You may wonder what exactly is traffic exchange programs. Blogexplosion is one of the popular traffic exchange programs. Now, I’m not saying Blogexplosion is bad service. Instead, it helps in getting traffics to your website. However, if you’re putting Adsense on your site it may not be suitable to use such service.
Recently in April 12, Mike Deeringer from the AdSense Publisher Support had stressed the importance of this point.
As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.
We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don’t recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity.We realize that you may have questions about a specific traffic service and whether it could potentially create invalid impressions or clicks. However, please understand that we’re unable to comment on any particular third-party service.
According to Mike, it didn’t really say which third-party service you shouldn’t use but it is stated implicitly that all type of traffic exchange programs will end up being banned from the big G.
To avoid being banned, think twice before joining any traffic exchange programs.so as far as possible try to stay away from auto-surf programs or traffic exchange programs.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Friday, June 01, 2007
Jesus Golf
Jesus, Moses, and another guy are standing on the tee of a water hazard. Jesus hits the ball and hooks it into the water. Next, Moses tees up and also hooks it into the water. The third guy comes up to the tee and as he hits a big gust of wind comes up and blows his ball into the water as well.Visit for the complete story....
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Directory Submitter
One proven way to get traffic to your sites is to get them listed in authoritative directories. Directories are just websites that list and categorize other websites. That's how Yahoo! got its start — it was a big web directory to begin with. There are two benefits to being listed in directories:
you get found by humans browsing for sites on specific topics; and
you get extra search engine juice from the directory links.
The problem is that getting listed in directories is a tedious process. First, you have to find the directories in question. Second, you have to create an account for the directory. Third, you have to submit the details about your site. And you have to track it all. That's why products like Directory Submitter get written, to do away with some (but not all) of the drudgery.
Directory Submitter comes in two editions: Standard and Gold. The Standard edition is completely free and lets you submit sites to 350 different directories. The Gold edition costs $47 (which is cheap compared to Brad's other products) and lets you submit to over 1700 directories. All directories currently listed in either edition are free directories that do not require reciprocal links, which is a big plus. And the directory list is current and maintained by Brad Callen's staff.
Although I've upgraded to the Gold edition, this review is going to use screenshots from the Basic edition.
you get found by humans browsing for sites on specific topics; and
you get extra search engine juice from the directory links.
The problem is that getting listed in directories is a tedious process. First, you have to find the directories in question. Second, you have to create an account for the directory. Third, you have to submit the details about your site. And you have to track it all. That's why products like Directory Submitter get written, to do away with some (but not all) of the drudgery.
Directory Submitter comes in two editions: Standard and Gold. The Standard edition is completely free and lets you submit sites to 350 different directories. The Gold edition costs $47 (which is cheap compared to Brad's other products) and lets you submit to over 1700 directories. All directories currently listed in either edition are free directories that do not require reciprocal links, which is a big plus. And the directory list is current and maintained by Brad Callen's staff.
Although I've upgraded to the Gold edition, this review is going to use screenshots from the Basic edition.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Blogging Tips
Muhammad Saleem has written on Copyblogger about writing specifically to get some traffic from Digg. Often called Digg bait, the articles sometimes are not the best written, but it is well known that they have to be formulated in a certain way to appeal to the Digg audience.
Writing for Digg is actually less about substance and more about how you present the content—in other words, copywriting. This entails writing the same content that you would normally write, but altering it in a way that doesn’t take away from its essence while making it appealing to the broader Digg audience. This is the kind of content that both your regular readers and potential new readers will appreciate.
Muhammad Saleem is very right in saying that writing for Digg can be a bit like crack (an addictive substance) because the waves of traffic are amazing. The traffic though isn’t the best type though, as they avoid advertisements and rarely comment on the actual article.
Definitely worth a read if you are interested in Digg traffic. There are many posts on Copyblogger where you can find some copy writing tips for Digg and other social media sites.
Writing for Digg is actually less about substance and more about how you present the content—in other words, copywriting. This entails writing the same content that you would normally write, but altering it in a way that doesn’t take away from its essence while making it appealing to the broader Digg audience. This is the kind of content that both your regular readers and potential new readers will appreciate.
