Guest post by Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips.
I have been using Google AdSense to monetize my blogs and websites for as long as I remember. In fact it was the first method I ever tried (I made a whooping $15 on my first month… back in 2005). Over the years I migrated to other methods (e.g., direct sponsors and affiliate marketing), which made AdSense become merely an inventory filler. I was still making around $1,000 monthly from it, but whenever I could I would use other methods over it.
Then some months ago I started noticing an upward trend on the CPC of my sites, and I figured that I should give AdSense another try. I started applying some tricks here and there, and the next month I made over $3,000 with it (that is combining all my sites). I was pleasantly surprised, and I decided to keep using it actively on some sites.
In this article I want to share with you the tips and tricks I used to triple my AdSense earnings in one month.
1. I added units to my Big Websites
Daily Blog Tips and Daily Writing Tips are my largest websites in terms of traffic. They are getting close to one million monthly page views (combined). Despite that I was not using AdSense on them, mainly because the direct sponsorship model was working relatively well.
Some months ago I decided to load some AdSense units on the sites, however, and the results were very positive. Around 70% of the boost I generated to my earnings came from these two sites. At the same time I managed to keep the other monetization methods working fine, and no reader ever complained about the new ads (more on that later).
Even if your blog is already making money with direct sponsors and affiliate marketing, therefore, you could still manage to increment your earnings by strategically adding some AdSense units.
2. I added units to my Small Websites
As many webmasters do, I have a bunch of small websites scattered around the web. Some are on free hosted platforms like Blogger, and others are self hosted sites that I abandoned along the way. Most of these sites still get traffic, however. Not much, but combined the numbers get decent.
I figured that adding AdSense units to all these sites could yield some money, and I was right. The main reason is that, since these are abandoned sites and don’t have loyal visitors, I can place the units very aggressively. The result was a very high CTR (Click-through rate), which compensates the small traffic levels.
Don’t underestimate the earning potential of small websites, especially if you are willing to place AdSense units aggressively.
3. I used the Large Units
If you want to make money with AdSense you’ll inevitably need to use one of these units: the 336×280 large rectangle, the 300×250 rectangle, the 120×600 large skyscraper or the 728×90 leaderboard.
Whenever I tried to use smaller units the results were disappointing. Even if I positioned them aggressively the CTR was just too low.
All four units mentioned above can produce good results, but the best performing one is by far the 336×280 large rectangle, and that is the one I used to boost my earnings.
4. I placed the Units above the Fold
My first trial was to place the 336×280 large rectangle between the post and the comments section of my blogs. The results were OK. I then decided to try placing them below the post titles for one week, and the CTR skyrocketed. In fact I still need to find a placement/unit combination that will beat placing a 336×280 unit below post titles.
I knew this rule, but I guess I needed to test and get confirmation. The rule is: if you want to make money with Google AdSense, you must place your units above the fold.
5. I Focused on Organic Traffic
My main concern with adding a large AdSense unit right below my post titles was that some of the loyal readers could get annoyed with it. At the same time I knew that loyal readers become ad blind quite fast, and that the bulk of my money would come from organic visitors (i.e., people coming via search engines to my posts).
To solve this problem I decided to display the large rectangle only on posts older than seven days (using the Why Do Work WordPress plugin). It worked like a charm, as loyal readers don’t even notice the ad units when they are browsing through my recent posts, and organic visitors almost always see the ads because they usually land on posts older than seven days.
6. I started using AdSense for Search
I was not sure how much money I would be able to make with AdSense for Search, but I was not happy with the search results provided by WordPress, so I decided to give it a shot anyway.
Currently I am making around $60 monthly with AdSense for Search. It is not much, but if you sum it over one year we are talking about $720. On top of that the search results are as relevant as you’ll get, so it is a win win situation.
7. I started using AdSense for Feeds
Another AdSense product I decided to try was the AdSense for Feeds one. I opted to display the ads below my feed items (you can also place them on top, but this would be too intrusive in my opinion). The results here were pretty good, both in terms of CTR and earnings.
