I found the BEST way to maximize my AdSense earnings

[skyzeda]

A few years ago I started launching niche mini-sites with a vengeance. AdSense and ClickBank were my main sources of revenue. At first I made assumptions about what layout would make me the most money... my conversion rates sucked. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. That's when I discovered the beauty of split testing and skyrocketed my AdSense earnings without increasing my traffic. Here's what I found:

Use the default ad unit
The default 300x250 ad unit will make you the most money. There is a reason that Google has set this as the default size... it converts better than any other ad unit. Use it and love it.

Only put one ad unit on your page
Having more than one ad unit on the page can actually lower your earnings. This might seem counter-intuitive but it's true. Google puts the ads with the highest CPC in the unit closest to the top of the page. Even in a high-paying niche, ad units farther down on the page will often earn you only pennies per click. Amazingly, people will actually scroll back up to click on the ads when they've finished skimming your page.

Place the ad unit directly above your content
This one is a no-brainer. Placing your AdSense unit left-aligned, directly above your content, above the fold will get the best CTR. People love shortcuts. If you give your visitors a solution to their problem before they even scroll down, many will take it.

But don't just trust me, split-test different layouts for yourself and see how much money you've been missing out on. Hope this helps!

-Skylar

[domains1516]

thats a good one from you
how can bring more traffic to my free blog as well

[mooble]

If you have two blocks instead of one, wont the top paying ads still go to the top ad block? what's the big deal with having a block at the bottom of your page? Won't this catch people who read your content and then click the back button? Also is left aligned above content really better than center aligned? It looks uglier than hell compared to center aligned... but i won't argue with results. Also the default vs 336x280? I've always heard about how 336x280 is best.

[fenix34]

I agree, spit testing is very important and can give you insight on what is good, what is better and what sucks. If you have two blocks of ads, that will not lower your earnings, it will just lower your average cpc because some ads will get you less earnings per click.

[mooble]

Originally Posted by fenix34

I agree, spit testing is very important and can give you insight on what is good, what is better and what sucks. If you have two blocks of ads, that will not lower your earnings, it will just lower your average cpc because some ads will get you less earnings per click.

True, it may lower your cpc but it could also increase your ctr, balancing it out or perhaps improving overall earnings.

[skyzeda]

Originally Posted by mooble

what's the big deal with having a block at the bottom of your page? Won't this catch people who read your content and then click the back button?

See:

Originally Posted by skyzeda

Amazingly, people will actually scroll back up to click on the ads when they've finished skimming your page.

I've found that many people will notice an ad that they like, read your whole page, then scroll back up to click on the ad when they're finished. (I do the same thing when I'm reading a website.) Because there are no ads at the bottom of the page you may lose a few people to the back button. However... I'd much rather have a few people scroll back up and click a $1.00 ad than click a $0.05 ad at the bottom of the page.

I wonder what Clickbump and XFactor have to say about this...

Originally Posted by mooble

Also the default vs 336x280? I've always heard about how 336x280 is best.

It really depends on who you ask. Some websites might even do better with a rectangular ad depending on their content (wallpaper sites, etc). Overall, 300x250 is the top performer for me.

Originally Posted by domains1516

thats a good one from you
how can bring more traffic to my free blog as well

Forum posting is a good way to get started driving traffic to your blog. Find a blog that's relevant to your site and make helpful posts on the forum. Put a link to your website in your forum signature.

[DireStraits]

Good tips overall, but I'm not sure I agree completely with the second one.

There was a time I just assumed that the advertisers bidding the highest would always take the top spots.

Clearly, it doesn't work like that. Ad positions are decided by taking into account a number of factors. The most important, I guess, would be CPC and CTR, since combined these determine how well an ad performs / how much it'll turn.

An advertiser could bid $2.00 more than everyone else, but there'd be little benefit both from their and Google's perspective if the ad was rarely clicked. In those cases, Google would stand to make more by elevating a more popular advertisement higher up the page, even if the CPC bid price was lower, no?

So what you'll normally get by having a single ad block (or less ad blocks) on the page is the overall most profitable ads in terms of the potential payout per click and CTR combined; not just in terms of payout.

That means it's possible that you may earn more per single click from additional ad-blocks lower down the page than earn you earn from those higher up the page (or those shown if you only display one ad-block), but those in the first/only ad-block will usually command the best CTR of all the relevant ads in that particular pool.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[skyzeda]

Who knows... test it out. It might work great on your site.

All I know is it sounds great in theory but it didn't work like that on my sites.

[fenix34]

We can theorize forever, but truth is testing is the only way to find out. What works best for my site, doesn't have to produce best results for your site.

[paulgl]

You should put all three ad blocks.

The top paying ad is not always the top ad. The top performing
ad is on top. In fact, the top paying ad may not even show up if you
only have one ad block. Google rewards adwords customers by
charging them less for the top ad.

