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101 Adsense Tips and Tricks

We thought we’d write this list to help others, as we needed help when we first started out. We’ve tried to keep it simple, but nonetheless it is in-depth.

So no waffle just information…

101 Adsense Tips and Tricks

Always have your first set of adsense units above the ‘fold’; which means immediately visible when a visitor clicks on your site.
Too many people forget to check the relevance of the adsense adverts.
If your site is about Property in the UK, you don’t want adverts about Property in Italy or Spain.
Keywords strategically placed in and around the adverts are essential.
Google pulls relevant adverts from various factors on your page. One is your page extension. If you have ‘mysite.com/page003.html’; Google is already struggling. This of course is also good ‘seo’ to name each page with the keyword your page is about. So call them for example – ‘mysite.com/property-in-london.html’
From continually researching ‘seo’ there are debates as to whether when naming your page extension you put ‘/property-in-london.html’ or ‘/propertyinlondon.html’ which then, we must consider, is better read by the search engines. Either way the best option is using the ‘-‘; because the reader when scrawling through the search results would read that easier then when the words are all bunched together. As we know when people are searching, they want easy and quick. Making it only a tad more difficult could cost you visitors.
The second most important aspect is your web page title tags. This means mainly the bit in-between <title> and </title>.
Here are the meta tags for this page:<head><TITLE>Adsense Tips and Tricks</title>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="101 Adsense Tips and Tricks">
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="adsense tips and tricks">
<meta name="Robots" content="index, follow"></head>
Don't spam your keyword or phrase in the keyword section.
The third most important is the heading tags. This means the <h1>, <h2> etc…
Try and keep the heading tags in and around your adsense ad units.
In these heading tags use your keywords or phrases.
In your heading tags don't say... This week's Superb Offers. Say... Best Property in London This Week.
For the purpose of getting good and relevant 'Adsense Ads'; also, although it is also good 'seo' you'll need to bold, italicise and underline your keyword phrases. Such as Adsense Tips and Tricks, Adsense Tips and Tricks, Google Adsense Tips and Tricks. ... :)
You can also put other html tags such as: <strong>AdSense Tips</strong>
Don't spam your page with keywords or phrases. 5% density is considered suitable. That is generally the keywords mentioned 5 or 6 times upon your page when you've got 400+ words.
If by now Google hasn’t been able to identify what subject your page is about you will be struggling further. You may find customer service ads upon your page. These are generally asking for donating funds to a needy cause. You'll not get paid any adsense money for displaying these.
Don’t automatically assume that you’ve found the right adsense unit that gives the best results. Everyone has previously mentioned the 336 x 280 pulls them in the most money. This generally is true, but the internet is constantly changing. So try a few experiments.
Your click through rate is very important so try testing other adsense units in different positions. Testing is a good policy.
Google’s own heat map is an excellent guide. You'll find this here: AdSense Heatmap.
Experiment. You will probably discover within a few days in a new idea or technique works or not.
Image ads versus text ads... Big discussion! We prefer text ads and notice better results. Image ads can look good, but add to the add blindness scenario. Text ad links look more generic.
How about using adsense 'site search'. This one needs testing. It works better on some sites than others. If you have over 50 pages it may be of some value. Or if the visitor drops on a obscure page that isn't exactly relevant - searching is a good option if no immediate links look relevant.
Where possible make your adsense units mingle in with the text on the page.
Even better make them have the same colour background.
Better again make them have the same colour text as your own text.
You can also change the 'link' colour. As predominantly the internet uses the blue link, it is best to leave this as blue.
Also a good idea when producing an adsense unit for your site... don't give it a border. As this can separate it from the site and make it look like an advert.
The purpose of no border allows the adsense unit to appear as if it is part of your own site and the links are upon your own site.
If you choose... try when building a new site for adsense to build it using the typeface used in Google's ads. This will make the ads blend into your site even better.
Consider making the other links on your page follow the same style of the Google Ads. Although the advice would be to reduce the quantity of other links.
