Independent Digital

Link Unit Placement

There are basically four options when placing your Adsense link units on your page.

1. Horizontal Link Units as Menu/Navigation Links


Arguably the best way to use link units as they have the appearance of menu links which will attract clicks from visitors looking for more information from your site.

Try and keep them near the top of your page where a horizontal menu bar would normally be positioned.

2. Horizontal Link Units as Footer links


Footer link units don?t really draw attention and will only be noticed by those viewers who actually reach the bottom of your page. Having said that, perhaps because of their unobtrusiveness, they can be effective.

3. Vertical Link Units as Category Links


As with all ad placements, the vertical link unit?s performance depends on your site design and layout. Some users believe that the horizontal link unit blends in better and therefore has better performance.

4. Vertical Link Unit within Content


Remember that link units need 2 clicks before they earn revenue for you (one to go to the ad page and the second, which earns the money, only if and when the visitor clicks on an ad on the page) whereas normal ads only require one click. Link units within the content may also add to the clutter of your webpage. So think carefully when using up prime ad space for link units.

You can increase your online income by integrating Adsense link units with your site design and layout. Because of the unique format of link units, they can easily be placed in small areas of your page, areas where other adsense formats cannot fit. Google allows us to place 3 link units per page, so there is lots of potential for increasing your earnings

What are Adsense Link Units?

Link units are four or five links formatted in either a horizontal line or a vertical column. When clicked, the link takes the user to a webpage full of Google ads. Link units are small, do not look like ads and can easily be integrated into the navigation structure of the website. Here’s an example of a horizontal link ad:





You don?t make any money if a user clicks on a link in the unit but only when they click on any of the ads on the resultant page. The idea behind the link unit is to offer the visitor to your site more options, something that interests them but is not available on your site. The links attract their attention and leads them to a page, which hopefully has something that interests them. It is only when they click on the ads on this page that you get paid. To increase the chances of this happening, you need to position and blend the link units on your page so that they encourage the viewer to click on them.

Setting up Adsense Link Units for your Website

Go to Google Adsense, log into your account, click on Adsense setup and then Adsense for content. Select Link Unit and then click continue. Choose the appropriate link unit, then set up a channel to track the performance of the link unit. Copy the code to your page and the ads will show up almost immediately. Here’s an example of a vertical link unit:





Optimization Guidelines for Adsense Link Units

• Text colour ? use the same colour as the links on your page
• Ad borders ? remove the ad borders
• Background colour ? should match your site?s background colour
• Above the fold placement – link units perform best if placed near the top
• Don?t clutter ? don?t place link units too close to other ads
• Navigational links ? best used as navigational links or as stand alone units
• Optimize for Search Traffic ? place on pages receiving the most search traffic
• Use Ad Channels – to measure the performance of each link unit
• Mirror your site link structure – place your link unit beneath or beside your navigational links

Disadvantages of Adsense Link Units

Although link units can be very useful, you need to keep the following 2 points in mind when using them:

• Tricking the user ? your link unit links may blend in so well with your site that some visitors may feel tricked if they click on a link, believing that they are going to another area of your site but instead end up on a totally new page filled with ads
• Exit point ? click on a link unit link, leads a user away from your site. Some may not return. The ads may also lead them to your competitors

Look out for part 2 where I’ll cover the various placement options for link units.

Maximize your success with other Google products

• Use Sitemaps to get your site included in Google’s search results. Have a look at Googles? webmaster guidelines for ideas on how to develop your content and structure your pages. Particularly regarding submitting your URLs to Google sitemaps
• Reach new customers with Google’s AdWords. Google adwords allows you to create your own ads. You choose keywords to help Google match your ads to your audience and pay only when someone clicks on them
• Integrate Google’s interactive maps into your site’s data using Google Maps API. The Maps API allows you to embed geographical information into your site using JavaScript and is a great way to enhance your current site content
• Increase interactivity on your site with Blogger. Blogger can help you interact with your readers to create a community on your site
• Enable your users to work together more effectively with Google Apps for Your Domain. With Google Apps for your domain you can provide your users with applications to help them become more productive. You can use your own colour scheme, branding and content in programs such as Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Page Creator which are all hosted by Google. There is no hardware or software to install or maintain
• Keep your filter list small. Filtering is a quick and easy way to prevent unwanted ads from being displayed, however, filtering also decreases the number of ads that can appear, thereby decreasing your potential earnings as well. So consider reducing the number of filtered ads
• Attract advertisers to your site with Onsite Advertiser Sign-up. Onsite Advertiser Sign-up makes it easy for advertisers to bid and display ads on your site. When using Onsite Advertiser Sign-up, your ad units will display an ‘Advertise on this site’ link that takes advertisers to an informational landing page detailing how to advertise on your site
• Emphasize important content with section targeting. With section targeting, you can help Google determine what parts of your content are important so that your site can show more targeted ads. Google?s technology detects whether section targeting will improve your results and implements automatically only if you’ll earn more revenue

Section targeting might be a good fit for your site if:

1. You’re familiar with HTML
2. You want to help guide the crawlers to specific section(s) of your page
3. The sections you want to target contain a significant amount of text

• Test your success with channels. Use channels to measure the effects of any changes you make on your site. The more you test, the better you know the effects of the ads. The better you know the effects of the ads, the faster you’ll realize your revenue potential
• Create report templates to simplify and save time. When you’ve designed an experiment, save a report template for that experiment. Report templates allow you to customize and save the specifications for a report for quick access in the future

Tip number ten to follow. If you want to advertise your website for free then have a look at goFreeClick free text ads.

Refer users to new products to generate more revenue

A referral button on your site will direct users to Google products like AdSense and Pack as well as products from Googles? extensive base of AdWords advertisers. You are paid when the user connects to the referred product.

• Choose sub-categories for better targeting. You can control the ads that display on your site by selecting sub-categories which improves your ad targeting and can also increase your referrals earnings
• Designate back-up ads for your ad slots. Select the ad that you would like displayed but also add additional categories or keywords so that you can be sure that relevant ads will always show on your site
• Try displaying only image-based ads. You do limit your available ad inventory by only showing image-based ads but you may prefer its aesthetic appeal

Best practices for any type of referrals

• Experiment. Try various text links and button designs to see which performs best on your site
• Customize your text links. Change the size and font of the text
• Choose relevant products to refer. The referral product that is most relevant to the content of your site will most likely perform best.
• Rotate referral units when you rotate content. Always check to see that your referral unit is relevant to your content

Tip number nine to follow. If you want to advertise your website for free then have a look at goFreeClick free text ads.