AdSense Placement and Blending for Noobs

Posted by MyOwnDemon

March 20, 2008

This is far from a full guide on AdSense placement and blending, but don’t worry. We’ll retouch on many of these topics later in more detail in future posts. If you’re having trouble making money with adsense, here’s some quick tricks and tips that should increase your CTR and earnings. Enjoy.

Love it or hate it - you have probably used (or will use) Google Adsense as a way to monetize your website. Adsense, when used correctly, is a very effective, quick, and easy way to make a few extra bucks (Google paid me to say that). But, don’t expect those precious clicks if you don’t take the time to properly place and design your ad units.

No Brainer: Targeted text links + great placement + proper blending = $$$

Example:

The other day I was putting together a quick niche website about a cult movie. I stole some content off Wikipedia and IMDB (dupe content doesn’t exist; more about that in later posts), found some related pictures, videos, etc. I slapped wordpress on the domain and set everything up. The site was live with content, and it was time for my favorite part - monetizing.

For this particular site, I decided to monetize with Adsense. There are literally ZERO affiliate offers related to this movie, so instead of loading up my site with poorly designed, seizure-inducing banners, I figured contextual text links would be the way to go.

Okay, awesome. But…

… where do I place these ad units? What spot would get the highest CTR? Should I blend them? Should I make the ads stick out like a sore thumb to attract attention? What size ad unit should I use? Where do babies come from? Why does MyOwnDemon get all the tang?

Well, young apprentice, a lot of these things can only be determined by trial and error. Here’s the boring answer you don’t want to hear: you will have to play with placement and colors to see what works best for your particular site. I know. What a cop out, right? But, don’t worry, there is a simple answer to your questions…

You see, below I have listed several strategies for effectively placing ad units until you get enough testing data to make better decisions. Simply follow the instructions below and increase your CTR, earnings, and ePenis size. It’s that simple.

AdSense Placement:

The highest performing adsense unit you can place on a page is a 728×90 horizontal unit, right underneath the header. I say that with confidence. Some may disagree, but in my experience, no matter the niche - this has always proven to be the best performer by far. Always put an adsense unit under your header, unless you don’t like making money.

Another good place to put adsense is right within the content itself (wow, who would have thought it?). Any size ad unit will do - just make sure it doesn’t appear out of place. Usually if the site is running wordpress, I will modify the theme to place an adsense unit in the first post on EVERY page. Some people swear by the 336×280.

So, there you go. You should now have 2 adsense units ABOVE the fold. However, just like a genie will grant you 3 wishes, Adsense allows you to place 3 ad units. So you might as well take advantage of it.

“But, MyOwnDemon, where should I place this 3rd unit?”

Glad you asked (like you had a choice). Place this 3rd unit wherever you want. This will be your test unit to move around the page. By having a movable test unit you can experiment a bit and find areas that might get a high CTR while not messing with your moneymakers (ad unit 1 and 2).

But, please, always use a 728×90 under your header. Do it for the kids.

Blending:

I’ve done extensive testing on this in the past, and it’s pretty common sense, but I still have to mention it. What do YOU think someone will be more likely to click on - An ad that looks like it’s part of the content, or a pink and purple ad that resembles a poorly designed Myspace profile (this begs the question - is there such thing as a well designed myspace profile)?

Anyway, I think the choice here is clear. Make the internet a better place and blend your ads to match your site.

See you next time.

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