Don't Use The Word 'Ads' - It's A Dirty Word

I want to tell you a secret. Don't tell anyone - unless
you want to forward this email onto another website
owner you know who would benefit from this advice. ;o)

Here's the deal;

The best way to boost your AdSense clickthrough rate is to
stop thinking of the ads as ads. The moment you do this
you start to see the whole thing in a new way.

Think about this logically for a moment. You're surfing on
the Internet and you see something that is unmistakably an
ad. What do you do?

a) Rush over to click on the ad because you love those
things

b) Laugh excitedly at the prospect of being taken away from
the interesting content you're reading

c) Ignore it saying to yourself "that's an ad"

It's c) right? Well I hope it is! But the point is -
people hate ads, we're all suffering from ad-blindness,
ad-avoidance and ad-overload. So what if you could make
your AdSense ads look less like ads and more like helpful
snippets of information?

Woah there Michael! You're scaring me now, what are you
suggesting to me?

All I'm saying is that if you put this theory at the heart
of your mission to build a cash-generating AdSense empire
you will get there before everyone else.

Alright Michael - how can I do this? Give me some examples!

Look, I don't want to give ALL my methods away because I've
saved that for serious, dedicated people who buy the videos
(nudge, nudge!) but here's some tip-ettes;

- Don't use the standard Google colour scheme, it just
screams "I am an ad, hate me and ignore me!"

- Get a picture in your mind of what the most typical ads
look like on the web then create your AdSense ads so that
they are exactly the opposite

- Ads are garish creatures that like to be bright, loud and
stand out in a crowd. We all know this. So making your
AdSense ads exactly the opposite means they can 'sneak under
the radar'

- You've seen a boxing match right? Where's all the action?
In the middle. In the ring. Where are the ads that are
paraded around between rounds? In the ring - the centre of
everyone's attention. Where's the 'action' on each of your
pages? Your ads need to be in the same place.

Let's just be clear about this. I'm not talking about
misleading your visitors. I'm just saying that you need to
have ads that don't look like the standard ads people
expect to see. Obviously your visitors will still know they
are ads because they'll have the 'Ads by Google' text next
to them.

This is not about pulling the wool over visitor's eyes - it's
about creating a browsing experience which makes them feel at
ease rather than on edge.