ThemeFlash : The Quality Web Resources: March 2009

The bad economy and company layoffs are dominating today’s news. Even international freelancers who may have clients in the US are directly or indirectly affected by this market. There are conflicting reports on whether or not this positively or negatively effects freelancers. Some claim that it’s a positive thing since companies tend to let their full-timers go to save on salary, insurance etc. Other sources claim the recession is hitting freelancers as well since companies tend to trim their advertising and marketing budgets first.

The silver lining of this storm cloud is that many industries are actively recruiting and hiring freelancers. This article by Jaime Mintun of Freelance Switch offers many good industries to keep your eye on. Some may be familiar, some may be new to you.

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Google AdSense is a simple and low-risk way for publishers to quickly monetize their content. The pay-per-click ad system has created an opportunity for anyone to instantly have advertising on their website, without the hassle of having to actively sell ad space. AdSense makes up a good portion of the advertising revenue for many websites, and other websites may use AdSense to earn the bulk of their revenues. Either way, AdSense is an excellent system for monetizing your content.

In this post we present an ultimate collection of resources, tools and tips to help you make the most out of Google AdSense. Among other things, this post covers various Google AdSense tools, Firefox-extensions, WordPress-plugins and related resources.

1. Google AdSense Tools

iPhone AdSense Statistics Application

SenseApp is a program that lets you track your Google Adsense earnings on your Apple iPhone.

AdSense Earnings Tool

Free and fast tool to monitor adsense earnings in realtime. This tool posts all the correct post fields to Googles universal Account Services login and collects information about your earnings. You’ll able to see today, yesterday, this month and since last payment earnings. You don’t need to log in to Google anymore.

Google AdSense Toolbox

Type any web page URL (e.g. cnn.com) or keywords (e.g. web development), select a country (optional) and hit Enter to see the latest Google Ads that are contextual and geo-targeted.

Google AdSense Preview Tool

an addition to the right-click menu for Windows Internet Explorer 6.x, allowing you to preview the ads that may show on any webpage. With just a few clicks, you can see what ads may appear on your new webpages, or make an educated decision on whether to add AdSense to your existing site pages.

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

The search-based keyword tool allows you to find high-paying keywords to target, based on the domain name you specify.

Google Traffic Estimator

The Google Traffic Estimator is an easy way to determine the search volume of certain keywords, and it shows related keywords and their volumes as well.

SpyFu

SpyFu allows you to look up any website and see how much it is spending on AdSense, how it ranks for each keyword, and which keywords it buys. The tool is quite useful for researching competitors.

adsblacklist

Identify and block low-paying advertisers and increase ROI with AdSense.

2. Google AdSense Online Tools

Contextual Ads Preview/Comparison Tool

This comparison tools comes in handy when you compare AdSense ads to those of other advertisement services (Chitika, Yahoo). You also have the ability to customize the colors and view what ads a certain URL would be likely to display.

Google AdSense Calculator

This AdSense Calculator is designed to help you to predict changes in your earnings depending on improvement (or deterioration) of Page Impressions, Click Through Rate and Cost Per Click. You can download further calculators here.

WordTracker

During the search, people use different keywords. Using this tool, you can find the most effective words before deciding what content to include on your page. Not free, but the free trial is available.

Traffic Estimator Sandbox

To use this tool, you need an AdWords account. This traffic estimator helps you to figure out what keywords result in the highest paying AdSense ads (more details on uphook).

Pubmatic

While Pubmatic isn’t strictly an AdSense tool, it will definitely help you earn more money from your website by optimizing your ads. With each page view, Pubmatic determines whether showing an AdSense ad or an ad from a different network would be best, based on the CPM.

AlterNut Ad

Instead of earning nothing from the PSA ads that Google fills the page with when it has no ads to show, earn a set fee by giving AlterNut Ad your unused PSA ads.

3. Google AdSense Firefox Extensions

AdSense Notifier

This extension displays your AdSense earnings in the status bar.

AdSense Preview

Check what Google ads would be displayed if they were shown on a particular page with this preview tool.

Money Quake

Money Quake allows you to see your real-time earnings for many popular advertising programs, including AdSense.

GraphSense

GraphSense gives you a visual look at your AdSense reports by adding graphs to the interface. As of this post, the extension is still classified as “experimental,” so you’ll have to log in to Mozilla to install it.

4. Official AdSense Resources

Google has provided some official tools and resources to help publishers get started with AdSense.

Google AdSense Help Center

A database of questions and answers about the AdSense program.

Inside AdSense Blog

The official AdSense blog. Find news, tips and other features about the ad system here.

AdSense Community Forum

Have an AdSense question? Ask a community of publishers and the AdSense team.

Official Optimization Tips

A collection of tips provided by the AdSense team.

Official AdSense Channel on YouTube

Instructional videos and interviews by successful AdSense publishers.

Interest-based advertising with Google AdSense

Just recently Google announced the launch of interest-based advertising. This help section addresses the new mechanism and explains how you can benefit from it.

5. Getting Started with AdSense

Because of the popularity of AdSense, many so-called “experts” out there try to give “inside information” or sell their secrets in the form of ebooks. If you’re truly a beginner to AdSense, use the official AdSense help database that Google provides.

Here are some “getting started” articles by a few trusted authors.

Problogger’s AdSense Tips for Bloggers

Darren Rowse’s excellent eight-part series will get you well on your way to making money from AdSense.

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Effective AdSense Link Units Optimization

A great rundown of the different types of link units and how they’re best used in a website layout.

