Google Adsense is an easy way for many people to make money online. Whether you have a business website or a personal blog, utilizing some simple tips to optimize your ads can make a huge difference in your revenue. Two identical sites can have completely different profits from AdSense based on how they place their ads. Be sure that whatever changes you make to your site to optimize your ads does not conflict with Google’s policies. Fooling with the AdSense code will never be beneficial for you in the long run.
Matching your AdSense colors with the colors of your site is an easy, but effective way of making them more visible. Experiment until you have two or three color schemes that you know perform well with your site colors. Then you can occasionally rotate color schemes so your ads will seem fresh. Do not use borders around your text ads. Ads without a border that blend with the color scheme of a site always outperform other ad units.
One of your best options to optimize your ads is to use Google’s site-specific search box along with AdSense. Putting ads at the top and bottom of the search result page will ensure a higher click through rate (CTR). The top right corner of your site is a highly-visible spot to put a search box. Another easily executed tip is placing images above or next to your ad units. Everyone knows that “a picture is worth a thousand words” and since your ad space limits the text description, a thousand words can be really useful for increasing your visibility.
Where you place your ads is very important. A webpage is similar to a newspaper in that whatever is “above the fold” or seen first when the page is loaded has the highest impact. By placing your AdSense ads high up on your page people will see them without scrolling down your site. This is a well-known way of increasing your CTR.
Search engine optimization is one of the most vital qualities for high traffic websites. In addition, users coming to your site from search engines are more likely to click on your AdSense ads than regular readers. Placing ads in known high performing ad slots such as the top of left sidebar and the top of individual posts can have an immediate effect on your CTR.
Experimenting with these practical tips for optimizing Google AdSense can both increase your revenue and familiarize you with the most effective marketing strategies for your site. When you make a change, try it for a couple of weeks to get a thorough effect of the results.
Turning off the “NoFollow” on blog comments has become a sort of “movement” and SEO White Hats is proud to announce that we have become part of this movement. We have officially turned off NoFollow comments and this can be indicated by the icon in our sidebar.
If you run a blog (or have been thinking about starting one) and would like to begin earning money from it, here are seven ways to monetize your blog this year.
1.) One of the ways blog monetization can be accomplished is to use a system which pays you to display text or banner advertisements. Be sure to use a reputable service such as Yahoo! Publisher Network.
2.) You can also monetize your weblog by accepting donations from readers. Using an electronic payment system like PayPal or ProPay makes it easier for such payments to be sent and received.
3.) Monetize your blog by using it to lightly promote a service you can provide, such as editing, programming, selling real estate, designing web pages, etc. Just don’t make your entries too promotional.
4.) Sign up for a search engine affiliate program and put a search box on your weblog. Depending upon the engine, you will either earn a flat rate every time someone uses it to search the web, or a percentage of the revenue from sponsored listings.
5.) Another way to achieve blog monetization is to put merchandise up for sale on a classified or auction site, then link to these items from your blog. Loyal readers will trust you to sell them quality products, and may even buy items to help support the blog.
6.) Earn money from blogging by using services that compensate bloggers for one-time “sponsored” entries about a specific product or company. Services like this include PayU2Blog and PayPerPost.com. Most require that blogs be active for 30-90 days beforehand.
7.) Yet another one of the ways to monetize blog entries is to use a system (such as Today.com) that hosts them for free and gives you a flat rate per entry and/or a share of the ad revenue.
I just wanted to share a couple items:
1.) We have not done a Week in Review in some time. Instead, I have been trying to share Blog Posts I find useful through Google Reader. The next step if figuring out how to get them to post or linked with SEOWhiteHats.com. In the meantime, you can see these Shared SEO Blog Posts at my Chuck Aikens Google Profile page.
2.) I just published a blog post on Flash SEO Using SWF Address on ChuckAikens.com since I hadn’t published anything since the first week of January.
I also posted this blog post to at Sphinn and got some great feedback via comments on using Flash properly for SEO. Here are some of the links from the comments from beussery
3.) I haven’t been spending much time in the social media space, but I do try to post a useful link or tweet a few times a week. I am only a few followers away from 300…if you are on Twitter, let’s follow each other at http://twitter.com/chuckaikens
First off, I’d like to thank Chuck for giving me the opportunity to drop a line on his site. Thanks!
I’m proud to announce that ProspectMX, my internet marketing company in Pennsylvania, has developed a holiday contest with a great prize of $10,000 in internet marketing for a deserving charity or non-profit organization.
The ProspectMX Christmas Wish contest officially began on Monday and ends December 31, 2008. Our team will announce the winner of the contest on January 5, 2009.
If your work with a non-profit organization looking to build their presence online, answer the following question on your blog or website between today and the end of the year (12/31):
“How can internet marketing benefit your organization?”
Once we choose a winner, our company will work on developing and implementing an internet marketing plan that will best fulfill the goals and needs of the non-profit organization.
Other companies in the internet marketing community have also gotten involved with the Christmas Wish. Runner up prizes have been provided by Seattle-based search firm SEOmoz, educational website SEO 101 Tools, and trackur, a social media and online reputation monitoring service.
For full details on the Christmas Wish Contest, please visit the ProspectMX website page on charity internet marketing (http://www.prospectmx.com/charity-internet-marketing). Anything you can do to help us spread the word is greatly appreciated.
Have a happy holiday season!