You obviously need a large RSS subscriber base to make this work, but I am guessing that even with a couple thousand subscribers you could already make $100 monthly from feed ads.
8. I played around with section targeting
Section targeting is an AdSense feature that allows you to suggest specific sections of your site that should be used when matching ads. You can read more about it here.
I found that on niche and small websites section targeting can help a lot. Often times Google was displaying unrelated ads on these sites because there weren’t enough pages. After using section targeting I managed to increase the relevancy of the ads and consequently the CTRs.
9. I tested with Different Colors and Fonts
If you enabled both image and text ads on your units you should be able to customize the colors and fonts. I did some testing with both of these factors, and it helped to increase the numbers. Nothing dramatic, but it was definitely worth my time.
You just need to track your CTR for a couple of weeks. Then change the color or font and track it for another week, seeing if you can beat the original CTR. If you can, keep the new format. If you the performance decreased, try a new color or font and track the CTR for another week, until you find the optimal combination.
On my sites the best results came from making the ad units merge with the look of the site, but on some sites contrasting colors perform better, so testing is a must.
Daniel is the owner of Daily Blog Tips. He is also the author of the Make Money Blogging ebook, which you can download for free by signing up to his newsletter.
Some good tips. I really go back and forward on my feelings toward adsense. Like you used to I tend to use them as “filler” when no other form of monetisation is immediately apparent.
I have tried different colors and one color combination that seems to work well for me is dark blue links, with grey blurb and url. Each site/blog is different though!!
I would love to make a bit more from adsense for search, it is so dismal. I only keep it on because I think search adds functionality to my site.
thanks for sharing some good tips.
Hey Daniel,
Great advice – thanks.
I like you have several blogs dotted around (on the back burner) and I do have AdSense on them but I have never taken the bullet and added them to my main blogs.
With you sharing the Why Do Work WordPress plugin, I think I should start adding AdSense to my main sites and test the results.
Thanks again.
Andrew
Wow – this is execellent information.
I’ve not been making that much with Adsense myself and actually removed it from another big site, but after reading Daniel’s tips I will have to reconsider adding them back to my sites.
I think the concern with adsense is some times the quality of the ads is quite poor so you have to wonder if the ads aren’t turning off your readers.
That said, in your article you reveal other units (like the search) that I’ve not yet explored and will have to consider.
Thanks so very much for sharing!
Krizia
Thanks for sharing your success. I too wrote a guest past several months ago here on PB about my increased success. The large rectangle ads make a huge difference especially when they are above the fold. People have to continue testing and trying new things or they are loosing out. I too have been able to break that $3k mark and it’s a very nice monthly earning.
It seems everything points to having significant traffic. Which I personally think many bloggers forget about when starting a site, adsense won’t make you any significant income until you start getting significant traffic, search traffic, not referrals.
Hi Danielle,
Awesome tips! To be honest, I was about to give up on Adsense but began playing around with it a couple of months ago. By placing link units at the top of each blog post, I was able to triple my Adsense earnings. This combined with other sources of revenue has enabled me to work on my own stuff, without having to rely too much on client work.
To me, the key is the content. You can place Adsense everywhere but if you don’t have good content no one is going to want to come by anyway. So I focused on adding more content (and I mean good content, not fluff) and it’s working – not only revenue-wise, but traffic-wise.
Something else that’s important to note is how long it takes to see results. A mistake some bloggers make is to expect the traffic and revenue to roll in immediately. This rarely happens. It takes months – even years for that to happen.
Thanks, Daniel. When I read posts like this I dont fee so dirty for using Adsense.
Sorry, I meant Daniel (as we do know each other) not Danielle.
Most of these tricks are not useful to webmasters who has low traffic, these won’t make any significant changes, but I do appreciate you for sharing these tips.
You mentioned the large squares have greaet CTR.. is it text or image? Which one do you recommend?
Hey Daniel,
Awesome post! I dedicated a post to it on my blog =) I basically summarized this post, and sent them back here. Thanks for the tips – keep ’em coming!
