.
How Much Can I Make With Google Adsense?
This is a question almost everybody
asks before jumping on the Adsense wagon. There isn't a universal
answer ‐ some Web masters are making a fulltime income from a
single Adsense site, while others with 5 or more sites can't even
cover their hosting fees.
How much you will make with Google
Adsense depends on many factors. Some of them are outside your
control - i.e. the overall state of the economy or what advertisers
Google has managed to attract. However, there are also many factors
within your control. For instance, obviously, if you have one site
with 10 pages only you will make thousands of times less than if you
have 10 sites with thousands of pages. Basically, all equal, the more
content you have, the more you will make.
1 Choose a Profitable Niche
However, in addition to sheer volume,
there is one more very important consideration ‐ what your site is
about, or to put it more professionally, which niche your site is in.
Different niches aren't equal ‐ there are more and less profitable
ones. There are niches, such as health or finance, where high value
clicks are common and niches, such as culture or history, where you
can make almost nothing with Adsense.
This is why you need to choose a niche
where clicks pay well. It is true that good niches are very, very
competitive but even in the most competitive niche, there is always
place for one more good site. After you choose the niche, you need to
find the high volume keywords in it and optimize your site for them.
To search for keywords with high search volume, use the AdWords
tool.
2 Place the Ads in Visible Places
Strategic placement of the ad units is
vital for your profits. Quite logically, when you place ads where
they are visible, this seriously increases the number of clicks you
will get. The best places are above the fold (i.e. in the top half of
the page) and in the text itself. Basically, the closer the ads to
the text are, the better. You can have a look at these AdSense
placement tips from Google to see which places are considered
good, best, and worst for ad placement.
3 Optimize the Ads for Higher CTR
Strategic placement is important but
there are other aspects you need to take into account when you
optimize your pages for high CTR (Click Thru Rate). Here are some
more tips how to fine-tune your ad units in order to attract more
clicks:
Choose the right ad size
Adsense offers numerous sizes in the form of rectangles, squares, buttons,
and bars but the truth is that only some of them convert well.
Generally the sizes Google recommends are 300 x 250, 338 x 280, 728
x 90, 160 x 600, and 320 x 50 (for mobile banners). The first two
are suitable for intext use, the third is suitable to put under the
site header, and the 160 x 60 one works best under the menu, if you
use left/right menu navigation. Of course, you can also experiment
with the other available sizes and see if they work better for you.
Choose multiple ad units
You are allowed to run up to 3 ad units, 3 link units, and 2 search boxes
per page. This means for ad units and link units you need to choose
multiple units, preferably in different sizes. For instance, you can
choose one 728 x 90 or 160 x 600 unit for under the header/the side
menu and two more, i.e. 300 x 250 and 338 x 280 for inside the text.
As for the type of ads, the choice is between text, text and image,
and image only ads. Usually plain text ads work better because
images are too obtrusive to attract clicks but you should try for
yourself and see what makes you more clicks.
Use link units
A common mistake many people make is not to use link units. Link units can outperform normal ads because they are less obtrusive and if you blend them with your menu, people will click there. You can put one 728 x 15 link unit under the header and one 160 x 90 under the side menu. You can make the link color the same as the color of the items in menu but don't use the same font type and font size because this could be considered a form of format mimicking and could get you penalized.
Choose the right color
Link units aren't the only ones that can benefit from the right color.
However, with them it is easier ‐ just use the same colors as you do in the
menu and you are done. With normal ad units, this isn't that
straightforward. Basically, the options here are to blend the unit
(i.e. make the links and text in the same color and size as your
text), use a contrast scheme (i.e. if your site is in green, use red
for the ads) so that the ads stand out from the rest, or stick with
Google default. Which one is best? Nobody knows! What works for one
site (i.e. blending) will not work for another. So the only thing
you can do here is to use the trial and error approach and see which
of the three works for you. Or, if you want a more scientific
approach, try AB tests.
AB test multiple sizes and color themes
AB tests sound very complex but in reality their concept is
brilliantly simple. The idea is that you test which of two similar
units performs better. For the purpose, you test 2 similar units
(i.e. two 338 x 280 ads) that have one differing feature (i.e. font
color). Both units must be placed on the same spot. On every even
page visit you serve unit number 1 and on every odd page visit you
serve unit number 2. Go to your Adsense account, create the two
units, create a separate channel for each of them (don't forget this
because if you do, you won't be able to perform the test), and put
the following code: <script
type="text/javascript">
var random =
Math.random();
if (random < 0.5) {
<!-- put Adsense
Block A here --> }
else
{
<!-- put Adsense Block B
here --> }
</script>
<script
type="text/javascript"src="http://pagead2.Run
the test for a month or so and track which unit attracts more
clicks. Of course, you can never be sure the difference in clicks is
due solely to the difference between the two units because random
factors always kick in but if it is quite a difference, then you
know which way to go.
4 Drive Traffic to Your Site
Finally, one really important
prerequisite for making money with Adsense is traffic. You might have
an incredibly high CTR but if you don't manage to drive traffic to
your site, you won't be making money.
The most important free traffic source
are search engines. Traffic from search engines is targeted and as a
rule it converts well. Our site offers quite a lot of resources about
how to make your site rank well with search engines, so take the time
to browse it and get familiar with SEO. If you have absolutely no
idea about SEO, you might want to start with the 15
Minute SEO guide, or read the SEO
tutorial.
Traffic from search engines converts best but you should never allow yourself to be dependent on it.
Google Panda update was one of the most bitter lessons for many
webmasters, when their sites dropped in rankings and their traffic hit bottom. You shouldn't neglect traffic from other sources, such as
social
bookmarking sites, Twitter,
Facebook,
and any other free
traffic.
5 Google Adsense Alternatives
If you do everything properly but you
don't see much in your Adsense account, don't get desperate. The
reasons for poor Adsense income can be numerous. Try to find them and
correct the issues (i.e. wrong niche, bad placement of ads,
inadequate ad sizes, types, and colors, etc.) If this doesn't help,
consider the numerous Google
Adsense alternatives. In general, they bring less revenue than
Adsense but who knows, for your site it might be just the opposite.
Just keep on trying and sooner or later you will make it!
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