Miscellaneous Adsense Tips

As well as the proceeding tips there are a number of other things that might be helpful to know in using Adsense that we couldn’t find a place for in previous posts.

Outgoing Links - One theory going around is that pages with fewer outgoing links result in higher click-throughs. Give your readers fewer options of links to click on and they are more likely to click on your ads. This MAY be true, but don’t let it determine your content. My Digicam site has many outward links because it is a page that acts as a hub of information from around the web. I’ve not noticed that this makes my revenue levels suffer - in fact I suspect its because of these helpful links that people come to my site.

Using Frames - If your site uses frames I’m told you should make sure your ads are placed in the frame where you content is or else it will not provide relevant ads for your content. Thanks Greg for this tip.

Don’t click your own ads. - It might be an obvious way to get a few click throughs and increase your Adsense revenue - but Google is very clever at working out if your clicks are genuine or not. Its not hard to track IP addresses and to see patterns emerging between where clicks are coming from. It is not worth the risk of being banned from the program for a few cents per click. Especially don’t click ads from the same IP address that you check your stats from - this is asking for trouble.

Don’t encourage your readers to click on your ads. Its against the agreement that you enter into with Google. Once again they will track you down if you break these rules. I’ve seen a number of people who have been banned from Adsense for this. Let your ads speak for themselves.

Monitor your Statistics. Many adsense users check their stats all day everyday. Whilst this might be overkill (its like watching grass grow) it is useful to track what is happening at this end of your campaign. Use channels to monitor which pages are doing well and which are not. Tweak pages that are not doing well and make more pages similar to those that do.

Alternative Ads - Use alternative ads for when Adsense cannot serve ads to your page. When they cannot find a suitable ad for your page Adsense will serve you with a ‘Public Service Announcement’ (PSA). These ads may be for a good cause, but they will not relate to the content of your page and will not earn you any money. Instead Adsense allows you to nominated an alternative ad that they will serve into the position instead of the PSA. I use Amazon for this, but also have experimented with affiliate alternative ads Affiliate Sensor which I find works really well as it lets you choose from a wide range of affiliate products and still target them to your site.

Relevant Ads - Adsense Tips

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads

Make sure there are ads available - A simple way of checking this is to do a search on Google for the key word you are targeting. If they don’t serve ads on their own search results page its an indication that such ads are scarce - if not non existent. They way we got ads on my friends blog was to experiment with other related keywords. He didn’t have to change the focus of his blog - just the way he described his topics. For example if there are no ads for ‘bed linen’ try ‘blankets’, ’sheets’, ‘quilts’ etc. Experiment with different combinations until you find something that works.

Increase your Keyword density - The more you use your keywords the more likely you are to get ads on those topics. Its not common knowledge exactly how the Adsense bot decides what ads suit your content best (if someone knows feel free to post it in comments below) but it’s a pretty safe bet that if you put you keyword in your title, at least once in your first paragraph and then scatter it throughout the rest of your page that you’ll convince the Adsense bot of what your topic is. It MAY also be helpful to include your keywords in the URL of your page (Moveable type can let you do this - ie look at the URL of this page - it incorporates my title and therefore some keywords). It MAY also be worth putting your keywords in outward links, bold, italics etc. All of these strategies also help optimise yor blog for search engines which won’t hurt either.

Examine your Sidebars, menus, header and footer - It is not just your main content that the Adsense bot searches to find the topic of your page, but also your other areas. When I looked at the healthcare blog that was getting ‘blogging’ ads I noticed that he had the word ‘blog’ in his title, three times on his sidebar and once in his footer. It was also in his URL and he also used the word quite often in his content. My recommendation was to remove the word from as many of those places as possible and to increase his health care keywords. The ads improved their relevancy almost immediately.

Stick to one topic per page - Obviously this may not be feasible on your front page - but attempt to keep each individual blog entry/post as highly targeted as possible. I’ve noticed that some people often include two or three topics in one entry - this will confuse Adsense’s bot so split them up into two entries.

Block irrelevant Ads - Sometimes despite your best intentions Google just gets it wrong and serves your ads that have nothing to do with what you write. If you’re getting some repeating irrelevant ads block them. Adsense lets you do this to quite a few sites and its easy to do. I have a number of ads blocked, some because they are philosophically not consistent with what I write about, but mainly because they just are not relevant to the topic of my blogs.

