So here are the top five I’ve used in a concise list.

1. AdSense Deluxe - This has been, by far, the most useful plugin I’ve ever used as far as AdSense is concerned (thus its placement on this list). If you want to place AdSense ads in your blog posts but you’ve been getting screwed up results, try this bad boy. You can do so from a nice little control panel. Want to make global changes to a specific ad set? No problem, edit it from the panel! Want to see how the ads will look on your blog? No problem, use the preview tool!
2. AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar - Now this plugin requires the Wordpress Sidebar plugin but makes adding AdSense ad blocks to WordPress a peice of cake. Not only is it easy to install, but it’s also very customizable — colors, size and h2 tags are all modifiable.
3. AdSense Sharing Revenue & Earnings System - Because I also use WordPress Mu to host bloggers with a friend of mine (www.zeroblogs.com), it is excellent to have a plugin that handles revenue sharing for all users. Although I did have to modify the plugin myself to make it partner-friendly, it made the actual revenue sharing portion a breeze. If you want to do AdSense sharing on a WordPress Mu site of your own, I highly recommend this plugin.
4. Author AdSense - Here is a similar plugin to the AdSense Sharing Revenue & Earnings System. You can do basically the same thing with this plugin, except the interface is a bit different. It works as it says it does though, so I felt it mention-worthy.
5. Google AdSense Earnings - For those of you who use WordPress but don’t have FireFox and can’t use the awesome and fantastic Adsense Notifier add-on — you’re in luck. The plugin allows you to put your username and password in for Google AdSense and get your current statistics. Not only that, but you can also display your stats to the public! Be careful, don’t display too much or Google will end you.

I followed up with Google on the situation, to find out of the removal of the clause would mean that competitor’s ads would be allowed on the same page as AdSense, provided they didn’t resemble or mimic AdSense ads, and that the AdSense terms would eventually be updated to reflect this policy change. And the answer is yes!

Unfortunately, the YPN network is still not allowing other services to run ads on the same page:

Update: I spoke with Yahoo Publisher Network on this issue, and they say that as of today, page level exclusivity still exists. This means you still cannot run YPN on the same page as another contextual ad network. However, they will listen to publisher feedback on this issue and take it into consideration for future YPN terms updates.

Now personally, I don’t think you should ever have too many ads on a given web page. Three or four ads are plenty and, depending on how you’ve blended them into your design, still have the ability to look tasteful. It’s when you throw in even more ads and different networks that it becomes more annoying to look at.

What I do recommend is testing a few services at once to see which end up bringing back good revenues. For me, I will always stick with AdSense as it is not only easy to use but it has also paid me well.

The “Advertise on this site” link on your Google ads is part of the Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up program. Using this link, advertisers can set up an ad campaign on AdWords that will target its ads directly to your site and only your site. Here is the description from the Google AdSense Help Center:

Onsite Advertiser Sign-up is an extension of Google site targeting that makes it easier for advertisers to bid on your site.

When you use Onsite Advertiser Sign-up, your ad units will display an ‘Advertise on this site’ link that takes advertisers to an informational landing page with details about your site and the Google AdWords advertising program. Advertisers who sign up through this page will be guided to create an ad targeted specifically to your site, and only your site. When more advertisers create and target ads to your site, you’ll benefit from the competition as it drives your potential earnings up.

You can customize the landing page advertisers see with the logo, color scheme, and site description of your choice, to provide advertisers with the best idea of what your site’s all about. For instructions, see our entry on How do I customize my Onsite Advertiser Sign-up page?

You do not get paid a referral fee for sign-ups as a result of people using this link, so there’s no benefit there. The benefit is in having people advertise directly on your website. So as it might be helpful, it can also be a pain if you do not WANT the text there in the first place. Here’s how to remove it:

1. Sign in to your Google AdSense account.
2. Click on the My Account tab.
3. Scroll down to find the Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up section. Click edit.
4. On the Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up page, uncheck the box next to Include me in Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up.
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

That’s all there is to it! In a few days, the text will disappear and you will be one step closer to being an AdSense guru!

Google AdSense relies on keywords throughout your document as a part of its algorithm for displaying contextual ads. Words in bold are typically given more weight in this decision, therefore I bold them. If, for instance, you wanted to talk about ducks on your website, I would advise you to bold keywords like the following:

• Duck
• Donald Duck
• Duck Unlimited
• Duck Hunting
• Anaheim Duck
• Mighty Duck
• Rubber Duck
• Horny Duck
• Daffy Duck
• Howard the Duck

You might laugh, but it’s true. How do I know this? Because, according to Overture, these are the most searched-on keywords for the term ‘duck.’ So later on when people begin to search for my article, not only wil will my posts come up more often but my ads will be more relevant when they do.

