It seems that nowadays there aren't any sites on the net that don't have advertisements on them. Why wouldn't you advertise on your site or blog... Why not get paid for your hard work. Not to mention, that glorious yet so unattainable "make money blogging" dream.
The problem with ads being on so many sites is that over time they have become virtually invisible. People are so used to seeing ads everywhere that the ads are ignored more and more often. Adsense is a very honest and straight forward advertiser, their ads aren't flashy and they don't catch your eye, making them even less likely to be click.
If you advertise on your site you now not only have to work on its appearance and content but if you want a decent CTR, you also need to place your ads in the proper "hot spots". A hot spot is an area on your site where an ad will be more likely to get clicked. A great hot spot is right above your posts and under the header, this is the first thing a reader sees when they come across your site. A not so hot spot would be on the sidebar of your blog or around the footer. Here are a few things to remember while placing your ads. Why are people coming to your site? Where is the first place people will look when they are on your site? What areas on your site are likely to be overlooked?
I like to place a leader board ad right underneath my header and above my posts since, as I said before, this the first thing my readers will see. The next spot that is likely to get seen is you blog post. This is the reason people are coming to your blog... to read what you have written. This is the case whether they have bookmarked your site or the found via keywords searched on a search engine. Your visitors will be paying the most attention to your blog posts.
When placing an ad in your post, the best spot would be the upper left hand side, reason being, people read from the top left to the bottom right. This way the first thing the reader will see, when they start reading your post, is your advertisement. After a slight adjustment to your blogs HTML, your posts should all look like the image below.
This adjustment uses Blogger's internal "ads between posts" option. The first thing you need to do is click on the edit html tab in your blogger dashboard. Make sure to click on "expand widget templates" as shown in the image below.
Search the html code below and delete it.
Follow the instructions in the image below to ad the new code. If you have trouble seeing this image, simply click on it to enlarge.
Remember, this particular edit uses blogger's in line ad configuration to place the ads. Click on layout from your blogger dashboard. Click edit blog post and choose the type of adsense ad you want to use. Make sure the code in your blog's HTML matches the size ad you plan on using. Don't forget to click on "show ads between posts" See the images below for an example.
By adding ads into your blog posts you should be able to raise your CTR and and increase the income you make off the the traffic you are currently receiving.
Good Luck,
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