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Category: Display Ads

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Paid Traffic to a Content Site. Does Online Arbitrage Still Exist?

Dev can always be relied on to provide some amazing insights and this post is no different.

One of the great parts of the six figure challenge is hearing about all the new ideas that people in the group are using to make their site successful!

Have a look at Deven’s post and enjoy! (more…)

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Jon April 16, 2015 9 Comments
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How to put ads in the middle of your post content

I recently did a site design and build for a client who had a special request: He wanted to put ads in in the middle of his page content.  Generally my clients ask for ad blocks to be inserted, but they’ve always wanted them either at the top or at the bottom of a post or page.  Placing an ad block at the top or bottom of a page is easy, placing an ad block in the middle, automatically, is a bit more challenging and requires some special coding.

Put ads in the middle of your posts

How to put ads in the middle of your page content

While I’m sure the code I’m about to share with you would work with a few changes on any theme, the code as a whole is specific to the Thesis theme.

The easiest way to insert an ad block into the middle of your post or page is to just manually insert it.  This is easily done using the WordPress editor, and literally takes all of a few seconds.  That is not what we’re addressing here.  The code below will automatically insert an ad close to the middle of your article on every single post automatically.  Slick huh?

Code for ads in the middle of page content

Here’s the code:


/**
* Insert ads in the middle of a post - after 3rd paragraph
*/
function inject_ad_text_after_n_chars($content) {
$enable_length = 1500;
$after_character = 1000;
if (is_single() && (strlen($content) > $enable_length)) {
$before_content = substr($content, 0, $after_character);
$after_content = substr($content, $after_character);
$after_content = explode('</p>', $after_content);
array_splice($after_content, 1, 0, wp_ozh_wsa("AdSense-MidParagraph",false));
$after_content = implode('</p>', $after_content);
return $before_content . $after_content;
} else {
return $content;
}
}
add_filter('the_content', 'inject_ad_text_after_n_chars');

How the code works

  • The code first determines if the current page is a single post page or not, if not the ad won’t be shown.  It then determines if the post is more than $enable_length characters long, if not the ad won’t be shown.
  • The code then gets all of the post text up to position 1000 ($after_character) and all of the rest after this character position.  The first part is stored in before_content the rest in after_content.
  • The next line (explode(‘</p>’, $after_content)) basically breaks the after_content sections using the paragraph tags.
  • Next, an array_splice is done to place the ad code right after the first </p> tag found.  This is done so that the ad is placed between paragraphs – meaning the ad won’t be placed at exactly $after_character, but at the end of the paragraph end tag following $after_character.
  • Note the ad code is: wp_ozh_wsa(“AdSense-MidParagraph”,false).  This particular example uses a plugin called Who Sees Ads.
  • The $before_content is then concatenated with $after_content and returned.
The code above should be placed into your Thesis custom_functions.php file and Who See Ads configured to include the ad code you want to show.  This particular strategy of placing ads inside of your content is particularly effective with Google Adsense.
 
Let me know how this works for you and if you have any questions or problems using the code by adding a comment below!

Photo by: christopher.woo

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Jon March 15, 2012 12 Comments
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Monetize your blog with Adsense

If you’ve been following my Start a money making blog series, together we have: set-up your blog, consistently published content, and worked to increase your traffic.  If you’re averaging more than 100 visits per day, it’s time to consider placing some advertising on your blog so you can begin earning that side income we’ve been talking about!

A great way to start monetizing your blog is with Google Adsense.  Adsense is an advertising network run by Google and allows publishers (that’s you) to display text, image, and rich media ads on your blog.  What makes Google Adsense so slick, is that the ads are automatically targeted at your site’s content.  Adding Adsense ads to your site is also easy: all you have to do is add some script where you want the ad to be shown or use one of the many available WordPress plugins.

Here’s the catch: Optimization and placement of your ads is key to how well your ads will perform.  One of the biggest mistakes new and inexperienced bloggers make is just slapping Adsense ads on their blog, without giving consideration to who should see them, where they should be placed, what size should be used and how they should look.  No need to be concerned, I’ll help you through all of that.

 How to make a Google Adsense Account

The first thing you’ll need to do is sign-up for Google Adsense.  To sign up:

  1. Visit the Google Adsense Page.
  2. Click on the Sign-up now button.
  3. Complete all of the required information, paying particular attention to your website address.  Make sure this is correct.  This URL cannot contain anything that violates the program policies.  Press submit when you’re done.
  4. Next you’ll either link your existing Google Account or you’ll create a new one.
  5. The final page will display a summary of the information you’ve submitted and ask that you confirm.
That’s it.  Your Adsense account request has now been submitted and you’ll need to wait for your site to be approved.  This process takes anywhere from a day to a week, depending on how many requests Google has at the time.  You’ll receive an email from Google notifying you once you’ve been approved.
In the rare instance that you are not approved, the email from Google will contain information on why and how to resubmit your site.  The most common reason for a decline is due to content.  Google reviews your content closely, and will not approve a site that doesn’t meet it’s guidelines.   If this happens, you’ll just have to resolve the issue and resubmit your site.

