Avoid Getting Banned From AdSense - Report Invalid Clicks

One of the main reasons for people having their AdSense account closed and loosing all earnings is invalid clicks.Clicking ads on your own blog on purpose is just plain dumb, you will be caught and could lose the chance to ever use AdSense again.Their are other scams like getting friends to click your ads or agreeing with other bloggers and webmasters to form a 'Click Group' in which they click each others ads.While you may think you can get away with these scams it wont be long before you receive the dreaded Email from the AdSense team.In this post we will see what activity looks suspicious on your account and how you can report accidental clicks or rough clicks on your account.

You would be surprised at how often people accidentally click there own ads.In the same vein sometimes a friend may think they are doing you a favor by clicking your ads.I recently read a blog post in which the author told how he received an Email from a blogger telling him he had clicked all his ads and asking him to return the favor.Instead of returning the favor he reported the incident to Google, an action that probably saw the 'Happy Clicker' banned.While this may seem harsh the simple fact is you need to cover yourself and keep your account clean.

AdSense track all clicks and any strange activity will stand out.If your account shows a surge in clicks it will be checked out.If your account receives lots of clicks from the same IP address it will be checked out.If your account receives clicks from your IP address....If your account receives clicks from IP address in your region....I have also read that all accounts are checked once they reach the payment threshold.AdSense is Google's main source of income so they will be ruthless when it comes to keeping it clean.

Report Invalid Clicks

The best way to stay onside with AdSense is to report any invalid clicks before they find them.If you have accidentally clicked on your own ads, think a friend was clicking on your ads,  or if you have been contacted by someone looking to set up a 'Click Group' you need to take the matter into your own hands.

Were To Go

-To report any of these instances follow this link and you will find the appropriate report form, Scroll to and click the 'Policy violations' link - AdSense Contact Support

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Build Backlinks While Earning AdSense Revenue

Back in September i told you how i had been Bookmarking my blogs on Xomba and not only getting Free back links but also earning AdSense revenue.Today i have another great tip for Building easy back links to your blog and once again you earn extra AdSense revenue in the process.This time the site we are looking at is Best Reviewer a brand new website that lets you create 'Tops Lists', put links to your blog in the lists and shares the Revenue from the AdSense with you.In fact you get 100% from the main AdSense unit (Directly under the title) and you also choose what size you want that unit to be.

What Are Tops Lists ?

Tops lists are Top 5, Top 10 style lists in fact you can create a list anywhere from Top 3 to Top 20.You give the list a title like 'Top 10 Blogger Tips And Tricks', name each Tip and add the URL to that tip ! So if you have for example a cookery blog you can create top 5 recipe lists and link to each of the recipes on your blog, once you publish you will have just built 5 back links to your blog.As all you need is a short introduction and conclusion along with your list and a line or two of text on each of the top 5, you can create a full list in less than 5 minutes.Also when filling out your account info you can include your Blog or website address and it appears at the foot of each top list you write, so even if your writing a fun top list or a top list to other sites you still get a back link.

Screenshot - See below a Top 5 List I Created Of Best Magazine Templates With Links Circled



-Each Of The Top 5 Link To A Different Post On Our Template Site www.BestBloggerTemplates.Net

How To Join

Joining is easy, follow this link to Best Reviewer then click the Log In link, you will be provided with the option to create an account.Give your desired username and Email and you can also add your AdSense ID at this stage or leave it until your ready to start creating Tops.Best Reviewer will send you an Email with your new password and a confirmation link.That's it your ready to start building back links and earning AdSense.Note - They generate a password for you but i suggest changing to something you will remember as soon as you log in (Edit Your Account).This site is new so you can get in at the ground level and have your Tops in Most viewed lists etc..Also Best Reviewer is from the makers of popular Article website 'She Told Me' (She Told Me Is Also A AdSense Share Site Check Out She Told Me Here) so you know it will be a success.

Final Note - Remember you can create Top on any subject and you don't have to link to your site or any site you can create fun lists and still Earn some cash, Enjoy !

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How To Syndicate Blogs For Backlinks And AdSense, Amazon Revenue

AdSense revenue sharing websites are popping up all over the place right now, it seems to be the current Hot trend.Many of the AdSense revenue sharing sites are article submission and Bookmarking sites, basically you sign up and add unique Articles to a site like InfoBarrel or Bookmark your blog posts on 'Digg Type' sites like SheToldMe.These sites publish your content, place AdSense on the pages and share the AdSense revenue with you.This can be a Great help in your efforts to Build those Vital Back links to your blog and making a few AdSense dollars is a nice extra.

I have to admit I'm a fan of both these styles of sites and have build countless back links to my blogs from them.Recently i Stumbled Upon an intriguing website called YouSayToo.Rather than Writing Unique articles or logging in to Bookmark your latest post you can syndicate your entire blog onto their site.Your posts will be grabbed via feed and posted in full on YouSayToo.How will this help your blog and your pocket ?

You Say What ?

When you publish new posts they are syndicated in full on YouSaytToo providing not only back links back to the original post but also bringing your blog to a whole new audience.AdSense and Amazon units are added to the pages with your posts and you get half the earnings from both.It takes less than 10 minutes to Register and add your blog or blogs and your done everything else is on auto pilot.

