Monday, September 11, 2006

Google Adsense Layout Tips for Maximum Clicks

Positioning:
You need to add your Adsense links right in the heart of your template or right in the heart of your content.

Link Units:
Since the introduction of Google Adsense "link units", we can now add what looks like a "menu system" to compliment our menu system within our website. This is HUGE. Have you ever just clicked on a website and kept clicking on the menu links? I know we all have. By adding a "Google link units" to your menu, you will get more clicks than you thought possible. Try adding the link units near the top for better performance and try creating your link units to match the color of your menu system in place. Once in a while I find myself clicking on a menu link unit without even realizing it which in turn gives more money to the website owner.

Leaderboards & Skyscrapers:
These may very well be your "bread & butter". I only say this because of the sheer size of these ads units. The best place to add these ad units is obvious; Straight across the very top of your website (leaderboards), and straight down the side of your template (skyscrapers). Anywhere else may not look proper within your template and may look unprofessional.

Square & Rectangle Ad Units:
These are great to compliment the mass amount of content within your website and also within your recommended resources. You want to compliment your content, you don't want Adsense to BE your content because this will look poor on your part. Square and rectangular units are great to use within articles posted on your website or within your link resources. Try adding your Adsense boxes above your resource links within a page to give your Adsense account that added extra exposure.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Google AdSense Tips

Tip #1: Don't put ads on empty pages.

When I reworked my site, I built a skeleton set of pages that had no content, just titles and some meta tags. I displayed ads on those pages, however. Although all you see are public service ads at first, the very act of displaying ads on a page causes the AdSense web crawler to quickly fetch that page for analysis. A page with good content will thus begin showing relevant paying ads fairly quickly.

If you don't have any content, then, Google will have to guess as what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant. You'll have to wait until Google re-crawls the site for the ads to correct themselves. Here is what Google had to say when I asked them about how often the AdSense crawler updates a site:

Thank you for taking the time to update your site. New ads will start appearing on your site the next time our crawler re-indexes your site. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to control how often our crawlers index the content on your site.

Crawling is done automatically by our bots. When new pages are added to your website or introduced to the AdSense program, our crawlers will usually get to them within 30 minutes. If you make changes to a page, however, it may take up to 2 or 3 weeks before the changes are reflected in our index. Until we are able to crawl your web pages, you may notice public service ads, for which you will not receive any earnings.

It's better to flesh out the page before you start displaying ads on it.

Tip #2: Don't be afraid to ask questions

If you're wondering about something, don't be afraid to ask Google. So far, they've always responded to my questions within a working day. There are two email addresses to use, depending on the type of question:

Please feel free to email us at adsense-tech@google.com if you have additional technical questions or concerns. For general program or account questions, please email adsense-support@google.com.

Their responses are always very polite, and they appreciate getting problem reports and suggestions.

Tip #3: Avoid non-English characters on English pages

This one is a bug, to be honest. My surname is French, and I prefer to write it out correctly with the accent grave on the first "e". Every page on my site would then include at least two accented letters, because my name shows up twice in the footer. On some pages my name shows up two or three more times.

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. But on some pages the presence of the accented characters is enough to cause AdSense to display non-relevant ads in French. This happens whether the browser indicates a preference for French or not. When I reported this to Google, this is the answer they gave me:

Hello Eric,

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

We are currently working as quickly as we can to address this problem. As soon as we have more information for you, we will email you again.

We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Until this is resolved, I've decided to strip out all accents except on the pages that are actually in French.

Tip #4: Check your keyword density

Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do tell us that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags. Before serving ads on a page, then, you might want to check its keyword density. A good, free tool for doing this is found here:

http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html 

This lets you fine-tune the page before exposing it to the AdSense crawler.

Adsense: 15 tips ti increase your revenue

Google AdSense is a pay-per-click (PPC) program that can give you advertising revenue from each page on your website with a minimal investment in time and no additional resources.

AdSense delivers relevant ads that are targeted to the content people find on your site.

In many advertising networks and websites, including AdSense, the advertiser is charged for advertising their ad only when a user clicks on their ad. How much they pay (for that click) is called their Cost Per Click or CPC.

Here you will find some simple and effective AdSense tips that will increase your revenue. If you haven't already joined AdSense program, you should sign up first.

Now it's time to show you some tips and tricks that will optimize your AdSense ads.


Top 15 AdSense tips

AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords


Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).

AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords


Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.

AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme


Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don't forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.

AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day


One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.

AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format


Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:
  1. 336x280 large rectangle
  2. 300x250 medium rectangle
  3. 160x600 wide skyscraper

Another successful format is the 468x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.

AdSense Tip #6: Color tips


When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.

Create a custom AdSense palette:
  • border color = background color of your web site
  • background color = background color of your web site
  • link color = blue, color of your links
  • url color = black, #999999
  • text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.

AdSense Tip #7: Position tips


Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.

Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.

If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.

AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much


If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.

Link units allow the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.

AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won't lose your visitors.

AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads


You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.

There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target="_top"). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.

Read more about alternate ads.

AdSense Tip #10: What not to do

  • Don't click on your own ads
  • Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
  • Don't manually change AdSense code
  • Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
  • Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
  • Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)

AdSense Tip #11: Show images above or next to your ads


Placing images above AdSense ads is not necessarily prohibited by program policies. However, depending on the method of implementation this could be considered encouraging users to click on ads. So you should include a border line between the ads and the images. Don't show specific products in your images, in order not to mislead the visitors. Just use generic images that will increase the visibility of your ads.

AdSense Tip #12: Use section targeting


Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page. On your site, place this code where you want to emphasize.