Muhammad Saleem is very right in saying that writing for Digg can be a bit like crack (an addictive substance) because the waves of traffic are amazing. The traffic though isn’t the best type though, as they avoid advertisements and rarely comment on the actual article.
Definitely worth a read if you are interested in Digg traffic. There are many posts on Copyblogger where you can find some copy writing tips for Digg and other social media sites.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Adsense - Tips & Trick Part 2
Tip #1: Don't put ads on empty pages.
When I reworked my site, I built a skeleton set of pages that had no content, just titles and some meta tags. I displayed ads on those pages, however. Although all you see are public service ads at first, the very act of displaying ads on a page causes the AdSense web crawler to quickly fetch that page for analysis. A page with good content will thus begin showing relevant paying ads fairly quickly.
If you don't have any content, then, Google will have to guess as what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant. You'll have to wait until Google re-crawls the site for the ads to correct themselves. Here is what Google had to say when I asked them about how often the AdSense crawler updates a site:
Thank you for taking the time to update your site. New ads will start appearing on your site the next time our crawler re-indexes your site. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to control how often our crawlers index the content on your site.
Crawling is done automatically by our bots. When new pages are added to your website or introduced to the AdSense program, our crawlers will usually get to them within 30 minutes. If you make changes to a page, however, it may take up to 2 or 3 weeks before the changes are reflected in our index. Until we are able to crawl your web pages, you may notice public service ads, for which you will not receive any earnings.
It's better to flesh out the page before you start displaying ads on it.
Tip #2: Don't be afraid to ask questions
If you're wondering about something, don't be afraid to ask Google. So far, they've always responded to my questions within a working day. There are two email addresses to use, depending on the type of question:
Please feel free to email us at adsense-tech@google.com if you have additional technical questions or concerns. For general program or account questions, please email adsense-support@google.com.
Their responses are always very polite, and they appreciate getting problem reports and suggestions.
Tip #3: Avoid non-English characters on English pages
This one is a bug, to be honest. My surname is French, and I prefer to write it out correctly with the accent grave on the first "e". Every page on my site would then include at least two accented letters, because my name shows up twice in the footer. On some pages my name shows up two or three more times.
Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. But on some pages the presence of the accented characters is enough to cause AdSense to display non-relevant ads in French. This happens whether the browser indicates a preference for French or not. When I reported this to Google, this is the answer they gave me:
Hello Eric,
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.
We are currently working as quickly as we can to address this problem. As soon as we have more information for you, we will email you again.
We appreciate your patience.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
Until this is resolved, I've decided to strip out all accents except on the pages that are actually in French.
Tip #4: Check your keyword density
Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do tell us that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags. Before serving ads on a page, then, you might want to check its keyword density. A good, free tool for doing this is found here: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html
This lets you fine-tune the page before exposing it to the AdSense crawler.
When I reworked my site, I built a skeleton set of pages that had no content, just titles and some meta tags. I displayed ads on those pages, however. Although all you see are public service ads at first, the very act of displaying ads on a page causes the AdSense web crawler to quickly fetch that page for analysis. A page with good content will thus begin showing relevant paying ads fairly quickly.
If you don't have any content, then, Google will have to guess as what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant. You'll have to wait until Google re-crawls the site for the ads to correct themselves. Here is what Google had to say when I asked them about how often the AdSense crawler updates a site:
Thank you for taking the time to update your site. New ads will start appearing on your site the next time our crawler re-indexes your site. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to control how often our crawlers index the content on your site.
Crawling is done automatically by our bots. When new pages are added to your website or introduced to the AdSense program, our crawlers will usually get to them within 30 minutes. If you make changes to a page, however, it may take up to 2 or 3 weeks before the changes are reflected in our index. Until we are able to crawl your web pages, you may notice public service ads, for which you will not receive any earnings.
It's better to flesh out the page before you start displaying ads on it.
Tip #2: Don't be afraid to ask questions
If you're wondering about something, don't be afraid to ask Google. So far, they've always responded to my questions within a working day. There are two email addresses to use, depending on the type of question:
Please feel free to email us at adsense-tech@google.com if you have additional technical questions or concerns. For general program or account questions, please email adsense-support@google.com.
