Tech News Beats

Pic courtesy: Google

Recently, I received an invitation to the selected beta testing of the new Google Adsense interface. If one is invited, they will see a link “Try the new AdSense interface beta” on the top right hand side.

Google claims the following features in the upgraded Adsense:

* Comprehensive performance reports: View your daily stats in graph format, and gain insight into new metrics such as the amount you’re earning from different ad types, targeting types, and bid types.
* Quicker account maintenance: We’ve streamlined the process for a number of common tasks to help you get things done more quickly. Whether you’re trying to update your contact information or make a change to a number of ad units at the same time, you’ll find that these types of tasks require fewer clicks and less account navigation than before.
* Prominent help links: There’s now help content available on every page, so you’ll be able to quickly find answers to your questions while navigating through your account.
* Easier access to online resources: Visit the redesigned Resources page, where you can find the latest content from the Inside AdSense blog, our YouTube channel, and our Twitter account, all within your own account.

So I decided to check what is there for us! The first thing which will catch your eyes is the look and feel. The graphics oriented layout allows you access or view more data from the same page. Now you can view last 7 days earnings at the same time like last one month traffic in Analytics. There is a left side bar with 2 blocks. The top block contains the menu – overview, messages, account settings and resources. The bottom block contains the help section. The performance summary is in the middle wheres it is at the top in Analytics. At the top right hand side and middle are two blocks – Estimated earnings and Alerts.

Ad creation is also different now. Adsense has now added drop down boxes to select platform like for website or feed. The best part is you can even see the earnings for a particular ad you created and changes. From the main menu bar on the top you can use “Allow & Block Ads” to manage which ads to show up on your site. The performance option can be used to see a whole months report or customized report.

But there seems to some anomaly and I have given my feedback to Google on them.

1. The custom channels show multiple times
2. The publisher Id do not show anymore on the top right hand corner. Now it shows under “account settings”. Though this is not an issue but it was nice to have it there.

Ok you have created a new website or blog and you are looking to make some money. If you think that monetizing your site goes against your ethics then this post may not be for you. But most blogger or site creators look forward to atleast recover the domain and hosting cost. I dont think that is asking for too much. As a beginner what do you look at? At first make sure you have atleast 100 unique visitor every day. Then beginning with ad networks is probably the best way.

An advertising network or ad network is a company that connects web sites that want to host advertisements with advertisers who want to run advertisements. Increasingly Ad networks are companies that pay software developers as well as web sites money for allowing their ads to be shown when people use their software or visit their sites.

Ad networks serve advertising on your website and share advertiser revenue for qualified clicks each time your site’s visitors click on ads. An advertising network (also called an online advertising network or ad network) is a collection of (often unrelated) online advertising inventory. When it is clear that the environment involved is the Internet, companies who run or administrate such networks are also called Advertising Agents or simply Agents.
Source: Wikipedia

You do not need too experiment much. Experimenting with too many ads in the beginning could become a hindrance in your user experience. You can close your eyes and choose Google Adsense. At any given time Adsense will win among all ad networks hands down. Adsense serve ads on your site matching its content. Adsense pays based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPC (cost per click). In beginning since your traffic may not be huge, you will be getting paid mostly when your visitors will click the ads on your site. In order to receive payment you need to reach the threshold amount of $100. It can take time depending on where you are located. Have patience and you will come up. Do not click on your ads or encourage your users or anyone to click on your ads as this goes against Google Adsense’s Terms and Conditions. Dont get greedy. In order to make a few quick dollars you may get banned from the Cash Cow program. Adsense works good in any region of the world, so you can try this without any hesitation.

To earn more you need to optimize the position of the ads as some position and size of ads get more clicks. Also, blending the color of the text with your site is a good thing. For blogs, you may try the adsense heatmap.

Now do you implement Adsense ads on your site?

Simply create an Adsense account and choose the size, color of the ads etc through the wizard. Lastly copy/paste the codes on any location on your site you deem fit. Within 10 minutes your ads will start displaying. If you are using wordpress, then you can use a adsense plugin. Which requires you to just upload the plugin in the wp-content/plugin folder of your wordpress installation and activative it by going to the plugins tab. For wordpress 2.5 under “Settings” you will find Adsense tab, click on that and enter your Adsene publisher ID. Also, configure the size, color etc and you are done.

Here is list of Adsense plugins for wordpress:

1. Adsense Delux at: http://www.acmetech.com/blog/2005/07/26/adsense-deluxe-wordpress-plugin
2. Adsense Injection

If you are using Blogger then you you can implement Adsense from inside Blogger, as Blogger is also owned by Google.