Content you want to emphasize.


If you want some content to be ignored, use

AdSense Tip #13: Alternate the colors of your ads


AdSense allows you to have up to 4 color variations for each variable for which you can specify color. You should do that if you put AdSense ads on pages that receive many impressions from the same visitors (for example forums) to reduce ad blindness. For example:

google_color_border = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_link = ["000000","BBB90C","BBB90C","628098"];
google_color_url = ["000000","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_text = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];

AdSense Tip #14: Your Google ads should be visible


Make sure your text ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. If you put the ads in a table, give sufficient breathing room, i.e. proper cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.

AdSense Tip #15: Use AdSense channels


You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best. Instead of buying an AdSense tracker, you can enter the most important pages in your site and see how they are doing. Create up to 200 channels for AdSense.

How to Remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense

oogle adsense has become a very popular tool for making money from your site by showing advertisements. But sometimes you see PSA’s - better known as Public Service Ads on your pages. These ads are displayed because adsense has not been able to find suitable ads for your page.

So why are Public Service Ads bad anyway?

  • Most important fact is that there are no payments for clicks on PSA’s. So even if you have a good CTR (click thorugh ratio), it is of no use.
  • It spoils the look of your site. Lets say you decided to place a big 160×600 vertical banner on your site and no ad showed, the PSA ads will have big monocolour fonts since one big ad wil be shown instead of 5 ads there, which looks bad to the surfer.

How to get rid of Public Service Ads?

  • Develop sufficient good content with keywords on your webpage related to the topic of interest. Google is a great fan of good content websites.
  • Ensure that META tags like ‘title’ & ‘description’ and the headings tags like h1, h2 etc. have content which matches the rest of your site. They are main ways google judges your pages content.
  • Add specific keywords in your text which will help the google bot to determine and understand the content of your website. Repeat related keywords which will better help to understand site content. Do not fill your page with simlar keywords, it might work against your favour.
  • Try to keep the entire website focussed on a particular theme, so that even if the content on a particular page is lesser, the ads wil show.
  • Do not place multiple ad units if there are not suffcient ads to display on all of them. Also Google TOS do not allow placing more than 3 ad units on a page.

Is your site Still showing Public Service Ads?

  • Google may take time to crawl your site. Although most of the times the ads show immediately, at times it takes upto 48-72 hours for google to assess the content of newly created webpage. This usually occurs if your site has not been indexed before by Google. The time is reduced on newer pages of a site already running adsense. Google claims the ads will get better and more focussed to your pages with time.
  • Your page may contain objectionable content. This may be against Google Adsense policies. If you feel your page has no such content, then look for any objectionable keywords or phrases which may be present accidentaly. Removing such content can cause PSA’s to dissapear.
  • Your site maybe using a robots.txt file, which will may not be properly set up and prevent the AdSense crawler from crawling your web pages. Add the following two lines to the top of your robots.txt file:User-agent: Mediapartners-Google* Disallow:
  • Frames may occasionaly cause difficult in indexing your page. Always remember to tick the Framed page checkbox from the Ad layout code page when generating your ad code. Similarly IFRAME’s also prevent effective indexing and cause PSA’s
  • There may not be any ads configured to show in your region. Lets say that these ads may be working in United States, but maybe showing PSA is Zambia. This is because Google Adwords payers can select regions where to display their ads, where they believe their target surfers are. After all why should an eye surgeon in US want to promote his service in Zambia? Try using the Google Adsense Preview Tool (works on IE only) which helps to determine probable ads in different regions.
  • Recheck your Adsense code was inserted properly on your webpage. Do no attempt to modify the code in any way, as it is against their terms of service. Adsense gives enough options to cutomisethe ad colours and sizes to suit your site. USe only the official code available from their site.
  • Remove session ID’s from urls - they changes every time a different user views a page, and the URL will not be in the indexed everytime.
  • Reduce your filter blocked urls. This feature is in place to allow you to block competitors ads from showing on your pages. If you block too many such urls, there may not be any advertisers left to display ads.
  • Use the Google Adsense Sandbox tool Simply enter the URL or keywords in the box below, and you will see up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords.

Official ways to hide Public Service Ads (PSA)

  • Suggest as altenate colour to display instead of your PSA. This will show an empty space with the background colour you suggest.
  • Suggest an alternate ad to display instead of your PSA. Your ad will show in that space instead of the PSA if their is insufficient content.
  • Place a collapsible ad. This ad will collapse and not show any PSA at all.

Blogtimize!

Blogging is near and dear to our hearts here at Inside AdSense. We know you want to get the most out of those posts – but how do you do it?

1. Choose the right ad formats

Because the typical blog layout uses a narrow section for posts, the medium rectangle fits nicely at the end of each post. The medium rectangle also supports image ads, increasing the competition and revenue potential for that ad space. For shorter posts, a banner may be a better fit.

2. Place ads where your readers will notice

Blog main page:

Whether the subject is gadgets, gossip, or a glimpse into the writer's personal life, readers are deeply engaged with the content of their favorite blogs. What could be more effective than displaying an ad precisely relevant to that content? An ad after each post can serve as a "commercial break" from reading or as an "action step" to take after reading.

Individual blog entries:

As individual post pages don't have a lot of content, the key is to place ads near your content without bombarding the page with ads. For long entries, try embedding a blended medium rectangle into your post and adding a banner at the end. For short entries, just place one medium rectangle or banner at the end.

If there's a comment section after the post, place a banner or a horizontal link unit just above the comment box. Rather than using the traditional Skyscraper in your sidebar, consider using a link unit, which will offer a wider range of topics and may appear less obtrusive.

