Extra graphics and extra ads take away from Google Adsense. The reader’s focus can be distracted. But a Commission Junction advertiser fits the theme of your website and promises to pay well. Where do you place the ad, and what kind of ad do you use? Will your Adsense revenue go down? Will your CJ revenue offset the Adsense loss?

I’ve been working with web sites since the graphical Internet first started back in 1993. I certainly don’t have all the answers or I would be a millionaire by now, which I am not. But 14 years of trial and error taught me what to do and what I should not do. I’ll give you some examples and hopefully you can incorporate some of them. Your Adsense revenue and your Commission Junction revenue should both increase.

Everyone says your best click-through rate is above the fold, or the part that visitors see first on your site. Have you ever considered making the part above the fold just a little wider? Obviously you don’t want to make it so your screen is wider than the browser window, otherwise it looks bad and people will not scroll left and right. The answer is to use a button that will push the content for you. Here is a help button example: http://allvoipsearch.com When that area opens, as seen in my example, you have the visitor’s full, undivided attention. Since it against the Google Adsense TOS (terms of service) to put Adsense ads in that area, try putting your Commission Junctions text links in that area. You can use button ads, text links, and HTML. I use a help button to open the side band, but you can use a different graphic or a text link. I guarantee it will not take away from your Adsense revenue, and will not overload your pages by trying to cram too much above the fold. Make sure you open the side bar links in a new window.

Another idea to boost your Adsense revenue is retention. The longer the visitor stays the more your website will produce. This is also referred to as the ‘bounce rate’ or how ‘sticky’ your site is. I discovered that people will interact with web sites if you make it easy for them. Free things also make your site sticky. I have a widget that makes it easy for people to send me a text message about my articles. I can put it anywhere including Facebook, MySpace, eBay and Craigslist. Of course I use it on my own web sites. Actually I can use it here, just like I do in my email: http://www.jaxtr.com/allvoipsearch

You can see a full-sized widget here: http://pc-calls.com No matter how you do it the more visitor interaction you have the more your visitors will see your revenue generators. Whether they see Google ads or Commission Junction ads is entirely up to you. What I discovered is that my widget does not take away from my Adsense focus. You can test the theory by using a text link or a click-to-call button instead of the full sized widget. Monitor your Adsense revenue for a week or two under both conditions.

An additional benefit is free text messages from your web site is that people will send you new ideas that help you write more content. Bloggers get input from a comment form attached to every blog article. Static pages or content management systems usually generate email comments. I don’t know about you but I don’t need any more email, and my filters trap some comments. I like the text messages and voicemail.