Where Should I Place Google Ads on my Page?

The Google AdSense team has made a helpful map showing the different regions of a website layout where AdSense units perform the best.

6. Optimization Tips

Like any ad system, AdSense can be optimized to generate more clicks and revenue. Here are some tips to help boost AdSense performance.

Adsense Success Stories

Several examples of websites that increased their earnings significantly with Adsense. The success stories talk a lot about ad optimization, etc.

Google AdSense Tips

Google Blogscoped provides an excellent collection of AdSense tips based on its experience with implementing Google ads.

My top 5 tips for increasing adsense earnings (without increasing traffic)

Experiment with color and position, use different adverts for different dates, use content targeting, referrals and take care of the SEO.

Eye-Tracking Studies by Jakob Nielsen

Great eye-tracking examples that show where users’ eyes start and end up on a page.

Adsense Tips, Layout Optimization Tricks for Higher CTR

A collection of excellent do’s and don’ts for new publishers, as well as advice for more advanced AdSense users.

Rotate Google AdSense Ad Colors : Reduce Ad Blindness

One of the many enemies of publishers who rely on ads is banner blindness. Rotating ad colors is a good way to combat banner blindness, resulting in more clicks on ads.

Google AdSense Tips, Tricks and Secrets

Popular SEO blogger Michael Gray has an extensive post on various AdSense tips and performance boosters.

How to Display Ads Only to Search Visitors

Click-through ratios are much higher if you show your AdSense units only to visitors who were referred by search engines. Here’s an article on how to implement that functionality on your website.

Using the Competitive Ad Filter to Increase AdSense Earnings

Learn how to block made-for-AdSense websites as competitors, allowing only the best and most relevant ads to show on your units.

100 Google AdSense Tips

While this article is a few years old, it still has some very valuable tips on how to optimize Google AdSense. Perfect for the beginner.

20+ Practical and Ethical Tips to Earn More Revenue from Google AdSense

eTechBuzz shows us some useful and ethical AdSense tips.

Blogmitize!

The Official AdSense Blog has a post on how to make the most money from your blog layout.

Little Known ‘Boring’ Websites that Make Incredible Money with AdSense

An article highlighting that nearly anyone with a niche website can make money from AdSense.

7. AdSense WordPress Themes

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, so it’s no surprise that a few themes come AdSense-ready, with ad placements already determined.

8. AdSense WordPress Plug-Ins

If you want to integrate AdSense in your existing website, here are some plug-ins to help display your ads.

AdSense Manager

The AdSense Manager widget allows for the automatic creation of AdSense ad zones on your WordPress blog. The plug-in also supports other ad networks, such as YPN, AdBrite and Commission Junction.

Easy AdSenser

Easy AdSenser is a feature-filled plug-in that allows you to easily insert AdSense into your posts and layout. It has an extremely user-friendly interface, with lots of features that make adding AdSense much easier than it is with other plug-ins.

AdSense Revenue Sharing

Share AdSense earnings with co-authors using the AdSense Revenue Sharing plug-in.

All in One AdSense and YPN

Use the All in One AdSense and YPN plug-in to automatically insert YPN and AdSense ads into your existing blog posts.

AdSense Under Image

If a post has an image, this plug-in automatically inserts an AdSense block under the image.

AdSense Deluxe 2

Another plug-in to automatically insert AdSense ad units into blog posts.

Google AdSense for Feeds

A simple plug-in that places AdSense in your blog’s feed.

Ozh’ Who Sees Ads

Determines what type of visitor will see ads on your website. This plug-in allows publishers to hide ads from regular visitors and show them only to search visitors.

9. AdSense Books

If you’re looking for an entire collection of tips and advice on making the most out of AdSense, you might want to try a print book instead. Plenty of excellent AdSense articles are available online, but on the whole, it is easier to find more accurate information in print media. Here are some of the most popular books on AdSense.

The Best Damn Google AdSense Book

Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with AdSense, AdWords and the Google APIs

The AdSense Code

Google AdSense Secrets

The Google AdSense Millionaire

10. AdSense Forums and Communities

Webmaster World AdSense Forum

The WMW forum is by far the best forum for getting expert advice on AdSense. A member of the Google AdSense team actually reviews all the threads and answers questions, so the information is legitimate.

Digital Point AdSense Forum

Digital Point’s AdSense forum isn’t as strict as the Webmaster World forum, so there is a lot of engagement but less experienced users and less informed advice.

Jowl Comm’s AdSense Chat

SEOChat

SEOChat doesn’t have an entire forum dedicated to Google AdSense, but it does have a thriving forum for affiliate marketing in which many AdSense topics come up on a regular basis.

11. Those Against AdSense

It’s always a good practice to hear the other side of the story when rounding up resources on a topic, especially one as controversial as AdSense. Many experts argue that AdSense isn’t the best choice for publishers to monetize their content. Here are a few articles that criticize AdSense.

Dear AdSense, You Broke My Heart

Problogger Darren Rowse’s open letter to AdSense about why he was disappointed in its decision to change the referral policy for publishers outside the US.

Have You Weaned Your Blog from AdSense Yet?

A convincing argument for moving from AdSense’s cost-per-click structure to CPM ads and other affiliate programs.

Why You Can’t Make Money Blogging

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark provides some compelling reasons to ditch AdSense and sell products that solve real-world problems.

10 Reasons Why People Hate Google AdSense

A round-up of thought-provoking reasons as to why Google ads repel publishers. Some of the reasons include: the ads are ugly, Adsense is everywhere, poor email support with the Google team and many others.