Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast episode by The Blogging Millionaire and, he had some easy to follow and fantastic ideas on how to increase Google Adsense Clicks. I implemented those tips and hot damn if I didn't immediately see an increase.
In the half day after I implemented this, I saw twice as many ad clicks. Now before we go too deep, let's discuss what this tip does for us. This Google Adsense tip places far more ads on your page or post than you are probably accustomed to seeing.
At this point, you must ask yourself if you are really up for this change. Ads are a tricky thing and a personal decision that each blogger has to decide on for themselves. Ads are how a lot of bloggers make money, and it is how content remains free.
If you want to place more ads on your website, this is a great way to do it. You will need a WordPress Website and a Google Adsense Account to follow these steps.
Here are the notes that I took during the episode:
Step 1: Add this plugin
Note: This plugin is free. There is an upgraded version that has even more options, but in my situation, the free version suited me just fine.
Step 2: Grab the code from Adsense.
Note: I am using Native in article ads on my in-content ads. To find these go to New Ad Unit and then In-article ads. I had not been using these previously. Before this, I was purely relying on auto ads.
Step 3: Create an ad unit that shows an ad after the second paragraph.
In the podcast episode, he goes into detail as to why this step is critical. So take a listen but do not skip this step.
In this step go back to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to the Ad Inserter plugin settings.
1. Paste in Google Adsense Code
2. Click Posts
3. Insertion = After Paragraph 2
4. Save Settings
Step 4: Create an ad unit that shows ads after X # of paragraphs
I ended up setting this up so that ads showed up every eight paragraphs because, on the website that I set this up on, I have super short paragraphs.
For example, this is paragraph 3 of Step 4.
To get this looking right on your website, you will want to experiment. In the podcast, he recommends that you review two posts from each category after you set this up. This is an excellent tip because different categories could be formatted in different ways.
Also, consider how long each of your posts generally is when setting this up. On our website, the posts are quite long, so we needed a lot of ads for it to get to the bottom. Here is my chosen setup for ad 2: 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80, 88, 96, 104, 112, 120, 128, 136.
Note: Make sure that you are clicking on ad 2 when doing this setup. You will be quite disappointed if you overwrite your first ad setup.
Step 5: Ad setup for the sidebar
This is something that I am still tweaking but his recommendations are fantastic, and I did implement them.
Here is how my sidebar is currently set:
1. Google Adsense 300 x 600
2. Search
3. Related Posts
4. Google Adsense 300 x 600
5. Amazon Native Ad
6. Google Adsense 300 x 600
The problem with this setup for me is that it doesn't even reach down half the post on my average post. Google Adsense has a rule that your ads can't exceed your content, so this is a tricky situation. You are also not allowed to make a Google Ad sticky. So I am still experimenting with the sidebar.
I plan is to leave my Adsense ads like this for 30 days and see what happens. My plan isn't to stick with Google Ads for this website forever. This is just a temporary experiment.