To understand AdSense we have to understand Google AdWords first. Here is a brief overview.

AdWords

AdWords is Google’s flagship advertising product. It offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and site targetted advertising for both text and banner ads.

Advertisers specify the words that should trigger their ads and maximum amount they are willing to pay per click. Google displays these ads in their search results and on the targetted websites that have signed up for their AdSense programme.

AdSense

The same advertisements that Google got through the Adwords are displayed on the websites that signup for the AdSense programme. These advertisements are administered by Google to the enrolled websites as pay per click ads or on impression basis if they are banner ads. It is important to note that the ads are related to the keywords and subject of the content so that the visitor who is reading the content of the website might get interested in some product or sevice offered by the ads. Once the visitor clicks on the ad, the advertiser is charged for the amount they bid for and Google pays a part of the revenue with the website publisher. Google AdSense also allows the publishers to provide Google Search on their site and make money by displaying Google ads and search result pages.

Who can join the AdSense programme?

AdSense is a free programme and any website publisher can join this programme as long as they fulfil Googles eligibility criteria. To join the programme you just need to complete an online application. If you are accepted you get a HTML code that you will paste in the code of your web pages and your pages will start displaying targetted ads.

Advantages of Google AdSense

• AdSense is very quick and easy to join
• Easy to apply to your website. You get a chunk of code that you can apply to the source code of your webpages.
• You don’t have to look for advertisers.
• The code provided by google is so intelligent that it provides relevent ads that match the subject of your content and there is a great likelyhood that the visitor might get interested in the products and services offered by the advertisements.
• Google has a very vast database of ads and can serve ads on almost any topic. So you are never short of ads.
• It easy for beginners and experts alike.
• You can very easily check your statistics by logging into your account.
• Only one Google AdSense account is enough even if you have multiple websites.
• Google gives you control on the ads that may show on your website. You may block certain competitor ads and select some default ads that can display on your pages
• Google AdSense has a very easy and reliable payout system.
• Google search box functionality can be added to the website to attaract more visitors and to enable the visitors to stay longer on your website.

Here is the link for the signup page: https://www.google.com/adsense/g-app-single-1

Here is how the signup form looks like

The important information that you give to Google is as below:

• Your website URS. You must have a website. If you have multiple sites just provide the URS of your biggest site. With one account you can apply the AdSense code to multiple sites.
• Language of your website
• Account type, whether individual or a company. Whether you are a company with more than twenty employee or one person only.
• Your contact information.
• You will be able to choose between three different ways of receiving your money: Electronic Funds Transfer, Local Currency check or Secured Express Delivery. It is better to get your money by direct deposit or if you want you can choose any of the other mode of payment.
• Whether you want content based ads or search ads or both. I recommend you to choose both.
• Once you get approved, you get a piece of code that you have copy and paste into your webpages.

People don’t visit the websites to view ads, they come for the content. So, the greatest thing to remember is, an ad should not look like an ad. Another thing to remember is that the ad block should have no border.

Text Ads

Google’s text ads are the most popular and also most effective ad type. These are available in various sizes:

(For details you can visit the google site at the following link: www.google.com/ adsense/adformats)

• Leaderboard (728 x 90) – View sample placements
• Banner (468 x 60) – View sample placements
• Half Banner (234×60)
• Button (125×125)
• Skyscraper (120×600) – View sample placements
• Wide Skyscraper (160×600) – View sample placements
• Small Rectangle (180×150)
• Vertical Banner (120 x 240)
• Small Square (200 x 200)
• Square (250 x 250)
• Medium Rectangle (300 x 250) – View sample placements
• Large Rectangle (336 x 280) – View sample placements

Although you are free to experiment with different ad formats, here in this article, we will discuss only the most popular and the most effective ad formats.

Leaderboard

Leaderboard is most popular ad format. It is most effective when blended into the top of the page, just beneath the navigation bar.

In the forums, it can be placed between the forum entries.

It should be avoided at the bottom of the page, unless you are sure that people are going to go up to there.

Banner

This size is the traditional banner ad and visitors are very much familiar with this ad format and tend to avoid it. If you want to use it, the best way will be to use it inside the content surrounded by the text. The banner should have no borders.

Half Banner

Half banner should be used inside the content surrounded by the text. It is also best used at the end of the blog entries.

Large Rectangle (336 x 280)

Use at the beginning of the article. Preferably the text should be wrapped around the box. This is the most effective size.

