11.1 Making Sense Of Stats, Logs And Reports…
Stats are a vital part of your success. If you can’t follow the results of all the changes you’re going to be making to your ads and your pages, then you’re never going to maximize your revenues.
But reading your stats can be confusing. You’re going to be staring at all
sorts of tables filled with all kinds of numbers which can be rearranged and reorganized in all sorts of different ways.
That’s why it’s crucial to know how to read your stats and understand the figures.
11.2 The Most Important Stat Of All
There’s one figure that’s more important than any of the others. Know which one I’m talking about?
Revenue! If you aren’t making money, no other stats matter.
If you are making money though, the next stat you want to watch is your CTR. The higher the percentage of clicks to page impressions you receive, the higher your CPM will rise — and the higher your revenues will become.
When you make a change to your ad placement, to your keywords, to your ad colors or anything else, wait a week and check your stats to see the result. And look first at your revenues.
Bear in mind too that when you have multiple ads on a page each ad unit counts as one impression — but you won’t be able to get three clicks from them! Multiple ad units then can reduce your CTR while still giving you good revenues.
You might also want to translate your results into charts. If you do want to do that, the most important things to look for are trends in CTR and in earnings. Tracking impressions too will also let you see any radical fluctuations in traffic.
11.3 Optimum CTR
Much of your success will depend on lifting your CTR as high as possible. Obviously, the more people who click on your ads the more money you’re going to be make but it’s not always easy to know when you’re inviting as many people as possible to get clicking. I’ve gone from less than 1% CTR to over 8% on some sites but I know of some sites that are getting over 30% CTR!
Your CTR will depend on a number of different factors, including:
Site Content — Some types of content get more clicks than others (but don’t necessarily make more money per click...)
Site Design — We’ve already talked about the importance of where you place your ads and how you place them.
Number Of Links — Why give your ads competition? If people want to click away from the page, you should get paid for it.
Ad Relevancy — If you’re not getting served ads that are relevant to your content, you’re going to have a low CTR.
11.4 AdSense Arbitrage
Once you get to grips with the numbers that you see on the stats pages and your logs, you might notice something interesting. You might see for example, that you’re getting 5,000 ad clicks on a page each month and that page is generating $1500.
Divide $1500 into 5,000 clicks and you’ll realize that each click for that type of content is bringing you 30 cents.
That means that when you come to buy content, as long as you spend less
than 30 cents for a click to that page, you’re going to make a profit. And one way to do that is to open an AdWords account and buy advertising space on Google’s search pages. You could pay as little as 5 cents per click, giving you a profit of 25 cents each time your 5-cent users click on your 30-cent ads.
That’s AdSense arbitrage and it sounds like a foolproof way to increase your revenues.
If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
The first problem with arbitrage is that you can never get a 100% CTR. Not every 5 cent click you buy is going to give you 30 cents back — and every impression that doesn’t result in an ad click is going to eat into your profits.
With these kinds of figures (and obviously, yours are going to be different), you’d need a 16% CTR to break even. (If every ad click costs 5 cents and gives you 30 cents, you can afford to lose five out of every six clicks or 16%).
So if you can see that you’re getting a 16% CTR, buying advertising on AdWords to send traffic to your AdSense ads could be a good deal.
Or not.
The second problem with arbitrage is that your CTR rate is based on users coming from your current traffic sources. The users you buy through AdWords might behave differently. They’ve already clicked on an ad once so they might not want to click on an ad again.
Or alternatively, because you know they’re the type who do click on ads, it’s possible that they’re exactly the type who’ll click on the ads on your page.
Results from using arbitrage vary. Some people report that the clicks they
buy on AdWords give them less revenue, others report that they’ve increased their CTR.
Some people are making SERIOUS money with AdSense arbitrage. The real
key to arbitrage success is buying traffic based on the right keywords. And to do that you need...
11.5 WordTracker
WordTracker is a great way to find keywords to target for arbitrage. The idea is simple: if you can find popular keywords that few sites are targeting, you can increase the CTR of the ads you buy and improve the chances that users
will click on the ads on your page. It’s those keywords that will give you
the best revenues for arbitrage—and the most clicks from search engine listings.
WordTracker actually helps in four different ways.
First, you enter a keyword—say, “football”. WordTracker will then give you a list of hundreds of different keywords related to football—words like “stadium” and “team” and “football player”. Some of those words you’ll probably have thought of, but lots of them you won’t.
Now you’ve already got more keyword options than when you started!
The next step is to see how popular these keywords are. WordTracker looks across all of the main search engines and tells you how many people
searched for each keyword in the last 60 days. That’s certainly interesting
information in itself but there’s not much point in targeting a word that 1,000 people search for every couple of months if a million Web pages are already targeting it.
Your ad would appear on page fifty-something of a search engine listing and get very few clicks.
The next stage is where things get really interesting. Wordtracker
compares the number of searches that people are making for each keyword with the number of sites targeting that keyword.
It even awards each keyword a score that indicates the size of the
opportunity for new pages that want target that particular keyword. It then becomes easy for you to see which words are likely to give the best search engine listings—and which will get the most clicks for the lowest prices when you pay to advertise.
For example, if you asked WordTracker to look up the word “football,” you
might find that 3,474 people look for “shoulder-pads” each day but only
2,375 Web pages are targeting that word. If one of the pages of your football site targets that keyword, you’re almost certainly going to find yourself high on the search engine listings, giving you plenty of free traffic.
But if you also choose to pay to advertise your site on a GoogleAd, you can be confident that you’ll get plenty of clicks—and great revenues.
WordTracker is a fantastic tool. It should definitely be in your money-making toolkit. Take a look at it at www.adsense-secrets.com/wordtracker.html
Thursday, December 6, 2007
11 How To Read Your Visitors Like A Book
Saturday, November 24, 2007
11 How To Read Your Visitors Like A Book
11.1 Making Sense Of Stats, Logs And Reports…
Stats are a vital part of your success. If you can’t follow the results of all the changes you’re going to be making to your ads and your pages, then you’re never going to maximize your revenues.
But reading your stats can be confusing. You’re going to be staring at all
sorts of tables filled with all kinds of numbers which can be rearranged and reorganized in all sorts of different ways.
That’s why it’s crucial to know how to read your stats and understand the figures.
11.2 The Most Important Stat Of All
There’s one figure that’s more important than any of the others. Know which one I’m talking about?
Revenue! If you aren’t making money, no other stats matter.
If you are making money though, the next stat you want to watch is your CTR. The higher the percentage of clicks to page impressions you receive, the higher your CPM will rise — and the higher your revenues will become.
When you make a change to your ad placement, to your keywords, to your ad colors or anything else, wait a week and check your stats to see the result. And look first at your revenues.
Bear in mind too that when you have multiple ads on a page each ad unit counts as one impression — but you won’t be able to get three clicks from them! Multiple ad units then can reduce your CTR while still giving you good revenues.
You might also want to translate your results into charts. If you do want to do that, the most important things to look for are trends in CTR and in earnings. Tracking impressions too will also let you see any radical fluctuations in traffic.
11.3 Optimum CTR
Much of your success will depend on lifting your CTR as high as possible. Obviously, the more people who click on your ads the more money you’re going to be make but it’s not always easy to know when you’re inviting as many people as possible to get clicking. I’ve gone from less than 1% CTR to over 8% on some sites but I know of some sites that are getting over 30% CTR!
Your CTR will depend on a number of different factors, including:
Site Content — Some types of content get more clicks than others (but don’t necessarily make more money per click...)
Site Design — We’ve already talked about the importance of where you place your ads and how you place them.
Number Of Links — Why give your ads competition? If people want to click away from the page, you should get paid for it.
Ad Relevancy — If you’re not getting served ads that are relevant to your content, you’re going to have a low CTR.
11.4 AdSense Arbitrage
Once you get to grips with the numbers that you see on the stats pages and your logs, you might notice something interesting. You might see for example, that you’re getting 5,000 ad clicks on a page each month and that page is generating $1500.
