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I was recently optimizing Adsense on one of my Blogger sites and decided I wanted to place Adsense inside the posts – but only on single posts, not on the home page or in the archives. Here’s how.
Why Blogger?
Although my primary blog platform is WordPress, I do occasionally use Blogger for some side projects. Why? Go and read everything that Grizzley’s written on his Make Money Online For Beginners site. Blogger can be an excellent option. It’s free, easy to create a site, can scale to handle massive traffic etc.
The only downside to Blogger is the limited ability to customize the site. With WordPress I can change pretty much anything I want. With Blogger I can only change things within the narrow framework that Blogger allows. In this case, I ran into the limitations with the built-in options to display Adsense ads.
Blogger’s Built In Options To Display Adsense
The easiest way to add Adsense to a Blogger blog is via the built-in gadget. I won’t go through the whole process, as it’s written about elsewhere, but you can add an Adsense gadget in the same way you can add a Profile gadget, Text gadget, Poll gadget, etc. Just go to Layout, then Page Settings, then click on Add a Gadget, select the Adsense gadget and then configure it.
The first time you use it, Blogger will ask you for your Adsense publisher number and link the blog to your Adsense account. Then you simply decide where you want the gadget to appear, what size and colour the ads should be and you’re off! You’re ready to start making money online.
You can also add Adsense between posts. To do this, click Edit on the Body gadget and turn on the Show Adsense Between Posts option. You’ll then be presented with the same options that the gadget gives you (size, colour etc).
Limitations With Built-In Options
There are several limitations to using Blogger’s built-in Adsense gadget:
1. Can’t Put Adsense Ads Within Posts
The main limitation with using the built-in Adsense gadget is that you can’t place ads within a post. You can add them before posts, after posts, between posts, in the sidebar, but not in the actual post.
It’s well known that the CTR (click through rate) is higher for ads within a post than for ads in other positions. So putting Adsense within a post will make more money for you. I cover how to do this below.
2. Can’t Use Channels
Another limitation of the built-in Adsense gadget is that you can’t use channels to track the performance of ad units.
However, this isn’t really a limitation – if you want to use channels, simply create your code on the Adsense site, then copy and paste your Adsense code into a JavaScript gadget, instead of using an Adsense gadget. In all other ways it will work the same as the Adsense gadget.
3. Blogger Only Shows Three Ad Units
The last limitation is only an issue for those people who place an Adsense unit in the sidebar. Some people choose not to do this, but I find that an Adsense unit in the sidebar performs relatively well (not as good as units at the top of the page, but better than those lower down the page).
The problem is that Google makes sure that only three ad units are displayed on a Blogger page, as per their Terms Of Service. Great in general, but it means you have less control over which ad units appear. Unfortunately the sidebar is rendered last in most templates, so it’s one of the units that disappear if there are too many units on the page.
This won’t happen on the single post page. However, if you display ads between posts (or within posts) then the sidebar ad unit will disappear on pages with multiple posts, such as the home page and archive pages. I explain how to overcome this below.
Adsense Within Posts
As I mentioned above, you can’t place Adsense ads within the post body using the built-in gadgets. To do this, we’re going to have to put our Adsense code directly into the template.
We still can’t put the ad unit in the middle of the post, but we can put it at the top of the post, below the title, with the text wrapping around it. Great! That’s proven to be the most effective placement, so that’s exactly what we want.
Now, the technique used to do this isn’t new. In fact I learned how to do it by reading Bonnie Calhoun’s Wrapping Adsense in Blog Post. You can go and read her post for the full instructions, but here are the basic steps:
Get your Adsense code from the Adsense website
Parse the code to replace special characters with HTML entities
In Blogger, go to Layout, then choose Edit HTML
Make a backup of your template by clicking Download Full Template
Click Expand Widget Templates
Search for or
Place your Adsense code on the line immediately above this
Save the template
Note 1: It’s very important to parse the code as per Bonnie’s site (ie replace <> with > etc). If you do not do this, your Adsense units will not display correctly and you risk being banned by Google.
Note 2: You probably want to place your Adsense code within a floating div, so that the text wraps around it.
Here’s what the code will look like (with the publisher specific information removed). The first and last lines should already exist in the template, the rest is what you’re adding.
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print?
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<script type="text/javascript"><!--
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google_ad_client = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
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google_ad_host = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
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google_ad_slot = "xxxxxx";
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google_ad_width = 336;
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google_ad_height = 280;
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//-->
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</script>
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<script type="text/javascript"
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src="
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
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</script>
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This solves the problem of getting Adsense to appear within the post, driving up CTR. However, the sidebar unit will still disappear on the home page, as there will be more than 3 units on the page (one embedded in each post).
Only Showing Adsense In Posts On A Single Post
To solve the problem of the sidebar unit disappearing, I decided that I only wanted to show Adsense within the post (ie solution in the previous section) on single posts. I didn’t want this ad unit to appear on the home page or on archive pages.
It would be easy enough to do this in WordPress / PHP, but I had no idea how to customize a Blogger template. I consulted Blogger’s Help facility and found a list of
Layouts Data Tags, which let me see what could be done. Despite the options being fairly limited, I found the answer I needed: The pageType tag, which can have a value of ‘item’, ‘archive’ or ‘index’.
