4 Terrific Spots for Ad Placement on your Blog

[This article is part of the CTR Wednesdays series that is aimed at equipping you with all what you need to increase your site’s CTR. You would find these articles especially useful if you are looking for a quick boost to your CTR.]

Placing ad units on blogs are a bit different from ad placement for standard sites. The standard placement on sidebars and the navigation would hold good for blogs though. The important difference would be placing ads in and around posts. Lets have a look at some of the best ad placements for blogs today.

Ads Inside Posts
This is one of the best positions for ads on your blog for the simple fact that the ads can’t go unnoticed. By default, Blogger doesn’t allow this placement so you will have to do a bit of copy pasting in your template to work this out, but it’s well worth the effort. This works the best when used on individual post pages rather than on your main page.


Placing ads top left inside the post. Ad units that fit here are square / Large Rectangle (336 x 280)


Placing ads just below the post title inside the post. Ad unit that would go in here is the Large Rectangle (336 x 280). Few bloggers have got warning for this placement from adsense. So, take care that users don't get misled by the post title.


Placing ads just below the text inside the post. Ad unit that would go in here is the Large Rectangle (336 x 280).

Ads between Posts
Though this is readily available within Blogger, it offers little flexibility in terms of using custom channels and ad alignment. I tried this position on one of my blog and found the results not much encouraging. But that’s my case; you can always give it a try and see what the results are.


Left Sidebar
We have already discussed the left sidebar position in a previous post on ad placement for standard websites and it works the same for blogs too. The left sidebar, if you have one, is an area of high visual importance and can be used for button link units as well as 160x600 Wide Skyscrapers. If your own links are formatted like the link buttons, the more the ads get clicked.



Right Sidebar
The right side bar, if you have one, is yet another position for button link units and 160x600 Wide Skyscrapers. This too would work the same way as in the case of standard websites. You can also have a search box on this sidebar.



Below Navigation
Be it your blog or your standard website, this position is unbeatable when it comes to your 486x15 or 786x15 row link unit placement. This position can’t just go unnoticed.




These are the common spots that work best on most blogs. But then, every site is unique and what works on one may not necessarily work on another. So it’s your duty as a webmaster, to figure out what works best for your site. Use some custom channels and do your bit of testing. That’s what differentiates sites that earn well and that earn just pennies! Which one do you own?


The next (and the last) post in this series would cover Ad placements on forums. Stay tuned!

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Using Adsense Custom Channels on Blogger

It’s very important to track your ads and Blogger doesn’t allow using customs channels by default. This step-by-step article will equip you to place your Google Adsense Ad code along with Adsense Custom Channels on Blogger.

1. Get the Ad code
All of you know that this is done from the Setup tab in your adsense dashboard. What’s important is setting up the custom channels when you do this. Name your channels such that you can easily figure out which ad units they represent. An easy way keep mistakes at bay is to follow a naming convention like this: SiteName_Position_Size_Colour (ex: - mysite_toprt_336x280_blue)


Getting the ad code from Adsense Setup

2. Blogger Layout
Log into your Blogger account and navigate to the Layout tab and then to the Page Elements tab. Now, you will be able to see the layout of your blog.


Navigating to Page Elements in Blogger

3. Adding a Gadget
You will be able to see many “Add a Gadget” links in your layout like the one shown below. Click on any one of these and you will see a pop up window with many gadgets to choose from. From this list, select the “HTML/JavaScript” gadget.


Finding the "Add Gadget"

Choosing "HTML / JavaScript"

4. Pasting the Code
On selecting the “HTML/JavaScript” gadget, you will be shown a pop-up like the one shown below. It will have spaces for a title and content. Leave the title field blank and paste the ad code that you generated in step 1 into the content space provided. Press save and the pop up window closes.


Pasting the Adsense Code

5. Placing the HTML/JavaScript Gadget
You have just now created an HTML Gadget. By default, this gadget would be placed just below the “Add a Gadget” you started off with in step 3. Now you need to move it to the best position for maximum CTR. How do you do it? Just click this gadget, drag and drop it to the desired position.


Default position of the newly added gadget


Moving the gadget to a desired position

6. Previewing and Saving
Now press the preview button and a pop-up with how you blog would look after the changes, would open up. You can look at the preview and see how your das would look. If you are not happy with the placement, close the preview window and go back to step 5. Use a different position now.


Previewing your blog using preview button

Once you are happy with the position, close the preview window and hit the save button!

The preview and save buttons

You are done with implementing adsense with custom channels on your blogger blog. Now it’s time to view your blog and start looking at some detailed adsense reports!

Hope you will find this post useful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

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4 Terrific Spots for Search Unit Placement

Search units are a form of value addition to your site. Here’s why I say this -

»Adsense Search Units make your site(s) searchable, and that too FREE of cost. If you were to implement this by your own, it wouldn’t have been as efficient as this one from Google.

»Your users can search the web without leaving your site. You can either set the search results open in a new window or you can develop a page on your own site, for the search results to open.

»Custom search is a great feature that would keep visitors coming back. With the new Custom search from Google, you can configure to search selected sites or sites that are built around a selected phrase. (ex:- body building)

»You get paid when they click on an ad in the search results. The page that displays the search results also has ads on it. When some users click you get paid.