“But where did you get those Overture keywords?”

Simple. I downloaded a piece of software from Softnik Technologies called Good Keywords and any time I want to look up a keyword for its possible inclusion or highlighting, I use the “Keyword Suggestions” feature and up comes a list of relevant keywords (left image).

It will even show you the amount of times each term is searched for per month. This is an excellent feature, and one people usually pay money for. Thank you Overture.

But wait, there’s more. You didn’t think I would stop with one method, did you? The next method I use to generate decent keywords is to use the AdWords Keyword Tool. If you’re familiar with AdWords, great. Otherwise, use the link at the bottom of this page to get yourself an AdWords account.

Now once inside AdWords, find the Keywords Tool under Campaign Management > Tools. Now you can perform a search on your desired keyword. When searching, make sure the “use synonyms” checkbox is checked and you have “Cost and ad position estimates” selected in the dropdown. Next, put $100 in the “Calculate Estimates using Max CPC” box. Perform your search.

When the keywords come up, sort them by “Estimated Avg. CPC.” Now you can see what people are paying for the top positions on Google searches, and therefore what will most likely lead to higher payouts from the ads on your websites. In addition, I also recommend searching by “Global search volume trends” to see which ads pay higher in which months. I recommend playing around with it to get the best results.

Another outstanding service I use to determine where to best PLACE my ads is CrazyEgg.com. With this service, you just place a bit of javascript code at the bottom of whatever web page(s) you want to track and it will not only keep track of your hits but also your clicks. In order to better track your clicks, CrazyEgg implemented an amazing tool called the Heatmap (displayed below). With this tool, you can see which areas are really hot (white hot) and which are colder (blue hot).

This is a recent example from my Adsense-Fire.com tracking. Notice the top right area where the tabs are. Placing an ad in this area is a fantastic idea as people are more likely to see the ad right below the tabs, since it is such a high-traffic click area. Similarly, it would be a smart idea to place an ad under the logo (top left) or in the vicinity of the Mailing List area.

It’s always better to track your clicks over a larger span of time or clicks, like say .. one month or 1000 clicks. With CrazyEgg, you can do it either way and you will be able to more accurately see where the white hot areas are.

For now, I hope that helps you get the better paying keywords for your content. There will be more tips on this later. Good luck!

- Scott

Referrals

This one I felt was pretty cool and should help a lot of people out.

Up to two referral units from each referral product or offering may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.

Competitive Ads & Services

I feel this is a necessary clarification, as some people wonder whether they may even have other ads on the same pages as their AdSense ads. You can! Just make sure those ads are in no way mistakable as an AdSense ad or you’re in violation of the terms, buddy.

“Competitive Ads and Services In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.”

Read more on this here.

According to Inside AdSense, a Google blog, Google has added a new Spanish forum to its listings! Click here to read Bienvenido to Spanish Help Forum.

Here’s a clipping from the article:

Need help with implementing your ads or optimizing your ad placement? Maybe another publisher halfway around the globe has an answer for you. There’s also a Google representative called ‘AdSensePro’ who will occasionally contribute posts. Whether you’re new to AdSense or a seasoned veteran, you’re welcome to ask for advice and share your experiences in the Help Forums. They’re also available in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Portuguese.

So there you have it, AdSense help in many different languages!

- Scott

Before I dive into my methods for boosting traffic to your website- if you’re honestly driven to make more money, you should check out these AdSense videos by Michael Cheney (click for link). He gives you a step by step way to generate a bunch of money in a relatively short amount of time, so check that out.

Traffic

Now obviously getting traffic to your website is never easy unless you’re already well-established on the internet. For those who are new or even moderately new to the web, getting website exposure is difficult. You do have options though. You can advertise on a PPC (Pay Per Click) network, you can start up a mailing list, put the word out on forums, do a press release, leave comments on blogs, hold a contest and tons of other things. Let’s discuss a few of these methods.

The easiest way to get traffic is to advertise on a PPC service .. that is, if you have the money. Depending on your niche, you may have to spend anywhere from $5 to $10/day to make this effective. If you aren’t making more than you’re advertising, it’s obviously not going to work out in the long-run. What you can do is advertise for a set amount of time, say– a month. And in that time you will have established a nice base of users if you use the Stickiness techniques described below.

It’s important that when using a PPC service, you concentrate on getting the most VALID click-thrus to your site. It’s not all about volume. Yeah, you could have a million visitors that you pay to go to your website but if your website is all about power tools and you get a million techno geeks, those views are almost worthless.

