Test your knowledge with the AdSense Academy

Whether you’re new to AdSense or have been using it for years, the AdSense Academy can help you successfully run your AdSense account by following six step-by-step learning modules. The Academy provides best practices on everything from implementing your ad units to building your traffic to controlling your ads.

The AdSense Academy includes checklists, videos and quizzes that you can take at the end of each module to test your knowledge.

	Join the Academy Now!

Please feel free to provide any feedback by commenting on this post or on the AdSense Forum.

READMORE

Make the most of your AdSense experience with our new checklist

Starting a new program can be overwhelming. What steps should you take to get off on the right foot and make the most of your account? To help you make your way with AdSense, we're delighted to introduce the AdSense Checklist to publishers viewing our U.S. Help Center.

If your language preference is set to U.S. English and you are logged in your Google Account, you'll find the checklist in the left navigation bar of the Help Center. You can recognize it by the progress bar. The checklist is divided into five parts, offering basic recommendations, required steps, and tips to help you grow your account to its full potential.

When you check an item, you'll see the progress bar update accordingly. This will help you in several ways. If you're new to AdSense, you'll get a clear overview of what steps to follow to make the most of your account. If you’re already an experienced AdSense publisher, you'll also have the chance to revisit the basics, and further develop your use of the program.

The progress bar can help you identify quickly how many of the recommended steps you’ve completed, and the checklist will suggest which step you can take next.

We hope that this Help Center feature will be useful to you and help you grow with the AdSense program! If you have other great ideas for ways to help newbies get started with AdSense or thoughts on how to make the checklist even better, join the conversation in our forum.

By Natalia Niznik - Inside AdSense team

READMORE

Google Testing New Email Subscription Ad Format

Google is experimenting with its Google Adwords offerings, attempting to go beyond regular text ads with Google Email Subscription Ads, allowing companies to buy ads that automatically fill in a “Subscribe to newsletter (or whatever, I’m assuming)” slot with a given searcher’s Google email address during a search.

Emailblog pointed out earlier this month that the ads were running with automaker Honda (ads which I still can’t see), and it seems like those offerings have expanded to results for email marketing services AWeber and Constant Contact (ads which I can see). Clicking on the “Privacy” button next to the subscription button lets you know that your email will be sent to the advertiser — In case that wasn’t clear(?).

When asked to explain what exactly was going on, a Google representative gave me the following statement (which is basically a more official sounding version I just said):

“We’re currently running a small experiment of a new ad format that helps users sign up more easily for email subscriptions or other free newsletters. This new ad format contains a box within the ad that displays a user’s Google email address (if logged in). If a user chooses to click ‘Subscribe to newsletter’ then the email address is sent to the advertiser directly, which is clearly disclosed within the ad itself.”

Something tells me TONS of email marketing companies will be using this once it’s actually official. My requests about whether or not (and when, if so) this will become a permanent feature have as of yet gone unanswered by Google.

From Techcrunch

READMORE

Monetize your blog with Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

When you share your words, thoughts and photos on Blogger, you are sharing your passions with the world. Sometimes, you’re passionate about brands or products. Starting today, you can make money by promoting relevant products in your posts, gaining income for each new customer you introduce to your favorite brands.

This is a new way for you to monetize your blog, giving you control over the advertisers and products you promote, and better connecting your readers with the things you love.

To get started, go to the Earnings tab on Blogger, and click “Get Started”. If you have an existing AdSense account and the content of your blog matches available ad categories, you're already set. Select an affiliate ad from the “Advertiser Products” widget that appears in the Post Settings panel in the post editor. If you don’t already have an AdSense account, sign up.

When you post about a brand or product from a featured advertiser, the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogged widget will help you to display an affiliate ad in your blog, which can be a text link, a product image, or a banner. You may earn commissions when someone clicks on your ads and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site, going beyond “payment per click” to “payment per action” and extending the influential relationship you have with your audience.

Get started with Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger today to monetize your blog and bring your readers to the products you love.

READMORE

How to Insert AdSense Code in Blogger Post Body

One of the known tips for improving the performance of your Google AdSense ads is knowing where to place the ads. In this guide, we shall discuss the modification you can make to your Blog template to have your Google AdSense ads appear between your post title and post body, or between your post body and post footer. Also, we shall have the AdSense ads appear on every individual post.

Choosing a best placement for your AdSense ads will attract more attention; attention leads to clicks; and clicks bring you AdSense revenue. Easier said. While people may have theories on where the ideal AdSense spot ought to be, there is really no standard answer because it depends very much on your Blog's layout, contents, theme, etc. If you have been following the changes made to our Blog, you would agree that we are no guru at this. We had merely placed the ads where they fit aesthetically and not where they will get the most attention. Nevertheless, if you would accept our two cents' worth of opinion, try to put yourself in the minds of your readers. Ask questions like why readers visit your Blog, which section of the Blog are they most interested in, and whether placing an ad at a particular area will distract, annoy or please them.

