Earnings from putting AdSense ads

A frequent complaint from new AdSense publishers are that they are not earning anything, or they are not earning the amount that they expect, especially from those whose sites are new on the Web. This post is to address these complaints and more. Earnings from putting AdSense ads, referral text/buttons or Google search bar on one's site depend on a number of factors. I will address them one by one. Some of them are inter-related. This will be a long post, so I will just summarise the factors that are needed to get increased earnings from AdSense: Good content, high traffic, easily visible and relevant ads, suitable template, ads optimised for placement, colour and format.

Content
In the first place, the site should have interesting and/or informative content that will attract visitors and search engines. One cannot expect to start a blog with just one simple post, put ads, referral text/buttons and/or Google search bar there and immediately start generating earnings. Earnings need traffic, and to get traffic takes time. Surprisingly, there are AdSense publishers who have just joined recently asking why he/she is not earning in the Google AdSense Help group.

Traffic
One can almost say that earnings are proportional to the traffic you get to your site or sites as the more people see your site (therefore ads), the more likely someone may click on them. There are various ways to increase traffic to your site. Have a look at this post: How to build traffic to your blog

Ads visibility
You should put your ads where people are most likely to see them, and this mean putting them above the fold. Above the fold means the section of a webpage which is first seen when someone land on your site without having to scroll vertically. It would be good also if they don't need to scroll horizontally to see the rest of the page for a good visitor experience. This is one of he main reason I am using Ramani's 3 column template as 5-20% of my visitors are stil using the 800x600 screen resolution. One should have a visitors (hits) counter like How do I track visitors to my site or other good counters which give you sufficient statistics. Statcounter, for example, has a "system statistics" which shows me how many of my visitors are using what screen resolution. And currently, it shows that 5-20% of my visitors are still using 800x600 screen resolution (small screen). Visitors with larger screen will see blank spaces on both sides of the content). If you are bothered by the "wasted blank space" in larger screens, you may choose a fluid width template like this blog Thur's 3 column old classic template modified to have narrower sidebars. If you are using a large screen and would like to see how the blog appears to small screen visitors, type of paste this: javascript:top.resizeTo(800,600) into the address bar and press the ENTER key (works for FireFox and Internet Explorer 6, but not for IE7 or Opera).

Ads relevant to the content
People who visit your site are people who are interested in the content of the site. If you have ads that are relevant to the content, it is more likely that they will also be interested in what the ads have to offer, and thus are more likely to click on the ads. For more details on how to get ads relevant to the content, go to How to Google ads that are more relevant to your site content

Use a 3 column template
Using a 3 column template will allow you to put your ads in one sidebar (I prefer the left sidebar as most people read from left to right) and navigation aids, etc., in the other sidebar. If you agree and want a 3 column template for your blog, for old classic Blogger template, refer to Thur's 3 column old classic template modified to have narrower sidebars, and for New Blogger templates, refer to Ramani's 3 column template for New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta) and New Blogger 3 column templates modified by Charlemagne Stavanger

Ads Placement
Depending on the site, certain position for ads may tend to do better than other positions. In general, refer to the heat map below, where position colored dark red tend to perform best, going down to white which tend to perform worst.

The heat map is only a guide. In placing the ads, you should also ask yourself:

* What is the user trying to accomplish by visiting my site?
* What do they do when viewing a particular page?
* Where is their attention likely to be focused?
* How can I integrate ads into this area without getting in the users' way?
* How can I keep the page looking clean, uncluttered and inviting?

AdSense recommend putting the interest of visitors first in positioning ads when deciding on ads placement and numbers. One shouldn't have so many ads that it overwhelms the visitors.

For pages which visitors tend to only glance through without really reading the content, placing the ads in places that are most visible will do better. In pages where visitors read the post or article, placing the ads at the end of the post or article would do the best as after finishing reading, the reader will be asking himself, "what should I do next".

Blending the ads to the color of your site
AdSense has consistently recommended blending the color of your ads to that of the site so that they appear like part of the site. To learn how and to find tool to help you blend the ads to the site, refer to How to blend the ads and searchbar to colors of your site. However, you should be careful not to blend the ads so well that they appear almost invisible to your visitors.