Not got an adsense account yet? To get the AdSense account approved quickly, apply via blogger.com
High paying adsense keywords... Look in your own adwords account or try this free Google Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Note with this free tool that you can go to where it says 'choose columns to be displayed' and click on display all and it shows you what price adwords advertisers are paying for the top spot. It isn't exactly appropriate for adsense, but we can assume and I guess be fairly accurate that the same keyword for adsense is the top keyword too. It won't pay the same figure, but the ratio's and keyword list is helpful.
The column 'Estimated Avg. CPC', double click once, then twice, and you'll get the list displaying the highest to lowest paying keywords.
In fact the same goes for any of the columns. Double click the blue headings and you'll get them in descending order.
Don't forget that although you have 2 or 3 adsense ad units what you consider the first ad unit may not be so in reality. HTML works slightly different to how you would imagine. the search engine doesn't crawl your web site as it sees it in the browser, it reads the html script. So double check by switching your web design software to html and seeing in chronological order which adsense Google will come to first.
Another way to do that is to 'view source' within your own browser. when you view a web page, right click in a clear area and amongst the list that comes up is 'view source'; this opens a new browser where you see your site as the search engines read it. Alternatively if you are using 'firefox' which is preferable if you have adsense sites (more add on facilities to keep track of page rank etc), click on the view tag at the top and then 'page source'.
Use this in the Google Search box: allintitle:yourkeyword. This will help you determine whether you can compete successfully. For example type in - allintitle:widgets and you'll see how many websites have widgets in their page title.
Check the page rank of the top few websites listed. If the top few are separate web pages and not their main index page you may have a good chance of competing for that keyword or phrase and getting into the top 10.
Do you want a 100 websites that earn $1 each or do you want 5 that earn $20 each? The best advice here is to do as many as you alone can maintain. Too many and you cut yourself too thin and you'll not earn much.
When you only have a few adsense sites you can add content and it be quality rather than trying to add crappy content to 100 sites.
Having just one website leaves you with a dilemma if the site goes down the rankings. All eggs in one basket.
Niche websites tend to work better than general websites. When you have a niche you can target specific words better.
Bright ideas! A light-bulb moment; although rare (for me:)) are worth trying. If you have a good idea come back to this site and tell us about them.
Don't try too much on one page. Don't for example try to get people to your web page for 'cooking' as a general term, when your page is optimized for 'curry dishes'. Add and extra page for each specific keyword term or phrase you're interested in.
Remember this rule: Following the same theme. As people click on web pages they do so following a specific keyword phrase. Keep that keyword phrase as the main topic ALWAYS, otherwise you'll have them clicking the back button.
Consider as an option to open new links onto a new page. There is some 'html' script to do this. If they are navigating through your site and click on an outbound like they are lost from your site forever; even when they've clicked on a adsense link. But when you've still got a page open in their browser there is a chance they'll return to your page and press another adsense ad.
Allocate an hour a day to TEST new concepts and ideas. If you are part-time allocate 15 minutes.
Testing is the one thing can can multiply your adsense earnings. Sometimes two days is enough to see if a new idea is working and another time you'll need to leave it a week.
There is always a discussion as to whether a 'professional' looking website earns more money than a 'homemade' site. If you have a 'forex' site then professional sites work better. But if you have a home made cooking recipes, then a handmade style will suffice.
We have a philosophy to never give up. If you get to the stage of giving up the only thing you need is more education. Go searching the internet for more information. The limit to explore is only limited by your choice of keywords you put into the search engines. Expand your search, expand your mind and expand your profits.
How many Adsense Units per page? For each additional adsense unit after the first unit you decrease the adsense payout on every subsequent unit. To explain further... If you add another adsense unit lower down the page that unit will earn you less money as the adverts in it will be deemed as less relevant and subsequently the advertisers won't be be paying as much.