Divide $1500 into 5,000 clicks and you’ll realize that each click for that type of content is bringing you 30 cents.
That means that when you come to buy content, as long as you spend less than 30 cents for a click to that page, you’re going to make a profit. And one way to do that is to open an AdWords account and buy advertising space on Google’s search pages. You could pay as little as 5 cents per click, giving you a profit of 25 cents each time your 5-cent users click on your 30-cent ads.
That’s AdSense arbitrage and it sounds like a foolproof way to increase your revenues.
If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
The first problem with arbitrage is that you can never get a 100% CTR. Not every 5 cent click you buy is going to give you 30 cents back — and every impression that doesn’t result in an ad click is going to eat into your profits.
With these kinds of figures (and obviously, yours are going to be different), you’d need a 16% CTR to break even. (If every ad click costs 5 cents and gives you 30 cents, you can afford to lose five out of every six clicks or 16%).
So if you can see that you’re getting a 16% CTR, buying advertising on AdWords to send traffic to your AdSense ads could be a good deal.
Or not.
The second problem with arbitrage is that your CTR rate is based on users coming from your current traffic sources. The users you buy through AdWords might behave differently. They’ve already clicked on an ad once so they might not want to click on an ad again.
Or alternatively, because you know they’re the type who do click on ads, it’s possible that they’re exactly the type who’ll click on the ads on your page.
Results from using arbitrage vary. Some people report that the clicks they
buy on AdWords give them less revenue, others report that they’ve increased their CTR.
Some people are making SERIOUS money with AdSense arbitrage. The real
key to arbitrage success is buying traffic based on the right keywords. And to do that you need...
11.5 WordTracker
WordTracker is a great way to find keywords to target for arbitrage. The idea is simple: if you can find popular keywords that few sites are targeting, you can increase the CTR of the ads you buy and improve the chances that users
will click on the ads on your page. It’s those keywords that will give you
the best revenues for arbitrage—and the most clicks from search engine listings.
WordTracker actually helps in four different ways.
First, you enter a keyword—say, “football”. WordTracker will then give you a list of hundreds of different keywords related to football—words like “stadium” and “team” and “football player”. Some of those words you’ll probably have thought of, but lots of them you won’t.
Now you’ve already got more keyword options than when you started!
Fig. 11.1 WordTracker: “Find the best keywords for your website”. Says it all really!
The next step is to see how popular these keywords are. WordTracker looks across all of the main search engines and tells you how many people
searched for each keyword in the last 60 days. That’s certainly interesting
information in itself but there’s not much point in targeting a word that 1,000 people search for every couple of months if a million Web pages are already targeting it.
Your ad would appear on page fifty-something of a search engine listing and get very few clicks.
The next stage is where things get really interesting. Wordtracker
compares the number of searches that people are making for each keyword with the number of sites targeting that keyword.
It even awards each keyword a score that indicates the size of the
opportunity for new pages that want target that particular keyword. It then becomes easy for you to see which words are likely to give the best search engine listings—and which will get the most clicks for the lowest prices when you pay to advertise.
For example, if you asked WordTracker to look up the word “football,” you
might find that 3,474 people look for “shoulder-pads” each day but only
2,375 Web pages are targeting that word. If one of the pages of your football site targets that keyword, you’re almost certainly going to find yourself high on the search engine listings, giving you plenty of free traffic.
But if you also choose to pay to advertise your site on a GoogleAd, you can be confident that you’ll get plenty of clicks—and great revenues.
WordTracker is a fantastic tool. It should definitely be in your money-making toolkit. Take a look at it at www.adsense-secrets.com/wordtracker.html
10. How To Make AdSense Work With Internet Communities
Maximize your AdSense Revenue from Internet Forums, Message Boards and Discussion Groups!
In the chapter 8, we mentioned making revenue from blogs. But blogs
certainly aren’t the only types of content online or the only types that can use AdSense.
In an active Internet Community, users generate most of the content.
You cannot completely control the keywords or the topics, which means
AdSense might spring some surprises with the ads that show up. (Just have some Alternate Ads handy, in case AdSense pulls up a series of non-paying public service ads.)
Unlike passive surfers who like to explore your website for relevant
information, forum members are very focused on their messages and the responses they attract.
Many publishers that play host to Internet Communities complain of
negligible CTRs, scattered keywords (low content relevance) and low cost per click. What they don't realize is that Internet Communities are a hidden goldmine which inspire fanatical loyalty, repeat visits, unique content and a high level of user involvement with the content.
Mega-brands such as Apple and Harley Davidson were built on the same
foundation — a deep sense of personal bonding, high involvement with the product and strong referrals. You can achieve the same result with your website!
While all Internet Communities are not the same, they do have the same key strengths. You just need to recognize them and find new ways to cash in on them — as some savvy web publishers are doing already!
On the next page you'll find a few ideas to spark off your imagination:
10.1 Forum Members are very focused on their topic of discussion. Ads that appear on the top, bottom or side margins of the page may not distract them from their main objective — which is to read and write the posts!
10.2 The best way to capture their attention is to put your ads at the end of the top posting on each page. Posts that appear on top are read more often, and usually set the tone for the rest of the discussion.
Many web publishers swear by Google's 728x90 leaderboard ad with two ads trailing top-of-the-page posts.
10.3 What gets the most clicks in any forum?
The forum buttons of course! Put your ads close to these useful
buttons, sought out by users to search threads, create a new thread or post a reply. Check out this example:
Fig. 10.1 Positioned under the vital forum buttons, these Google Ads attract users in the right frame of mind- when they're ready to click! Turn to the next page for another great way to make your Google Ads more 'clickable'!
Fig 10.2 On this forum frequented by Internet deal hunters, I have turned my Google text ads into the hottest 'star attraction'. http://forums.dealofday.com
Without ever asking users to click, the heading "Deal of Day" turns the Google Ads into a recommended resource for finding the day's top deals.
Impressive forum stats, such as the number of members, threads and posts appear alongside the ads, making them look more legitimate. The sheer number of users creates a sense of urgency to check them out before other members get their hands on the coveted deals!
10.4 Make sure you apply the same text formatting as the user-
generated content. It's important to gain your users' attention first — then pitch your message when they're all ears!
10.5 Try putting the ads at the bottom of each post. If users spot the
pattern and your click-throughs start to drop, try putting the ads at
the bottom of every alternate post. The key is to keep them guessing!
10.6 Don't break up a post by putting ads in the middle. Since forums
have user-generated content, people are more sensitive to these
intrusions and might be offended if you make it seem as if the ads are their personal recommendations.
10.7 Don't lump a bunch of ads together in the middle of the page. It
works well with 'passive' visitors, but your forum members will read right around them!
10.8 Allow users to pull up targeted ads with a Google Search Box!
How often has a forum posting piqued your interest enough to launch a Google search? Once? Twice? All the time? If you're anything like me, the Google Search Box is an added convenience, welcomed by most users. It makes your visitors stay! And if they click an ad from the results page, you make money!
Which of these strategies will work for your Forums?
Only time can tell — but don't forget to track your results with Google's FREE AdSense Channels. There are publishers who have made a fortune with their community pages. It doesn't take rocket science. But a little persistence goes a long way!
Monday, November 19, 2007
9. Response Tracking: Your Hidden Pot Of AdSense Gold!
In the last chapter, we talked about content. Google won't let you ask
visitors to click on your ads, or use other deceptive ways to make them click. But good content is an endorsement in itself. Some of its charm rubs off on the ads, making the ads more believable — and interesting!
If you have a website with impartial product reviews, for instance, visitors
are more likely to click the ads to learn more about a product, check out the latest prices or order online.
It’s crucial to create content that’s genuinely interesting. But your work doesn’t stop there.
After setting up your AdSense Account, the first thing you want to do is play with your ad formats and placement to make the ads blend in. That's where the bulk of the "easy-money" is hiding.
