How Not to Get Rich with Google Adsense

Those who desire to make money on the web ultimately find themselves looking at Google Adsense as one of the most promising methods of quickly seeing results.

Simply place ads on your website, hope that your visitors click on them, and watch your mailbox for your monthly check. It's not quite that easy, however.

Following are some essential guidelines and tips to help you make your Adsense monitized site succeed.

1. Read the description of the Adsense program on Google's site and apply for an account using the link on that page. You must have at least one web site. Your site can be a free Blogger site if you have no other site. Once you are accepted, you can place ads on any other web sites you own without separate application.
2. Read the Adsense Terms and Conditions. These are the rules you must play by. The rules are sometimes referred to as Adsense TOS (Terms of Service) but this is erroneous. Google's TOS are for use of it's search engine, not for Adsense. We'll highlight some of the most important T&Cs here. The penalty for not playing by the rules can be serious - being permanently banned from the program - forever.
3. Read the Adsense Program Policies. These, along with the Terms and Conditions, are your rulebook for being successful making money with Adsense. If you have questions regarding the rules ask someone on one of the webmaster discussion forums, or send an email to Google.
4. Never modify the HTML code that Google provides you to insert in your web pages.
5. Never, ever, click on your own ads - or ask friends and relatives to do it for you. Google considers this a form of click fraud and you risk being banned. the odds are against you if this happens, even if it happens accidentally.
6. Never try in any way to artificially intice your site visitors to click on your ads. Don't ask them to click, don't suggest that they click, don't trick them into clicking. Don't place your ad units near other page elements, such as graphics, that might make your visitors think the two are related.
7. Don't label your ads with anything but "sponsored links" or "advertisements" - or use no label at all. Do not place the ads in the proximity of labels or a graphic image that might appear to be a label for an ad block.
8. Place ads on pages with genuine content, not links, graphics, or empty pages. Google uses the content to determine which ads to display on your page. If you've done a good job with content, and Google has an inventory of ads that are relevant to that content, you're doing well.
9. Don't create MFA (Made For Adsense) sites or pages. Don't waste your time or money on purchasing MFA sites, high-paying keyword lists, or ebooks promising secrets to creating such sites.
10. Text ads generally do better than image ads, but it can depend on the site.
11. Large ad blocks (336x280) generally do better than other formats, especially when integrated into content areas of a page. Use only one block for small content areas, two or three for large articles and content areas.
12. Place your ads as close as possible to the area of your page where you expect your visitors to focus their attention. A tall skyscraper ad on the right side of a page with most of the content on the left will not do well.
13. Don't overcrowd a page with ads. No back-to-back ad blocks. It doesn't look good and it annoys your visitors. If you use multiple ad blocks, be aware that the first ads that Google finds in your HTML code will be the ads with the highest earnings-per-click. For example, if you have a block hidden at the top of your page, and another more inviting block down in your content, you won't get the highest paying clicks.
14. Ads that use your page background color and no borders will work best for most sites. However, for some types of sites such as forums and blogs, it's very difficult to blend and integrate ad blocks into content areas. For these types of sites, it may be necessary to use some contrasting ad colors and borders to get the attention of your visitors. Changing colors and borders from time to time will also help prevent ad-blindness for regular returning visitors.
15. Ad units generally work better than link units. Reasons: a) Link units are small and often difficult to see, b) Visitor has to click twice to get to advertiser's web site (more work), and c) earnings are generally lower, even though CTR may be higher (large number of ad choices for visitor but lower revenue per click).
16. If your site makes money in ways other than Adsense (e.g. you sell an ebook), be aware that your Adsense ads may carry your visitors away from your site before they have a chance to spend money with you. Don't count on them clicking the 'Back' button to return to your site. Therefore, you'll have to compromise in your ad placements. Also use Filters to block out ads from direct competitors.
17. Make sure your page titles and content allow Google to easily determine what your site or page is about - in order to create relevant ads. Forums and blogs are often problems in this respect because of the wide variety of topics in the content.
18. Use Adsense 'section targeting' to suggest to Google which areas of your page you consider most important. This helps Google to display the most relevant ads for you. Although this might not always get the results you want, it's worth a try, especially if you are having a problem with poor ad relevancy.