Google AdSense: Understanding Alternate Ads and PSAs

We all know that Google AdSense works by serving targeted Ads to the websites that are enrolled with the Google AdSense program. However, there are instances when no targeted Ads are available for a website e.g. the website might be catering to such a topic or subject for which no relevant Ads/advertisers are available. In such a case, Google serves alternate Ads i.e. content of your choice. If you have not specified any content as Alternate Ads, Google AdSense program treats PSAs i.e. public service Ads as alternate Ads and serves them on your website. These PSAs are charitable Ads that don’t contribute to your revenue. So, unless you are looking to do charity (which could mean lessening of revenue for you), you must specify Alternate Ads upfront.

Here are the options that you have for alternate Ads (your choice of content):

Color: A number of people use color for alternate Ads. This involves specifying a valid hexadecimal color code (or you can choose from the color palette provided by Google) for the alternate ad. The choice of color would be such that the ad becomes invisible. This is easily achieved by setting the color of the ad same as the background color of the page.

Image: An image can also be used as an alternate ad. You can either have this image link to some other web page (in such a case you will need to specify an html as alternate ad) or you may just use it as such (for, maybe, enhancing the beauty of your web page).
Another good option is to use ‘Collapsing ad units’. ‘Collapsing ad units’ code will squeeze the ad units that are not utilized (instead of showing the PSAs) on your website. This approach helps in giving a cleaner look to the web page (since the blank areas or non-ad-based images are done away with). It also helps in bringing more emphasis to the AdSense Ads that are displayed on the website.

Top 4 Tips for getting the best results from your AdSense Ads

The revenue that you earn from Google AdSense program is totally dependent on you and your abilities. Here are some tips that you can use to get the best results from your AdSense Ads:

1. Use channels: Channels help you in conducting a better analysis of the performance of your AdSense Ads. You can use custom channels to check what web pages are making more revenue and which ones are not doing so well. In fact, custom channels can be used for conducting analysis on multiple aspects at the same time. You can use this analysis for making amendments to your AdSense Ads or website content in order to get better results.
2. Ad customization and positioning: Shape, Size and color are the three properties of your AdSense Ads that you can easily control and customize in a way that the Ads don’t look out of place when served on your website. You can either make your Ads stand-out from the rest of the content on your webpage or you can make them blend with the overall webpage. Moreover, you can identify the hot spots on your website and position your Ads accordingly. Ad customization and Ad positioning are, in fact, the best ways to attract more clicks to your AdSense Ads.
3. Content quality: ‘The best generally overcomes the rest’ – is a very true saying. If you host quality content on your website and provide regular updates to your visitors, you can expect more traffic to your website. This will in turn lead to more ad impressions and possibly more clicks.
4. Use AdSense Ads on all pages: If you have multiple web pages on your website, you should include AdSense Ads on all of them. Since the visitors can enter your website through a number of different pages, having AdSense Ads on all the pages will surely increase your earnings.

Tips For AdSense For Feeds

You now know what ‘AdSense for Feeds’ means and you must also understand that it’s a big opportunity in the offing. Acquiring more, upfront knowledge on AdSense for feeds can really get you ahead of others in the race for benefiting from AdSense for feeds:

AdSense for feeds is currently in beta testing phase and the content publishers are just waiting for the flood gates to open in order to start earning revenue through the AdSense Ads in their feeds. Here are the top 3 tips that will help you fully capitalize on this revenue earning opportunity:
Content Quality: You will earn Google AdSense revenue only if people subscribe to your feed. The more subscriptions you get, the better are your chances of success with AdSense for feeds. Since most people would be looking for quality content, you need to make sure that your feed contains up-to-date quality information that is presented to the users in an easy-to-understand language. Besides that, the feeds should be free from grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Content Quantity: Include as much content in your feeds as you possibly can. Again, the aim is prove that the feed is useful and comprehensive (so that more users subscribe to it). If you feel that the complete article cannot go into the feed, include a good summary of the article. Limit The Ad Units: If the users find that your feeds contain too much Ads, they might not subscribe to your feeds at all (and the whole purpose of feeds would get defeated). In order to ensure that you get good subscription to your feeds, you should limit the ad units to one per feed. Another good way of ensuring that your feeds don’t look like an advertising medium is to place the Ads either at the end of article or after sufficient discussion on the topic.
So, get ready for enhancing your ‘AdSense for feeds’ revenue with these tips.Your wait may soon be over. Keep the tempo going and keep checking Google’s AdSense blog for updates about the launch of AdSense for feeds.