Do and Do Nots Monday

Its time for Adsense Hacks Do and Do Not's Monday. If you are ready lets begin.

Do

• Check earnings regularly.
  
• Make sure that your CTR is no higher than 10%, as this could report invalid clicks.
• Add e-mail alerts.
• Check your balance at the end of the month.
• Use advance reports to work out how much the average is between months.

Do Not

• Click your own ads.
• Let other people do your account.
• Constantly manage your Adsense account from different IP's as this could cause invalid clicks and Google remove you from the course.
• Ask people to click your Ad's.
  

Google Webmaster Tools Tips

Google has released, from what I gather, Google Webmaster Tools. Which can be used to enable a webmaster to gather information about web pages about your site. You have to be able to upload or modify html pages or tags, but the tools which it gives are helpful in making a more successful site.

Once you have verified that you are the owner of the site and you link to to a Google Account. There are some useful tools to help you tweak your site to get the best out of Google Search results and hopefully turn this into profits from the Adsense program.

All the images can be clicked to show the full versions. They are taken from my other site The Powell Blog which has been running longer and as a result yields more results on the pages. A new site will of course not have many page crawled by Google so wont provide good results. But this will change as time goes on.

The many page is a basic summary of your website.

Given is a basic overview of what appears in your site and what is broken, in my case it is some search links that do seem to work but have yet to be recrawled.

As well as this is the last crawl date of your website, useful to no when Google last came to visit. Apart from crawl errors (which should be none) this section isn't very helpful.

Probably the most useful is the crawl rate section of the webmaster tools. This gives 3 options. Fast, Normal and Slow. Most / All of the time it is on normal, which is the default setting. This tool allows you to change it. If you have unlimited hosting you could put it to fast, so the Google Bot returns more often. But this will use more bandwidth. Slow should only be used if you on very limited hosting or cannot handle to bot coming as often as it does.

I recommend using the the help section to gain a better insight into what you should use.

One thing that should be added is the Enhanced Image Search, which does no harm to your site and could bring more visitors, I recommend this be checked.

Finally there is a section which gives statistics on your website from Google.

This gives relatively simple statistics, but it is always worth a look.

Apart from the features listed above there is also sections where you can add a sitemap, check links to your site. Best of all each feature has a simly face which you should use to rate each part of the tools. I suggest you use it so Google can improve and make the tools better.

If you have comments please us the link below.

When to Check Your Adsense Earnings

As a first time user you may get excited about the prospect of using Adsense. But there is such as thing as being to involved. For example you may want to keep refreshing your Reports page. This may be fine at first but it could cause problems.

Every time you login into your Adsense account Google will place a cookie on the computer you are using. If you log into it from your home account this will be fine, but login into some one else's internet and visit your ads that IP will be blacklisted against your account. The problem with this if they click on your ads it will come up invalid as you have used and visited that internet connection.

The solution of this is to only login in to your Adsense account from one IP, this will minimize the chance of invalid clicks and closer on your account.

Using Custom Colours For Adsense Ads

Did you know that you can use custom Colors with Adsense adverts. For quiet a while I thought that you could only use the colors out of the color picker. But if you click on the hex decimal number you can input any value which is a valid color. This of course is really useful as the colors that they provide are not that useful for some sites.



These different colors enable a whole variety of styles. Useful for people who have colors that are not in Google's color range.

A Firefox Tool To Automatically Check Your Adsense Earnings

Have you got a compulsions to check your AdSense account to see how much you have earned. Also known as Google Adsense Disorder (GAD). Then this is the tool for you.

Using the FireFox web browser download this little add on here. What it enables you to do is automatically check your account to a user specified time. For example I have set it to check every 15 minutes. The add on will then display your impressions, clicks, CTR and earnings (this can be customised as needed). This tool is better than having to manually login.

This tool is great to have. Download it now.

Ulitising Adsense Referral Units

Referral link units come in two forms, link and button. This guide will tell you how to use them to your advantage and help make you money.

The main advantage of a referral button is that you can earn up to $2000 a year off one product by just referring people. The disadvantage is that people usually have to download something or sign up. But with some good optimisation you can start getting clicks and earning money.

There are 4 types of referral packages; Adsense, Adwords, FireFox and Google Pack. Each have there own different target audience. For example the Adsense and Adwords referrals are aimed at people who are setting up sites and ready to promote them. For example people visiting this site have an interest in Adsense and possible Adwords. Other websites such as my blog would have referrals of the Google Pack and Firefox, as those are the types of product they would use.

Each different referral pays a different amount. This was taken from Adsense help.

AdSense:


• When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral first earns $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.
• When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payout, you will be credited with an additional $250.
• If in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).

Firefox plus Google Toolbar: When a user that you have referred to Firefox plus Google Toolbar runs Firefox for the first time, you will receive up to US$1 in your account, depending on the user's location. Your referral must be a Windows user, who has not previously installed Firefox, in order for you to receive credit.

