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Can You Make Money With AdSense?

In many ways, to see good results with Google AdSense requires a journey into the psychology of people. Where people click, why they click, what makes them click, are all things you have to investigate in order to make money with Google AdSense.

It took me several years to actually make money with AdSense. I had ads on my sites for long periods of time, with no clicks. My first year of using Google AdSense produced a whopping $20.00! I had just about given up on AdSense until I found Joel Comm. After employing the things that I learned for Joel, what was $20.00 per year slowly turned into $100.00 per month on average. What made the difference?

What Worked For Me

The following changes made a dramatic difference regardless of the blog I was working on. Whether on my political blogs, or any of my micro blogs, these changes made a huge difference regardless of the topic of the blog.

  • Forget about ads in sidebars. This is the worst place to put  Google ads. They will sit there for years, looking all pretty, but with few if any clicks.
  • Text ads win over image ads. From my research, I see a two to one ratio between image and text ads. Twice as many people click text ads than image ads.
  • Less is more. When you place ads in a more “scientific” manner, then there is no need to plaster ads all over the place. I get more clicks by using fewer, strategically placed ads.
  • The number one producing ad is… and not just for me but overall for everyone… 300 x 250 box ad.
  • The number two best producing ad over all is… the leaderboard.
  • The number three best producing ad is… the vertical half banner.

The Best Places to Put the Ads

  • The box ad, with NO border, medium text with BLUE links placed in the text of the article – on the LEFT hand side. You will get far fewer clicks with the ad on the right.  The second best place for the box ad is in the bottom center of the post.
  • Full banner ads work best in the top center of the post or page.
  • Leaderboards surprisingly work best at the bottom of the website. Leaderboard Ads at the top do not produce.

Diversified Income Streams

For me diversifying my income streams is a must. My primary income is through serving as webmaster and building websites for businesses. Google has a LONG way to go to come close to this income. My second money making stream comes through my affiliate micro sites. Google comes in at a distant third place compared to these other income streams, but I’ll take all I can get.

My goal for 2010 is to double my monthly income from adsense. I have also just started to use Chitika ads as well.

One Cool Ad Management Plugin

One plugin I highly recommend is WhyDoWorkAdSense. It allows you to manage all of your advertisements from your WordPress dashboard.

You can also exclude individual pages from having AdSense show up. I use this feature on my political blogs, leaving ads off highly controversial social issues.

What Does The Ad Pay?

I have found that the most important thing about Google ads, is where you place them. This is even more important than traffic.  You can have tons of traffic and still make very little with Google ads.

The other point is what the ads pay. Some keyword clicks bring in only 5, 10, or 25 cents. Other clicks can bring in 5 or 6 dollars just with one click!

Let me know what your experience is with ad placement, and if you make any of the suggested changes in this post, please let me know if you see the same results as I have. Happy blogging!

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