My first paycheck earned through the internet. Not much but nevertheless a little reward for my work and more importantly spur me on to greater things. I will be setting up a forum and maybe moving my blog to a web host. It has also been a long time since I last visited blogcatalog, mybloglog and other social networking sites. It's time for me to pay them a visit.
Showing posts with label AdSense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AdSense. Show all posts
Sunday, October 7, 2007
My First AdSense pay check
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Google AdSense - Creating Custom Channels
When I first started with AdSense, my plan was simple. I will put the maximum number of ads allowed base on the "heat map". However, I'm beginning to wonder which of my ads are my main money makers and which ads are making the least if not nothing at all. Another reason is the introduction of referrals - I would like to know where is the best placement for them.
Channels ain't new but many like myself usually do not use them. The main reason I feel is that we are too focus in driving traffic to our sites - more traffic means more clicks on our ads. However, this may not necessary be true. I have come across sites with low traffic count with equally impressive ad earnings.
Creating Custom Channels
The following is extracted from Google AdSense Help but I customize it to my own requirements. You can refer to the original post here.
Scenario: I have a site on personal finance. My homepage currently has three ad units and two link units, and I want to find out which of the units is performing most effectively. To do so, I'll create a separate custom channel for each of the five units to monitor their performance.
Creating and implementing custom channels requires a more involved process than that for URL channels. No worries - we'll show you how to create custom channels in 4 easy steps:
- Start off by logging in to your account and clicking the AdSense Setup tab, followed by the Channels link. For this scenario, we'll be looking at AdSense for content custom channels, so make sure you're on the right product and channel subtab. Then click the Add new custom channel.
- The next step is naming your channels.
It's important to be precise and consistent when naming custom channels. The more information you provide in the name about where and how the ad unit is being used, the easier it will be to identify later, when you're generating your channels reports. (*Note that you are allowed only 30 characters for the naming convention).
For the example used here, I used names like:- MyPF_Left_160x600_#eeeecc
- MyPF_MiddleTop_480x60_#eeeecc
- MyPF_Middle_300x250_#eeeecc
- MyPF_Top_728x15_#335577
- MyPF_Right_200x90_#558866
- Now you can create your channel-specific ad code. Once your names are in place, click the AdSense Setup tab, then choose AdSense for content as the product.
Continue to choose the ad type, ad format, and color palette as you would normally, then in the Channels section, select the name of the channel(s) you'd like to add by clicking the Add>> link (you can add up to 5),
and click Continue to see your choices reflected in the ad layout code.
- Finally, you'll copy-and-paste the code into your webpages. The channel identifier within your code will immediately begin tracking performance. If you already have ad code on these pages, you should replace it with the new channel-specific code.
Repeat the process for each of the ad units you'd like to track.
You'll notice that all of these names follow the pattern Blog Name+Location+Ad Format+Color Palette. This is a pattern I've found useful, but feel free to use whichever method works best for you. You will also notice a "Show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement " - I will skip this for now until I have read up more about it.
Enter the channel names into the new channel box and click Add channels.
I will give myself 1 week to collect the relevant data and will do a post on generating channel reports.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Can I Run Google AdSense With Bidvertiser?
I've received a reply from Bidvertiser. I'm glad to announce that you can run AdSense with Bidvertiser. However there are some guidelines.
Reply from BidVertiser
Dear customer,
Your ticket concerning 'Hi, I would like to know if there a ...' has been responded: Dear sir/madam,
Google allows to run BidVertiser ads along AdSense on the same pages, as long as a few guidelines are kept, were the most crucial one is to apply a different color scheme. Please see below the official response from Google:
"We´re asking that publishers use good judgment on how much they change the colors or formatting of the ads to ensure users don´t confuse third-party (BidVertiser) ads with Google ads. Proximity plays a role as well - if you´re placing the ad units directly adjacent to one another, we´d ask that you use clear borders and offsetting colors to indicate where one network´s ad unit ends and the other begins. If the ad units are on opposite sides of the page, using different backgrounds colors and/or a different color scheme for ad text and borders should be fine."
Best Regards,
BidVertiser Support Team
There you go. As long as you differentiate your BidVertiser Ads, it will be fine.
Recommended: Wordpress Adsense System : Blogging For Profits
Monday, May 28, 2007
My Review on Bidvertiser - An Alternative to AdSense?
Bidvertiser is a Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising site that competes directly with Google AdSense. Its main advantage over AdSense is its low $10 payout. Yep, that's ten times less than Google's $100 payout. This effectively slash your waiting period from months to weeks. For small time bloggers, this is particularly attractive.
Sounds too good to be true?
I did a quick search on Bidvertiser comments and they were pretty negative - ads were completely irrelevant or their $10 payout never arrived. With that said, I still went ahead creating my Bidvertiser account. After all, what's there to lose?