3. Improve targeting

How can you ensure that your ads are relevant to a specific post? With section targeting, you can target an ad unit to a specific section of the page, as well as block out irrelevant sections such as the navigational links.

4. Customize your ad colors

For more seamless integration with the content, blend ad units into the background of your blog. Choose a bold color for the ad title to help draw attention to your ads while ensuring that users don't confuse ads with content.

With up to three ad units, one link unit, and one search box on every page, layout options abound! While the suggestions above offer some guidance, you should experiment with different ad unit-link unit-search box combinations on your pages, keeping your particular users' experience in mind when it comes to placement. Most importantly, use custom channels to see what performs most effectively for your site.

How to Increase Google Adsense CTR

We all want to increase Google Adsense CTR i.e. click through ratio, because the higher times the surfer clicks the Adsense ad, higher is the payout to you.

How to get higher CTR?

  • Post Adsense ads them on text rich pages and make sure that Adsense had a bunch of keywords to work with. Getting Higher paying keywords is better of course.
  • Learn how to get rid of public service ads, which pay you nothing for your efforts.
  • Avoid titles like the approved ‘Sponsored Links’ and ‘Advertisements’ above the Adsense ads. Why do you want to tell the world they are ads when google already puts ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with them. These two terms are the only ones allowed by Google TOS. Any other terms will get your account terminated.

Best Google Adsense Placement to get higher CTR?

  • Place Ads above the fold, i.e. you dont have to scroll down to see the ads. Moreover it loads before your entire page does.
  • Provide lots of free space around ads so that they stand out and users know where to find them
  • Experiment by changing the location of advertisements. Track them by channels to see which location works. Sometimes they can do wonders.
  • Many experienced Adsense users have reported better CTR with vertical ads rather than the horizontal ones. But that really depends on your site structure.
  • Usually it is recommended to place towers on your right, as users tend to use the mouse to scroll the bar on the right side wiht a higher chance to see your ads. Some have reported doubling CTR’s by placing towers to the left rather than the right, as people have got bored of seeing ads on the right, it has something to do with the sidedness of the brain which I do not understand and there is a tendency to read from left to the right.
  • Many sites will have small ads in the top right hand corner, as they claim it is the first place where the eye sees.
  • An excellent article on Eyetracking - What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes helps to tell you where users actually see first and in what order.

Best Google Adsense Link Colors to get higher CTR?

  • Match the colors of your ads with the colour scheme of your site. Blending with your sites color profile helps to identify them not as ads, but as links similar to those of your site. The more the AdSense looks like part of your site, the higher CTR you will get.
  • Blend ads with your page - remove the borders by having a similar color as your background helps to show ads as being part of your site. Do not blend text or the ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with your background as it is against Google TOS. However, such blending may not work for you always due to banner blindness. Neither do they see the ads, not do they click on them. So a contrasting ad may suit your site better.
  • Experiment by changing the colors, background of advertisements. Sometimes they can do wonders.

I hope these tips help to get your Adsense CTR up by at least 100% if not more. Good luck!

15 Common Mistakes by Google Adsense Publishers that Violate Terms of Service

Google program is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are well defined terms of service to strictly adhere to when participating in the program.

On my visit through sites and forums, I daily notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.

2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad unit and 1 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.

6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.

10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.

11. Do not send your ads by email. Html formatted emails look good and allow placement of these javascript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!

12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches
- Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of ‘excessive’ is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.

15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”. In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.

Update:
16. Only single referral button per product per page - With the launch of the google adsense referral program, you are allowed to put only one referral button for adsense referral, adwords referral, and Firefox with google toolbar referral

17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads. - Several services like Chitika eminimalls allow you to place alternate urls, when a targeted paying ad cannot be displayed. This involved creating an simple html page and putting the ad to be displayed instead. Even Adsense allows an alternate url feature instead of displaying public service ads. But never use Adsense ads as alternate urls.

18. Add Borders betweem Images and text ads - It was a common policy to increase CTR by placing same number of images as the number of text ads, which falsely gave the impression that the text ads represented an explanation to these images. Insert a border when placing images and text ads in such a manner, to avoid confusing readers to falsely click ads.

Whenever in doubt, it is better to ask for adsense help from the learned staff of Google Adsense. They are very helpful!

Six AdSense optimization tips for forums

1. Format is important for multiple ad units
Placing a skyscraper above the fold on the left side of your forum seems to produce slightly better performance than other positioning. However, when using multiple ad units throughout the page our horizontal bias still favors the leaderboard. See the Forum Heat Map below for more details.

2. Display your ad units where repeat users will notice them
A leaderboard at the very top fits nicely next to the logo, but forum regulars tend to skip the header and go straight to the meat of the thread. Placing your ad unit above or below the first post can be more effective.

3. Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post
This provides users who make it to the end of a thread with a ‘next step’ when the content ends. If you place it after the footer, though, folks will move to the next thread before they even see the ad!

4. Use horizontal link units
Link units offer a wider range of relevant topics for users to browse. A horizontal unit can be placed near the top of your forum just below the header.

5. Opt-in to image ads
Supporting image ads increases the pool of ads –particularly cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM) ads – bidding to display on your site. Since forums tend to have lower click-through rates (CTRs) than other types of sites, CPM ads can improve revenue without the need for clicks. Please remember, however, that CPM ads come in both text and image formats.

