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!
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A Fortune with Google AdSense - Web Site Content

Hey again buck hunters! We're back to Google AdSense - I hope by this time you have your AdSense account open and activated & you are familiar with the program's terms and conditions. If not, please go back to the previous post on the subject. So here we are, everything is ready - it's now time to get down to serious business. First important aspect: where will you be publishing your AdSense ads? Your website content is the most important key to AdSense profit. If you don't already have a clear idea about what your site should be about, here's a few ideas.

First keyword: QUALITY CONTENT. Your website needs good quality and ORIGINAL content. You might be able to drive some traffic to your website by copy/pasting information you find here and there on the internet, but in the long run that can compromise your website image and cost you some legal trouble if you get caught. It's easier to forget about tricking the system and instead focus on good content and good marketing - and besides being the right thing to do it's also more profitable.

Do not start a website on a subject you know nothing about. Do not pick a subject you are not personally interested in - there's no point in writing about cats when you are more of a dog lover. If you are passionate about your website content the quality of your website will increase and your readers will notice that, increasing your targeted audience. Your posts should be as many as possible, but the content IS ESSENTIAL. So for starters you should only think about subjects you are really into. You will have to update your website regularly for optimal results, it will be easier for you to do so if the subject of the website is one of your favorites.

From these subjects, you should choose one that is likely to offer you good feedback from your visitors. If you manage to create a community around your website then you will have a great stream of quality content at your disposal, completely free of charge. All you need to do is intelligently moderate comments and posts and you will see your website growing by the day, with minimum effort from your part. People are encouraged to comment and communicate when they actually find your website to be interesting, so again we have to go back to our first point - quality content.

Then, if AdSense is the main channel through which you are planning to monetize your website you need to think about some specific issues. First, not all ads are equal in value - the value of a click differs according to the ad unit, publishing website, website language and domain.

Generally, from my experience, English remains the best language, as the ad competition for one slot is among the highest. I have a website in my native language with a good traffic and a lot of ad impressions - however the profit generated by AdSense on this website is ridiculously small. My websites in English are by far the champions in terms of revenue - up to 5 times more profitable than any others.

Also, your website quality content may push advertisers to really want a slot on your available ad units, in which case competing offers for, say, a 468X60 banner might push the click price higher, thus generating higher income for you. The higher the traffic and your website reputation, the higher the chance of advertisers focusing on you in particular.

Website content is truly one of the most important factors in monetizing your project. Try to choose a domain in which advertisers would afford to pay expensive clicks - up to you to research and test the most profitable domains. Financial businesses, the world of luxury products and services, rare domains in which you would have less competition and higher exposure, highly competing services desperately trying to occupy their share of the market by advertising everywhere - all these can be interesting directions to speculate. Try to be where the money is! If your website content is of little commercial importance or centered on charity work don't expect to get too much money out of it... A company with a total turnover of a couple of thousand bucks per year will most likely not invest too much in advertising - so the maximum you could get is a few cents per click, insufficient for what we aim for over here. Your aim is to end up having a steady few dollars rate per click, so that 100 clicks per day for instance could actually be a nice profit in your Adsense account at the end of the day. Even 100$ per day is already a profit worth spending a little time on.

For now, I will end here the website content considerations - but trust me, this is where it all starts! Give yourself some time to find a good domain for your project, that would prevent you from abandoning it in just a few days after the launch and wasting your work. Choose a good name for it too, people tend to remember websites with funny or strange names - by the way I hope 'Sit on Money' has already captured your attention ;)

Next time - about choosing the right ads and placing them on your website. About page impressions, clicks and CPM - the keys to Adsense success. And more... Be well and good luck!
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A Fortune with Google AdSense - Getting Started

Last time I started talking about website design, and we'll get back to that topic. At the same time (and in close relation to the website development topic) let's start exploring what AdSense (Google's program for advertisers and publishers) can do for an online money hunter and how we can use this instrument to achieve constant gains. This will be a long topic, but we need to give each step proper attention - this is one of the easiest, safest and most rewarding directions I will be following on the blog. Take this seriously and the ads will give you a steady flow of cash in your account, with a minimum effort, in no more than a few months.

Adsense is an advertiser-to-publisher connection, out of which Google takes more than a fair share. They do their best to keep up the quality of the program, so that everyone's happy, and they're doing a pretty good job so far if you ask me. Publishers pay Google to have their ads displayed on relevant websites, Google finds your website to be relevant and automatically redirects the guy's ad on your site. Somebody finds that ad on the Internet and finds it intriguing (for some reasons we want to know ALL ABOUT!:), so here's where the CLICK occurs. That user finds an interesting website, the advertiser gets a potential customer browsing his site (where the visitor goes from here is not our business anymore as publishers), Google gets their money from the advertiser, you get a share of that profit from Google. Best part: everybody's happy...

