So we’ve talked about text ads, image ads, link units and search boxes.
There is one more way of making money with AdSense: referral programs.
1 Referring For AdSense
When Google first rolled out its AdSense referral program, it looked good.
The program paid $100 each time a sign-up earned $100 in revenue. If ten
of your users clicked, signed up for AdSense and earned $100, you would
have made an easy thousand dollars.
And it sounded possible. The product is good, the company is reputable and
the referral buttons are very attractive. In fact, they look like they were
inspired by the iPod and that’s been eye-catching enough!
2 Firing Up Firefox And Unpacking Google Pack
The same is true of your Firefox and Google Pack referral ads. The Firefox
ads pay up to $1 for every user who downloads the Firefox Web browser with
an attached Google toolbar, and the Pack ads pay all of $2.
These ads can’t be formatted or changed, so you can only play with
placement. But at least you know exactly how much money you’re going to
receive when someone downloads...
3 Referring AdWords
The AdWords referral program is better, and closer to the AdSense program.
You’ll earn $5 if an advertiser spends $5 (in addition to the sign-up fee)
within 90 days.
If the advertiser spends $100 within 90 days, you’ll receive another $40. And
if 20 advertisers do that, you’ll receive a $600 bonus.
4 Referral Strategies
The first thing that you can do to maximize earnings is to recommend the
programs you’re offering. You can’t say anything about the contents of
your AdSense units. But you can encourage people to sign up to AdSense or
start using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
Even a simple line like: “Viewing this site in Explorer? The Web looks better
in Firefox” or “We recommend AdSense — It pays publishers” could do the
trick. (Of course, Google won’t like you telling people to click so that you’ll
get paid—or telling them that if they click, they’ll get paid—but they don’t
mind you talking up the services the buttons offer.)
source : www.joelcomm.com
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Controlling Your Ads
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 to
stop irrelevant ads from appearing and ensure that you get the ads that give
you cash.
2 Keep The Title, Directory And Headlines Relevant
How exactly the crawlers read 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.
3 Finding Keywords
We know that Google’s crawlers search 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.
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 putting the 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.”
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.
The most important place on your webpage is directly beneath the
AdSense box. The keywords you place there could influence your ads.
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.
7 Section Targeting
Probably the most effective way to ensure the crawlers read the keywords
you want to emphasize though is to use Section Targeting. This is a fantastic
technique. By simply inserting a couple of lines of HTML code into your Web
page, you can tell the crawler which parts of your site are the most important
and ensure that you get ads relevant to that content.
8 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.
9 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 seem to be irrelevant when it
comes to serving ads; they still play a role in search engine optimization and
getting your site indexed faster.
10 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.
source : www.joelcomm.com
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 to
stop irrelevant ads from appearing and ensure that you get the ads that give
you cash.
2 Keep The Title, Directory And Headlines Relevant
How exactly the crawlers read 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.
3 Finding Keywords
We know that Google’s crawlers search 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.
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 putting the 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.”
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.
The most important place on your webpage is directly beneath the
AdSense box. The keywords you place there could influence your ads.
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.
7 Section Targeting
Probably the most effective way to ensure the crawlers read the keywords
you want to emphasize though is to use Section Targeting. This is a fantastic
technique. By simply inserting a couple of lines of HTML code into your Web
page, you can tell the crawler which parts of your site are the most important
and ensure that you get ads relevant to that content.
8 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.
9 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 seem to be irrelevant when it
comes to serving ads; they still play a role in search engine optimization and
getting your site indexed faster.
10 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.
source : www.joelcomm.com
How To Maximize Visibility And Response
1 Ad Placement: Where To Put Your Ads?
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.
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 each of them as a likely spot to
put your ads.
3 Above The Fold
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.”
That’s where you want your ads.
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.
4 Using Tables
I’ve already mentioned that one of the principles of a high click-through rate
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, Chris Pirillo again skillfully dropped his AdSense into a
< table > for a clean and attractive look that turns AdSense into a new focal
point.
5 Complementing Your Ads
Everything I’ve discussed so far has been about placing your ads where your
users will be looking. That’s pretty easy. But there’s an alternative strategy,
which can be very powerful: bringing your users to your ads.
You have to be careful here though. Google forbids you from saying to users
“Look over here and click on the ads... I want the money.” And that’s
reasonable. But with some clever design work, you can still guide
your users to look in that direction.
The rule to remember here is that elements attract eyes. When a user loads a Web page,
he’s always going to look at various things on the page, not just the text. That’s especially
true of images, which is why one popular strategy was to place pictures related to the
content of the ad right next to the ad unit.
source : www.joelcomm.com
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.
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 each of them as a likely spot to
put your ads.
3 Above The Fold
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.”
That’s where you want your ads.
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.
4 Using Tables
I’ve already mentioned that one of the principles of a high click-through rate
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, Chris Pirillo again skillfully dropped his AdSense into a
< table > for a clean and attractive look that turns AdSense into a new focal
point.
5 Complementing Your Ads
Everything I’ve discussed so far has been about placing your ads where your
users will be looking. That’s pretty easy. But there’s an alternative strategy,
which can be very powerful: bringing your users to your ads.
You have to be careful here though. Google forbids you from saying to users
“Look over here and click on the ads... I want the money.” And that’s
reasonable. But with some clever design work, you can still guide
your users to look in that direction.
The rule to remember here is that elements attract eyes. When a user loads a Web page,
he’s always going to look at various things on the page, not just the text. That’s especially
true of images, which is why one popular strategy was to place pictures related to the
content of the ad right next to the ad unit.
source : www.joelcomm.com
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