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Copyright © The Voice
As a blogger, I was interested in creating
websites that I found were of personal interest to myself. I decided to
write and post articles that I found interesting and hopefully felt
that others would be interested in also. After all people create blogs
so they can share their feelings and aspirations. But when you create
that blog you also feel that you are putting a large amount of time
into the projects and wish to see if you are able to generate income
from your work. This is where Google Adsense comes into play.
I discovered Google Adsense mostly by accident and
was intrigued by the concept of Contextual Advertising. I felt if
Google could look at my site and deliver relavent ads to it, I thought
"Hey", that's great. I could use some extra bucks. After apply Adsense
to my websites, I waited for some clicks to come in. Well...I waited a
"long time" for little to nothing.
Not being the one to give up easily, I used small
and large ad formats and applied them to the top half of my website, to
the right side and bottom. I waited a period of time to see the results
and "surprise, surprise", I did get an increase in clicks. The only
problem was, the clicks were still small and didn't amount to much. By
this time most people would have given up and would have just moved
along to other advertisers. I seriously started to look at "Blogads" as
a source of revenue, but I finally came back to Google. I felt like I
was missing some critical pieces of information and decided the best
route to take was to learn by example. I looked long and hard at people
who were successful at adsense. I looked at thier sites, I made mental
notes of what they were doing and what kind of content they had. I read
thier own stories of success and then compared what they did against
each other.
What I found intrigued me. I found out that
successful people in the adsense program have relavent content and they
use human behavior to thier advantage. Now relavent content is a given,
but what I mean by "using human behavior" is a little more complex.
Evidently people arrive at your site and make up thier minds up in a
flash as to whether they intend to stay on your site or leave. They
look for something that catches thier interests and if it does, they
stay there to read your information or buy a product. Internet users
are "trained" to look in certain locations and ignore things that are
outside of thier narrow scope of vision. People can look to the sides
for information, but the propensity for them to do so is lower. By
putting ads directly "in thier face", you have a significantly higher
chance they will click it. This is where the "relavent content" comes
into play.
Now, I am not an adsense expert by any stretch of
the imagination and still learn new things everyday. I am like "you", a
person who wants to generate an income and hopefully have more
incentive to keep going. But...I know what works for me and what
doesn't.
Now, there were only a few things that I did to
increase my adsense clickthroughs and after experimentation, I am
convinced these are the winning ticket.
These are things I did:
I use a white background instead of color
backgrounds.
I remove the border on adsense so it does not look
like an ad and make sure it matches the background
I keep the Title and the Hyperlink "Blue".
I keep Adsense "above the fold", so they are the
"FIRST" things that people see when they arrive at the site.
I use these formats only.
The 338X280. Primarily used because it is large
and it does not look like an ad.
The small Google "ad links", (180x90) or others
similar, because they are not targeted tightly and give people options
to see other things that relavent to THIER interest.
I blend the ad to make it look like the rest of the titles.
I try to keep the ads "left" aligned.
I use the 160X600 vertical for people to see when
they move vertically down the website page.
I keep the site concise, clean and focused.
By using these tactics I was able to increase my
adsense clickthrough rate significantly depending on traffic level and
people's interest.
Take my advice and give it try. I believe you will
see a change and hopefully make adsense a more pleasurable experience.
About the Author:
I started blogging months ago and have enjoyed the
experience and made many new friends across the country. I am the
author of several websites and moderate them through the person known
as "The Voice". Feel free to visit my websites!
http://adsenseinformation.blogspot.com
http://weirdevents.blogspot.com
http://aboveblack.blogspot.com
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