Should I filter out low paying ads? - optimisation tips

Adsense allows you to block any ads you choose from appearing on your blog. As your blog grows, you may want to filter out low-paying ads from displaying on your blog.

How to block ads from displaying on your blog.
Login to your Adsense account and click on Adsense Set-up. Click on Competitive Ad-Filter. Now, you simply add the full URL's of the ads you'd like to block. If you want to block all ads from a domain, simply add the domain.

Why would you want to block certain ads?
There are several reasons why you would want to block out a particular ad. The main reason is that the ads could point to your competitor's website - potentially losing you a customer. Another reason people consider blocking ads, is that they believe the ad to be low-paying.

This may sound like a good idea, but it's more beneficial to keep you ad filter list as small as possible. A large filter list limits the number of ads Adsense has to choose from for your site - potentially affecting your earnings. Also, an ad that may not pay well one month, may pay better the next. Finally, Adsense displays the highest paying available ads for your niche - if your clicks are not generating much income, perhaps you should focus on a new niche.

Tracking your adsense performance through channels

You can effectively track where your income is coming from with Adsense Channels. The simplest way to track earnings on your blog is to setup a URL channel. This will simply track the cumulative number of impressions and clicks from that specific URL.

URL channels are easy to setup, but as you learn more about adsense, you will want to track ad units seperately. This is where you'll need to setup custom channels.

To start, login to your adsense account and click on Adsense Setup. Now click on channels. Click on 'add new custom channels.' Simply name your channel and click on 'add channel.' Your channel name should be something that will tell you straight away where it is, what size it is, type of ads and anything else you need. For example, here are two of mine....

Channel Name
blog-local-list-crewe LR t&i

It consists of the name of the blog, ad unit size (LR = Large Rectangle) and type of ads (t&i = text and images)

Channel Name
free-advertising.forum3 L i

This is the URL of the forum, L=Leaderboard and i=images only

When you receive a click, you will know exactly where it came from using custom channels in this way.

Official Adsense placement guide - best places for ads

click to enlarge

This is the official Google Adsense heatmap - it tells you which locations are best for placing Adsense ad units. It ranges from the dark orange areas, which are most profitable, and the white areas, which are the poorest performing positions to place ads. The heatmap shows you that your ads need to be around your main content.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that. What works for one blog, may not work for another. The best thing for you to do is to experiment with your ad placements.

Placing ads in between blog posts is a probably a good idea for your blog, but remember, you can only place up to 3 ad units in one page.

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More adsense tips

Monetise your blog with Adsense

When you have some good content on your blog, it's time to monetise it! The best way is to sign-up for the Google Adsense programme. You can apply here.

How it works
When you apply to join the programme, you are applying to be a publisher. Google acts as the middle man. Advertisers pay Google to advertise on their publishers (us) websites and blogs. If a visitor click on an ad, the advertiser pays Google and Google pays us a cut of the money. Many things affect the amount of money we receive for the click, but that will follow later.

Once approved, login to your Adsense account and start creating ads! Once created, it's a case of copying and pasting the javascript into your blog.

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Adsense Tips

Adsense - Hexidecimal chart for deciding colours of ads

click to enlarge

When you're ready to add Google Adsense ads to your blog, you should create custom colour palettes so that the ads will blend in with your site - but not in a way that would mis-lead a visitor to think that they weren't adverts.

When creating an ad unit, you need to choose a colour for background, ad title, ad text, border & URL. The above hexidecimal colour chart should come in handy for this.

Creating a custom colour pallette

1. Login to your Google Adsense account.
2. Click on the 'Adsense Setup' tab.
3. Click on 'colour pallettes.'
4. Choose colours for background, ad title, ad text, border & URL. (see below)

Tips & Tricks
I rarely have a border around my text ads. To have no border on your ads, you will need to select the same colour as your background on your blog. Have a strong colour for your ad's title. I like red on a light background.

More coming soon - Feel free to leave a comment

Directory of Free Advertising Forums

Forum Advertising is a great way to get free traffic to your website. I have compiled a list of forums that allow you to advertise your website freely. Hope you will find this useful!

1 No Registration Advertising Forum - A brand new free advertising forum, themed around making money online. This is a small forum currently, so post here and your posts will stay in view for much longer - getting more views!

1A Make Money Online Forum - Sister forum of the above. This forum is themed around free advertising of your websites, affiliate links and anything else.

1B Free Advertising Forum - A new free advertising forum, primarily themed around making money online - but you can also promote your homepage, blogs & forums here. There is a links exchange & a buy/sell advertising section.

2 100% No Registration Advertising Forum - Advertise your website here without even registering!

3 Make Money Online Forum - This forum has over 29,000 members. It has a wide range of catergories.

4 Free Advertising Forum 4u - This is a smaller forum, but it has a good wide range of topics, including a classified ads section.

http://www.easycash.net84.net/
http://jdobbsy1987freeadvertising.netboards.org/
http://freeadverts4u.forumwise.com/
http://www.free-advertising-forum.com
http://www.freeadsplanet.com/
http://www.freeadvertisingforum.com/
http://www.adsgoglobal.co.uk
http://chuckysplace.com/forum

Post a message below if you found this section useful, if you would like a link adding or for any other comments.

Signature advertising at a forum

Forums are a great place to socialise and to discuss a wide range of topics. They can also be used as a marketing tool to send traffic to your websites, blog and online stores. You could promote your links in your profile, but also via your forum signature. Your forum signature will appear whenever you make a post, giving you opportunities to get traffic from other forum members.

Writing a good forum signature
I keep my forum signature as simple as possible. Below is my current forum signature at forums such as Digital Point. It's just a simple 3 lined signature.

NO REGISTRATION ADVERTISING - http://free-advertising.forum3.info/
Make Money Online - http://official-make-money-online-guide.blogspot.com/
Your Football Pictures - http://view-from-the-north-stand.blogspot.com

If you have more than a handful of links to promote, rotate your links often. If someone has seen your signature before, chances are they wont visit your links again. If you only have a couple of links, you could change the descriptive text.