A quick run through of Bidvertiser:
Registration: Pretty straight forward and fast. I got my activation code within 5mins.
Mode of payment: Paypal ($10 Min.) Check ($50 Min.)
Ads Format: Very similar to Google AdSense. However I don't quite like the ad customization. Unlike AdSense, Bidvertiser uses only one code. Changes has to be made in your Bidvertiser account. It will need some getting used to.
No. of Ads: Bidvertiser allows me to show the ads that is displayed. I did a quick estimate and I have about 200-400 ads available for each of my 2 blogs.
Other Features:
You can get to choose which ads you want to display - meaning you can choose ads with the highest CPM. Though this may mean that you can earn more per click, the drawback is that ads may be limited and totally irrelevant.
Just when I decide to implement it into my site, a important question pop in into mind -
Can I use Google AdSense with Bidvertiser?
Google AdSense Program Policy
In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.
If you have any non-Google ads on your site that resemble AdSense - even if they are not contextually targeted ads - they will now put you in violation of the AdSense policies. i.e. If they look like your Google ads, even if they say "Ads by Bidvertiser " or whatever, you cannot use them on the same site.
Bidadvertiser can be a good useful montizeing tool but only if it works concurrently with other contextual text ads. Most popular contextual text ads in the market today like Google AdSense and Yahoo Overture have strict guidelines, thereby limiting its usage.
If you’re thinking of joining, please consider joining under me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll do my best to answer them.
Sign up for Bidvertiser
Recommended: Blogging To The Bank - Zero to $1,018.15 in Two Short Weeks
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Adding AdSense Ads in your New Blogger blog post
Base on the 'heat map' in my previous post, I have added Google Ads into my first two blog post. I've added only one ad unit as I don't want my blog to appear too cluttered and untidy. Another advantage of adding Ads into individual blog post is that the Ads seems more relevant, thus increasing your chances of a CTR. Here are some tips for where in the XML Template you should paste the parsed HTML code. Blogcrowds used a barebone Minima template so it should be similar in all templates. Find the normal text and then add the bolded code are added by me: 1)Next To The Post <div style="float:left;"> <div class='post-body'> 2)After Post Before Credits <div class='post-body'> <div><!--parsed Adsense code--></div> <div class='post-footer'> 3)After Credits <p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/> <div><!--parsed Adsense code--></div>
If you are worried about violating AdSense Terms Of Service (TOS). Stavanger from blogcrowd wrote to AdSense Help Center, and received some vague replies that seem to indicate that slight modification of the code for the New Blogger is OK. Here is the email he received:
"Hi,
You are permitted to make minor edits in Blogger Beta. However, please keep in mind that in general publishers are not allowed to alter the AdSense ad code for any reason. Once you've generated the ad code in your AdSense account pages, you may not alter any portion of the code or manually change the layout of the ads.
Thanks for your understanding.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team"
Read more about it here.
This is how it is done. You generate the AdSense script from AdSense site, then replace HTML characters like < with < etc.
<!--parsed Adsense code-->
</div>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div>
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author'>
<b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
<data:top.authorLabel/> <data:post.author/>
</div>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
You can read more about it at Google AdSense In Blogger Beta XML Update.
You can actually parse the script in Notepad using Replace All or a HTML text editor like Dreamweaver. For those without any HTML editor, Stavanger has even made it convenient for you by giving a parser at Parse Google AdSense For XML Blogger.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Maximize your Google AdSense
Google AdSense needs no introduction. It is the most widely used and readily available online advertising program. What I mean by readily available is that their criteria for joining is pretty low. Unlike other Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising programs like Chitika which require your site to have at least 10,000 page views per month, AdSense does not have such requirements. I manage to apply for my AdSense account within 3 days of setting up my Vitamin and Health blog with about 10 page views per day. While this heat map is useful as a positioning guideline, I strongly recommend putting your users first when deciding on ad placement. Imagine watching a movie with constant ads appearing - it can very annoying. You will definitely want users to return to your site and not turn them off ya.
Where should I put my Google Ads on my pages?
Studies have shown that certain locations in your page tends to be more successful than others because this is where people tend to focus on.
This "heat map" illustrates these ideal placements on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). All other things being equal, ad placements above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.
In my next post, I will show you how it is done.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
AdSense - An internal error occured. Please try again.
Anyone experience this error? I had and it was frustrating but fortunately, the solution is pretty simple.
Solution 1
Log into your AdSense account, generate the code and under Template, Page Element, add the code into your HTML/ JavaScript page element. Sounds pretty simple ya but when I was starting out, I thought that the only way to link to AdSense is via the page element.
Solution 2 (may not work)
Adding the code manually can be very tiresome. Since Google created AdSense to work with blogger, we should make full use of it.
Replace XXXXX with your blog ID. Every Blog that you create has its own blogID - refer to the screenshot below on where you can find your Blog ID.
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