One thing I’ll say about Google AdSense. They make it easy to place an AdSense ad on you website. All that you need to do is have a slight knowledge of HTML. OK, a really small amount! And you don’t even need to know what it means. It’s basically click and paste.
After you’ve signed up for your Google AdSense account you’ll need to decide the size, type, and color of you AdSense ad. As a matter of fact Google actually gives you more choices than that. You can also pick out your border color, background color, text color, font and font size, and corner style.
On this page you’ll see Google defaults. The only things that we picked out were the size and type for the ads you see here on our pages.
The types of ads that are available are:
• Text ads only. These ads have text only
• Text and image/rich media ads. These ads alternate between text and image/rich media ads.
• Image/rich media ads. These are actually pretty cool. I’ve seen some that look like short little TV commercials. They were just so inviting to look at. I wanted to click. But clicking on your own ads is a big no-no and fortunately I resisted the temptation.
All the Google AdSense ads we have are the text and image/rich media type. We chose these for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to give Google the choice of what to display. We figured it was best to give them the choice on whether to use the text or image/rich media and they would do what was best. Google has a much of an interest in getting people to click on the ad as we do.
We kept the Google defaults for colors, fonts, font sizes, etc. We did this for two reasons. The first was we thought the Google blue went fine with our blogs colors. The second reason was that we just didn’t care. When you are making your own ad you can decide how much customization you want to do. It is a good idea to have the ads blend with you color scheme.
The sizes of the ads are definitely another consideration. We have room on the right side of our website for ads. We didn’t want the blog to appear cluttered and did not place ads on top of the articles themselves. Google has a number of different sizes and shapes. All Google ads are in pixel size with the wide number first.
Ads that come in Google recommended sizes are:
• 300×250 Medium Rectangle (Example: top right side of page below header)
• 336×280 Large Rectangle
• 728×90 Leader board
• 160×600 skyscraper (Example: Right side of page just below “further reading” widget, left column is a 160×600)
Other Sizes Horizontal
• 468×60 horizontal (Example: add in header area. This is not a Google ad but it is the same size)
• 234×60 horizontal
Other sizes Vertical
• 120×600 skyscraper (Example: On right side of page below “further reading” widget, right column is a 120×600)
• 120×240 vertical banner
Other Sizes Square
• 250×250 square
• 200×200 small square
• 160×150 small rectangle
• 125×125 button
The big thing to remember is not to get caught up in over monetizing a site. Overdoing ads will turn readers off immediately. If your site takes a long time to load, if it looks and feels cluttered, or if it is just plain confusing you’ll not get any Google AdSense clicks. If your site doesn’t invite readership all the ads in the world won’t generate income.
AdSense is one of the easiest and most significant ways of easily monetizing a website or blog and if
used properly can generate a decent and even large income from the sites. As with any tool AdSense needs to be used in the correct manner. And if you’re not using AdSense correctly you’re potentially leaving money on the table.
If you haven’t used AdSense before you’ll probably be surprised at how quickly your blog can start producing income. If you have used AdSense before but the results have not been satisfactory there are some things that you should think about.
Content is the key ingredient in building a site that generates income from AdSense. When monetizing your website or blogAnd there are two things that you should do. If you haven’t been doing these two things your need to sart now.
• The first thing is doing your homework. Research your keywords before you write an article.
• The second thing is to incorporate the keywords logically into your article. Finding keywords that will increase your page rank is not as hard as you might think. Google actually helps you with that task with their keyword tool.
When incorporating the keywords into an article keep in mind that you are not writing this for a search engine. You are writing it for human readers. And if humans don’t read it they’ll not come back for more. And if they don’t come back for more you blog will fail and having all the AdSense positions on your page filled will not help in the least bit.
Three Google ads per page. That’s the Limit.
Google allows only three of their AdSense ads per page. This is one very important. If your blog shows multiple posts per page and you’re hoping to place three AdSense ads per article you’ll have a problem with the way things look. Let’s say that we try to place three ads per article. The very top article will have three ads. The rest of the articles will show blank spots where the ad should have appeared.
And that of course will look funny. If it looks funny it may turn readers off. And if it turns readers off they will leave your site. Here’s the thing: All the posts are individual posts in some respects. If you look at the individual posts on their respective pages the ads will show up.
So you have a Catch 22. You want the ads to show up on each post. That’s what you need in order to properly monetize your website. You don’t want to spend the time placing, removing and replacing ads in your posts. In this site we’ve used widgets to position our Google ads. There are three Google ads on each page of this site. No matter where you go you’ll find three Google ads. There are other affiliate ads, but only three Google AdSense ads. We have four articles per page. When you scroll down far enough you will see a lot of white space on the sides. If you click on the title of the particular article you’ll be taken to the articles individual page. If you scroll down this you’ll see all three Google ads and a bunch of affiliate links.
That is the course we’ve chosen when monetizing our website. We thought about having only one article appear on the front page of our blog but decided against it. We felt it was easier for our reader to easily find our articles and gave our readers the choice of four articles on the front page with the option of hopping to the next page and viewing four more, and so on.