Adsense Placement

One of the key factors to success with Adsense is the placement of ads.  The following diagram from the Google Help pages shows optimal placement using a heat map (dark orange – strongest performance, light yellow – weakest performance):

Note a few things:

  • Adsense does better below your nav bar – not above
  • The closer Adsense is to your content, the better it performs.  The best placement is right above your content
  • If you have a 3 column theme with a left side column, Adsense does well placed in this left side column as well.
In this article, we’ll focus on adding your Adsense ads just above your content.  For all of my sites, this has been the optimal position.  With that being said though, let me take a minute to address testing.  Each and every website is unique, and while you will see patterns with placement and performance, it is critically important test placement on your site.  By testing I mean play around with different placements and types of ads.  Track each ad’s performance and use that data for determining where to place your ads.  There is actually a way to show one ad to some set of your visitors and another ad to the rest.  This is called A/B Testing.  I’ll review how to do that in a future article.

How to create your first Adsense ad

Assuming your account has been approved, let’s jump in and create your very first Adsense ad.  As I mentioned, for this article we’ll create an ad above your content.  More specifically, we’ll create a 336×280 (large square ad) and place it below your post title but before your content on each of your articles.  We’ll additionally only show this ad to search engine visitors.  I’ll explain why below.

To create your ad, do the following:

  1. Login to your Adsense account.
  2. Click on the My ads tab at the top.
  3. Press the New ad unit button.  The new ad screen will appear prompting you for information about your new ad.
  4. In the Name field, put a name for your ad.  I generally use the name of my blog, followed by the ad size.  For example: Side Income Blogging – Large Square.  The name really doesn’t matter, as long as it is meaningful to you.
  5. In the Size field, select: 336 x 280 – Large Rectangle (this tends to be the best performing Adsense ad)
  6. For Ad type, use the default: Text & Image / Rich Media Ads.  This will allow a combination of text, image and animated ads.
  7. Custom Channels allow you to view and track detailed about your ads, so you’ll definitely want to use a channel.   To create a new custom channel, click on the Create new custom channel link.  In the pop-up, type a name for your channel and press Save.   The new channel will automatically be associated with your ad.
  8. Ad style/color Palette will allow you to select the colors for your ad.  Proper color selection is critical to good performance.  The ad should blend with your content and specifically with your link colors.  Here’s how to select your colors: Border – Use the same color as your background.  Generally this will be #FFFFFF (white), you don’t want a border to show.  Title – Same as your link color.  Background – Same color as Border.  Text – #CCCCCC.  URL – #cccccc.  Use the defaults for the remainder of the settings.  These colors are based on testing I’ve done and the experience of other bloggers I’ve talked with.
  9. Click Save and get code.
  10. Copy the ad code, and save it somewhere handy, as we’ll be using it shortly to show the ad on your site.

Adsense performs very well for search engine visitors, and not well at all for normal visitors or readers of your site.  On my blogs, I focus on my readers as much as I can and I don’t generally like to show them ads, especially non-affiliate ads.  As a result, I only show Adsense ad to search engine visitors, meaning that only visitors coming from a search engine SERP (Search Engine Result Page) will see my Adsense ads.  Fortunately there is a really great plugin that takes care of this for us called: Ozh’ Who Sees Ads.

Here’s how to set-up the Adsense ad we just created so that it is only shown to search engine visitors:

  1. If not already installed, install the Ozh’ Who Sees Ads WordPress plugin and activate it.
  2. Now let’s get it configured.   In your WordPress admin menu, navigate to Settings>>Who Sees Ads.  Who See Ads uses something called Contexts.  Context allow you to set-up rules around who will see your ads (or who won’t).  There are a number of rules available (in the Possible Rules section).
  3. The first thing you’ll want to do is name the new context we’re creating.  Since we’re only showing our ads to search engine visitors, I’d suggest calling it something like search-engine-only.  Avoid using spaces, and use dashes instead, as it will make it easier to reference your name when we insert the Who Sees Ads code here in a bit.
  4. Next, we’ll set-up the rule.  Drag the rule named: “If Visitor comes from a search engine display” to the Active Rules box.  This is generally the only rule I use, but you can add others.  For example, you may want to consider showing adsense on your older posts (usually your normal viewers won’t view older posts).  To do this, drag the rule named: “If Post is older than XX days then display”.  As you can see, there are many rules available, and I would encourage you to try out various rules to see what works best for you for earning revenue.
  5. Remember earlier I told you to save off your Adsense code?  Time to pull it up, copy it and paste it into the box named “Ad Code”.
  6. Click on Save Context.
You’ve now created a context in Who Sees Ads that you can use to control whether your ads are seen or not.  Next, we’ll need to add a little code to call Who See Ads.  If the context evaluates to true, your ad code will be displayed, if not, it won’t.  The code below is for the Thesis theme, if you run a different theme, the way you add this code will vary.

