Very recently I had been considering 2 different ad networks to see exactly what it was all about. One of those ad networks is Google Adwords and although I’ve read many articles about Adwords I’d never used any myself. So I thought it was a good time to jump in and try it out.

First off I’ve created one campaign for one blog. I used Google’s Keyword tool to help me with choosing a bunch of relevant keywords that were directly related to the blog’s topic.

After choosing numerous keywords, I found the steps to actually getting the ad campaign going were quite easy. I won’t go in detail about the steps to create an adwords campaign but will just say that it was very straight forward.

So far my ad has just been running for a couple of days and I’m just starting to look at the reports generated. I’ve found many of Google’s tools have become very valuable in different ways. Adwords seems like another one of those valued tools. Although I’m very new to Adwords I find the reports generated are pretty good.

My ad is simply a text based but I’m tempted to try a visual banner ad…

I also found this video that shows how you can use their templates. This video makes me want to try it out! Enjoy.

I’ve wondered this same thing.

Does the size of my website affect it Google rank? If I have 10000 pages vs 100 pages, will I rank higher?

Here’s a clip by Google Webmaster Central to give us an answer.

And of course, I would have to add that if you have 10000 pages and your blog has a regular readership then of course your chances of ranking higher are greater. Simply having a ton of content really means nothing in Google’s eyes. And thank God it is that way. Just imagine find a bunch of websites that are made simply to echo keywords. It would render search engines such as Google literally useless.

About a week ago I wrote an article titled “Great Internet research tool – Google Alerts” and that it was a very valuable tool for anyone who were doing research online. Today my focus is on another great tool, Google Reader.

For anyone not familiar with Google Reader it is an RSS reader that allows you to easily keep track of blogs, news sites, job sites…. any site that offers RSS feeds. Essentially when one of the sites your tracking is updated it will show up in Google Reader in a short time. This means you don’t have to constantly visit the websites that interest you to see if they’ve been updated which can save you quite a bit of time and makes it very convenient.

I use Google Reader on a daily basis. I have been for a couple of years.

There are a great number of different topics that I follow, like technology, news, business bloggers, sports news and sports bloggers…etc. Google Reader gives me the ability to check for new content from many many different sites all in one place. If it wasn’t for these RSS feeds and a program like Google Reader I don’t think I would follow nearly as many websites. I would have to be constantly “surfing” from one site to another.

I’m easily able to view new content and read the articles I want to read all in one place and in much less time.

Another big advantage that I find with Google Reader is that it is web based. This means that I don’t need to download a program and install it on my Mac or my PC. So I just visit it in a web browser.

You can create folders to categorized the sites you are following. I find this makes it quite a bit easier to sort through.

All you need is a Google account, you can find the Google Reader website here.

When I first started to look at learning to develop some websites to create a passive income I read a few articles by some people who had succeeded in their ventures. In one of the very first articles there was mention of testing different things… one of which was ad placement. So I tried it and saw that numbers reacted very soon after.

On one site in particular I had decided to try the experiment of placing Google AdSense ads in different locations and see how it affected the site’s eCPM. I was inspired to try this after reading John Chow’s article “How to make more money online”.

I had a wide skyscraper banner ad on a site and decided to take it out. The skyscraper banner was a bit low on the page, so I put a 250 x 250 square ad higher on the site then the skyscraper was and also moved a 468 x 60 banner to a different location.

I used this Google AdSense ad placement tip and figured the new placement might be better.

To my amazement my eCPM started going down. It actually went way down. I figured I would leave the ads “as is” for several more hours just to see if it would in fact change but it didn’t. It got a little worse.

So by the day’s end I had decided to revert to the way it was and I did that. After reverting it I had the idea of rearranging the navigation menu so that the skyscraper would be a little higher then it had been previously.

After several hours in it’s new position there was a change, going back to being consistent with where the eCPM had been prior to my experiment and to my surprise it has actually increased in the days that followed. It’s still not very high but I have noticed that since placing the skyscraper just a bit higher it (the eCPM) is now averaging higher then it had.

From what I’ve been reading there are several factors that go into what the eCPM number is for a website. So I’m not expecting it to reach really high numbers but it helps to motivate me by reading great information (such as that article by John Chow) and by experimenting.. and learning by it.

It’s not rocket science… but it takes time and effort!

Related article:
How to place website ads – my beginning

Another aspect of creating websites that generate revenu is advertising and where to put those ads.

One one of my other blogs that I’ve had for several years I thought I’d have fun a couple of years back and just threw some adds up on there wondering if it would ever pay anyting out. Having heard (and read) so many “I got rich on the internet… it’s really easy… you can’t miss” type stories I figured I’d throw some on.

But as some may have guessed those ads never performed well. There are a few reasons for this.
1. I have written quite a bit of content on that blog but I would write about any subject under the sun.
2. I had never thought about ad placement what so ever.
3. I had never tried to participate

I believe there is a balance and this is my own personal opinion.

I personally enjoy reading blogs where the author’s text is easy to read. I don’t mind at all if he or she has ads on the website. It’s part of the business.

But when there are ads everywhere, for me as a reader, it turns me off. That’s not to say that if there is one or 2 advertisements in an articles content that it bothers me. Because it doesn’t. We’ve all seen the countless adsense ads embedded in text, in fact you’ll find some here.

I’ve seen websites where there are multiple ads in the articles text, in the sidebars, the top, the bottom… all over. Sometimes there are so many text ad links all around the article that it confuses the eye. Maybe that is part of the psychology in these website’s design, to somehow trick or confuse a visitor to click a link.

I find this a bad approach from a personal stand point.

On my personal blog I was approached by someone who wanted to pay me X amount to put some text in the bottom of some articles that would link to their sites. At first I thought about it and I really didn’t want any of these links to point towards anything I would object to. In the end I had pretty much decided to do it but then I thought about it some more. The idea of putting some “dummy” text in the bottom of something that I had written just to bump up a website’s ranking didn’t appeal to me. The main reason for this is that it would somehow cheapen what I had attempted to write.

I believe in trying to present quality. I think it’s important. At least, if I visit your website I think quality is important.

Helpful tools for ad placement?

Well, you can have a look at this  page:
Where should I place Google ads on my pages?

I’m not going to give any specific examples of what I personally dislike, but I will give an example of a website that has many advertisements and is still easy to navigate. Has a nice flow too.

It’s John Chow’s website. There are tons of great articles on his site and it has a nice balance between the content he presents along with the ads that are displayed.