Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
Many bloggers and website owners will use AdSense to drive a bit of income. Depending on the popularity of the site, you can generate quite a decent amount of revenue from using AdSense on your site. However, too many people don’t know how to use it efficiently. Are your ads being seen by visitors?
That all depends on where the you put AdSense on your site and its layout. There is a bit of strategy when it comes to optimizing how you make money from showing advertisements.[adrotate banner=”8″]
Putting AdSense on Your Site
One of the reasons why a lot of people use AdSense is because it’s easy and takes very little effort to start generating income. Well, that is as long as you have a good amount of traffic coming to the website.
How AdSense Works
When you place AdSense on your site, you’re essentially helping Google show paying advertisers. You really don’t have much control over what is shown to your guests, although you do have access to some tools to limit what is displayed.
Most ads that people will see on your site are generated according to previous activity. As Google monitors users for search behavior, it displays ads that are most likely to engage the audience.
A small portion of ads that will show on your site are derived from the web page’s content. So theoretically, visitors can see ads for car dealerships if your content is about getting a new car or vehicle repair.
These are called contextual ads.
In any case, you make money when someone clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser. However, some will simply pay just for showing the ad in general. These usually pay out far, far less than a click, though.
Because of how AdSense on your site works, you need to make sure those banners and texts are visible by the majority of your users. This doesn’t always happen depending on where you placed the ad in the first place.
Site Layout: Mobile versus Desktop Views
The overall layout is going to be a major influence on how effective AdSense on your site becomes. For example, there is a profound difference in how websites appear for mobile and desktop users.
The Sidebar
Take this website, for instance. On a mobile device, the right sidebars are only visible if someone scrolls down past the content on his or her phone. Which means it’s less likely to be seen simply because most people leave after reading the content.
How does this affect your income? Well first of all, the ad isn’t seen by the viewer. If it’s not in front of the guest, how can you expect him or her to click on it?
However, people who visit the website may see the sidebar clear as day. Which makes it an effective area to place AdSense on your site for those on desktop and laptop computer systems.
AdSense in Content
After realizing no one is scrolling past the content of my website, I decided to run an experiment on one of my other blogs. I removed the ads from the sidebar and placed them within the content itself.
According to Google Analytics, the vast majority of the visitors to the health blog were on mobile devices. Which means they didn’t see the sidebar anyway. After moving the ads into the content itself, I saw an instant jump in income. In fact, the health blog generates nearly three times what it did before.
Where do I place the AdSense code?
- At the beginning of the blog post.
- In the middle; roughly at about 800 words or so.
- At the very end of the post.
I also use three different ad units for each part. This way, I can use AdSense to track when someone clicks the end-article ad…which demonstrates to me that someone at least made it through the entire post.
The thing you need to keep in mind is how strict Google is about showing ads. My account was frozen once because I used the wrong size within the content. Pay close attention to the guidelines of AdSense.
Nowadays, I simply create responsive ads. This means I don’t run the risk of being penalized by using an ad that is too wide for mobile devices. The ads are resized automatically depending on the device and screen resolution the visitor is using.
It’s perhaps the safest way to show ads without angering the AdSense gods.[template id=”2087″]
Using Heatmaps and Analytics
To find the best places to include AdSense on your site, don’t underestimate the value of heatmaps or Google Analytics. Both of these tools have helped me a great deal in the past for optimizing content and imagery.
Heatmaps
Heatmaps are tools that record how people use your website. You’ll receive a screenshot of your webpage including “heat” signatures of where people click or move with the mouse pointer.
Some of the better heatmaps will include scroll tracking, which shows whether visitors are scrolling down your content. Another feature you might like is how some will actually track live activity. Essentially, you get a recording of a visitor on your site.
It’s a bit creepy when you watch someone’s mouse pointer move across the screen during one of these recordings.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers quite a bit of information regarding your visitors. Time spent on page, number of views and more can be quite helpful in coming up with a good strategy to add AdSense on your site.
I use Google Analytics primarily to see what visitors are most interested in reading. It also helps to see when activity is the greatest to help me discover a good publishing schedule for content…which all feeds into boosting the success of AdSense.
After all, it’s your visitors that drive income.
Building a Good Personalized Strategy
Statistics and averages are all good to help inspire confidence. Just remember that averages are just that – the average level of success among all sites. Your experience when adding AdSense on your site is going to be different from mine.
This is because elements like industry, target audience, writing style and more play a role in the overall success of your content. It’s imperative you build a strategy based on how people use your website overall.
I can only tell you how the system works for me. That doesn’t guarantee that it will work the same way for you.
AdSense on Your Site Can Work
The important thing to remember is that simply using AdSense on your site isn’t going to guarantee making enough money to retire. It will take effort, a strong visitor base and a good strategy for ad placement. Other than that, the platform has great potential to pad your bank account.
Just make sure you’re creating content people will want to read to drive the traffic.[template id=”2089″]
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