AdWords:


• When an advertiser you refer first spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee), you will be credited with $5.
• When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.
• If in any 180-day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).

Pack: When a Windows user that you have referred to Pack downloads and installs the product, you will receive up to US$2 in your account.

Its obvious that the Adsense package pays the most, but its not necessarily the best for your site.

There are 3 types of formats that could be picked for referral units; link, button and big button.
The link units as the title describes is simply a link. Best for positions or sites that have a lot a links. The small button is useful, as in my case on the right, for sidebars and small areas that only need a small button to fill the area. The big buttons are better for large areas of your page that need to be filled, and a referral link is the best thing.

Remember that you are allowed 2 referral units on your page so fiddle around and see what gets the best position and clicks. Set up a channel and see what is working. Best of all experiment and see what your visitors want and click on, because if a visitor likes your products then they will click on your links and earn you money.

Utilising Adsense Link Units

Adsense link units are a really good money maker. I am going to share with you tips to making more profit. As you are only allowed one link unit per page, you are going to have to make it count.

For example link units are best placed were a lot of your links are already contained. The sidebar, at the bottom of a post. The placing of a link unit is important because only one or two words advertise what the advert is about. Putting a link unit in a low traffic area of your site is a waste of time.

Colour is also important. The best link colour is blue. All links on the Internet are blue so should yours. There is no need to reinvent the wheel are confuse your visitors. as well as this also make sure the background and boarder watch your sites background, they want to blend seamlessly.

Different link units work best it different positions. The long and thin units work best at the top and bottom of the page. The box link units look best either in the side bar or directly below your content. As if they were originally part of your website.
There is an option on how many links per unit. If there is small text as the main font on your page use five links, the ad size will blend better. If you have normal text size like mine then stick with four links per unit.

One tip, don't blend your ads so much into your site that a visitor cannot distinguish the ads from your content. This is against Google TOS. Don't risk it.

Finally use the competitive adverts filter within Google Adsense account settings to weed out adverts that are not relevant. Having adverts that don't relate to your content will not get many clicks. Use it to your advantage.

The best thing to do is make a channel for your links unit and experiment what position makes you the most money. Have fun.

Using Google Search Effectively

Google Search can be used as a good money earner. The reason for this is that every search that a user performs there is a resource of millions of Adwords ads at there disposal to click. For example every search can bring up to 8 Ads (4 Top 4 Bottom) that will all earn you money. This is great for publishers.

Advantages of Google Search

• Access to every advertisement available. Providing it comes up in a search.
• Users are more adapt to were the adverts are. They know the page layout since its the same as Google's main search results page.
  
• You can change the results to match your colour scheme.
• In my experience it pays more per click than normal ads.
  

Disadvantages of Google Search

• Users have to search before adverts appear.
• Can be hard to exactly match the colour scheme of your site.

Placing the Search Box

Google says that you can have only 2 search boxes per page. One is all you really need. The best place to put a search box is at the top of the page in the right hand corner (area). Most people are would normally find a search box here.

Formatting

When setting up the search box it is a good idea to keep the Google Logo. Why? Because people recognise it. This will draw people to the search box to get the ball rolling.
You also have the choice whether to open the results in a new page or existing. I would choose new page. Simply because it offers a reader to use your site again once as they have closed the tab or window (Your page will still be open).

Colours

Colours will play a major role in what the search page looks like. You have to real options. Watch your colour scheme, which can be hard to master, or use Google's. Each have there advantages.
Using a colour which matches yours reminds people that they are still using your site.
If you match a colour scheme which is the same as Google means that people are recognise the layout and as a result may stay longer.
The only way to find out is to monitor your reports to see what produces the best results.

Hopefully this article has helped out and you understand more about the Google Adsense Search box.

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Using Google To Get Higher Paying Adverts

When you use Adsense for the first time, or any time, on a new website you will start receiving generic adverts that do not pay a great deal. Although these adverts do pay. You could earn more by adding in higher paying Adwords terms into the content of your page.

By using the Google Adwords tool located here. You can search for words that will bring in high paying adverts. For example by putting in a generic word such as "Adsense" and then putting in the highest CPC (Cost Per Click) value. The highest paying advert search terms will appear.

Click for Full Size

This produces result that show how much some companies are willing to pay.

Click for Fullsize

All you have to do now is tailor your content to match the high paying Adwords results.

Now this tool was designed by Google so people can find how much people are paying for the Google Adwords prices. But it can be tailored to suit. As well as this the adverts you will get do not all pay £20+ per click, because Google takes a slice and the high paying keywords do not appear that often. But it always worth a try.

If you would like to try eithier Adwords or Adsense please use the buttons located in the right hand column.

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