But once you've got that right, what next? You start tweaking the text and making all sorts of other changes to improve your CTR.
But every time you make any sort of change to your ads, you must track the results.
Consider this example:
Joe Drinker has a great website about "How to make Beer at Home". It's
doing well on AdSense, but not well enough. His week’s stats look something like this:
A few days later he logs into the stats on his AdSense account and finds that that that change has actually HURT his income:
Joe has not only disappointed a lot of collectors who come looking for beer
cans — his site contains lots of keywords but little in the way of good content — he has also discouraged visits from people who want to make beer at home.
His search ranking has gone down, making his website harder for people to find him and lowering his impressions. It's also hurt his earnings per click as the people who visit the site leave faster. What's worse is that he's also risked his AdSense standing!
Now, does that make it a bad idea to optimize your website for AdSense?
Not at all. It is actually a good idea, if you do it right. And by that I mean… No Shortcuts!
There is a simple, step-by-step process to optimize your website for highpaying search terms. And this method is almost fool-proof! So why isn't everybody doing this? Simply because very few web publishers know how to use Tracking to their
advantage.
Tracking will not only help you minimize your mistakes, it will also reveal hidden pockets of money that you would have never found otherwise.
Read on to find out how YOU can use Tracking to sky-rocket your CTRs and increase revenues per-click.
TIP: Click here to learn about tools to optimize your website for highpaying search terms.
9.1 How To Track With Channels
Google has its own FREE tracking feature called "Channels". Channels remind me of spy movies, where a smart chip is planted in the arm of a super sleuth, making it easier to track his activities or whereabouts.
AdSense hands you 50 such chips. Use them to track ads on specific domain names or to group ads according to specific ad formats, keywords, their location on the page etc. You can use any other factor that might impact their effectiveness, based on the type of website you have.
Channel those clicks!
Google tells you many things about each Channel, such as the ad impressions, click-throughs and earnings data.
You can use the channel reports to find out which channels are making you the most money — and how to increase your earnings for other channels.
9.2 How To Create A Channel
You should create a channel for each one of your sites.
Within a site, you’ll still have the option of creating channels for individual
pages if desired, and this can be useful if you want to check how well ads are doing on a certain set of pages versus another set. But start by creating one
URL channel for each site and you’ll have the general overview that you can use as a starting point for your tracking.
And it’s very easy to do.
The first thing you’ll want to do is create URL channels.
Fig 9.1 Google gets powerful with URL Channels.
The original Channels required you to manually change AdSense tags for each ad block you wanted to track. Many AdSense partners complained about the pesky old channels, and at last, Google launched its URL Channels to make life easier.
You can use URL Channels to track individual pages or just specify the
domain name to track all the pages in that website. The pages or websites you add will be automatically tracked — there's no need to manually change the code on those pages. Neat!
If I need to track all the ad units appearing on my website
www.DealOfDay.com, I just need to feed in the domain name and Google does the rest. The URL Channels are especially useful if you have several websites, and have a general idea of the formats, colors, alignment etc. that works best for you.
Remember though, you still need the original, Custom Channels if you want to track ads across different domain names, based on ad sizes, formats, colors etc.
For instance, if I want to track left-aligned ads across all my websites (sites with different domain names), I need to group them together into a single channel and manually change the channel code for each page.
First, I name the new channel:
Fig. 9.2 Here comes a new channel...
Then I choose the Ad Type, Layout and Color of the ads I want to track:
Fig. 9.3 Defining the ads to track in my new channel.
Finally, it’s simply a matter of allocating an alternate URL if I don’t want
public service ads, selecting the channel and copying and pasting the code onto each of the pages that contain the sort of ad I want to track:
Fig. 9.4 Creating the code for my new Channel.
Of course, I would then have to repeat the process if I wanted to track ads of a particular color or size.
While Google can now track ad performance for your specified domain name, please don't expect URL or Custom Channels to give you data about your visitors, such as who referred them to your website or which web browser they use. These are details only your server logs can tell you.
9.3 How to Read your Server Logs
Various AdSense Tracking programs are currently sold on the Internet. This type of software runs on your own server which means it has access to vital visitor information.
These packages are not affiliated with Google, but you can use most of them without violating the AdSense TOS.
External tracking software can tell you many things that the Channels don't reveal, such as:
- Where your visitors are coming from;
- Where the ad-clickers are coming from;
- What search keywords led them to your web page.
Your stats package should compile and interpret your log files. It will tell you how many people visited your pages, how long they stayed, which are the most popular pages, what countries/domains they visit from, and how many bookmarked your site.
Just about all the information you need.
One thing that external Tracking software cannot do for you, is to tell you exactly how much MONEY a specific ad (or a group of ads) is making for you. Only Google's Channels can tell you that.
External tracking software can tell you an ad's CTR, but your AdSense
income also depends on factors such as the earnings per click, content
relevance, your ranking on Google Search Results and many other factors besides.
That means that the same ad can produce different commissions on two different sites.
The better your site (the higher your ranking, the more links you have etc.) the higher your commissions will be.
I do recommend the use of external tracking software in addition to Google's Channels.
Why? Because Channels can be quite confusing if you use them by themselves. Consider this example:
In this hypothetical case, Jim has a website about fast cars, where he
discusses his passion with thousands of like-minded visitors. He decides to find out which ads are doing better than the others.
Jim groups all ads with a blue border into a specific channel, which he called "Blue_Border". He finds that the blue-border ads generated a 5% CTR (click-through ratio), while the rest of the ads generated around 2% CTR on average:
Next morning Jim tweaks all his ads to give them a blue border. The result? The ads in the "Blue_Border" channel continue to generate 5% CTR, while the rest of the ads (which also have a blue border now) are still generating 2% CTR. Very confusing!
Clearly, there's something else that's making Jim's visitors click — and it probably has nothing to do with the blue border.
What is that hidden ingredient that's jacking up those click-through ratios? The Channels won't tell.
Jim now decides to install an external tracking software on his website.
After looking through his server logs, he finds that ads with the term "Car Accessories" are getting the maximum click-throughs. How does Jim know that?
Simple. His tracking software tells him which ads his visitors are clicking. He also knows which sites his visitors are going to.
Jim found that of all his visitors, those who searched for the term "Car
Accessories" were generating the maximum click-throughs on his web pages. Naturally, ads with the term "Car Accessories" were doing better than the others.
Should Jim now optimize his website for the search term "Car Accessories"? For most web publishers, that's good enough to get down to work.
But Jim is skeptical. Jim wants to know if his "Car Accessories" ads are also his top income generators.
To find out, he creates a Channel to track the earnings of all ads with the term "Car Accessories" in it. He calls the new channel "Car_Accessories".
A few days later, Jim logs in to his AdSense account to check his earnings. He finds that about 30% of his income is drawn from visitors looking for car accessories.
That's significant, but it raises another question in Jim's mind. Where is the remaining 70% of his income coming from?
He looks through his tracking reports once again and finds that ads with the term "Car Parts" are also doing well. He found that while "Car Accessories" took the lead with 5% CTR, the "Car Parts" ads were generating a healthy 3% CTR.
Jim is excited. He knows he's on to something big!
Jim's tracking software has helped him uncover two great "leads". Which of these will lead him to his top income generator?
The plot thickens…
To find out, Jim now creates another channel called "Car_Parts". A week later, he logs in to compare his earnings for each channel. Here are Jim's results: Total AdSense income for one week = $1666.67
"Car_Accessories" Channel = $500 (30% of total AdSense earnings) "Car_Parts" Channel = $1000 (60% of total AdSense earnings) Remaining Ads = $166.67 (10% of total AdSense earnings)
Incredible! Jim now knows that his "Car_Accessories" ads might be getting him the most clicks, but his "Car_Parts" ads are making him the most money!
Google won't tell you all reasons why the "Car_Parts" ads are making Jim more money. But Jim knows that the keyword "Car Parts" is probably more expensive, and that his website ranks better for that term.