Having seen the merits, now let’s see the 3 most successful spots for the search box. Yes, it’s important to keep them at these spots to be easily seen by your visitors.

Top Tittle Side
This is one of the places where your visitors would look at when they feel like searching your site. This position goes in accordance with the Google Golden triangle and won’t interfere with other components of your site.


Top of Right Sidebar
This is another position for your search unit where it would get just the required attention and not more. And this holds good if you already have a right sidebar in place. As this location is not always the very best for your ad units, you can use the search unit here. Just below the search box, you can also place ad units where they would get a better visibility that if the search box were not there.


Top of Left Sidebar
This is yet another good position where your search box can go in well without making the site look cluttered. This is also based on the Google Golden triangle. However, this location can be a prime spot for ads. So do a bit of testing for yourself before you fix up your search units at this position. You will have to draw a balancing line between ads and search unit for this spot.


Now if you have both side bars, it’s better to place the search unit on the right one and consider the left one for ad units / link units. (Of course, you may have your own links!)

Bottom of the Long Page
While all the above spots suited well for the first search unit on your page, this spot can hold your second search unit. When your visitors reach the bottom of the page, they may not see the search box that is above the fold. You wouldn’t want your visitors to scroll all the way up to search. This would especially hold good for long pages. The large rectangle unit placed just above this search unit can also work wonders.

That’s it about search box placement for your site. Start experimenting with these positions and choose the best among these for your site.

We have already covered ad unit placement for standard web sites. The next post in this series would cover Ad unit placements on blogs. Stay tuned!

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3 Terrific Spots for Link Unit Placement

This is the fifth article in the CTR Wednesdays series that is aimed at increasing your site’s CTR.
In the last article in this series you saw the best placement for ad units on your standard website. Today, you will see the 3 best spots where your little links units if placed will rake in some real cash.

Link units are great when it comes to monetizing small areas on your site without compromising on the design. These little units also have a multiplying effect on click through, as they don’t look like ads. These are different from ad units and do better if optimally placed in their on hot spots.

Navigation / Menu Bar
Most of your visitors will look at the navigation. So it makes perfect sense to keep a 486x15 or a 786x15 row unit just below the navigation. If you can blend the link unit to your site, you will find that this would look similar to your navigation or a menu item and would get clicked.


Side Bar
The top left part of the sidebar is where all visitors in variably too. The side bar mostly contains links. So when you place a 180x90 button link unit there, it will catch the eye. Now if you blend that well enough to look similar to your other links, you are done!


Page Bottom
Visitors who reach the bottom of your page are mostly people who read what you have on your page. After reading it, they may be in need for more information. There comes link unit to help you. With links related to your content and appearance similar to your sites links, a 486x15 or a 786x15 row link unit when placed below the content gets clicked often. This spot may be better monetizing if a 336x280 Large Rectangle is used. But if you have already used all 3 of your ad units at the prime positions, give this spot to your link unit and it will do the rest.

That said; you should do your bit of experimenting with ads and channels to arrive at the best placement for your site, as every site is different. And take care to keep your ads distinguishable from the rest of your links or be ready to face the Google hammer!

In the next post, we will see the best placement for Search box. Stay tuned!

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Google Releases Web Browser: Google Chrome

According to Google’s official blog, Google is all set to launch the beta version of Google Chrome, a brand new and highly sophisticated open source web browser, today (02/09/2008) in more than 100 countries.
An excerpt from the blog says: “Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.”

Google provides a 38 page comic presentation which explains the in and out of Chrome. It, (Google Chrome) like the Google home page is said to be clean and fast and will have the optimal amount of features built into it.

Google engineers started off by thinking of a multi threaded browser but ended up building a multi process, multi threaded one, more or less having the process isolating capability of a modern Operating System.

In Chrome, the user primarily interacts with the TAB. The TABs are placed at the top most part of the application (unlike the present browsers). Each TAB has its own process and many JavaScript threads, which gives you the power to continue using other tabs even when a tab is busy or down! To add on, each TAB has its on controls including the URL box which they call “OMNIBOX” which also gives search suggestions.

Chrome uses a technique called sandboxing to prevent malware from installing itself on your computer. Each process that runs in a confined area with all its privileges stripped off. The size of the confined area is defined by the permissions you set. It also follows that any communication must be initiated by the user.

Features at a Glance

• Primary Importance on tabbed browsing
• Each tab is linked to it’s own process
• Each tab has multiple JavaScript threads
• Uses a new and powerful JavaScript engine, V8
• Better memory management
• Uses Open Sources Rendering Engine, WEBKIT
• Text search on History
• A sophisticated auto completion feature
• Newly opened TAB has 9 most visited pages
• NO Pop Ups!
• Uses sandboxing to prevent malware
• Plug-ins use separate process for stability
• Warnings on Phishing and Malware sites
• GEARS (APIs) for making development easy
• Incognito Mode - for private browsing
• Open Source

Future of Chrome

Google Chrome has got a long way to go! The blog says: “This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.”

Let’s wait to see!

[Update:02/09/08] Chrome is now available for download here

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