Their responses are always very polite, and they appreciate getting problem reports and suggestions.
Tip #3: Avoid non-English characters on English pages
This one is a bug, to be honest. My surname is French, and I prefer to write it out correctly with the accent grave on the first "e". Every page on my site would then include at least two accented letters, because my name shows up twice in the footer. On some pages my name shows up two or three more times.
Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. But on some pages the presence of the accented characters is enough to cause AdSense to display non-relevant ads in French. This happens whether the browser indicates a preference for French or not. When I reported this to Google, this is the answer they gave me:
Hello Eric,
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.
We are currently working as quickly as we can to address this problem. As soon as we have more information for you, we will email you again.
We appreciate your patience.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
Until this is resolved, I've decided to strip out all accents except on the pages that are actually in French.
Tip #4: Check your keyword density
Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do tell us that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags. Before serving ads on a page, then, you might want to check its keyword density. A good, free tool for doing this is found here: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html
This lets you fine-tune the page before exposing it to the AdSense crawler.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Increase Google Page Rank (PR)
Google Page Rank (PR) is a numerical value determined by the importance of the page for Google. Pages are ranked from 0 to 10, where 0 is unknown, and 10 is very important (very few resources, such as Microsoft, Google itself and others, have such rank). The higher your rank is, the higher your page is in Google Search results. The exact algorithm of ranking pages is a secret, but there are some major factors influencing it.The main thing Google crawler relies on while ranking a page is the number and the importance of the inbound links (links to the page from other pages). It's like other pages are voting for you. The higher rank linking page has, the higher its influence on your page rank. So, if your page rank is 3, to increase it to 4 you need either a group of links from 2-3-4 ranked sites, or a couple of links from 7-8 sites.It's also important that influence of a link depends on the quantity of links at the connecting page. So if a page links to you and 3 more pages, its vote is divided to 4, or its influence is 4 times lower than it could be if it only linked to your page.
There are some simple mathematical researches on how PR calculated; you can check webworkshop.net, for example. But usually there's no need for counting links and their importance - for a start-up it's better to act, and for resources with high PR it's impossible to count all the linking pages. The case when counting link's influence can be very helpful is buying links from other pages.If you need your page to be ranked high for an exact keyword or phrase, its better that linking sites will mark you the same way. Like if you'd like to get to the top of Google on "how to cook", you need other pages to link to you as "how to cook" resource.So, increasing your PR means getting a lot of back links, that can be done in following behavior:
1. Submitting to directories.
2. Writing quality content that will make people link to you.
3. Participating in forums (the link can be added in your signature).
4. Exchanging links.
5. Buying links.
6. Spamming.
Spamming is usually putting links to your page in comments section in blogs or in forums. To avoid spamming a webmaster can add "nofollow" tag to HTML code, so the link will still appear on the site, but won't influence linked page PR.Spamming is also a way to decrease a page PR. You simply need to put a lot of comments, with links to spam sites and so on, to a page. This is how some of this blog pages went down in Google - I didn't moderate comments for a long period of time, and, as a effect, got about 100 comments on some of the posts. I suggest you to allow comment moderation at your blog and delete spam comments at once.There are not only inbound links influencing your PR, some other factors, like age of the page, updating frequency, etc, can be important.
There's a couple of nice posts about that at dailyblogtips.com.You should also keep in mind that PR update (it's when Google checks your page rank for the next time) takes place about once in 3 months, so you better make everything necessary before submitting your page to Google to get high PR straight away.