Add blindness... We all have this, as soon as we see a web page with adverts we ignore them visually and keep our eyes firmly on the text. So it is prudent to not make your adsense units merge into your page rather than have them stick out like a sore thumb.
If you are still a novice, don't click on your own ads as it will get you banned.
Have long and short term plans.
Your long term plans may take a bit more work. But steady work will increase your income. All successful businesses have a time management principle in place. This web page for example may take 5 to 6 hours to build and upload, but then the real works starts. We'll need to get it listed in the search engines and in the article directories. We may eventually spend as much as 40 hours promoting this web page alone, over perhaps a 2 month period. This amount of time would equate to one week's wage, so it is important that we can eventually say yes we have recovered such an investment in time. Plus the other benefits of better search engine placement forever. We're hoping it is a good long term tactic. At the same time giving valuable advice for other adsense users.
Short term plans may include items that are a little more instant. These may include tweaks to ineffective web pages. Or adding new content and new pages based on another keyword phrase.
Make your content valuable.
Make your content unique.
If you have a 1,000 page website and only 50 pages are good, don't just slap duplicate content on the other pages. Swap and change a few paragraphs, add a few lines here and there.
Content value has many benefits. One aspect of the Google Algorithm is to analyse how long people stay on your site. This aids your page rank. The longer they stay the more likely Google assumes you have quality content. Quality content will eventually improve your page rank.
There is an alternative argument that content that is too good doesn't get Google Adsense clicks; as we suppose may happen to this page.
Nonetheless try to hit a compromise. We aren't going to with this page as we intend to monetise it in different ways.
Page rank also improves your adsense payout. As you know Google pays out a percentage of what they receive. If they get $1 then you will get a good %. But the better your page rank the better the %.
We have made this page for that very purpose. To give excellent content that has value. Articles are good, but doing a list can give better results. Make the list different and better than any other list. Make a crappy list and nobody will ever return.
Long lists or long articles also have another benefit. By the time someone has read your page they are pretty chuffed, assuming the content is good. This mood you have created give them a need to search for more information. A fine place we may say for an adsense unit! :)
Page rank is important but doesn't guarantee traffic or a good search engine position. Sometimes you will get a zero page rank above you in the search engines. This can be for several reasons. Firstly because their site is better optimized for the keyword or phrase; or secondly they occasionally give new sites the benefit of the doubt and give them a good search engine position temporarily and see if visitors stay on their site. Once they have had a few days ranking higher than you, unless they are of value they'll slip down in the search engine positions and may be never seen again.
So with that point in mind, new sites or new pages that you make may well be given the same chance. Perhaps within the first 30 days, or even the first 3 or 4 days, you could be given a top ten Google slot; but if your content doesn't keep the visitor on the page you'll have lost your opportunity to stay in such a good position.
Don't introduce a page to the web unless it has that sticky potential. That said... Everybody doesn't always follow that rule, but if you want success it is a valuable point to bear in mind.
A year ago adsense sites called MFA's - made for adsense, that have little or no content were all over the place. Today they are diminishing, which means that Google are clamping down on them and eventually delisting them. If you choose this route your success may only be temporary.
Limit the number of "channels" you have that are unused. You'll notice the "average" at the bottom of that adsense control page takes them into consideration. Aim to get your averages up.
Don't have too many other links out of your page.
If you give too many other choices you'll find that those links are chosen over and above your adsense links. Some have chosen to have no other links from their page. Perhaps there is a middle ground. It is all about testing and tweaking
To preserve your page rank, try putting the no follow attribute to outbound links off your site. Here it is: rel='external nofollow' this is an html code...
Traffic relevancy can affect your adsense earnings.