Ask Adsense - If all else fails notify Google Adsense of your issue. Of course they are busy people - but Google prides itself on being responsive to its users. I’ve emailed with queries a number of times, once on an issue of irrelevant ads, and every time I’ve had positive results from my query. You’ve got nothing to loose - shoot them an email!

If you do all of the above you SHOULD find Adsense serves you with relevant ads. In conjunction with the other elements in our equation this will contribute to increased click throughs and hopefully higher Adsense revenue. Next in this series on maximizing Adsense revenue is a post on Well Placed and Designed Adsense Ads.

High Paying Ads

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed 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.

Targeting High Paying Adsense Ads is an important aspect of generating an income from Adsense. It is not enough in and of itself however. You can have $10 per click ads but without generating any traffic your research into the right ads will be useless. Likewise it is one thing to identify which ads you want to target - but it is another thing to actually get these relevant ads showing on your site. It is to this topic which our next post in this series will head - Finding Relevant Adsense Ads.

Well Placed and Designed Ads

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads

The forth element of our Adsense Equation is that of having well designed and optimally placed Adsense Ads. I’ve found that ad positioning is incredibly important. I remember shifting the ads on one of my blogs a while back and being over the moon to discover the next morning that the move had doubled the click through rates that I’d had over night! Its worth doing some tweaking.

Adsense Ad placement and design is an issue that is often hotly debated in Adsense discussion forums. It seems that each Adsense user has their own strategy - some like ads that blend in, others like ads that stand out from the rest of the page. Some like ads in banner positions, others in skyscrapers, others like to put them right in the middle of content. In my experience, different strategies work on different blogs at different times. The key tip I’ll give you is to experiment. Try new positions and design and track your results. One of the best ways you can do this is by using Adsense Tracker which is an amazing tracking package for adsense which gives you much more control over what and how you track your adsense performance. It does cost to purchase the tracker but in my experience you’ll make your money back pretty quickly by using it to adapt your Adsense strategies.

Let me also share a few other tips that you might like to experiment with.

Blend - Most successful Adsense users seem to be taking the approach of blending their ads into the overall theme of their page. This often means making the ad’s background (and often border) the same (or similar) colour to the background of the page and making the title and URL the same as links of the rest of the page. In this way the ad does not stand out as being ‘ad-like’. Having said this I know of a few bloggers who take the opposite approach and make their ads as bright and ugly as possible in the hope of attracting the attention of their readers. I don’t subscribe to this because I think it cheapens the overall feel and look of a page.

In Content - More and more bloggers (and webmasters) are putting their ads inside the main body of their posts. In this way the ads are prominent and more likely to be seen by readers as they read your content. If your text wraps around the ads this can be quite effective. On the flipside of this argument is that you may run the risk of frustrating your readers with dominant ads. People reading content online are a fickle bunch and get easily turned off by blatant advertising.

Above the Fold - it is generally accepted that your Adsense ads should be placed towards the top of your page and be visable without your reader having to scroll down. Studies show that blog visitors stay on average for only 60 or so seconds, many without scrolling down. If you ads are hidden towards the bottom of your page you decrease the likelihood of them ever being seen let alone clicked.

Left is Best - Google has put together a ‘heat map’ which is probably the best thing that you can look at when thinking about the positioning of your ads. You’ll see from it that they have found that ads on the left hand side of the page do much better than those on the right hand side.

Too Dominent? - The position and design of your Adsense ads needs to be balanced with the overall purposes and design of your blog. What is the priority of your blog - is it to make money or is it something else.

Adsense Tips - Increasing Traffic

ncreasing Traffic Levels is a key component to increasing Adsense revenue. As I wrote previously, ‘The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them.’

