Making the AdSense Ads suit your website – Part 3 (Positioning of Ads)

The four important properties that help in making the AdSense Ads look good on your website are – shape, size, color of the Ads and their positioning. While the first three can be customized using the customization options provided by Google, ‘positioning of Ads’ is something that Google can only give you advice on. You are the best judge of what position would be best suitable for your AdSense Ads.

The positioning of your Ads relative to the rest of the content is important in order to adequately emphasize the Ads. However, positioning of the Ads is also dependent on the size and shape of the AdSense Ads. Though shape and size are customizable too, large size Ads are generally preferred because they help increase the number of Ad impressions you can get. However, sometimes the structure of your webpage might not allow a big size Ad. In such a case you would need to strike a balance between the size of your ad and the best positioning for it. A number of website owners use other properties in order to make the big size Ads appear smaller e.g. they might use the background color of the webpage for the background and border of the AdSense ad thereby making it look smaller than it actually is (besides achieving the blending effect, of course).

Position your AdSense Ads in such a way that they look in-place with the general flow of content on your website. You can even position a block in the middle of the content in such a way that it adds value to the content (while it also serves your purpose of increasing the AdSense revenue through clicks) e.g. you could add an AdSense Ad block just after a statement that points to resources for a particular task – and your AdSense Ads could possibly form some such resources. Placing the Ads just above the heading of an article or just after the end of the article is another good way of positioning your AdSense Ads.

So, position your AdSense Ads intelligently and you would be in for a party much earlier than you would have expected.

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website – Part 2 (Color of Ads)

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website is an easy job that can really enhance the effectiveness of your AdSense Ads (and hence increase the AdSense revenue for you). The four properties that contribute towards making the AdSense Ads look in-place on your website are – size, shape, color and positioning of the Ads. Though none of these properties can be regarded as more important than the others, the color of Ads is surely one thing that can help a lot in making the Ads blend with your website or making them stand out. Let’s take a closer look at this Ad customization option that Google provides to all the webmasters who use the Google AdSense program for earning revenue.

Color of your Ads:

This is one property of Ads that is fully customizable. You can easily customize the color of your Ads using the color palettes provided by Google; and there are more than 200 colors available. You can choose from several different colors that are available on the color palette (and 200 colors are enough for any website). You can choose colors for Border, Title, Text and URL. You can also set a background color for your Ads. As you select various options, you can see how the ad looks in the preview tool that is shown on the same page as the options; and you can accordingly make adjustments. The color combinations for the various parts of the Ad and for the background should match the color combinations used in the other parts of the website. To make the Ad blend with the website, you can use the background color of your webpage as the background color and the border color for your AdSense Ad. If you want to make the Ads stand-out, you can use contrasting colors for your Ads; however, this is generally not preferred unless you have other elements on the website that use similar colors too e.g. you can have the same background color and text color as the menu options. Once you have the right color combinations, you can save them as custom color palette which you can use later.
Similar color customization options are available for Google AdSense search results page too (as in, Google AdSense for search).

Making the AdSense Ads suit your website – Part 1 (shape and size)

Google AdSense program can reap even richer dividends for you if you are able to attract more visitors to your website and if you are able to prompt them to take action (i.e. click on the AdSense Ads). Google disallows statements that ask the visitors to click on the AdSense Ads. In fact, Google AdSense Ads are to be marked in some way as advertisements. However, there are other authentic ways of getting the clicks on your AdSense Ads.

Besides the copy and quality content, you can also improve the performance of your AdSense Ads by either making them blend with your website or making them standout. The aim is to make the AdSense Ads more attractive/ appealing to your website visitors and to make them look in-place (not out of place). Google too recognizes this need and hence it provides you with customization options for making the Ads look the way you want them to.

You can make the AdSense Ads suit your website by controlling the shape, size, color and positioning of the Ads. Let’s have a brief look at the first two properties i.e. shape and size:

1. Shape of your AdSense Ads: This is one of the most important customizations options that you have at your disposable. You can make your selection from a number of Ad formats that Google makes available to you. These include skyscrapers, single ad blocks and banners. Just check the suitability of the shape with respect to the webpage where you wish to include the AdSense Ad.

2. Size of your AdSense Ads: Again, you can use AdSense Ads of various sizes. The size is important not only for making the Ads look suited to your website but also for determining the number of Ads that can be displayed on the webpage by the Google AdSense program. A large size generally means that more Ads can be displayed on the page (and hence presents the opportunity for earning more revenue with increased impressions).

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.

AdSense For Search: What’s That?

Now, with account setup things over, let’s move on to further enhancing our knowledge about the Google AdSense program. Let’s start with checking what this ‘AdSense for Search’ is:

While talking about Google AdSense, we must not forget that Google is primarily known for its search engine capabilities (in fact, it is one of the most powerful search engines available today). So, how could Google leave out it search engine capabilities from its AdSense program? ‘AdSense for Search’ is how Google includes search engine bit into the Google AdSense program. ‘AdSense for Search’ can actually be termed as a sibling of Google AdSense program and is one great way of increasing website revenue for website owners. To implement ‘AdSense for search’, you just have to include the Google search box on your website. Again, Google offers the code that you need to use for including Google search box. You just have to paste the code at whatever place you deem as the most appropriate place for Google search box.