If you bring traffic from an adwords ad for example and the keyword that's brought them there is 'property in Soho'; then if the adsense ads are targeted more generally for property in London the click through rate will drop.
If your web page is targeted for the keyword 'property in London' and the search engine generic listings bring them or a ppc campaign brings them for the same keyword, then the click through rate will be much better.
Don't play with the adsense code.
Make sure the codes on your page are all valid. If the codes within it are not working properly the search engine spiders stop crawling your site and may eventually de-list the page: and / or site.
Java script isn't recognised by the search engines
Too much work to do? This happens all the time. Don't allow a lethargy moment prevent your progress. Write the task down and do the task tomorrow when you've replenished your batteries.
Visitor single visits... Of course one visit will do, but it is so much better if people return to your website. So to re-iterate a comment earlier about quality content, such quality increases your sites traffic. If you continue to get new visitors and old visitors are returning then your stats look good and so will your adsense earnings.
Chasing high paying keywords. There are clicks worth up to $70 a click can be earned, but imagine for one moment how many are competing for such a term. Wait until you feel competent to set up such a challenge. See them here: http://www.cwire.org/highest-paying-search-terms/
Another resource you'll find useful for high paying keywords, you'll find it at this web address: http://www.highpayinggooglekeywords.com/ - Hope this helps
Here is a good tip. Set up a web page on a topic that has $10 clicks available. Optimise it for that keyword specifically and that one only. Then make 5 other web pages for related items that have greater traffic and have only one link off these pages to the relevant $10 a click page. It isn't arbitrage as such.
Arbitrage. What is it? Arbitrage is a system where you buy advertising clicks cheap and send them to another site where adsense clicks are higher. When this system is refined it can work but you may finish up spending $1000 trying to perfect it. That said you take the risk of Google not approving your methods and suspending your account.
Get into the minds of the visitor. If you have optimized your page sufficiently, you're visitors need to see the keyword or phrase they have typed into the search engine. Perhaps in should be both prominent in the heading and scattered amongst the text.
Check that your site is listed in the major search engines. Here is what you need to do with Google - site:www.yourwebsite.com- put this into Google search
Go here for site information at yahoo - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ - then you'll need to type this information in: http://www.yoursite.info etc
Go here for site information at msn - http://www.live.com/ - and type in site:www.yoursite.com.
Smart-pricing is AdSense method to determine how valuable clicks from your site is worth. If clicks on your site doesn’t provide good value to advertisers, e.g. from visitors’ geo-location that seldom translate to sales, you will only get a fraction of the supposed CPC.
Once you have an adsense code from Google you don't need further approval to put that adsense code on other sites.
If you choose a topic such as computer or 'IT' subjects then the visitors are 'web-savvy' and are not likely to click on adsense ads.
Use AdSense Competitive Ads Filter to remove competitor ads from your adsense units.
It goes without saying that you should make yourself familiar with the Google rules for using Adsense here at: AdSense Program Policies and Terms and Conditions.
Don't be tempted to use click bots it will only get you banned. Google are getting better at detecting new accounts set up with some previously banned sites. Click bots or for that matter click syndicates are a short lived option. Do things right and the money will come.
Don't use competitor contextual ads. That means don't use someone else's contextual advertising, as is adsense - on the same page.
The next time your purchase a domain name don't forget to get the keyword somewhere in it. This will help long term for seo purposes and improvement in adsense earnings.
Creating a forum on your site is considered to be a good move for your business, but generally the adsense earnings are not too good. Before making a decision to do this check other competitors websites.
Use AdSense Preview Tool to test the adsense ads that will appear on your site.
95% of the time break up long articles onto various web pages. It makes your content go further. This page however is an exception to that rule and is in the 5%.
Adsense is not a 'get rich quick' scheme. It can take a few months before you can build a small income. Before the years out you should be able to build it up to paying your mortgage. Once you understand the techniques required you can earn a living.

