Google AdSense Alternatives

According to popular marketing analysis from the beginning of 2010, one from every two online ads comes from Google Adsense. This shows how powerful Google Adsense is but also that there are still other alternatives. There are reasons to choose an alternative to the almighty Google service either when you are a publisher or advertiser. Such reasons include:

Higher revenue for publishers / Lower costs for advertisers

It is common for larger sites to manage their own advertisement campaigns, find advertisers / publishers directly and negotiate better deals. Naturally, with such larger sites Google Adsense has the least ads market share. An alternative for higher revenues are the so called affiliate programs which is suitable even for less popular sites as long as they are strictly specialized in one area. In this case it is feasible to find relevant subscriptions in which your visitors might be interested in and get a share of the subscription fees.


We should mention here the popular service from the leader on the affiliate marketing - Commission Junction (CJ). It manages a huge number of affiliate programs for third parties. With CJ publishers have unmatched choice to find the best offers which may interest their visitors. Naturally, publishers' revenues rely on real sales generated from their site and not on impressions and clicks. A great feature is that publishers have the option to choose the advertisers, their offers and even the exact banners which will show on their sites. They also know what revenue (share in %) to expect per sale. These are very profitable features which Google Adsense lacks but it is not for every publisher.

It requires marketing skills and knowledge about what visitors might be interested in purchasing. CJ has also great benefits for advertisers. First, it manages entirely their affiliate programs which is not an easy task. Second, the number of attracted publishers depends on the competitiveness of the ads. That's why if you are a publisher and believe your offers are competitive this is definitely the choice for you.

Noncompliance with Google Adsense policies - important for both publishers and advertisers
This point should not be underestimated because Google has very strict policies which exclude publishers / advertisers with sites with violent and/or illegal contеnt, gambling, sales of alcohol, tobacco-related products, and last but not least adult content. For more information please check this link. Once web site owners find their sites are not complying with Google Adsense policies they have the option to use similar pay-per-click and pay-per-view alternatives such as:   Adbrite - while they lack some of Google ads restrictions they also have some unique features such as full page ads, BritePic (show sads over your pictures) and others.   Clicksor - much less restrictive policies which are suitable even for adult sites. In conclusion, we believe that Google will remain the leading online ads provider in future because of its competitive advantages. Though if you are not satisfied with its effectiveness or you can't comply with its policies there are very good alternatives.

Google AdSense Tips and Tricks

The Google AdSense solution is used by millions of web masters around the world. Some of them have great success and good income, while others get only a few dollars.

Here we will share some basic tips which are known to help increase the revenue generated through Google AdSense.

First, you should choose the advertisement block format which best suits your web site visual style. The experience shows that the 336x280 Large Rectangle, the 300x250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper are the most effective shapes. Still, you should mind the visual appearance of your web pages when you insert the AdSense code. If you have a little space for ads, the best solution will be the link unit format.

Additionally, you should pick the most suitable color palette for your ads block. If you have a light background on your web site, it is better to use a similar light palette for the AdSense box. The contrast choice for an ads box palette is good only for web sites with dark background. Still, it is better to pick a color which already exists in your web site.

It is better to create an ads unit which includes both text and images. In this way both will be displayed and this will increase the chance to get a click on an advertisement by a web site visitor.

Next, you should consider the location of the ads on your web pages.

Probably the best position of the advertisements is in the top / header of your site. However, this can break the consistency of your content, so you should be careful using such a solution. Other good locations are just below the navigation bar, above the footer and in the left menu area. You should always put yourself in the visitors' shoes and look to the web site from their point of view. If the ads block makes you feel uncomfortable while browsing the web site, you should consider a different position or formatting.

Additionally, you should define the number of the advertisement units per page. There are some restrictions about it. You are allowed to have up to three advertisement units per page (in addition to three link units and three referral units). If you have a web site with a lot of content, which requires the visitors to scroll down the pages or you manage a forum or a blog, it is wise to put more AdSense blocks. However, always make sure that the main unit which will generate the major part of the revenue is loaded first in the web site source code. In case you wonder, if you place more than 3 ads units on a page only the first 3 will appear.

