Google Adsense is by far the best method on the internet to add revenue gaining functionality to any of your websites without the necessity of bulky image banners and referral programs. Every click garners you a few cents, so the amount of money you can make is directly proportionate to your traffic. That is of course, assuming you have a good CTR, i.e Click Through Ratio. If you're page garners 1000 hits a day, but your CTR is less than 1%, your hard work to drive traffic is not doing you much good.
Ad Appearance
There is the constant argument over whether it is better to have your Adsense ads brightly visible, standing out from your page, or to let them blend in, becoming part of your text. Surely, you don't want your Adsense ads to disappear and not garner the attention of any of your visitors, but neither do you want them to be so obvious as to drive traffic away.
Experiment with the look and feel of your Adsense to get the best appearance for your page. If you have a certain color scheme, try to match that scheme. Don't use bright pink on your slick, black page, lest you drive away traffic. Blend in your ads to the color scheme of your page and you'll present a cleaner, more honest appearing set of ads.
Ad Format
Google Adsense offers numerous formats for your ads. Many people place large chunks of full texted ads on their sidebars or beneath their articles, but if this isn't working for you, consider changing your approach. Alter you Adsense to best match the way most internet browsers read.
Wider formats tend to do better than the narrow, long Adsense formats simply because the reader doesn't have to read down the page as often. Consider a 728 x 90 leader board of simple one line text ads placed beneath your header. They blend in and if carefully placed beneath your navigation bars, will gain even more clicks.
Ad Placement
You want your Adsense ads placed where your visitors will most likely see them. If you place an Adsense box at the bottom of your sidebar, most visitors will likely fail to notice them. Google has created a 'heat map', a research project in which they gathered information from numerous websites and the most effective placement of ads. Often, it is the top of the page, above your content that Adsense performs best in. Also, for those running articles, directly before and after your article will often garner additional clicks.
There are dozens of ways to clean up your site and enhance your Adsense to raise your CTR. Try curbing your content to match higher paying keywords in more interesting topics, or finding the most popular and effective content areas of your page and preceding them with Adsense ads. Google Adsense has proven itself time and time again as one of the best options for making money with your website. Make sure you are using it to the fullest.
