Google AdSense
AdSense is a free service supplied by Google which allows you to display adverts on your web site. When visitors to your web site click these adverts, you as the site owner could make a small amount of money.
If you wish to add advertising to your site, you can do so using the Google AdSense skyscraper in InstantPro. The skyscraper type has been designed specifically so that you can insert the AdSense code provided by Google with relative ease.
As AdSense is a service provided by Google you will need to have a
Google AdSense account to use the service.
AdSense is a free service, though use of it is subject to numerous terms and conditions set by Google to which you must agree before you are able to use AdSense.
To begin creating your Google AdSense skyscraper you will need to be logged in to your
MyFreeola Account, and open the InstantPro Website Builder from within your account.
1.
From the Site Overview screen you will need to select the Skyscraper Manager button, as highlighted in the image below:
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2.
On the Skyscraper Manager page you will see a button on the right side of the page which allows you to create a new skyscraper.
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You will need to click this button to begin creating your new Skyscraper.
3.
Once you have selected the option to create a new skyscraper you will be shown the Skyscraper design page. At the top of this page you will need to ensure the the Skyscraper type is set to
Google AdSense as is shown below:
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When you change the skyscraper type you will notice that the Skyscraper Editor shown lower on the page changes too. You will see now that you can only choose the skyscraper name, and a background and border colour for this type of skyscraper. All design work is carried out when creating the AdSense unit within your Google account.
Once you have created the AdSense unit within your Google account you will be able to paste the code this generates in to the box shown on the right of the page.
4.
You will now need to log in to your Google AdSense account so that you can create the AdSense unit to add to the InstantPro Skyscraper.
When you first log in to the account you will see a screen similar to that shown below:
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You will need to select the AdSense for Content link shown at the top of the list.
5.
You will then be taken through the AdSense set up process. The next step is to choose the type of adverts you wish to display on your site.
You will see you can choose two options, an Ad Unit, or a Link Unit and there are example images of each type to help you make your choice.
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For the tutorial an Ad Unit will be created, so once this option has been selected you will see a continue button shown on the bottom of the screen which you will need to click.
6.
The next step is to choose the size, colours, and fonts used to display the adverts on your site. The size of the AdSense unit on the tutorial page is 120 x 600.
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You will see that you are able to see a preview of any changes you make to the style of the adverts under the Colors heading.
Once you have styled your ad unit appropriately you will need to click the continue button at the bottom of the page.
7.
The next stage in setting the ad unit up is to define
Ad Channels. These are used "to view detailed reporting about the performance of specific pages and ad units", so may ultimately be very useful if you use a large amount of AdSense on your pages.
You do not have to enter anything in this box to begin with, so for the tutorial the box will be left empty and we will continue on to the next step.
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If you wish to learn more about Ad Channels, Google make a large amount of information available in their
AdSense Help Guides.
8.
A name will then need to be given to the ad unit. This can be anything you wish, for the tutorial the unit will be called
Example AdSense Unit.
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Once a name has been given to the unit you will then need to click the Submit and Get Code button shown below the name field.
9.
You have now finished creating the ad unit to add to the InstantPro Skyscraper.
You will now be provided with the HTML code which will need to be pasted in to the InstantPro Website Builder.
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You will need to highlight, and copy the code shown under the Your AdSense unit code heading.
10.
Now the AdSense code has been generated, we need to return to the InstantPro Website Builder, and you will need to paste the AdSense code where instructed to do so on screen.
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Once the code has been pasted in you will see a screen similar to that shown below:
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You can view a preview of how your add will appear on your page by clicking the Preview button shown below the code, though this may take around ten minutes or so to appear due to the way in which Google generate the adverts.
You will now have to click the Save button, and once saved, click the Finished button.
11.
Now that the Google AdSense Skyscraper has been created you will need to assign it to your web site pages.
Information on managing your skyscrapers, both standard and Google AdSense, can be found in the
Managing your Skyscrapers guide.
Once assigned to your pages you can expect your AdSense skyscrapers to display very similarly to those shown below:
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The ad unit shown on the left is a text based ad unit, whereas the unit shown on the right is a image based ad unit.
The Competitive Ad Filter
Google AdSense displays adverts based on the content, and keywords given to your pages so you will often find that the adverts which display on your pages are for companies in direct competition with your own business.
Obviously you do not want to be advertising your competitors on your site, so your are able to define an exclusions list of website addresses whose adverts you do not wish to be displayed on your site.
To filter the adverts which appear on your pages you will need to login to your AdSense account where you will see a screen similar to that shown below, and from this page you will need to select the AdSense Setup tab.
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From this page you will need to select the Competitive Ad Filter option, which is highlighted in the image for you also:
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On the competitive ad filter page you will be able to enter full, or part web addresses of competitors whose adverts you do not wish to have displayed on your web site.
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Once you have entered the addresses of the sites you wish to block you will be able to save the changes. Google do advise that it may take some time for the blocked addresses to stop displaying on your site.
Finished
The tutorial has covered all the steps required to add and manage Google AdSense Skyscrapers on your InstantPro website.
Google also provide a custom search tool which you can use in conjunction with AdSense.
Adding a custom search facility is done by adding in some html code. If you have never done this before you may need to read the
Adding HTML tutorial, though if you are already comfortable with adding code to your pages, you can continue to the
Google Custom search with AdSense tutorial.
