You’ve seen them on a million websites, those Google AdSense ads, and you know that people are making money by displaying them on their websites.  You’re thinking it’s about time you started having AdSense on your website too, but you have a few questions.

Which ad formats should be used for best results?

Take a good look at how your website is laid out; can you see where some AdSense ads can be placed?  You can put them within your content and/or you can place them in your site borders.   Pay attention to how much room you have.

If you want to place them in your master border of your website or in a widget on your blog, the format is going to depend on how much space you have – width and length.  Experiment with the different formats to see which fit and which look good.

Keep in mind that long skinny ads can be hard to read because the ad wording is all chopped up.  Our eyes want to read more than 2 or 3 words before being forced to move back to the left to start a new line.  According to AdSense, their best performing ads are the 336×280 Large Rectangle, the 300×250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160×600 Wide Skyscraper.

Adding AdSense to content is not as restricting and you can use any size rectangle or square ad unit.  Don’t just settle on your first pick though; test, test and test again to figure out which placements earn you the most.

If you’re really limited on space, think about using the link unit ads.  They’re perfect for tight fits where you’d love to place some advertising.  You can use either vertical or horizontal link units. 

You can use a combination of text ads, link units, and image ads, but you are limited to the number of each you can use on your site.  Check AdSense’s TOS for the exact number.  You probably shouldn’t use all that you can anyway; it can make the information on your site hard to read and lends a spammy quality to it.

Should I use text or image adverts?

Google AdSense encourages you to use both and offers an option for that.  What it means is your ad spot may be either an image or a text.

Many people argue against using image ads because it was overdone in the past and people are blind to them now.  Since so many people aren’t using image ads these days, perhaps now is the time to start putting them on your site. Give it a try and see which perform better for you.

What are the right advert colours to use?

It depends on the colours already used on your site.  Take note of the background colour, font colour, header colours, and any additional colours used in the content.

You have three choices:

Contrast – Perhaps you have a website with black background and white lettering.  An AdSense box with a black background won’t stand out and might not be noticed.  Consider a contrasting background colour for the ad.

Blend – This would be choosing a white background for the ad if your site has a white background, no borders around your ads, and the title colour one of the colours on your site.  If your site’s words are black, but you do titles in red, then consider having your ad titles in the same red.

Complement -  This means don’t be as pernickety as you would be if you were blending.  Maybe you want a border around your ad, or you don’t want the ad background colour to be exactly the same as the website background colour.  Otherwise, you use existing colours from your site.

If the same people come to your site often, they may have become blind to your ads.  Take some time to move them around and change colours.  Not only will this help them get noticed, it tests what works best.

If you take the time to choose your AdSense ad formats and colours wisely and then experiment and test, you’ll be optimizing the AdSense earnings.  It’s worth it to spend the time initially to find out what looks the most pleasing to the eye as well as how the number of ads look in proportion to the amount of content.