How to use Google Adsense

Google AdSense is, without a doubt, the biggest “player” out there when it comes to monetizing your website. By following the tips presented in this article, you will be able to maximize your Google AdSense earnings as well as avoid mistakes which can get you in trouble.

Alright then, since I’m not a big fan of long/boring introductions, let’s start focusing on what’s really important:

The first steps

1) Sign up for Google Adsense

2) Read the AdSense Policies

3) Read the AdSense Terms and Conditions

4) Visit their official blog (AdSense.blogspot.com) for updates

5) For general questions you may have, visit the AdSense help center (google.com/AdSense/support)

6) If there are still issues you are concerned about, ask them directly.

Adding the AdSense code to webpages

7) Log in to your account and visit “AdSense setup”

8.) Select “AdSense for content”

9) Follow the customization instructions

10) Copy the “Your ad code” and paste it into the source of any page where you want the ads to appear

AdSense placement

11) Use the AdSense heatmap

12) Put the ad which receives the most clicks first, since your first ad will show the most expensive ads

13) Place ads above the fold

14) Site navigation and other links should go below the fold. After all, you want to highlight the ads, don’t you?

15) Use the Medium Rectangle (300 x 250)/Large Rectangle (336 x 280) ad units if possible, since they seem to work best

16) Also try the Skyscraper (120 x 600)/Large Skyscraper (160 x 600) ad units on for size

17) Remember that the first ad unit will contain the highest-paying ads

18) Take a look at sites similar to yours and try things you find interesting regarding their AdSense placement out yourself

19) Ask other webmasters for opinions regarding your ad placement

20) If you are not sure if Google allows something in terms of ad placement, tell them what you intend to do before acting

AdSense placement for forums

21) Take the AdSense heatmap for forums into consideration

22) Place a Medium Rectangle (300 x 250)/Large Rectangle (336 x 280) ad unit in the welcome message users who are not logged in receive.

23) Place a skyscraper above the fold, preferably on the left side

24) Place ad units near the first post so that they get noticed by returning visitors, who are used to your forum’s design and overlook ad units placed at the top of the page, for example

25) Enable image ads, so that you increase the chances of getting CPM ads, which are great for forums, since they usually have a low CTR

26) Avoid placing ad units on the top of the page. Why? Since they would show the highest paying ads which would go to waste since users are accustomed to your forum’s interface and simply won’t click

27) Try placing a leaderboard after the last post, so that it gets noticed by the users who finish going through the content that page has to offer

28) Don’t place ads in a manner which negatively affects the user experience. You would only end up losing far more than you gain in the long run

AdSense placement for blogs

29) Use the AdSense heatmap for blogs

30) Blend an ad unit with your post and place it at the beginning of the post if it is a relatively short one.

31) Also consider blending an ad unit at the middle of a post for longer entries

32) As with forums, avoid placing ad units at the very top of the page. An ad which looks like an ad will not receive clicks. It’s as simple as that.

33) Try placing ad units at the end of a post in order to give your reader another option after having gone through the content

Color pallets

34) Don’t just stick to one color scheme if you have a lot of returning visitors. Instead, rotate colors in order to avoid ad-blindness.

35) Try blending your ads by making the border and background color of the ads the same with the background color of the page.

36) On the other hand, many people seem to obtain results by going with colors which stand out against the color of the background.

Possible scenarios

37) If your background is light then, according to Google, the ads within the content should blend in

38) If the background is dark, then the ads within the content can complement or contrast the background color, aside from blending in

39) If your background is light then the ads adjacent to the content can blend in with the background or complement the background color

40) If the background is dark, then the ads adjacent to the content can complement or contrast the background color

Adding sites to your filter list

41) Log in to your account and visit “AdSense setup”

42) Click on “Competitive Ad Filter”

43) Select a product sub-tab and click on “Add/Edit Sites”

44) Add the URLs of the sites you want to add to your filter list

45) Click on “Save changes”