Many people believe that having AdSense ads just before or after the Blog posts will best optimize their performance. For the purposes of this article and to give you an idea how it would look, we have inserted the AdSense code into our template to have the ads appear immediately below the article and before the post footer. If you think you would like to do the same for your Blog, the following are the steps you should take.

Update: A section on Using Blogger Feature to insert the AdSense Ads after every post.

Using Blogger Feature

If you merely want an Ad to appear after every post or every few posts, use this Google feature instead. Go to Template -> Page Elements and you see in your layout the heading “Blog Posts”. Click the “Edit” link at the bottom right corner. You will see this screen.

We assume you have a Google AdSense account. If you don't, you can create one using the same login through your Google account. You will be assigned a Publisher identity number which shall appear in all your AdSense codes.

Tick the “Show Ads Between Posts.” You can select whether to show ads after every post or after several posts. In accordance with AdSense TOC, a maximum of 3 Ads will be displayed. Choose the ad format and color scheme. Save the changes and refresh your Blog to see the Ads.

While using this Blogger feature is simple and easy, you may want more control over the position of the Ads. For example, you may want it between the title and posts rather thanafter the posts. The following guide will show you how you can do that.

More Ad locations

Log in to your Google AdSense account.

Go to AdSense Setup -> Products and choose “AdSense for Content”.

Next, select “Ad unit” and follow their instructions on picking the size of ad, color combination, and so on, right till the end when they automatically generate a HTML code for you. Copy this code and paste it into Microsoft Notepad. (If you are a WinXP user, click the Start button at the bottom left corner of your screen. Under All Programs -> Accessories, you should see the MS Notepad icon.)

Change the AdSense code

This heading may sound misleading. We are not at all altering the code but converting some of the characters to character entities. We have to parse the AdSense code so that it can be included into your Blog template. This is not against AdSense rules because after the code is inserted into the template, when you view the source code of the template, you should see the exact same AdSense code that Google has generated for you. Indeed, if it is anything different, it means that you have not parsed it correctly and should review the code again. Parsing the code essentially involves replacing the following HTML characters:-

< with &lt;
> with &gt;
" with &quot;

Your final Google AdSense Code should look something like this:

- You could use this tool : Encode

<script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-0000000000000000"; google_ad_width = 336; google_ad_height = 280; google_ad_format = "336x280_as"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_ad_channel = ""; google_color_border = "FFFFFF"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "000000"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "000000"; //--></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>

Insert code into template

Login to your Dashboard. Go to Template -> Edit HTML and click the box next to “Expand Widget Templates”.

 Block copy the entire HTML code for your site that you presently have and save it in a separate text file in MS Notepad. You can also click the "Download Template" link to backup the template. This is one of the two necessary steps whenever you want to change the template. The second step is to “Preview” the new changes, and save the changes only when you are satisfied. The backup you have saved in a text file will come in handy when you accidentally click to save the changes without previewing them. With a backup, you can easily restore the template to the prior state if need be.

Now search for post.body through your browser's search function (Ctrl+F for Firefox and IE). You should see these lines:

<div class='post-body'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats --> </div>

If you want the AdSense ads to appear between the post title and post body, add the following codeabove the orange lines. If you want the AdSense ads to appear immediately after every individual post, add the following code below the orange lines. The code to add is:

<div style='float:left;'> AdSense Code </div>

The AdSense Code is the one you have amended above in MS Notepad. Do NOT save the template, but click the Preview button to see if you like the placement of the AdSense ads.

Do you want to have the AdSense code on the left of your text as shown in this screenshot?

Choose the smallest AdSense format like 125x125. Insert the AdSense code here:

<div class='post-header-line-1'/> <div style='float:left;'> AdSense Code </div> <div class='post-body'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats --> </div>

If you want the Ads on the right of the text, like this:

Insert the code as follows:

<div class='post-header-line-1'/> <div style='float:right;'> AdSense Code </div> <div class='post-body'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats --> </div>

Set the AdSense ad margins

If your AdSense ads are too close to the edge, you may set a margin in the style tag. To give you an idea how wide the margin should be, you can see the sample in our other Business Fables blog where the left margin is set to 30px. The code used was:

<div style='float:left; margin-left:30px'> AdSense Code </div>

Should you want to align the AdSense ad to your text, you can specify a margin or padding around the entire AdSense code. The code you can use is:

<div style='float:left; margin:5px 10px 15px 20px'> AdSense Code </div>

The first number 5px is for the top margin, 10px is for the right margin, 15px for the bottom margin, and 20px for the left margin. You should of course change these values to suit your template.

Preview the template and if you are satisfied, save the template and refresh your Blog to see the new positions of your AdSense ads.

Have a good blog!

READMORE