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Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission 
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2006

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. You can see an example of
this color-matching on my Search Engine Advice Blog at -
http://www.searchenginecollege.com/blog.htm -  notice the 4 link
ad unit at the top and the skyscraper text ad unit on the left
hand side under the heading Ads by Google as you scroll down the
page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette
used throughout the rest of the page.

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 at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html
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 at http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
?id=22487 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 
(http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm) 
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".

8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of
your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful
placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't
distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be
seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories -
http://www.lovestory.com.au/bad-stories.htm - where you see:

- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under
  the first paragraph.
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left
  hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side
  under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with
  images above each ad to draw attention to them.

You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to
the 3 other units.

9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page
content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely
to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are
therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them
to click.

Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads.
Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an
instant.

10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for
example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation
Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of
each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the
highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than
others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test
some more!
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Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine
optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and
respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as
running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine
College - http://www.searchenginecollege.com - an online
training institution offering instructor-led short courses and
downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization
and Search Engine Marketing subjects.
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