Please keep in mind that this is only based on personal experience and each sites success will vary depending on the content, placement, integration, traffic, etc. This is a very basic overview geared towards first time “Adsensers”.

Before you even think about getting Adsense up and running on your site, I highly recommend reading over the Google Adsense Program Policies. Be sure to not only read them, but understand them because you don’t want to risk having your account banned.

Some of the most important (and basic) policies to remember are:

• DO NOT click your own ads.
• DO NOT alter the Adsense code in any way.
• DO NOT encourage users to click on your ads. The only text that can be used to label your ads are “Sponsored Links” or “Advertisements”
• DO NOT try to inflate your page impressions.
• Up to 3 ads may be displayed per page
• Adsense can only be placed on “content” pages. DO NOT place ads on registration pages, user profile pages, etc.
• You may have one, and only one, Adsense account

Ok, now that you’ve read over the policies it’s time to start setting up Adsense for your website.

Choosing the right format

From my experience these are the Adsense formats that have performed best for me:

• 336 x 280 large rectangle
• 300 X 250 medium rectangle
• 468 X 15 horizontal ad links

We’ll talk about ad placement later.

Choosing the right color scheme

It’s best to blend the ads to your website’s style and color scheme so they look like part of the content. Here are some tips on blending your ads:

• Background : Set this to the background used on your site, where the content appear.
• Border : Set as the same color as the “Background color”. Remember ads without borders tend to do better.
• Link : Set this to the color that you use for you links on your site.
• URL: Set this to the color that you use for your main content text
• Text :Set this to the color that you use for your main content

Ad Placement

Now that you’ve selected you ad format and color scheme, it’s onto the most important part….ad placement.

For best results, place the ads above the fold since that’s the part of the page that users will see first.

The 336X280 and 300 X 250 rectangles are most effective when embedded within the article content at the top left. This is where the readers eyes land first.
The 468X15 link unit seems to be most effective when placed in the “usually” navigation bar area of the website OR…directly after the article. Most users finish reading the article and are looking for somewhere else to go within your website, so placing the ad units seems logical.

Sample Placements

Adsense Gray areas

Probably the biggest gray area, at least for me, is whether or not images are allowed next to Adsense ads. It seems that there is no definitive answer and is determined on a case-by-case basis. For the most part, it seems that images are allowed next to ads as along as there is a border separating the images and ads and that they are “fairly” spaced from eachother. The images must not appear to be part of the ad unit and must not be used in a way to trick the user into clicking the ads. If you are thinking about using images next to Adsense, it’s best to contact the Adsense team to see if your placement is within the TOS. If they do okay the placement make sure that you keep the email…just in case. Here is an example of an image/adsense placement that was “approved”:

The follow-on to this tutorial will cover the following:

• Utilizing channels to track your Adsense performance.
• Using section targeting to optimize ad relevancy
• Maintaining your Adsense campaign, alternating ads, and “placement maintenance”
• Samples of great Adsense placement and integration

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