6. Be sensitive to your forum community
Forums are highly interactive, so be sensitive to your users when implementing your AdSense ads. Be sure to blend the ads nicely, so they don’t appear overly intrusive – but don’t blend them so well they mislead your users! Every forum site is different and you know your community best, so as always use your own judgment to create the most positive experience for your users.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Adsense: Make More Money With Your Web Site

If you’re fed up with making peanuts from Adsense, then here’s a few Adsense tips to increase your Google Adsense income.

Content
Do you have plenty of good content on your site – and by that I mean keyword-rich content? To make good money with Adsense you should be aiming for at least 50-100 pages on your site – all of them with at least 500 words of content.

Keywords
If you’re not sure what a keyword is, visit Overture or Wordtracker and do some simple research there as to what keywords people are typing into the search engines. Each page should be optimized for at least one keyword, but the idea of sprinkling a few minor keywords through your pages will attract you instant traffic whilst you wait to rank for the more competitive keywords

More Web Site Traffic
If you’ve already got good content that’s keyword rich, then work to increase your search engine traffic. First, ensure that you are listed in the major search engines. If you’re listed but simply not getting any traffic, there’s some easy ways to get more search engine traffic in just days:-


Build links to your site – personally I use Link Metro to get those first links up and running and this means that the search engines naturally find and index your site
Write and submit articles to the article directories. Within 24 hours of submitting an article you can have a flood of targeted search engine traffic arriving at your site
Continue to add content – either through more pages, articles or by writing a blog. If you update your blog regularly and then ping it using Pingomatic, you’ll find you’ll be getting plenty of free traffic.
Add to this by submitting your blog to the blog directories and you’ll increase your blog site traffic even further. So, don’t forget to put the Adsense code on your blog pages too!
Traffic Exchanges – using a traffic exchange such as the popular Traffic Swarm is an easy way of gaining more web site traffic

Ban Proof Your Site
Make sure that neither you nor any of your friends, relatives and work colleagues accidentally or deliberately click on your site. It’s worth telling them that by clicking on your site they’re not helping you but may get you banned from Google!

Adsense Tracking
If you’re serious about Adsense, then tracking the keywords which are making you the most money and developing additional content around those keywords is a must. The addition of some simple code to your site can be a real eyeopener as to just where and how you are making money. If you’re not ready for this just yet, consider using the channels that Google offer to monitor how each page is doing.

Improve Your Click Through Rate
Well, as you’ll probably know, due to Google’s terms of service, no-one is allowed to discuss their actual click through rates (CTR’s). However, by simply using the Google heatmap you can improve a dire CTR (by that, I mean anything less than 3%). If your CTR is already doing OK but you’d love to boost it further, then investing in resources provided by the Adsense expert will be an investment you can literally recoup in days or hours.

For the latest information on how to increase your online income, visit more Google Adsense tips.
To get a free email mini-course on how to make the most money from your site, visit Make More Money from my Website.

Google's SEO Advice For Your Website: Content

The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScript, that you forget your site's content.
I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web.

Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise, considering how often officials at Google proclaim the importance of good content. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good writing.

Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really ignore traditional standards of quality in the publishing world? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point?

Apparently not.


Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Features

Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of identifying websites with good content and rewarding them with high rankings.

I looked at Google's top five pages for the five most searched-on keywords, as identified by WordTracker on June 27, 2005. Typically, the top five pages receive an overwhelming majority of the traffic delivered by Google.

The web pages that contained written content (a small but significant portion were image galleries) all shared the following features:

• Updating: frequent updating of content, at least once every few weeks, and more often, once a week or more.

• Spelling and grammar: few or no errors. No page had more than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Note: spelling and grammar errors were identified by using Microsoft Word's check feature, and then ruling out words marked as misspellings that are either proper names or new words that are simply not in the dictionary. Does Google use SpellCheck? I can already hear the scoffing on the other side of this computer screen. Before you dismiss the idea completely, keep in mind that no one really does know what the 100 factors in Google's algorithm are. But whether the mechanism is SpellCheck or a better shot at link popularity thanks to great credibility, or something else entirely, the results remain the same.

• Paragraphs: primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.

• Lists: both bulleted and numbered, form a large part of the text.

• Sentence length: mostly brief (10 words or fewer). Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than clumped together.

• Contextual relevance: text contains numerous terms related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword.

SEO Bugbears and Sacred Cows

A hard look at the results shows that, practically speaking, a number of SEO bugbears and sacred cows may matter less to ranking than good content.

• PageRank. The median PageRank was 4. One page had a PageRank of 0. Of course, this might simply be yet another demonstration that the little PageRank number you get in your browser window is not what Google's algo is using. But if you're one of those people who attaches an overriding value to that little number, this is food for thought.

• Frames. The top two web pages listed for the most searched-on keyword employ frames. Frames may still be a bad web design idea from a usability standpoint, and they may ruin your search engine rankings if your site's linking system depends on them. But there are worse ways you could shoot yourself in the foot.

• JavaScript-formatted internal links. Most of the websites use JavaScript for their internal page links. Again, that's not the best web design practice, but there are worse things you could do.

• Links: Most of the web pages contained ten or more links; many contained over 30, in defiance of the SEO bugbears about "link popularity bleeding." Moreover, nearly all the pages contained a significant number of non-relevant links. On many pages, non-relevant links outnumbered relevant ones. Of course, it's not clear what benefit the website owners hope to get from placing irrelevant links on pages. It has been a proven way of lowering conversion rates and losing visitors. But Google doesn't seem to care if your website makes money.

• Originality: a significant number of pages contained content copied from other websites. In all cases, the content was professionally written content apparently distributed on a free-reprint basis. Note: the reprint content did not consist of content feeds. However, no website consisted solely of free-reprint content. There was always at least a significant portion of original content, usually the majority of the page.