Detailed instructions on how to improve the efficiency of your AdSense blocks can be found in the Google AdSense resources section:

https://www.google.com/adsense/adsense-resources

http://www.slideshare.net/revenueboosterz/make-money-online-google-adsense-tutorial-for-novices for more detail

Google AdSense Integration

In order to start using Google AdSense you need to create an account first. This can be done at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/

Click on the Sign Up button to proceed. Fill in all required details and be sure to read the Google AdSense policy before completing the sign-up procedure.

Once the sign-up procedure is completed, you will get a welcome e-mail with instructions on how to use the Google AdSense tool.

Log in the Google AdSense panel and using the included wizard generate the Google AdSense code according to your preferences.

It will be similar to the following one:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- google_ad_client = "pub-UNIQUE_NUMBER";
/* 300x250, created 29/03/10 */
google_ad_slot = "11111111";
google_ad_width = 300;
google_ad_height = 250;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.
com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

Instead of the "UNIQUE_NUMBER" string you will see a number which is generated by Google and is unique for your account.

In the Google AdSense panel you can check the reports regarding the Google AdSense activity on your web sites. Also, from there you can generate code for advertisement blocks with different shapes and formatting and tune your AdSense setup.

Once you have the Google AdSense unit code you should include it in your web site.

If you have an HTML web site, you can include it directly in the source code.

If you wonder which is the best position for your Google Adsense advertisements, you can check this article:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=17954

Basically, the way to include the code depends on your web site technology and personal preferences.

Most of the popular php scripts come with additional extensions which allow you to insert the Google AdSense code without editing your files.

Here we will show different ways to include the code in open-source PHP projects.

We will start with Joomla 1.5, which is probably the most popular open source CMS.

You can find comprehensive instructions on how to install and use the software in our tutorial:

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla15

There are many different approaches for integrating the Google AdSense code. We recommend that you use a Joomla extension for this purpose.

Using such an extension allows even people who know nothing about programming to enable Google AdSense for their accounts.

You can choose the preferred extension from the following resource:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/ads-a-affiliates/google-ads

Then you must follow our Joomla 1.5 tutorial in order to complete the extension installation:

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla15/joomla_extensions.htm

Some extensions allow IP blocking. This way you can block yours and prevent a violation of the Google AdSense Terms of Use while performing tests.

Another widespread open-source script is WordPress. This application is one of the most popular free blogging solutions.

You can find detailed information on how to install and use it at:

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/

Since inserting the Google AdSense code directly in the WordPress theme's source code requires some programming knowledge, we will use a Google AdSense plugin.

You can choose the one which best covers your needs at:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=adsense

Detailed instructions on how to install plugins can be found in our WordPress tutorial:

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_plugins.htm

Also, every plugin has an Installation tab and the specific installation instructions are published there.

Once you install and activate the plugin, you should enter the specific code generated through the Google AdSense wizard.

Most of the other scripts have similar solutions for adding the Google AdSense code. You can either use an external extension or you can insert it directly in the source code of your web site.

Google AdSense Introduction

Google AdSense is probably the most popular advertisement service on the web. By including a specific javascript code in your web site, it allows you to generate revenue though different advertisements related to your web site content. The amount of generated income is based on the type of advertisements and the number of clicks on them.

Your income is generated both from clicks on ads and from impressions (number of times the advertisement is shown on your web site).

Besides the clicks and the impressions, you can earn money by including a Google search box in your web site code. If your web site visitors use it you will get a percent of the profit relevant to their search terms. AdSense for Feeds and AdSense for Domains are also available . The first one places ads in the feeds managed by Google for your web site. The second one allows advertisements to be included for domains that do not  open a web site with content.

All AdSense options are described at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8433 

Bear in mind that making money with Google AdSense requires a popular site with popular keywords on it and attractive positions for the ad placements.

