A Fortune with Google AdSense - Choosing the right size and colors for your ads

Hello again buck hunters, long time no see.. It's been a while since we last discussed about AdSense and how to use this advertising tool efficiently to generate high income. Today about choosing your ads' sizes and colors - one of the keys to maximizing clicks and revenues.

When you first opened your adsense account and created your fist ad unit you might have thought - ok, which one should I choose? The answer is mainly related to your website look and the space you have available. Ideally, your ads should not occupy the entire page in a way that will annoy your visitors.

Also, you should avoid placing them in a size format that somehow looks too big or too small compared to everything else on your page. "Blending in" your ads by using ad formats similar to your text columns helps your visitor "control" the page visually and makes it more difficult for him to spot the ads within your website content (we assume of course that he would be interested in the ads, but if there were a big sign on each of them signaling to him the fact that he is actually leaving your website to visit an advertiser's site - he might be reluctant to click and make you money).

You should think of placing the ads in such a way that your visitor would not be able to visually "separate" website content from ads, as in this latter case he would tend to scroll down (or right) to get to the content and skip the ad units (I know I do that!). In a word, try to be "SUBTLE" in displaying the ads - this technique also has the advantage of keeping your site clean and elegant instead of ending up having a flashy, kitschy appearance.

With regard to website colors - i'm a fan of blending colors & use warm, appealing colors when I have a choice. If you notice - on this website text adds are dominantly red and yellow, since warm tones are considered more visitor-friendly (this is not a rule, but rather a statistical tendency). If you can, try to use ads that look the same as your links - maybe even structure your website comment to suit the add structure (Title, text, link).

If you don't blend the adds and you want to make them obvious to be the first thing seen by your visitor, make sure you go all the way - use flashy, high-contrast colors so that your visitor will be fooled into reading at least one ad title. If he likes it and the ad is well targeted, you got yourself a click and a few cents. If he doesn't, then most likely he will unconsciously avoid similar ads on the page, since he already wasted a fraction of the second to read the first and was not intrigued enough to click. It's a risky strategy, but I suppose from time to time you can use it just to add salt and pepper to your site image when you're going through a boring period and you want to make a change.

Finally, another piece of advice: people like predictable things, because human mind is working in predictable patterns. Give your visitors visual comfort by having your website content placed predictably, so that people would know their way around and won't have to wander around clicking useless links and ending up in a dead end. On the other hand, don't hesitate to "refresh" your ads appearance from time to time by replacing red with orange and dark blue with dark green, for instance - you know, like a "spice up your life" sort of thing... Your visitors will unconsciously "detect" changes and their eyes will be drawn to those changes even without knowing, and of course that gives you an edge. Once their "curiosity" is satisfied then of course your newly added "spices" will become part of the routine, and it's probably best to keep it like that for a while, until you consider the right time has come to change a thing or two once again.

Next time - still on our adsense-related topic - some guidelines regarding website topic that I find important for generating traffic. Keep well!