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Maximizing Adsense Revenue
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amykhar
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amykhar amykhar is offline 08-27-2005, 10:00 PM

Ad banners used to be a good source of income. That's not as true these days, but you can still easily cover basic hosting costs for a small forum with careful attention to your banners.

It takes more than slapping a banner in your header template. It takes a bit of time, patience and effort on your part to achieve optimal banner placement.

Luckily, if you use Google Adsense banners, you have some tools that can help.

The first is a very good document that shows where ad banners generally are the most effective:

https://www.google.com/support/adsen...page=tips.html

The second is the ability for you to control the color of your ad banners. Colors can be used to make the ad banners appear like part of the content. Or, they can be used to make the ad pop out of the page.

The third option is the wide variety of sizes that you can use. Having more choices than typical 468x60 banner ads means that you can work relevant ads into your content without looking like a banner farm.

The fourth option allows you to use alternate ads instead of google's public service banners. Why show ads for free?

Finally, Google gives you the ability to create custom channels. These channels will help you monitor the performance of each ad banner on the page.

Ad Placement
I have found that ads are vital in 2 places.
1. On the archive pages. Most of my guest traffic hits my archives first. If they don't find what they are looking for at my site, the google banner often gives them another viable site to check out. So, they click the ad and away they go.
2. In the postbit template of the first post on the page. (Ideally, the banner should be in the postbit of the LAST post on the page. More readers see the last post than the first. But, putting a banner there causes all sorts of grief for firefox and opera users if they try to use the quick reply box.)

What works for me, might not work for you
That's where custom channels come in.

Google allows you to create custom channels. I have several created - one for each placement of an ad banner in a template. Some examples of channel names are: postbit, header, archiveside, archivebottom, forumdisplay, etc.

After you create your custom channel, get the ad code based on that channel and place it in the proper template.

For example, in my forumdisplay, I use a link-type banner. I set that banner to my forumdisplay channel, then grab the code and paste it in my forumdisplay template.

I can now track the impressions banners on my forumdisplay pages receive and how many times they are clicked. Based on those numbers, I can adjust placement of the ad, colors of the ad, or even the size of the ad.

Google helps take the guesswork out of earning money from banners. I have found that using the tips outlined above, my google revenue has gone up 3,000 percent! Yes, 3,000 percent. Before I started working with google's placement tools, I earned pennies every month. Now, I am covering my hosting costs.

It is well worth any effort you will expend.

Amy
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  #12  
Old 10-30-2005, 01:59 PM
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amykhar amykhar is offline
 
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I'm not sure what needs explaining? (I'm not going to name actual dollar amounts)
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Old 11-01-2005, 10:09 AM
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joeychgo joeychgo is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick
Are you making $1500 just from adsense or from your sponsors and adsense?

My automotive message board is much bigger and more active yet my adsense earnings are quite a bit less than $1500 a month.

I do about that much on adsense on one of my forums
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  #14  
Old 11-01-2005, 01:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joeychgo
I do about that much on adsense on one of my forums
I bring in low $xx,xxx a month between adsense and ypn now amongst my forums. The key is placement and testing. Spending hours in "research" on what works best WILL pay off in the long run.
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Old 11-07-2005, 12:29 PM
cyberbeggar cyberbeggar is offline
 
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Amy,
fantastic advice! Thanks I have added this to my site www.BeautUtes.com but ...

Quote:
1. On the archive pages. Most of my guest traffic hits my archives first. If they don't find what they are looking for at my site, the google banner often gives them another viable site to check out. So, they click the ad and away they go.
How to I add adsense to my archive?

Cheers
Billy
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  #16  
Old 11-07-2005, 12:44 PM
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amykhar amykhar is offline
 
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Here you go: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...771#post814771

I threw my plugins into a product for you. Tweak as needed.

Amy
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Old 11-07-2005, 12:50 PM
cyberbeggar cyberbeggar is offline
 
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Thanks Amy ... I'll be getting that for sure!
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Old 11-14-2005, 09:37 AM
cyberbeggar cyberbeggar is offline
 
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Quote:
Finally, Google gives you the ability to create custom channels. These channels will help you monitor the performance of each ad banner on the page.
Amy regarding Channels, can you answer this for me please or someone else anser for me.

This may sound stupid, but since reading Amy's post (this one), I created 200 channels and I have noticed there is now two reports I can look at....

1. Aggregate data and
2. Channel data

Example Only! I wont tell you how much I make. :nervous:

Looking at the amount of money made at each for the last 7days Aggregate data says I have made $20 and Channel data says I have made $40 (example only)

(example only) Normally I make $20 a week, now I am making $60

Please tell me if this is correct.

So does this mean I get paid extra for the Channel data on top of the Aggregate data giving me a total of $60
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  #19  
Old 11-14-2005, 10:28 AM
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No. It's just different ways of looking at your earnings.
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Old 11-15-2005, 12:49 AM
MRGTB MRGTB is offline
 
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Very useful: Amykhar

What I decided to do was use "Text only Banners" and then adjust the border and background colours so they look like part of the page text. This way people don't see them as regular banners and avoid them like the plague, but instead see text links with no background colour.

I 've also placed my Google adds in the Archive and Easy Mod archive, as well as using a hack over from vBulletin.com that allows me to display a text banner after every last thread. Nowhere on my site will you see a Banner (only text adds) made to look as much like part of the site as possible.

On you site, one clever thing I see you have done it move you site links at the very top and then added the adsence banner right below them. I've seen this used before where this is done to try and get mistaken clicks on banner instead of site links by putting the adsence very close to site page links.
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Old 11-15-2005, 12:54 AM
cyberbeggar cyberbeggar is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amykhar
No. It's just different ways of looking at your earnings.
Thats kinda confusing I reckon.
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