Generally, the software is administered by Google and you can monitor your balance through your Google profile.

The service is freely accessible for everyone who complies with the corresponding Terms of Use.

You can check the Terms of Use here:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48182

All Basic Steps For Word Press

1.Basic Optimizations

Before we move in to advanced optimization methods lets see some of the basic optimizations that will greatly help your blog to perform well in search engines.

1.1 Choosing The Right Theme

I would say first and primary part of wordpress SEO is choosing the right template for your blog that not only looks good, but also you need to make sure whether the template is really search engine optimized and search engine friendly, just have a look whether it has easy navigation features, clean codes. Try to avoid templates that uses really huge number of images for its layout, avoid flash templates and also templates which uses a lot of java script as they would not do you any good in terms of search rankings. I take time to review the templates which I find really good at Seo templates section of this site so just have a look there to get some ideas and also possibly choose any of the template I recommend.

1.2 Setting URL Preference

Just make sure to set your url preference as soon as you install your wordpress its highly recommended that you do it to avoid duplicate content issues and canonical issues. By default wordpress takes care of canonical issues now but I would really recommend that you set your url preference to anyone. I love to have non-www vs www version because its easy that way, you don’t need to type in three extra characters each time you want to get to your blog.

Here is how you can do it. Go to General settings section and change your wordpress address url and blog url.

Also make sure you can changing your url preference in your Google webmaster tools.

You can also avoid canonical issues by including the following code in your .htaccess

If you have chosen url preference with “www” version then use this code in .htaccess

^?Download download.txt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.yoursite.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R,L] RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

If you have chosen your url preference to “non-www” version then use this code in .htaccess

^?Download download.txt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yoursite.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/$1 [R,L] RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Don’t forget to replace the “yoursite.com” to your actual site url. I am mentioning site url because some people might be using their blog on a sub-domain so I don’t want them to use their blog url in the .htaccess, Or just use this code only if you have your blog in your main domain.

1.3 Optimizing URL Structure

Default wordpress url structure is not really that search engine nor user friendly. So you can tweak the url structure a bit to add some seo value to your urls. Here is how you can do it.

Go to Settings —> permalinks

Choose custom option and use this code if you want to display only the post name after the actual domain name

< 

^?Download download.txt

1	/%postname%/

If you also want to include category name then use this code

^?Download download.txt

1	/%category%/%postname%/

Some people might also want to include their main keyword they want to focus on for their blog. Then you can alter the url structure like this

^?Download download.txt

1	/YOUR KEYWORD/%postname%

But make sure you are not using some ridiculously long keyword that makes your url really long. Search engines only allow 65 characters for the url, so if your url is short and precise it will be really good for the visitors to take a note of it.

Apart from It you can also include post id at end, it avoids duplicate urls, just incase if you are posting two articles with similar title, then post-id will let search engines know that they are not the same and in fact both are different posts, but this is an exceptional case but it won’t hurt you if you can add post-id in your url though.

With Category Name

^?Download download.txt

1	/%category%/%postname%-%post_id%/

Without category

^?Download download.txt

1	/%postname%-%post_id%/

With Your Keyword

^?Download download.txt

1	/KEYWORD/%postname%-%post_id%/

P.S: There are claims that including %category% in the first part of your url has some issues attached to it, but I have been using it on all my blogs without any problems for years. So I am leaving the choice to you to choose the one which you like.

1.4 Optimizing Images

If you are not aware of this optimizing images properly with right keywords will prove to be really worth in bringing hits to your site, though some people feel that those hits are not really worth having as most of those people just visit to steal your images. But whatever is the case or intentions of their visits, I like to have more people visiting my site. So in order to optimize your images you need to alter your title and alt tags in your image codes. I have talked in little detail about this in this article.