Getting Started On YouSayToo

1. Follow this link to YouSayToo

2. Click the Join Now Button and fill in your details, verify you Email.

3. Click The Add Your Blog Link and follow the steps of Blog Title, URL, Feed etc..You are also required to add a link to YST on your blog.

4. Add your revenue settings, AdSense ID And Amazon ID.

Your Done all future posts will be automatically syndicated onto You Say Too, you can add more blogs if you like.

 

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Finally Open Google Custom Search Results In Blogger Blogs

The Google custom search bar returns in my opinion the most accurate results for your blog.The search bar itself is compact and stylish and can be easily added to your blog.For those of you not familiar with the Google Custom search bar it basically looks the same as the search on the Google home page and when added to your blog returns results in the same format.The big difference is the results returned are All posts on Your Blog.This is a great way to let the readers of your blog quickly find exactly what they are looking for.The Google custom search bar has been vastly improved over the years and is still constantly getting better but i have always had one Big Issue with using Google Custom search on my Blogger blogs.


One of the great options you are offered when setting up a Google custom search box for your blog is to open the results within your site or blog.So instead of readers leaving your blog and going to a separate Google page to see the results of their search they will see the results on a page that is actually part of your blog.This has a number of benefits here are three of the main ones :


- It's never good to send readers away from your blog and the separate Google page does not have a direct link back to your homepage.
- As they stay in your blog it increases your views and the search results page will be crawled by Google helping SEO.
- Displaying the results within your blog looks much more professional.


That's Fantastic but because of the minimum requirements set by Google such as minimum width of search results pages Blogger users cant actually choose the option to display the Search results on within their blog...Until Now !


In this post i will show you how you can create a totally unique page on your blog and display the results from Google Custom search on that page.

Important Update - Since this post i have created an easier way to display the results in your blog.You can still create a unique page as shown here but for the new method go to this post - Easily Open AdSense For Search Results In Blogger


Demo 1 - Go to our demo blog and use the search bar in the header to see the results page :


Demo Click Here


Cool Eh ? - But that's just a plain page, take a look at how you can customize the page :


Demo 2 - I have fully customized the search results page for Spice Up Your Blog, use any of the search bars on this log to see the result:


Click Here To Open Spice Up Your Blog In A New Window


Extra Cool eh ? - You can see more results by using any of the search bars on this blog.


There are a number of step involved to get your search bar and search results page.


- You need to create a new Google custom search bar for your blog.Only AdSense members have the option to Embed results in their Blog if you have not yet joined AdSense apply here - Google AdSense.


- You need to create the page for the results and add code to your template to customize the page.


Don't worry i will walk you through all the steps.So lets get stared, make sure to back up your template and take your time.

Open Google Custom Search Results In Your Blog

Create The Page For The Google Search Results


Step 1. First we will create the page that displays your search results.From your Blogger dashboard click 'New Post' or 'Edit Posts' > and in the top menu click 'Edit Pages' > Now Click 'New Page'.





Step 2. Add A Title Like 'Search Results' to your page but leave the actual content area totally blank and publish the page.You will now be asked how you would like the page to appear choose 'No Gadget - Link To Pages Manually' and publish.OK you will now be presented with the option to view the page, click that link.


Step 3. For the next step we need the URL of the blank page you just created so copy the URL from the address bar and keep it or you can go back for it when needed.


That's the first part covered We will Create the search bar In your AdSense account.


Get The Search Bar Code From AdSense


Many of you will have created an AdSense custom search bar previously and it's a fairly straight forward process, this time we just have to chose to use the 'Open Results In My Own Site' Option.Lets have a look :


1. Log Into AdSense


2. Click the 'Get Ads' option the the top menu > Tick 'AdSense For Search' and continue.


3. AdSense walk you through the steps of creating the Search Bar:


- In the third page you will see the 'Opening of search results page' section > Choose 'Open Results In My Own Site.


- Below this is 'Enter URL where search results will be displayed' > Enter the URL of the page you created above and just leave the width at 800px then scroll down.


- You will be asked to choose the style of the search results page > I have set up the page to work with the default pallet so leave this and move on.


- The next page requires you to accept the AdSense Terms and name your search bar (The name of the bar is only to help locate it in your AdSense account and is not important).Click 'Submit and get Code'.


- Usually you would now be presented with one snippet of code for the search bar this time you will get two.The first snippet is for the search bar and the second is for the search results page.Save both pieces of code or keep the page open as you will need both later.