Google will always work to increase their revenues for their program (it's a business, remember?), and that means higher revenues for you too, as a publisher. They will pay you fair and square no matter how much you make- no problem here - so there's no risk of being taken for a ride. Their customer support is generally pretty good, so if there's any problem you have a good chance of getting it solved fast. Overall, this direction can make you from a lousy few hundred bucks profit during the first 2-3 months up to 3000-5000$ monthly after 1-2 years, provided that you do a good job. And that's why we are here for, right? ;) Don't worry, little by little we will touch all the important tips and tricks of this business (and others for sure) and you will see for yourself at no risk that this kind of profits are actually achievable.

So, let's get started! First, login to the Adsense homepage and get accustomed with the basics.

Read carefully the "Learn about AdSense" section and open your account. By this time you should already have a website with some space for displaying ads. Once your account is approved (takes a few days) you can build your first ads and start displaying them on your website. Just make sure you respect google's terms and conditions of service, as any invalid ads might invalidate your gains and you risk having your account suspended.

Also, avoid trying to cheat by clicking on your own ads (or have your friends do it for you) - if you do it intelligently you might get credited some bucks right away, however - trust me - this is not in your best interest overall. If your ads do not produce some results for advertisers then they might lose interest in having your website on their list, which of course will lead to lower competition for your remaining ads, resulting in cheaper clicks. It's not enough to have hundreds of clicks per day - once you have good traffic and a decent rate of click on your ads you will start focusing more and more on trying to increase competition on your ad slots and raise the value of each valid click.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves...:) For now, the focus should be on exploring the possibilities offered by this serious Google program. Browse through the entire adsense website, get subscribed to the forum and read the recommendations for publishers. They are given to you in good intention, since the more you make the better for them (Google earns a substantial profit from Adsense so obviously they want to keep it rolling better and better) - you can trust their advice to be sincere and in your best interest. Learn how to create and modify the appearance of the ads - this will prove really useful during the next steps we will take together. Learn to create channels in adsense, we'll discuss soon all about using them for monitoring the performance of our campaigns. For any question at this stage please send me a note, I'll be happy to give you a hand.

Finally, Id like to make an important note regarding adsense, and the funny thing is that it's NOT related to adsense at all :) It's related to THE WEBSITE YOU WILL BE PUBLISHING YOUR ADS ON. The website design has to be 1) adsense-friendly from a technical point of view (ill come back to this in the Website Design section soon); 2) well targeted in terms of colors & "flavor" and 3) capable of offering your ads the exposure they need to generate a high rate of click. The website is where your Adsense success starts. I'll soon tell you about my own experience with various websites using Adsense and what I learned from these ups and downs.

Also, website content is CRUCIAL. Choose the wrong content and you'll find yourself struggling for a few cents after many months of hard work. This is a separate discussion altogether, I'll come back to it in a future post.

Good luck getting your adsense account started!
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Managing a Website - Getting Started, Design Guidelines (I)

Hi everybody! I'll start our journey with the most general of the directions I want to propose to you for gaining some nice and constant profits online: DESIGNING AND MANAGING A WEBSITE. It's the topic we shall keep coming back to over and over, since this is not an overnight or one-step venture and there are lots of things to discuss (especially ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES aimed at maximizing profits from your website). Moreover, many of the instruments we shall analyze together are best presented via a website, so this must be our starting point.





Nowadays it's not difficult to either find free website templates on the web or design a simple/complex website by yourself. If you are picky, have specific needs and know what you want you should probably have it done by a professional web designer. In any case, you can have it ready in a matter of days, it could look really great but that's no guarantee it will make you more than a few pennies.. Here are a few things to keep in mind for starters (I'm referring to web site design only in what follows):

• SIMPLE IS GOOD, efficient and it's been proved to work. Have a look at the Google websites - almost all of them are simple and clear in terms of design.
  
  
• Always keep in mind your website target and purpose when designing it - you won't be able to change this easily once the website is up and running.
  
  
• Choose friendly colors in order to attract the majority of your visitors. Study color combination or/and professional website templates to see what color combinations match best. Warm colors are generally perceived as less aggressive and prove to be statistically most efficient. If you want to convey aggressiveness (depending on your website profile & your marketing technique) then you have to do it right and make sure people get intrigued when visiting your home page for the first time instead of simply freaking out.
  
  
• Adapt the colors and the tone of the design with the content of your website (e.g. a site for a deluxe spa should have a sophisticated, warm and "peaceful" tone, while a karate gym should convey a more dynamic, razor-cut image, etc.).
  
  
• Be coherent across your website and don't change the proposed "tone" too often. Don't use too many colors, this tends to give a cheap, unprofessional look to your work.
  
  
• Inspire yourself from other designers' ideas, but don't steal other people's work (besides being legally and morally wrong, you might face some unnecessary embarrassment if caught).
  

These are all just preliminary steps for designing your website and they are by no means an exhaustive guide to web design. For more resources on how to design a professionally-looking website or where to find an affordable professional web designer you might want to check the links below.

Next on this topic we will discuss how to choose the theme/domain of a profitable website, how to plan the content and the best marketing strategy to monetize it. Stay close!

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