You’re now in a position where you understand ad formats and you can generate
the ad code. Does that mean you’re all set? Far from it. You still need to
figure out precisely where to put all that nice HTML code you’ve just generated
on your page and watch the dollars ad up.
In Chapter 2, I point you to the AdSense help pages for information on code
placement. If you made your way through those pages, you may already know
where to put your code, but if you’re like me, you haven’t made it over there
yet, so you’re still clueless. No worries. I help you get up to speed right now.
Getting code where you want it
How you place the AdSense code on your site depends on how you’re accessing
the HTML for your Web site. There are two basic ways to do it:
Using a WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) HTML editor: If that’s
your weapon of choice, be sure to switch from Design view to HTML
view.
Using an HTML Insert capability: If your Web site design software
application offers an HTML Insert feature, all you have to do is paste the
HTML into the window provided and click OK.
In both cases, when you view your Web site (or preview your Web site), the
ad should appear. Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that because
you need to know exactly where to paste the code.
If you’re using the HTML editor, you’ll have to navigate your way through
your HTML code. One major landmark to look for involves the body tags
on your Web site.
It’s between those body tags that the code for your AdSense ads should be
placed. If the code doesn’t appear between those body tags, the ads won’t
show up on your Web site.
Now, if you go back and look at the source code for any given Web site
(remember, you do this by choosing View➪Source or View➪View Source Web
from your browser’s main menu), you see that there’s a whole lot of gobbledygook
between the body tags. Basically everything that you see on your site
below the header and above the footer will appear in there somewhere.
Knowing where in that jumble of code to paste your AdSense code makes
all the difference in the world. It takes a little bit of trial and error to get the
code in the right place if you’re not an HTML guru.
If you read through the HTML (don’t panic, after you focus on it for a few
minutes, you begin to see the patterns that translate into a Web site), you’ll
start to see common tags, like div> (which means division) and table>
(which indicates the beginning of a table).
As you begin to see the patterns in your code, you also begin to recognize
where you want to paste the code. For example, if you’re pasting the code
for a leaderboard-sized link unit into your page, you want to paste it immediately
following the opening body tag body. This ensures that the ad gets
placed at the top of the page.
To paste a rectangle text ad into the beginning of an article, paste it immediately
before the first word of the article. And if you want to place an ad in a
sidebar, place it after the division tag for the sidebar.
It’s only slightly different if you’re using a Web design program that allows you
to insert snippets of HTML into your site design. If that’s the kind of program
you’re using, place your cursor or pointer at the place on the page where you
want the HTML snippet to appear, and then select the HTML Insert command
from the main menu. In the window that appears, paste in the code and then
click OK. You can then drag or resize the section that contains the HTML code
until it’s in the exact location where you want it displayed.
When installing the HTML code onto your site, remember that location is
everything. Review the placements that I share with you earlier in the chapter
and try them to see how they work for you. Of course, don’t let those
guidelines become your prison, either. Test different sizes, colors, and locations
until you find the combination that suits your site the best and draws
the most clicks.
Resisting the urge to change the code
When you’re installing your AdSense code, one of the most important things
to remember is that you can’t change the AdSense code in any way. You
can’t add to it, take away from it, or otherwise change it. Period. It’s not only
against the AdSense policies, but it could also render the code useless.
When Google generates code for you to use as a display on your site, there
are some very important elements in that code. Among those elements is
your user ID as well as information that tells Google what ads to display on
your site.
If you start messing with the code, Google might not recognize it and ads
won’t be pushed out to it. Or worse, ads that are completely irrelevant to
your site might be pushed out. At least until Google figures out you monkeyed
with the code — and then you could be banned from the AdSense program
altogether.
So don’t ever mess with the AdSense code. Copy it; paste it; forget it.
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