My first time with Google Adsense

Kenny told me he is going to get his first Google Adsense cheque after 3 years, and I was thinking, perhaps I should give it a try since I have nothing too loose.

I always wanted to try Adsense, but I kinda put in on hold as Blue Dragon is not really a high traffic site. In my mind, I was thinking why not wait until Blue Dragon gets more popular, perhaps then only Adsense would actually make sense. But I guess this day probably won’t arrive (Blue Dragon is not cut to be a super star), so might as well give Adsense a spin to get a feel of what isn’t all about. Perhaps I could get my own Adsense cheque another 3 years down to road to spend on a good meal, free and sponsored. Why not.

I applied for Google Adsense, and it took around 24 hours to activate my account. Adsense could turn out to be quite a complicated beast, as there are many options, policies and lots of FAQ, and not though mentioned thousands of optimization guides out there. Of course I wanna squeeze more money out of it, thus I click on a few random FAQs (such as Where should I place Google ads on my pages?), visit Adsense Blog for some tips and news and try to Google around for some extra guidance.

Too many too read (information overloading), thus I shall not be greedy and do with what I have. Now, where to place the ads and what ads to place? I thought of referring to Steve Pavlina (told to be earning USD 9K per month from Adsense). Okay, one on the left bar (Wait! My blog only had a right bar, and left bar is supposed to be hotter than right bar, shit!), one at the beginning of the article (well blended) and another at the end of the article but not the end of page. Hmm, more decisions to be made.

Basically, I want the ads to blend nicely into my blog, and non obstructive. I thought of putting it at the top (the greatest hot spot), but I think that is kinda obstructive. I hate seeing ads before the articles. So, I decide to be a considerate blogger and put the Ad unit below (but not at the bottom, below the article but above the footer). I choose medium size to get some pretty decent coverage (big seems too overwhelming, and small doesn’t quite match my layout either).

So, there is still a lot of space to stick in a few more ads. Remember, must blend nicely and non obstructive, don’t let the money temptation kill the blog. Since I don’t have a hot left bar, so I shall utilize my cool right bar. Why not switch to a left bar? Hmm, I kinda got used to it, and I dun wanna confuse my readers. Since I already have an Ad unit, so I would try with a small Ad link (something I read before told me this is good stuff), and blend it nicely among the most useful real estates on my cool right bar. Yup, it looks pretty nice. I wanted to try nice square image ads, but even the smallest size wouldn’t fit it. The tall image ad is too huge and scary.

Then I saw Adsense for Search, which looks pretty useful and cool. Thus I add it at the bottom of the page (footer). Should I use Referrals? Hmm, not really interested with it. Though I like both Firefox and Picasa (Picasa Web is cool as well, but lack some community-styled featured), but I just don’t think my site promote their usage in any ways, so not quite relevant. Then I saw Adsense for Feed, which I think is pretty cool to grep back the lost income (You don’t get Adsense Ka Ching$$$ if your loyal reader use a feed reader). Too bad it is still in close beta.

It took quite a while to mess with Blogger Template and Google Adsense to get the layout and blending right. Yup, Blue Dragon still look nice (non obstructive ads, yeah!). Now I shall sit back and wait for my free meal 3 years from now.