Kris Roxas
Great tips, i was actually looking for something like that to increase Adsense earnings.
Does anyone know of a WordPress or Drupal plugin that allows you to choose whether you put Adsense or Amazon on a story by story basis?
After fiddling around for many months, I found the best results are achieved with a single AdSense unit, the large rectangle, placed between the post title and the post content. I don’t worry about my regular readers, since ads become invisible to them.
Other units on the same page diluted CTRs enough to dilute earnings.
The AdSense for Search ($20/mo) and for Feeds ($10/mo) are very small compared to the main AdSense ($800/mo), but I figure they come for free.
Pretty basic tips, although, everybody should follow them.
Im seeing the same trends as well. I have a couple of technology sites with good traffic but I really haven’t implemented Adsense before.
I tweaked the design to suit Adsense and I started growing my adsense rev as well..
That seems like a great idea to have adsense show up on a certain number of days afterward. I personally don’t like the spammy feel I think adsense gives but I completely agree with you that any traffic after the first few days is search traffic and worth putting adsense on that for sure.
great stuff!
Hey,
These are great tips. I always had one, middle gray ad on my blog with a black themplate. It wasn’t too agressive, but it was enogh so everyone notices it, and ads were very related to my content, so that’s good.
A few days ago, I placed the 728×90 at the bottom of my page, because I saw on other sites that they usually appear as image ads.
Since my blog is 3 months old, I don’t earn a lot, yet, heh! I’m still getting about 100 visitors daily and in order to really earn money with Adsense, you should have at least 1000 visitors daily!
Great post!
That shows that you still can depend on Adsense. Basic but Good tips. Actually I also wrote a post on Adsense which has some more Advanced tips. But these are great too.
thnaks for sharing this information with us. I am using google adsense from last 5 months but doesn’t get to much from it. not a single in 15 days or a month. i have a preety good traffic from both organic and inorganic. Can you have any suggestion for me what should i do.
Daniel,
Surely some useful adsense tips there and since they are coming from an experienced blogger, they are worth trying too. As a reader, I can say that Ads are by default annoying for reader. So only those ads will work best which seamlessly integrate with the content and don’t feel out of the place.
Keep more such posts coming! Thanks.
Are you not concerned that your account will be smart priced? I took adsense off a lot of my smaller sites because at one point I got smart priced. I’m a little gunshy about putting it back up now that I’m earning well per click on the sites it’s on again. Any ideas?
I use the Who Sees Ads plugin to hide ads from regular visitors.
Excellent blog! I never thought about not having adsense show on new blogs. Very insightful! Great tip!
Great post…can always find an audience when you talk about increasing Adsense revenue..Like many bloggers, I have gone from all Adsense, to no Adsense, and now to using Adsense as one of several revenue streams.
One think I’ve discovered…
Many bloggers (myself included) use Adsense when first starting out. It’s the easiest way to monetize your site.
After awhile, we learn about other affiliate programs and decide Adsense is not cutting it, and remove them.
As we become more established we decide to give Adsense another try and find out you can make a “decent” amount of money from it.
What changed?…
In the beginning, we use Adsense because it is the easiest program to start with. However, with only a marginal amount of traffic, no revenue generating program will be successful. It is easy to blame Adsense, so we stick with that excuse.
Later in the development of our site (and ourselves) we decide to “give” Adsense another chance…and walla..you can actually make money now! You can probably see where I’m going with this. Adsense, or for that matter any revenue program, will do better as our site(s) mature and traffic increases. During the phase, we also have read/learned what phrases like “hot zones”, “blending”, and “above the fold” mean.
While blog monetization programs can improve over time, the real difference is made by improving the blogger.
I have always been so horrible at Adsense. I hope these tips add some sense to my Adsense.
great basic tips but you need traffic to make it work and scale… anyway adsense is so 2000 and it is sometimes the best way to lose great reader :-)
All well said about Adsense very simple measures to be taken and results take you extreme levels. Thanks for sharing Daniel.
