Let’s check out some advanced Google Adsense tips.

Digging deeper into Google’s Adsense, there are a few more things you can do to make sure you are getting the most out of Adsense.

Block URLs. 
You have the ability to block any URLs for any reason.  I would suggest blocking any URLs that you are promoting in other ways.  For example, if you have an affiliate relationship with Target, you may not want to have Target displayed in your Adsense ads.  Since you only get paid per click, you could be losing sales, and perhaps income.  You can also block URLs that are offensive, political, competing with your business, or, as I mentioned earlier, for any reason you want.  Just keep in mind that you don’t want to block a ton or URLs for no reason.  If Google can’t find an applicable ad to show, nothing shows up, thus eliminating your chance at revenue for that pageview.

Customization. 
You can also customize the appearance of your ads to better match your website’s color scheme.  You can customize different colors for the border, background, text, title and URL.  While we recommend that you try and blend the ad with your site’s color, you can choose to do the opposite and make your ad stand out as much as possible.
See the graphic below to learn how to change the color scheme of your ads.

A well customized color scheme can be the difference between looking “spammy” and looking natural.

Keep track of your performance reports. Know which ads perform the best for your site and determine which, if any, need to be moved or removed. See more about Adsense reporting in this post: Google Adsense Reports 101.

Making money with Google Adsense

Adsense is the go-to moneymaker for many bloggers and website owners. The main appeal of Google’s Adsense is the “set it and forget it” idea that comes with it. Once approved, you add a bit of code to your site and voila, you’ve got great, targeted ads for your readers to see! Targeted ads from Google’s Adsense are better than any other content advertiser that we’ve seen. Have you ever been shopping online at a certain store and gone to another site only to see ads for that store you were just shopping at? Those are targeted ads and Google does them best. Also their click-through-rate and cost-per-click are generally higher than competitors. This makes Adsense the leader of the pack. Would you expect a Google product to be anything but a leader?

There are many factors that should be considered when dealing with Google Adsense. First and foremost, do NOT click your own ads and do NOT tell others to click your ads. This will get your account banned very quickly and there is no turning back from that point. It’s easier to get the President of the USA on the phone than it is to get someone from Google.

You also want to consider how many ads you will be placing. Google shows 3 image ads and will show up to 3 more text ads if you choose to place them. It’s a good idea to make your ads noticeable, but not distracting and annoying. You don’t want your content to compliment your ads; you want your content to overshadow your ads. Ads are completely secondary and you don’t want people looking at your site as a bunch of ads.

Another factor to be considered is the size and placement of the ads. In a meeting with the folks from Google Adsense, we learned which sizes of ads offer the highest average payment per click. We also learned the “hot zones” of placement. See the hot zones according to Google below:

Now, of course you might not want to place an ad smack in the middle of your site, but there are certain areas that perform better than others and you should know what those are before diving in. For instance, did you know that ads in a right sidebar perform better than a left sidebar? That might be a good thing to keep in mind when doing a site design/re-design. The thing about placing ads is that they change the appearance of your website. I don’t condone changing the appearance of your site very often, so do your research, pick a spot and stick with it. As far as the ad sizes, we were told that the highest number of advertisers bid on ads that are 300×250 (standard sidebar) and 728×90 (standard banner). A higher number of bidders means a higher cost-per-click, which means you get paid more.

So the really basic concepts of making money with Google Adsense are ad size, quantity of ads, placement of those ads and performance tracking. We’ll dig deeper into Adsense in other articles here. Take a look at our Advanced Google Adsense Tips post to learn a even more!