Recommendations

• • Make sure a professional writer, or at least someone who can tell good writing from bad, is creating your site's content, particularly in the case of a search-engine optimization campaign. If you are an SEO, make sure you get a pro to do the content. A shocking number of SEOs write incredibly badly. I've even had clients whose websites got fewer conversions or page views after their SEOs got through with them, even when they got a sharp uptick in unique visitors. Most visitors simply hit the "back" button when confronted with the unpalatable text, so the increased traffic is just wasted bandwidth.

• • If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands of a skilled copyeditor or writer before going online.

• • Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.

• • Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a "duplicate content penalty" for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.

In short, if you have a mature website that is already indexed and getting traffic, you should consider making sure the bulk of your investment in your website is devoted to its content, rather than graphic design, old-school search-engine optimization, or linking campaigns.

By Joel Walsh (c) 2005

9 Myths and Facts about Google Adsense

  1. Myth: Since wide ads (336x280, 300x250 and 250x250) are effective in many websites, it must also be doing the same thing in my website.

    Fact: Not really. Every website has its own characteristics; you cannot just follow what people said and then hope that your CTR will drastically increase. Try to do your own experiments with various ads and placements. Perhaps ads unit that are not effective in another website are your most profitable ads.

  2. Myth: It's profitable to develop website that's targeting high paying keywords.

    Fact: Perhaps, if you really are a Search Engine Optimization expert. It is correct that when these high paying keywords are clicked, you will get a huge amount of money. But do you realize how many people out there who also think the same thing? I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands; and you will face bloody competition to reach the top position in SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages). Without top position in SERPS, there will be no visitor; without visitor, there will be no one who clicks on your ads. I have another suggestion for this approach, read it in How to Increase Your Google Adsense CTR.

  3. Myth: High Traffic + High CTR = High Income.

    Fact: It is a perfect equation if only there is no smart pricing. High income depends of several factors, such as smart pricing and what type of website you run. Some types of websites (such as forum) have high traffic but they do not generate many incomes from Google Adsense. Smart pricing also affects it. I have seen many websites with high traffic, high CTR, but totally low income.

  4. Myth: Be careful if your traffic suddenly increases (perhaps because a popular website features one of your articles), Google might think you are doing spamming.

    Fact: Nonsense. Google is able to detect your visitors from their IP addresses (if you are not net savvy, just imagine IP address as your phone number; every time you make a phone call, it will be recorded on your phone company). If you're doing spamming, there is big possibility that all these IP addresses will be exactly the same. Beside that, Google is able to detect who your referrer is (where your visitors know your website from). If they find out that a popular blog/website is linking to your website, they will surely understand. So, don't worry about this.

  5. Myth: If Google suddenly bans your Adsense account, there is no chance you will be able to defend yourself.

    Fact: Some people agree with this, but some other give contradictory facts. Many webmasters complained that Google never gave them warnings and suddenly terminated their accounts. In fact, Google even didn't give them any explanations what their fault was. Strangely, some other webmasters gave contradictory facts. Firstly, Google always gives two warnings before they finally close an Adsense account. Secondly, if you can prove that you never break Google Adsense TOS (Terms of Service) such as doing click fraud, then they will reactivate your account.

  6. Myth: Google Adsense will make you millionaire within a couple of months.

    Fact: Wake up! It's not time for daydreaming! You must treat Google Adsense as a real business. And just like another real business, it takes times and efforts to be successful. Darren Rowse from Problogger shares how long he took to get six figures check from Google Adsense in here: www.problogger.net/archives/2005/09/01/im-a-six-figure-blogger/

  7. Myth: Repeating visitors will stabilize your Google Adsense incomes.

    Fact: Big mistake. In fact, repeating visitors even easily suffer ads-blindness. Since they regularly visit your website, they know where exactly you put your ads (except you rotate those ads everyday), and will avoid them. Getting new visitors everyday is more effective for your Google Adsense incomes.

  8. Myth: The only way to monetize your Google Adsense account is by placing their ads in every website/ blog you owned.

    Fact: Fortunately, no! There are many ways to use your Google Adsense ID (known as “Publisher ID”) now. One of them is by using it for “revenue sharing”. What is that? There are some forums that ask you to enter your Publisher ID when you register in their websites. They will use this ID to generate Google Adsense ads that will be displayed in every thread you participate in. If these ads are clicked, they will split the income: 50% for you, 50% for them. One of the forum that provide this facility is forums.digitalpoint.com

  9. Myth: People who got tens (or even hundreds) of thousands dollars from Google Adsense must own a single website that is visited by millions of visitors a day.

    Fact: Not all of them. In fact, many of them even admitted that they got those checks by developing many small websites. For them, it is easier to generate $40,000 from 40 small websites than generate $40,000 from a single website.

Top AdSense Tips

AdSense allows website publishers to display contextually relevant advertisements on their website. If a web visitor "clicks" on an advertisement, the web publisher will earn a percentage of the advertising revenue generated as a result of the click. Many webmasters have built content websites around the Google AdSense model. In many cases the specific intent of the webmaster is to profit from Google AdSense Other webmasters use Google AdSense to supplement their revenue. Regardless of the webmaster's intent, the following tips will help webmasters looking to profit from AdSense


Top AdSense Tips:


1. Niche Sites.

Targeted niche sites that have a clear theme, tend to generate more advertising revenue simply because it is easier to achieve decent search engine placement. Be warned though, you want to chose a niche where there is a sufficient number of advertisements available.



