There must be 100 books (eBooks and otherwise) on how to "cash in" on Google's AdSense program. Many are what may be termed "black hat" ways to gain revenue. Black hat comes from the old western movies where the good guys had white hats and the bad guys, you guessed it, had black hats.

Interestingly enough, the guys making big bucks in AdSense don't stoop to those tactics. They don't need to.

So if you are looking here for a way to create a gimmick on a page to make people click an ad they would not normally, you won't find it. That's against the Google AdSense Terms of Service.

But there must be ways to better your Click Through Rate, no?

Let's look at a few things that have been proven to "improve" your chances.

I am blessed to live in Naples, Florida. A few days ago I walked to the beach (a few minutes from my front door), and took the picture of the fisherman.

Although it's beautiful, the fisherman is frustrated. Several factors were working against him on this day without a bite. The biggest thing was the effect "Red tide" has had on our fish. To date, over 450 tons of dead fish have been taken to the local landfill.

So right off the bat, the "content" he is fishing in isn't good. In other words, yes, fish are out there, but they are being choked by the algae bloom. Nothing would interest them right now.

Next, I wandered over and asked what bait was he using. He said shrimp. Now shrimp can be good, and I'm not expert on Gulf fishing, but he wasn't getting any bites at all. Might be time to spruce up the bait a little.

We'll call proper bait the "ad size and placement" in our analogy.

I've seen many fisherman at our pier fish for hours with shrimp and not catch a thing. My thinking is the fish just want something else. They are probably blinded by shrimp bait because everyone uses it.

But the biggest factor with our fisherman is that the overall content was absolutely deadly. The fish didn't want to be there and indeed, many were dying to get out.

So how can we get them to bite at your ads?

First - Don't force the ads to look like ads. I have seen countless, and am sure you have, too; countless pages with Google AdSense ads that are the Google default. Remember that Google provides you with tools to make your AdSense look awesome. The best tip: blend the ads in with your page. Make them appear as an integral part of your site.

Second - Use text ads and not image ads. Text blends better. Fish are blind to the same ol' bait. We are blind to banner ads. Don't go there - your visitors certainly won't.

Third - and lastly for today, create awesome content. Don't give your visitors the "red tide". Keep searching for content and make it of value. Some great sites offering free content are: ArticleCity.com, ValuableContent.com, and EzineArticles.com.

Enough for now. Work on making your ads blend with your pages. Concentrate on delivering great content. That's what draws people to your site. And your AdSense Ads will reflect the content as well. Isn't that what you want?

Dave Jackson

Founder of one of the first web hosting companies on the Internet, World Wide Mart, Dave Jackson has been teaching others how to monetize their web sites for over ten years. Currently he teaches others to create a solid residual income by creating quality web sites of great benefit to visitors and monetizing them using contextual ads.