Associate your YouTube and AdSense accounts

You may begin monetizing your videos without linking an AdSense account once you’ve opted in your account for monetization.

When you're ready to associate an AdSense account with your YouTube account, there are two ways to do it, depending on whether you already have an active AdSense account or whether you still need to create an AdSense account. Please note that it’s against AdSense’s Terms and Conditions to create a duplicate account.

If you already have an approved AdSense account:

1. Access the Monetization page in your Channel Settings.
2. From the AdSense Association page, you will be directed to AdSense.
3. Select the option at the bottom of the page to choose the Google Account you wish to use.
4. Enter the password for your Google Account.
5. Accept the association and you will then be redirected back to YouTube

Note: You may also change or update the AdSense account associated with your YouTube account by following the instructions above.

If you have never created an AdSense account before:

1. Access the Monetization page in your Channel Settings.
2. From the AdSense Association page, you will be directed to AdSense.
3. Select the option at the bottom of the page to choose the Google Account you wish to use.
4. Enter the password for your Google Account.
5. Confirm the association and provide your billing information before submitting.
6. You will then be redirected back to YouTube. (Note: AdSense may email you an update.)

If your account is not eligible for this AdSense association feature in your Channel Settings:

If you have full access to the YouTube Content Management System, or you use Content ID, you may need to complete this process in CMS under AdSense Settings. Please note that although one URL will be displayed on the confirmation page, ads will be served on all the channels managed in your User Accounts and if you were recently approved for Content ID, you must complete the Content ID signup.

6 Ways To Optimize AdSense Ads To Increase Revenue

Yesterday, we talked about somethings you should consider before starting off your blog in 2013, and in that, we discusses about some SEO-related things. For a lot of blogs out there, the major purpose is to make money, So today, we'll carry on the idea, and talk about Google AdSense. For beginners as well as advanced users, the start of a new year would be a good time to start thinking about your AdSense campaign. Are you making the most out of your ads? Now would be a good time to review your ad performance, and make changes accordingly. So here, we'll provide you with a checklist of 6 things you can do to optimize AdSense and make the most out of your ads.

Recommended for you: Top tips to optimize Google AdSense Ads on your blog

1. Are you utilizing your ad spots?

This is the first questions you should be asking yourself. AdSense won't allow you to add as many ad units as you like. But are you even utilizing all the ad-spots that it doesallow? For every page on your website, AdSense will only let you place three AdSense for content units. These vary in size, so you can utilize the best possible locations your ads can fit in. But you can only place one 300x600 ad unit. Apart from this, you can use three text-ad units, and two AdSense for for search boxes units. Before placing all these ad-units though, take some time to consider whether you have a sizable quality content to ad unit ratio. It just doesn't make sense if all the ad spots have been used, but there is no actual content on that page.

2. Take a look at your ad sizes

Generally speaking, wide ad units tend to perform better than tall ones. For example, the 728x90, 336x280, and 300x250 ad sizes are usually the highest performers. You should try on multiple ad sizes, and find out for yourself what works best for you. The ad size should also correspond to the placement of your content. For example, a tall and thin ad-unit doesn't make sense within a written post.

3. Use text and images too

Usually, publishers just focus on image ads, and forget about the other options available. Adding text ads is a good idea as well, because they compete with the image ad units for the same space. Using a combination of text and image ads can help you earn a lot more.

4. Add search boxes

As mentioned above, image ads are not the only thing in the world. AdSense will allow you two AdSense for search boxes units per page as well. They let you place a custom search engine on your site to provide users with web search. And you might earn from relevant ads on the search results page.

5. Make your ad units accessible

Pay special attention to where you actually place your ad units. They should complement, and fit in with your content. And also, users should be able to easily identify and access them. Generally, ads should be above-the-fold. Google offers a lot of guidelines to help you place your ads.

6. Check out color combinations

Last, but not the least, use trial and error, and play around with various color schemes and ad styles. They can play a big part in how much revenue you earn. There are three strategies you can choose from. Blend, Compliment, and contrast. Compliment is normal placement, where ad units are used within content, and are distinguishable. Blending ad units into content means using the same colors, so that it is hard to distinguish the ad unit. Contrast means you use contrasting colors that scream out an ad-unit's presence. You can use any of those, as long as you follow the guidelines from Google.

