With affiliate marketing becoming so popular people are moving away from Google Adsense, but a lot of people are still dependent on it for income and I am one of those people. Since Google decided to screw us on the clickable area it has been harder and harder to make the money we used to. As I said affiliate marketing is very popular now so a lot of people are not talking about Adsense that much. Well since I still use it and I depend on it I will give you some tips that might increase your CTR and your income as a whole.

Blend Links In
If you are using in-content ads you should make the ads the same color as your links or text on your page. People will think that they are part of your page, not an ad. You can see what I mean here, as you can see we have the ad titles the same color as our links, people think these are actually part of the site, not an ad. Another good way to blend links in is on a sidebar. If you have a sidebar and add want to add some ads into it you should try to make them look like they are navigation links. The Link Units work great for this.

Make Ads Stand Out
Now I just said to make ads blend in, but there are times that you want ads to stand out. I very good example of this is a 728 x 90 or 468 x 60 ad on the top of a website. If have tried blending these in, but I had more success when I made them stand out. So when it comes to blending ads and making them stand out the general rule of thumb is if the ad is in the content blend it, if it is outside the content make it stand out. Also make sure you stay away from the default Ads style, by now a lot of people know that style and just seeing it they know it is an ad and won’t click on it.

Ad Sizes
A lot of people mess around with a lot of different ad sizes. When it comes to in content ads you want the biggest ad possible, so the user has the most options to pick from. For in content ads I usually use a 336 x 280 large rectangle or if space is limited I use a 300 x 250. These ads usually show 3-4 ads which gives the user more to choose from so they are likely to click at least one of the ads.

Integration
This is basically combining all of the tips above. If you integrate ads into your site well you will be successful. A lot of people just put up ads and expect to make money, that’s not how it works. You also don’t want to plaster ads all over your site. More ads does not always mean more money.

Tweaking
I have explained above what works for me, but it might not always work for you. If you are not happy with your CTR then change your ad colors, or move the ad completely. Make sure you test different ad placements and ad colors. Try the ad at one color for a week and then the next week try it with another color. If you see a big difference in CTR and income go with the color that performed best. Also after a while you might want to change up your ads because the people who frequent your site know what color the ads are by now, so if you change it up they are more likely to click on the ads. Adsense is all about tweaking.