Ad placement and type is definately a YMMV kind of thing that requires testing and playing around for the best results. Text ads "always" convert better, but my ad clicks went down when I switched to them.

Ha I had to look up what YMMV stands for. That's the second new one for me from the forums in about a week.

I've heard text ads convert better too but I try to keep a blend of both.

Man, I tried a whole bunch of adsense plugins since I don't understand coding, and they all worked. Sort of. They'd be really great at one thing, but sucky at another. For example, great at getting sidebar widget ads, but sucky at getting in-text ads in my posts. At one point I had 3 different adsense plugins going because they each did somethign I needed. Anytime I wanted to change something, I'd get all confused about what each plugin was good at .... sucky.

 

But now I use "Quick Adsense". I think Work Save Live turned me onto it. It does everything, easily, and exactly how I want it.

 

So now I just have the 1 adsense plugin instead of 3.

Haha that sounds a lot like me now. I have 2 existing plugins that don't do what I want for adsense, that's why I wanted to find a new one. I'll have to check out Quick Adsense next I'm just a bit scared about trying new plugins after Easy Adsense broke my site.

What theme do you use? It might not need a plugin.

Lena Gott said:

I use Quick AdSense, too, and haven't had any problems so far.  I like the left justified ads within the top of posts, too.  

Glad to hear a second review on this one. Left justified at the top is exactly what I was trying to figure out so that's great it works!

I haven't done extensive testing or anything, but I think the left justified ads convert really well.  They're unobtrusive, yet one of the first things a visitor sees when they hit your post.  I tried putting ads above the post copy for a while on WhatMommyDoes and thought they seemed spammy.  

But now I use "Quick Adsense". I think Work Save Live turned me onto it. It does everything, easily, and exactly how I want it.

So now I just have the 1 adsense plugin instead of 3.

I use AdSense Extreme on one site and AdSense Now! on another. AdSense Now! has a number of features to make it easy to configure AdSense on your site.

I couldn't locate the AdSense Now! one, but I found AdSense Extreme and looks like that one was updated in July so that's also pretty good.

Thanks again everyone for all the tips! I'll test them out this weekend :)

I use Quick AdSense, too, and haven't had any problems so far.  I like the left justified ads within the top of posts, too.  

Glad to hear a second review on this one. Left justified at the top is exactly what I was trying to figure out so that's great it works!

Club Thrifty said:

I liked using Easy Adsense. It is pretty straightforward and will give you the option to make sure you don't go over 3 ads per page as well.

 

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can choose placement anywhere on the page with Easy Adsense. You can also choose different sizes and shapes.

Thanks! Looks like they just updated this plugin a couple weeks ago too so that's good. I try to use plugins that are still being regularly updated as much as possible so this is another good one for me to look into this further.

I like Quick Adsense.  It has a good number of options and can be used for ads besides Adsense.

Thanks for the tip! I like how this one looks and that it can be configured for ads outside of G's platform. 

I liked using Easy Adsense. It is pretty straightforward and will give you the option to make sure you don't go over 3 ads per page as well.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can choose placement anywhere on the page with Easy Adsense. You can also choose different sizes and shapes.