That was it for now. Stay tuned for more on AdSense. For any questions, please use the comments section below. Peace :)

Earn More with Adsense: Tips & Layout Optimization Tricks for High CTR

Google Adsense is perhaps the easiest way to attract advertisers from across the globe to your blog. Just submit your blog or website to Google for approval and if their content team approves your content, you are ready to place contextual text ads on your websites. Every time a reader clicks an AdSense ad link, the AdWords advertiser pays Google a small fee and Google splits the revenue with you. 

Now you know how to make money with Google Adsense but to help you improve AdSense performance (and advertising revenue), here are some of the best Google Adsense Tips and Tricks for making more money (profit) from the Google Adsense program.

About me: I have been using Google AdSense since 2004 and my technology blog was recently featured as an AdSense Case Study. 

Update: Some of the AdSense tricks in the article are old so you may please check my latest article on AdSense Optimization Tips that includes a PowerPoint presentation as well.

Tips to Increase Google AdSense Earnings

a. Strictly follow the rules mentioned in Adsense policies. You will always earn more revenue from Adsense by playing it clean.

b. Never modify the Google Adsense HTML code. If have trouble embedding AdSense code in your WordPress or Blogger template, take help of the AdSense support forums or send an email to your AdSense account manager.

c. Never ask your friends or visitors to click on your Google ads. Google takes click fraud very seriously. Do not include incentives of any kind on your site for users to click on your ads. Don't label Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements.".

d. Don't click on your own ads - Google is much smarter than you think and can discover invalid clicks through IP addresses, site navigation patterns, etc. If you working on a new design for your site, avoid reloading your pages (with AdSense) excessively. You can turn off AdSensetemporarily and avoid invalid CPM impressions. Or you can use the unofficial Google Adsense Sandbox Tool that is accessible from Firefox, IE and other browsers to see what kind of Google ads will be served based on content (website address URL) or keywords. 

e. Don't place ads in pop-up windows, error pages or even empty pages. Update: With the new AdSense policy change, you can probably place ads on 404 pages. Check with the AdSense support team.

f. Don't start a "adsense asbestos" or "home equity loan rates" website merely to make money from accidental clicks. You will never make money out these Made for Adsense websites. Instead, write on topics what you are passionate about. Don't waste your money on high-paying adsense keywords lists. Stay away from AdSense Adwords arbitrage.

g. For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content.

h. For long articles, CTR will improve if you place ads somewhere in middle of the content or just where the article ends - when visitors are done reading the article, they may be looking for related resources. 

i. Use Text Ads instead of Image Ads as users get more options and the payout is often higher. If you still want to display image ads (for CPM), consider ad formats like the 300x250 medium rectangle or the 160x600 wide skyscraper as they support also support rich multimedia and the new gadget ads.

j. Google Ads with no background color and no borders will always perform better. Make the border color and background color same as your page background color.

k. Always put ads above the main fold. Make sure that the ad unit with the highest clickthrough rate is the first instance of the ad code that appears in your HTML source. Since the first ad unit is always filled before the rest, you want to make sure that ad unit is located in the best placement on your page.

l. Try setting the ad link URL color to a lighter shade. If your text is black, you may make the adlink as light gray or something like #666.

m. Go Wide - The large rectangle (336x280) is the best paying Adsense formatespecially for text ads. Try using the 336x280 large rectangle, 300x250 medium rectangle, or 160x600 wide skyscraper.

n. Don't places images next to Google ads as that will invite a permanent ban to your AdSense account.

o. Blend AdLinks with other navigation links or place horizontal adlinks at the top of your webpage. AdSense publishers are permitted to click on link unit topics on their web pages, provided that they do not click on any Google ads on the resulting page.

p. You should try adding a unit near the comments senction of your blog. See more AdSense tweaks.