What’s great about services like Google AdWords is that it uses contextual advertising to attempt to display your ads in the most relevant context. When using AdWords, for instance, you can specify whether you want ads to show up in Google Searches and/or on content pages where AdSense ads are displayed. You can specify the location you want the ads to show up in based on country, region and city. This is especially important because AdSense pays less for views that are from outside the United States. Yes, you read that right. This is why I recommend targeting your ads to US traffic.

On top of this, you can specify all the keywords you’d like your ad to show up for. Keep in mind though, when using keywords- the more popular the keyword, the more competition there is for that spot and therefore the more you’ll have to pay per click to even show UP for that search or keyword. This is not only why I recommend finding keywords that don’t require a large per-click cost ($0.06 - $0.19) but also why you should use at least 200 keywords for each campaign you start. This will increase your chances of getting displayed and also, listed. Oh yes– and the more you pay per click, obviously, the more often your and more prominently your ad will be displayed.

Mailing lists are another way of generating traffic, and also stickiness but we’ll go into that later. You should *always* have a mailing list sign-up sheet on your website or blog, for five reasons:

1. There is always going to be a handful, if not more, who are interested in what you’re talking about!
2. These people are willing to get your e-mails and therefore, you aren’t SPAMMING them!
3. Many of these people will end up returning to your website on a fairly regular basis.
4. You can let them know about other things you’re working on and therefore, cut down on your advertising costs.
5. You can put affiliate links in your e-mails for products you’ve created or tried and earn even more money!

So mailing lists are quite obviously a huge boon to a webmaster and you should take advantage of them as soon as possible. A great mailing list service I recommend is Aweber. What’s great about this service is that they allow you to do scheduled mailings, time-released mailings (E.G. once someone signs up, you can give them a 3-day course or a 5-day course on something) and of course you can do regular announcements. There are free services available as well, but in my experience they don’t offer nearly the same benefits.

When sending out mailings, make sure you don’t do it too often. Once per day is even pushing it, but people will put up with it most of the time, especially if the information is helpful. Of course, you can do whatever you want with your mailing list but I recommend that you always provide a helpful service to those people receiving the letter. This way you’ll keep your audience, you’ll be helping people and your list will most likely grow just by word of mouth. One more word of caution– if you’re using mailing lists for product releases, make sure to send the e-mail out about 10-20 minutes before, as mailing lists use queues.
Speaking of word of mouth, when was the last time you used a forum to promote your website? I’m not talking about spamming (I never spam, I hate it)! I’m talking about asking other people to review your website, posting in relevant forums about your service, helping other people and offering your website as a helpful resource to help them get what they’re after, etc. In fact, I just started a forum here on Adsense Fire- click here to visit the Adsense Fire Forums. Another great forum site, if you haven’t heard, is DigitalPoint.com’s forums.

The trick is putting your links in your signature as well. Make sure to follow the guidelines of the forum. For instance, if only 2 links are allowed in your signature, don’t put 3 in or you’ll get banned and all your posts will get deleted.

Be careful, when spending your precious time in forums, to make sure they don’t put the infamous rel=”nofollow” in your hyperlinks. This will cause Google to ignore your link when it is indexing the forums; however, it is still a valuable way to get people to visit your website, so it’s up to you.

Another great tool for promotion is a press release. There are tons of paid press release resources available but not many free ones that are worth much. One service that does both is PR Leap and here are some of their free services:

• Scheduled press release submission
• Search-friendly press release formatting
• Press release localization by ZIP code, city and state
• Spam protection on your email address
• Statistics: page views and search engine pick ups

So you can see the value in such a service. Not only do they provide you with a decent amount of traffic but also statistics, email protection and the whole lot. When you actually do a press release, make sure you do it correctly the first time so that it is accepted. You can view these 10 tips for getting your press release approved the first time.

Moving on, let’s talk about leaving comments on other people’s blogs. Like posting threads and responses in forums, typically you may leave links to your website in your comments on blogs (make sure to only leave one!). The bad news is that some blogs will put the nofollow attribute into your hyperlinks, so watch out for that. But again, all links are good links and you will most likely get some traffic inflow.

To increase your chances of getting people to visit your links from comments you leave, make sure to leave quality feedback on posts. This most often includes your opinion or some good feedback on the subject, so just make sure you think it through. People appreciate that and will be attracted to things that you generate.

