Transcript
Alright guys, we’re back for another video. In this video we are basically going to show you how to set up Adsense and get it set up on the site, and we also want to talk a little about Adsense testing channels because if you can get more clicks from the same amount of traffic, that’s more money in your pocket. So, we’ll talk about testing to make sure you have the best placement and the best color scheme available.

(00:26) Creating Your First Adsense Unit

So, here we are in adsense on the adsense setup page. We’re going to set up a basic Adsense unit. We’ll click on adsense for content, then we’ll select “Ad Unit” and usually I’ll come to this dropdown here and click “Text ads only.” I’ve always been able to make more money with Text ads only. There may be some unique niches out there that do well with image ads or with a combination of both, and you can test that out. I have always been able to do better with Text ads only so I’ll select that and then drop down and click “Continue.”

Now we’re on the next page where we choose the size of the ad. There have been a few different types of ads I’ve been able to do okay with, but primarily the bigger, boxy ads have been doing better lately than anything else.

So, that’s going to be either the 336×280 large rectangle or the 300×250 medium rectangle. Why don’t we go ahead and go with the large rectangle here. The only time I’ll use the medium rectangle is if the post area on my site isn’t very wide; most of the time I’ll just use the large rectangle, so we’re going to go with that one.

Okay so we’re on colors. Let’s talk about colors just a little bit. Usually what you want to do…with the Border you just want to match the background color of your site, so if you’re site’s background is white you can set this to white, which is what it’s set on right now – FFFFFF is the color white, which is what it’s set on right now.

On the title I would start with the traditional blue link color, which is 0000FF, which is the traditional link color – it’s the color that’s most associated with links.

Here on Background, again you’re just going to match the color of your sites, so you’ll probably just go with FFFFFF.

Text is just fine black, and then the URL I’ll usually set to a nice grey – something like this E6E6E6. The default setup will usually be setup to a green type of color. I would change that. The grey blends in better and makes people look at the link title. Adsense has changed so instead of being able to click anywhere on the ad they actually have to click on the link title itself so that’s why we want the title to be blue.

Then we just come down to the bottom and click “Continue.”

(3:18) How to Set Up an Adsense Testing Channel

Now, this next page is pretty important. We want to set up a testing channel for this ad because we want to know how this ad unit is performing. And so, what I usually do is click “Add new channel” and then we need to add a name for this channel.

So, if we’re going to put this ad on infolicious I’ll start by typing that, then I’ll put a dash, and then put in the size of the ad. So this one was 336. So When this ad starts to get impressions – when people start to view this ad – I’ll be able to log into my adsense account and I’ll be able to see this ad, infolicious-336, had X number of impressions and X number of clicks so I’ll be able to see exactly how this ad is doing.

So, then I just click “Okay” and then it should select it for us, which it did, and then we’re just going to go “Continue.”

This next page I’m just going to leave exactly what it has here, and then click “Submit and Get Code.”

So here we have this ad, and we’re just going to click in this box, then we’re going to right click and choose copy, and that’s our code for the ad.

(4:45) How to Insert the Adsense Code in Your WordPress Theme

What we’re going to do now is log into our WordPress admin so we can actually insert this ad.

And what we’re going to do first is talk a little bit about placement because there are a few different placements we can use. Let me show you real quick the placements that usually work out to be the best.

Right now we’re on Grizz’s site which is makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com. He goes with one of the classic placements that traditionally works very well and gets a lot of clicks.

This is his ad unit right here; this is the large rectangle and it’s directly above the post title. So here’s the post title right here, and he’s got the ad where it actually pushes down the post. That’s a very very good placement most of the time.

An alternative some people will use is to put the ad directly below the post title, so you could have the ad right here below the post title, and that kind of pushes down the post, and sometimes that works great.

A third placement would be to wrap the text around the ad. Usually that one doesn’t work quite as well as the first two, but every site is different. Each niche has a totally different group of people coming to the site, so on every site you have you’re going to want to test.

(6:10) Placing the Adsense Block Above the Post Title

We’re going to show you how to insert it above the post title. So, we’re going to come into the wordpress admin, then go to “Design,” then we’re going to go to “Theme Editor,” and we’re looking over here through our templates. Now, every WordPress theme is different, and there are just a few places where we’re going to need to look.

The first thing we need to look at is the Main Index Template, and the next one to look for is the Home.php, which this theme doesn’t have – but that’s fine. We’re also going to look for Single.php.

Our single posts and our homepage are what will rank the best, so that’s where we want adsense. In this theme, the Main Index Template is the one that’s going to build out the home page, so I’m going to go in here to the Main Index Template and it’s going to load the code for this page right here.

The code for the title is usually pretty easy to find; usually you’re going to see the word “title” here somewhere. So all we’re going to have to do in this case to insert our ad above the title is go right here before this tag that’s starting the title.

I’m actually going to create a new line here just by hitting “Enter,” which moves the other code down. And that’s totally fine. I’m going to come up on the blank line and I’m just going to paste my code right here.

All I have to do now is update the file.