Increasing the readership of your blog is not as simple as it sounds, it takes time, patience and hard work (and sometimes a bit of luck) Having said that there are many things you can do to get your blog in front of a wider audience and there exposing the adsense messages on your site to more potential ‘clickers’. Here are a few tips…

• Quality, Interesting, Useful and Original Content - What are the blogs that you read the most? If you’re anything like me they are blogs that have quality content that ’scratches me where I itch’. This is essential to increasing your readership unless you have a pretty amazing ‘gimmick’ to bring readers in.
• Good Blog Design is really important if you want your blog to create a good first impression. With millions of other blogs and sites out there its worth some effort to make yours stand out. Also worth a read is Good Weblog Design and Layout.
• Link to others - be generous with your links to other bloggers big and small. You’ll be surprised how many links come back your way. This not only brings traffic from their sites but doesn’t hurt your ranking in Google.
• Comment on others blogs - Some of my most loyal readers came to my blog because I genuinely interacted with them on their blogs through comments. Hear me now, I say genuinely because its easy to spam in comments, but this will have the opposite effect of generating readers to your blog.
• Update Frequently - There is nothing that turns me off a blog faster than seeing that it hasn’t been updated for a month or more. Keep it rolling over with interesting content.
• Interact with Readers - Having an interactive blog that invites the involvement of readers is one way of generating repeat visitors.
• Optimise for Search Engines - I can’t stress enough how important Search Engines are to increasing traffic, especially traffic that will click on your ads. I find that 95% of my traffic comes from Google and have found that anecdotal evidence suggests this traffic clicks through on Adsense ads at a higher rate than traffic from links on other blogs and sites.
• Add a signature to your outgoing email - Learn a lesson from Hotmail who have used signatures on the bottom of their users emails for years to promote their home page and generate interest in their product. Be careful though if you don’t want your worlds to collide!
• Web Rings - There are literally thousands of webrings that you can sign up for. I’m not sure how effective they are these days, but some people still swear by them.
• Add an RSS feed to your blog - more and more people are reading blogs without ever visiting them through News Aggregators that pick up information using RSS. Whilst this does not guarantee those reading through aggregators will visit your blog (and therefore see your Adsense Ads) it certainly increases the chances of them dropping by, especially if you invite comments and have internal links on your posts.
• List your site on Portals - There are a growing number of sites which exclusively list blogs. If you want people to find you its worth submitting your blog to be listed on them. Some focus on specific topics while others list blogs on a wide variety of topics (like Eaton Web and Globe of Blogs). Other portals like BlogShares and Blog Street also list a lot of blogs in different ways which might increase your blogs profile.
• Blog Search Engines and Indexes - Get yourself registered on sites like Blogdex, Technorati, Popdex and Daypop (they require RSS I think). These sites have features that allow people to search for blog entries via topic and keywords. They also list the most popular recent topics and each have other interesting features which can enhance your blogging experience.
• Start a Newsletter - Offer your readers a newsletter service to keep them up to date with your latest posts. Think about this - hundreds of people have given me permission to invite them to come back to my blog - every week!
• Get Involved in Blog Projects and Memes - From time to time other bloggers will invite your participation in a blog project of theirs. Get involved, support their project and you might find it pays off. On the flip side start your own blogging project or meme. Do something that is of service to other bloggers.
• Get involved in other web forums - Genuinely participate in web forums and discussion pages on topics related to your blog. Many of these allow you to add a signature to your posts which raise your blogs profile.
• Promote your Posts - If you think you’ve written something worthwhile spend a few minutes letting others know about it. I regularly shoot other bloggers to notify them of what I’ve written if I think it will interest them. Think about it before you send the email and don’t bombard the same people constantly with every topic you write on - be selective, concise, polite and helpful with your emails but don’t be afraid to promote yourself.
• Add a ‘Email a Friend’ Option to your posts - make it easy for your readers to tell others about what you’ve written. I know this function gets used regularly on my blog and brings in new readers that I would never otherwise have been able to reach.

What methods have your found to be effective at increasing the readership of your blog? What works for your and what doesn’t? What tips would you add to this collection?

Of course increasing traffic alone won’t greatly increase your Adsense revenue, but it can help! In our next Adsense Tip for Bloggers we will explore ways to generate High Paying Ads - the second component in our Adsense Revenue Equation.

AdSense's Equation for Success

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

Its not Rocket Science. Each of the above four elements contribute directly to the total revenue that your Adsense Ads will produce. Don’t just work on one of them though because if any one is weak it will hold your potential earnings back. Lets break each factor down….

Traffic Levels - The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them. As I examine the statistics provided by Adsense that report my daily earnings I notice that my earnings in the past 8 months have increased considerably as my total page impressions have increased. Work on increasing your traffic levels and you should see an increase in your Adsense Revenue.

