Turning Google Adcents Into Google Ad-dollars

If your google adsense seems more like “google adcents” it’s probably time you re-looked the ad formats you’re using and where you’re placing them on your site.


Ad Format: First of all you may need to look at the ad formats you have chosen. Generally the best performing and higher paying ads are the medium and large rectangles, the skyscraper and leaderboard ads.

I’ve experimented with many different google ad formats over the years and the one I tend to stick with that particularly works well for this site is the 300 x 250 medium rectangle. You will see that I use one ad in the top right corner of all pages within this site and two ads in the first two posts on the home page.

I don’t use any more than this so that I stay in line with googles terms and conditions policy of not displaying more than three ad units on any given page.


Ad Placement: Location, location, location! Where you put your ads is important and generally “above the fold” is best. Above the fold basically means that the ads are visible before a visitor has scrolled down your page. Of course this depends on what screen resolution a particular visitor is viewing in and what may be above the fold in some resolutions could well be below the fold in others.

Personally I don’t worry too much about visitors viewing in a 800 x 600 resolution as the trend (and my google analytics) seems to indicate most people moving away from that so I focus more on thinking my visitors will be viewing in a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher.


Here’s a shot of the google heat map which illustrates “hot spots” for your chosen ad format placements. The dark orange indicates a strong performance whereas the light yellow illustrates a weaker performance.

Bear in mind that this is only a guide from google as to where your ads may perform best. You should also keep your users visiting experience in mind when placing ads and don’t just go for the hot spots ending up with your site looking like the dog’s breakfast.


Ad Colours: The colours of your ads are important as well. While the MacDonalds bright red and yellow may attract a visitors eye to your google ads it will more than likely half blind them as well. Be careful with your colours. Try and get your ads to blend in with your site and experiment with more subtle colours, different colour borders or a border the same colour as the background your ad is placed on.

Try a Link colour in the ads that is similar to other links on your site in an effort to make things look a bit more natural. As ever it’s a matter of experimenting and finding out what works best for your visitors and your site. Don’t just try thing’s for a day or two and then change them. Make it more like two weeks, be patient (one of online marketing’s golden rules) and you will eventually discover which ad formats and colours work best and where to place them on your site.


For more detailed information on what I’ve touched on here visit the Google Adsense Help Center.

You’ll be turning your “google adcents” into ad-dollars in no time.

You may also be interested in:

1. Make Money With Google Adsense
2. 3 Tips on Using Google Images for More Traffic