There are some simple mathematical researches on how PR calculated; you can check webworkshop.net, for example. But usually there's no need for counting links and their importance - for a start-up it's better to act, and for resources with high PR it's impossible to count all the linking pages. The case when counting link's influence can be very helpful is buying links from other pages.If you need your page to be ranked high for an exact keyword or phrase, its better that linking sites will mark you the same way. Like if you'd like to get to the top of Google on "how to cook", you need other pages to link to you as "how to cook" resource.So, increasing your PR means getting a lot of back links, that can be done in following behavior:
1. Submitting to directories.
2. Writing quality content that will make people link to you.
3. Participating in forums (the link can be added in your signature).
4. Exchanging links.
5. Buying links.
6. Spamming.
Spamming is usually putting links to your page in comments section in blogs or in forums. To avoid spamming a webmaster can add "nofollow" tag to HTML code, so the link will still appear on the site, but won't influence linked page PR.Spamming is also a way to decrease a page PR. You simply need to put a lot of comments, with links to spam sites and so on, to a page. This is how some of this blog pages went down in Google - I didn't moderate comments for a long period of time, and, as a effect, got about 100 comments on some of the posts. I suggest you to allow comment moderation at your blog and delete spam comments at once.There are not only inbound links influencing your PR, some other factors, like age of the page, updating frequency, etc, can be important.
There's a couple of nice posts about that at dailyblogtips.com.You should also keep in mind that PR update (it's when Google checks your page rank for the next time) takes place about once in 3 months, so you better make everything necessary before submitting your page to Google to get high PR straight away.
Friday, May 25, 2007
What is SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO), a subset of search engine marketing, is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, and making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines and also appeals to human visitors.
The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, and making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines and also appeals to human visitors.
The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
How to Optimize Adsense
For starters, to make good money from Google Adsense™ you need to optimize your website with top paying keywords. For Google™ to know what ads to serve up on your site, it has to send a robot (software with specific instructions) to inspect your site and know what it is all about. On the foundation of the outcome obtained from that, Google™ will go further on and serve you with ads that match your site's content.
This is where the much talked about top paying keywords come in. If the theme of your website is centered on a certain topic for example PPC Theme, Google™ will serve ads on your site concerning to pocket pc. So all you need to do is to find the top paying keywords for your forte and optimize them for your site. By optimizing I mean using the keywords in your heading, description and body.
There are speculations as to what criteria Google™ uses to serve high paying keywords. Some say it is the age of you website, the older the better, some say the attractiveness, the upper the position the better. The example here is that do not think that all you need to do is to seize high paying keywords, use them to optimize your website and you will get high paying clicks. It takes more than that. And if that was the case, belief me, we could all be displaying high cost ads on our sites and earning thousands, but unfortunately it is not the case.
This is where the much talked about top paying keywords come in. If the theme of your website is centered on a certain topic for example PPC Theme, Google™ will serve ads on your site concerning to pocket pc. So all you need to do is to find the top paying keywords for your forte and optimize them for your site. By optimizing I mean using the keywords in your heading, description and body.
There are speculations as to what criteria Google™ uses to serve high paying keywords. Some say it is the age of you website, the older the better, some say the attractiveness, the upper the position the better. The example here is that do not think that all you need to do is to seize high paying keywords, use them to optimize your website and you will get high paying clicks. It takes more than that. And if that was the case, belief me, we could all be displaying high cost ads on our sites and earning thousands, but unfortunately it is not the case.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Adsense Keyword Optimization - Hints
For starters, to make good money from Google Adsense™ you need to optimize your website with top paying keywords. For Google™ to know what ads to serve up on your site, it has to send a robot (software with specific instructions) to inspect your site and know what it is all about. On the foundation of the outcome obtained from that, Google™ will go further on and serve you with ads that match your site's content.
This is where the much talked about top paying keywords come in. If the theme of your website is centered on a certain topic for example PPC Theme, Google™ will serve ads on your site concerning to pocket pc. So all you need to do is to find the top paying keywords for your forte and optimize them for your site. By optimizing I mean using the keywords in your heading, description and body.
There are speculations as to what criteria Google™ uses to serve high paying keywords. Some say it is the age of you website, the older the better, some say the attractiveness, the upper the position the better. The example here is that do not think that all you need to do is to seize high paying keywords, use them to optimize your website and you will get high paying clicks. It takes more than that. And if that was the case, belief me, we could all be displaying high cost ads on our sites and earning thousands, but unfortunately it is not the case.