Written By and Copyright of Andy Bolton from Adwords and Adsense

http://www.adwords-and-adsense.com/101-adsensetips-and-tricks.html

This article can be reproduced so long as the signature is kept intact. Any infringement will be a breach of copyright.

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Adwords News

Adsense News

The Google Trail

Abhinav Ramnarayan

Google has various strategies advertisers and individuals can use to make money.

It isn't just the big players who are benefiting from Google AdWords and AdSense. A whole network has arisen, including advertisers ranging from SMEs to MNCs, hosts from large publishing portals to individual bloggers, and, of course, the 50 million Internet users in the country.

A BLOG GOOGLE RUNS ADS on, which makes money for the blogger. - Bijoy Ghosh

Try typing `jobs' on Google search, and you might be in for a surprise — on the sponsored links column, one of the ads is by competitor Yahoo!

That is probably why Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bharatmatrimony.com, comfortably maintains relations with both companies — Yahoo is an investor in his portal, while the other provides advertising space for the matchmaker.

However, it isn't just the big players who are benefiting from Google AdWords and AdSense. A whole network has arisen, which includes advertisers from SMEs to MNCs, hosts from large publishing portals to individual bloggers, and, of course, the 50 million Internet users in the country. According to a comScore Media Matrix 2005 report, about 80 per cent of Internet users access Google.com.

K. Sundararaman, Acting Sales Head, Google India, sheds some light on how this network works. He says that apart from the ads that appear on www.google.com, there is Google AdSense, which allows individual Web sites to rent out the space on the page.

These Web sites, Sundararaman explains, are selected through `site targeting' that "allows advertisers to choose individual Web sites within the Google content network where they would like their ads to appear ... allowing advertisers to handpick the audience they want to reach."

Managing ad campaigns

Apart from this, the advertiser can specify search-targeted keywords for categories such as broad matches, phrase matches, exact matches or negative matches. This keyword matching system is completely automated. "We suggest using a combination of two or more of these techniques to run an effective ad campaign," he says.

Which in turn means that managing an effective ad campaign with Google AdWords is not quite such a simple project. For example, Bharatmatrimony.com has a three-member internal team that continually reviews the conversion rate of the number of people that click on their ads in other Web sites, the cost of advertising on Google and the relevance of the keywords that the company has submitted, says Janakiraman.

As large clients, they work in conjunction with a team from Google that has been assigned to work with them. The company has bought about 30,000 keywords.

Keywords matter

Similarly, eBay has an internal team that works full-time on the paid search programme with the Google account team, according to Rathin Lahiri, Head - Marketing, eBay India. This is possibly because "paid search is one of the better performing channels and the search customer is an evolved customer," he says.

The revenue model for the Web site is that advertisers pay for the click or impression that they receive.

For ads priced at cost-per-thousand-clicks, an advertiser may pay as low as Rs 10 per thousand, and for cost-per-click priced ads, it may be as low as Re 0.44 per click, according to the company.

The rate of keywords varies, says Lahiri. For example, the keyword `Nokia' would be more valuable than a keyword such as `pencil' — at the end of the day, the rate that eBay pays is a function of the click-through-rate and the cost-per-click. The keyword `Nokia phone' is more valuable than `Nokia blue tooth device' and therefore has a better click-through-rate.

Users big and small

This has opened up a whole market through the AdSense route. And since the tool caters to publishers of all sizes, the company has both large publishers that have content on the Internet such as Sify.com, NDTV.com, and Moneycontrol.com, as well as individual Web site owners.

Deepesh Agarwal, who runs a Web site that provides freeware solutions, receives on an average 4,000-odd daily ad impressions and earns anywhere from $800 to $2,100 per month depending on the amount of traffic and its `quality.'

He has been using the service for three years. Though the first two years didn't yield many results, but the last year has been a good one. In fact, though the Web site was never intended as a money-spinner, it now constitutes the biggest portion of Agarwal's revenue.

Success story

"My traffic is primarily from the US and Canada — about 60 per cent — and the visitors are common computer users looking for free alternatives for paid shareware applications meant for day-to-day computer maintenance tasks," he explains.

But it doesn't even have to get that technical to be a success. Jamshed Velayuda Rajan, a Usability Consultant with Satyam Computers, maintains two Web sites — one in which he writes about himself and his family, and another blog on cricket.

The latter, he expects, will have traffic of about 2,500 to 3,500 people when cricket matches are going on.

Typically, 350 unique people per day, and about 450 to 500 clicks is the count for his two portals combined.

