6 Best Google AdSense Placement and Layout Tactics

The following Google AdSense placement strategies have been tested on thousands of sites that reported improvement in ad-share revenue. So if you’re just starting out and looking for a strong beginning, these AdSense layouts are probably your best bet.

However, you don’t have to follow the general wisdom all the time. Feel free to experiment on your own. Every site is different, so if you really don’t want to make money on the table, you have to see by testing how you can get the most out of Google AdSense.

Before we start, let me give you a quick tip: Google AdSense allows its publishers to display a maximum of 3 ad units, 3 link units and 2 search boxes on a single page. So to maximize your chances I recommend you use all the 3 ad units per page.

If you don’t want to use any of the other type of ads, fine. But ad units are usually the most profitable, so don’t be afraid of installing all 3 of them (if your pages are at least 600-700 words long).

1. Place Your Best-Performing Ad Units at the Top

You can see which ad units are making you the most money by going to Google AdSense, Performance Reports, Ad units.

If you choose here the ad unit that makes you the most money (it’s automatically listed at the top), it can be a good idea to place this type at the top of your pages, possibly above the fold.

If you haven’t made any money with AdSense yet, the Large Rectangle and Medium Rectangle ad formats are usually the best performing ones according to Google.

If you’re looking for a good start, put either of them somewhere below your first paragraph on your pages, either left-aligned or right-aligned, with or without text wrapping around them (testing can tell you which version makes you the most money).

Note: Placing too many ads and too little content on a page has always been a big no-no. However, especially after Google Panda and Penguin, it’s strictly forbidden!

You must keep an eye on your ad-content ratio, otherwise your site will get a ranking penalty and soon you won’t have any visitors to make money with AdSense.

Bottom line: don’t put so many AdSense ads above the fold that your visitors have to scroll down to start reading your content.

2. Make Text Wrap Around Your Above-The-Fold Ad Units

For the above mentioned reason, aligning your ads to either side of the page instead of centering them can be a good strategy, so that some of your content still appears above the fold to please your visitors (and Google).

Ideally, you shouldn’t even place any ads directly below your main headline: instead, write your first paragraph and place the ad only below that.

Here’s a piece of code that can help you left- or right- align your AdSense units so that text wraps around them.

Just copy-paste it where you want it to appear on your site and replace <<GOOGLE JAVASCRIPT GOES HERE>> with the code AdSense gives you.

<div style="float:left;margin-right:5px;">

<<GOOGLE JAVASCRIPT GOES HERE>>

</div>

Note: The above code will left-align your ads, and the text will wrap to the right side of the page. If you’d like to change that so that the ad is right-aligned and text wraps to the left side of the page, change float:left to float:right and margin-right to margin-left.

To Wrap Around or Not to Wrap Around?

You don’t necessarily have to wrap text around your ads. Some of the webmasters I’ve worked with reported that they had a higher click-through rate without text wrapping.

As always, the only way to discover what works best for you if you test it.

Example: Use text wrapping for the first 2 weeks, then change it back to no-text wrapping for the next 2 weeks and keep the version that works best for your site.

If you don’t want text to wrap around your AdSense, simply paste the code that Google gives you without using any of the code I gave you above.

However, keep in mind that if you don’t wrap text around your above-the-fold ad units, your visitors will have to scroll lower to find your content. And the lower your content is, the higher the risk of getting a ranking penalty by the search engines. As always, it’s your call...

3. Place Videos Near Your Ads

Although placing images next to your AdSense units is forbidden by Google (because it got too many false-clicks), using videos to draw some attention to your ads is a good idea and perfectly legal.

So go to YouTube, Facebook or any other free video hosting site that allows embedding (or create your own videos with Sparkol) and place a video above or below your ads to hold your visitors’ attention at the right place.

This AdSense placement will surely increase your earnings by improving your click-through-rate.

4. Place Quotes or Testimonials Next to Your Ads

Similarly to the above strategy, this is aimed at getting more attention for your ads.You can even use highlighting like this to increase the effectiveness of this AdSense placement idea:

“I just love Business Online Guidance. Steve helped me launch one of the most successful social networking sites on the net. Thank you!” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com “Anything is better than lies and deceit!” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Ad Goes Here Ad Goes Here Ad Goes Here Ad Goes Here Ad Goes Here

5. Place a Skyscraper Ad in Your Sidebar... or Not?

Actually, this AdSense placement idea is more of a myth than fact.

Sure, at first it seems like a good idea to fill the blank space on the side of your screen, but according to my own and other webcasters’ experience, this is not the best Google AdSense placement from a click-through-rate perspective.

Not only did it have a terrible conversion rate for us (somewhere around 0.1-0.5%), it also lowered the conversion rate of our better performing ads in the main content column, probably because of distracting our visitors.

Anyway, you know what’s coming next: test to see whether it will work for you or not.

6. Use Google's Heatmap for the Best Google AdSense Placement

Finally, I hope you’ve seen Google’s Heatmap already.

It will show you which areas of your page get the most attention from your readers, so you can place your ads accordingly. 

So there you go: these are the best Google AdSense placement and layout strategies I know about.

If you try them one of the following 3 options will happen:

1, You’ll send me a bouquet of flowers as a token of your appreciation, because I just made you rich.

2, Nothing will change, you’ll make approximately the same income.

3, You’ll be chasing me down in a dark alley with a chainsaw in your hands, because the above tips ruined your earnings (relax, it’s only temporary, you can always change back later).

Why? Because every site and blog is different. What works for Site A may be terrible advice for Site B.

So always do your own testing before making the final call on your AdSense layout. This is the single best advice anyone will give you.

SOURCE: business-online-guidance.com