How To Create A Google Adsense Advertisement

Create Ad Channels So That You Can See Which Pages Make Money

Following on from the previous section. In this section I will show you how to create a Google AdSense Advertisement using your new Google Adsense Account.

The first thing to do, now that you have the adsense account, is to sign in to it by taking your web browser to https://www.google.com/adsense/. Once you have done that you then need to go through a short and simple set up process whereby you agree to the terms and conditions of google adsense basically.

Fig 1.0  Read through these google adsense Terms & Conditions before clicking on the AGREE buttons

It is very important that you read the Terms & Conditions thoroughly before deciding whether or not to agree to them. If you do agree to them select the I HAVE READ AND ACCEPT THE ABOVE TERMS AND CONDITIONS radio (circle) button and then click on the standard button marked CONTINUE TO MY ADSENSE ACCOUNT. Otherwise. Click on the radio (circle/dot) button marked NO, I DO NOT ACCEPT THE ABOVE TERMS AND CONDITIONS and then on the standard button marked SIGN OUT OF ADSENSE.

When you agree to the Terms & Conditions you are automatically sent to a web page where you are asked to update and save certain account settings. This depends on what is happening with google adsense and its settings/policies at the time. For example. When I joined I was asked to update my Newsletter status (whether or not I wanted to join the Newsletter) and so on (Fig 1.1 below).

If this is the case for you, simply fill in the settings as you see fit before clicking on the SAVE CHANGES button. In this example I ticked all the options in order to get the most out of google adsense. Something I recommend you do. You may be invited to online seminars for example that give advice/tips on how to improve your advertisements and so on.

Fig 1.1  Select or Deselect the options as you see fit before clicking on the SAVE CHANGES button

Once the above is taken care of you will then be taken to your google adsense Control Panel, on the Reports Tab (window). So the next step is to click on the MY ACCOUNT Tab which will offer you its standard settings/options (below).

Fig 1.2  The google adsense tabs (control panels) with many options/settings

The beauty of google adsense is that most of its general settings/options do not need modifying. They can be left on their default values. So when you see the adsense control panel (tabs) for the first time you can click straight on the MY ACCOUNT Tab and edit the settings under the AD DISPLAY PREFERENCE heading for example without worrying about the other standard settings/options.

Saying this. You should familiarise yourself with the standard settings/options just so that know how some of the google adsense features work - There is plenty to read about though!

Fig 1.3  Click on the EDIT link to edit general, default, advertisement display preferences

In the AD DISPLAY PREFERENCES you need to make sure the default setting of DISPLAY TEXT AND IMAGE ADS IN ALL AD UNITS is selected, so you can display text only advertisements, image only advertisements and a combination of both. It gives you more scope revenue-wise.

As you go into the settings/options, in general, you may have to click on the following security requester's YES button in order to continue with what you are doing. These security requesters are frequent, and can become annoying, but are obviously needed to protect your google adsense account. So whenever you see one just click on its YES button to continue.

Fig 1.4  Click on the YES button to continue

With the initial set up of settings/options/preferences out of the way you can now create an advert-isement template. You have no control of what google will insert into your template, advertisement-wise, but you can control the size, shape and colour of the advertisement template used.

CREATE  AN  AD UNIT (Advertisement Template)

Begin by selecting the ADSENSE SETUP Tab and then click on the ADSENSE FOR CONTENT link. ADSENSE FOR CONTENT allows you to create classic looking google advertisements that are targeted towards your website's (or blog's) content or its audience. For example. Some of my google advertisements are aimed at web hosting whilst others are aimed at website tools.

Fig 1.5  Click on the ADSENSE FOR CONTENT link to continue

These advertisements can either be in a LINK UNIT (bulk links) format or in an AD UNIT (bulk advert-isements) format depending on which option you select.

In Fig 1.5 below I have selected to use an AD UNIT (bulk advertisements), with TEXT AND IMAGE ADS, within one advertisement template. Or put anther way. Up to three advertisements within one template that is made up of text and/or image advertisements. When you have selected your UNIT option click on the CONTINUE button to proceed.

Fig 1.6  Select AD UNIT and then click on the CONTINUE button to continue

Just to clarify. A UNIT is simply a set of advertisements (usually three advertisements) that are displayed within one advertising box/area (template). So a LINK UNIT is basically a group of links displayed inside one bordered/boxed area whereas an AD UNIT is basically a set of advertisements that are displayed inside one bordered/boxed area.

