5 Google Adsense Secrets, Tips and Tricks

1. Blend your ads. Adsense color and font size

1.i It’s tested and it works. Use the same colour of your page background, for the border and the background of the ad.

1.ii Use the same colors used in your page, for the Adsense ad title, text and url link.

1.iiia If possible use the same font in your page, as the Adsense ads. Since the ads have variable text size and font, according to dimension and type of ad, you can never do this 100% right. But every little bit helps.

Real life Adsense font size and type768×60 Ad unit:
Title: style="line-height:12px; font-size:11px; font-family:verdana,arial,sans-serif"
Description: style="line-height:12px; font-size:10px; font-family:verdana,arial,sans-serif"
URL: style="line-height:12px; font-size:10px" face="verdana,arial,sans-serif"

300×250 Ad unit:
Title: style="line-height:14px;font-size:11px" face="arial,sans-serif"
Description: style="line-height:14px;font-size:11px" face="arial,sans-serif"
URL: style="line-height:14px;font-size:10px" face="arial,sans-serif"

As you can notice above, some ads have the arial font as default, some have verdana. Some have a 10px description text, some have 11px. And besides all that, each box may contain 1 up to 4 ads, and depending on that the font sizes will change. So it’s really up to you to experiment and see what works best for you, in as many cases as possible.

1.iv Try to not separate the ad from the content (like trashing the ad in some remote corner of your website. Integrate it within the content (in, within, next to, above, below etc).

2. Placing ads high on a page is good
Position the ads with the highest CTR, as high as possible in the page, in the source’s order (in the image below, notice that the ad appears just below the body tag). The first ads that appear in the pages (in the source’s order) get the most income per click.

3. Use images. Images and Adsense work together
Use images left or right of the ads. It makes them seen as part of the pages content, and your CTR increases. It doesn’t matter what images you use. Use any plain generic images. If you can, try to corelate those with the niche/domain of your website/blog. Be carefull not to write text, point arrows or similar on the images, as that might be seen as click incentives.

4. Earnings are variable, based on CTR
With the Smart pricing ideea, your income varies a lot, according to each of your channel’s CTR rate.

Now this is very important: It’s account-wide, not channel-wide. So if you have a very good CTR (5%-50%) for one website, and you include it in the same account with a 0.04# CTR website, you will loose money.

Remove all the websites (from your account) that don’t have at least a 5% CTR (or depeding on your overall CTR, remove the ones that are really lower than your average), or you’ll affect the income of all the other good converting websites.

5. Use non-standard types of ads
We all know that web-savvy (eg. webmasters or people that use the Internet for so many years, and know all the standards, convetions and so on) users are ad-blind.

Banners like 468×80 have been on the Internet since it’s creation. Even people who use the Internet vaguely or once a month, are kind of blind to these standard banners.

Instead, use vertical skyscrapers, or boxed ads. They have a much higher click rate. The Adsense team even published a list of their highest performing ad sizes:

336×280 large rectangle
300×250 inline rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper

Finding High paying ADS

Finding High Paying Ads is not as easy as it sounds (is anything?).

Do a search for Google on High Paying Adsense Ads and you won’t find too many sites listing the best keywords for Adsense. The top Adsense users in Adsense discussion forums tend to be pretty secretive about not only what keywords they focus on, but also what sites they run. I don’t blame them either - its good business sense really.

Having said this there are a number of strategies and tools that you might like to employ to help find high paying keywords.

Buy them - Finding high paying keywords for your blog is possible by yourself for free - but as with everything a few entrepreneurial types are willing to do the leg work for you to save you some time and give you a comprehensive result. One service that you might like to try to find good keywords is Top Paying Keywords.

Trial and Error - I know this will frustrate some of you who want a nice and easy quick fix but overall it is one of the best pieces of advice I can give. Try writing on a topic - track the results - if it pays off do it again….lots. Adsense allows you to track specific pages or sections of your blog using its ‘channels’ feature - if you’re smart you’ll watch which sections of your blog are generating the highest ads by dividing your overall earnings by the number of clicks and comparing it to other channels. Keep trying new topics until you strike gold and then dig in like crazy!

Are there Any Ads? - This is a good first question. Despite the many thousands of advertisers using Adsense there are some topics where the answer to this question is no. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.
7 Search has a list of the 100 of the top paying keywords (in their advertising program - not Adsense) at the moment. Its a bit depressing actually to see a list like this because you’d have to sell your soul somewhat in order to go with many of them. Its an interesting site to check out though.

Also from 7 Search (and more useful) is their Keyword Suggestion Tool which gives you an idea of what people are paying per click on different tools (again this is not specifically for Adsense but it will give you an idea of what the going rates are). Find What also has a similar service.
Google Adsense’s biggest competitor are Overture (they run the ads on Yahoo) - they offer a service where you can enter your keywords and they will not only tell you how much advertisers are paying for the words but also how many people are searching for the term. This is a very useful tool.

Sign up for Adwords - One way of getting a feel for how much people are willing to pay per click is to sign up with Google as an advertiser yourself. It doesn’t cost much to start a mini campaign and do some research this way. You’ll get a feel for what people are bidding on different words very quickly this way.

Word Tracker is the best tool I’ve seen to help in finding keywords that people are searching for in the major search engines. The excellent thing about Word Tracker is that they also tell you how many other sites out there are targeting the same words! This is very handy as it will stop you targeting ‘Britney Spears’ as a Keyword phrase even though its one of the most searched for keywords on the web because literally hundreds of thousands of other sites have beaten you to the punch. Word Tracker has a free version to trial it and their paying version is even better - well worth the investment.