As for the remuneration, he explains, "High value keywords would earn more — if I had a finance blog, for example, I could make as much as $4 for one click.

Since cricket is not a money-spinner in that sense, perhaps between 10 and 30 cents per click." All in all, he has made about Rs 30,000 in the last two years.

Not bad for a man who was looking to have a bit of fun by writing about his life and his family.

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Success Story

PurelyGadgets use AdWords to grow their brand in the highly competitive electronic goods market

PurelyGadgets is one of the UK’s leading online retailers of electronic goods. Established in 2004 to capitalise on a rapidly expanding internet market, PurelyGadgets found their niche through using an in-house team of expert buyers to source the best value products from around the world. A combination of competitive pricing, fast delivery, and reliable pre and after sales facilities have proven popular with customers. The final strand however was growing their online presence – and it was to Google they turned to achieve this.
The challenge, and how Google AdWords fits in

Acquiring business and recognition in a highly competitive market was the key initial challenge that PurelyGadgets faced. Initially PurelyGadgets toyed with the idea of taking a hands-off approach to their advertising, by hiring a company who would take care of it for them. This approach wasn’t successful however, as Lim explains. “We believed that we could do this better [than an outside company] because we know our products and services.” Instead, PurelyGadgets turned to Google AdWords to assist them in creating an online presence. “I actually learned about online advertising from Google,” admits Lim. “We find Google very easy to use. The main reason is that we can control the budget so easily. We were a very new start-up company then and we were very concerned with costs and Google let us see…results within twenty-four hours.”
Advancing with AdWords

Having begun trading from home in 2004, as a company of four to five employees, PurelyGadgets now employs over 40 people in their London based offices. “We grew about 700% over the past two years,” declares Lim. “Without using Google we would not grow this fast.”

Expanding further on this point, Lim says “Google initially put us on a par with other big brands…I think Google is a trusted brand…the demographic feels more confident buying from us…because they see us from Google…If you’re looking at increasing market share, branding…and also customer acquisition… Google is a much better choice because it has a much bigger audience.”
Google tools

Given the competitiveness of the market in which PurelyGadgets operates it is necessary for them to be both extremely dynamic and make full use of all AdWords features available to them. This is something which they do to excellent effect, as Lim explains. “We eliminate a lot of unqualified leads with negative keywords…Although it’s a very simple functionality, I find negative keywords extremely useful.”

“We use Google Analytics which is fabulous,” he further comments. “AdWords Editor is very good as well…we change our prices every day…only Google allow us to have that sort of flexibility.”
Future Plans

Not content with entering into new territories from a retail perspective, PurelyGadgets intend to do so geographically as well. At present due to a lack of viable payment platforms, PurelyGadgets restrict their activities to the UK market. However, Lim is enthusiastic and optimistic about the imminent launch of the Google payment platform, Google Checkout. “I think that once the Google Checkout has been launched [we will] have a payment platform all across the world. I think that will open up our market totally’.

Speaking of future plans to continue growing with Google AdWords, Lim states “It feels like you do have somebody working for you in Google…I can’t find anything better.”

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Success Story

Lighting Direct cuts costs and triples Clickthrough Rate (CTR) with Google Analytics

Founded in 1991, Lighting Direct is regarded as the number one online lighting company in the UK. With over 6000 products on the company's website, Lighting Direct has established itself as a one-stop-shop for everything from the grandest chandeliers to novelty Christmas lights. The company also prides itself on providing value-for-money and helpful information that caters to both indoor and outdoor lighting.

The challenges facing Lighting Direct have been in constant flux as the company transformed from an Internet new-comer to an online leader in its field. As late as 2002, the company had just three staff, of which only one was full-time. The man at the helm was Gary Berg, "I put together a little website with about 200 products on it. Then we started getting a bit of interest and I started looking for ways of how I could let people know I was there...we really just wanted to drive traffic to our site. I found AdWords was the best way of doing that."