FINALLY--
Jim is ready to act on this information. Let's take a look at his various options:
1. He can use it to optimize his page for the search term "Car Parts", so that his content is more relevant. Jim knows from experience that when his ranking for the search term "Car Parts" goes up, so will his earnings per click.
But it does have a downside. It might LOSE him his "Car Accessories" traffic! Jim knows that the price of keywords keeps fluctuating with the bids placed by AdSense advertisers. A keyword that's not so hot today can trigger a frenzied bidding war tomorrow!
Jim doesn't want to lose his most responsive visitors, earning him a decent $500 per week.
2. Jim can optimize his page for "Car Accessories". But that comes with the huge risk of losing a whopping 60% of his earnings.
3. Jim can launch dedicated web pages for "Car Parts" and "Car Accessories".
4. Jim can optimize his page for BOTH search terms.
Jim decides to go with option 4 — optimize for BOTH search terms! Jim knows the old saying that if you try to please everyone, you end up
pleasing none at all. That's why he decides to play his cards carefully.
Jim understands visitor behavior. He knows that his visitors like to read in "bite sized" portions. They take a bite here and a nibble there. But they never read a web page like a book, starting from the top and reading right through to the bottom.
He tweaks his layout to make the "Car Parts" articles more visible. He
smartly uses the hot car photos on his website to create several points of interest in his neatly laid out website.
Jim knows that people will instinctively look at the car photos, then be drawn in by detailed information about car parts — followed by the strategically placed Google ads.
Google allows you to put up to three AdSense blocks (ad units) on the same page. Read more about this policy change — and what it means to you.
To leverage this opportunity, Jim creates new space for content by tweaking the framework of his web page. Now Jim can capitalize his page layout by drawing people in with short, interesting 'content hooks' that build interest in the Google ads.
He adds new side-bars with juicy tid-bits about hot new car accessories. These will act like instant magnets to visitors looking for car accessories. More importantly, they run right alongside the AdSense ads, which tempt people with hot new offers on Car Accessories.
A specially designed "Accessories I love" section invites visitors to scroll down for more. Here Jim provides news, updates and impartial reviews about the Car Accessories Market. He entices visitors to check out new product launches with an integrated Google Search Box, which enables them to search within his website or search the entire web for relevant content.
These changes not only make Jim's web pages more relevant; it makes his
visitors more receptive to the ads. And there's more. Jim can now create new income streams for himself by plugging in new links to pages dedicated to car accessories, car parts and other keywords that are already attracting highly responsive visitors to his existing pages.
Jim used his channels and server logs to drill deep and come up with a real gold-mine of information. You too can use these secrets to zero in on ads that make you the most money — and to find hidden sources of AdSense income.
9.4 Tracking Tools
There’s a whole range of different tracking tools available to fill the gaps left by Google’s Channels. Here is a quick run-down of the main ones with two MUST-HAVE titles at the end:
AdSense Log
http://www.adsense-secrets.com/adsenselog.html
Created by MetalGrass, this stats analyzer has easy-to-read graphs and charts. They also use Google’s own stats rather than tapping into your server’s MySQL.
You can check your account as frequently as you want and the log will even you give you a sound, an email or
a pop-up window when new data is available.
Price $50. Free 30-day trial.
AsRep
http://www.asrep.com
asRep
AsRep lets you track all of your stats in real time. That
includes each of your three regular ad units, an AdLink unit and up to two search boxes on each page.
The program also captures colors, format and channels, and whether the units are showing ads or alternates.
Price $50. Unlimited evaluation version available.
CSV AdStats
http://www.nix.fr/en/csvadstats.aspx
CSV AdStats is less of a tracker and more of a
number-cruncher. You can download Google’s CSV data file and conduct a full stats analysis to check averages and create charts.
A useful way to squeeze more sense out of your stats.
FREE
Google AdSense Tracking Script
http://www.biz-directory.org/AdSense/
The Google AdSense Tracking Script lets you see the domains and files where clicks occurred, hourly and daily stats and who clicked what, where and when.
Price $100.
TWO TOOLS YOU CAN’T DO WITHOUT!
If you are serious about making money with Google AdSense, there are two tools that I use regularly and wholeheartedly endorse above all others. The investment in these tools will pay for itself again and again.
AdSense Tracker
AdSense Tracker does the following:
1. Track clicks, page views and CTR by referrer.
2. Track clicks, page views and CTR for each search engine and all search keywords.
3. Real-Time tracking of your
AdSense channels and your own custom channels.
4. Track clicks, page views and CTR by domain, page, directory, advertiser url, IP and ad format
5. List all clicks (IP, ad url, originating page, referrer and date/time).
6. Track WebSearches by domain, page and referrer
7. Track WebSearches by search engine and all search keywords, as well
as by channel, hour and IP address
8. List all WebSearches (IP, search terms, originating page, referrer and date/time) and run reports on any date range.
The developer of this package offers a 30-day FREE TRIAL, so you can’t go wrong with giving it a spin.
Click the link below to try AdSense Tracker for free: http://www.adsense-secrets.com/tracker.html
AdSenseDesktop — Instant Stat Analysis
And once you’ve got your stats, I
recommend reading them with AdSenseDesktop. This is a great program that lets you download your stats, turn them into graphs and analyze them to identify trends and work out what works best.
You’ll also be access your data
faster and easier — there’s no need to log in through the Google AdSense website each time you want to see how you’re doing — and all the changes you make are kept in a centralized log! That makes it easy to remember the changes you made and see which
ones increased — or decreased — your earnings!
And as I discuss in a later chapter, it is critical that you keep an AdSense
journal, making note of the changes you make to your AdSense as you go. AdSense Desktop includes a “Notes” page that allows you to do this.
It’s a very useful tool.
Fig. 9.2 AdSenseDesktop gives you instant readouts with a quick rollover on your taskbar.
One of the best things about AdSenseDesktop is that you can turn your stats into a whole range of different graphs, including:
Page Impressions graph
No. Clicks graph
Click-through rate graph
Effective CPM graph
Earningsgraph
Fig. 9.3 Keep track of different channels with one glance.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? You can download a FREE trial copy from
http://www.adsense-secrets.com/adsensedesktop.html
8. Building Content
8.1 Writing Content
AdSense works better than just about every other type of online advertising for one simple reason: the ads are relevant to the content on your page. Users click on the ads because they find them interesting.
And they come back and click on them again because they find your content interesting.
If your site doesn’t have good content, you’re going to struggle to attract
users and links, and you won’t be able to persuade anyone to come back to your site.
Having the right content then is crucial to having good revenues with
AdSense. It’s also crucial to the relationship you have with Google’s indexing mechanism. Remember, Google is a search engine first and foremost. Their purpose is to provide the web user with the best search results for the terms they are seeking. If you are providing quality con* How To Develop Self Confidence * How To Draw and Paint
* Guide To Bowling
* What Character Does Your Handwriting Reveal * How To Develop Perseverance
* How To Become A Speaker * Dreams Interpreted * How To Play Tennis
* Hints On Writing Short Stories * How To Make Money
* Strength From Eating
* How To Study The Bible For Greater Profit * The History Of Music
* How To Make and Use A Home Radio * How To Write A Hit Song And Sell It
I have subscribed to this service and plan on testing some new public domain works on one of my sites. You can read more about The Lost Files at
http://www.adsense-secrets.com/thelostfiles.html
8.6 AdSense In RSS Feeds
One of the biggest changes to take place on the Internet recently has been the growth of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. These let subscribers see when a site has been updated and sends them information instead of waiting for them to come to the site to see it for themselves.
The good news is that Google is starting to put AdSense ads in RSS feeds.
The system is new and Google is still testing it as I’m writing this book but if you’ve got an RSS feed on your site (or want to set one up) and you’ve got more than a hundred subscribers, your site can join their team of Beta testers.
