Top 25 Adsense tips

Let's see if we can make a useful list

[Habtom]

I read somewhere on WebmasterWorld, that publishers should stick to the Google recommended ad sizes. I moved a few things around on one site, and changed all to the recommended adsense ad sizes. That made a huge difference (about 2X)

What is the one thing that made a big difference to your Adsense income?

#25 Stick to the recommended ad sizes.

#24 Anyone ?

[bhukkel]

Adding ad links to my site on places where i couldnt add normal ads.

[ember]

Switching from all text ads to mostly image/text ads.

[Lame_Wolf]

Obeying the rules.

[DaStarBuG]

# Track each individual Ad Unit with a separate channel
# Build your sites for your users not for AdSense
# Make use of Link Units
# Use image & text Ads wherever possible
# use large and medium rectangles wherever possible
# integrate your rectangles inside your content wherever possible
# blend your Ads to your website design, this will in most cases increase your CTR
# don't trick your visitors into clicking Ads. Only clicks that are willingly done will convert
# run lots of split tests to see what works best for your website
# what worked good once does not have to work 6 month from now, never stop testing
# Don't always try to micromanage everything. Trust Google in their decisions (mostly), they have a much larger set of data to know what works best on average
# Accept that you can't fully understand every fluctuation. There are so many variables involved in AdSense.
# Don't ever think that you as a publisher are valuable for Google. The only one valuable is the AdWords customer. If Google thinks you are a risk to advertisers, you are gone, despite the amount you make as a publisher.
# Always remember that the money you receive as publisher is not from Google but from us Advertisers that spend money on AdWords. If you cheat you don't cheat Google, you cheat us!

[martinibuster]

Great post DaStarBuG! :)

Here's a good one. Make your site mobile friendly.

If you haven't reviewed the browser stats lately you may be surprised to find that up to 15% of your site visitors are viewing the site on mobile devices. If you don't have mobile ads showing, that means you are losing ad impressions and earnings.

[Habtom]

@DaStarBuG Thanks for sharing that.

If Google thinks you are a risk to advertisers, you are gone, despite the amount you make as a publisher.

That is so true. It ends "Not with a bang but a whimper". :)

@martinibuster That is a very good point. I've a mobile version, but it is not frequent that I check if everything is rendering well - with all the changes we make on the main site.

[ken_b]

never stop testing

This would be my #1 recommendation.

But that doesn't mean to make changes on a random or wholesale basis. When things are going well, look for te weakest point and make a change there on a limited number of spots to start with.

[netmeg]

(Most of my sites are up to 30% mobile now)

Mine is always think about user intent. Why are people coming to your site in the first place, and why should they click on ads when they're there?

[breeks]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket especially when Google AdSense is holding the basket.

[DaStarBuG]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket especially when Google AdSense is holding the basket.

The smaller your website is the bigger the problem with your advice.
I ran AdSense solely for 5 years before I was big enough to attract third party advertisers.

I tried affiliate and that did not work in my niche.
Other ad networks don't pay nearly as much as Google so if you don't have much choice sticking with Google is fine.
As long as your life income does not totally depend on it ;)

[SirGraham]

@ember: Switching from all text ads to mostly image/text ads.

I tested this a few times on my sites, basically the all text ads always performed much better than the image/text ads, no matter which size (720x90, 250x250, 336x280...).
But still Google keeps recommding image-ads

I normally put the big formats 328x280 above/inside the content. Link Units on top of the navigation.

And i use advertisers who pay per view on ads which are normally placed a bit outside the content (skyscrapers, leaderboard on the top) and do not perform so well with google adsense. Pay per view is hard to find but its still possible.

[nickreynolds]

Be willing to learn from others but don't slavishly follow trends - what works for someone else's site may not work for you.

[johnnie]

# Less is more. The less units you have, the more advertisers are forced to bid if they want to appear on it.
# Adlinks perform really well BELOW the content; they give your readers 'something' to do after reading.

[Play_Bach]

"Homey don't play dat!"

[rowtc2]

Great post DaStarBuG.

At me: switching to text/image instead only text.

[njstangers]

Thanks for the great share...i find myself always having a hard time whether setting my ads to text or text/image ads....I have yet to figure out which works best....it's an endless test but this thread has some great tips. Thank you!

[netmeg]

If your niche isn't pulling in the bucks, figure out how to expand it, or look for another one (to replace or augment).

[carlpruitt]

@SirGraham I too have had a drastic dropoff in clicks and/or income every time I've tested using image ads

[ember]

Re: changing from text to image/text ads, we initially saw a drop off in revenue, too. Higher epc but lower ctr for overall less money. But I'd heard from several Adsense people who said stick with it, that the more advertisers competing for the space, the higher the price would go. It took a couple of weeks, but the image ads started targeting better, and so the ctr rose. Combined with the higher epc, revenue has increased about 15% with no increase in traffic. So it works, but it can be hard to watch earnings drop before they increase.

[Planet13]

Mine is always think about user intent. Why are people coming to your site in the first place, and why should they click on ads when they're there?

That is a really, really good point.

I wonder though how we are going to keep up with figuring out user intent now that the search terms used to enter our site are more obscured by google - and will probably continue to be more obscured as more people eventually get google profile / gmail accounts.

I have used my internal search logs (ones that log queries when someone searches for something on our site), and unfortunately the queries are so vague and there are so few of them) that it is really hard to draw a conclusion about what their intent is.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[martinibuster]

Plantet13, you consistently ask good questions and inspire blog posts out of me. LOL.

I believe that the profitable phrases are shopping related followed by DIY project phrases. Least profitable phrases relate to killing time and doing homework.

Shopping phrases are those with product names/kinds of products in the phrase, as well as phrases related to prices and discounts and reviews.

[Jonathan]

If you get a lot of long tail queries, consider analyzing them with a word stemming or "long tail search analytics" tool.

[DaStarBuG]

I believe that the profitable phrases are shopping related followed by DIY project phrases.

Catching visitors in their buying cycle is for sure a lucrative field for advertising, but another lucrative field is catching people in search for an answer to their problem.