High Paying Ads - Once again I’m stating the obvious, but if the content you provide on your blog attracts high paying ads you’re going to do significantly better. For example it has been documented that the PVR Blog is doing pretty well when it comes to high Adsense earnings - the secret of its success is partly due to it being served with ads that are high paying. The topic of the PVR blog is, as you’d expect, PVR technology including TiVo, Replay TV etc. This is cutting edge technology and therefore advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to get their products and services out there! In comparison if a person was to start a blog on ‘toothpicks’ I suspect the ads are not likely to pay very much. It would take very high traffic levels to earn as much from a toothpick blog as it would the PVR blog.

Relevant Ads - A second reason the PVR Blog is successful is that it servers relevant ads. To put it simply people looking for information on PVR technology are confronted by Adsense ads for PVR technology. I recently visited a blog that was having trouble getting relevant ads - they had a blog on Tourist destinations in Australia - but unfortunately they were getting Adsense ads for remote control cars. You can guess what their revenue was like. Increase the relevancy of your Ads to your content and you are one step closer to increasing your Adsense revenue.

Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads - One of the coolest things about the Adsense program is that they give you freedom in choosing the best position and color scheme for your ads. Just like in the wider world of advertising - positioning is a key element to an ads success. A Billboard positioned on a road where no one drives is not likely to get the same results as one positioned on a busy intersection. The position and design of your Adsense Ads is critical - if they are out of site they’ll never get clicked on.

Bringing them Together - The above four elements are in many ways pretty obvious when spelt out like this - the challenge comes to improving each to optimize Adsense revenue.

Your revenue will only grow as high as the weakest one of these factors on your blog. For example if you have high paying, relevant, well designed and positioned ads but no traffic you’ll not do well. Likewise if you have high traffic, high paying and relevant ads but they are poorly designed an in a position where they’ll never be seen - you’ll waste all your other hard work. Its not enough to work on one element.

Simple Adsense Hack for a higher CTR

I don’t remember where I first came across this tip but I do remember reading that it’ll helped some people get a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) for the ads on their website. I’m not too sure if it actually works for everyone but I do think that it’ll definitely make your ads blend in better with text and media. This Adsense hack works by removing the ‘Advertise on this site‘ text that shows up with every Adsense unit on your website.

Here’s a screen shot of what I am referring to:

Removing the ‘Advertise on the Site’ Link

Log in to your Google Adsense account and click on the ‘My Account‘ tab.

After which, scroll down the page until you reach the ‘Onsite Advertiser Siteup‘ section. Click on the edit link.

Now, just untick the box which includes your website in the Onsite Advertiser signup program. (More info on the On-site advertiser signup program here.)

Viola! And you’re done. Now the ‘Advertise on this site‘ link is removed from all the ads served to your websites. The only downside for this tweak is that it won’t be so easy for Advertisers to target ads specifically for your site. However I think the benefits of removing this link outweighs the cost for most bloggers. Here are some reasons why:

• A larger percentage of visitors to your website are end-users and not advertisers.
• Most advertisers will not want to put up specific ads on relatively new/obscure blogs or blogs with low traffic
• Removing the link makes it far easier to blend ads with text - which ensures higher CTR

I think that leaving the On-site advertising link up will be beneficial for websites that are very popular, because advertisers often want their ads to go out to as many relevant eyeballs as possible. But if your website doesn’t fall into that category, why not try this tip to see if it actually improves your blog’s Adsense click through rate? My suggestion would be to set it up for two weeks in order to observe the number of clicks you receive on each ad channel.

After monitoring the results, you can decide if you want to keep the change or revert back to the default ad setup. Alternatively, if there is no significant improvement you could try rearranging your ad placement to see if it’ll bring better results.

18 Adsense Optimized Wordpress Themes

How are Adsense Ready Themes different from other blog templates?

A key element that is central to all Adsense Ready themes is their focus on integrating contextual ads around content. As you will notice, the ads and link units are carefully placed above, beside and below each individual post to maximize exposure and their click through potential.

Several themes will also allow you to easily place blocks of square ads within each post, which is one of the proven ways to receive the highest amount of ad clicks from the average blog visitor.