q. You can put upto 3 adsense units on a page. Try putting a large skyscraper on the right navigation sidebar of your website. That area is close to the browser scrollbar. You can also add 2 AdSense for search boxes and 3 adlink units.

r. The first few lines of your content are an important factor for determining what Ads are served on your webpage. That's the right place to put keywords in bold (strong or <b> tags) or header tags (h1, h2, etc).

s. Always select the setting to open Google Adsense search box results in a new browser window, so you won't lose your visitors. Click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox and this add target="google_window" to your form tag.

t. Maximum people think the search box is on the top right corner. So you know where to put it.

u. Always syndicate full text RSS feeds and then monetize your feeds with a 468x60 ad in RSS feeds.

v. Monitor the AdSense performance of individual web pages with Google Analytics

w. For low CTR pages, try changing titles or adding more relevant content to get better focused ads. Alse see: Get relevant Google Ads

x. Block low paying advertisers with Filters. Why to loose a visitor for an ad that will only pay you a cent. Use Overture or Google Adwords Keywords tool to discover keywords that are less popular with advertisers.

y. Learn how to implement AdSense Revenue sharing if you run a site with multiple authors and need to pay your writers based on advertising revenue generated from their articles. 

z. Experiment with color schemes and layouts using split testing. You are the best judge when it comes to choosing ad formats for your own website. 

Even Google doesn't offer the best advise always. For instance, in the visual heat map, Google suggests that webmasters are best served by positioning ads on the upper left-hand side of a Web page but if you go to any search page on Google, the ads the mostly in the right. 

Bonus Tip: Use the AdSense Preview tool to determine what ad campaigns are currently targeted for your site in different geographic regions of the world. 

Enter any keywords or a website address (URL) and choose a geographic location of the visitors to see all the related related Google Ads.

Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on.

Build an Empire?

When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:

• Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
• Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit

The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.

General or Niche

You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).

New Sites, Files and Maintenance

When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.

Managing URL’s and channels

Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

• domain1.com – 728 banner
• domain1.com – 336 block
• domain1.com – text link
• domain2.com – 728 banner
• domain2.com – image banner
• domain2.com – 336 block
• domain3.com – 300 block

While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.

Site Design and Integration

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.

Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

• 336×280 large rectangle
• 300×250 inline rectangle
• 160×600 wide skyscraper

From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

Using Images

One of the latest ‘secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.

Multiple Ad Units

Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.

Adsense in RSS

With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

• You only get to place one ad unit.
• You have no control over finding the ‘sweet spot’ for the ad unit.
• The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
• People develop ‘banner blindness’.

I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.

Affiliate Sites

Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.

PPC Arbitrage

This is a dicey subject so I’m going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to ‘add some value’ along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.

Have any other adsense tips, tricks or secrets? Drop me an email and let me know, I’ll give you credit.

Added
728 leaderboard works very well if it is just above the end of the
“above the fold” area on what would be considered your viewers average
resolution/browser window size if there are few other enticing links
above the fold. Makes for an interesting layout but if you’re building
a site for AdSense it may be worth it. We consistently receive very
high CTRs from doing this.

Adsense Tips and Tricks

With personal and commercial blogs, community websites, and social pages becoming the hot topic of the Internet in the last few years, many people have become more Internet-literate and are always looking for ways to make a few hundreds or even thousands from their websites.  This is when Google Adsense comes into play.  Google Adsense, unlike Affiliate Programs, is CPC (Pay-Per-Click) and the good thing about it, is you can still earn some bucks without making a sale. 

As with any other things in this world, it takes time, effort and dedication before you could earn some decent amount from Google Adsense.  And here are some of the tips and tricks to help you with your Google Adsense journey. 

Layout

1. Blend your ads to your website layout
This could be considered as one the most important things which is often overlooked.  Instead of using predefined colors provided by Google, try changing colors of your ads to match the website layout.  For example, if your website uses white background with green text, make sure you use the same colors for your ads. 

2. Do not display a border
While you can’t get rid of the border around your ad, you can make it invisible by changing the border color to that of the background.  Researches have shown that ads without a visible border generate much higher clicks than those with one. 

