TOPIC: Getting your forum site to perform well with AdSense

Date: Thurs, Jul 26 2007 10:34 am
From: Inside AdSense Team


When Amit Kumar co-founded MegaGames Forum in 1998, Google Inc. was
being run from a Menlo Park garage and AdSense didn't even exist yet.
Fast-forward 9 years to 2007: Amit still runs MegaGames Forum just as a
hobby, but he earns enough revenue through the AdSense program to run a
dedicated server and continue growing his site.Amit wasn't so
successful with AdSense right from the start. When he first started
using the program in 2005, his earnings were nothing to write home
about, and it was largely because he chose his ad placement, formats,
and colors at random. After recently optimizing his ads, however, Amit
was able to more than double his AdSense revenue and even improve the
user experience on his site. Results may vary since every site is
unique, but here are some tips that any forum site, large or small, can
also try out to increase revenue.
- The welcome box ad Many forums have a message above the fold on their
pages welcoming users to the site and encouraging them to register.
Placing a large (336x280) or medium (300x250) rectangle next to this
message catches users' attention right when they walk through the door
(so to speak). By the way, these are our best performing ad units, and
may also increase the number of site-targeted ads on your pages.
- The forum post adBased on previous testing, integrating ad units into
your page content can improve clickthrough rate (CTR). It also provides
a better online experience, since your users see relevant ads side by
side with normal content. In forums, the highest visibility content is
often the first post, so it makes sense to place the ads here. Again,
large and medium rectangles are your best bet!
- Blending colors and breaking down bordersColors are important for
making an ad visible to the user, but they should still blend with the
design of the site. Removing the borders on your ads helps even more
with this concept of blending. Don't worry -- even with a well-blended
implementation, the 'Ads by Google' label keeps your users from
confusing ads with content.Bonus tip: Improve ad relevance with section
targetingWith forums, the first post often contains the most relevant
content on the page. By using the section targeting feature to
emphasize this content, you can potentially increase CTR with better
targeted ads. Visit this 'section targeting' link we mention for
instructions.If you decide to try out these tips, we'd love to hear
about your success.Posted by Magnus Yang - AdSense Optimization Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/26/2007 10:28:00 AM