OK back to your Blogger Dashboard (Are you keeping up)


Add The Search Page Code To Your Template


Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Design' > 'Edit Html'








Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info)

</body>

Step 3. Copy and paste the following code Directly Below / Under </body>

</b:if >

Step 4. Don't save you template we have the final step to complete - Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info)

</head>

Step 5. Replace </head> with the code below :

<!--search page code by www.example.com-->
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot;URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE&quot;'>
<style>
body{
margin:0;
padding:0;
background:#ffffff;
font:70% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#555;
line-height:150%;
text-align:left;
}
#container{
margin:20px auto;
width:850px;
background:#fff;
padding-bottom:20px;
border-left:1px solid #bebebe;
border-right:1px solid #bebebe;
}
#content{
margin:0 20px;
}
h1 {
background:none repeat scroll 0 0 #DDDDDD;
font-family:sans-serif;
font-size:27px;
font-style:italic;
font-weight:lighter;
text-align:center;
text-shadow:1px 0 0 #FFFFFF;
margin:0px;
}
p{
margin-bottom:18px;
font-style:italic;
font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;
font-size:24px;
color:#bfe1f1;
padding:0;
}
a {
text-decoration:none;
}
ul {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
}
ul li {
border-left:1px solid #000000;
color:#BEBEBE;
font-family:Arial;
font-size:13px;
font-style:italic;
list-style:decimal inside url(&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgMMYsVhqK5lMIzGeWB6UbNG1MBJoH5kQlEiU6VBWfn33WnxEM5MrOrlyz23q7_bF-a2LLdDW5f5OKZll8hRF6xwPD3QhhZz2pjWRqmIZkgGs4JEJlTo-PXOQmYXDuHmwPOhQ3yTq3AQJ/&quot;);
margin:0 0 0 15px;
padding:8px 8px 8px 0;
}
li a{
text-decoration:none;
color:#057fac;
display:block;
margin-top:-12px;
padding:0 0 0 30px;


}
li a:hover{
text-decoration:none;
color:#999;
}
</style>
<!--[if IE 6]>
<style>
li a{
display:inline-block;
padding:0 0 0 5px;
margin-top:-10px;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</b:if>
</head>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot;URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE&quot;'>
<body>
<div id='container'>
<h1>YOUR-BLOGS-TITLE</h1>
<div id='content'>
<table border='0'><tr><td><a href='URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Jf85oJRYfFQoZaHCBad6EaROqFpD21-jYqKNsmpBMMp1qgHX2XKPxXENVOXslQUr2OhNvmSBaTQejeHl4AYKpYfPI337iWBH3989ygHuEc9H5ik5XzzKhXRCgaEkZoA-ddH2sLdnL95Y/s1600/ico-home.png'/></a></td><td><a href='URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE'>Home Page</a></td></tr></table>

<!--REPLACE THIS WITH THE SEARCH RESULTS CODE-->

<a href="http://www.example"><small>Results Page From
Spice Up Your Blog</small></a>
</div>
</div>
</body>
<b:else/>

<!--end search page code by www.example.com-->

Important - We now need to add a few things to the code.

1.Where you see URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE( Twice)  in red - Replace with the URL of the blank page you created in step 1.

2. Where You See YOUR-BLOGS-TITLE in blue - Replace with the title of your blog (You could also use 'Search Results' etc..)

3. Where you see URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE (Twice) - Replace with the URL of your blogs home page.

4. Where you see <!--REPLACE THIS WITH THE SEARCH RESULTS CODE--> - Replace with the second section of code provided by Google AdSense.

Add The Search Bar  - OK if you took your time and sure all the code is in the right place save your template.Now add the code for the actual search bar you your blog > Just head to your Design page > Add A Gadget > Choose Html/Javascript > Paster in your search bar code and save.

That's it go test out your search bar - Very Important - While you can test your new search bar Do Not click the ads on the search results page !

As you have seen by the results page for Spice Up Your Blog you can add lost more customizations to the code.If you need more help drop a comment below.There are a lot of steps involved and it has been a hard tutorial to write but if you take your time I'm sure you will have no problems.

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Easily Display AdSense For Search Results Within Blogger Blogs

In November last year (2010) i was excited to show you a way to display search results from the AdSense for Search, Search bar Within your blogger blog.This is something we see on all the top websites and Blogs but was not really an option on Blogger.Displaying the search results in your own site has many advantages, mainly you are not sending people off your blog which is never good, when users do go to a new page of search results on a page that neither looks anything like your site or Google it can be confusing, it has a more professional look within your site, increases your page views and can increase revenue from the ads on the search page.

Last November i created a totally unique page within my blog to display the search results and this required a lot of code and i know many of you struggled to implement it on your blogs.So in this post i have a simple way to display the AdSense For Search results in Blogger Blogs.

So why can we not display the results on Blogger Blogs ?

Quiet simply it was a width issue.The page that displays the AdSense for search results must be a minimum of 800 px wide.So in essence your posting area must be 800px and on 99.9% of blogs it is no were near that.

The fix

So what we will do in this tutorial is display the search results in a static page and on that page (Only That Page No Other Pages Or Posts Will Be Effected) we will remove the sidebar and this will give us the space to make the post/page section 800px wide.

I have implemented this when you use the search bars on Spice Up Your Blog, as you can see the search results span the width of the page with the sidebar hidden :

This will be fairly simple for most of you as the code is almost universal but some Blogger templates as always are coded differently.If you do have trouble post a comment and i will try to help out.

What You Need

You will need to start by Creating a static page for the search results, then create a new AdSense for search in your AdSense account and finally add a small snippet of code top your template to expand the width of that specific page and hide the sidebar.

Display AdSense For Search Results Within Blogger Page

Step 1. Create a new static page on your blog, you can give it the title 'Search Results' but leave the content section empty and publish the page.