2. Target Keywords.

When determining the sites focus, consider how much the advertisers pay for the advertisements. If the site is focused on ringtones, like Ringtone Central http://www.ringtones-central.com the payout per click is going to be very small, as ringtones are not high ticket items, advertisers will not spend a lot on pay per click advertisements. With less obvious markets use Overture to determine how much advertisers pay per keyword, it is usually similar on Google. Search Overture for a keyword then click "View Advertisers' Max Bids" in the top right corner. This will show the Overture inventory and how much is paid per keyword. Because the market has become very competitive, it will be difficult to rank well in search engines with a new website that is optimized for the terms that have the highest payout. Consider targeting terms that are moderately priced.



3. Aged Sites / Time.

Over time as a website is spidered by Google, advertisements will generally increase in relevance. In general, older websites will rank better in search engines. The closer the advertisements relate to the webpage's content; the higher the "click-through" the publishers will see.



4. Coding.

In order to minimize a websites maintenance place the Google generated AdSense code in the website template or an include file. This will allow you to easily experiment with different advertisement sizes and ad placement, and keep the web maintenance to a minimum.



5. Tracking Channels.

In order to know how effective a specific website or ad placement is use distinct channels and subchannels within Google. This will allow you to discern what performs best on a specific website. Using channels will tell you what sites are making money, what advertisements are making money and what ad position is the most profitable on a specific website. Keep in mind that you should run an advertisement for a full week, in order to properly test its effectiveness, different days of the week will vary the web traffic so comparing one week to another will give the most accurate reflection of how effective a campaign performs.



When testing different advertisement sizes, placement or color schemes be sure to leave campaigns in place for one week, different days will often result in web traffic fluctuations. Comparing web traffic, week to week will give a clear indication of what ad formats perform the best.



6. Integrated Ad Placement.

Many webmasters have been successful at integrating advertisements into a website. The easiest way to integrate an advertisement into a website is to remove the advertisement border. This will allow the ads to better blend with the webpage. Google recommends contrasting the link colors with the website colors to increase click-throughs. It is also suggested that webmasters randomize the color of the advertisements, so that frequent users will not naturally "filter" the ads.



Example of integrated ad placement: http://www.golf-clubhouse.net or http://www.security-protection.net



7. Number vs Value of Advertisements.

Up to three advertisements can be listed on each page. This decreases the value of the advertisements served, so publishers should cautiously add advertisement units, as it dilutes ad inventory. In other words you want to serve the most expensive ads at all times.



8. Hot Spots.

Like web copy above the fold holds true with AdSense as well. This means that advertisements that appear without having to scroll will be read more frequently. Hot Spots are areas on a web page that result in a higher percentage of click-throughs. According to Google the highest paying advertisements are located on the hot spots.



hot spots map - http://www.small-business-software.net/heat-map.htm



Google does not indicate if image advertisements or text ads perform better, so webmasters are encouraged to experiment with both.



9. Highest performing Ad Sizes.

According to Google the 336 x 280 rectangle, the 300 x250 rectangle and the 160 x 600 sky scraper result in the highest number of click-throughs. Depending on the website's design and layout, publishers may experience different results with different ad sizes, placements and color schemes. Expirement and track the results for each website to maximize the AdSense payout.

5 Tips To Protect Your Adsense Account

In PPC advertising industry click fraud is defined as clicks generated by

Competitors of advertisers: These parties may wish to harm a competitor who advertises in the same market by clicking on their ads. The perpetrators don't profit directly, but force advertiser to pay for irrelevant clicks thus weakening or eliminating a source of competition.
Competitors of publishers: These persons may wish to frame a publisher. It is made to look like the publisher is clicking on its own ads. The advertising network may then terminate the relationship. Many publishers rely exclusively on revenue from advertising and can be put out of business by such an attack.
Other malicious intent: As with vandalism, there's an array of motives for wishing to cause harm to either an advertiser or a publisher, even by people who have nothing to gain financially. Motives include political and personal vendettas. These cases are often the hardest to deal with, since it is hard to track down the culprit, and if found, there is little legal action that can be taken against them.
Unwanted "friends" of the publisher: Sometimes upon learning a publisher profits from ads being clicked, a supporter of the publisher (like a fan, family member, or personal friend), will click on the ads to "help". However, this can backfire when the publisher (not the "friend") is accused of click fraud.
Clicks generated by publisher:Some publishers tries to generate clicks manually or with the help of computer programs to drive up their revenue.


Following tips will help you protect your Adsense account from click fraud if u don't fall in the last category listed above.

1.Regular monitoring of traffic log and your adsense reports:

Monitor your adsense reports and your traffic logs regularly(atleast once a day).If you do this regularly you will become familiar with your site's performance and you will be able to easily identify something strange and suspicious very easily.If you notice something strange in your reports or traffic logs you will have to report it to adsense support as soon as possible.You may include all the details yo have from your reports or your traffic analysis tool.Suspicious activities can be something like a conciderably high click throgh than you normally gets,conciderably high increase in page impressions recieved,A large number of clicks from a same IP etc.By sending an email with all the details you found you can notify google about suspected invalid activity.In order to be able to be monitor your sites performance and the behaviour of the vistors u will have to encorporate some kind of traffic analysis tools to your site.Google analytics,Stat Counter etc are well known examples used by a large number of webmasters.
If you wish to track the clicks on the ads on your website you may wish to use Ad Logger .You may also check this which uses google analytics to track adsense clicks.You may also concider doing a search on "webmaster resources" and "site traffic analysis".


