Getting the best out of AdSense

I intended to post a more comprehensive entry about Google AdSense for some time now but refrained from it because of AdSense AUP. Likewise, they did not allow us (AdSense members) to publish any details of our account earnings. They have since allowed publishing of revenues except for CTR and CPM stats just weeks ago. And since Rain has started an entry about this, I might as well follow up on it.

In the 15 months that I signed up for AdSense, my monthly revenues varied from a low $20 to an all-time high of $80 each month. (This is nothing compared to what Connie earns on a weekly basis. :D) In any case, the clicks that I am getting are fairly good enough for a blog, even when compared to regular bloggers in the west.

In all these time of inserting AdSense codes, customizing, and placements and channel analysis, I learned some few pointers of my own.

• Since AdSense relies on content relevance (contextual), make it a point to post enough content for it to be able to recognize ad relevance.
• Users or readers are familiar with what an ad or banner looks like and more likely, they don’t like them much more click on them. So, focus on making and customizing the ads as if they are part of the content. Text colors, backgrounds and border colors should be at least within the color scheme of your website.
• Ad types and sizes matter. Obviously, image banners earn more than text ads so optimize your site ads to cater to them. From experience, the 728×90, 468×60 and 160×600 skyscrapers are advertiser’s favorites. (This is based on local ad placements. Remember the AirBorne Access banners?)
• Some ads pay better than others. While some ads pay as low as $0.01 per click, you could land some high-paying clicks as much as $3-5 each. Ads on web hosting, banking and finance, as well as real estate pay the highest premiums, so talk about these topics in your blog once in a while.
• Google illustrated a “heat map” for ad placements. Follow this map the best you can without compromising the original layout of your site and contents.

Google Heat Map. Earning from blogs isn’t an overnight gig. One has to work for it. A $1 a day of AdSense earnigns is still $30 a month or $365 a year. That’s more than what you need to pay for your domain and hosting. That’s still something.

Check out Google AdSense’s Optimization Tips for more ideas.

Please be reminded that the tips I shared here are based on my personal experience with using Google AdSense. They might work best for me but I do not guarantee that it will also work for you. Likewise, all these will be for naught if you don’t have regular readers to boot as they are key to a higher and more successful revenue stream. ;)