Adsense Ad Format: Optimization

The trick with choosing the Ad Format that you are going to use is to actually choose it and not let your current website structure which you built before you decided to monetize your website with Adsense choose it for you.

This is what the average Adsense Publisher says to him or herself - "This is how my site is built - I can make that space available there and so I'll have to place Adsense there which means I'll have to use that ad format". This is not a choice and needless to say it will generally not convert aswell as rejigging your page layout so as to accommodate the ads that will perform best into it. What this also means is that placement is more important than format.

The basic Ad Format rule is that wider is better and Google gives a neat explanation of why this is so here. Note, wider doesn't mean width of the whole ad (otherwise we'd all be using leaderboards) but the width of an individual advertisement inside the ad block.

This means that the large rectangle - 336 x 280, the medium rectangle - 300 x 250 and the wide skyscraper 160 x 600, other things being equal all perform better.

In content sites I always try to use at least one large rectangle but remember that a webpage can often accommodate more than one ad unit.

AdSense Success In 5 Days - Day 4

Let's nail down some key points today about your adsthemselves. Ready? Let's go..
** Don't Use The Word 'Ads' - It's A Dirty Word
I want to tell you a secret. Don't tell anyone - unlessyou want to forward this email onto another websiteowner you know who would benefit from this advice. ;o)
Here's the deal;
The best way to boost your AdSense clickthrough rate is tostop thinking of the ads as ads. The moment you do thisyou start to see the whole thing in a new way.
Think about this logically for a moment. You're surfing onthe Internet and you see something that is unmistakably anad. What do you do?
a) Rush over to click on the ad because you love thosethings
b) Laugh excitedly at the prospect of being taken away fromthe interesting content you're reading
c) Ignore it saying to yourself "that's an ad"
It's c) right? Well I hope it is! But the point is -people hate ads, we're all suffering from ad-blindness,ad-avoidance and ad-overload. So what if you could makeyour AdSense ads look less like ads and more like helpfulsnippets of information?
Woah there Michael! You're scaring me now, what are yousuggesting to me?
All I'm saying is that if you put this theory at the heartof your mission to build a cash-generating AdSense empireyou will get there before everyone else.
Alright Michael - how can I do this? Give me some examples!
Look, I don't want to give ALL my methods away because I'vesaved that for serious, dedicated people who buy the videos(nudge, nudge!) but here's some tip-ettes;
- Don't use the standard Google colour scheme, it justscreams "I am an ad, hate me and ignore me!"
- Get a picture in your mind of what the most typical adslook like on the web then create your AdSense ads so thatthey are exactly the opposite
- Ads are garish creatures that like to be bright, loud andstand out in a crowd. We all know this. So making yourAdSense ads exactly the opposite means they can 'sneak underthe radar'
- You've seen a boxing match right? Where's all the action?In the middle. In the ring. Where are the ads that areparaded around between rounds? In the ring - the centre ofeveryone's attention. Where's the 'action' on each of yourpages? Your ads need to be in the same place.
Let's just be clear about this. I'm not talking aboutmisleading your visitors. I'm just saying that you need tohave ads that don't look like the standard ads peopleexpect to see. Obviously your visitors will still know theyare ads because they'll have the 'Ads by Google' text nextto them.
This is not about pulling the wool over visitor's eyes - it'sabout creating a browsing experience which makes them feel atease rather than on edge.
That's it for today's lesson! Tomorrow I'll take youthrough the old favourite - traffic.. See you then!