CHOOSE  A  FORMAT  FOR  YOUR  ADVERTISEMENT  TEMPLATE

The next page to appear (below), after clicking on the CONTINUE button (above), allows you to select the actual size and shape for your google advertisement template (AD UNIT). Clicking on the FORMAT drop-down gives you multiple choices - Horizontal, Vertical or Square and Small, Medium and Large.

I have decided on a large, horizontal, advertisement template because of the way my web pages are layed out and the same should apply when deciding upon the format of your own google advertisement template (AD UNIT). Consider your web page layout. Would a small square advertisement be better than a large rectangle advertisement? When you have selected a suitable format you then need to select a colour scheme for it (Fig 1.8 below).

Fig 1.7  Select the format (size and shape) for your google advertisement template (ad unit)




Fig 1.8  Select a colour scheme (palette) for your google advertisement template (ad unit)

After choosing your format you then choose the colours you want to use for your google advertisement template (ad unit). There are three ways to choose/modify your colours. 1) Select a colour palette from the COLOURS drop-down menu (Fig 1.8 above). 2) Click on a default colour and then change it by selecting a colour from the pop-up colours palette (below). Or 3) Click inside the HEX-DECIMAL VALUE edit box of a default colour and then modify its hex-decimal colour value (not shown here).

Fig 1.9  Click on a default colour and change it by selecting a new colour from the pop-up palette

When using method 2, as described above; As you hover over a colour in the colours palette the Sample ad's colour (on the left of the page) may change depending on which default colour (colour box) you are choosing to modify (i.e. the Background colour). Regardless of which method you use though you can save your modified colour scheme as a colour palette by clicking on the SAVE AS NEW PALETTE link and choosing a name for it.

In this example I saved my colour scheme as WCH, which means I can use that colour scheme/palette later with other google advertisement templates (ad units) I create.

The next changable component of a google ad is its font (below). Simply select a new Font Family (i.e. Times New Roman) from the FONT FAMILY drop-down menu and then a new Font Size from the FONT SIZE drop-down menu, if need be, before clicking on the CONTINUE button to proceed.

Google highly recommends that you use their default fonts because they have been proven to work for your google advertisement type. And as they know best!..... Saying this of course. If you feel that a certain font would give your google advertisements a boost then go ahead and change the default font to something better.

Fig 1.10  Change the proven-to-work default font if you feel another font would work better!

The last component to change on this page, if you want to, is the bordering of your google advertisement template (above). Simply click on the CORNER STYLES drop-down menu and then select either the SQUARE CORNERS, SLIGHTLY ROUNDED CORNERS or VERY ROUNDED CORNERS menu-item to continue. In this example I have chosen VERY ROUNDED CORNERS.

After modifying your google advertisement template's appearance (Format, Colours, Fonts and Border Corner Style) click on the CONTINUE button at the bottom of the page to continue. Doing so will take you to the Channels set up page (Fig 1.11 below).

SETTING  UP  THE  CHANNELS

A channel is simply a label/identifier you set up in order to track/identify your adsense data, from within your google adsense control panel. For example. If your website is split into three sections, such as Products, Services and General Information, you could create a different channel (label/identifier) for each section. You could also create a different google advertisement template for each section.

This means you could have - Google Ad #1; Red and Square with a channel called Products; Google Ad #2; Yellow and Rectangle with a channel called Services; And Google Ad #3; Blue and Default with a channel called General Information. These channels (labels) are only for google advertisement statistics. They are nothing to do with the actual displaying of each google advertisement.

To create a custom channel begin by clicking on the ADD NEW CHANNEL link (Fig 1.11 below). This will bring up internet explorer's Information Bar (Fig 1.12) that asks you to temporarily allow the Script Window to pop-up (Fig 1.13).

Fig 1.11  Click on the ADD NEW CHANNEL link to continue




Fig 1.12  The Information Bar - Select the TEMPORARILY ALLOW SCRIPTED WINDOWS menu-item

The script window needs you to enter a name for your custom channel. So hover over the information bar and click on the TEMPORARILY ALLOW SCRIPTED WINDOWS menu-item. And from there, enter a name for your custom channel inside the edit box of the script window before clicking on its OK button. Doing so will create the custom channel for you and add it to the All Channels list.

Fig 1.13  Enter the name you want to use for this custom channel (custom label/identifier)

When naming your custom channel think of the advertiser to some degree because google offers a feature called Ad Placement that basically allows you to target advertisers according to the placement of your google advertisements. This is ideal for someone placing google advertisements all over their website or for someone who has many google advertisements in one place.

