If you are looking to monetize your blog then there is no doubt that Google adsense is the best program that you can apply for. But only putting ads do not help in monetizing your blog effectively. For best performance of your ads you should place ads in some selected areas that would give highest return for your blog.
Google in an earlier post has given a kind of heat map which can be used as a ad positioning guideline. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). As per Google all ads above the fold are found to be performing better than ads below the fold. Also the ads perform better if they are placed next to the content or under the navigation bar. This is because users are more focused on those areas of your blog page.
Check out the below heat map image of performance of ads by Google. According to this image ads perform better if they are placed–
- with the content on the top
- above the content and just below the navigation bar
- with the content on the left
- left and right sidebar on the top
- Just below the content
Recently Google announced that if there are too many ads above the fold then those sites will not be ranked higher. So even though ads placed above the fold perform better but if you keep too many ads above the fold then you site will be penalized by Google in terms of traffic from Google organic search. So if you are getting most of your traffic from Google organic search (which most of the blog get) then make sure that you do not place too many ads above the fold. If you don’t understand what above the fold means then go to this page.
There is no harm in monetizing your blog but also do not forget that its only possible if you make a good informative blog where readers can read informative article. Too many ads on pages turns off reads and they do not like to come back again to your site. Always avoid popup ads on your site and if possible even try to avoid inline text ads.
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