There seems to be little room for tweaking the ads, although it’s a safe bet that the same principle of blending the ads into the page would apply as much here as on a Web page. At the moment though, the ads only appear after the content, at the bottom of the URL. You can apply for the program at
http://services.google.com/ads_inquiry/aff
Alternatively, if you don’t want to be a Google guinea pig, Kanoodle is ahead of them. You can use their program at http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cooltent, you have a greater likelihood of having your search results come up higher on the page.
8.7 Use Your Newsletter To Drive Traffic!
A great newsletter is another way to capitalize on AdSense. Newsletters are fantastic tools to drive repeat visitors to your pages!
Here's one way to use them: Instead of mailing the entire newsletter, save a few juicy tid-bits for your website and provide a link for your visitors to click.
When subscribers click-through to get the full story, they're likely to click
your ads. And send you another AdSense bonanza! For example, Prizepot
(http://www.prizepot.com) is a contest and sweepstakes site with a new item each day. Their free weekly newsletter is sent with a teaser for all the new items posted that week. In order to find the entry form, you must click the link in the newsletter. Of course, when you arrive at the destination page, not only do you receive information about the contest, but you are greeted by AdSense ads. For a sample newsletter, send an email to join-prizepot@lists.worldvillage.com.
If you have a big, responsive mailing list — start turning it now into extra AdSense cash!
And if that isn’t a good enough reason to start producing a newsletter, it
looks as though Google are also testing AdSense in the newsletters
themselves. They’ve already been doing it for iVillage.com and there’s a good chance they’ll be extending it to other users soon.
You can either create a newsletter yourself — and mail it using a mass
mailing system like Intellicontact.com — or you can ask someone to write it for you. ConstantConversions.com (http://www.constantconversions.com) is a copywriting service that specializes in newsletter writing. You can tell them about your site and they’ll do it all for you, from concept to inbox. You can even tell them you want it optimized for AdSense. They’ll know what to do.
To start your own email newsletter and auto-responder
for your site, I highly recommend Aweber.com. With
Aweber, you can build unlimited lists with unlimited autoresponders. That means you can have your list set up to automatically send email to certain groups at predetermined times. Along with their email broadcast services, Aweber is my first choice for many of my lists.
8.8 Buying Content/ Hiring Writers
One of the problems with free content is that you can get what you pay for. And if your site doesn’t have valuable content, it’s going to have an effect on your click-throughs.
The alternative of course is to pay professional writers to write for you. I’ve already mentioned www.elance.com as a good place to find designers but it’s a good place to find writers too. You can also ask ConstantConversions.com to write articles for you.
The advantage of hiring writers of course, is that you can be sure you’re
getting good content with little effort. On the other hand, you have to make that money back.
Try testing a writer to see how much profit a series of articles generates. If you pay $200 for five articles but find that your new pages don’t give you a $200 increase in revenues, you either need a new idea — or a new writer.
8.9 Automated Content
Finally, a couple more options you can use to create content for your website are ArticleBot and TrafficEqualizer.
Both these tools automatically create pages filled with content based on your keywords, saving you the hassle and expense of writing and buying content yourself.
The folks at Google aren’t crazy about pre-fabricated, useless content and it’s unlikely your users will be either. They’re probably better than nothing, but good content is best of all.
Fortunately, it’s also easier than ever to fill your site with page after page of sticky content, each of which contains ad units and opportunities to earn revenue.
The most obvious way to create content is of course to write it yourself.
Pick a subject you like and pour your heart out. If you know everything there is to know about video games, you could set up a site stuffed with reviews, news and walkthroughs, and write all the articles yourself. Your AdSense units will give you ads related to gaming and as long as they’re positioned properly and look right they should give you more than enough revenue to fund your video gaming habit and then some. You can do the same thing for any topic you wanted.
But remember, if you’ve created your site to make money, then writing the content yourself means that you’re working for that money. When you count your revenues, you have to factor in the time and effort it took you to make those revenues.
That’s one of the reasons that many people look for other, easier ways to get content around their ads. (The fact that they just don’t like writing is another good reason.) Fortunately, there’s plenty of ways of creating effortless content and some of them are even free.
8.2 Making Bucks With Blogs
Writing blogs isn’t exactly effortless, but it is something a lot of people do for fun and because they’re updated regularly, Google loves them. If you’re going to write a blog anyway, then you should certainly be making money out of it.
The biggest challenge when writing a blog is getting ads that give you good revenues. Because your entries are going to be talking about all sorts of different things, there’s a chance that you’re going to get ads on all sorts of random topics.
That’s fine, unless your ads are barely giving you enough revenue to pay for the blog.
If you find that you’re getting lots of ads related to “blogs” for example,
instead of what you’re blogging about, you can try changing the meta name in your template. Delete the <$Metainfodata$> tag and replace it with your own keywords and description:
Make sure that your blog has plenty of keywords and use lots of headlines containing key phrases, repeating them throughout the blog.
Above all though, make sure that your blog has plenty of text. It might be fun to stuff your pages with pictures of friends, family and pets but Google can’t read them and you’ll end up with public service ads instead of revenue.
8.3 Adding AdSense To Your Blog
Not all blog sites use the same template so how you add AdSense to your blog will depend on the company you’re using.
For users of Blogspot.com, which is owned by Google, you can put the ads in the template section of the site:
" title="external link">
<$BlogItemTitle$>
You can see on my own blog at http://www.joelcomm.com how I put ads
directly above my text. http://crayfish-info.blogspot.com does the same. The ads here are centered above the
break tag to add a gap between the head and Google and help his ads to stand out.
To do the same thing to your blogspot blog, click “Change Settings” on the Dashboard and then click “Template Tab.” Somewhere on the page, below the CSS material, you should find a section of code that begins”
<$BlogDescription$>
The code should then look like this:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Before uploading, check the preview to make sure that the ads are where
and how you want them, then “Save Template Changes” and “Republish” to refresh the blog.
Of course, you don’t have to place AdSense directly above the text. Another option is to embed the ads within the text so that they appear after particular entries. That would limit you to three entries per page (if you wanted an ad unit after each entry) but it could increase your click-throughs.
8.2 Old Content
Blogs have to be written all the time, but if you’ve ever written anything in
the past, don’t just let it gather dust on your shelf. Give your old work a new lease of life by throwing it onto the Web!
For example, “Low Fat Linux” by Bob Rankin was written years ago. You may be able to find it on Amazon.com, but it’s not likely that many people are buying it because you can read the entire book for free at www.lowfatlinux.com.
Bob’s content has done its job of selling copies. Now it’s doing a second job, selling clicks to ads.
What have you got lying around that could be earning you money?
Fig. 8.1 Bob Rankin makes money from old content. Note the position of his ads. They’re prominent but could he get more clicks by putting them on the right? He could also have added an AdLink unit above the list of links on the left.You might have an ebook of your own that isn’t selling very well. Instead of attempting to sell your ebook for $19.95, why not turn it into web pages and make it available for free for all to enjoy? Paste your AdSense code on the pages and you may make more from the ads than from sales of your ebook. Repurposing old content is a fantastic way to draw water from your own well.
8.3 Volunteer Writers
To use old content, you have to have content in the first place. If you don’t happen to have any out-of-print books that you’ve written lying around — and you don’t feel like writing something new — another option is to ask people to write for your site for free.
Lots of people like writing. Just look at Amazon. They didn’t pay a penny for all those book reviews. Their users write them for free and Amazon benefits. When I started www.WorldVillage.com, I didn’t have money to pay the people who reviewed software for me. Instead, I contacted the game companies and received complimentary copies of their computer games, which I then forwarded to a staff of volunteer writers. The agreement was that they would provide me with a written review of the game and they would keep the game as payment. I’ve got dozens of game reviews that
bring users to my site and get them clicking on my ads. I didn’t pay a penny for them but years later they continue to generate revenue for me.You don’t have to use reviews though. Whatever the subject of your website, you can add a line asking people to send in their thoughts and comments. You can just say something like: “We want YOU! We want your thoughts, articles and comments. Send your submissions to editor@yoursite.com and we’ll post them here.”
