Creating an AdSense Search Box

I’m the first to say that custom search engines are pretty cool, but they’re
not necessary for every Web site. If you don’t need a custom search engine, a
regular AdSense search box works just fine.
I spend some time earlier in this chapter profiling the wizard that helps you
create the search box, and filling you in on your options when it comes to specifying
the types of searches the AdSense search box can perform. Now I want to
show you how to create the search box from A to Z — all the way from specifying
the kind of search box you want to generating the HTML code you need to
place on your Web site so you can finally start earning some money from it. It’s
not too tough — I’d say it’s fifth-grade-science-project easy — and should take
you less time than brewing your first cup of coffee in the morning (unless you
have a Bunn Coffee Maker — those take like three minutes, so you’d have to
hurry to beat one). Here’s how it’s done:
1. Point your browser to www.adsense.com, log on to your AdSense
account, and then click the AdSense Setup tab.
2. On the Setup tab, select the AdSense for Search option.
Doing so calls up the AdSense for Search Wizard (refer to Figure 8-1).
3. In the Search Type section of page, select the radio button corresponding
to the type of search you want the search box to perform: Google
WebSearch or Google WebSearch + SiteSearch.
4. In the Search Box Style section of the page, use the options to customize
the look of your search box.
As Figure 8-13 shows, you have two options for logo styles and several
different combinations of styles that can change the look of your
search box.
Your options include
• Google Logo: If you select the Logo Above Text Box check box, the
Google logo appears above the search box. If you leave this box
deselected, the Google logo appears to the left of the text box.
• “Google Search” on Button: Selecting this option ditches the
Google logo and just puts the Google name on the search button.
• Search Button Below Text Box: If you select this check box, the
Search button (the thing a user clicks to start a search) appears
under the search box. Otherwise, the button appears to the right
of the search box.
• Background color and text color: Here you can use a drop-down
menu to select the color that you want to use as your search box
background — your choices here are white, black, or gray — as
well as specify if you want the text to be black or white.
• Text box length: Here you can choose the number of characters
that you want to allow in the search box. The default is 31 characters,
but you can change that to whatever length suits you.
5. In the More Options section, select the main language for your search
box from the drop-down menu.
This setting refers to the language of your Web site. Visitors can choose
to search in their own native language if it’s different than the one you
select, but you still have to make a choice from more than 30 selections
available in the drop-down menu.
6. Still in the More Options section of the page, choose the site encoding
you’ll use for your Web page from the Your Site Encoding drop-down
menu.
Site encoding here refers to the computer language or code that your site
is created in. (Even if you’re using HTML, there are several versions of
it.) The default is set to West European Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1). If you don’t
know what the encoding for your site is, leave the default in place.
7. Select the country your domain is registered in from the Country
drop-down menu and then click Continue to go to the second page of
the wizard.
The second page,, is where you customize the
look of your search results page.
8. In the second page of the wizard, select the color template you want
to use for the search results page from the drop-down menu at the
center-right.
You have six palettes to choose from, but keep in mind that you can skip
the palettes and just enter hexadecimal numbers for custom colors in
the appropriate text boxes — Border, Title, Background, for example —
to precisely match your Web site. (Chapter 7 has more on hexadecimal
numbers and how you can use them to match the colors of your search
box to the colors on your Web site.)
9. To add your own corporate logo to your search results page, enter the
URL where the logo is located in the Logo Image URL text box.
Note: If you want your logo to appear above the search box, select the
Above Search Box check box. Otherwise, the logo appears to the left of
the box.
10. (Optional) Add a Logo Destination URL.
The Logo Destination URL is optional, but should you decide to use it,
this will link your logo back to a Web page that you specify. That can be
the main page of your Web site or any other page that you choose.
11.
select where you want the search results to appear.
Your choices here are
• On Google, in the Same Window: Opening search results on
Google in the same window replaces your Web page with the
Google page. It’s streamlined — no additional windows are opened
— but it also leads visitors away from your Web site. The concern
with leading visitors away is that they won’t click back and you’ll
lose them completely. The tradeoff is that opening the results on
Google’s pages gives your site visitors confidence that their search
is being done by the best search engine on the Web.