This is where the much talked about top paying keywords come in. If the theme of your website is centered on a certain topic for example PPC Theme, Google™ will serve ads on your site concerning to pocket pc. So all you need to do is to find the top paying keywords for your forte and optimize them for your site. By optimizing I mean using the keywords in your heading, description and body.
There are speculations as to what criteria Google™ uses to serve high paying keywords. Some say it is the age of you website, the older the better, some say the attractiveness, the upper the position the better. The example here is that do not think that all you need to do is to seize high paying keywords, use them to optimize your website and you will get high paying clicks. It takes more than that. And if that was the case, belief me, we could all be displaying high cost ads on our sites and earning thousands, but unfortunately it is not the case.
Optimise Adsense Income
How to maximise your AdSense profits
9 factors determine how much profit you will make from your AdSense participation.
How much traffic your site gets
How many pages on your site host AdSense ads
What the click thru rate from each page is
What the value of each click is
How many ads appear on each page
Where these ads are located
What format these ads are in - size, location, layout and color scheme
Google's fractional pay out rate
How much of your site's traffic is from new as opposed to repeat visitors.
To maximise your site's profits from AdSense you ideally should optimise all these factors. However, one is entirely out of your control: Google's fractional payout rate. This is the percentage of the revenue that Google earns from a click that it passes on to you.
Google doesn't at present reveal this but you could theoretically run an experiment to find out what the exact percentage is. (I'll tell you how when you sign up for the AdSense Insider course - there's a form at the bottom of this page).
Optimising all these factors could take some time so what you should focus on initially are the factors that are going to work in your favor most quickly with the minimum effort.
However I'm going to cover all the ones you can influence here for you.
1. Getting more site traffic
Getting more traffic is an art and a science. The best traffic is traffic that comes from search engines because it is free and because people who come to your site from a search engine are actively looking for things, they are not casually browsing around. They have a search mission in their head.
The tricks of the trade are:
search engine optimisation
using pay per click advertising, such as AdWords (but there is no point in paying more to Google to advertise your site than you earn in overall long-term revenue from it)
posting your link on forums - these effectively give you free links back to your site which helps you with the process of climbing up the search engine ladder
using viral marketing techniques to inform the world about your site
using offline advertising to drive traffic to your site - but give people a reason to visit it, don't just print your web address everywhere
using ezines to remind people about your site from time to time
include your web address in all your email correspondence
All these subjects are covered in more detail in the AdSense Insider Tutorial.
2. Increasing the number of pages that host AdSense ads
This is easy: you just paste the code that Google gives you to activate AdSense into all the pages you want. Google lets you use a range of different formats for ads and you don't need to use the same format on every page. In fact you can change the color scheme, shape and size of the ads on each page.
There are some restrictions though: you can't run more than one block of ads on a single page for example.
3. Increasing the click thru rate from your page
What you can't do is place big bold words around the ads saying "Click these ads to make me some money". In fact you are not allowed to say anything on your site that will actively encourage clicks. However, what you can do is write copy on your site that makes the products or services being advertised become more interesting to the reader. For example, suppose you host a page about casinos. If you write copy that explains why casinos are such fun, and how you can pit your wits against professional gamblers the world over in total confidentiality, and how you can try a casino out in total safety and with zero risk by visiting some of the best online casinos in the world, you will naturally arouse the interest of your reader. Now if your copy is clearly about casinos, AdSense will spot this and post ads about casinos on that page. In fact there is a risk that AdSense will post a casino ad on this page because I have mentioned the word casino quite a few times - we'll see what happens.
4. Increasing the value per click
The way to do this is to increase the quantity and quality of information on your site related to products and services that are of high commercial value on the internet.
This is not as simple as thinking, for example, that jewellery is a high ticket item, therefore you should write a page about jewellery because not that much jewellery is sold online. You really need to spot high profit items that sell well over the internet because these are things that advertisers will pay a lot to advertise. If they pay a lot to advertise, the likelihood is that any related AdSense ads will come with a high click through price.
But you can't just think that, for example, casinos are highly advertised so I'll post a page about casinos: it really has to be relevant to your overall site for two reasons:
If your site is about AdSense and you write a page about casinos, no one on your site is going to be particularly interested unless you are very lucky so the click through rate will be low.
