But where do you put AdSense!?! Can we just slap it in any old place we like?
Well, you could. And if you’re lucky you might get some clicks by blindly placing AdSense anywhere on your page. But our purpose is to make money from AdSense, so we need to optimize the best we can. Luckily for us, the nice folks at Google have given us a diagram that does just this – optimize.
Google has labeled this their “Heat Map”, and the darker the colors the better the placement. As you can see the best areas for ad placement happen above what’s known as “The Fold”. The fold is the viewing area that is first seen when a user visits your site. Typically this will include the header, navigation system, and some of your content. Therefore you DO NOT want to place your ads in the footer as it’s unlikely your audience will click on those. What you want to do is place the AdSense near rich content areas that readers are going to be drawn to. In most cases (as shown in the picture) this will be near the header, navigation, and content.
Think about it - If you were going to have a garage sale, would you put the garage sale signs in your backyard? Well not if you want to make some money off your 1980’s Prince albums. No, most likely you’re going to strategically place them around your neighborhood; in areas where you will get the most views. Google AdSense placement is no different. You need to carefully pick your spots in a way that will: 1.) Be viewable to the user and 2.) Not be overly distracting. In future articles I’ll talk about how you can further optimize your AdSense, but for now understanding the hot zones is crucial.