Step 2. When you publish the page you have the option to add the page to a menu, choose the third option 'No Gadget Link To Pages Manually' click 'Save and Publish'.We will need the URL of the page when creating the AdSense for search so copy the URL or just go to AdSense in a new window.

Step 3. Go To Your AdSense account and click AdSense set up > Choose AdSense For Search and follow the steps until you come to the option on were to open the search results.

Step 4. Tick 'Open Results In My Own Site' and now Enter the URL of the page you created into the URL field and continue.

Step 5. Follow the rest of the set up process, at the end you will be presented with Two pieces of code.The first piece of code is for the actual search bar and you can paste that into a Html/Javascript gadget in your sidebar or wherever you want it.The second piece of code you must copy and paste into the page you created.So edit the page, paste in the code and save.

You now have your page set up with the search results code and your search bar code in your sidebar its time to add a snippet of code to your template to remove the sidebar and widen the page.

Adding The Code In Blogger To Change Page Layout

Step 1. In Your Blogger Dashboard Click Design > Edit Html.



Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info)

</head>

Step 3. Copy and paste the following code directly Above / Before </head>

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot;ENTER-URL-OF-PAGE-HERE&quot;'>
<style>
#sidebar-wrapper {height:0px; visibility:hidden; display:none;}
.post {width: 800px;}
</style>
</b:if>

Important - Replace ENTER-URL-OF-PAGE-HERE with the URL of the page you created.

Save your template, While it will be OK to test your search bar don't use it all the time as it does generate ads and of course don't ever click the ads on your own blog.Look below for some alternate codes if it does not work.

Not Working - Replace .post with #main-wrapper in the code you added to your template and save.

Still not working leave a comment and we will take a look.That's it, the tutorial is long to make sure everyone can do it but in essence it is quiet simple.

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How I Got My Mistakenly Closed AdSense Account Reopened

On Saturday last (30/04/11) i clicked the AdSense icon in my bookmarks toolbar as i do most days to see how my ads were performing (Don't you find checking your blogs stats and AdSense addictive?).This time however instead of going to my AdSense homepage or dashboard i was presented with a strange update or apply to AdSense type page.I say update / apply page because i couldn't really figure out what the page was or what information it was looking for.This started a chain of events which seen my account vanish, all my ads vanish and possibly all my unpaid earnings vanish.

I guess in this post i want to look at the steps i took, the frustration in dealing with any Google service when it comes to customer service and the patience you need in this type of situation.

So on Saturday when i land on a page starting "..Please update your account information below and click 'Resubmit' to continue. If your application was not accepted due to issues with your website, please make sure that you have resolved them before resubmitting.." i think it could simply be AdSense looking for me to update my account information, but it looks more like an apply to AdSense or re-apply form.This is of course worrying and i immediately go to my Email to check if i got any mail from AdSense that i may have missed.When in a situation like this check all your email folders including spam and trash in case you deleted something by accident, I found nothing in any folder.

The thing with AdSense is there are a lot of rules or TOS, we know 'Don't Click Your Ads' or get others to click them and the other basics but there is much more we don't know.So it was not inconceivable that i could have been doing something wrong and just hadn't realised.

Contact AdSense

I know there is no point in trying to contact AdSense as it is easier to get a Phone Call through to Barrack in the White House.So the AdSense help forum is the first step, were i post 4 questions about my issue and the page i was landing on but all with no reply.I found this strange as i am a level 8 moderator in the Blogger help forum and usually if you post a question a few times it will get a reply.

So back to the page i was getting when i tried to get into my AdSense account, i think maybe the form is simply to update my information and i should go ahead and fill it, which i did.Upon clicking submit i got the page i didn't want to see 'We have received your application...' yep it was like i was just applying for an AdSense account, there was no sign of my almost 3 year old account.This is were you need to be patient and going back into the forum writing in all caps with exclamation Marks wont help :

WTF WERE IS MY ACCOUNT !!! HELP NOW URGENT !!!

The moderators in the forum are not Google employees or Paid in any way they are just fellow users that have a knowledge on the subject and want to help.

I posted another question in the forum telling how i had filled the form and the result, i also decided it was time to try send an Email to AdSense.

The question in the forum got no reply and the reply to my Email looked automated.The automated Email confirmed '"...We can not find any AdSense account connected to your Email..."'.So the account was gone and no one could shed any light on it.This is were it can get very frustrating but once again you need to be patient.My plan was simple and is the same as i tell many people who contact me with blogger issues.

Post your question in the forum with as much information as passable, leave it for 4 to 5 hours if there is no reply post it again and keep doing this until there is a reply...simple and there is not much more you can do.

Six times i posted the question in the forum over the course of two days before i got a reply.

Just getting someone to notice the situation was a relief and although i knew the moderator (wasaweb) couldn't directly fix it he could draw attention to it.

The Fix

The day after the reply from wasaweb i asked was there any update, i had received a booklet from AdSense in the post in which they had obviously looked at my account to give some tips on maximizing my earnings.This was of course sent before my account had vanished but i though it was somewhat ironic.

That night however i got the message i was waiting for from Chris a Google Employee.

My account was back ! It took 6 days and although i don't know why it happened and i was loosing earnings for 6 days i was just happy to know that it was an error.Thanks to Moderator and Top Contributor wasaweb and Chris from Google for their help.

The Point

The point behind this post is this, over the six days i looked at a lot of content that had been written about AdSense and endless other treads in the forum about banned accounts.Most of the content written was by disgruntled people that had been banned and I'm afraid most of the treads in the forum did not have happy endings.In this post i show what i did, be patient, be respectful in the forum, give all the information you can and post your question every few hours, eventually it will get noticed.

Google do not take phone calls and getting an actual Google employees set of eyes on an Email is next to imposable.So if your AdSense, Blogger or other Google service experiences problems take a deep breath and know it might take a little time to sort it out.I can see why Google don't have open phone lines and easy email contact, they would need a help center the size of Ireland to work it.But they defiantly do need to provide better than is currently available, without my knowledge of how the Google forums work it could be another month getting this sorted out.

I'm a very laid back guy and to be honest if I had not got my account back i guess my attitude would be 'so what' just focus more on direct ad sales through BuySellAds and other ways of monetizing my blogs.This helped me stay patient but i know for many of you AdSense is the only way of making money from your blog.

What experiences if any have you had with AdSense ?

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The New Advanced Share This Toolbar With Optional AdSense Unit

Over the last few years there has been a bit of a mini war between the top bookmarking widget services.Sites like Share This, Add This, Add To Any And more have been fighting for the top spot among users (Did you know the Add This Bookmark page is one of the few online with a Google Page Rank of 10/10).In my opinion over the last year Share This has been coming out on top.In The next few posts i will be showing you why with tutorials on their new Oath Bookmark buttons, Fixed Share widget with integrated AdSense and in this post the very cool toolbar also with optional integrated AdSense.

The Share This Tool Bar

The Share this tool bar is the best i have seen with lots of options but yet clean and not too bulky on your blog.Along with various Bookmarking options for all the top Social sites you can add links to your Social Profiles and have pop up links with the latest from those profiles.

A very useful trending section is also built in with your most popular posts (The posts most people have shared) scrolling across the toolbar.

An ads section can also be added to your toolbar, Share This plan to find advertisers interested in buying these spots and you get the revenue.Until they do find advertisers (Most blogs struggle with direct advertising) you can display a 300x250 AdSense unit in this spot.

The Toolbar also comes with 8 color themes to suit your blog.

So the Share This tool bar lets users share your content, Connect with your social profiles and you can earn a few bucks as well.

The demo below has not got the AdSense integrated.

Adding The Share This Toolbar To Blogger

Step 1. Go to the Share This Toolbar Page, you must sign up and have the option to do this with your Facebook or Twitter account or regular sign up.

Step 2. Fill in the required information for the sections you want added to your toolbar.For the AdSense section you will need to add your AdSense Publisher ID and Ad Slot Zone, i will show you how to find these at the bottom of the post.

Step 3. Click 'Get The Code', you will generate two snippets of code.

Step 4. Add The Code To Your Template - In your Blogger Dashboard click Design > Edit Html.

4A - Find </head> in your template (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info) and paste the first snippet of code Directly Above it.

4B - Find </body> in your template (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info) and place the second snippet Directly Above it.

Save your template.

Finding your AdSense Publisher ID and Ad Slot Id

Publisher ID - Go to your AdSense account and in the top right of the page you will see your publisher ID.It will be something like 'pub-123456789'.
Ad Slot ID - For this you will actually have to create a new AdSense unit, so create a new 300x250 AdSense unit.Follow the usual steps and when you generate the AdSense code you will see the ad slot number in the code.It will look something like 'google_ad_slot="123456", you just need the number.

That's it, a really great option for a toolbar on your blog.Check out more of our Social Media Posts and Social Bookmarking Widgets.

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The 7 Top Tips Direct From AdSense To Increase Your Revenue

A few weeks ago i told you how i managed to get my mistakenly closed AdSense account reopened.In that post i mentioned how, ironic as it seemed at the time while my AdSense account was closed i received a booklet from Google AdSense with some tips to increase earnings.The booklet had some general tips and some specific tips for Spice Up Your Blog.I know AdSense don't send these booklets to everyone so in this post i will share the tips AdSense gave.Apart from the tips specifically for my sites there was 7 general tips that i think can help everyone make more money with AdSense.

Go Wide

AdSense have found wider and generally larger units perform better, which isn't rocket science as it will take up more space and is more likely to be seen.But advertisers are also willing to pay more for larger size ads so a click on a large unit can be worth much more than on a smaller unit.The top 4 performing units according to AdSense are - 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 728x90 Leader board and 160x600 Skyscraper.

Helpful Link - Add A Cross Column Section Below Header For 728x90 AdSense To Your Blog.

More Is Better

You are allowed use 3 Ad Units and 3 Link Lists on every page obviously the more ads the more chance of clicks.

Enable Text And Image Ads

Advertisers bid a maximum they are willing to pay for ad spots.AdSense display the ads from the highest bidder.By enabling both Text and Image ads you increase the number of ads competing to appear on your blog thus increasing your earnings.

Let Your Ads Be Seen

The section of your pages people can see when the page loads without having to scroll is called "Above The Fold".Placing ads at the top of pages above the fold can increase earnings.

Blend In

When creating you AdSense units take a little time to match the colors with your blog.Ads that blend in with the other content get more clicks.

"...AdSense recommend creating a 'borderless' look by setting the border and background of an ad unit to be the same color as the page were it appears..."

Channel Your Energy

Use custom channels to track the performance of each unit.This allows you to distinguish the 'Studs from The Duds'.You can move low performing units to different zones on your blog until you optimize all units.

Add AdSense For Search

AdSense for search not only returns awesome results all from within your blog (Personal Opinion) it also displays relevant ads on the results page.

Helpful Link - How To Display AdSense For Search Results Within Blogger Blogs.

All these tips come directly from AdSense (I have changed the wording a bit) and should help you make more money with AdSense on your blog.You should also check out Create a AdSense Required Privacy Policy, How To Report Invalid Clicks To AdSense and our other AdSense Tips.

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New AdSense Toolbar Shows Earnings And More

The AdSense team have just released a toolbar extension for the Chrome browser.This AdSense toolbar has two main features.Firstly you can view your earnings without having to the leave page your on to visit your AdSense dashboard.This is somewhat useful but just saves a few seconds.The second feature however seems much more useful.With the toolbar installed when you visit your site your ad units will have an overlay which displays their performance.Both the earnings tab and overlay display the earnings for the current day, yesterdays earnings and earnings for the last seven days.Both also have a link to your AdSense dashboard while the unit overlay also has a link to edit the unit.

"..When viewing your website, this feature will show you a snapshot of your AdSense account performance as a widget in the corner of your browser window. It also includes ad overlays that describe the recent performance of specific ad units, and gives you the option to access AdSense directly.."

AdSense Earnings Tab

AdSense Unit Overlay

How To Use The New AdSense Publisher Toolbar

1. The toolbar is for the Google Chrome browser only so while using the chrome browser visit the AdSense Publisher Toolbar Extension Page.

2. Grant the permissions required.

3. Finally to implement the overlays on your sites ad units visit your site, click on the toolbar icon and grant permissions.

More information can be found on the AdSense Blog and AdSense Help Page.

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Google Now Use Twitter Facebook And Site Speed To Help Rank Your Blog

Google originally made its name by using a Page rank system based on links throughout the web to return relevant search results to users.Although there were many search engines available before Google the page rank system simply returned better results to users.Page Rank (Googles Internal Page Rank Not So Much Toolbar Page Rank, a long story) is still the major factor in how search results are delivered and things like Back links and anchor text are still the major players and always will be.However over the years Google have added lots of other factors in how they return their search results, they claim there is over 200 components used to deliver the results we see.A couple of noticeable more recent additions to this are Social Media and Site Speed.

Social Media

Google now use sites like Facebook and Twitter in the ranking.

Danny Sullivan Article Mentioned in the video - Search Engine Land

Site Speed

The load time of your blog also has an effect in the search results, at the moment it is only a very small effect.

But page speed is important in many other ways also, people stay on faster loading sites longer and view more pages.People are more likely to return to fast blogs and the whole experience is better.Over the last 6 months i have made Spice Up Your Blog twice as fast as it was and have seen the benefits.

You can analyze the speed of your blog using the Google Page Speed Tool.

Keep up to date by Subscribing to Google Webmaster Tools On YouTube, Matt Cutts adds videos frequently and you will also get the chance to ask send your own questions, make sure to Check out more of our Blogger SEO posts.

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10 Great Blogger Tips And Gadgets You May Have Missed

his week with the design change here on SUYB i have been going through some of the archive and updating older posts.I needed to update the design of some of the posts and in some cases the content itself.You know there is some really cool posts from up to 2 years ago that stand the test of time.I know many of you missed these posts when they were first published and they could be just what your looking for. So i thought today i would bump up 10 of them.From Blogger Gadgets and Design to SEO and Traffic here are 10 great posts you may have missed.

1. Show Only Posts Title On Blogger Labels Page - This post has a clever useful Blogger Tip.When someone clicks a label on your blog they will be shown a list of post titles only not full posts.This makes it easier for readers to find the content they are looking for.

2. Scrolling Recent Posts List Gadget For Blogger - Here we have a gadget that will display your blogs most recent posts scrolling across the page.A perfect gadget to go across the top of your blog or below the posts.

3. Add Google Friendly Meta Tags and Meta Description To Your Blog - This post shows you how to take control of how Google and other Search engines see your blog.Adding a meta description in a way lets you describe your blog to Google who often use it as your blogs search results snippet.

4. A Random Posts List Gadget For Blogger - A simple gadget to display a randomly generate list of posts from your archive.

5. Change The Blogger Navbar To A Hover Effect - With this Blogger trick your navbar will not appear unless users place their cursor over the navbar area.

6. 8 Basic Ways For New Bloggers To Get Traffic - A list of techniques to get readers to your new blog.

7. How To Make A YouTube Video Auto Play On Page Load - Simply Make A YouTube Video On Your Blog Automatically Start When Users Land On The Page.

8. Change The Blogger Page Title Format - An important technique to optimize the way your title tags are viewed by users and Search engines.

9. Create An Email Link, Button And Image Link - Create 3 types of link for users to Email You.

10. jQuery Animated Scroll Recent Posts With Thumbnails Gadget - A very cool recent posts gadget that uses jQuery to scroll through your latest content.


That's just 10 posts from the archive of nearly 400, you can use our quick archive to see a compact list of all posts - Spice Up Your Blog Quick Archive.

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Google Update Page Rank Has Yours Increased ?

Google today updated their page rank (PR) or the so called toolbar page rank.Page rank is basically a signal of how important any given page is in Googles eyes.Page rank goes from 0 (zero) to 10 (Ten) with 10 being the highest thus the best.The page rank we see is called toolbar page rank as it was first displayed on the Google toolbar although there are many other ways to view it.In general people refer to their website or blog PR by the PR of the home page, but every single page on your blog will have it's own PR.More on Page rank can be found in this post from when i informed you of the last update in January - Google Page Rank Information and even more from the great Matt Cutts Here.

In this post i want to look at how the change effected My Blogs, What will an increase mean, How to check your blogs page rank and some tips on increasing your page rank.

Our Page Rank ?

The update was very kind to Spice Up Your Blog as it has jumped from PR3 to PR5, many posts have a page rank of 3-4 also.It is a small percentage of blogs that reach PR5 (Half way up the ladder)  so I'm delighted to achieve it and see my hard work pay off.As a large part of Page Rank is from people linking to a site i would like to thank everyone that links to us and hope you continue to do so.I actually got a bit of a surprise to see our Blogger template site BestBloggerTemplates.Net jumped from PR0 to PR3, considering the domain was only connected a few months ago (Was formally www.templates.spiceupyourblog.com) it's great.I have had other blogs also increase, my Social Icon site also jumped from PR0 to PR3.

What Will Increased Page Rank Do ?

When we talk about things like page rank it is important to remember it is just one signal.Spice Up Your Blog going from PR3 to PR5 does not necessarily indicate that i will see an instant increase in traffic from Google.It does show I'm heading in the right direction and performing well in search but many more factors come into play.

Check Your Blogs Page Rank

You can check your blogs current page rank with this Page Rank Checker (Do please ignore all the rubbish ads with offers to increase your page rank) let us know your results in the comments.

How Can You Increase Your Page Rank ?

Google use over 200 signals to determine Page Rank, some we know others are kept private.The main signal is backlinks, links Google find around the web pointing to your blog.If lots of people link to your blog it must be good, makes sense huh ? This post has more on the subject - Building Backlinks And Information To Increase Google Search Rank And Page Rank.Recent signals added to the google algorithms include Social Signals and Page Load Time.What you need to be doing is publishing Regular Good Unique content, Building Links to that content and staying patient allowing natural links to build.You can find lots of information and tools for this in our selection of Blogger SEO.

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An Updated Look At Do-Follow And No-Follow Comments

In January 2010 i published what has become the most popular Search Engine Optimization (SEO) posts on Spice Up Your Blog (SUYB).The post titled 'Building Backlinks, Do-Follow Comments And Information To Increase Google Search Rank And Page Rank' has consistently been in the top 10 in terms of views and to date has 117 comments.I guess the reason it has been so popular is it covers a number of topics related to improving your blogs performance in search, especially Google.The original intention of the post was to explain Do-Follow comments, what they are and how they work.I wont explain the whole do-follow process again you can check out the post linked above for more on the subject.

To explain Do-Follow i ended up covering why Back Links are so important and the whole Back Link process.The points covered in the post are still valid and i stand behind the information but in the 19 months since published some of my personal opinions have changed.In this post i want to explain how my opinions especially of Do-Follow comments have changed.

To Follow Or Not To Follow

At the time of writing that post Spice Up Your Blog had Do-Follow comments.I have since switched the comments back to no-follow in an effort to reduce spam which was getting out of control.I said in the post i thought Do-Follow comments would help build a community.While i still think this is valid for a new blog or growing blog once you blog is established it becomes less feasible.

At the moment i receive about 10-20 spam comments every day along with 20-30 valid comments.If the SUYB comments were still do-follow the spam number could grow towards 100 daily.I simply don't have the time to sort through this and that is the reason i switched back to no-follow.If you think this is a bit of an exaggeration check out the article by Web Pro News on how professional SEO company's actually pay people to work full time leaving comments on blogs - Why SEO Disgusts Me.

Another piece of advice i gave in that post was to use the Name URL format when leaving a comment.This would mean when published your name beside your comment is a direct link to your blog.I would still recommend this were possible but unfortunately i have had to switch this option off on SUYB.The reason for switching it off is because this also opens up the comment as Anonymous option.Once again as SUYB has grown some fools have found it entertaining to leave whats best called rude comments.I'm sure you have seen the types that spend their sad lonely existence on places like YouTube commenting on every video just to say how 'F***ing S**t' it is.

I guess to sum up my opinion has changed over the last 19 months as far as my own blogs are concerned.Taking both these steps (i only turned off the Name URL and Anonymous comments last week) has seen a serious decline in spam.But if you are trying to entice comments maybe on a new blog do follow comments are something to consider.

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8 Smart Promotional Tips to Make Your Blog a Roaring Success !