As an Internet newcomer, Lighting Direct had shown that they could use Google AdWords to drive traffic to their website and build their company. However, with business growing rapidly, Berg soon decided that to scale Lighting Direct efficiently and to make sure that all keywords were profitable, emphasis needed to shift from simply driving traffic and brand awareness to also creating conversions and increasing return-on-investment. To make the advertising better pay for itself and to better track user behaviour, Berg turned to the free tool Google Analytics to help him adapt his advertising. The results were dramatic. The highly targeted ad texts and keywords resulted in many campaign clickthrough rates sky-rocketing to 20%–30%. It was not unusual for campaigns to see their clickthrough rate triple in the period after the review.

On the changes made, Berg says, "I was able to take out quite a few keywords and make the campaigns leaner. There has definitely been an increase in business since using Analytics." This latest advertising drive is just one such initiative taken in a highly successful relationship between Lighting Direct and Google AdWords. As the company has grown they have found different tools and techniques available through AdWords. "When we first started with this exercise we had two part-time people and now we employ ten people. We are now doing about seven or eight times the turnover compared to four years ago thanks to AdWords and Analytics."

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* Easily create and edit your ads
* See your ads on Google within minutes of creating them

AdWords gives you 24/7 access to detailed performance reports that help you track the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. We also strive to give you the friendliest, most knowledgeable customer service possible. You can expect a prompt response to your email questions, typically within one business day. Read on to learn about what AdWords has to offer you.
1. Control

With all these great features, a Google AdWords account is fully customisable for any advertiser:

* Cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so you pay only for the clicks you have received at a price you have set (choose a maximum CPC from £0.01 to £100).
* Cost-per-impression (CPM) pricing for those who prefer to target individual content sites and pay by the impression.
* Daily budget you set, starting from £0.01.
* Targeted ads you create and manage.
* Ad scheduling: run your ads on the days and hours you want.
* Online performance reports 24/7 in your account.
* Additional network of sites and products for increasing advertising exposure.
* One or multiple ads targeted with one or more keywords.

And with no monthly minimum spending limit or time commitment and only a minimal fee to set up your account, Google AdWords is the ideal marketing tool for small to medium businesses.

Learn more about payment and currency options.
2. Success

The success of our advertising programme is built upon the success of our advertisers. So, we want to do everything we can to help you get more out of your ads and attract qualified prospects in the most cost-effective manner possible. We provide you with cost estimations and tools to help you control pricing. In addition, we're committed to sharing with you what makes AdWords advertising work by keeping you up-to-date with the latest Google AdWords features.
3. Support

We've created a Help Centre to make sure that you benefit from the tools we provide and the flexibility of controlling your own account. You'll find the Help Centre filled with useful programme information, performance tips and step-by-step instructions for creating and maintaining your account.

If you can't find what you need on our site, our dedicated Customer Support team would be happy to provide you with answers to your questions and offer assistance. We work hard to ensure that you promptly receive quality responses to your questions via email. We are also always eager to get your feedback on our programme and how we can improve it, so please feel free to send us an email.

Written on August 16th, 2008 at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse
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Split Testing: How To Increase Your Adsense Earnings 94% Overnight

In this post Brian Armstrong from StartBreakingFree.com shares some tips on using Split Testing to increase his AdSense earnings.

Long time readers of ProBlogger know that Darren is a big fan of split testing ads to improve your earnings. I took this advice to heart, and wanted to show you some real world results that I got on my own blog.

Feel free to take these results and apply them to your own site. Or better yet, do some of our own testing and improve on them even more!

I split tested 3 separate regions of my site and looked mostly at eCPM to compare them. If you aren’t sure what eCPM is click here. I think it’s better to use eCPM than click through rate (CTR) because it incorporates not just how often it’s clicked, but also how much you make per click.

This ad region makes the most money for me, and was smack dab at the top of each individual post page (but not on the homepage).

* The right aligned ad got a 0.78% CTR and $1.41 eCPM
* The left aligned ad got a 1.30% CTR and $5.31 eCPM

Clear winner: left aligned (276% improvement)

It’s hard to say why this is exactly. Maybe the left aligned ad looks more like it’s actual content instead of an ad. Whatever the reason, the difference was substantial.

