Beating Google Adsense

Adsense by Google is nothing new. You simply have to sign up, get approved for the Adsense program, after which you can insert small snippets of code in your webpage. Google will then ensure proper banners are displayed in the various locations you specify, presenting ads relevant to the contents of your site. And voila, you earn a small fee when visitors go to your site and click on the ads. Sounds like a piece of cake to make some money. Try it first and you will realise the difficulty.

It all voice down to your true understanding of Adsense - how it works, how to position the ads, should text or graphics ads be used, what is considered as click fraud, how to track your Adsense campaign, Adsense pros and cons, so on and so forth. Many people simply start without doing much read up or background research. As a result, they fail and simply complain one cannot earn via Adsense. This is totally unfounded.

By applying proper strategies and methods, AdSense can be a very good way of generating constant revenue on your site. In this article of mine, I will cover on two main areas - Ads positioning and Graphics vs Text-based Ads.

1. Ads Positioning

Frankly, there is no universal position that is guaranteed to improve your revenue. Experimenting with various positions is one way to find out. But of course certain position should be better than others. For my case, I would highly recommend to place the ads right above, and within the main content of your web site. Another great place would be on the left side of the page. Most reading starts from left to right. And by placing on the left area, there will be a higher chance of being viewed, and thereby being clicked on.

However, if you have more than one ad, you have to be cautious on where they are located in the html code as well. Also, if you have too many ads, you may get a lower click through rate, rather then generate more revenue. Too many ads can be a nuisance and visitors might not follow ads from the places where there are ads popping or appearing everywhere on the site. Do not overdo it.

Make the ads blend in as much as possible to the layout of your site. See your own site from a third party point of view to judge whether your ads are in the best position. You can always get feedback and advice from your friends.

One tip is to make use of AdSense Channels feature to monitor and gauge how your ads are faring throughout your campaign.

2. Graphics vs Text-based

This is rather subjective. Some people may feel that image ads are more responsive but convert less while text adverts may convert more but is less visible to the visitors.

Most often than not, web surfers are used to graphic advertising. So much so we may even overlook such graphic ads at times unless it really catches our eyes. Graphics ads tend to promote brand image as a whole rather than a specific service (with some exceptions of course). Normally, they are assumed to have worse conversion rates.

Text based ads are considered the least intrusive. Being less obvious (as compared to graphic based), some would not even bother to read it. However, the trade-off is, when one really read it, there is a high possibility that it will be clicked. I would refer such ads to be, sort of like "targeted ads". Take a look at Adwords ads and you will know what I mean.

Like it or not, Google Adsense is here to stay. For those who are new to Adsense or will be trying out seriously in the near future, do your homework now. Learn to experiment and try out for yourself on the best ads strategies. You will realise there are much more to uncover for yourself.

Happy Adsensing.

Copyright 2008