Basic strategies to make money with AdSense​

Google AdSense represents one of the many opportunities to make money from your blog. This advertising network can boast​ the largest number of advertisers. It is also one of the best paying, therefore, enjoys great popularity among bloggers.

Although I will talk about Google AdSense in this post, most of the following tips will apply to any other ad network.

The first steps

How can you start making money with Google AdSense?

• Install a plugin to display AdSense ads on your blog. There are many to choose from.
• Create a Google AdSense account.
• In the account you will find an HTML code. Copy and paste it to the corresponding section of the plugin settings.
• Your blog will show ads. You will earn money whenever someone clicks on them.

Simple design is usually more profitable

Try different WordPress themes. It is possible you like those with many pictures or videos. I do not say they are bad, however, so that more visitors click on your ads, a simple template will be better. With fewer images​, ads will attract more attention and also more clicks.

Size does matter

As you can choose from various ad sizes, it is worth keeping​ in mind that some are more profitable than others.

According to the official Google AdSense help page, the most effective dimensions are:

• The large rectangle of 336 x 280 pixels.
• The medium rectangle of 300 x 250 pixels.
• The leaderboard of 728 x 90 pixels.
• The half page of 300 x 600 pixels.

On smartphones​ the 320 x 100 pixels large mobile banner works best.

Which part of your blog is best for placing ads?

The AmpedSense case study suggests that:

• The most clicks get the ads placed at the end of the article.
• On the contrary, the worst place is the sidebar.

Other places that I recommend giving the opportunity, are the ones under the article title and inside the post. It is logical – people visit your blog to read your posts, therefore, focus their attention to this part of the page.

More ads on a page = more money. Yes or no?

How many AdSense ads on a page are most profitable? According to the AdNgin case study, the “magic” number is 2. When they tested 2 AdSense units on a page, they recorded a 28% higher overall click through rate compared to 3 units on the same page.

What is and how to combat banner blindness

The web is flooded with banners. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the minds of Internet users has been created a mental block which causes they subconsciously ignore advertising. This phenomenon is called banner blindness.

So how can you deal with this problem? Change the placement of the ads from time to time. If your regular readers are already accustomed that there is an ad, for example, under the headline, place it below the first paragraph.

Customization – the road to more clicks

Did you know you can customize the look of your ads? In your AdSense account you will find a tool that allows you to adjust things like the colour of the border, background or text.

There are several ad customization strategies. The most common are:

• To blend: The background and the borders have the same color as the background of your blog.
• To contrast: Unlike the previous strategy, choose colors that stand out on the page.
• To complement: Background and borders have another color than the background of your blog. For the text choose colors that already form part of your blog.

What do A/B tests serve for?

There are so many options what to do with the AdSense ads, so it is very likely that you will have some doubts. To find out what works best on your blog, you should experiment a little.

The easiest way to do this is to perform the A/B tests. In case of AdSense you can use their tool called Experiments.