8 Slightly Unusual AdSense Tricks to Boost Your CTR

I’ve written a couple of articles about making money with AdSense and this one is no difference. But this time, I’ll talk about tricks that seldom get mentioned anywhere. Learning about making money from AdSense is a continuous process and it doesn’t stop after we read an article or two.

Some of these tips might be new to you and some may be not. I hope this article serves as a reminder on things you can experiment with to improve your AdSense click through rates.

 

How to Set AdSense for Search to Search Your Site by Default

When you set up the AdSense for search with SiteSearch enabled, the search box will default to web search instead of SiteSearch. It’s likely that most users who use the search box on your site use it to search pages within your site, not the Internet.

To set the search box to search pages on your site by default, visit the ‘AdSense Setup’ tab in your account and select ‘AdSense for search’ as your product. On the code generation page, you’ll see a sample search box under ‘Search box style’ that changes as you customise the layout.

What to Do If Your Are Banned from AdSense

To set the record straight, I think publishers who are violating AdSense term and policies on purpose deserve to be banned. As an AdWords advertiser myself, I don’t appreciate paying someone who has no intention of offering me a good return on my investment.

AdSense publishers only make money when the AdWords publishers make money. As long as the supply and demand is kept in balance, everyone will be a happy camper.

AdWords has added a new feature recently which allow advertisers see the domains where their ads are being served within Google’s content network i.e. AdSense publishers’ sites. So it’s more important than ever for publishers to create good quality sites where AdSense ads are shown.

10 Don’ts to Help You Avoid Having Your AdSense Account Banned

AdSense account banning could happen to anyone regardless of how big or small they are as a publisher.

This was what had happened to Henry and Wilson, a twin from Baltimore who was pulling $200,000 monthly from AdSense. Then it all came down crashing last month when they were banned by Google for invalid clicks barely a few days before the next payment was supposed to arrive.

If you think this will never happen to you, think again. Here are the 10 things you should do to prevent AdSense banning.

 

How to Make More Money from AdSense with Fewer Ad Units

You may have noticed that I’ve removed two AdSense ad units from Sabahan.com since 4 July 2007. These are the medium rectangle 300×250 which appeared on the main page, and the banner 468×60 shown below each post.

I did this to see if I could make more money from AdSense by showing fewer ad units.

The premise is that with less ad inventory available on your site, the competition among advertisers is fiercer. So if you only show 4 ads in an ad unit, the AdSense system will target the highest paying ads to the ad unit and shows them first, working down through the auction results to fill in the rest of you ad units in order.

10 Tips to Help You Make Money With Google Referral 2.0

Now that Google has made their Referral program available to everyone, I’d like to share a few tips to help you make more money from it.

While making money from Google referral isn’t much different from making money from other pay per lead/pay per action affiliate programs, certain restrictions apply when it comes to recommending Google’s referral products to your users.

 

Things You Should Know When Promoting Google Referral 2.0

Google AdSense Referrals 2.0 Review

As you may know, Google has rolled out AdSense Referrals 2.0 program for the international AdSense publishers recently.

This main different between this and their “normal” AdSense program is that, you only get paid when your visitor click on the ad AND perform certain action.

This is also known as pay per action or pay per lead. In this case you get paid when your user completes an online lead form, make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, download a trial software and so on.

Top Ad Inside a Google AdSense Unit Is The Highest Paying Ad

Rustrybrick of Search Engine Roundtable points out to a thread at WebmasterWorld forum that confirms what many people have suspected for a long time.

A member asks if the AdSense ad that appears first in an ad unit is the highest paying one in term of earning per click (EPC).

Someone from AdSense confirms that in a general ad auction, their system will target the highest paying ads to the ad unit and shows them first, working down through the auction results to fill in the rest of you ad units in order.

Google Launches Referrals 2.0 to All AdSense Publishers

The AdSense team has announced the availability of the CPA referrals to all AdSense publishers. This launch greatly expands the inventory of products publishers can make money from.

I am quite excited really because I think promoting products on a CPA basis can be more profitable to publishers as compare to the existing CPC AdSense ads, provided that they know how to properly promote such products.

If you don’t see referrals 2.0 right away, check back in a few days, as the feature will gradually become available in all accounts over the next few weeks. It’s not yet available in my account at the moment.

AdSense Adds Rounded Corners

The AdSense team has introduced another way for AdSense publishers to customize their AdSense ads.

They have added the ability to choose the style of corners in an ad unit. This is achieved by adding a new line to the javascript.

If you are making extensive use of rounded corners on your blog or site, you can now apply the same styling on your AdSense units.

However it won’t be much of use if you do not use border, i.e your borders used the same colour as the background of the AdSense ads and your blog.

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