Adsense Optimisation for a Blog

I have been asked about this a number of times so here are some thoughts …..

There are 2 distinct lines that webmasters seem to take – one by design and the other by chance (or perhaps the rollout 100s of blogs for Adense revenue suggests otherwise!).

Lets quickly look at the second: these sites are knocked up very rapidly often with duplicate content and plugins using rss feeds with poor design. A user arrives at the site and is so appalled at the design and content, they click something to get out of there quick. What have they clicked? Could be a Google adsense link. The design is truly cr*p – with bold use of adsense: such as a leaderboard across the top and the large square adsense boxes in the sidebar and in the text content. Colour schemes are often garish. You probably know what I mean. Bad design or a clever way to get revenue? You decide!

The other approach is more subtle, and often the content on the site is good and well presented. Users are pleased by the rich content, professional design and ease of navigation – they will be encouraged to look around your site. The Google adsense is integrated into the content – using the same colour schemes for fonts (and type, & sizes) and hyperlinks as the rest of the site. The “adverts” are not in your face and site users who hate clicking on adverts will inadvertently click on an advert as they look for more information.

Warning:
Be wary of what you do as Google can disapprove of tactics to encourage Adsense clicks – you do not want your account at risk.  These following tactics seem to be common (but that does not mean Google approves):

• Clever use of a Link unit to look like a navigation menu.
• Although Google can disapprove, use of bold graphics adjacent to Adsense, can draw the eye to Adsense boxes.

What do you think? What tactics do you use?