Here are some general characteristics of most Adsense Optimized themes:

• Built in Adsense blocks for easy ad insertion.
• Ads are active once the Adsense Publisher ID is inserted or changed
• Optimized Ad placement, colors and types according to Google’s guidelines
• Adsense linkunits and search are already included.
• Search Engine Friendly. Post and category titles are used for page titles etc.

Why should I use Adsense Ready Templates?

The main reason why you should use an Adsense ready theme is convenience. You don’t have to sift through too much code and there’s no need to make major adjustments to the template’s form.

In many instances, all you need is to insert your Adsense publisher ID and you’re done. This will probably only take a few minutes, which can be a huge time and effort saver.

You can probably hack any other Wordpress template to include ads but they can be a hassle if you are unfamiliar with how to optimize your ad placement. Most of these templates are not terribly attractive but I think they are functional and their ad placement is pretty decent.

I think Adsense Ready templates are very useful when you own dozens or hundreds of niche websites which use credited feeds or free content. Niche websites with high paying keywords will be naturally more profitable when you use templates with optimized ad placements.

18 Adsense Optimized Wordpress Themes

1. ProSense | Download Prosense | ProSense Gray | ProSense Blue

2. BlueSense | Download

3. AdSense Theme | Download

4. SEO Adsense | Download

5. Problogger Clean | Download

6. SEO Blix with AdSense | Download

7. Ads Minded | Download

8. SEO Almost Spring with AdSense | Download

9. Connections with Adsense | Download

10. MW | Download

11. Adsense Ready | Download

12. WP Colors | Demo

13. Boqpod Adsense | Download

14. Tigopedia 1.0 | Download

15. Typo XP Reloaded | Download

16. Citrus | Download

17. Simple Corners | Download

18.Merah Putih | Download

Beginner’s Guide to Effective Adsense Link Units Optimization

Most webmasters and bloggers make money from their website through Google Adsense and I’ve noticed that not all of them include Adsense link units as part of their contextual monetization strategy.

It’s useful to note that Adsense link units can and will help you to generate more income from your website, if you are able to integrate them perfectly within the overall site design and layout.

Google has recently updated their Adsense program policy and publishers are now allowed to place three link units on a single page instead of just one:

As we’ve noted in the past, link units are a great way to provide relevant, user-friendly ads in hard-to-fit locations on your site. With the new opportunity to place three link units — and the plethora of link unit formats — we hope you’ll find great ways of incorporating this unique ad format on your site.

While this change won’t drastically improve your monetization potential, it does offer more placement options for publishers. I thought would be helpful to create a basic primer on how to use Adsense Link Units for your own website or blog.

If you’ve never used link units before, this might be a good time to experiment and find out how they work for your website and monetization goals.

What are Adsense Link Units?

Basically, link units are simply a collection of four to five links within a horizontal or vertical format. When clicked, each of these links will open up into a webpage that consists of nothing but Google ads.

Characteristics of the Adsense Link Unit

• Link units are unobtrusive. They do not take up much space and can be easily integrated into any single webpage. Their small size and design will not affect the viewer experience of content on your website.
• Link units do not seem like ads. Unlike other contextual ads, link units can be skillfully blended to look like navigational units on any website. This increases the possibility of click-throughs.

How do you Make Money with Adsense Link Units?

Unlike other Adsense ad units, you’ll only make money when the visitor clicks on the link unit and then clicks on any link within the link page. In other words, you’ll need two visitor clicks before you actually make any money.

This means that, in order to maximize your earning potential, you’ll need to get as many people to click on the link units as possible in the hope of receiving a larger percentage of second clicks.

The link units earnings model simply emphasizes the importance of ad blending and placement. From my experience with link units, I believe that one can easily see a decent number of ad clicks if your link unit is well blended on your site.

Setting up Adsense Link Units for your Website

First of all you’ll need to signup for Google Adsense if you haven’t already done so. After which, log into your account and then click on Adsense Setup and then Adsense for Content. You’ll come to the following screen:

Select the Link Unit and click Continue. You’ll then be able to choose a horizontal or vertical link unit while determining the number of links that will show up in each unit.

After which, you’ll have the option of setting up a channel to track the performance of the link unit. Create a channel by clicking on the Add New Channel link at the bottom of the screen and give it an appropriate name that suits your site.