3. Do not place your ads in normal spots
Internet users have become accustomed to the normal ad spots (eg: a Leaderboard above your header, a Skyscrapper outside the content) and hence, any ads placed in those normal spots will often be ignored. 

4. Choose the right ad formats
There are a few ad formats which perform better than others.  Some of the recommended ad formats are Wide Skyscrapper, Medium Rectangle and Horizontal Ads Links.  However, these ad formats may not necessarily work for everyone, so choose the ones that work for you. 

5. Good layout design
Although a good layout design does not necessarily increase your Adsense revenue, it is important for the first impression and also for the professionalism.

Content

5. "Content is the king"
The fact that Google Adsense is contextual advertising implies that the ads being generated are often relevant to the website content.  That simply means you will not get any relevant ads if the content does not focus on a certain topic or the content is not text based.  For example, if your page does not have any copy/text but an image, it’s unlikely to get relevant ads.

6. Pick a high paying topic
It took me a while to find out that some keywords are being paid more than others.  While Google does not tell you how much advertisers are paying for their keywords, it is pretty easy to guess.  For example, ads about credit cards, home loans and insurance are being paid more than those ads about free blogging tool, yellow pages, etc.   It is also recommended to pick a Niche topic and provide a narrow focus than to pick a general topic. 

7. Update your website frequently 
Updating your website frequently enables you to get more visitors checking out your website which increases your page impression and the probability of ad clicks. 

8. Write quality content
Not everyone possesses a natural talent in writing, and I can say for sure that I don’t.  However, if you offer something useful, interesting, and put your heart into writing, your readers will enjoy what you have to say.  And they will be coming back for more. 

Organization

9. A good organizer is the winner
With Google Adsense, you can organize your ads and have a clear idea about their performance by using Channels.  This way, if a particular ad is not performing well, you could always replace it with a difference one.  There are quite a few things you could do with Channels and this is just one of them. 

10. Monitor your statistics
Checking both your website and Adsense statistics enables you to get better ideas about your audiences.  From your website statistics, you can find out which pages are being viewed the most, where most of your traffics come from, what the peak day of the week is, etc.  Similarly, Adsense statistics will tell you which ad formats are being clicked the most, how many page impressions you receive, how much you are making each day/week/month, etc.  You can then make improvements based on these figures to maximize the performance. 

Traffics

11.  Link Building
No matter how good your website is and how relevant your Adsense ads are, without a decent amount of traffics, you will only be making a small amount of revenue, if any.  It is not easy to achieve a decent amount of traffics, but it is not impossible.  Some of the most common ways to gain traffics to your website include Link exchange, Directory listing, participating in online communities and making use of social bookmaking systems.     

12.  Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most successful and recommended methods of gaining traffics to your website and it is more than just a buzz word.  Optimizing your websites for search engines increases your website visibility and ranking, which in turn generates significant amounts of targeted and relevant traffics to your website.  Combined, search sites reach more than 130 million Americans or approximately 85 percent of all Internet users each month, ranking Search/Navigation among the most popular categories on the Web. (Source: comScore Media Metrix) 

Miscellaneous

13. A little maintenance goes a long way
Many people tend to overlook the maintenance part of the website.  In this case, rather than sticking to the same ad formats, or the same positioning of the ads, try experiment with different formats and positioning.  If they do not work, you could always revert the changes.  But if they do, that’s a bonus for you. 

14. Do not click on your own ads
Honesty is the best policy.  Be honest with yourself, and do not try to increase your Adsense revenue by clicking on your own ads.  Google is really strict when it comes to fraud clicking, and before you knew it, your account could be banned and you could be owing some money to the advertisers. 

15. When in doubt, ask
If you have some questions in mind, or are unclear about certain stuffs, don’t hesitate to ask the Google Adsense Help Team.  Before asking them, though, you could do them a favor by checking out their Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page.

I hope you will find the above tips and tricks useful in improving your website to increase your Adsense revenue.  While it is always good to earn some cash from your website, do not let it rule you or your website.  And remember that no money is easy money and it takes a considerable amount of time, effort and dedication before one could see a marked improvement in his Adsense revenue.