Although AdSense provides you with attractive, relevant advertisements it does not follow that every visitor to your site will considerately click on them to generate an income for you. Once the ads have been placed on your site you need a strategy to encourage people to look at them.

Here are some suggestions,

Customize advertisements:

AdSense ads are easy to customize so avoid using the default settings. Instead, experiment with colours and themes and add images as attention grabbers.

The trick is to ensure that the AdSense ad doesn’t look like an advert by using Google’s custom palette to make it seem part of your webpage. In other words, set the same background colour for the advert as you use for your page background and use the same colour text as well.

Leave out obvious borders and make all your links blue, which is the colour users have been conditioned to click on!

Another area which allows you to customize your settings is the ‘Advertise on this site’ link which appears under your ad units. This link opens up a page which allows prospective advertisers to bid for advertising on your site.

Of course, the more advertisers who promote their products and services on your site, the higher the bid prices and, consequently, the higher your revenue.

To make this landing page more attractive, you can customize your site logo, colour scheme and description simply by logging into your AdSense account and editing the ‘Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up’.

Format your page:

There are two schools of thought when it comes to formatting your pages in order to make them more attractive and display the ads more effectively. One is to try to produce something unique to set you apart from your competition, and the other is to look at successful sites and then copy their layout, content and ad placement.

Which ever way you choose to go it is important to keep your pages simple and uncluttered and place your ads at their best advantage. Google allows the use of your AdSense code three times on each page, if you decide to do this it is preferable to vary the way in which the ads are displayed.

Important as it is to place your ads where they are easily seen, ‘in your face’ placing can be offensive to many users. Experiment with the size, style and placing of your AdSense ads to determine which gives you the best click through rate.

Target your content:

Lastly, when you write your content consider not only who is going to read it but what ads it might attract. The keyword density in your content reflects your topic which, in turn, is reflected in the AdSense ads which find placement on your page.

Having said that, remember that the reason users go to websites in the first place is for information. If you have nothing interesting or original to say you are unlikely to attract traffic to your site Good quality content not only increases the possibility of being picked up by search engines, but it is also more likely that other website owners will link to you if you have something worthwhile to offer.

And, of course, the more traffic through your site, the more likelihood of a good ad click-through.

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