You can then create a whole new set of pages for your users’ submissions and put AdSense on each one of them.
8.4 Build Thousands of Pages with Other People’s Content
What is the focus of your web site? Is it all about parenting? Do you help
people with their finances? Does your newsletter introduce people to new
web sites? Or is your focus on the legal field? Regardless of your niche, you can benefit from taking advantage of one of the little-known secrets of AdSense experts… FREE syndicated articles.
Many writers want nothing more than to have their work published and read. Syndicated content is a dream-come-true for writers AND publishers. For the writer, it exposes their work to a larger audience. And for the publisher (that’s you!), it means more quality content for your site. You might not be aware that there are literally THOUSANDS of articles available online which you can easily add to your web site!
Of course, the trick is knowing where to find these articles. Below is a list that can get you started by showing you where you can find over 30,000 articles that are ready to be placed on your own web site.
Please note that each site has its own restrictions and rules for using its
content. In all cases, you must leave the author’s name and web site link intact. Some sites require that you also link back to the site where you found the article. This is critical! Remember that while you are allowed to use the articles on your pages, the content is still property of the author. Please give credit where credit is due!
You may wish to publish articles only relevant to your topic, or you may wish to become a publishing powerhouse, adding thousands of new pages to your site. Regardless of how you wish to approach it, here are a few sites that provide you with thousands of FREE articles that you can republish on your web sites.
EzineArticles.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com
A fantastic resources featuring over 21,000 articles covering a huge range of topics. However, they do have a limit of 25 articles/year for each site. Look through the categories and you can select some gems.
DotComWomen.com
http://www.dotcomwomen.com/free-content.shtml
Nice selection of articles targeting women.
John Watson
http://members.tripod.com/buckcreek
John offers his stories for site owners to enjoy and place on their sites.
ValuableContent.com
http://www.valuablecontent.com/
The site name delivers as promises. Dozens of categories with hundreds of articles for you to publish. Marketing, business, humor, internet, legal, computing, sports, travel and many more.
Patricia Fripp
http://www.fripp.com/articleslist.html
Patricia Fripp is a businesswoman, marketer and motivational speaker. Her site offers over one hundred articles perfect for any business-oriented site.
ArticleCity.com
http://www.articlecity.com
This one is a source of articles that will keep you busy for weeks on end.
ArticleCity offers over 12,000 articles that you can place on your site. If the topic exists, you can bet that this site will have an article on that topic. I recommend spending a great deal of time selecting articles for your site here.
Want to find more? Simply do a Google search for "free articles" and see
what turns up. Fine tune your search for your topic to find articles relevant to your site, such as “free parenting articles” or “free financial articles”.
Now that you know where to find free content, you can build hundreds or
thousands of keyword relevant pages and place your AdSense code on them to generate more revenue.
8.5 Add Public Domain Works To Your Site
One of the best kept secrets of free content comes in the form of Public
Domain works. Basically, these are books, articles, recordings and pictures whose copyrights have expired. Since they have not been re-registered with a copyright, they enter the public domain. What does that mean? It means ANYONE (including you) can publish, re-publish and/or sell the works without paying a commission to anyone!
Think about this. You can build a site with HUNDREDS of pages just by publishing one public domain book on your site! Think of all the AdSense impressions you can deliver. The possibilities are endless.
I have two sources that you will want to investigate to find Public Domain works that you can begin using immediately
Idea #1 — Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the oldest producer of free electronic books on the
Internet. Their collection of more than 15,000 eBooks was produced by
hundreds of volunteers. As of this writing, the top 10 most popular works on Project Gutenberg are:
1. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci by Leonardo da Vinci
2. Project Gutenberg "10K" DVD
3. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett
4. The Art of War
5. Ulysses by James Joyce
6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Project Gutenberg "Best Of" CD August 2003
8. How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin
9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
10. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
Check out their entire library at http://www.gutenberg.org/
Please note that while you may republish these works on your site, you are not allowed to resell the works themselves.
The downside of using works from Project Gutenberg is that hundreds of other people may already be using them. You might opt for less popular works in order to get better search engine placement.
Idea #2 - The Lost Files
Created by Russell Brunson, The Lost Files is a
subscription-based service that provides the latest works to enter the Public Domain. In other words, he keeps you posted of new books and articles before everyone else gets their hands on them!
Here is a list of some titles available to members:
Sunday, November 18, 2007
7. Catch Fickle Visitors With The Google Search Box
What happens when your visitors can't find what they want on your website? They might be bored, probably they're hungry for more or they might want to refine their search. If you have a Google Search Box, you can now retain these 'quitters' — and make money from ads they click from their search results!
The Google Search Box isn't just an added convenience for your visitors — it can actually make you money!
If your AdSense ads are being ignored, add a link at the bottom of the
AdSense ads, inviting visitors to try Google search. A simple note should do the trick. Try something like: "Can't find what you're looking for? Try Google Search!"
A Google Search box allows your visitors to specify their exact search terms, thereby "pulling" more relevant ads to your page. Using the Search feature, you can pull up on-demand AdSense ads at the top of the search results.
At the bottom of the Google text ads, place a link to the Google Search bar, inviting readers to Search for better-targeted content and offers. When visitors click an ad, YOU get paid!
You can invite users to search within the website or the entire web.
As far as possible, use a staid gray button for the Google search feature. It looks more believable — and legitimate! Note that Google has not played around with its own search buttons, although the logo itself has undergone many theme-based transformations.
Fig 7.1 The "Search" feature is an important part of content-rich websites. On my website above, users are invited to search different threads within the website 'by keyword' and 'by username'. Check it out at:
http://forums.dealofday.com/search.php?
Google Search Boxes are getting increasingly popular with Internet Forums, enabling users to pull up relevant text ads "on demand"!
7.2 Learn How To Add Google Search To Your Web Page!
Adding Google Search to your Web page is very easy. This Step-by-Step Tutorial shows you how:
7.3 To Search Or Not To Search
Putting a Google search box on your site brings advantages and
disadvantages. The big plus is that all the ads the user sees are going to be relevant. The user chooses the keyword so the results are going to be right in line with what the user wants.
On the other hand, that means you’ve got no control over the keywords they choose so you can’t try to promote high-paying keywords. You have to take what you’re given. You could have a high click-through rate but low revenues (although there’s still no guarantee that the user will click on an ad rather than an unpaid listing on the search results page.)
But your users will leave your site at some point anyway. Why shouldn’t you try to make money when they do click away? Even if Search doesn’t bring you huge amounts of money, you should still use it as an added revenue source and to bring extra functionality to your users. I look at it this way. If a visitor doesn’t find what they want on my site, I’d prefer that they leave some change in the “tip jar” on the way out the door!
7.4 Home Page Searching
One way to increase your revenues from searching is to encourage your users to use your site as their home page.
Many users have Google as their home page. If you’re offering the same
service as Google, using their search box and delivering their results, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be searching from your page — and giving you revenue from the ads.
Just encourage your users, especially users with Google as their home page, to switch to you, and you’ll be able to make the most of your search function and your ads.
7.5 Customizing Your Search Google lets you customize the search box to match your site in the same way that you can customize your ad units. But a different principle applies here:
you want to prevent your ads from looking like ads; you want your search box to look like a search box.
You can certainly make the box look like part of your site so that it looks attractive but as I said, keep the button grey.
People trust Google to deliver results that they want. If the search box
reminds them of Google, they’re more likely to use it than go to Google.com and search from there.
7.6 An Innovative Search Script
Bob Rankin of www.tourbus.com shares a custom-made javascript that
allows you to suggest additional search terms for your users. Note that is a violation of Google’s Terms of Service to modify the search code. However, this script is independent of the search code, though it does dabble with the input.