The affiliate ads on our pages are sprinkled around and below the AdSense ads. For instance we use HostGator as the hosting company for our website. We’ve had very good results with HostGator and felt it was a worthwhile product for us to promote. We also have Go Daddy ads. We’ve purchased a number of domains from them with very good results. There are a lot of options other than AdSense when monetizing a website. But for ease of use AdSense ranks among the best.
Great Opportunities to Create Backlinks with Good Comments
There are some great opportunities to create backlinks to your website by commenting on blogs. Backlinks that are for the most part effortless and long lasting. Backlinks that will help your SEO by sheer numbers if you spend a little time. But most important these are the best kind of backlinks. Free backlinks.
Blog writers love to receive good blog comments. Good comments to a writer are a vote of confidence. A tangible measurement that someone has actually taken the time to read their blog, and actually feels strong enough about the writing to voice an opinion. It doesn’t matter if the opinion is the same as the author or completely different. The writer has evoked some emotion in a reader and is happy about it.
And then there is the other side of the coin. People who comment just to get a link to their website. I should say attempt to get a backlink. The comments are so dull, without content, or even irrelevant that we would never think of approving them. One of our blogs gets the funniest comments.
Some recent example of a funny comment posted just to get a backlinks:
• “The enamel may chip or crack. Having a variety of sizes for cookware makes the cooking process much easier. A good set of kitchen knives is a must, also.” The article was about the benefits of breastfeeding. Obviously cookware and breastfeeding are not even remotely connected.
• Another comment went like this: “While I respect your opinion on the matter at hand and I approve the way you approached the subject, there was something that prevented me from completely giving full credence to you point of view. Perhaps with thought I could be convinced to agree with your opinion but at present I must respectfully differ.” That comment was in our spam folder for an article about the signs of childhood asthma. The link was intended to go to an adult dating site.
Well, I guess we now know what not to do. We need to write serious, thoughtful or compelling comments. You don’t need all three, just one will do.
If you’re commenting just to create free backlinks check to make sure the blog has the good “dofollow” links. If the website offers only “nofollow” links you’ll not get a backlink the search engines will acknowledge. Learn more about identifying nofollow when commenting for backlinks.
Read the Article
In order to write a good blog comment you need to take the time and read the article. Understanding what the author is writing about is the only way to make a serious, thoughtful or compelling comment. A basic knowledge of the author’s perspective is mandatory. If you can’t comprehend the article you won’t make an insightful response.
Take a Point of View
You don’t have to have the same point of view as the blogger to write a decent comment. In fact an opposite comment may incite other people to comment thus giving the writer a good forum to moderate. Maybe there is not point of view to be had on a particular subject. “Leaves are Green” is a topic that doesn’t have much room for a point of view. Or does it? Well, my point of view is that Fall is a pretty season and I like the way the colorful leaves look. My other point of view may be that dead leaves are a royal pain to rake up!
Keep a Civil Tongue
Be polite. No matter what you think of the article or other comments keep a civil tongue. A sure way of getting your comment thrown in the trash is to show a lack of respect to the community. It’s OK to have a different point of view. It’s not OK to belittle someone for having an opposite point of view.
Provide Content and Framework
“Nice post man! I love it” may appeal to the ego of a few bloggers but most will not let something like that slide. If you want a blog to give you a nice do follow backlink you need to give the blogger some nice content in return. Simple ten word kiss-up style responses is the easiest way to end up in the spam file. Give something good and get a backlink. Give something really good and you’ll get a click from the link. Make sure your comment is directed to either the article or to another comment. Don’t let your comment confuse. Your content must be in context.
Fact Check
If you’re going to make a point be sure you’re right. Don’t make a statement that is false. It’s easy enough to check. A good blogger won’t let false comments ride. If you want the backlink, do the homework.
Short and Sweet.
No need to write a book. The author has already done that for you.
Proofread
Spelling and grammar are kings. Don’t ruin it because you didn’t want to re-read your comment. If you’re not a good speller write the comment in a word processor and use spellcheck, then copy and paste.
Use your link intelligently.
If your comment sounds like a commercial for your company or website it will not make the cut. Be careful of placement. If your keywords lend to anchor text in the comment by all means do it. Otherwise just be happy with a backlink by using the field in the form of the comment form.
Spending a lot of time commenting on blogs for the all important backlink to your site? Well if you haven’t checked whether the link is nofollow or not you could have been wasting your time. Maybe not wasting your time. After all someone could read your comment, like what you said, and click on your link. But if the main reason you comment is to get a link to your website you need to double check.
Not sure what a nofollow link is?
Nofollow is a tag that was invented by Google so their search engine wouldn’t spend a lot of time following links from spam comments. Spam comments on blogs. They hoped to slow down the amount of spam by inviting webmasters to insert the nofollow tagin the link by making the link less attractive. They hoped that the spammers would stop doing their thing because the spammers would not be getting good links. Looking at my spam file I can attest to the fact that it didn’t work.
