Tip #2: How to disguise your ads to look like content

Experts agree that click-through rates go up when ads are made to look like relevant content instead of blatant advertising. No, it's not dishonest or immoral and it's not too hard to do either. Here's what you need to know:

1. Choose one of the "Text Ads" options in your Google AdSense Panel. Many successful web masters say that the 336x280 text ad performs best. My own tests prove this to be true.

2. Change your settings to allow 4 or 5 ads to be shown, your choice.

3. Change the default black text on a white background with an aqua border to a text color that matches the rest of the text on your page, a background color that matches your page, and no border.

Here's a trick that direct mail marketers have known for years: Blue is a great color for a call to action. In your case, the call to action is the link that you want clicked. Set your URL link color to blue and you'll see better results.

Although you can use the Google control panel to make these changes, you can also edit the AdSense code right on your page. Here are the variables:

google_color_border = "B4D0DC"; google_color_bg = "ECF8FF"; google_color_link = "0000CC"; google_color_url = "008000"; google_color_text = "6F6F6F";

Each color is represented as a hexadecimal value. If you aren't conversant with hexadecimal, just use this color chart.

Now, design your page so that your ads appear better integrated into the content. Ads that are placed on the right side of the screen tend to get clicked more often, but that fact really depends on how your page is "read" by your visitors.

There's a lot of psychology to determining how a reader will follow the text on a page and, thankfully, Google has done the research for you. Take a look at their Organization Tips page for help.