Part 4 of the ‘Blog Monetization’ series. ← Previous: Applying for AdSense
Summary
- Approval is just the start; placement decides actual revenue and reader experience.
- Auto ads let Google place them; manual ads let you choose. Most start with auto.
- Ads are like seasoning — the right amount lifts the dish, too much ruins it.
- Click-baiting and self-clicks are a fast track to a banned account. Never do them.
Auto Ads or Manual
Auto ads place themselves; manual ads let you pick the spot. Start with auto, then move to manual once you have a feel for it.
Auto is fast but sometimes drops ads in awkward places. Manual takes effort but protects the flow of your writing.
Where to Place Ads
The most visible spots are the top and the middle of a post. But the more visible a spot is, the easier it is to disrupt reading.
- Top — high visibility, but it covers the first impression
- Mid-content — effective when blended in naturally
- End — for readers who finished; least disruptive
- Sidebar — always visible, but a lower click rate
Too Many Is Poison
More ads raise revenue only up to a point. Past it, readers leave and revenue actually drops.
A page with more ads than writing loses all reading comfort. On mobile it is worse. Two or three ads per screen and that blog never gets a second visit.
Never Do This
These lead straight to account suspension. Draw a clear line, because you can lose your revenue in one stroke.
- Clicking your own ads (self-clicks)
- Asking readers to “please click the ads”
- Disguising ads as content (deceptive placement)
- Ads on empty pages with no content
Google detects invalid clicks automatically. Cleverness here just digs your own grave.
Reading Your Earnings
The AdSense dashboard shows impressions, clicks, and revenue (RPM). RPM is revenue per 1,000 impressions — the yardstick for ad efficiency.
The early numbers are small and easy to find discouraging. But nudging placement to raise RPM is the core of running ads. Real money comes after traffic grows.
The next parts move beyond ads to the other track: how affiliate marketing works.
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