What all this means is that you can target certain high traffic
niches by simply adding the names of cities to the end of your
keywords. On your site you can go further and do a little
research about a certain keyword subject in the city or cities
that you are targeting and have a page for that city. The effect
is that your site will end up being ranked very high in certain
cities. This should automatically drive more traffic to your
site. In fact you will be able to reach traffic that you would
not have otherwise been able to reach.

The really amazing and attractive thing about this strategy is
the fact that you only need to make very minor adjustments in
your existing content, maybe even only create city pages with
exactly the same content adjusted. What’s more, with some
subjects you only need to plant the name of the city in the
article a few times and you will have started targeting popular
searches that include the names of popular cities.

It really is amazing that such a simple thing as inserting the
name of famous American cities can make such a huge difference
in the traffic and earnings of a website or blog.

When you use AdSense it is very important to use different strategies with it.  When you visit a site with AdSense take a look at it carefully and look for something that you can learn from it. How are ads placed, is the content correct and matching the ads, is he using high-paying keywords, is the page well optimized and you can even Google the page by keywords and see how well that page is ranking.

When placing your ads, think about color. If you have a blue header or you have a blue banner at the top of your page, put your ads immediately below the banner and make them the same color as your banner so that perfectly blend in.  Don’t overdo your absence, it’s not so important to have 10 units on your site then to have two or three which are well placed and strategically work the best.  Case studies have shown that a good place for your ads are at the top underneath the banner but don’t make them stand out too much. Better to have them look like they are not ads, because people don’t want to click on ads they want to find what they’re looking for, and if it’s an advertisement, people are running away from obvious advertisements because they are so used to them in television and on the Internet everywhere.  So don’t make your ads stand out so that they scream “I’m an ad”, because people won’t click on them. You’re much better off merging your ads into your page design so that they look like important links among your content.

The benefits of placing the ad on top of the page beneath the banner are obvious.  If you have a blog and people come to see your new content, they will read the headline and the newest headline is on the top of the page, which means they can’t miss your ads, and if your ad blends well into the page, it is probably going to get a high click through rate.  It’s also very important to make the background color of your ad units the same as your pages background color, remember they have to blend in, not stand out, and it is very important.

If you run a blog that changes topic frequently your ads are most probably not going to be well targeted.  If you on the other hand run a website with consistent content, your ads are going to be spot on.  Of course it is very important that your ads are content related because if they are not, and people are not going to click on them. Your visitors searched for something over the internet and found your page, and if you’re your ads content matches your pages content they’re’ likely to click on your ads.

Many web-based companies have done research how people look at webpage’s.  This research has shown where visitors eyes focus on web pages. They have come to a conclusion that it’s not beneficial to put your  ads on the left side of your page, because people are used to see a menu on the left side, and only look back there if they want to navigate inside your page.

It is also a good idea to have your content and your AdSense ads alternating, this works well with good and interesting content like a story, that people wants to follow, then suddenly there is an ad that blends perfectly into the rest of the page, and then the story continues, and then there is another ad.  Again it’s important not to overdo it.  This is a very good way to get good click through rates.  A very nice idea is also to incorporate the ad units in the text in a way that the text wraps around the ads.  This strategy is commonly seen on many web pages and works also very well.  This way also the ads are going to be on natural places and among the content, so that your readers don’t have to search or reach for ads.  

I hope these few suggestions help you and keep testing and finding what works best for your site.

If people see immediately that there is an advertisement on your page, it is not likely that they are going to click on it.  Everybody hates spam and we sort of see a red flag when we find advertisements on pages when we are looking for information on the Internet.  This is why you have to make sure that your AdSense units don’t stand out as advertisements, but blend in to the rest of the page graphically and strategically.  When people read information, there is a point when they need to take a natural break because it is limited how much information we can digest in one take.

Try to find these points in your text, blend your ads so that you use the same font and color.  Make sure they don’t stand out from the rest of your graphical look, and if you can do this correctly you have a much higher chance of people clicking on your ads.  Of course we are talking about ad sends for content in this case.

Maybe I don’t have to remind you, but I do it anyway, always match the background color of the unit with the background color of your site.  Also understand that you can’t force users to find and click your ads.  They won’t do it!

After you have placed your units graphically and strategically on your site, make sure that you format your text in the same way as in the ads, to make further sure that they won’t stand out.  Many magazines use sidebars which contain more and extra information on the subject, and they are easy to understand with a glance.  You want your ads to look something like that.

Everybody says that it’s important to put your ads in the beginning or top up your page.  This is very true; the first thing people do when they come to a page full of information is to look at the top of the page or the article and decide if the information is what they are looking for.  So if you want your readers to see your ads, put few units on top of your page making sure you blend them as discussed before, so that they don’t shout out “I’m an advertisement click on me”!  If you put AdSense units in the middle of your article, they will probably work against you, because people have to read around them.  Instead if you’re ads are on the top of the page and for example underneath the header, everybody will see them and it won’t be a distraction at this point.