Importance Of Image Optimization

But lets assume that you are lazy to do the job yourself every time you upload an image, to alter the alt and title tags in it. Don’t worry there is a plugin that will just do the job for you by filling those tags with appropriate keywords from your title of the post and optimizing your images automatically every time you upload an image.

Download SEO friendly Images here

1.5 Optimizing Categories

This sounds really strange is it? well it is not, you can optimize your categories as well. How can you do that? why not have some of your keywords as your category names? Sounds ridiculous? well it is not. I have already discussed how you can make up category names that are keywords in How to find keyword rich category names for your blogs You can go through that when you have time. But having keywords in your category names can be quite useful in your SEO campaign. Like you can optimize your homepage for a particular keyword and then you can follow on by optimizing the keywords in your category names and with your category urls. It makes your work easier in fact and gives you more focus. Also if you added category in your url structure you might also get the benefit of your keywords getting exposed in your urls.

1.6 Comments For SEO

Again this will sound strange for many because how in the world can you optimize comments which is user generated content. Well this plugin SEO super comments will create dynamic page for each user generated comment. As you might know that comments can be crawled and indexed by search engines. So it will potentially increase your traffic. To know more about this plugin visit this page about SEO Super Comments

Download SEO Super Comments

2. Altering Meta Datas

Search engines mainly look for meta datas in your pages like, meta description, meta titles and meta keywords, although Google doesn’t take meta keywords in to consideration anymore, other minor search engines still do take them in to consideration. So here is how you can alter your meta datas. I am going to useheadspace2 plugin to achieve this and also I would highly recommend you using the same.

2.1 Optimizing Title Tags

Really one of the important part of SEO is optimizing page titles, you need to find the best title possible for your posts and not only that you need to make sure your keywords appear in title. A good title not only has keywords in it but also it will be equally compelling for the user to click through. You can specify the meta title for your pages once you have installed headspace. Just underneath your post editor you will have new section that looks like the one show below in the picture.

Just enter your title there, you can also include your site’s name in the end by adding “|” and entering my site’s name at the end which will advertise and give more exposure to my site’s name in search results.

But just know that you are only limited to use 65 characters in your title tags, more characters in titles will collapse your titles and will result in low click through. You can leave off adding your site’s name at the end if you are short of characters. You can also automate the whole process by changing the posts and pages options in your headspace settings to this.

Posts / Pages:

^?Download download.txt

1	%%title%%|Blog Name

2.2 Optimizing Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions play a vital role too, although Google nowadays tend to formulate its own meta descriptions for your pages, if you can write a good and precise meta descriptions for your posts, search engines will still consider using them in their results and as mentioned before you can specify the meta description just below the title. A meta description should exactly explain what your post contains in a very precise and attractive manner that will encourage people to click through, don’t write about which your pages don’t have just to make people to click on your links, that way your bounce rate will start to shoot up which is really not a good sign for your rankings.

2.3 Homepage Title And Tag Line

This is the important part of on-page optimization, you need to be really focused on what you are writing on your blog title and tag line, because these spaces can be exploited for your rankings. Once you get to the general options under settings. You will see two sections called Blog Title and Tag line.

Blog Title can be the name of your domain in most cases and tagline can be filled with the keywords you want to rank in search engines. But you need to make sure they don’t exceed 65 characters rule again and also don’t spam these spaces to dump your keywords in.

2.4 Homepage Description

You can describe about what your blog is all about under 150 characters. you can specify the homepage description for your blog under homepage section in your headspace options. Again please do not dump your keywords under homepage descriptions, search engines take them seriously and might penalize you if they think you are stuffing keywords.

3. Internal Links

Some people do under estimate the power of internal linking, we think links from our own site don’t add up much value in search rankings but in fact they do carry a lot of value, not everyone optimize their sites for all the available keywords in the world. There are still a lot of keywords which are not exploited. So how can you exploit those? you can do it through internal links. Linking from one post to another within your blog will tend to give you surprising results as you start to rank on page one of Google for many less competitive keywords out there. We will see how you can harness the potential of internal links in the coming sections.