Keywords

46) Include the keyword(s) you are targeting in the title

47) Place those keyword(s) within header tags

48) Use tags such as to emphasize keywords

49) When possible, repeat the keywords you wish to target, as long as the quality of your content is not affected

Avoid common mistakes which can get you banned

50) Don’t click your own ads

51) Don’t ask others to click your ads

52) Don’t offer any kind of incentive for clicking ads

53) Don’t use elements such as arrows to direct attention towards the google ads

54) Don’t place misleading images next to ads

55) Don’t alter the AdSense code

56) Don’t join traffic exchange programs which can produce fake impressions

57) Don’t display more than 3 ad units on any given page

58) Don’t display more than 3 link units on any given page

59) Don’t display more than 3 referral units on any given page

60) Don’t display more than 2 search units on any given page

61) Don’t display ads in e-mails

62) Don’t integrate the AdSense code into any kind of software

63) Don’t display ads on sites which contain popups

64) Don’t display ads which can be confused with the Google AdSense ones

65) Don’t display ads on pages without content

66) Don’t create pages with clearly useless content just for the purpose of showing ads on them

67) Don’t give away any details as far as your AdSense stats are concerned. You are, however, allowed to say how much money you make overall.

68) Aside from “advertisements” and “sponsored links”, don’t use other labels

Link units

69) Keep in mind that you only earn money when the visitor clicks on the link unit as well as on an ad within the link page

70) Make link units a part of your website’s navigation

71) Make sure that the color of the text is the same as the color of your website’s links

72) Remove the borders and make sure that the background of the link units is the same with the background of the website (if the navigation part of your website has a different background, then the background of the link unit placed there should be similar to that)

73) Add a link unit at the end of an article so that it can represent an option for readers if they want to learn more about a certain topic

Making money from AdSense referrals

74) Encourage your readers to join AdSense. While with the traditional AdSense ads, you are not allowed to tell people to click, with the AdSense referral program, calls to action are allowed

75) Place the AdSense referral button or text link where it is relevant. If you are running a website related to making money online, then yes, promoting AdSense makes sense. On a website about gardening, however, you can only imagine what the outcome could be in terms of profits

76) Create a page explaining what Google AdSense is all about rather than just placing the code randomly on the page

77) Help people make money. If your referrals make money, you make money, it’s as simple as that. If one of your referrals sends you an e-mail with questions about how to maximize AdSense earnings, be prompt and helpful. Together you can make the AdSense referral program a win-win situation

78) Try all sorts of text links and buttons until you find out what works best for you

79) When it is relevant to the article, invite the readers to join AdSense (or to visit the page where you explain what it is all about) if they are not members yet

AdSense for Search

80) Make “AdSense for Search” a part of your website’s navigation

81) Add the search box at the end of a post so that users can perform a Google search in case they haven’t found what they were looking for

Adding the AdSense for search box

82) Log in to your account and visit “AdSense setup”

83) Select “AdSense for Search”

84) Customize your search box

85) Copy the “Your AdSense code” and paste it into the source of any page where you want the search box to appear

Implementing AdSense for Search results on your own pages

By doing this, you will be able to have the results shown on a page you will create, rather than having the users taken to google once they perform a search. Here is what you have to do:

86) Create the page where you want the results displayed

87) Log in to your account and visit “AdSense Setup”

88) Select AdSense for Search

89) Select “Open results within my own site”

90) Enter the URL of the page you have created

91) See what other options you would like as far as AdSense for Search is concerned

92) Copy the “Your search box code” and paste it into the source of the page where the search box will be displayed

93) Copy the “Your search results code” and paste it into the source of the page where the results will be displayed

AdSense for Feeds

Note: this program is still in beta and, at the moment of writing, applications are not accepted. Keep these tips in mind, however, as they apply to RSS advertising in general and you can definitely make use of them if you intend to use AdSense for Feeds in the future.

