Another week another case study from Inside Adsense. These really are a must read for budding professional bloggers - however and it's a big however - look, learn, extrapolate and experiment is my advice. Don't work on the basis that copying these case studies will lead you to the promised land.

This weeks offering looks at a great little site called AsktheBuilder.com written by Tim Carter which basically provides advice and tips on building matters - surprise surprise!

So here are some key things to note for those of you looking to replicate Tim Carter's success:

1. Tim Carter is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, has his own radio show and makes frequent television appearances. Having a foot in conventional media helps and don't let anybody tell you any different!

2. Tim says that he "spends a tremendous amount of time writing articles, answering people’s emails, and creating quality content for my site." Quality content is an obvious must. The key bit for me is answering people's emails and I would extend that to responding to comments. Building a rapport with your readership is what makes blogs so enchanting and demarcates them from the aloof nature of newspapers.

3. Tim says "readers get advice from his content and from his AdSense ads." The key here is to try and make your ads appear as similar ( while keeping within the TOS) and as close to content as possible. Interestingly Tim goes on"I want to solve their problems, and that’s what AdSense does. AdSense provides instantaneous solutions to problems that my visitors have." I think you can apply this principle to every blog. People arrive at content and typically want information or answers fast, if you can give them that through content and AdSense you're on to a winning formula.

4. "Carter quickly began tests using AdSense channels, trying different ad formats, colors, and placement to gauge relative effectiveness" Experiment, experiment and experiment some more.

Channels are an essential tool for experimentation and enable you to track the effectiveness of your ad placement, colour and format. See my post at performancing about Chitika's recent inclusion of channels.

5. One of the things that you'll see many pundits advise, is matching ads to your site format - Tim's experiences indicate he is no exception to this.

6. Tim also reports success with link units. For the uninitiated, link units are the various underlined categories running along the top of this page.

7. Another relatively common tip proposed by Tim "AdSense units perform well when they are within the body of his articles" Check out this great article from Blog Herald telling you how to place ads in your text.

8. Another interesting point raised by Tim was his testing of ad placement. He says "I now put ad units above the fold and to the left before I place them anywhere else."

Tim is apparently clearing $1400 a day in AdSense revenue and growing which is neither here nor there. What is important is that you look at some of his methodology summarised above and draw your own conclusions as to what might work for you.

Tags: adsense