Google prohibits you from writing pages solely to host ads - although it's a judgement call by Google as to whether your pages are solely to earn AdSense revenues or not.
What you can and should do is think laterally about what topics are related to your site that have a commercial value. You run a site about bird-watching, then host some travel pages about how to get to bird-watchers' paradise on a far away Pacific Island. These will probably show travel ads which will give you a reasonably good pay out - and just as importantly they will be relevant to your visitor and so will enhance the overall experience he / she gets from your site, so they'll come back again.
5. Optimising how many ads appear on your page
Google now provides 6 different ad formats. One format allows you to post just a single ad on your site, one allows 5 ads and most allow 4 that read from right to left, or from top to bottom.
Guess what: if you choose the format that shows up 5 ads, you will probably get more clicks than if you show 1. It is not necessarily true, but usually will be. But not all ads will earn you the same revenue - it will depend on Google's complex real time bid pricing algorithm that it uses to set your AdWords click thru price.
6. Optimising the location of the ads
People tend to read from left to right and the eye is trained to do this early on in life (actually some people read the other way round but not English language readers.) They also read from top to bottom.
This process lays emphasis on ads at the beginning and end of a page so don't place them in the middle. There's also a neat trick you can exploit that uses the psychology of reading to help you tip the balance a bit more in your favor - I go into the details in the AdSense Insider's course.
7. Selecting the best format for these ads
With a range of formats available, your first decision is to see which format will fit best into your existing website design. You really don't want to re-jig the whole thing if you can avoid it. Google lets you choose a vast range of color options too and there are two approaches you can adopt:
display your ads in your site's colors so that they fit in well
display your ads in strikingly contrasting colors so that they get noticed more
What you choose to do will depend on the nature of your site, and don't forget that a click on an ad, whilst it will make you some money, will lose you a visitor: don't let the tail wag the dog.
8. How much of your site's traffic is from new as opposed to repeat visitors.
People new to your site will be new to the ads on your site which means they won't already have looked at them and decided to click or not. Generally speaking, people often respond to ads once they've seen them a few times but if they don't at that stage, they probably never will. So your ideal traffic is people who visit your pages a few times. There's a great way of getting people to do this - find out about it in the Tutorial. If your site gets endless repeat visitors you should expect your revenues to peak shortly after you implement AdSense and then decline over time - unless you take active steps to generate more traffic.
9 factors determine how much profit you will make from your AdSense participation.
How much traffic your site gets
How many pages on your site host AdSense ads
What the click thru rate from each page is
What the value of each click is
How many ads appear on each page
Where these ads are located
What format these ads are in - size, location, layout and color scheme
Google's fractional pay out rate
How much of your site's traffic is from new as opposed to repeat visitors.
To maximise your site's profits from AdSense you ideally should optimise all these factors. However, one is entirely out of your control: Google's fractional payout rate. This is the percentage of the revenue that Google earns from a click that it passes on to you.
Google doesn't at present reveal this but you could theoretically run an experiment to find out what the exact percentage is. (I'll tell you how when you sign up for the AdSense Insider course - there's a form at the bottom of this page).
Optimising all these factors could take some time so what you should focus on initially are the factors that are going to work in your favor most quickly with the minimum effort.
However I'm going to cover all the ones you can influence here for you.
1. Getting more site traffic
Getting more traffic is an art and a science. The best traffic is traffic that comes from search engines because it is free and because people who come to your site from a search engine are actively looking for things, they are not casually browsing around. They have a search mission in their head.
The tricks of the trade are:
search engine optimisation
using pay per click advertising, such as AdWords (but there is no point in paying more to Google to advertise your site than you earn in overall long-term revenue from it)
posting your link on forums - these effectively give you free links back to your site which helps you with the process of climbing up the search engine ladder
using viral marketing techniques to inform the world about your site
using offline advertising to drive traffic to your site - but give people a reason to visit it, don't just print your web address everywhere
using ezines to remind people about your site from time to time
include your web address in all your email correspondence
All these subjects are covered in more detail in the AdSense Insider Tutorial.