Great! Thanks for the tip on using “Why Do Work” to manage your adsense displays!
I’m going to try using this plugin as soon as I get the current series of posts I’m writing completed.
Are Google ads a distraction to sites that rely on affiliate sales? I’ve considered remove all adsense ads to see if my sales revenue is impacted. Appreciate any thoughts!
Good tips. But I don’t like putting image ads. Image ads are bonanza for AdWord advertisers. One advertiser takes over all the pixels of a large ad. And the best performing image ads from the AdWords advertisers prospective are those that look like simple Text ads, sneaky.
You ask any adword advertisers, and I can also ell you from my own experience, that we as adword advertisers like image ads in content networks. So, if you’re doing both, it is a constant battle between AdSense and AdWords. We like to be paid high in AdSense and want to pay least in AdWords. Quite a quandrum!
This was a really helpful post. Thank you!
Very interesting. I like the idea of placing Adsense on posts older than 7 days – as you say then you don’t tick off the loyal readers and the organic traffic is typically time delay by 7 days or more (did not know that … but then my organic is only just beginning to imrove). The other thing that I am definitely going to implement is the “abandoned” small sites – I too have a few and some continue to get traffic. Would you recommend putting up something fresh now and then?
Thank you for some excellent tips.
best…………..valentina
Great tips! I’ve found adsense disappointing in the past but it might be time to give it another try.
Thanks Daniel, great article again and I’ll try the tips. Thanks for sharing.
Another Tip That I want to Add is: Keep Tryin…Keep Trying with Different Combination…
I don’t mean to be too in your face with this, but let’s just say I definitely have a different view on this. Great post though…
@Daniel Wong, usually I leave them with both images and texts. On some spots and sites I do test with “only text” to see if it improves the eCPM.
Also, increase traffic through constant backlinking and being social (twitter, facebook, etc…)
@Vivek, what kind of traffic are you currently getting?
@Jackie Lee, you can combat the smart pricing problem by using the “competitive ad filter”. You’ll need to spend some time identifying the cheap advertisers, but it might be worth it.
@Sammy, this should be easy to test. Track your total income (affiliate + adsense) for a couple of months, then remove AdSense and track the total affiliate income for another couple of months. Then figure which one was higher.
Nice list of steps all webmasters should go through.
I found number 5 very helpful. I never really thought about this, but I can see where it would be annoying. There really is a lot more to being succesfull at adsense than I thought. Thank You
For better results use 336×280 adblock and following colors:
Link Color: #3D81EE
Text Color: #A1A1A1
Url Color: #CC0000
well I thoroughly enjoyed reading this blog post! The best thing that I have found that I have learned about the Adsense program is that I still haven’t figured it all out yet! – LOL! You’re right! You have to continue to experiment with placing your ads.
Number 5 seems new things for me. I will try it for my adsense strategy from now on.
I have toyed and tested using the big adSense blocks just below the title, however did not notice much different in CTR.
Looking at the website from a readers perspective I was a little annoyed at how I had the title and ads and had to scroll down before I got to any of the content.
I might try and use the bigger ad blocks again and see whether my CTR improves.
thank you for your suggestions through this interesting article helped me to increase revenue through adsense.
I am completely disillusioned with adsense (or any other advertising that requires a visitor to take some form of action before I get paid). In 2 years of using adsense I have earned a total of $2.79. I figure at that rate I’ll get my first cheque from google in about 75 years from now. Can’t wait!
I’m not saying that you can’t make money from adsense, just that I never have. :-(
Kind regards,
Steve.
Thanks for the wonderful tip. I’ve been using adsense for around 1 year and a half now but im still experimenting on the combination. Sometimes I combine 336X280 and 160X600 but still getting cents in one day. Now Im using image ads but seems viewers are blind with this ads. Its very frustrating. I will try your advise and hopefully I can earn bigger this time. I wish anybody out there can visit my website and give me an advise. Thanks for sharing!
Great tips, I plan to start implementing the Search right away. Thank you!
Great tips. I will try this. thanks for sharing.