When your website visitors use Google search bar on your website, they get almost the same results as they would by using Google separately through google.com. When these website visitors click the search results, the website owner earns revenue (CPC revenue). You can even include AdSense Ads on the search results page and earn CPM or CPC revenue from them. Also, you can customize the search results page to suit your website’s theme. So, Google AdSense for search is one great way of making money just by including the Google search bar on your website. Besides that, the visitors to your website get an additional functionality through your website i.e. the facility to search the web using one of the most powerful search engine (without leaving your website). ‘AdSense for search’ is a great way of earning revenue through your website (and, in fact, one of the easiest ways too). A number of website owner actually use both the ‘AdSense for Search’ and the regular ‘AdSense for content’ in order to maximize their revenue.

AdSense For Feeds: What’s That?

Here is another thing that you need to understand when learning about Google AdSense program. Let’s take the plunge and check out what ‘AdSense for feeds’ means:

Google AdSense program offers more than one way of earning revenue from serving Google AdSense Ads. Though ‘AdSense for Feeds’ is one of the more recent ways of advertising using Google AdSense Ads, it’s in no way less effective than the others. Here, Google places the Ads of the advertisers in the relevant feed articles (again, note the most important characteristic of the Google AdSense program comes into play here too i.e. ‘relevant feed’ not just any feed).

The feeds are in the form of articles, headlines or summaries. These content formats allow the users to easily access the content from several publishers (content owners) at one place. This is achieved through feed aggregators like Bloglines etc. Again, Google uses its technology to determine what advertisements would be contextually suited for a particular feed. You get paid as the publisher of original content and hence make easy money. As for the readers, they as such get a rich experience because they can see the relevant advertisements with the content that they are interested in. Moreover, they can also choose the feeds that they want. Users can click the advertisements to visit the advertiser’s website and check if their products and/ or services are of any use to them. Of course, the Advertisers benefit too. They get targeted advertising which means only the really interested people get to know about their products and services (and hence there are more chances of a better conversion rate for sales).

So, the prime concept for ‘AdSense for feeds’ remains the same as the Google AdSense program; only the orientation changes a bit. But note that Google is currently beta testing ‘AdSense for feeds’. Beta test for the program quickly got fully subscribed, so Google is not accepting any more applications for AdSense for feeds.

It’s only a matter of time before Google AdSense for feeds hits the internet and opens another revenue earning opportunity for website owners.

AdSense Code Guidelines

As highlighted earlier (in the final step of Google AdSense account setup), you need to follow certain guidelines when you are adding the AdSense code to your web pages. Remember that if you don’t do it in the right way, you would not be earning Google AdSense revenue. So, pay heed to these guidelines: Adding the AdSense code to your web page is a very straight forward process.

You just need to copy the AdSense code from your AdSense account (as seen in the AdSense code box) and paste it in your html code. However, there are certain guidelines that you need to follow when pasting the AdSense code in your web page.

• Firstly, you should never tamper with the AdSense code in any way. It should be pasted as such, in its entirety, without any changes or modifications; otherwise your AdSense code will not work. Moreover, you might end up violating the AdSense program policies.
• Also, it’s important that you paste the AdSense code in the body tags of your html page. This is necessary for the code (java script) to run properly.
• Further, you must ensure that you use a maximum of three ad units per web page (this is the limit specified by Google AdSense program) and not more than 1 link unit per web page.
• Since content based Ad targeting is the main concept behind AdSense program, you need to ensure that you paste your AdSense code in the place where you have your main content pieces e.g. if you have your main content in a particular frame or a ‘DIV’ tag, your AdSense code should be pasted in that particular frame or ‘DIV’ tag.
• Be careful when using WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get) editors. Such editors sometimes add few tags on their own. So, paste the AdSense code only in source code directly and not in the preview page or any other view of your web page. Always check the AdSense code for additional irrelevant tags before you actually upload your web page to your
• server.

AdSense Account Setup – Part 4 (AdSense Code)

This is the final step in the setting up of Google AdSense account. In this step, you will get the AdSense code that you need to use on your website in order to start earning revenue from Google AdSense program. Let’s go ahead and work on this final step:
Once you are done with all the customizations, your AdSense code is generated in the AdSense Code box. You just need to copy this code (which is in the form of a programming script) from the AdSense Code box and paste it in your website as per the guidelines from Google. Since Google allows only three ad units per page, you can add the code at more than one place in your html code. The next step is to save your web page to the designated web server (as per the instructions from your web hosting service provider). Please note that Google AdSense program does not require you to send over your website’s html code to them; neither does it ask to load it onto their servers or do anything else with it.
The addition of AdSense code to your website’s code is the only thing that you need to do. Separate procedures are available with Google for people who want to use AdSense Ads with their blogs (you can check these on Google’s website for AdSense program).
Now that everything is done and dusted, you need to wait for a few hours (might be lesser than that) before Google’s web crawlers find your web page or blog that has AdSense code on it and you start seeing AdSense Ads on your web page or blog. You might see some PSA (charitable Ads) initially (almost immediately) but these will soon get replaced with the AdSense Ads that will earn revenue for you. If the content on your website violates the AdSense program’s policies, you might keep seeing PSAs even after few hours. In all such cases (or if you find objectionable Ads that don’t go even after you have applied appropriate filters), you will need to contact Google who will sort out the problems for you.