This ad resides at the very top right of every page. I had been running it with image ads for a while and decided to test it against text ads (with some appropriate color choices).

* The image ads got a 0.35% CTR and $1.74 eCPM
* The text ads got a 0.33% CTR and $2.15 eCPM

Interesting to note here that although the CTR went down slightly, the eCPM went up. This seems to indicate that the text ads were paying more per click. So even though it was clicked slightly less often it still made more money overall.

This ad was placed at the bottom of each post page and also on the homepage under the excerpts. I again decided to test some text ads against the incumbent image ads.

* The image ads got a 0.58% CTR and $1.86 eCPM
* The text ads got a 0.43% CTR and $2.27 eCPM

Again here the CTR went down and the eCPM went up. Also worth noting is that the color scheme I used on the text ad block is consistent with my site. “Blockquote” tags on my site use a similar color scheme.

Winner: text ads
Conclusions & Next Steps

For those who are curious, here is the actual data from an excel spreadsheet. You can pull this out of Adsense under the “reports” tab if you use different channels to compare different ads.

Overall these results were impressive. The site-wide eCPM from these three ads went up overall from $5.01 to $9.73 which is a 94% improvement.

I could just convert all ads to the better performing version and call it a day, but what I’ll do instead is continue testing….forever.

There are plenty of other things to test, such as…

* Trying text ads in the post body (since they performed better elsewhere)
* Left aligning ads under the posts
* Trying different color schemes
* Trying other types of ads (Amazon, Performancing Ads, Text-Link-Ads, etc)

Most people focus on growing their blog’s readership to boost earnings. This is a critical component, but don’t forget about the other major tool in your arsenal: split testing.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Question 1) Does Google allow other ads to run on the same page as AdSense Ads?

Answer 1) The official word is a qualified "yes".

You may not run ads that are designed to resemble AdSense ads. For example, Yahoo! Publisher Network ads look very similar to AdSense ads. While you can run YPN on your site, they may not appear on the same PAGES as AdSense ads.

However, contextual ads like those provided by Kontera, Intellitxt, Amazon and Chitika ARE allowed on the same pages as your AdSense ads!

While not the exact answer we were hoping for, this does clarify for us and opens many new options for publishers wishing to use others advertisements on their pages.

I have made a good deal of income with Kontera and Chitika, and am very glad to see that we may all apply for their programs and implement them on our pages without fear of losing our AdSense accounts.

Incidentally, I have written the ONLY book on making money with Kontera and am pleased to offer it to you today as a discount to celebrate this clarification from Google!

Kontera Secrets

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Question 2) Google's recent "images next to ads" policy is confusing. Could you please clarify so all publishers know what is and what is not allowed?

Answer 2) Google prefers that publishers avoid images that are lined up directly next to the ads so that it appears each ad is associated with an image. If the dimensions of the image are completely different than the dimensions of the ads, that's okay.

But if it appears to the user that the image is at all associated with the ads, that would be in violation of AdSense terms of service.

The general idea is Google does not want visitors clicking on ads because they have been deceived in believing the image is associated with the ad.

That leaves a lot of room for creative design, and it also means that AdSense graphic backgrounds and visual frames are within terms of service.

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Question 3) I occasionally see ads are actually placed by Google. Do publishers receive payment when those ads are clicked?

Answer 3) Yes! Whenever you see an ad for a Google service, Google is paying the publisher for that ad just as they would for any other ad. They are bidding in the auction and the publisher will be paid according to those bids.

This is also good news for those who wondered if Google was attempting to score a "free ride" by placing their own ads on the network.

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I am very encouraged by these clarifications in AdSense policy. I don't like being in the dark as to the terms of service and neither should you.

I hope you will take advantage of the opportunities to apply for Kontera and Chitika

Courtesy:

joelcomm.com/google_

adsense_breaking_

news.html

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