2. Increasing the number of pages that host AdSense ads
This is easy: you just paste the code that Google gives you to activate AdSense into all the pages you want. Google lets you use a range of different formats for ads and you don't need to use the same format on every page. In fact you can change the color scheme, shape and size of the ads on each page.
There are some restrictions though: you can't run more than one block of ads on a single page for example.
3. Increasing the click thru rate from your page
What you can't do is place big bold words around the ads saying "Click these ads to make me some money". In fact you are not allowed to say anything on your site that will actively encourage clicks. However, what you can do is write copy on your site that makes the products or services being advertised become more interesting to the reader. For example, suppose you host a page about casinos. If you write copy that explains why casinos are such fun, and how you can pit your wits against professional gamblers the world over in total confidentiality, and how you can try a casino out in total safety and with zero risk by visiting some of the best online casinos in the world, you will naturally arouse the interest of your reader. Now if your copy is clearly about casinos, AdSense will spot this and post ads about casinos on that page. In fact there is a risk that AdSense will post a casino ad on this page because I have mentioned the word casino quite a few times - we'll see what happens.
4. Increasing the value per click
The way to do this is to increase the quantity and quality of information on your site related to products and services that are of high commercial value on the internet.
This is not as simple as thinking, for example, that jewellery is a high ticket item, therefore you should write a page about jewellery because not that much jewellery is sold online. You really need to spot high profit items that sell well over the internet because these are things that advertisers will pay a lot to advertise. If they pay a lot to advertise, the likelihood is that any related AdSense ads will come with a high click through price.
But you can't just think that, for example, casinos are highly advertised so I'll post a page about casinos: it really has to be relevant to your overall site for two reasons:
If your site is about AdSense and you write a page about casinos, no one on your site is going to be particularly interested unless you are very lucky so the click through rate will be low.
Google prohibits you from writing pages solely to host ads - although it's a judgement call by Google as to whether your pages are solely to earn AdSense revenues or not.
What you can and should do is think laterally about what topics are related to your site that have a commercial value. You run a site about bird-watching, then host some travel pages about how to get to bird-watchers' paradise on a far away Pacific Island. These will probably show travel ads which will give you a reasonably good pay out - and just as importantly they will be relevant to your visitor and so will enhance the overall experience he / she gets from your site, so they'll come back again.
5. Optimising how many ads appear on your page
Google now provides 6 different ad formats. One format allows you to post just a single ad on your site, one allows 5 ads and most allow 4 that read from right to left, or from top to bottom.
Guess what: if you choose the format that shows up 5 ads, you will probably get more clicks than if you show 1. It is not necessarily true, but usually will be. But not all ads will earn you the same revenue - it will depend on Google's complex real time bid pricing algorithm that it uses to set your AdWords click thru price.
6. Optimising the location of the ads
People tend to read from left to right and the eye is trained to do this early on in life (actually some people read the other way round but not English language readers.) They also read from top to bottom.
This process lays emphasis on ads at the beginning and end of a page so don't place them in the middle. There's also a neat trick you can exploit that uses the psychology of reading to help you tip the balance a bit more in your favor - I go into the details in the AdSense Insider's course.
7. Selecting the best format for these ads
With a range of formats available, your first decision is to see which format will fit best into your existing website design. You really don't want to re-jig the whole thing if you can avoid it. Google lets you choose a vast range of color options too and there are two approaches you can adopt:
display your ads in your site's colors so that they fit in well
display your ads in strikingly contrasting colors so that they get noticed more
What you choose to do will depend on the nature of your site, and don't forget that a click on an ad, whilst it will make you some money, will lose you a visitor: don't let the tail wag the dog.
8. How much of your site's traffic is from new as opposed to repeat visitors.
People new to your site will be new to the ads on your site which means they won't already have looked at them and decided to click or not. Generally speaking, people often respond to ads once they've seen them a few times but if they don't at that stage, they probably never will. So your ideal traffic is people who visit your pages a few times. There's a great way of getting people to do this - find out about it in the Tutorial. If your site gets endless repeat visitors you should expect your revenues to peak shortly after you implement AdSense and then decline over time - unless you take active steps to generate more traffic.
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