Adsense is one of the most used revenue generators for blogs and websites. Typically you can improve your click-through rate and overall earnings by positioning your ads wisely, by optimizing the ad units or by improving the content targeting. Below I share how to optimize the Adsense units with 8 simple tips:

1. The top three performing ad units are: 336×280 large rectangle, 300×250 inline rectangle and 160×600 wide skyscraper. Consider using those units if possible, but understand that other formats might be more suitable for your design.
2. The most successful link color is blue. This fact is connected with the roots of the Internet where all major websites used to feature blue links.  Readers recognize blue as being “clickable”
3. You can also use a link color that matches the pattern and theme of your website.
4. Blend (no border, same background) your Adsense units if your website has a light color scheme and contrast (border, contrasting background) the units if you are using a dark color scheme
5. If the ads are placed within the content, avoid using borders. Ad units outside of the content can use borders to call attention.
6. Consider removing the “Advertise on this site” message from your units. This can be done on the control panel under the “My Account” section, disabling the “Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up” feature.
7. If your website has mainly repeat visitors (like community boards) you can rotate the background color of the units to reduce ad blindness
8. Test! Every site is unique so make sure you test with different colors and formats and track the results to fine tune your Adsense units.

There are two major types of business models that entrepreneurs use to make money blogging. The first and most common way to turn a blog into a profit making machine is to sell advertising to different companies and brands who want to reach that blog’s readers. The second kind of money making blog is one that helps a single brand improve its image by creating positive associations between the blog and the product in the mind of consumers. Both kinds of blogs can make a lot of money, especially if the creator has a keen mind for marketing.

If you are blogging with the goal of selling advertising, there are two basic ways that you can go about recruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site; you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or you can do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue. Within the first group, many people make money blogging by selling space through Google’s AdSense program. The advantages of this program are numerous, as it requires very little effort on the part of the blogger or webmaster to begin raking in profits. However, most people discover that they make less money through this method than they had hoped that their blog would earn.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to put banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can take quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If you have a lot of contacts in industries that are related to the topic of your blog, you may want to try to go this route. People who have a strong background in sales and are experienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bit of money by renting blog space to interested companies. The most serious problem with this model is that you often have to build quite a sizable readership before you can attract advertisers, which can mean that you have to do several months of work before you start to make money blogging.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative business, a lot of established companies are considering how they can get into the action. One way that companies are capitalizing on the blog movement is by having blogs that provide a kind of friendly face for their corporation. Often, a company will employ an established blogger to create a weblog designed specifically to appeal to that company’s customers and to create positive associations with the brand in consumers’ minds. More than one writer who never even dreamed that he or she could make money blogging has been approached by a company and offered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig.

Two people, one in her 50’s – the other in his 70’s are making a good amount of money with Google Adsense!

How does an extra $1,200 – $2,000 per month sound to you?

Check out the full interview on ABC News…Making Money From Home – Google Your Way to Extra Cash

So you want to know how much I make online?

Last summer I was at the top of my game – so that’s what you really want to see, right?

Well, here are a couple of screenshots – First is a screenshot of my Paypal account from July and August, 2008 showing payments received of $9199.00 (note: all payments received could not be captured in a single screenshot). Second is a screenshot of my Google Adsense account for the same timeframe – that image shows payments received totaling $1751.37.

That doesn’t include the checks I received in the mail that average about $500 per month.

That brings my total income for July and August 2008 to: $11,450

I’m not sharing this information to be boastful or bragging – I’m sharing these details because I want people to know there are ways to make money online while working from home. It would be easy for me to offer up some heavy hitting sales pitch trying to get you to buy into my tales of success, but for me, the greatest proof and sense of security came from seeing the proof of income from other internet professionals who inspired me to succeed.

So tell me, do you think making money online is possible? 

Feel free to ask questions you may have. I’ll answer them as best I can.