• On Google, in a New Window: Opening search results in a new
window is an excellent way to ensure that your site remains open
for users and that the user also feels the confidence that comes
with seeing Google-logoed pages. A second window (or tab, if you’re
using a Web browser that supports tabbed browsing) opens with
the search results, but your Web site also remains open. When users
finish browsing search results, they can close the window in which
the search results are displayed, but your Web site will still be open.
That’s no guarantee that the visitor will continue surfing your site —
he could close your site, too — but it does leave the possibility that
he’ll continue surfing through your pages.
• On Your Own Web Site: Opening search results on your Web site
keeps the user on your site, but also strips away some of the confidence
that comes with Google search results. The search results
are stylized to match your site, but still contain the Google logo.
They’re just not actual Google pages, which could erode user
confidence some.
12. If you want to enable site-flavored searches, select the Customize the
Type of Search Results I Get to My Site Content check box.
Site-flavored search is a progressive technology — meaning that the
results get more accurate over time — that pulls search results that are
related to the content of your Web site. In the beginning, search results
are more general, but over time the results become more refined and
better related to your site content.
13. If you want to use the SafeSearch option, select the Use SafeSearch
check box.
SafeSearch filters out nearly all the adult content (such as pornography)
from search results.
14. Select a Custom Channel for tracking earning results from the dropdown
menu of custom channels that you’ve created.
Remember, channels are basically a tagging method that allows you to
track specific ads or groups of ads.
15. Select Continue to generate the search box code, as shown in
Figure 8-16, for pasting into your Web site.
nitely
don’t want to go crazy with all the colors. The last thing you want to do
is create a kaleidoscope that gives your site visitors headaches.
A better option is to stick to standard design principles and have a single
color for the background — preferably one that matches the background of
your Web site — and then use no more than three colors in the foreground.
For example, if you have a basic white background for your Web site, that
counts as one color.
Then, you can style your text in black, links that haven’t been clicked as blue,
and links that have been clicked as red. Including the white background, you
have four total colors. Four colors won’t jar the user, and your search results
will still look very professional.
After you generate the code for your search box, copy and paste the code
onto your Web page in the same way that you copy and paste AdSense for
Content code. It may take a little tweaking to get the search box in exactly
the spot you want it, but you can move it around with your HTML editor to
ensure that it appears in the proper place.
AdSense for Search and WordPress
In many ways, WordPress is different from
other kinds of blogging programs. At its core,
WordPress is a good blogging program; but
because it’s so customizable at the code level, it
has much more power than other blogging applications.
That also happens to mean that some
things just aren’t as easy with WordPress.
Installing an AdSense search box in Blogger is
pretty straightforward. You create the search
box in AdSense, copy the code, and use an
HTML widget to insert it in your blog. With
WordPress, the process is much more difficult
and requires that you edit the core code of
the WordPress blog page where you want the
search box to appear.
Here’s an easier way — MightySearch is a
WordPress plugin from MightyHitter (www.
mightyhitter.com) that’s designed to
let you paste in your AdSense for Search code
and it will make the code work properly on your
WordPress blog. The plugin handles all the
details that could take you forever to figure out
if you’re not a WordPress genius.
Adding search capabilities to your site just
makes sense. Chances are that you won’t have
every detail that your site visitors are looking for
on your Web site. Why not make it easy for them
to find what you don’t have? In the process,
you can add to your AdSense revenue stream.
Nothing wrong with making some money on the
information you don’t have on your site, too.
One thing you should know about designing your search box is that with the
customization that’s available, you can change the look of the search box
completely. You should not, however, change the color of the search button.
Because it’s Google and people trust Google, they’ll recognize the gray search
button, and they’re more likely to use it. If you change the search button, visitors
could mistake your search box for something belonging to some other
search company, and their confidence in finding what they’re looking for
might not be as high.
Adding search capabilities through AdSense makes sense whether you have
a site of 5 pages or 500. Users may come to your site and find everything they
need, but if they don’t, they’ll go somewhere to search out the answers they
seek. Give them a search box linked directly from your site, and you’ll not
only help them out, but you might gain a little financial reward in the process.