If you’ll recall, we’ll be adding your Adsense ad below the post title, but before your post content.  To do this, we’ll insert some code into the Thesis hook named: thesis_hook_after_headline.  Open up your custom_functions.php file and insert the following code:

[code]

/**
 * Insert Adsense
 */
function show_adsense() {
     if (is_single()) {
             wp_ozh_wsa("search-engine-only");
     }
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_headline', 'show_adsense');

[/code]
Save your changes.  If you are running a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or Super Cache, you’ll need to delete/purge your cache as well.

At this point, your blog should be showing Adsense ads on your single post pages only if a visitor arrives on your site from a search engine.  Adsense generally takes a few hours to get working, so I would suggest stopping at this point and working on something else for a few hours before proceeding.  I’d suggest reading a few articles from the Side Income Blogging archives, but that’s just me.

Testing your Adsense code

Assuming you’ve waiting a few hours, it’s time to test your changes and make sure everything is working.  Pick your post that ranks highest in the search engines (often the one that gets the most search engine traffic).  You can use Google Analytics to determine this.  Make sure you are logged out of your WordPress administration console, then head over to Google, and search on the title of your post.  When you find it, click on it.  Since you came from a search engine, Who Sees Ads should recognize that, and at the top of your post you should see an Adsense Ad just below your post title and before your post content.

If you navigate to your blog then view the same post (without using Google), you should not see the ad.

If for some reason you don’t see an ad or see an error, double check the code above, and recheck your adsense ad settings.

Tweaking your Adsense ad

Let your adsense ad run for a few weeks and see how your performance does.  Make some notes, then try changing the colors or size of the ad.  To change the colors, all you have to do is go into your Adsense account, edit the ad and save it.  If you want to change sizes, you’ll need to edit the ad and re-paste the code into Who Sees Ads.

As I mentioned, I’ll discuss A/B testing in a future article, but it’s important to try different ad sizes and colors to see what performs the best for you.

—–

Long article, but hopefully it wasn’t too bad.  I do think a big congratulations are in order though for those of you following my Start a Money Making Blog series.  You started with a blank slate, built a website, wrote your content, grew your traffic and now took the first steps toward earning a side income.  That is a huge milestone!  So Congratulations!!  Don’t stop though, continue writing and doing everything you can to grow your traffic.  Remember, the more traffic you have, the more income you make.

Stay tuned, as I’ll be addressing affiliate and private advertising soon.

Photo by: borman818

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Jon September 12, 2011 18 Comments
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Advertising on my blog – When should you start

One of the more common group of questions I get on a daily basis from readers and clients is about “advertising on my blog” and more specifically “when should I start advertising on my blog”.  Unfortunately there is no real clear and concise answer to this question and answers from experts vary greatly.  I’ll provide you with my perspective on this and give you some items to consider, but ultimately the right answer is that you should start advertising on your blog when you feel comfortable.

My recommendation to most clients is to not start advertising right away, but to wait a few months or until you get a decent amount of daily traffic, say 100 visits per day.  Here’s why:

  • You have enough to do without advertising – When you’re new to blogging or even an experienced blogger trying to get a new blog started, you have tons of work to do getting the site up and running, getting links, writing lots of great content, promoting your blog, etc.  Advertising is just another extra activity to distract you from these crucial set-up items.  You might be saying at this point” “but advertising is easy”.  Sure, putting an ad on a website is easy, but finding a high quality targeted ad and placing in the right position isn’t.
  • No traffic, no money – In order to make money from advertising, you must have traffic.  Without traffic, you get no money.  Having ads on a blog or website when there is no money is really just a waste of space and frankly can make the blog look cluttered.  In the early stages of your blog, rather than wasting the space with ads, use that space to promote yourself, your articles and your blog.  This can be done by using “Most popular” article lists, articles by category, Author’s favorite articles, etc.
  • Perception – I’m honestly on the fence about this  one, but am going to mention it anyway: Having ads on a new blog can send the wrong perception to readers.  The logic here is that someone visiting a new blog arrives, sees ads and says to themselves “Well, they’re only interested in making money”.  I think this was definitely true in the early days of blogging, but now blogs are everyone and most if not everyone is looking to offset their time and effort writing with ads, ad perception may not be a big deal.  It is something you should consider though.
  • Monetizing your blog is complicated – Many bloggers start out day one by throwing up a few banner ads in the sidebar and check daily to see if they’ve made any money, only to find that they really never do and when they do it’s only a few cents.  This can be very discouraging.  Monetizing your blog and optimizing it based on your traffic and the type of traffic you get can be complicated.   Instead of just throwing up a few banners, hold off placing ads for a few months.  Use this time learn about ads and consider the choices you need to make.  Use this time to start building search engine traffic, which is the key factor in earning revenue from your blog.   Once you’ve gained a good amount of knowledge on advertising and have some traffic, begin placing ads.  Google Adsense is generally the best first option to begin with.

When building traffic and trying to start a new blog, really focus on the blog and blog’s content initially.  Get readers, get traffic, and get practice writing, publishing and maintaining your blog.  Once your blog becomes a little more popular, you can then start focusing more on ads, affiliate offers and revenue in general.  Bottom line though, the choice is yours and their really isn’t a right or wrong time.  Just consider the options and do what you feel comfortable doing.

Photo by: marksweb

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Jon May 5, 2011 0 Comments
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