Medium rectangle (300 x 250)

This is the next best rectangle size after 300 x 280. Use this at the beginning of an article with text wrapped around. You can have two sets of these boxes side by side and it fits on most of the web pages beautifully.

Button (125 x 125)

These can be used inside the content area wrapped around by text and are best suited for the side bars. It blends well with the widgets in the side bar.

Wide skyscraper (160 x 600)

It is most suitable for the right bar. For example placements see below:

The image Ads

The greatest disadvantage of the image ads is that they look like ads and visitors tend to ignore them. Text ads should always be given preference.

You can checkout the details about image ads at the Googles website: https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/AdFormats.html#image

Video ads

You can get video ads on your website if you have opted in to receive image ads on an ad unit in one of the following sized:

• Medium rectangle (300 x 250)
• Large rectangle (300 x 280)
• Square ( 250 x 250)
• small square ( 200 x 200)
• Leaderboard ( 728 x 90)
• skyscraper ( 120 x 600)
• Wide skyscraper (160 x 600)

There is no guarantee that you will get a video ad, it depends upon if AdSense has a video ad matching to your content. Video ads have been found to have very good conversion rate.

If you are getting video ads place them in the side bar or in the content area above the fold, so that they blend with the site content.

Link Units

Link units are very small but if used correctly, they can be very effective. Two clicks are required for you to get paid. First user clicks on the link and then he is taken to the ads page. If user clicks on any of the ads only then you will get paid.

How link units are different from other ad blocks?

Link units display only a list of topics that google code believes is relevant to the content of the page. When the visitor clicks on any of the links, a new window pops up that displays the ads.

Size of link units

Vertical link units are available in sizes ranging from 20 x 90 to 200 x 90.

Horizontal Link units

Placement of link units

Vertical link units are best placed in the sidebar. Horizontal units can be a great alternative to the leaderboard. They can also be placed between different blog entries.

One thing to remember is that if your ad looks like an ad visitors are going to avoid it. Our main focus should be to blend the ad with the content. We will dress up our ads in a legitimate way as permitted by Google, to achieve it. Google gives you a lot of options to format your ads.

Following tweaks will help in maximizing the clicks of your ads:

• Formatting of Border: People are used to see borders around the ads. As soon as they see a border, they recognize it as an ad and their eyes are trained to ignore them. So for best results remove the borders around your ad blocks.
• Formatting of title, text and backgroud: Tweak the title, text and background of the ad block to match the text on your site.
• Formatting of link colors: People associate teh blue color for link and are more likely to click on them. Use blue for link color.
• Formatting of URL color: Presence of URL along with the link makes it obvious that it is an ad. To make the URL less prominent make the link color like rest of the text in the ad.
  

Why is content important

There is not doubt that AdSense is better than most of the advertising on the web because the ads are relevant to the content on your page and that is why they are highly targeted.

The visitor comes to your pages searching for content that will provide him some solution and he may also find some product or service displayed on the ad that will solve his problem.

So, if the content is not good, you will not get relevant ads and user will not stay on your website as the content is not interesting.

How to create good content

Creation of good content is not difficult at all. One or more methods described below may suite you to create quality content.

1. Write it your self: If you have a interest in any topic or you are an expert in any field, create a website or a blog on your topic. Creation of a blog is very easy and highly non technical.
2. Cash your old content: if you have written a book in the past and is no longer being sold, just update the content and put it on a website or a blog in the form of articles or posts.
3. Get volunteer writers: There are a lot of people who like to write on the topics of your interest. On your website, encourage other people to submit their content.
4. Pay of the content: you can encourage people to submit content to your website and if their content is selected for publishing you can compensate them for the content.
5. Use free content from the web: There are many writers who want their articles published and read by a larger audience. Such content is available at many resources, each website has their own rules for using their content. In all the cases, you have to keep the author’s name and website link in tact. These websites have content on almost any topic. Here is a list of most important such websites:
   • http://www.ezinearticles.com
   • http://www.articlesbase.com/
   • http://www.goarticles.com/
   • http://www.articlecity.com/
   • http://www.articlecircle.com/
6. Use Public domain works for your site: These are the books, articles, pictures etc whose copyrights have expired. Since they have not been re-registered for copyright, they enter the public domain. So, anyone can publish or sell the works without paying any commission. One such source is: http://www.gutenberg.org/