2.Be polite in forums:


This tips is only important for those who are promoting their websites through their signatures in different forums.If you act rude in the forums it is never going to help you,but it can sometimes put you in trouble.Think about this case,You behaved in a rude way to some other member in the forum and you have a link to your site on your signature and the angry member decides to click on your ads regularly and deliberately.This can send the wrong message to google and sometimes they may think thats it you who is doing the clicks or you have appointed someone to click your ads regulary and they might decide to ban you.so i'd advice you to be polite and helping in all the forums in which you are participating.If you can't help,atleast don't blame or make fun of anyone.You may read this for more tips on promoting your website using forums.


3.Don't discuss your source of income(adsense)with family,friends etc:


Don't tell your friends and family anything about how you are making money online or how your website is making money for you.Even if u decides to tell them make sure to tell them why they can't click on your ads.You will have to convince them that they clicking on your ads won't be a help for you and it will be a harm.The problem with discussing this with your friends and family is that sometimes they will start clicking on your ads thinking that the are helping you earn some bucks.But you know that it can get you banned.

4.Stay away from illegal methods of traffic generation:

Invalid clicks or click fraud includes clicks from traffic generated using methods like Traffic exhange,PTC advertising,Auto surf etc.Thes type of traffic are blacklisted by adsese TOS.So you must stay away from traffic generated by illegal methods.The above mentioned are just examples and the list is not limited to them.


Accidental Clicks:


Couple of weeks ago i wrote to adsense support about the impressions generated by me while updating my site.The reply i got from them said that a publisher is allowed to view his sites as much as they want provided that he\she is not clicking any of the ads that appear on his\her site,he\she is not refreshing the pages too often.So that clears things up.
What if you clicked on your ad accidentally? The answer is,You will have to write adsense support about this as early as you can.If you are interested in viewing and checking the ads on your site without creating illegal clicks you may use Adsense preview tool.AdSense preview tool is an addition to the right-click menu for Windows Internet Explorer 6.x, allowing you to preview the ads that may show on any web page.If you want to avoid complication of accidentally clicking on your ads you may disable ads for your computer.

Don't sit back and relax while your website is earning you money using adsense.You will have to work hard to protect that Source of income from threats like clickfraud.

How To Analyze Your Website

How good is your website? Does it do its job? Is it effective? These are all good questíons that every business owner and marketing manager needs to ask him or herself. The website has become an essential tool for business. We all know we have to have a website, but are we using this venue to its greatest advantage?
Most people responsible for their company's websites have stats packages and counters to tell them how many hits, how many unique visitors, where they are coming from, what their IP addresses are, what browser they're using, and of course the all important monitor resolution. So what! Who cares? The real question is do we have an effective website?

Now if you have a transactional website, commonly referred to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of salës you are generating from your site, which is important, but do you really know how effective your site is? How many orders are you losing because of bad layout, awkward design, confusing navigation, and poor copy? How many potential clients have you chased away because you haven't put a telephone number on your site and an accessible real-person that can answer questíons?

website is your business' public face. Big businesses can look like mom and pop operations and mom and pop operations can look like General Motors. The design of your website should not be taken lightly, its budget should not be an afterthought, and the designer you hire should be someone who understands more than code. Your Web-designer should be a multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can counsel you how best to deliver your marketing message, and someone who can go beyond technical issues.

You can spend a lot of monëy and have someone analyze your site for you, but are you really going to believe him, are you really going to act on their recommendations? You can't sell somebody something they really don't want - that may sound obvious, but believe me, salës people do it everyday. If you don't think you need a new website, you aren't going to spend the monëy to have one built. So the best way to tell if you need one is to analyze the one you already have, yourself.

Below is a set questíons you can ask yourself. If you answer them honestly, you'll know whether you need a new site or not. After you've gone through the process, ask some colleagues to do the same. See if your answers compare

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?

Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What is your website's purpose?

a. Transactional sales-oriented site
b. Customer service support site
c. How to instructional site
d. Product or service demonstration site
e. Lead generation site
f. Marketing, branding, positioning site
g. Promotional campaign site
h. Viral or buzz creation site

2. Is Your Website Focused?

Too many businesses both large and small use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything you do, everything you've done, and everything you ever thought of doing. This won't work. Customers are like children; they want clarity, direction, and unequivocal answers. Your website should be focused on a singular function. URLs are cheap, there is no reason you can't have different websites for every major thing you do, or every marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?

Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too deep to find what you're looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool. If your website doesn't work properly, the only thing you're communicating is incompetence. How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website's Construction Balance Competing Concerns?

Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, client-side, server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, transaction efficiency all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffíc numbers? Did you start with an IT solution like a database and build your site around a poorly conceived information delivery system. Does your website's design reflect your sites' defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not salës. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

6. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of their business' marketing initiatives. Everything your company does should reflect an over-riding ethos, point-of-view, and personality. If your marketing collaterals don't match your website presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

7. Is content king on your website?

I once had a fairly large manufacturing client ask me to build a website based on a business card and ten 8x10 glossies of discontinued merchandise. This fellow was so paranoid that his competitors would see what he was doing that he hid his products from his customers. This business is now bankrupt. We've all heard the saying 'content is king'. Is content king on your website? Does your website adequately display and explain what you do, what products you sell, and what services you provide? Are there examples of your work? Are there testimonials from your customers? Have you provided information on how to order, how to use, and how to resolve problems? Is content really king on your website?

8. Is your website an experience?

You watch television, you listen to the radio, you read a magazine, but you experience a website. Unlike other marketing vehicles, websites provide you the opportuníty to deliver your marketing message with the full complement of multimedia tools. Websites can stimulate all the senses, sight, sound, and interactive touch in order to communicate and connect with your audience. Websites are not brochures. Visitors shouldn't just see your website, they should experience it. Is your website an experience?