And now into some more clever tactics;

Make a narrow but long AdSense unit that looks like a news column.  Then make a real news column on your page that looks exactly like the ad sends unit, but is actually information and inbound links.  Put one unit on the left side, preferably the ad sends unit and the other litter lower on the right side of your page.  This is a great trick I’m sure will help you and it’s a lot of fun.

If you use Google image ads, they usually look too much like ads to be effective.  But you could use the same kind of tactics as explained before to get some value out of them.  Put a picture of something interesting on your page, and then put an image ad on another strategically good place, but don’t use Google’s image ads only. 

This is good, because images attract attention.  When using this tactic, put the normal picture first on your page and the advertisement further down and make your picture important to the page content and put a clickable link underneath it.

Thanks to adsense, blogs, rss feeds and their listings — not to mention an arsenal of free types of advertising — it’s possible to make a very good income without spending a penny and with minimal effort. The trick is to optimize for it.

PLEASE NOTE: Though adsense may have originated with Google’s system, there are many other adsense-type programs available, all of which are as viable — some even more so — as theirs. The information included here applies to most of them.

While everyone else is busy optimizing for search engines, by optimizing for adsense, a site can feasibly pull enough traffic that simply clicks on the ads to forget about other forms of sales.

However, bear in mind that most adsense TOS agreements prevent any unfair or “fraudulent” clicking, even so much as a note saying, “click here to support this site,” which risks banishment by most adsense companies. This, of course, is to protect those adwords customers who pay to have their ads displayed. It is they who are robbed (not the companies) when an ad is clicked irresponsibly. Furthermore Google, for one, can track clicks effectively enough to detect any artificial or irresponsible clicking will garner any income received this way.

With that in mind, by understanding how adsense-type programs work, one can optimize a page, legally, to create a substantial income. And while guidelines are designed primarily focused on adsense, many of these strategies will increase a sites’ general revenue as well.

TOP SEARCHES
The first step is to design a site around the top searches. There are various tools (keyword selectors and zeitgeist, for example) that help gather this information. Of course, there is also the “niche marketing” school of thought, i.e., to find a smaller group that has less page-per-click competition. In this case, the ideal is to find a large audience-small page ratio. But after more than a year of marketers scouring the web for them, finding one is rare and searching for one can take a LOT of time. Not hours or days, but weeks or months.

HIGHEST PAYING KEYWORDS
Lists of these can be found simply by searching the internet. Of course combining the highest paying adsense keywords with Top Searches may make a very strange mix. Afterall, the top search (at the time of this writing) is Britney Spears while the top-paying words relate to mesothelioma and asbestos cancer. So, unless Britney Spears speaks out on mesothelioma, there’s little chance these could be combined legally*. But, by looking down the lists there are more feasible combinations. The main thing to understand is it’s only a combination of the two (high-paying keywords & top searches) that will bring enough traffic to garner any measurable LEGAL income from adsense.

PLACES, PLEASE
Placing the ads prominently on the site is a no-brainer, though some marketers still tend to hide them toward the bottom of the site. Another TOS factor, too, is a content-to-ad ratio that adsense programs used to insist on, but seem to be slipping. Generally the policy was no more than two banner ads per page though many sites that end up at the top of searches seem to flaunt this rule. But who knows how long they last, too. Traditionally, putting one banner across the top, just below the title, and one “skyscraper” down one side, with content in the middle is the best.

MULTI-PAGE IT
One pase allows for 2 ads, but more ads can be placed on each additional page on the site. For those lacking ideas for additional pages, the simplest page would be a separate contact page, as well as an “about us” or testimonial page, all of which are viable additions. Incidently, it’s ironic that so many marketers create mile-long splash pages rather than a group of pages and never add one adsense ad to them. As if, by doing this, it will garner more sales, when the truth is, they sacrifice as much as gain because these pages are rarely indexed and annoy visitors as many as they attract, simply because of their set up. Understand this: adsense is a way to profit from EXIT traffic, something that WILL occur at one point or another, no matter how wonderful the page.

HIGHLIGHT OR BLEND
Some prefer the adsense to blend into their site, almost hiding it from visitors. But this diminishes its effectiveness. Rather, by highlighting it, visitors will be more aware of it, allowing it to stand out. Of course, we’d all prefer our visitors to stay at OUR site, buy OUR product, etc. But the fact is, many won’t. Isn’t it better to gain something from their departure?

ADSEARCH
This feature is only available from some of the larger adsense programs. If it is available, placing it at the bottom of a page offers the visitor the convenience of doing a search without having to first go to the SE. Of course, many SEs and browsers offer toolbars that diminish the effectiveness of this. But adding it will create another exit point that is to your advantage– and seems like a service, too.

AFRAID OF COMPETITION?
Some adsense programs offer a “block competition” option, one in which specific sites may be barred. However, to believe it’s possible to effectively block ALL your competition is naive. Though it may at first seem outrageious to help advertise for the competition, again, at least one will gain from their advertisement (and, for those who need payback remember: the competition is paying you).

Each of these strategies increase a site’s adsense revenue. By using all of them, the adsense ads will create a steady revenue stream which will increase with the site’s traffic stream.–mo

*Also, this combination uses Google’s rates, which may vary in other adsense programs.