On the ball

Like many of you, we have "World Cup fever" and wanted to feature a publisher who is successfully using AdSense on a football (that's 'soccer' to all our American readers) site. We asked Ralf Möbius of Fussballportal.de about his experiences with AdSense:

Can you tell us briefly about how your portal got started?

Fussballportal.de was launched in August 2004 as an addition and alternative to those football sites that were already successful and established on the net. Over the last 2 years, we've built a following in the competitive area of football sites.



Why did you decide to use AdSense?

Online marketers often aren't able to fully book-out existing ad space. Therefore, AdSense is a great alternative to increase a website's revenue. Since ads are relevant to the content of your pages, AdSense provides a meaningful addition for content-rich sites with loyal visitors. You also don't have to deal with acquiring and maintaining relationships with advertisers, which can be time-consuming.

What is your most important optimization tip for AdSense publishers?

Try to blend your ads by removing the border and using the same color as the background of your page. With this simple measure you can avoid ad blindness and also considerably boost your revenue.

Does the World Cup have any effects on your AdSense stats?

With the world here on our doorstep in Germany, we've seen very positive effects since we always provide up-to-date content, interactive games for our users, special features and services surrounding the World Cup.

Who is going to win the World Cup?

Brazil. The "ball artists", behind coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, will improve their performance from game-to-game like they already proved they can do at the Confederations Cup 2005 in Germany, and they'll be at their best by the semi-finals and finals.

Posted by Walter Palma - AdSense Publisher Support (Translated by Michaela Tomberger)