9. Does your website have a distinctive look?

The notion of the flaming animated logo has become a clich� for bad design and style over substance, but that does not mean your website should be aesthetically boring and visually dreary. Your site should display clarity of vision; it should provide functional page layout; its use of colors, type, and static and kinetic visuals should be distinctive and purposeful. Your website should provide a defining "Look" that enhances your business personality. Does your website display a distinctive look that represents your business personality?

10. Do you list appropriate contact information on your website?

I remember going to a meeting with a client who was in the construction business. The Vice President of the company was hopping mad. He demanded his email address be taken off the site immediately. He wasn't going to waste any more time dealing with client emails and inquiries. Websites are all about connecting you to your clients, not hiding from them. If you think you can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ and Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think again. Does your website have adequate contact information? Do you list appropriate email addresses and telephone numbers for the people responsible for various aspects of your business?

There you have it. Ten questíons that when answered honestly will tell you whether or not you have a website that works and whether or not you need to rebuild.

What Makes a Great Forum

Great Members – without members you have no forum

Good Content – without good content you will get no members

Courteous Staff – without courteous staff you will lose members


What makes great forum staff?

1. Share Knowledge

2. Expand on Content

3. Be willing to help others

4. Making other members feel welcome

5. Join in on conversations

6. Ask quality questions

7. Give quality answers

8. Start good conversations


What makes a good member?

A good member adds to the content of the forum. Regards of how little you think you know even if you only know a few basic things; it may be more than someone else knows. You should share your knowledge regardless of how little you feel it is. Sharing knowledge and experience is how we all learn.

1. Share Knowledge

2. Expand on Content

3. Willing to help others

4. Making other members feel welcome

5. Join in on conversations

6. Ask relevant questions

7. Give relevant answers


We all learn from questions asked and answered regardless of how trivial it may seem to you, it may be of great help to others. Not everyone will have the same amount of experience and knowledge as you. When you ask as question it does not have to be a long drawn out question. Short and too the point is acceptable.

When you answer a question, please try to give as much information as you can without sending them to an outside source for an explanation. Do however give them an outside source if you feel they can benefit from it as much as they can from your answer.

If someone has helped you on the forum, say thank you for the help, you could expand it more by stating how that member has helped you. A little praise and encouragement can go a long way toward making a great member.

Adsense: Top AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission

Google AdSense - http://www.google.com/adsense - is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs. Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!

The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee.

Editorial Note: Some of the website AdSense examples provided below by the author may have changed since the article was written.

You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:

1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.

When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages.

Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page - http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.

This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.

2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.

3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.

4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article - http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041 - is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay-per-click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.

5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example on this Internet Dating Stories site - http://www.lovestory.com.au - where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Sponsor Links".

6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats at https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats.

7) Place images next to your ads to attract the eyes. You can see this in place on the search engine article library page at the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to the bottom of the page. But be careful here - the use of arrows or symbols enticing viewers to click are NOT allowed by Google and publishers may NOT label the Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements".

Adsense: Tips to ensure that your account won't be disabled

Following these simple rules will help keep your account in good standing:

  • Don't click on your own Google ads.
    Clicking on Google ads on your own site for any reason is strictly prohibited. If you'd like more information about one of the advertisers appearing on your site, please type the URL of the ad directly into your browser's address bar.

  • Don't ask others to click on Google ads.
    Users should click on Google ads because they're interested in the services being advertised. Encouraging users to click on your Google ads, either directly or indirectly, can lead to inflated advertiser costs and can cause your account to be disabled.

  • Don't employ pop-up prompts or automatic software installations.
    Google is dedicated to improving the user experience on the Internet, and promoting responsible software principles is part of that effort. Sites showing Google ads may not prompt users to install software on their machines. Publishers must also not attempt to change users' browser home pages automatically or via pop-up prompts.

  • Be aware of how your site is promoted.
    Pages showing Google ads may never be loaded in an unrequested pop-up. This means publishers need to be very careful when purchasing traffic or setting up ad campaigns with third parties. Before contracting with any ad network, you should ensure that they will never display your site in pop-ups or as a result of the actions of any software application.

  • Don't place Google ads on sites that contain prohibited content.
    Google ads may not be displayed alongside any type of content prohibited by program policies, including adult or mature content, gambling-related content, or drug content. It's your responsibility to ensure that all of your pages adhere to these policies.

  • Respect Google trademarks.
    Framing or mimicking Google pages is strictly prohibited by our Guidelines for Use of Google Brand Features. In addition, publishers may not use any Google Brand Features such as Google trademarks, logos, web pages or screen shots, without prior consent from Google.

  • Don't tamper with the AdSense code.
    AdSense offers a wide variety of approved formats, colors, and features in your AdSense account. Once you've generated your code, however, we ask that you do not alter any portion of the code or change the layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason, unless specifically authorized to do so by Google.

  • Provide a positive user experience.
    Sites that contain excessive pop-ups, use sneaky redirects to obtain traffic, or otherwise attempt to interfere with normal web navigation aren't permitted in the AdSense network. Please make sure your site doesn't deceive your users in any way. In general, it's a good idea to follow our Webmaster Guidelines on quality to ensure that your site provides a positive user experience.

  • Provide a good environment for advertisers.
    Sites showing Google ads should not present a poor opportunity for advertisers. Sites that use tricks or deceptive practices in order to trigger inadvertent clicks on ads are prohibited.

  • Be responsive.
    Publishers are asked to be responsive to emails sent by the AdSense team. Be sure to keep your email address up-to-date, in case we ever need to contact you about your account.