How to place Adsense below post title for higher CTR

Why below the post title? Because it is the position with the highest CTR (click-through rate). In other words the ad placed there will bring in the most money.

According to the Adsense ads positioning guideline published by Google, the best performing Adsense ad position is above the primary content i.e. above the blog post, as illustrated by the heat map.

Placing an ad below post title (above post content) is a not at all difficult. All you have to do is create an ad unit on Google Adsense website, get the code and add it to the specified location in your blog template.

(You can’t use Blogger’s Inline Adsense or Adsense gadget because it doesn’t have the option to add an ad under post title).

Here we go,

1. Preparing Adsense ad code

1. Log in to Google Adsense and create a new ad unit.
2. For best results choose a wide ad size -either 300x250 Medium Rectangle or 336x250 Large Rectangle format. Make sure you assign the ad a new ad channel for performance monitoring purposes.
3. When the setup is complete, you will be given a code.
4. Run the code through an HTML escape/parser tool to convert special characters into their corresponding HTML entities. The ad won’t appear if you use the original unescaped ad code.
5. Copy the escaped code.

2. Adding ad code to the template

[Update June 2013] Change code searching method in line with the new Blogger template HTML editor.

1. Go to Template > Edit HTML.
2. Click “Jump to widget” tab and select “Blog1”.
3. Click the "Blog1" fold marker ‘►’ to expand the widget and reveal a set of “includable” tags.
4. Locate the <b:includable id='post' var='post'>...</b:includable> includable and click the fold marker to reveal its content. 
5. Scroll down and find the following code:

   <data:post.body/> 

6. Paste the escaped ad code right above the line, like so:

   <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
    PLACE ESCAPED AD CODE HERE
   </b:if>

   
   the conditional tag in lines 1 and 3 will make the ad appear only on post pages. If you want the ad to appear on all pages, just remove the lines.
7. Save and view your blog.

3. Monitor ad performance

Make sure you monitor the ad performance. Don’t automatically assume it succeeds in increasing CTR without seeing the actual results.

No two blogs are the same, what works on most blogs may or may not work on yours. If you don’t see positive changes, test again with different ad types, formats, colors and/or placements.

Enjoy!