Simply replace ABC, DEF and GHI in the script below with whatever search terms you wish to provide as suggestions for your visitors.
// change forms[0] to forms[n] as needed.
Suggested Searches
Click a highlighted word below, then press the Search button.
6. Controlling Your Ads
6.1 Attracting Relevant Ads
Getting the color and placement right will help improve your click-through rate. But neither of those will affect which ads your site serves.
In theory, Google controls the ads that appear on your site. You don’t get to choose them at all. In practice, there are a few things that you can do stop irrelevant ads from appearing and ensure that you get the ads that give you cash.
The more relevant the ads, the greater the chance that a user will click and you’ll earn money.
The most important factor is obviously going to be your content. Google’s robot will check your site and serve up ads based on the keywords and the content on your page.
Bear in mind that Google’s robot can’t read graphics or Flash or pretty much anything that isn’t text. I’ll talk about content in detail in chapter 8 but for now, remember that if you want to keep your ads relevant, you’ve got to have the sort of page that Google can understand and use to give you the ads you want.
6.2 Keep The Title, Directory And Headlines Relevant
How exactly Google’s robot reads pages is a secret guarded about as closely as Coca Cola’s special syrup formula. One thing that does seem to have an effect though is the title of your URLs and files.
When you create your pages and view them on your computer before
uploading them to the server, you should find that AdSense serves up ads
related to the name of the directory that holds the page. That gives a pretty big clue as to at least one of the things that Google is looking at: the name of the directory.
Actually, it’s not just the name of the directory that’s important. The name of the file plays a big part too.
If you have a website about wedding trains and the title of one of your pages is trains.php for example, there’s a good chance that you’ll get ads about Amtrak and Caltrain. That wouldn’t give you many clicks. Change the name of the file to weddingtrains.php and there’s a much better chance that you’ll see ads related to weddings.
If you find that the ads that are appearing on your site have nothing to do with your content, the first places to look are your directory and your title. Make them more relevant to your content and you should find that you get better ads.
Another place to look is your headlines. Instead of using a tag for your heading, try using the tag with headings that contain your keywords. That should help them to stand out to the robots.
And if you don’t have any headlines at all, try adding some.
6.3 Finding Keywords
We know that Google’s robot searches websites for keywords, then reports back and tells the company what kind of ads to send to the site. If your site is about pension plans for example, then your keywords would be things like “retirement”, “401k” and “pension”.
Getting the right keywords on your site won’t just make your ads relevant; it will also help you to make sure that the ads you get are the ones that pay the most.
There are all sorts of tools available on the Web that tell you how much
people are prepared to pay for keywords. www.overture.com and
www.googlest.com let you see how much people are prepared to pay, and keywords.clickhereforit.com also has a list of keywords with their prices.
Again, you don’t want to build a site just to cash in on a high paying keyword but if you know that “401k” pays more than “retirement” for example, then it makes sense to use the higher paying keywords more than the lower paying ones.
See chapter 12.4 for more on finding the most up-to-date high paying keywords.
6.4 Keyword Density
You’ll need the right keywords to get the right ads. But you’ll also need the right amount of keywords.
There’s no golden rule for the putting right number of keywords on a page to get the ads you want. You’ll just have to experiment. It also seems to be the case that keyword density is counted across pages, especially for high-paying keywords. If you have a site that's generally about cars and you write a page for car rental, a higher-paying keyword, you might find that you need to produce several pages about car rental before you get the ads.
In general though, if you find that your ads are missing the point of your
page and that your titles are all correct, then the next step would be to try mentioning your keywords more often and make sure that they’re all finely focused. For example, talking about “fire extinguishers” is likely to get you better results than talking generally about “safety equipment.”
6.5 Keyword Placement
It shouldn’t really matter where you put your keywords, should it? As long as the right words are on the right page in the right amount of numbers, that should be enough to get you relevant ads, right?
Wrong.
One of the strangest results that people have had using AdSense is that
putting keywords in particular places on the page can have an effect on the ads the site gets.
In my experience, the most important place on your webpage is
directly beneath the AdSense box. The keywords you place there could influence your ads.
For example, mentioning clowns in the space directly beneath the AdSense box could give you ads about circuses and red noses!
Keeping that in mind, you could play with your ads in all sorts of ways. If you had a site about camping for example, you might find that you’re getting lots of ads about tents and sleeping bags, which would be fine. But if you also wanted to make sure that one or two of your ads were about Yosemite or mobile homes, then mentioning those keywords once or twice on the page directly below the AdSense box could give you ads for sites with that sort of content too.
Bear in mind though that you’ll often find that you get ads that try to
combine the main thrust of your site with the words in that keyword space below the ad box. So if you had a site about gardening and you mentioned “cabbages” beneath the ad box, you’re more likely to get ads about growing cabbages than ads about cabbage recipes.
Experimenting with the placement of the keywords could allow you to control at least one or two of the ads you receive and help keep them varied. That’s definitely something to try.
6.6 Keyword Frames
One of the reasons that websites don’t always receive relevant ads may be that all the navigation and other non-content words affect the way Google reads the page. If your links and other words take up lots of space, it could well skew your results.
One way to avoid your navigation affecting your ads is simply to create
frames. You put all of your content in your main frame and the navigation material in a separate frame. Only the “content frame” has the Google code (google_page_url = document.location), so your keywords won’t be diluted by non-relevant words.
6.7 No 'Baiting'!
Often I've clicked through a 'promising' website, only to find reams of keyword spam, interspersed with AdSense. Websites like these make AdSense look bad. Keyword spam may trick search spiders, but your human visitors will leave disappointed.
People hate being 'baited' by a web marketer. Offer content that makes their visit worthwhile. Address the needs and concerns of your visitors with original content.
Quality content builds trust and loyalty — and that, in turn, makes people want to click. Search rankings may change, but loyal visitors keep coming back for more!
6.8 Changing Metatags
Metatags certainly aren’t what they used to be and in AdSense, they’re
barely anything at all. There’s a good chance that when it comes to deciding ad relevance, your metatags have no effect whatsoever.
I’ve already mentioned that the title of your page will have an effect. It’s also very likely that the description does too.
But that doesn’t mean that your metatags are completely irrelevant when it comes to AdSense. They aren’t. They’re only irrelevant when it comes to serving ads; they still play a role in search engine optimization and getting your site indexed faster.
6.9 Inviting The Robot
So far in this chapter, I’ve explained some of the ways that you can tweak your page to keep your ads relevant. But the changes you make won’t have any effect until Google’s robot stops by and re-indexes your page. What will generally happen is that once you upload your new page, you’ll still get the old ads and you might have to wait some time before the robot visits it again and you can find out whether your changes have the right result.
To get the robot to stop by earlier, reload the page in your browser, and then again a few minutes later. Do not click on any of the ads just reload and wait a few minutes before attempts.
You should find that you receive new ads within a few minutes.
6.10 Public Service Ads
The penalty for not getting your keyword placement and density right isn’t just irrelevant ads. It could also be no ads at all. If Google can’t find any relevant ads to give you, it could use your space to present public service ads, which are very nice but they don’t pay you a penny. You might prefer to earn money and give it to a charity of your choice rather than give space on your site to a cause that Google chooses.
The most obvious way to beat this problem is to specify an alternate URL in the event that Google has no ads for you. You can do this from your AdSense account. Instead of linking to the Red Cross or whoever it may be, you’ll receive a link to a site that you’ve pre-chosen. For example, I have set up default ads for my 336x280 ad block.
http://www.worldvillage.com/336x280-1.html
They look remarkably like AdSense ads, don’t you think?
You can also use this space to deliver image-based ads that come from your server. For offers that pay per action (clicks or signups), I like to use WebSponsors.com. You can signup for a free account and find new ways to monetize your unused ad space.