The top paying ad may be on the last ad block. Put an ad block at the end
of your article/content. Google tells you this is great way to get
people to choose where to go next by clicking on an ad.

Of course, test, test, test. What works for one, may not work for another.

Paul

[chinedu86]

i guess different strokes for different folks.each person has to test out to know what works and what doesn't.

[skyzeda]

Originally Posted by chinedu86

i guess different strokes for different folks.each person has to test out to know what works and what doesn't.

Well put. I suppose the less time we spend arguing about what works and the more time we spend testing... the more money we make. Haha.

[Fun to Write]

Hey, Skylar

I did this exact same thing and have a few Adsense authority sites that make decent money. So, I can vouch that this will work.

Of course, everyone should test for themselves to find what works well for them.

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by skyzeda

A few years ago I started launching niche mini-sites with a vengeance. AdSense and ClickBank were my main sources of revenue. At first I made assumptions about what layout would make me the most money... my conversion rates sucked. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. That's when I discovered the beauty of split testing and skyrocketed my AdSense earnings without increasing my traffic. Here's what I found:

Use the default ad unit
The default 300x250 ad unit will make you the most money. There is a reason that Google has set this as the default size... it converts better than any other ad unit. Use it and love it.

Only put one ad unit on your page
Having more than one ad unit on the page can actually lower your earnings. This might seem counter-intuitive but it's true. Google puts the ads with the highest CPC in the unit closest to the top of the page. Even in a high-paying niche, ad units farther down on the page will often earn you only pennies per click. Amazingly, people will actually scroll back up to click on the ads when they've finished skimming your page.

Place the ad unit directly above your content
This one is a no-brainer. Placing your AdSense unit left-aligned, directly above your content, above the fold will get the best CTR. People love shortcuts. If you give your visitors a solution to their problem before they even scroll down, many will take it.

But don't just trust me, split-test different layouts for yourself and see how much money you've been missing out on. Hope this helps!

-Skylar

Every one of these tips is subjective to the website's design and it's market.

I use to think that putting ads right above the content would get me the best CTR no matter what. Then I ran into a niche with tons of traffic and I was getting a terrible CTR with the ads right above the content. Turned out, I got a way way better CTR with the ads after my first paragraph of content.

And keeping the default colors doesn't work very well when you're running a website with a funny color scheme. Or even at all in most cases. I prefer to make the url grey as it doesn't stand out as much with the new ad layout.

Adsense tips really boils down to this: Test, test, and test some more to find out what results in the highest CTR for your website.

[pr678com]

i agree, the more Ads you put on your post, the less earning you will get.

[Maheshpandit]

Thank You for this.. I think less ads are always good but placement should be good.

Originally Posted by skyzeda

Only put one ad unit on your page
Having more than one ad unit on the page can actually lower your earnings. This might seem counter-intuitive but it's true. Google puts the ads with the highest CPC in the unit closest to the top of the page. Even in a high-paying niche, ad units farther down on the page will often earn you only pennies per click. Amazingly, people will actually scroll back up to click on the ads when they've finished skimming your page.

[JamesMSpacey]

Originally Posted by skyzeda

That's when I discovered the beauty of split testing

How much time/effort did it take you to set up (and did you just do it for one site)? I've got split testing on my list of things to do but can never get around to it.

[snobants]

Originally Posted by mooble

If you have two blocks instead of one, wont the top paying ads still go to the top ad block? what's the big deal with having a block at the bottom of your page? Won't this catch people who read your content and then click the back button? Also is left aligned above content really better than center aligned? It looks uglier than hell compared to center aligned... but i won't argue with results. Also the default vs 336x280? I've always heard about how 336x280 is best.

I use 336x280, and the left site before the content.
I prefer text links.
find in BigG "click heatmap" to see how this works.
sds,
Stive

[jhonsean]

An Informative article that I've read. I think to maximize its capability is the ads must be captivating to the readers for an usable reasons for them to implement its one's idea.

[L41db4ck]

Originally Posted by jhonsean

An Informative article that I've read. I think to maximize its capability is the ads must be captivating to the readers for an usable reasons for them to implement its one's idea.

I think you're an alien!

[skyzeda]

Originally Posted by JamesMSpacey

How much time/effort did it take you to set up (and did you just do it for one site)? I've got split testing on my list of things to do but can never get around to it.

Setting up split testing for a few dozen Wordpress sites only took me a couple of minutes... but I programmed my own plugin by hand. I'm sure there are ready-made Wordpress split-testing plugins out there somewhere, I have just never seen one.

[betsyanne]

I have not done split-testing yet, but it sounds like a lot of people on this thread swear by it. It must work really well, and bring a lot more money, and be worth doing. I may wait to do this until I switch over to WordPress from Blogger.