Mozilla Firefox browser add-on SearchStatus highlights "nofollow"
WordPress bought into the nofollow tag as did a bunch of others. Unless a blog owner wants to make the links the kind that search engines will follow, or dofollow links, commenting is not going to have a big payday. So how do you know if you’re wasting time? It’s easy and very straightforward.
There is not a dofollow tag. So looking at the HTML for a dofollow tag isn’t going to help. What you’re looking for is the absence of a nofollow tag. Yep, if there is not a nofollow tag in the link it is a dofollow link. In most cases. It’s possible that the owner of the site made everything in the site nofollow. That’s pretty straightforward to figure out as well.
Check for nofollow links with Internet Explorer
Open the webpage you’re checking and then:
• Right click on the page.
• A menu will open. Click “View Source.”
• A page of HTML code will open.
• On the menu at the top of this page click “Edit” and then click “Find.”
• A new field will open. Type “nofollow” in the field and click “Highlight all matches.”
• The word nofollow will be highlighted, or the box will say “no matches.”
Check for nofollow links with Mozilla FireFox
Open the webpage you’re checking and then:
• Right click on the page.
• A menu will open. Click “View Page Source.”
• A page of HTML code will open.
• On the menu at the top of this page click “Edit” and then click “Find.”
• A menu bar will open on the bottom of the page. Type “nofollow” in the field and click “Highlight All.”
• The word nofollow will be highlighted. If it isn’t on the page the field will turn pink and will ding at you if you press enter.
The easiest way to check for nofollow links.
The easiest is to use the Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer. Firefox has a nice add-on called SearchStatus. It will highlight all the nofollow links for you without opening the source page.
On the right and above is an example of what Firefox SearchStatus can do. On this blog there are several kinds of ads. In the example below there are some affiliate text ads and affiliate context ads. The other links on the page are to several free advertising sites. MLM Maverick chose to keep most advertisements as nofollow. All other links are dofollow.
When you’re satisfied the website offers good backlinks go ahead and make a comment. Be sure to read Some Simple Rules for Creating Backlinks by Commenting on Blogs before placing your comment.
Find Keywords using a Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
When I used to write articles I would go back and find keywords that I used, decide if I had enough of them, and then hit the publish button. I was surprised when I had few or no readers. I changed tactics and wrote a keyword list and incorporated the keywords into my writing. Again I had dismal results. The problem was that I really didn’t know how to find keywords, I just kind of guessed.
Somewhere along the line I discovered Google Keyword Tools. I stumbled across the keywords tool in Google AdWords. It was really an eye opener. Here was a tool that I could use that helped me find keywords. And not just any keywords. These are completely researched keywords with a nice set of statistics for me to utilize.
I started using this toolbox for most of the articles I wrote. When I had an idea for an article I would do a keyword search using my idea of the perfect keyword as a starting point. I wrote the keywords and keyword phrases down and incorporated them in my writing. It took ten more minutes to do this. I noticed an increase in readership and a good solid traffic increase, almost immediately. Within a short span of time I found my articles on the first, second and third pages of Google’s search results.
Finding the keywords tool was just luck. I had placed a couple of AdWords ads and was looking for more information. After all if I was spending money I wanted to get a good bang for my buck. You can find the keyword site by going here: Google Keywords Tool.
Find Keywords That Are Suitable
You have two things to do when you arrive at the site. Enter the keyword you want suggestions on in the proper field and then enter the Capcha code. Google will generate a list of one hundred related keywords and phrases.
So what do you do with a list of over a hundred keywords? Download it. You have several choices on the download. I choose CSV for Excel. The download goes right into an excel spreadsheet for me to edit at will. I usually open the file and then save as a spreadsheet.
What Next? First, you’re not going to use all the keywords in a 500 word article. Your article would be nothing but keywords and it would be unreadable. So the next step is to weed them down into a couple of good choices for your article.
The list is broken down into three columns. The competition for the Keyword in AdWords: This is basically how much bidding is done for the keywords when advertising. The next column is global searches. The third column is the one to concentrate on. Local searches: That is of course if your target audience is in the United States.
Easily Make a Good Keyword List
Immediately get rid of the keywords that are not close to what you’re writing about. Get rid of the misspelled keywords that show up in the list. You may show up in search results if someone makes a typo or if they can’t spell, but your article will not be professional. By the way, I’ve looked like an idiot many times by misspelling accidentally
The next thing is to consider which keywords to use based on total searches and competition. A knee jerk reaction would be to use the words with the highest monthly searches and the highest competition. Bad idea. Your chances of getting on page one next to a five year old mega site are slim to nothing. Pick the keywords with a monthly search that is reasonable. I usually choose the 30000 searches and under keywords. Better to be on page 1 of a low search keyword than on page 75 of a popular keyword.
After you have the list you’ll find it is easy to integrate the keywords into your article. The article will sound very natural and will meet the definition of “keyword rich.”
Here’s the keyword list that Google gave me for this article: The Keywords for “Keyword“