My XML coding skills are a little rusty, but thankfully it wasn’t hard to work out how to include some HTML based on the type of page:
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PUT YOUR CODE HERE
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This says: If it’s a single post, include the HTML (obviously you have to put it in). So single posts (pageType of item) will display the HTML, but the home page (pageType of index) and archive pages (pageType of archive) will not.
Applying this to our Adsense problem, here is the full code you need (with the publisher specific information removed). Use this instead of the code in the Adsense Within Posts section above. The first and last lines should already exist in the template, the rest is what you’re adding.
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<script type="text/javascript"><!--
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google_ad_client = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
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google_ad_host = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
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google_ad_slot = "xxxxxxxxxx";
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google_ad_width = 336;
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google_ad_height = 280;
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//-->
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</script>
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<script type="text/javascript"
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src="
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
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</script>
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Of course, this means that only two Adsense units will be shown on the home page. If you’re doing things properly, most of your visitors should arrive on single posts, via the search engines, so this solution’s good enough for me.
Final Thoughts
If you want to
make money online and you’ve decided that using Adsense on Blogger is the way to do it, then optimize it!
Hopefully this has helped you a) increase your CTR by showing you how to place Adsense units at the top of your posts and b) how to preserve income from the sidebar unit by stopping it from disappearing on multiple post pages
Visit WWW.MAKEMONEYBANC.BLOGSPOT.COM to learn how to make money with a free blog
Meet my newest discovery: The Youngest Money-making Blogger!
16-year-old blogger, Chloe Spencer is one of my mentors in blogging especially considering the fact that her 2007 income figure, $900 a month is my first target income in blogging.
At the blogher 2007 conference where Chloe shared her story of "making money while she sleeps" -- through the creation of a blog about the popular virtual pets site
Neopets.com.
It all began when she was 15. Chloe turned to SEO and blogging instead of babysitting or running a paper route as her part-time job and turned her love for the Neopets into a profitable venture -- with the help of a few smart SEO decisions.
In early 2006, when Chloe was 15, she decided to devote a blog to Neopets, a virtual pets site popular with kids the world over. After performing some keyword research through WordTracker and Google Suggest for her blog’s title and section headings, she discovered that “neopets cheats” was a hugely popular search term to target for her blog. So she settled on the name: the “Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site.”
A good point to here is that, Chloe used the keyword research tools
Google Suggest and
WordTracker to select both the name of her blog and its categories. The name became "The Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site" because it included the highly popular search term "neopets cheats." She set up her blog through WordPress.com, and within a couple weeks it appeared on Page 1 in Google for "neopet cheats".
She then used the free WordPress.com service to start the blog. Chloe’s site was able to ride on the coattails of WordPress.com’s trust and authority in the eyes of Google, thus sidestepping the “Google Sandbox” and jumping to page 1 in Google for the term “neopet cheats” within two weeks of launch.
Wanting to capitalize on her success, Chloe attempted to place Google ads on her WordPress.com blog, only to find that she was unable to monetize her blog due to WordPress.com’s restrictive Terms of Service. So Chloe migrated the blog over from neopetcheats.wordpress.com to her own domain, neopetsfanatic.com, powered by the WordPress software. She then went about building links through places like Blogger Stories.
Chloe also devoted a bit of time to link building, through trusted blogs like
Blogger Stories.
Wanting to turn her blog's popularity into dollars, Chloe was excited to add Google ads onto her blog, but found out the hard way that this wasn't possible due to WordPress.com's restrictive terms of service that forbids the use of AdSense or other third-party ads. Chloe soon moved her entire blog to the domain
neopets fanatic.com.
Some pages of her blog, NeopetsFanatic.com, sport more than 5000 comments. Chloe monetizes her page 1 Google rankings and 11,000 daily pageviews into cold hard cash with Google AdSense. She's a busy girl and only blogs once or twice a month, but still she makes between $10 and $40 per day -- money while she sleeps!
Worthy of note especially is the fact that Chloe's site currently ranks number 6 for "neopets" (out of 6.12 million results);Her blog's traffic has grown to produce $10 to $40 per day in AdSense revenue. Best of all, Chloe only spends a few hours a month blogging and maintaining the site. Not a bad ROI! That equates to somewhere around $900 a month, or approximately $10,000 per year. If Chloe wanted to earn something comparable through a typical minimum-wage first job at her age, she'd have to work somewhere around 25 to 30 hrs per week. Because she's built an income-generating asset, Chloe can take a paid vacation whenever she wants without affecting her take-home pay; one good reason for you to consider "making money while you sleep".
One of the key things to keep in mind about Chloe's story, is that she's proven that SEO is not "rocket science." Heck, a kid can do it! (Note that I've only given her a few hours of guidance, she has done this all herself.) So if you have a solid foundation of SEO knowledge, why work for a living when you can create assets that work for you?
Early 2008, Chloe launched her newest blog, QuizFanatic.com, full of personality tests for teenage girls, such as "How Boy Crazy Are You?"
Chloe has since spoken at BlogHer, SMX West, Ypulse and DMA08. She has presented a science experiment live on Denver's 9News to an estimated 1.2 million viewers. She also appeared on the Bay Area's ABC7 News as part of their coverage of the BlogHer conference. Chloe is an aspiring documentary filmmaker who lived in New Zealand for eight years, returning to Wisconsin last year, where she resides with her parents and two sisters.
I invite you learn How I Money With Free Blogs By visiting
www.makemoneybanc.blogspot.com now.