Blogs: one of the hottest mediums in the online world, you can barely visit any site that doesn’t have a blog section, and the amount of blogs out there is increasing daily. Writing awesome content is all very well and good, yet this alone will not make your blog a hit; without smart promotion you will almost definitely fail. After all, what is the point in putting all your effort into writing fabulous content if no-one is listening?

Here are 8 tried and tested promotional tips that can do wonders for your blog following;

Use and Abuse Social Media!

A somewhat obvious platform to promote your blog, this is all too often not used to its maximum capability. More and more potential readers of your blog are entering into the world of social media everyday so it would be foolish NOT utilise this platform. Yet, be careful not to simply post updates of new posts. Connect with people and communicate on a personal level. Not only will showing your personality in this manner make people more likely to read your blog and share it with their followers and friends, but you can decipher what your desired readers want to discuss. Social media engagement not only helps promote your blog but also improves it. Result!

Include Useful Links in your posts.

By linking up other relevant and useful blog posts, not only will your readers know where to look for useful information, the bloggers you have linked to will be grateful for the link and be more likely to link up to you in the future.

Comment, Comment, Comment!

Commenting on other blog posts is an excellent way to connect with people, form contacts in your niche and get you name recognized. Blog writers will often respond to comments and questions on their posts, as k pertinent questions and you are sure to get answers and form contacts. Connect with these influential people on Twitter as well.

Get Guest Blogging!

Possibly the best way to promote your blog, there are hundreds of options to guest blog out there, and posting quality content on high-quality sites give you a broader audience for your posts. When guest posting, most of the time you are allowed to include links back to your own site. Brilliant promotion, these blogs can drive traffic back to your own site and potentially enlist a whole host of new followers.

Accept Guest Blogs.

Following on from the previous point, allowing people to post on your blog is also brilliant promotion. Guest bloggers are always looking for places to contribute their content and are more than happy to promote their contribution all over their social media channels. This will drive a lot of new people to your site.

Use Your Contacts.

Leverage your friends and family, again a seemingly simplistic tactic but getting 20 friends and family to share you blog on their own social media channels could unleash your blog onto a whole new range of potential readers.

Social Bookmarking Sites.

Another fabulous way of promoting your blog is utilising social bookmarking sites. Submit your post to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and watch lots of new people arrive at your blog.

Get Pinteresting!

I know this is in a sense a social bookmarking site and the Internet is currently bombarded with posts advocating this site as the newest marketing tool , but I really thought it deserved its own point. Pinterest not only promotes your content to a whole host of potential readers, but gives you dofollow links back to your own site every time something from your blog is pinned. Create a Pinterest account and engage in this community, repining and commenting on other boards and pinning interesting content from your own blog. This is a brilliant way to increase traffic and

Promotion is extremely important when blogging so employ these strategies and see your blog’s online presence sky rocket in 2012!

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6 Firefox Add-Ons That Can Help Bloggers Improve Their Blogs SEO

Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers available. Comparing it with Google chrome it has many features that can be useful for bloggers and webmasters.So it's a good idea to install Firefox add-ons that can help your blog, and improve it's SEO, performance, errors etc.I believe you guys know, after installing or updating, new add-ons in Firefox we have to restart the web browser for the add-ons to work.In this post I provide the following Firefox add-ons with links to the download page.

List Of Firefox Add-Ons For Improved SEO

No-Do follow.

This add-on can display all the do-follow and no-follow links in a web page. So it’s better if you can add it to your Firefox. When you explore new do follow social bookmarking sites, web directories for bookmark your post and blog this extension useful.
After install go to any website/blog and right click anywhere on that page, now the Firefox context menu will appear select its “No-Dofollow” link following screen shot. Then all the no-follow links will be highlighted read and do-follow links will be highlighted lite blue. Visit developer site in here.

Web rank toolbar. 

This add-on display every website Google page rank, Alexa , compete and Quantcast ranks, in addition to that total index page on Google, yahoo, Bing and total backlinks to a site , Social meter (number of tweets, Diggs,), Similar sites, Whois. Moreover user can customize its features according to their choice. Visit Mozilla page in here.

Html Validator.

This extension can display potential HTML errors. It uses validate the HTML Tidy and OpenSP, so it gives better accurate result. You need not visit validator.w3.org anymore. It's compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. Install HTML validator in Mozilla page in here.


SEO Blogger.

After you type specific keywords you can search related and popular keywords with their number of searches. So when you write an article this extension can use to find most profitable, highest value and attractive keywords to your post. It's powered by popular keyword research firm Wordtracker. Visit Mozilla official page in here.

Yslow.

YSlow analyzes web page and display issue for slowdown it. So you can fix those errors for better performances. In addition to that you can view full detailed report with suggestions for improving the website. Before a use Yslow user need to install, depended “Firebug” extension. Visit developer site in here.

Xmarks.

Actually this is an optional one. Every blogger we need to create many backlinks in various sites, for improve their SEO and SEPR. So it’s better bookmark those social bookmarking sites, article submission sites. This add-on can sync all your web browser bookmarks with passwords. Moreover it can remove duplicate and broken bookmarks. Visit developer site in here.

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