So what that’s going to do is create the ad unit directly above the post title. The ad unit is probably not going to be there yet, because what it does is just leave a big blank space right here above the title, and then it will place the ad right here above the post title.

Usually it takes about five minutes before the Google ad will show up so we can come back to that in a few minutes and I’m going to show it to you.

(8:28) Discussion of How to Test Different Ad Placements

So, that’s one placement. If we wanted to we could test a second placement. Let’s pull up a notepad here and let’s just talk about using testing channels for a minute.

So, usually what I’ll do is I’ll test placement first. Here’s how I’ll test placement:

The first thing I’ll do is I’ll give 500 impressions to the above title placement. So we’ll put it above the title like we just did, and we’ll wait until adsense shows us that that channel has received 500 impressions. It depends on how much traffic you have. If your site gets 500 hits per day, it’s going to take a day. If it takes you a month to get 500 hits, then it’s going to take a month.

And in adsense you can say “I want to see all the data for a month,” and it will show you all the impressions that placement got over a month, and you’ll be able to see how many clicks you got from those impressions and the click-through rate on those impressions.

After you do that, you’ll change the placement, and you’ll give 500 impressions to the below title placement. And it’s simple math: if you get a click-through rate that’s twice as high by placing below the titles then that’s what you’re going to stick with.

But, if you can get a better click-through with your ads above the titles, then that’s what you’re going to stick with. A lot of times people will say “Well, which works the best?” and people have had a lot of sites where they’ve made money with adsense where they would agree when I say every site is different because the group of people that come to the site is totally different. There’s just no way to say one way or the other. You just have to test it.

So, usually I’ll try each of those and then I’ll give 500 impressions to the inline placement which is the placement with the post wrapping around the ad unit. And I’ll show you how to do that, too.

(11:15) How to Insert the Ad Below the Post Title

So, we’re coming back, and let’s check to see if our ad unit showed up, which it may have. Looks like it hasn’t shown up yet, so let’s show you how to do the other two placements.

If we wanted to move the ad below the title it would be very easy. All we’d have to do is copy the ad – actually in this case what we’d do is cut the ad so it removes the ad from in front of the title, and we’re going to place it below the title.

This is the code that makes the title right here, and this is the code that actually creates the post. The easiest way to put the ad below the title and above the post is to find this code right here “php the content.” That’s the code that actually makes the post show up, and if you place the code right before this tag it’s going to make the ad show up below the title and above the post.

So I’m just going to hit “Enter” right here and move the code down, and then paste my adsense code right here, and that would put it actually below the post title. If I came down and clicked “Update File” then that would move it to below the post title.

(13:00) How to Wrap the Post Text Around the Adsense Block

Okay, now the last way we’re going to do this is going to make it so the text of the post will actually wrap around the ad unit. So what would happen is the ad unit would insert itself right here within this post and the text would wrap around over here above and below.

The way we’re going to do that is to create a little piece of code in here that’s going to make it wrap around the ad. So we’re going to put this code before the ad: <div style=”float:left;”>

So without explaining what all this means we basically just want to make sure that all this code that’s highlighted right now is what you’ve got and the ad unit itself is your ad unit as opposed to mine.

So if you did this and then came in and clicked “Update File” it would float the ad within the post and wrap all the text around it.

(14:45) How to Test Different Color Schemes to Get Higher Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Let’s just check again to see if the ad has shown up. Sometimes it will take as much as ten minutes for it to show up, but this blank area right here is where it will show up.

So, back to testing. We’re testing our placement first – we’re making sure between these three we’re using the one that’s going to give us the best click-through rate.

Then after that we’re going to test colors. We’ve chosen our placement so we’re going to test colors. The first color scheme we went with was:

- background that matches your WordPress theme background, blue link title, no borders (match the borders to the background so no borders show at all)

That’s the one we want to test first. Well, we already know how that one performs because that’s what we had set up with our first placement test. So we’d just take a look at what the CTR was with that above title placement and this color scheme. So let’s say we got 10% CTR with that one.

So next we’ll test different colors. We still want to go with a background that matches; that is almost always the one that works out the best. But we’re going to change our titles. We could try matching the link color of the theme. In that theme if the links were red we’d make the adsense link titles red. If the links in the theme were green we’d make the ad link titles green.

So it’s going to match all the other links on the site. And sometimes that one works out really well. I have a site with really good click through rate right now and that’s the one I’m using – matching the link color. I’ve tested blue and blue didn’t do as well in that case, so I’m going to stick with that one.

You still want no borders, so you’re going to match the border color to the background color of the theme.

The other thing you can try is going to basically be almost the same thing, except you want the link color to be a totally wacky, totally unrelated color with the rest of your theme.

So let’s say the links on your site are red; maybe you could make the adsense links green – so you have a green link title. That makes the link titles stand out because they look totally different than everything else.

You’ll want to test each one of these three, and it’s the same basic concept. You’re going to give 500 impressions to each one and then stick with the one that works the best.

