How to Increase Google Adsense Earnings on WordPress

If you have been blogging for a while than you are probably familiar with Google Adsense, but is WordPress an effective platform to make money with Adsense? I will be touching this topic and answer the question below.

The reason I am writing about Adsense on WordPress, is because I was reading how much trouble bloggers have to make a decent income by only using Google Adsense on their blog. Monetizing your blog and making a full-time income is not easy, but it can be done!

A Niche Website is a MUST if you want to make Money with Adsense

When planning on making money with Adsense the most important rule is that you have to choose a niche market that is popular and generates money online. Some good niche markets are baby clothing, personal finance, weight loss and so on. Do some research before you get started and whatever you do, don’t lose focus.

Focusing on a niche market assures a decent SEO score which consequently translates in more organic traffic, plus it ensures that multiple advertisers will be bidding for a placement on your ad space. This considerably increases the price per click, and instead of showing one ad Google will often show a variety of links which people are more likely to click on.

SEO and Adsense done right!

Above you can see how targeted websites provoke targeted adsense links being displayed. Always stay focused on your niche market or your website’s relevancy will reduce which will cause less targeted ads being displayed and consequently reduces earnings.

So lets assume you have a website and your niche market is “SEO in New York”. Now you spend a lot of time writing quality content but people just don’t seem to click on the Google Adsense ads. If this is your problem keep on reading.

What happened to my Adsense Earnings when I switched to WP

A few years ago I had an SEO optimized HTML website which generated around $2000 / month in adsense earnings. I then moved the website to WordPress just to find out that the adsense earnings had dropped to less than $500 / month. Why is this?

The explanation is really simple. WordPress does not provide as much flexibility as HTML when it comes to placement of the Adsense code (or at least by default this is not the case). When I used HTML I could blend in the ads in a way that people could hardly tell, which obviously had much higher click through rates.

Visitors would read content related information on my site and then be presented with a menu of text ads as seen above, which would ultimately result in a lot of clicks and money in my bank account.

When using WordPress on the other hand I had to choose a template which supported a default structure, and once selected I had to stick to its limitations which meant less flexibility in how and where I could place my Adsense code.

How to make WordPress Work Well with Adsense

Designing your own template is how you can free yourself from limitations. You will find that this has a positive influence on SEO and rankings, and your ads will have better click-through rates. If you don’t have the knowledge to personalize a template yourself, make sure to ask a qualified person to ensure all vital functions are supported (the ability to change colors, fonts etc).

How to increase your Adsense Earnings

So let me go into more detail; when you have a WordPress blog the best way to fit in an ad is by placing it in the middle of your content. Some bloggers place two ads below each other with a link in between in the hope visitors will click on the ad by mistake. But unless the ads are displaying multiple text links this is not likely to happen.

Really, the biggest mistake is that people are paid per click and not per impression when using Adsense on their WordPress blog. When I moved from HTML to WordPress my click-through-rate (CTR) went down with a whopping 75%!

Above an example of good adsense code integration producing high click-through rates

So what can you do when you don’t want to stop using WordPress but you do want to make some money? Design your own template and follow the tips below. First of all you should use all your ad blocks and make them big. You are allowed as much as three ad blocks on a page, so you should not opt for less.

Change the Ad Text Color

Experiment with a new text link color. Google allows you to use any color you like. Of course you can use black text and blue links as seen above and used by default, but you will find that when you change them from time to time to lets say red links, you will see a higher conversion rate. Why? People’s natural blindness to blue ad links!

Creating Ad Short Code

And, if you know a bit about PHP you can create a short-code so you can add in ads wherever you wish which therefore provides for greater flexibility. Once you have edited the PHP files all you have to do is type in [Ads] wherever you want the ad placed. This is useful to manage ads on short and long posts, and also for pages with lots of photos or videos.

It’s actually really easy. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go into your WordPress editor and open the functions.php file.

2. Paste in this code:

// Ad Shortcode
  function ads_shortcode() {
    return 'ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE';
}
add_shortcode('ads', 'ads_shortcode');

Don’t forget to delete the line that says ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE and paste in your Adsense code.

You can put in styling along with your Adsense code to center them, float them, place 2 ads side by side, etc.

It’s awesome.

Now, when you’re writing or editing your posts, wherever you type in [ads], it will show the Adsense code and whatever styling you applied to it.

Conclusion

As you can see there are a lot of things you can do to effectively increase your Google Adsense earnings. Things such as SEO, a better focus on your niche market and your major keywords, changing ad link text color and adding code that allows you to control where the ads are placed will greatly improve the amount you will receive. I have tried all the above and came to the conclusion that the best place to include a Google Adsense ad is right under the first paragraph of the page.

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I hope you enjoyed article, let me know what you think! If you have any questions about Google Adsense feel free to leave a comment and I’ll be happy to get back to you as soon as possible.