Be smart with your site - to build Traffic

Look at Your Site Through Your Visitor's Eyes
After you've written your copy, it's a good idea to take a step back and put yourself in your visitor's shoes for a moment.

Pretend you are visiting your site for the first time and read over all the content. Then ask yourself a few questions:

Have I explained everything clearly?

Sure the content makes sense to you because you wrote it, but if you were a first-time visitor, what questions might you have? Did you leave out some information because you assumed the visitor already knows? Are there terms or phrases that you need to define?

Does the content flow logically?

Have you put the cart before the horse? Do your thoughts jump all over the page or are they organized?

If you develop your content in your head as you type, it's very easy to produce copy that is unorganized. Make sure you read over everything to ensure your paragraphs and sentences flow logically.

Does your site navigation make sense?

Navigation is so very important. You don't want your visitors to get lost so it's important that your navigation titles make sense and clearly define what each section/page is about.

You also want to ensure that important pages like the order and contact form are easily accessible from every page on your site. In addition, be sure that your navigation is consistent and doesn't change from page to page.

If you find this task difficult to do, ask a friend to help out. Have them read every page of your site and jot down any questions or comments that develop as they go along. You'll be amazed at what you'll discover when someone else reads your work.

Writing Effective Headlines
Every page on your site should have a headline. And since the headline is the first thing a person sees, it MUST make an impact and draw the reader into your copy. Here are some tips on writing effective headlines:

Always use the present tense.

Make sure your words consist of upper and lowercase letters. All caps scream to people and look very unprofessional.

Use strong verbs. Instead of "cut" use, words like slash, chop, dagger, etc.

Challenge the reader. Try titles like, For Serious Golfers Only! or Only Click Here if You Want to Make Money Today.

Too many exclamation points scream out "Amateur!!!!" If you must use them, use only one.

STRESS THE BENEFITS! Tell the readers, "What's in it for them." For example, You Can Earn $800.00 by Next Week.

Use the words "I" and "you". For example:
I am working at home and loving it - You can too!

Ask a question that begs an answer. But make sure your ad answers the question, otherwise your reader will feel tricked or "lead on." For example, Do You Know the Easiest Way to Earn $5,000 Per Month?

Use attention-grabbing words like Discover, Amazing, and Powerful.

Adsense - be smart to win

Place Ads Where People Will See Them
We've all heard this about real estate. Location. Location. Location. With Adsense the same is true. Place ads in locations where people will see them. Usually the best spots to place ads are at the top of the page and in the content. The ads should be formatted to complement the content of your site. However, getting the placement and formatting of AdSense ads optimized doesn't guarantee success. You'll have to do more. Keep reading.

Select Topics with Many Advertisers
AdSense matches ads to the content of your pages. So, the simplest thing to do is to create content where AdSense has existing advertisers to place on your pages. In general, the more advertisers there are to match to your content, the more money you will make and the better liquidity you will see so that your earnings fluctuate less. AdSense typically places the most valuable ads in the order the page loads. Generally, this means that the ads at the top of the page will pay more when clicked than the ads at the bottom of the page, but it stands to reason for sites that place three AdSense ads on a page, that if there are more advertisers, the fill rate of each spot will be higher and the amount earned with each ad spot will drop less if there is substantial competition among advertisers.

Understand Who Clicks on Ads and Where They Come From
If you are hoping to make money from AdSense, you'll have to attract people that click on ads. Did you know that people that begin their search on AOL and ASK are among the most likely to click on ads and on HubPages, they generate some of the highest CPMs. They are 210% more likely to click on ads than the average visitor to the site and generate CPMs 312% more than the average source of traffic. The trick is to understand the demographics of their site so you can create content that they will search for - Quantcast shows it has women with kids, higher income and less college education.

Create Content that Lasts
I've written before about evergreen content. It's very important to an AdSense centric monetization strategy for two reasons. First, related to what I just covered, search engine traffic generates the most people that click on ads, and second, each piece of content is like putting a little money in the bank that will generate the equivalent of interest on a bank account. Each month you get a dividend because the content is relevant for a long period of time. When the article is nolonger relevant, this is like emptying your bank account and seeing the dividends stop. You want to create content that will endure and pay dividends for years to come.

Adsense - which is better: wordpress or Blogger?

Here is a small comparison:

WORDPRESS
• Easy setup, if you have decent computer knowledge
• Massive amounts of different templates to choose from both on the site and elsewhere online - highly professional
• Huge array of plug-ins for extra features to be added easily and for free
• Site can be used with your own domain name
• You can create categories, links and make it look like a regular website

BLOGGER
• Extremely simple setup for complete novice to the Internet
• Has comments with minor moderation
• Ability to email to make new posts
• Storage of pictures instead of just linking to them
• Looks like a typical blog
• Blogger is owned by Google

Hence my sentiment; since Blogger is actually OWNED by Google Inc., it naturally does better with Google AdSense because it is easily detected on Google's radar faster and will be indexed faster. Simply put, Google has a quick eye for Blogger.

Conclusively, if making money with Google AdSense is of huge importance to you, I strongly recommend Blogger for you. However, if making money with Google AdSense is not vitally significant to you, you may then consider the newer and of course, the better Wordpress. It's simply a question of priority. What do you think?