If you own a blog yourself, sometimes you can leave what is called a Trackback on other people’s blog. This happens when you are writing an article about, or in response to another blogger’s post. You can place their hyperlink in the trackback section and when you post, it will appear as a comment on their blog. This is also a handy way of getting traffic your way.

Now when I first launched BlogFlare.com, I tried to think of a dynamite way to get traffic to the website but if you know me, you know I like to keep things honest and helpful. This is why I made a Traffic-based Contest. The idea behind the contest was that it would help BlogFlare while at the same time helping to increase traffic to other blogs. The person with the most unique hits at the end of the contest was the winner, and I paid him $50. Small change, right?

Well, not everyone has $50 to throw around but I felt it was a great advertisement. In the future, there will be more contests but the trick is letting people know that there is even a contest going on. So use the above techniques to your advantage when creating a contest and it should work wonders. You just have to worry about keeping track of your winning participants! You can read more about contests in the DigitalPoint forums by clicking here.

Of course there are many other ways of driving traffic to your site, and incidentally I have written a free eBook on those ways. Feel free to download it here.
All of these things are wonderful ways to get traffic to your website and I tell you about them only after personal experience. The trouble is that none of them will work without the right content, so let’s talk about that next.

Content

Most people say that content is king when it comes to AdSense, and they’re right. But if content is king, then your web traffic is a god (see how much you mean to me?). In order to appease the gods of traffic, we must provide them with quality content that is not only helpful but also rich in relevant keywords and information. At this point, you should ask yourself a rather difficult (for some) question: can I write good? If you answered “yes” to that question, then you should not be writing because it was bad grammar! You should be able to write WELL!

I’m mostly kidding, but the ability to write is not a gift bestowed upon all of us. When we’ve come to the acceptance phase of our denial, it’s time to pay someone else to write our heavy content for us. But wait– this doesn’t apply only to our actual content but to the structure and design of our website as well. It’s always best to have professionals build what you don’t know how to do. So keep that in mind on your internet journey!

If you have writing difficulty, you can pay $5 and have someone write a decent article for you if you’d like. Then, you can alter what they give you and fill it with keywords that pertain to your website’s topic. It’s a beautiful system. You can use www.rentacoder.com or www.elance.com for this purpose.
Additionally, if you are paying someone to design your website for you, make sure they include a place for your ads. Ad placement is a huge factor in determining your success with Google AdSense so also make sure that the placements will catch the eye of an oncoming visitor.

Now if you are good at writing excellent content, make sure you know *what* should go into your content. You should fill your text with keywords so that AdSense can more easily display contextual ads, and so that search engines can increase your ranking for those keywords when people search for them.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough, you should optimize your website for search engines. I know you’ve heard this a million times, but it’s more than worth it to do so. Pay someone if you have to or do a Google search on the subject. Just get it done and you will be glad you did.

Make sure your title pages reflect the context that is inside the content of the web page. Blogs will typically do this automatically, so it’s mostly important to do manually on your typical website. Another great way to drive traffic to your site via search engines is to pick titles that people actually search for. The title of this post, for instance, is one of the top searches on Google. Not bad, eh?

Stickiness

Stickiness - the art of keeping people occupied on your website. That’s my definition, feel free to quote me! You want to keep people occupied on your website because the longer someone is on your website, the more likely that user will see an ad they like and visit it! It’s a no-brainer.
When practicing the art of stickiness, you must keep in mind that annoying things suck. What I mean by that is, don’t put those annoying ads on your site that say “kill the mouse and win the ipod” or “shoot your hunting buddy and win a presidency.” No, these are annoyances that should die. When keeping people occupied on your website, you should always focus on lifting people up- that means helping or providing them a way to become better somehow or make better decisions.

The ability to post comments on a website is a great sticky feature, especially if it’s not a blog or a forum. Having a chat that loads over your page is also a great technique– a great way to do this automatically is to use a service like Gabbly. Gabbly will load a chat window over your website so people can still browse the internet while they chat.

Having a forum on your website is a great way to keep people occupied as well. This allows them to correspond and interact with each other. You can my previous post on AdSense optimization techniques for forums. Anything that gets updated frequently will keep users coming back, even if it’s not something they can interact with.

The best way to keep users occupied, in my opinion, is to have some kind of social interaction though. So focus on adding social interactivity to your website somehow, be it through comments, forums, chat or a ratings system, it will ultimately increase your CTR with AdSense.

Conclusion

There are, of course, additional ways to make money with AdSense. These will be discussed in upcoming articles, but hopefully this has given you some perspective of what it takes to earn residual income with AdSense. You must always keep in mind that, like anything else that is good, building a steady inflow of money takes time as it takes time to build traffic and a sturdy readership. Just keep that content updated and keep putting out the word. Building it isn’t all it takes to make them come these days. Unfortunately, you’ve also got to sell it.

That’s all for now.

Again, if you’re serious about making money, check out Michael Cheney’s AdSense videos (click for link) and there are even more techniques you can use.

- Scott

Here’s another quick tip for you.

Google announced on January 8th, 2007 some new ways to improve your promotion techniques when it comes to referring people to AdSense, AdWords, FireFox and other services you may refer people to. On their referrals optimization tips page, you will find suggestions, tips and example implementations.

Additionally, Google has done a case-study on Randy Brown (owner of GrownUpGeek.com - image to the left) who has doubled his earnings all while endorsing other products.

Read more here.

ShoeMoney just did a post stating the question - Is It A Waste Of Money To Bid On Keywords Where You Are Not In The Top Spots?

Much like myself, ShoeMoney apparently never pays more than $0.10 per click so he likes to find clever ways to work around this limitation. He also points out that you get more clicks being in the 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 spots because they are in the first and last areas. This must mean that the middle ads are, for the most part, ignored.

He points out in his post (in reference to the above image):

Notice how the bold words form a arrow like > ? That is a nice eye tracking trick that for me increased clicks by about 25% in ANY SPOT. Discovering this for me was a HUGE THING because more clicks means a higher quality score which moves you up for more exposure which means you get more clicks which… well you get the point.

Outstanding technique. Just thought you guys should know.

- Scott

nice site & good design but rememeber as per google TOS having adsense name in domaikn name is not allowed ur account may be cancelled by google adsense so remove google ads

Well, needless to say that scared the Bajeezus out of me and I promptly did some research on the subject. A couple of websites said it was fine as long as you didn’t do anything too outlandish in your content. Other websites said you needed strict permission from Google but the link they gave was dead, so I was left with a big question mark over my head. After not coming up with any solid information, I decided to go straight to the big dogs themselves. I busted out with an email and sent it using their contact form:

Hey guys,

I recently started up a how-to website for the AdSense service. After asking for a review on DigitalPoint.com, it was brought to my attention that it might be against your policies regarding domain names.

I did some research and came up with shady conclusions, so I decided to come straight to you.

Will you allow me to operate http://www.adsense-fire.com as a tips, tricks and how-to blog?

Pretty please?

Thank you,
Scott Weaver

Yeah yeah, it sounds a little grovely but hey, it’s Google for the love of pete. You don’t just shoot Google an e-mail. It’s got to mean something.

Anyway, their auto-response told me they’d get back to me within 48 hours or so. There is a chance I might have to shut this thing down though. That sucks.

But if not, then I’ll have a Google-approved blog which will cause me to dance around. Well .. I won’t dance around but I will grin like an idiot. Either way, I’m going to feel stupid.

Let’s hope the latter happens. Peace out.
-Scott

Of course, I must tell you that my real intent is to become ultra rich and wealthy off of them like Shawn Hogan from Digital Point. Hah. I kid, I kid. But seriously. I hope this turns into a community effort at some point.

You know, once there’s actually a community.

The forum is running off of the Simple Machines Forum engine and looks quite dashing with the smashing template I chose. ..If I do say so myself.

All are welcome to come and join in on the AdSense forum jubilee!

See you there.

-Scott

I use it all the time. Not only does it display useful total statistics, like your current total view count, your total click count, your total amount earned, etc. but it also allows you to right-click and go directly to Google AdSense already logged-in.

You can set it to update from every 15 minutes on up to however you want. If you want to do a manual update, just do a left click on the Adsense Notifier area.

I don’t know about you but it’s a huge time-saver for me. I’ve been using this plugin for quite some time now, and it’s saved me a lot of logins.

- Scott

If you go down the list, you’ll notice a trend. That’s right, the more users that visit a site every day, the bigger the paycheck. Profound, I know. But think about it– if you’re writing in a blog and expecting it to bring in huge returns, you better know how to market it. Just look at ShoeMoney’s Adsense check:

If that’s not inspiration enough right there to put marketing at the top of your priority list, I wonder what kind of jell-o your brain is made of. ShoeMoney is a pro at marketing his thousands of websites.

It’s no surprise to see Digg.com at the #2 spot, as it gets well over 200 million page views per month. $3 million this year alone. Not too shabby. How long do you think it will take to make News Corp. its investment back? Haha.

Notice the #1 spot is taken up by a dating website– PlentyOfFish.com. This is sad. I don’t mean because it’s #1, I mean because there are so many damned lonely people wandering the planet that dating sites are sucking the life out of us. What is exceptionally cool about this particular website is that it was built from the ground up by its owner and I can identify with him on that level as I built Sitdiary.net from the ground up; however, on the $3.6 million/year revenue from Adsense, I can not.

Click here to view the post.

Here’s a copy of the email clipping from Brazil’s AdSense team he posted on his blog:

From: “Google AdSense” adsense-pt@google.com
Subject: Important message about your AdSense payment

Hello;

We´d like to inform you that the delivery of your AdSense paycheck, from December, was aborted, unexpectedly, due to restrictions imposed by brazilian customs laws, related to courier-delivered checks.

be assured we are working to solve this impasse as soon as possible and we will contact you again as soon as we´ve further information.

Cardoso comments “What kind of government is stupid enough to block INCOMING money? there´s not even a single fracking tax advantage to people who BRING money to the country, but at least we should´ve equal rights to people who make money in country.”

Personally, I find this sadly humorous. Sad because these people aren’t getting paid and because their government has their panties in a bunch over something. Humorous because I agree with Cardoso.

You can watch for updates on this posting on The Jungle Book.

-Scott

As forums can be difficult to place ads into, this post is especially helpful for all of us trying to earn a few bucks from these projects.

Read more about ad optimization for forums at Inside AdSense: Six AdSense optimization tips for forums.

To your left, you will see a heatmap for the ideal positions for ads in your layout. As always, the top left spot is the hottest and it gets gradually colder from there as you move to the bottom right.

Additionally, they advise the use of image ads as well as text ads, rather than just using the latter.

Here is a clipping from that post to explain exactly why posting earlier in the day can yield higher payouts:

Here’s a quick tip for maximizing your revenue per click from Google AdSense ads on your blog.

My blog has been up for only 8 weeks, and already I have found a tactic that has increased my daily earnings since trying it.

Now of course, this may not work for everyone, I only have my blog to go on, but it should make a little difference.

I found that if you post an article on your blog very late at night, maybe at midnight or a little later, the revenue per click generated during the next day is higher, by almost 50%

Why? I thought about that question for a few days, and the best theory that I could come up with was that the advertisers with the highest per click budget show up on top of all the other ads early in the day, but their budget limit is reached quicker.

By the afternoon the higher paying ads shut off until the next day, while the cheaper ads now show up on top of the ad block.

Again, this is just an observation on my part, not a thoroughly researched theory.

It would be interesting to see how others do with this tactic.

Wow, great advice and great logic. It leaves me wondering though, where is H.S. Ayoub located? Because midnight for some is noon for others!

Regardless, this is great advice no matter where you are.

1. Use Section Targeting
   Every time I start a new blog (at least when using WordPress) and I add my ad blocks, I immediately see ads like “Blog This”, “Make Money Blogging”, “Go Beyond Blogging”, etc. So the trouble is- if I’m writing about tropical fish, the topic is a bit off, don’t you think? So to fix this mess, I first remove my BlogRoll. Once that’s done and I still see the ads, I start focusing on Section Targeting. What this is is a nifty little feature that the Adsense folks created so that you could essentially TELL your ads what to look at first when thinking about what ads to display. Use this and you can say bye-bye to those annoying blog ads.
2. Write Great Posts
   That includes writing a very search-friendly title to your post. So before you start writing, think of what you might search for to get to that post if you were joe-search-a-lot. Chances are, search terms are the best way to get your posts indexed and found. Then, when your write your actual post, a great way to tell search engines what keywords to look at is to make the target keywords bold, like this: Google Adsense Revenue. Additionally, you should think about researching your posts before you write them so that you can give a lot of information to the user and therefore, a lot of keywords for Adsense to look at.
3. Choose Topics Carefully
   When choosing your topic, you don’t have to necessarily stick to a theme for your entire blog (although it is recommended). Alternatively, you can write about anything, really. So long as what you’re writing about meets the guidelines in the previous tip, you should be fine. Always think about being search engine friendly as well. Just try not to stray too far away from your topic as that may confuse some readers.
4. Get Indexed
   Above all else, make sure you submit your blog to search engines as SOON as you’ve written your first post. Organic google searches will most likely be your number one source of traffic, so get on that right away. Remember: When someone is searching for information on Google, they actually digest what you write about versus someone who, for instance, you send to your blog via advertisements. The latter person will probably skim over your text and upon finding nothing of interest, will exit the web page. Target your posts to the searchers.
5. Blog For Yourself
   Whenever I write an article, I think of information that I myself would find useful and I write about that. Why? Because someone else who shares my passion about something will also find that information useful and will probably come back to my site. And that is a beautiful thing– when people like your blog so much that they come back. If you maintain a loyal readership and make people want to come back, they will probably click on your ads just because they LIKE you. Although the savvy Adsenser knows that this won’t pay as much as other clicks, it’s still a welcome gesture! The point here is- keep them coming back for more!

Hopefully this pays off for you in the not-too-distant future. You can thank me then.
Until next time, good luck.

Another huge determining factor is the subject/topic your website is about. The more pinpointed your subject, the better Adsense will serve your website. On the flip side, the more broad your subject range, the harder it will be for Google to serve visitors the right kinds of ads.

If you are getting crappy payouts per click on your website or if you aren’t getting many clicks at all, here are three things that might indicate why you’re in such a predicament:

1. Ad Layout
   As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, ad layout can make or break your Adsense performance. Make sure to study up on proper ad placement and blending.
2. Website Topic/Subject
   More focused website topics tend to pay higher rates. Additionally, the more product-related your website is, the higher your per click rates will be.
3. Readership
   If your readership is basically a bunch of unix gurus, don’t expect a high number of click-thrus. However, if your readership is the general population, this will vary and you will probably get more clicks.

Of course, you don’t have to change your topic/subject as you might lose your readership but you can test different ad layouts to see what works best for you. You can also try honing in on a particular area of your topic to see if that helps.

If none of these things help, there are certainly other avenues of revenue you can try. Here are just a couple ideas:

Affiliate Marketing - As long as you’re promoting high quality products that you’ve used, there is no reason that your crowd won’t eat these things up. Be careful not to push them too hard or you may turn people away. This type of marketing generally pays high amounts per sale, as well. A great place to start looking for Affiliate products is ClickBank.com.

Alternate PPC Programs - Adsense, of course, isn’t the only Pay Per Click program out there. There’s also Text-Link-Ads (which I find to be the next-best-thing to Adsense). You can also sign up with BidVertiser and similar PPC services.

And if these don’t work, you can put up a donation box! Never give up. That’s my philosophy.

Good luck.

When a visitor clicks on an ad on the website, the website owner is credited with money from that click-through. The amount the owner is paid varies by two main things:

1. How much the AdWords advertiser paid for the visitor click-through
2. Whether the click is more likely to end up in the desired outcome for the advertiser’s website (a sale, a registration, etc.)

Using Adsense is extremely simple and requires only that you insert a block of javascript code that is automatically generated into the website code or template. The Google Adsense service will automatically parse the page before it loads and will immediately display ads that relate to the content on that page. In order to determine which ads should be served, Adsense uses a combination of context analysis and keyword matching.

In order to prevent competitor’s ads from showing up on your own website, Google implemented a filtering system that allows its users to prevent specific domains’ ads from showing up on any websites in their account. Ads can also be geo-targeted (based on viewer location) for English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese or Spanish.

Unless you are displaying only image ads, Adsense provides a large selection of ad formats, colors and sizes to more easily blend into a website’s content. Users can select from a few preformatted banners, tower ads, inline rectangle ads, button ads and more. You may change the color scheme of each ad to fit in better with your website’s layout.

On this website, you will find three examples of what you can do with ads. You can view what is called a Leaderboard ad at the very top of this page, which is 728 pixels wide and 90 pixels high. On the sidebar to your right, you can see a tower ad which comes out to 160 pixels wide and 600 pixels high. At the very bottom, you will see a rectangle styled ad that is 336 pixels wide and 280 pixels high.

Optimizing

Although Adsense ultimately determines which ads will display on any given website, webmasters who really want to earn revenue from the service can use the following techniques to optimize their content for the best relevant ad performance. Until Google’s spider crawls the website in question, Public Service Ads may be displayed. If users click on these ads, the website owner will receive no benefit so it’s best to display either an alternate color (typically the same color as the background) or an alternate ad url (you could display your own ads when their ads don’t display). Thus, there is no reason the ad space shouldn’t get used effectively.

1. Keep web page content static (blog posts have permanent links that don’t change)
2. Both the text in the body of your pages and the title of each page should contain contextual keywords that indicate a common theme on the web page
3. Make sure you select the ‘framed page’ checkbox when generating ad layout code if you are using ads on a framed page
4. Make SURE that your robots.txt does not block your webpage from being spidered

Channels

When Adsense introduced channels, it made running reports a much more informative process. When users use channels to track clicks, Google will then be able to track not only hits on a particular website but also individual click statistics for each website or even each ad, if the user so chooses. You can use channels to test differences in ad placement and sizes. This is a great way of increasing revenue.

How much revenue will I earn per click?

Adsense does not disclose how much they pay per click, but as aforementioned, there are two solid ways to determine this: how much the advertiser paid and whether the click is likely to end up in a registration or sale. Unfortunately, you can not control either of these factors, so it is random. Your percentage of the click is also kept private; however, you may use the techniques described on this website and in this post to enhance your ads so that you can maximize how much each ad is worth.

Overall

Google Adwords provides many people with thousands of dollars per month, and could potentially allow you to quit your job but it still takes hard work and dedication. The actual implementation of Adsense is very easy, however, and it isn’t difficult to start getting a few dollars every month by just creating a steady inflow of traffic. I recommend using Adsense over other programs, as I’ve had the most success with it.

Click Fraud is a huge problem with Adsense. It’s the act of a website owner clicking on ads that he has placed on his own web pages. Why is this bad? Advertisers pay the Adsense service to display ads on websites that relate to the topic of the ad and they expect people who click the ads to have some intention of wanting to know more about the service, or perhaps completing a sale. It’s no surprise that Adsense wants to help advertisers to do this, as it is the purpose of their business.

As smart as the Adsense people are, their harsh punishments are sometimes undeserved by those that are banned. Let’s take a look at a case involving Paul Middleton, when he was trying to add Google Adsense to his first website. He applied to Adsense, waited three weeks and then sent them an e-mail asking for an update. This is what they sent him:

Hello Paul Middleton,

Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your account. Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

As outlined in our programme Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate any publisher’s participation at any time.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Of course, this shocked Paul because he knew he had never done anything that the e-mail was saying; he hadn’t even owned a website before. How could he be guilty of invalid click activity? Like any sensible person, he started searching for the answer on the web. Someone mentioned that the previous owner of his domain had probably been involved in click fraud before he purchased it. That was it. Paul decided to write up an e-mail reply to Adsense as a last resort:

Hi guys,

Thanks for the reply.

I have never had an active AdSense account so it can not have been me that had the ‘invalid click activity’.

My only thought is that a previous owner of the domain makingonlinemoney.com had their account disabled for this??

Please see the whois data below which shows that I have only owned the domain since May this year. The domain was available and I have no idea who owned it before me. I can get godaddy.com to confirm this if required.

I am keen to try the AdSense programme and can assure you I will fully respect your Terms and Conditions and programme policies if accepted onto your scheme.

I would ask therefore that you enable the account if my site meets your criteria.

If you have any further questions regarding my ownership of the makingonlinemoney.com domain please let me know. As I said I will be happy to get further confirmation from godaddy.com if required.

Thanks & Rgds, Paul.

After waiting a week with no response he sent the same email and the following day received this from Google:

Re: Disapproved application.

Hello Paul,

Thank you for your email.

We apologise if the prior disapproval of your application was made in error.

We’ve now reviewed and approved your application. Please check for a separate application approval email for your records. The approval email also includes detailed instructions on how to access your new account and get started.

Google may be strict but they’re obviously fair and in this case, they actually gave a brief apology. The point is that after being patient yet determined, he was able to get the ban dropped and his account back up and running.

Here are 4 points of advice that you should follow if you’ve been wrongly banned by Adsense:

1. Be Polite
   If you’re rude, chances are you’re going not going to draw on anyone’s sympathy. No one will react in a positive way to a flaming e-mail. It’s best to be calm and reserved, yet informative. Just provide them with detail. They don’t need the sass.
2. Be Patient
   Adsense gets thousands of emails, requests and notifications every day. If they don’t reply within 48 hours, don’t be upset. Just keep trying. But don’t send too often, make sure you give them a few days in between follow-ups.
3. Provide Evidence
   Tell them your reasons! Don’t expect the Adsense team to be psychic and know you haven’t done anything wrong, provide back-up to your claims. If you didn’t make any invalid clicks, tell them! If you didn’t tell your users to click on ads, let them know! They will, at the very least, give you evidence stating otherwise if it’s true.
4. Don’t Give Up
   You’re innocent. Why should you give up? There are many roads to Rome, and e-mail isn’t the only one. If you want to be involved that badly, there is a way around it. Fight, fight, fight. But courteously!

On the other side of things, if you have been banned justly and it was your fault, these techniques most likely won’t work for you. You could, however, start up a new website and use a different e-mail to start up your account. These ideas *may* help you, but if you have been rightly banned from Adsense, I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.

With that said, I hope you do get your Adsense back. Good luck to you.