Things That I Know

Using Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a way to show ads on your website and make money. Whether it be to break even on your hosting fees or to earn a living, Adsense can do a lot for both the amateur and professional web publisher.

From a publisher’s perspective, AdSense is just code. You plug the adsense code into your page once, wherever you want it to show up, and Google does the rest of the work for you. Google’s sophisticated technologies scan your site and display relevant ads based on the content of each page. According to Google:

“We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of webpages. Based on a sophisticated algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page.”

In order to make money, people need to click on the ads on your page. Depending on the ad that gets clicked, you get paid accordingly. Some ads and keywords pay more than others, so how much you make is dependant on what kind of site you have. The most important thing to remember when dealing with AdSense is content. The more content you have, the more the ads will be relevant to your site. If your ads are relevant, there is a much higher liklihood of visitors clicking on the ads.

Signing up for an AdSense account is free, but you need to be approved. Wait until you have some content on your site before submitting it to Google. Once you have a site approved, you can use that same AdSense account for as many sites as you’d like.

To make your ads, you just follow the instructions from the AdSense Setup page. You choose either AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, or Referrals. Each of these can be put into your webpage, and you can profit from the usage or clicks they generate.

To use AdSense for Content, you need to pick the size of the ad you want and the color scheme it will use. You want your ads to blend into your site well. Studies have shown that peoples eyes automatically ignore ads on webpages these days, so you don’t want it to stand out as an ad. You want your ad to appear as if it is part of the page. Follow Google’s rules, however, as they are reportedly quite strict about their Terms of Service. This means no pictures next to the AdSense ads in an attempt to confuse the reader, and no mis-labeling what the ads actually are. Follow Google’s rules and you’ll be fine.

Google also includes a “heat map” on their AdSense page that tells you where the most successful ads are on a page, according to their research.

There are an unlimited number of ways for you to display AdSense on your site. My advice is to play around a bit and track your ads through Adsense channels to see what works best for you.

Using AdSense Channels

AdSense Channels are a way to monitor your different Adsense ads to measure their performance. You can track your ads by either the URL the ad appears on or track the actual ad itself.

To create a channel, from your AdSense Setup page, click on Channels. You can create custom channels that get implemented right into the ad code itself, allowing you to monitor that ads page views, and clicks.

You can also create a URL channel. This can be particularly helpful if you are managing multiple sites from your AdSense account. It is also helpful if you have subdomains, or just want to measure that performance of Adsense on certain parts of your site.

Again, I would suggest playing around with all of these options and finding out what works best for you.

AdSense Tips and Tricks

There are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way with AdSense. Before I get into them, let me remind you that none of them will ever involve changing any of the AdSense code itself. If you ever see an AdSense tip that involves changing anything in the ad, don’t do it. That’s a good way to violate the Terms of Service and have your account shut down. No need for that.

The first thing is putting AdSense code in a post. Sure you can just put the code into the post, but then you have to take it right back out when you make more posts, in order to not have AdSense in each post. Putting the code right into a post may work on single post pages, but if you have multiple posts on a page, it’s kind of a waste since you can only have three AdSense for Content ads on a page.

So lets say you want to put an ad in a post, but only on your single post page. In your theme editor, or whatever you use to edit the pages of your WordPress theme, open the single.php file. This file may have different names, depending on your theme, but you’re looking for the file for single posts.

In this file, you want to find the line that says “<?php the_content(”); ?>”. This is the body of your post. Now, in order to insert the AdSense into this post, I use the following code:

<div style=”display:block;float:left;margin: 5px 5px 5px 5px;”>
INSERT ADSENSE CODE HERE</div>

What this does is inserts the ad at the beginning of the post, aligned (float) to the left. You can switch that to the right if you like as well. I’m not an expert in code, but there are ways to play around with that to customize it even more. Just put that code in before the content and ad your AdSense where it says to and your ad will show up.

If you want this to always be in the first post on a page, we can do that too. Just apply the same thing to the Main Index page and it will show up. However, it will show up in every post if we leave it at that. In order to put Adsense in certain posts, I’ll refer you to this page. It may seem like a lot of code, but once you follow the instructions, you pretty much never have to touch it again. You can play around with this to make ads appear in only the first post and then after the third, or however you want it to look.

If you want your AdSense ad to only show up after the first post on a page, that too is possible. Again, find the part of the code on your main index page that says <?php the_content>, or something of that variation, and paste the following after it:

<?php if ($count == 1) : ?>
GOOGLE ADSENSE HERE
<?php endif; $count++; ?>

This will put the Google AdSense ad of your choice only after the first post. If you would like it after a different post, you’d just edit the count == 1 to count == whatever post you want the ads to show up after.

Feel free to play around when putting AdSense in your webpage. But remember, don’t play with the code. Google is your friend on this one, keep them happy. Read the Terms of Service and don’t break the rules. Know what kind of content can have AdSense, and know how many ads you can use. These change often, so check with Google for the most recent rules. And when in doubt, ask Google. They’re quite good at answering questions promptly and they can be very helpful.

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