Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ad Sense Secrets Exposed

By Julie Roze

Chances are you've heard the hype about making hundreds from Ad Sense. Is it a myth or reality? Mostly, it is possible, however, few achieve it. This is because people are putting the code on their site with barely any thought and expecting to make hundreds from it.

There are many ways to customize your Ad Sense ads. First, you want to think about location. Where is the best place to put your ads? Top? Middle? Bottom? Locations is one of the most important factors in Ad Sense. The best locations are just below the header, the upper left hand sidebar (if you have one), and directly in the center of the visible page (the user doesn't have to scroll). Also, another great place is directly at the bottom in the center, this gives your users a place to go.

Now, let's think about style. Borders should be avoided since they provide a visual barrier between your text and the ads. To make the border invisible, make it the same color as your web page background. Also, the ad background should be the same color. If you are placing ads in different areas of your web page with different background, make sure you mimic this in your ads settings. Yes, you could be creating different ads for the same page. This is why templates or dynamics pages are important.

Next, we have the title color. It should be the same color as the active links on your site, the area that you are placing the ads in. This will allow the users to know that they can click on it. The URL and text color should be the same as the main text color in your site for the area that you are placing the ad in.

Now, if you've paid attention, you'll notice the same theme in the paragraphs above. Make the Ad Sense blend in with your site with the exact same colors of your site. Instead of thinking of them as ads, think of them as small areas of important text related to your site. People have developed "Banner Blindness" and anything that looks like an ad will not get any attention or clicks, people simply don't see them anymore.

Here are a few more tips that may help you along the way. Avoid image ads, opt for the text only version. Make sure that you maximize your ads. At the time this article was written you are allowed 3 text ads, and 3 ad link units, these are the two I use. Be sure that you use them all on your pages.

Ad links work the best when placed in navigational areas. The border and background color should be the same as the background in the areas that the link unit is to be placed. The title color should be the same as the rest of the navigation links. Horizontal units can be placed just below the header or just above the footer. Vertical units can be placed in the middle, above, or below vertical navigational areas.

Try to get the same size of font as you are using. There are only two sizes, which are determined by the amount of link units. If you have 4 links in the unit, the font will be larger, if you choose 5 links, the font will be smaller. Also consider underlining your links so that they match Google's.

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