94) Syndicate the entire post if you want to monetize your feed. You have two options. On the one hand, you can syndicate a part of the post while the full version is only available on your website. In other words, if people are interested and want to read more, they visit your website. Basically, you are “advertising” your posts through the feeds. If they seem interesting, people will click and visit your website, and if they are not, they won’t. It’s as simply as that. On the other hand, if you want to monetize your feed directly through programs such as AdSense for Feeds, then you should syndicate the entire post

95) Make sure that the feeds contain useful information. If you want to make money from RSS advertising, then you need subscribers. And guess what, people don’t follow your feeds if the content isn’t worth it

96) One ad per feed will do the job, don’t go overboard. People aren’t exactly keen on following feeds which contain advertisements up to the point where the user experience is affected

97) Don’t make updates too short. You do realize that a few lines of text and an ad don’t exactly qualify as a useful update, do you?

98) Place a visible “Subscribe via RSS” button on your website in order to increase subscriptions

99) Have a section on your website which explains what a reader has to gain by subscribing to your RSS feed

100) Encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed if they find your website useful at the end of each post

AdSense for mobile

Special policies

Aside from the standard policies, there are also other requirements which need to be met in order to participate in the AdSense for mobile program:

101) All webpages which will display such ads must be mobile-compliant and be written in a server-side language such as PHP (no standard webpages)

102) Only one ad unit is allowed per mobile webpage

103) A double ad unit can only be displayed at the bottom of the page (you can, however, display it above the footer)

104) After the user clicks, no interruptions which prevent the adveriser’s landing page from being displayed are allowed

Implementing the ads

105) If your website qualifies, then all you can start implementing ads right away:

106) Choose the “Single” or “Double” (remember, “double” ad units may only be displayed at the bottom of the page) ad size

107) Choose “wml”, “xhtml” or “chtml” as the markup language

108) Choose the color of the ad

109) Just as with regular ads, define channels (you will receive a separate report containing the performance of your mobile ads)

110) Choose the scripting language( “PHP”, “CGI/Perl”, “JSP” or “ASP”)

111) Copy and paste the code for the mobile ad units

Google AdSense myths

112) “The guy selling his ebook said that he is earning hundreds of thousands of dollars through AdSense by working a couple of minutes per day” – Why on Earth would a guy who is earning that much want to tell you his “secrets” for a coupld of bucks? It’s about time to wake up and realize that you can’t make that much money without investing time and efforts.

113) “Two websites with about the same number of visitors/impressions will have similar AdSense earnings” – Not by a long shot. There are a lot of variables such as the ad-blindness of the target audience which need to be considered so that such an assumption is baseless.

114) “I can just find successful websites and copy their ad placement” – Again, no two websites are the same. You need to test, test and test some more until you find something which works for you.

115) “I’ll just find myself some outrageously-high-paying keywords and I’m on my way to easy profits” – Sorry to burst your bubble there, but millions of other people are thinking the same thing. Are they all gazillionaires?

116) “This isn’t working for me. I’m giving up.” – If you expect success with Google AdSense to come overnight, then maybe you are better off giving up.

117) “I’ll just create hundreds of websites and there you have it” – And how do you expect to manage them? Zero multiplied by one thousand is still zero.

118) “I have to be extremely tech-savvy if I want to make money with AdSense” – Can you read and write? Do you know how to publish a website? Well, that’s enough to get you started.

119) “Displaying AdSense ads on your website will help you rank better” – AdSense has nothing to do with your rankings.

120) “You have to be talented at designing your website if you want to earn money with AdSense” – Can’t you just hire someone for the job?

121) “Managing a large website is complicated and I won’t have time for anything else” – Ever heard about delegating?

122) “Once I have reached my income goal, I can sit back and relax” – You do realize that earnings can and will drop if you don’t manage your website, do you?

123) “I can just buy a few AdSense-ready websites and wait” – You have a lot of waiting ahead of you if you actually think that such a strategy can work out for you

Feel free to bookmark this article for later reference and, if you’ve found this resource useful and don’t have an AdSense account yet, signing up using the following banner would definititely be appreciated: