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So you have a blog with some great content, and you’re finally starting to get a consistent readership that comes to your site daily. If that’s your story, then congratulations, because you’ve made it past the toughest part of starting a new blog. Now, let’s see if we can’t help you make some money off of your hard work with Google AdSense.

First, if you don’t know what AdSense is, or if you have any questions, check out our previous post, Using Google AdSense. But you might find that some of the stuff in there doesn’t make sense with the current website because we have changed themes since that post was written.

Formatting AdSense

Implementing AdSense onto your site is very easy. It’s HOW you do it that will make or break you in terms of how much money you make. To be successful, you need to have the ads in positions on your site where the reader tends to focus the most. Most research that I’ve seen shows that the best place for ads is within the content of your site, and above the fold (what the reader sees on your website without scrolling down at all).

Also, I think the best thing to do is try to blend the ads into your site as much as you can. So, when you’re formatting your ads, use the link colors and text colors that you use for your site. If you need help finding your link and text colors, it’s very easy. Just open up your CSS in whatever you use to edit your files. Like in WordPress, in your admin section, go to the “Presentation” tab, and then click on “Theme Editor.” The file you want to edit is your Stylesheet or style.css. Scroll down until you see “a:link”. Under that you’ll see the word color with a 6-digit combination of letters and numbers. That’s what you put into AdSense for your link color. Same goes for text, which you’ll probably find in the “Content” section of your CSS.

I hate to say this, but you almost want to trick your reader into thinking that the ads are actually part of your content. So, make the google ads look just like all the other links within your content. You can see an example of what I’m talking about on this page.

The fact is, most people who know what ads look like don’t click on them, for whatever reason. But if you can get people to think they are a part of your content, you’ll have better luck.

 

Is AdSense right for your site?

AdSense won’t work for all sites, in my opinion. For example, a site like this one won’t make a whole lot of money with AdSense. The reason for this is what I mentioned before…most people who come to this site are bloggers who are trying to make their site better. Bloggers know about AdSense, so they don’t click on many of the ads. That’s just the way it is, and I’m alright with that.

But blogs about specific niche topics outside of technology, like the Grouchy Golf Blog, might have more success with AdSense. That’s because golfers go to that site to read about golf. It’s more likely that the readership of that blog will click on an AdSense ad that’s advertising discount golf balls or golf swing videos, because they’re actually interested in the product being sold. I know many tech blog readers that don’t click on ads just because they know that the owner of the blog will be paid for it.

So, when deciding if AdSense is right for you, think about the ads that your readers will be seeing. If you think your readers would benefit from the product or service being offered by google, go for it. But if you’re doing it just because you think it’s an easy way to make money, it probably won’t benefit your readers, and they probably won’t click on the ads. In our case, we did it so we’ll be able to help people implement AdSense onto their sites in what we feel is the most profitable way. We’re not expecting a whole lot from it.

 

A good plugin

Here at SAN.com, we use a great plugin to implement our AdSense. It’s the AdSense Manager plugin for WordPress by Martin Fitzpatrick. The plugin allows you to format as many AdSense ad units as you want, from the WordPress admin section of your blog. It’s incredibly easy to use, and it makes the ads very customizable. You should check it out if you use WordPress and you’re considering AdSense for your site.

 

Other Resources

There are tons of things that you can read about Google AdSense if you look around. Here are a few resources to get you started:

 

www.understandingadsense.com — Answers many questions you might have

Problogger.net’s AdSense tips for bloggers – As always, tons of good info

Joel Comm’s AdSense Secrets – GREAT ebook on AdSense

BTseo.com – Comprehensive AdSense site with lots of helpful articles

Wolf-howl.com – Excellent Article on AdSense tips, tricks, and secrets

 

These are just to get you started. If you have more good articles about AdSense, please send them my way and I’ll add them to the list. Thanks!

 

 

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