At that point we know we have the optimal placement and colors, so we can just focus on getting more traffic. And that’s basically how we do it.

Mark, anything you can think of that you want to add, or any questions you think people might ask?

Mark: Nope, I think if people will follow those instructions and test they’ll find the best click through rate that they can.

(18:45) Using Linkbuilding and HTML Title Targeting to Get More Traffic and Higher Ad Payouts

I guess I would ask you this question: Do you want to talk at all about using link building to get traffic for certain keywords, and using the html title to try to trigger certain ads?

Court: That would be something cool to talk about. Yeah, let’s add that in.

This is something we’ve been talking a little about lately. It’s something I’ve played around with a lot and it works out pretty cool.

I’ll just type this up and show you basically what we’re trying to talk about here. In another video we talked about the keyword “cell phones for people with bad credit.” We saw that keyword in our statcounter; we get some traffic from it; we’re ranked fifth for it and we showed you how to move up for that keyword.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say we can get 10 people per day with that keyword, but let’s say the Adwords CPC is only something like five cents. So it’s a very low CPC.

So what could happen if we created a post called Cell Phones For People with Bad Credit and tried to get that post ranked that could cause a problem for us because the Adwords CPC is five cents, so the clicks on Adsense might be worth a penny. Obviously that’s not what we want.

So here’s how you can get around that. When you create the post you can actually use a title that actually has good CPC. For example, I would bet without looking that there’s a better CPC on “Bad Credit Cell Phones.”

You can open up the Adwords tool and look to find a keyword that’s going to have a higher CPC, that’s also related to your post.

These two keywords are obviously very closely related. Someone that looks for “cell phones for people with bad credit” is also going to be a high converting customer for an Adsense ad that says “bad credit cell phones.” But “bad credit cell phones” is going to have a higher CPC.

Maybe it’s going to have a CPC of around $2. So each adsense click is going to be worth maybe 25 cents or 35 cents – which is much better than one cent.

So what you have to do is use “Bad Credit Cell Phones” as the title of the post, which will make the html title of the page “Bad Credit Cell Phones” and that’s going to trigger an adsense ad that matches up with the keyword phrase “bad credit cell phones.”

And then within the post itself you’re going to use your keyword a couple times. You’re going to use “cell phones for people with bad credit” a couple times; you’re probably going to use it as a tag at the end of the post, and then when you do linkbuilding for this post page you’re going to use “cell phones for people with bad credit” for some of the links, and then you’ll use “bad credit cell phones” for some of the links, and then you’ll use “cell phones bad credit,” and so on, so you can get that page ranked.

But that’s what Mark’s talking about is using a keyword in the title of the page that has a higher Adwords CPC so your Adsense clicks are a lot more valuable. So that’s basically it.

Mark: I think that’s good stuff. I think if people can pull that off – we’ve called that the “Adsense Bait and Switch” and it’s a good way to take sites – maybe people have sites that aren’t paying well, and maybe by doing this we can get them to start paying better. I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t think about.

Court: It also gives you more upside with that post. “Bad credit cell phones” is probably going to be a harder keyword phrase so it might take longer to get ranked for it, but you already have the post there, and you’re already working on it. So it gives you some upside because you can be working on the harder keywords so you can pick them up later on down the road.

Anything else you can think of that we need to put in here?

Mark: Nope.

(23:54) Why There’s No “Best” Adsense Placement or Color Scheme

Court: I think if people will do this – I guess the only thing I want to emphasize before we get off this video is do the testing. Actually do it. I get emails and we get questions and comments all the time where people just want to know – they say “Which placement works the best? Which color scheme works the best?”

Honestly it just does not work like that. Because on one site, everyone that comes to the site might be 75 years old. On a different site you might have a bunch of teenagers coming to the site, or you might have a bunch of plumbers coming to the site, you might have a bunch of athletes coming to the site – and all those people are going to be totally different.

So, one placement is going to work well on one group, and it might look really spammy to another group – so no one will click on it at all. So just do the testing. Make sure you have the best placement for your exact demographic, and then once you know you have the best one just maximize traffic and you’ll know you’re getting the most clicks you could get out of it.

I guess another thing we could add would be don’t worry about what the actual click through rate is. You might have one site that gets 20% click-through. And then you have another site that gets 5% and you’re like “What’s wrong with this site?” For some keywords 5% is awesome and it’s the best you’re going to get.

For other keywords, 20% might be low and you’ll actually be able to improve on 20%. It’s just that those are different groups of people. Less tech savvy people are going to click on ads a lot more, so if you have a site that’s less tech savvy you might be able to get a lot more clicks.

So you really can’t compare one site to another. You just have to say on this site I’m going to get the best click through rate I can. If you follow the steps in this video you’re going to have it, so at that point just stick with it and try to improve your traffic.

And I think that’s the best you can do. If you go through that process you’ll know you’re getting the most clicks you can get.

So that’s how you use testing channels in Adsense. Give everything a good amount of impressions – 500 impressions is enough – and test and you should be good to go.

Alright, everybody take care and we’ll talk to you in another video.