ALL NETWORK TRICKS

By now you’ve walked through a number of optimization efforts of your actual units and we’ve discussed how a lot of this is generally useless unless you have the right amount and type of traffic.

In fact, optimization of the units is only half the battle – making sure that they are positioned well (like the Blogger’s Adsense Combo) as well as strategically is the other half!

One of the things that you will need to learn about as well as begin to build a strategy around is the 3 Unit Rule:

Many bloggers and Adsense users either are blindly unaware of the 3 Unit Rule or they know about it but haven’t actually spent the time to optimize it properly.

Most simply it’s the rule that you can’t place more than 3 Adsense units on any given page. The rule also applies to text-based ads (3) and search (2). If you do try the advertisements simply won’t show. There have been enough discussions where people try and although they don’t show it may even slow down your blog site – I can’t confirm or deny that this will actually occur but there’s no point in trying in any case.

But what about optimization? That’s the challenge because you have more than one “type” of page on a blog. Here are just a few that you are already familiar with:

And most of them may have sidebars, footer areas, and other content areas for advertisements so the chance of having too many or too few adsense is very possible!

For example, on your homepage you may have one adsense in the header and two in the sidebar. But when you jump into the single post view you might also want one in the content of the blog post as well as one above or below the content area. But wait! You already have on in the header and two in the sidebar meaning that you now are trying to populate the single post view with five adsense ads!

Doh!

Does that mean that you’ll have to give up one of the sidebar advertisements or the header advertisement on the homepage? What should you do? It means that you not only have to spend time testing your spots for conversion but that you have to do a bit of work to make sure that every single page has the right number of Google Adsense ads that you want.

This could require a bit of code, if you’re up for it!

One quick way to do this via WordPress is to use a little “if then” logic:

[cc]
<<>>

<<>>
[/cc]

What this does is shows a specific Adsense advertisement if on the single post view (and only there) and a different one on the home page (and anywhere else this code sits).

You can quickly figure out that this simple logic can make sure that you have the full three advertisements that you’re allowed to have on all your pages on your blog.

You can also start thinking of strategy of how to use this more widely with your other advertisements as well!

One of the natural things to note while we’re talking about traffic, monetization, and especially web metrics is that obsessing over it and constantly checking your Adsense account and metrics will really get you nowhere.

In fact, it might be one of the more unhealthy things you could be doing with your time – there are certainly more important things to be doing with your life (like spending time optimizing!).

But let me be clear that there’s a rational and reasonable justification of why checking daily (or more than once a day) is pretty much fruitless:

What you’re better off doing is establishing a rhythm and schedule of checking and sticking to it. For example, in my BlogX program I’m coaching people to check daily but for less than 5 minutes and at the beginning of their work. And that’s it! Just once to jot down some statistical information.

What we do then is once a month take a look back and begin to formulate significance. This of course begs the question about frequency…

The quick answer is that there is none. There is no one right amount of checking a day, a week, or a month that’s “optimal.” Rather, the most important thing is that it’s both calculated and systematic.

What does that mean? It means that you determine a period of time that works for the goals and the elements that you’re measuring and check during that time. It actually behooves you to stick to that schedule and you can learn a thing or two about self-control!

I think checking once a month is too long and I think checking more than once a day is ridiculous. For my activity for BlogX participants I’m asking them to checkonce daily (to get them in a rhythm of establishing a method and practice) but I personally check my analytics once a week.

Why? I simply have discovered that nothing short of a week is going to give me enough practically to make significant changes to my blog that are warranted. You can’t believe how much time this saves me and how it reduces my stress!

Pick the right frequency that works for you and then stick with it.