Being the model of consistency, I have already ‘broken’ from my plan of providing a Monday morning recap of the SEO blogsphere. I had a chance to catch up on my blog reading tonight and here are some interesting posts from the 15 SEO Blogs that I follow:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
Google launces SearchWiki, the ability to make search your own.
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/11/14-competitive-intelligence-tools.html
Competitve Intelligence slide deck Andy Beal including his Trackur.com tool.
http://www.shimonsandler.com/structuring-a-link-campaign/
Shimon Sandler is promoting his link building service. Good insight into what is current working for effective link building.
http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/link-advertising-program-inlinkscom-text-link-ads/
Michael Gray discusses a new service from Text Link Ads and recaps his well known stance on paid link advertising.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/11/17/facebook-internally-seoing-brand-pages-wants-more-traffic-and-google-juice/
Facebook add new links on public profiles…this matters for SEO.
http://www.ninebyblue.com/blog/is-pagerank-the-ultimate-measure-of-online-influence/
Vanessa Fox discusses Page Rank and Online Influence on her new website…I wonder what the significance of nine BY BLUE. Vannessa provides an SEO overview blog post with her best SEO posts at http://www.ninebyblue.com/reference-articles/seach-engine-optimization/search-engine-optimization-the-beginning/
http://www.seobook.com/art-seo-proposal
Great post about SEO proposals, a follow-up to http://www.seobook.com/how-be-seo-service-provider. Follow-up post -> http://www.seobook.com/how-keep-seo-clients
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/must-have-seo-tools
A list of 6 must have tools for SEO…I can’t seem to pass up a SEO Tool list.
http://www.seobook.com/googles-relevancy-algorithms-change-keyword
A good overview of how SEO strategy and optimization is different for competitive keywords versus long tail keywords. When there are many matching search results for a given search query, Google places a lot of weight on core domain age & authority and on external signals of quality like link quality. If you are starting a new site and have built little to no offsite signals of quality you can expect to rank for longtail phrases first. As your site builds authority you can compete for some of the head keywords.
http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/sem-events/how-to-buy-links/
Lisa Barone live blogging from Pubcon in a Paid Links session with Rank Fishkin, John Lessnau and Aaron Wall. Todd Malicoat will moderate. Lisa metions the room is packed, paid links is usually one of the most attended sessions. Where is Matt Cutts and Michael Gray?
http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/sem-events/reputation-monitoring-management/
Another live blogging session post by Lisa Barone. Todd Friesen will moderate this one with speakers Jessica Berlin, Andy Beal and Lee Odden. Good information if you want to learn more about Reputation Management.
http://www.seobook.com/social-media-marketing-waste-time2
A rant by Aaron Wall at SEOBook regarding Social Media Marketing. If you are considering Social Media Marketing or trying to compare it to the more established Paid Search Marketing model, this is definitely contains some good thoughts for you to consider.
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/is-the-googles-yoyo-effect-the-evidence-of-a-new-algo-
Speculative article of a possible Google algorithm update based on recent yo-you of rankings.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-we-help-track-flu-trends.html
I actually saw this on CNBC(??) earlier this week. While I’m not sure that Google Trends can actually predict flu outbreaks, I think they produce an interesting ‘real-world’ correlation that can potentially grab the attention of the everyday internet user. While the statistical data model might be flawed, you have to hand it to Google on doing something interesting with its’ data.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/blog-carnivals-link-building/7999/
Amy Smarty writes about Blog Carnivals. Carnivals??? Fun is usually dangerous when it comes to link building. Group Writing Projects…that sounds a little safer strategy even though I think it is the same thing. More information on this concept available at http://groupwritingprojects.com/
Top search engine Google recently put an end to its AdSense referral program, but it has already introduced a new revenue-generating option for AdSense users. Google recently announced on its AdSense blog that they had launched a new feed advertising system, which makes it possible to earn money by putting AdSense units in RSS feeds.
The feed advertising program will include both pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertisements. According to Google, they will be specifically targeted to the type of users who view RSS feeds. Content authors can customize the advertising in several ways that are specific to RSS feeds; they can choose how often the ads are displayed throughout the feed, as well as the minimum entry length they should be applied to. Google AdSense Help Center now provides a section on “Getting Started” and “Troubleshooting” the feed advertising system, and the AdSense blog offers a short explanatory video with screenshots of the new system.
When using any RSS feed advertising system, advertisers should take into consideration the kind of people who will see their ads. Generally, it can be predicted that people who subscribe to feeds are at least fairly skilled in using computers, spend enough time on the internet to have an interest in subscribing to these feeds, and have their own computers (rather than only using publicly available computers). Free RSS reader applications are available for almost any operating system, so anyone who can afford an internet connection has access to them. Users with recent browsers like IE 7.0 have built-in RSS support, so they might be somewhat more likely to use it.
This new Google AdSense program gives web site and blog operators another opportunity to generate advertising revenue, if they produce RSS feed content. As with other companies which are introducing feed based advertising, it also provides Google advertisers with another promotional option. On the other hand, some readers of RSS feeds are displeased with this change; such feeds were previously free of ads and other “clutter” often found on web pages. This was probably to be expected; sources of information seldom remain ad-free unless they require a subscription fee or are operated by the government.
On a more positive note, Google’s new feed advertising program may encourage some web site owners to introduce new RSS feeds, even if they were previously reluctant about using RSS. However, feed operators should be careful not to overuse advertising in their feeds, keeping in mind that this could cause some users to unsubscribe.
Blogging | seowhitehats | July 2, 2009 | 
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