You can also use Google Backfill, a very neat service that allows you to select keywords relevant to your site and display targeted ads instead of the public service ads or your alternative URL. They’ll match your colors and styles and split the revenue 50/50. It’s all in line with Google’s TOS and makes good alternative to no revenue at all while you get your keywords fixed. The service is available at www.allfeeds.com
6.11 Blocking Ads Finally, the last way to control the ads you see on your site is to block ads you don’t want. Google gives you a limit of 200 URL’s to block, which isn’t much. You might well find yourself burning through them pretty fast, especially if you try to block lower paying ads in favor of the higher-paying ones. Playing with keywords, content and placement will give you much better results.
5. How To Maximize Visibility And Response
Location is everything. The world's best ad won't deliver if it isn't visible in
the first place. But after much experimentation with Google AdSense, I know that the most visible ads aren't always the most effective. In fact, they're likely to get ignored as 'blatant advertising'.
What does work is wise placement. Put them where your content is most likely to interest and engage your visitors.
You can create several 'points of interest' with the wise use of graphics, tables and other layout techniques.
Once you have your visitor's attention with engaging and meaningful
content, they are most likely to read and click on relevant ads. And that is precisely what Google wants — "educated" clicks from real prospects, not random visits from bored people.
Here are a few simple tips to make your ads 'click'!
5.2 Go with the 'flow'
Identify the reading patterns of your visitors. What draws their attention first? What makes them 'click'?
Like I said, you want to put your ads in areas that draw your visitors in with interesting content. There’s no point in putting your ads in some out of the way place where no one ever looks.
Your users will follow your content, so you need to make sure that your ads follow that content too.
Look at the design and layout of your webpage, identify the places that you think most of your users look — and mark that as a likely spot to put your ads.
https://www.google.com/support/AdSense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html
sums up the options pretty well:
Fig. 5.1 Google’s Heat Map shows an “average” site’s hot spots. The darker areas are the regions where people look most frequently. But remember, no site is average. Where do your visitors look most?Google says that certain areas are more effective than others. Researchers have also found that when people look at a website, their eyes start in the top left hand corner and then travel down the page from left to right.
All of this is true but the hottest areas can vary from site to site. You will need to experiment to find the very best places for you.
One general rule on the Internet is that people spend most of their time on a site “above the fold.”
The first thing people do when they reach a website is to absorb as much
information as possible before they start scrolling. The part of the page that they can see without scrolling is called “above the fold.”
The number of links that appear above the fold affect how likely people are to click on your AdSense ads. That’s why more ads doesn't always mean more money!
Google always puts the top-paying ads on the top and the lowest-paying ones at the bottom.
If you have a stack with three or more ads, the cheaper ads might steal attention away from high-paying ads and clutter up your website.
You don’t want ads and links competing against each other. If you want to increase your earnings per click, remember: Less is More! And that’s particularly true above the fold.
Let's take a look at two sample pages:
Fig 5.2 MegaBookshop.com has a search form, a featured product, category links and AdSense ads, all above the fold.
Fig 5.3 SafetySurf.com is not the most attractive site, but notice how the only links above the fold are AdSense ads.Now, which of these sites’ ads do you think bring a higher click-through rate? You guessed it. The second site has triple the click-through rate of the first site. The moral of the story? If you want to maximize your AdSense clicks, give your visitors fewer choices above the fold!
5.4 Using Tables
I’ve already mentioned that one of the principles of a high click-through rate (CTR) is to make your sites blend into the page. The more you position your sites to blend into the page, the better your click-through rate will be. One very neat way to help your ads blend into the site is to place them in tables.
In the example below, technology guru Chris Pirillo skillfully drops his
AdSense into a
Google AdSense code goes here |
Google AdSense code goes here |
5.5 Ad Link Units
So far, I’ve been talking about where to put your ads and I’ve recommended above the fold, with little competition and suggested that you might want to put them in a table. But you should also think about which kinds of ads you want to place where.
Ad Link units let you place a box on your site that contains four or five links. They come in sizes ranging from 20 x 90 to 200 x 90, and are really meant to be placed on a sidebar.
Because you can place one Ad Link unit as well as three other units on the page, you might find that the choice helps: if a user doesn’t spot something interesting in one type of ad block, he might spot it on another.
Where Ad Links differ from other types of ads is that they only display a list
of topics that Google believes are relevant to the content of your pages. They don’t display the ads themselves. When a visitor clicks on a topic, Google pops up a new window with targeted ads.
It can be argued that the Ad Links are ineffective because people have to go through two clicks in order for you to get paid. That’s right, you only get paid for the second click (but that does mean you can check to see which ads your users are being served.)
But it can also be argued that if someone is taking the time to click on a
topic, then they are probably very interested and are likely to click an actual advertisement on the resulting page. Some people have found that just about everyone who clicks on an Ad Link will click on the ads that appear on the next page.
I have tested Ad Links on multiple sites and have seen vast differences in
results. That makes it more difficult to say whether or not they are for you.
very general audience. The results were nothing to write home about. Let's just say that you could just about buy a large candy bar with the CPM I saw.
In the second case, I placed the Ad Links on a product specific site with a
narrow audience. The results were fantastic! We're talking about a CPM that is greater than what someone might make flipping burgers in one day.
The conclusions should be obvious. If you’re going to use Ad Links units campaign. You need to put them:
1. On a site with a specific field of interest. A general site will give you general ads — and few clicks.
2. Above the fold with few other links. For Ad Links, this is crucial: If your users are going to click a link, it should be a link that gives you money.
It’s also a good idea to keep your Ad Link units for sites with high-paying keywords. If someone comes to your site seeking out information or a product on a top-notch keyword, they tend to be more likely to click as a result.
Let’s take a look at an example:
Fig 5.5 LockerGnome.com puts AdLinks above a list of links so that they blend into the site.I’ve already mentioned Chris Pirillo’s site at Lockergnome.com as an
excellent template for how to do AdSense properly. While I don't have access to his AdSense statistics, I have watched his sites long enough to speculate as to his success.
The center column of his page is classic AdSense placement. He is using a
medium or large rectangle with blue links, black text and subtle URL. The ads are placed inline and right justified. People start on the left and drift to the right. My testing has also shown that ads on the right perform best.
He is using a 120 x 600 skyscraper ad, which I usually don't recommend. However, many people use the skyscraper ads in sidebars. Pirillo has thought outside the box and used the white space next to his bullet points for this page. Right justifying the skyscraper block and placing it inline is a slick move.
the fold. That means you can see Ads by Google as the first item. As long as those AdLinks are very targeted to the content on the page, they could generate 1%-2% in clicks. If you have the space and they fit in your sidebar, I would test them on your site as well.
5.6 Horizontal Ad Link Units
Recently, Google introduced a new format for Ad Link Units: horizontal. This is a huge difference. Users are reporting increases in CTR as high as 200% using this units!
Instead of piling the links one on top of the other—which is great for putting above lists of links but stand out too clearly when placed in text—the horizontal ads blend in perfectly when placed on pages with articles.
Fig. 5.6 New horizontal Ad Link units are great for inserting into articles and show very clearly which keywords your site is generating.You can still only use one Ad Link unit per page and users still have to click twice before you get paid but they’re definitely worth slipping into a long article. I’d recommend that you put them either above the article or in the middle. They’ll be too easy to miss at the bottom.
So Google allows you to put up to three AdSense blocks (ad units) on the same page, as well as an Ad Link unit and a search box. What does this mean for web publishers?
A real bonanza: you now have many more chances to hook readers with new ads as Google will show unique ads in each ad unit!
To leverage this opportunity, look at adding new content to your high-traffic pages. Use attractive, quick-loading graphics that encourage people to scroll down. For example, relevant, catchy graphics could be a great way to draw your visitors to an ad. A B2B website could run a daily cartoon strip with a humorous take on trade news and issues. Your AdSense ads can be positioned right underneath the cartoon, which will lend instant visibility to the ads.
That’s a strategy that will maximize exposure to the AdSense units, leading to more clicks and more money! With multiple ad blocks, you can decide which ads are served in the best place for your site.