Improve Your Google Adsense Earnings

The advent of Google Adsense has made making money online easier than ever. Just add it to your blog or web site, and you're on the road to riches, right? Well, that's the general idea, and just about anyone with a decent amount of traffic can make a few pennies, but there's a big difference between making a little bit and planning your retirement on your own private island. If you're looking for ways to make more with Adsense, the follow tips should help, whether you're working with a blog or a web site:

1. Blend advertisements with the background of your page. This is a basic tip, but many people haven't figured it out yet. Countless studies have shown that people are more likely to click Adsense ads that have the same font and link colors as the rest of the page and that share the same color background (ditch the border altogether by making it the same color as the background).

2. Keep Adsense above the fold. In the web world, the "fold" is the bottom of the page. Anything that's below the fold means people have to scroll. I know you think your content is riveting, but the truth is that many people are busy and aren't going to read a whole article. You can't count on them to scroll down. Instead position ads above the fold so visitors are certain to see them.

3. Cut down on clutter. If you have menus upon menus on pages surrounded by polls, pictures, and lots of other features that can distract the visitor, you may really be hurting your Adsense CTR (and thus your total earnings). My highest CTR sites (well into double digit percentages) often have nothing but a title, an article, and a small navigation menu. Visitors are much more likely to notice and click on those ads this way.

4. Make sure every page you have Adsense on has content in the form of text. Although pictures are beautiful, the Adsense bot is not very good at figuring out what advertisements are relevant to them. If your site is picture heavy, do yourself a favor and add a paragraph of content below each image.

5. Focus on a niche. As smart as the Adsense bot is, it has a hard time figuring out what your web site or blog is all about if you're writing on everything under the sun. To maximize potential Adsense earnings, make sure your blog or web site is on a specific topic. That goes for page level stuff too. Don't write articles or blog entries that are all over the place. Focus on a single subject, so Adsense can target your readers with relevant ads.

6. Get more traffic! This always seems like an obvious tip, but so many people wonder why they aren't making good money (or any money) with Adsense, and it turns out they only receive 5 or 10 visitors a day. You don't necessarily have to have millions of page views a day to do well with Adsense (though we can all dream), but you do need to get up there in the thousands before you can start thinking about making a living this way. Make sure you have a quality site, and then study forums where people talk about ways of promoting their web sites. The more you read and learn, the better you'll do at getting more people to your site.

These tips may not change your life, but I hope they'll in some way help you improve your Adsense earnings. Everyone deserves the opportunity to make money from home (and maybe even quit their dead-end jobs some day). The great thing about the web is you don't have to be the biggest most popular site out there in order to make good money. Just stick with it, pay attention to tips like these, and you'll be making more in no time.

TC Thorn is the author of many content web sites, such as Pest Control Information, which earn money through Adsense and affiliate programs. She has been making a living from her web income since 2004.