Fresh year, fresh start

Welcome to 2011! Though it may be hard to stick to all of your New Year's resolutions (we can’t say no to donuts either) we want to help keep you on track by giving you ten quick and easy AdSense resolutions you can be sure to keep:

• Use the new AdSense interface to get more insight, control, and efficiency with your account.

• Enable text and image ads so all available advertisers can bid to appear on your site.

• Use wider ad units which are more reader-friendly and used by more advertisers

• Place ads above the fold and maximize your coverage with three standard AdSense for content ad units, three link units, and two AdSense for search boxes on each page of your site.

• Use channels to measure the outcome of any tests you run by grouping and tracking ad units as you choose.

• Turn those channels into ad placements so advertisers can pick specific groups of ad units on your site that they want to target.

• Go through the AdSense checklist to learn about new AdSense features and brush up on your program knowledge.

• Follow us on Twitter to get quick updates on the latest features, AdSense tips, and Google highlights.

• Join the conversation in the Help Forum to connect with other publishers and get your questions answered.

• Bookmark our troubleshooter so you can quickly diagnose and fix the issue should ads stop showing on your site.

Over here in AdSense, we have some resolutions of our own to keep. Our top priority is to focus on growing and strengthening our relationships with all of you, our valued publishers. We’re working on ways to make Google’s publisher solutions more seamless and integrated, so you don’t miss any opportunities to maximize revenue and enhance your online content. The recent launch of the new AdSense interface is just the start of what the new year holds for future improvements. We’re constantly innovating and we encourage you to do the same.

We hope these tips help you start the year off with a bang. And treat yourself to a donut with the extra revenue you earn -- we promise not to tell.

Inside AdSense team

Show enhanced ads with Google Friend Connect

Today, we're excited to announce a set of new features in Google Friend Connect that let website owners get to know their users, encourage users to get to know each other and personalize their site content, including Google ads. We've just integrated AdSense with Google Friend Connect, giving publishers the option to show ads that match visitors' interests.

When you log in to your Google Friend Connect account, you'll notice a new "Interests" section where you can create a list of questions for users to answer, either as part of your website's registration process or via a poll gadget on the site itself. For instance, if you have a website for guitar enthusiasts, you might ask users to share their preferred brand of guitar, the last concert they attended, their favorite guitar artist, and so on. The details users share are added to their Friend Connect profiles and made publicly available, enabling users to learn more about each other.

These details also allow you to display more relevant ads that match the interests users share. From the "AdSense" section of your Friend Connect account, you can either create new ad units that take users' interests into account or choose to enhance existing ad units on your website.

Please keep in mind that this new integration of AdSense and Friend Connect is separate from interest-based advertising -- the ads in Friend Connect will be matched to your content and the information users have chosen to share publicly with each other.

You can learn more about all the new features on our announcement on the Google Social Web Blog.

Google Friend Connect