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Getting the Most Out of Google AdSense - Which Ad Units Should You Use?

Published Monday, August 11, 2008 by bloggerblognet84084 | E-mail this post

One of the issues you face when developing a commercial web site is how to make money out of it. If you sell products via the site then that's obviously how you intend to make your money. If it's a site that serves up mainly content though, making money out of the site is not so straight forward. Potential advertisers will probably only be interested in placing paid-for ads on your site if you are getting a lot of traffic, but for a new site this is rarely going to be the case.

Google AdSense provides an easy no cost, no risk solution, although it must be stressed that you won't make much money through AdSense unless your site is attracting a significant amount of traffic. It's a gradual process though, and there is something satisfying about earning a few dollars, or even a few cents, while you're asleep!

In this article we'll take a look at the types of ad units that, in general, attract the most click throughs.

Leaderboards

Leaderboards can be very effective placed at the top of the page, close to the site's navigation bar, or sometimes between forum entries.

Half Banners

Half Banners work great slotted into articles or blogs. I tend to put them mid-way through, or at the end of, an article.

Skyscraper

Put skyscrapers down the right hand side of the page rather than the left.

Big Ad Blocks / Rectangles

Place rectangles of ads in tables and imbed them into the content on the page. This way the content of the page flows around the ads so that they look like they're part of the normal content on the page.

Text Ads

Text ads almost always perform better than image ads. Image ads tend to look more like adverts, and consequently visitors don't click them.

In conclusion, try to make your ads look like normal page content. People don't like clicking on adverts, so try to make your AdSense ad units look as little like adverts as possible. And experiment. Try different types of ads in different places to see what works for your site(s).

About the Author: John Dixon is a web developer working for My Health Questions Matter, a company that helps users of the health service to ask the right medical questions in their dealings with health professionals. The site also contains a comprehensive glossary of medical and health terms, and a news section containing multiple news feeds.

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