Making the most out of your AdSense sites means maximizing traffic inflow and maximizing click thru rate. The click thru rate means how many of your visitors viewing your site click thru to the sites displayed on the google ads. This article will be focusing on increasing visitor click thru rates through good AdSense placement.
There is a lot of advice about how to incorporate Google AdSense ads into your site. Each webpage is unique and following blanket statements such as the best spot is to the left, top or right may not yield the best results for your particular page. I have come up with a few guidelines that will help you with better ad placement and increase your AdSense income.
Firstly, make sure there is enough white space around your ads. Try not to scrunch everything in. This doesn't need to be said but keep the adsense links in the same theme as the rest of your site. It doesn't have to be the same color, you can have a look at a color wheel for contrasting colors if it all looks a bit too plain.
Secondly, think about what it is that grabs your visitors attention. Keep your ads to the top or left of the main attention grabbing content of that page. If your viewers will be looking at content in the centre then place the ads to the top or left of that content. Is there an image on the left hand side that will grab the visitors attention? Try to place the ad to the top of the image.
Setting ads near main content may mean you lose page space for other items. Many sites have a site index or other links to the left and putting ads there may disrupt your website design. If you have site links to the left I recommend using google ads at the top. Likewise if your index is at the top you can have your ads to the left. Some use drop down links at the top which means you can place google ads at the top and to the left if you wish.
For a graphical look at ideal ad placement you can view the google heat map here: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954
Bear in mind what your visitor is looking for. Keep your visitors happy and they will keep coming back. Design your site for your visitor first, AdSense or other income second.