And you’re done! Just copy the code to your site template and the link units should show up immediately.

Optimization Guidelines for Adsense Link Units

Most of these optimization tips apply to Adsense ad units as well so they may not be new to you:

• Text color for the link unit should be the same as the link color for your website.
• Remove the ad borders and ensure that the background color matches your site. This will increase the potential for blending and clickthroughs.
• Above the fold placement or placement of link units near the top of any webpage will work best for link units.
• Avoid Ad Congestion and clutter. Link units should not be placed too closely to other advertisements because they may be easily overlooked by visitors. Link units work best when placed to navigational links or as standalone units.
• Optimize for Search Traffic. Link Units work best with visitors from search engines and should be placed on pages which receive the most consistent search traffic, even if you don’t want to use them on a site wide basis.
• Use Ad Channels. Ad channels allow you to measure the performance of each link unit you use and allows for comparative analysis. Essential if you want to know which link unit to drop and which to maintain.
• Mirror your site link structure. One useful method to improve your link unit click through rate is place your link unit beneath or beside your on-site navigational links. This conceptually makes them blend in extremely well although they may confuse visitors.

Four Link Unit Placement Examples

Adsense link unit placement can be broadly divided into four formats, each involving different usages of both horizontal and vertical link units.

I’ve included several screenshots of each format and have included a brief commentary on how you can use them for your own website.

1. Horizontal Link Units as Menu/Navigation Links

In my opinion, this is by far the best way to use link units because they do appear to be exactly like menu links and will attract navigational clicks from visitors who are trying to find more information from your website.

You can include the link units within your header, just beneath your header or only on individual webpages or blog post pages. The key point is to keep them above the fold to ensure maximum visibility.

2. Horizontal Link Units as Footer links

Footer link units are the most unobtrusive and will attract clicks from visitors who browse or scan your website from top to bottom. They can be a useful addition to other link units placed above the fold.

I’ve used horizontal link units as a footer link on Dosh Dosh for about a week and the results have been rather satisfying, given its almost indiscernible placement on the homepage.

I initially put them up as an experiment and I have found that this link unit makes me a few dollars a day, which is not too bad at all.

3. Vertical Link Units as Category Links

I’ve seen some blogs and websites use vertical Link Units as some sort of a category unit in their sidebar. I think these vertical ad units generally perform poorly in comparison to the horizontal link units, which are more well blended and less ad-like.

Unless you’re willing to create a linking structure similar for the link units (see the first screenshot on top), they are likely to stand out like a sore thumb.

Then again, the vertical link unit’s performance may depend on your actual site design and layout so you’ll need to test them to see if they do attract ad clicks from visitors.

4. Vertical Link Unit within Content

I’ve come across very few websites which include a link unit within actual content of a web page and I always wonder how they are performing for these publishers.

Most webmasters would rather include an Adsense ad rectangle instead of a link unit because it only provides one click earnings, instead of the two-clicks which you need from link units.

Giving up a prime in-content spot to link units is not a good idea and it might actually add to the overall clutter of your webpage.

Disadvantages of Adsense Link Units: Factors to Consider

Some have suggested that very well-blended Adsense Link Units are unethical because they can be made to appear as legitimate navigational links which have a high chance of inducing clicks from visitors who are searching for information on your site.

A visitor might click on the link thinking that it is a category or menu button of some sort, only to be led to a Google Adsense page full of links.

While the links might be relevant to the link unit text and your site, some visitors might not like the feeling of being ‘tricked’ when they click on the link unit.

Another issue to consider is that these link units are exit points which siphon traffic away from your site. Instead of browsing more pages on your site, a visitor might click on a link unit and then click on another link to be led to another site.

The visitor might not return to your website again and the likelihood of this is higher if they are led to a page full of ad links which point to similar websites or even your immediate competitors.

Experiment, Document and Evaluate.

As many have mentioned before, experimentation and analysis is the best to way to ensure that you’ll make money with Adsense. You need to put up ads and measure them over time to assess their performance.

Don’t be reluctant to tweak your ad placement to see if you can achieve higher click through rates. Only by experimenting with different ad formats and placement positions can you find an format that will bring you the most potential for profit.