Ad Placement is more for a business website than a hobby website for example. For more information on Ad Placement read What Is An Ad Placement? and How Placements Work.

Fig 1.14  When your custom channel is inside the YOUR SELECTED CHANNELS box click on CONTINUE

After creating a custom label it is automatically listed in the ALL CHANNELS list (above) and possibly in the YOUR SELECTED CHANNELS box too. However. If it is not automatically listed in the YOUR SELECTED CHANNELS box, for whatever reason(s), you will need to click on the ADD link next to its name.

In the example above my WCH - Features custom channel was automatically listed in the YOUR SELECTED CHANNELS box and therefore gives me the option to REMOVE it from that list. If it was only listed in the ALL CHANNELS list it would of had an ADD link next to it instead of a REMOVE link, in which case I would of had to click on that ADD link in order to add it to the YOUR SELECTED CHANNELS box.

Anyway. Once your custom channel has been added to the box click on the CONTINUE button to continue.

MULTIPLE  CHANNELS

Google Adsense allows you to add up to five custom channels per google advertisement template (ad unit), known as Multiple Custom Channels, with the idea being that you could monitor the statistics for a google advertisement at the bottom of a web page and a google advertisement at the top of a web page. However, this is an advanced technique that is not really ideal for an absolute beginner or for someone who is just creating a straight forward ad unit. Hence why I will not be delving into that area of google adsense.

If you are interested in that area though read the Multiple Custom Channels google help page for more information.

THE  ADVERTISEMENT  TEMPLATE  CODE

With your custom channel now created (when you clicked on CONTINUE) the last thing to do is give your ad unit (template) a name before grabbing its code. In this example (below) I have given my ad unit the name WCH - Features - Leaderboard.

So my custom channel, called WCH - Features, is used as a statistics identifier within my google adsense control panel and my actual google advertisement template (ad unit) is called WCH - Features - Leaderboard. It is important you see these as two separate entities. Meaning. You can edit your ad units from within the control panel (nothing to do with the custom channel) and you can monitor statistics by custom channel name (nothing do to with ad unit editing, etc).

Anyway! When you have given your ad unit a name click on the SUBMIT AND GET CODE button to continue.

Fig 1.15  Enter a name for your ad unit and then click on the SUBMIT AND GET CODE button




Fig 1.16  SELECT ALL of the code and then COPY it into memory, ready for pasting into your web page(s)

Fig 1.16 shows the code for my rectangle ad unit (template). Once the code has been copied into memory I simply paste it into all the Features web pages where I want a google advertisement to appear.

To highlight/select all of the code simply right click inside the CODE edit box, to bring up the options (context) menu, and then left click on the SELECT ALL menu-item. From there. Right click over the selected/highlighted code, to bring up the options menu again, and then left click on the COPY menu-item. This will copy the code into memory where it can then be PASTEd, time and time again, into a web page.

You should also paste it into a text editor, such as Notepad, and then save it as a text file called leaderboard_ad.txt for example. Anytime you want to use that code again you can simply copy it from the notepad file. Alternatively. You can come back to your google adsense control panel and re-copy the code. Whichever you find the easiest. When you have pasted your code into a web page and uploaded that web page to your website you should relax and let the earnings flow!

You should NEVER EVER CLICK ON YOUR OWN GOOGLE ADS though - Google will penalise you for doing so. You are not allowed to earn yourself money by clicking on your own google ads.

WHERE  TO  PLACE  AD  UNITS (Advertisements)

One thing you should do with your ad units (google advertisement positions) is Experiment. Try them in different colours, different border shapes, in different positions on your web page(s) and so on. Find out what works for your particular web page or website in general.

You might feel that your visitors will appreciate being able to read your web page content first before being shown a google advertisement and therefore place ad code at the bottom of your web pages. On the other hand you might think by putting ad code at the bottom your visitors will read the juicy bits of your web page content only and therefore not bother reading towards the bottom. Or you might think a google advertisement (ad code) in the middle of a web page spoils it for the visitor. Dilemmas, Dilemma's!!

MORE  HELP  -  MORE  LEARNING!

With google adsense being so multi-layered it is impossible for me to cover every aspect of it. It would require a book load of web pages for me to cover everything and I would probably end up being a google guru, which I would not have the time for. Hence by the way why universities these days are doing courses purely on one aspect of something (i.e. Microsoft Excel, Google Adsense, Computer Repairs, Etc), simply because one aspect has become so huge. All is not lost though. Google does give a book load of help on their Inside Adsense blog, with some vital reading and viewing: