Thursday, June 11, 2009

Adsense Tips and Tricks

Alright, so I know that a good portion of you who have recently discovered Adsense or have been using it for quite some time are in search of the perfect trick to get the money rolling in. I know you are, or you would not be reading this blog along with the countless others that have been provided over the internet. Ha, I know a secret about you.

I am also aware that you are here because you're looking to maximize your profits, or trying to find the golden way to go from $10 a month to at least $100 a month so you can be part of the coveted monthly Adsense check club.

There are tips and tricks, and it can happen for you, you just need a little perseverance.

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If you want to start generating more income from your site, blog, or whatever, the easiest thing to do is....start another one!

The more topics you cover, the more audiences you'll reach. The more audiences you reach, the higher your overall traffic will be (of course). And the higher your overall traffic, the higher your income.

It's a tough business (if you want to call it that), but "commercial blogging" as I like to call it is something requires a little bit of dedication. Don't go overboard, but expect to add something new at least 3 to 5 times a week.

Just remember to find your niche(s), and the audience will come. In this day and age, we would rather learn from down to earth internet bloggers than high class scholars. I guess it's the modern era or something.

Content is King

Mmmm....I love that phrase. Basically, people want to check out well-written, well-constructed sites that make them feel comfortable.

If you come across a site that has been thrown together at the last instant, your immediate reaction is to press the BACK button, not check out the different ad offerings.

Content is king and always will be. Like I said above, be prepared to work on this, whether it be a hobby, a passion, or just a way of making a few extra dollars, at least 3 to 5 times a week. Customers that see a site that is constantly changing and improving will be drawn to it and want to come back for more. And when they come back for more....you guessed it! They just might click an advertisement or two.

Always work on making your product marketable and something you yourself would enjoy to read. If you code it, they will come.

Time and Perseverance

I just cannot stress this enough.

Time is key. The more you put into Google Adsense, the more you will get out of it. Maybe the first month you'll make enough to buy a candy bar everyday. Maybe the next month enough to get your Starbucks coffee. And then the next, well, who knows?

Adsense is not a miracle cure for your overall profits. It is merely a modest addition.

Just remember, the more time and effort you put into it, the more you will get out. I promise you. Your site will begin to surpass others in the search engine charts as it gets more and more recognized and out there, it's just a matter of time.

Don't give up!

Set Goals

I feel like a motivational speaker, but I guess that's what I'm trying to do. Motivate you.

Setting goals will assist you with above point, Time and Perseverance. If one month you make $10, try going for $15 or $20 the next. In time, these figures and your goals will only increase exponentially. You just have to work on it and learn from your mistakes and other people's as well.

Rome wasn't build it in a day, and neither will your profits. Now I'm not saying that the money you'll be making from Adsense will be anywhere near the greatness of Rome, but you get the picture.

The longer you stay with it and don't give up, you can only improve from there. Setting goals will surely help you improve month by month.

Find Highest Performing Ad Block

Experiment and use your results to determine what's working for you and what just isn't. Google Adsense offers channels that will allow you to do this.

I can tell you right now, however, that the most successful of them all is the 300x250 rectangle. It's something that you can easily stick right into the middle of your blog and people will practically be forced into reading the advertisements subliminally while reading your article.

Just make sure the ad blends into your site. You don't want an ad that screams, "Hey! I'm an ad! Look at how beautiful I am!"

The reader won't think it's beautiful, and just ignore it.

But if your ad blends and makes sense with your site, then you will soon be generating more clicks and therefore more earnings.

The human mind is such an odd creation.


What You Should Never Do

Okay, for some people the topics discussed in this post may be common sense, but nonetheless this information is extremely important to know while using Adsense. Reading this will hopefully help you in keeping your account clean and with you for a long time.

  1. Never click on your own ads, especially with the same computer you manage your Adsense from. Google can track this and if they find you've installed a bot that will click for you or you've been clicking nonstop yourself for quite awhile, your account will be terminated. Yeah, stinks. Don't be upset if you accidentally click an ad once though. I've clicked one of my ads on accident on another site but everything was fine and think they were able not to put the money into my account. Just try not to do that.
  2. Never ask people to click on your own ads. That's just as bad as the above. If Adsense finds out about this, you're in trouble. This also means you can't have big flashing arrows saying CLICK HERE and you can't make promises to your customers if they do click on your ads. Also, don't make deals with other sites saying your click on their ads if they click on yours. Please don't do that to yourself.
  3. Never exchange Adsense code with other people. Revenue sharing is a no-no in the Adsense world. Oops.
  4. Never create a site specifically designed for people to click on your ads. Having sites with only ads and/or search results are known as MFA sites, or made for Adsense. If Adsense finds out you're running one of these MFA sites, once again, your account will be terminated.
Hopefully this was just a reminder for a lot of you guys, but it's always good to review these notes just in case your mind gets a little forgetful. I want you to keep working with Adsense, and you should too.

Quadrupling CTR with Adsense

The latest, newest, most coolest (pardon my grammar) secret going around the Adsense world is the idea of posting an image above or below each advertisement on a leaderboard. Supposedly, one person was able to literally quadruple the rate at which people clicked on his ads just by doing this.

I studied this technique used and actually tried it out on my own site, and sure enough, the CTR increased greatly. When the visitor sees a picture that is actually part of the site and it's posted above an advertisement, the ad becomes less "sinister" and the visitor (in this one person's case) is four times more likely to click on it. Wow. It actually makes a lot of sense. You can check out the post here.

Warning: I would definitely not use this trick with every site considering and can flaw the look and content already produced. I haven't tried it yet, but I would refrain from performing this trick at the top of your page. This way your visitors don't have to scroll down every time they want to come to your site. But if you can't resist the temptation and want to sacrifice site content, go ahead and see what happens. I'm too scared.

Google Analytics

Monitoring traffic is crucial to doing well with your site. Google Analytics is a wonderful program that you can now link with your Adsense account to help in developing your market research for your new or already up and running site. The best part of all, however, is that it's free! All you need to do is set up your account in a few quick and easy steps similar to when you set up you Adsense account. Then just submit your URL's that you wish to track, and you're done.

Not only will Analytics monitor traffic flow, but it can also monitor average time on site, from what parts of the globe your visitors are from, and bounce rate just to name a few.

Everyone should have this program when they begin using Adsense if they didn't already have it before. There's nothing to lose, it's free, and you can monitor the progress of your site just by logging into your account. It can track any page of your site that you ask it to so that you have information on what is doing well and what is not doing so well, and you can even register more sites than just your original if you choose.

Hm, this is beginning to sound like an infomercial....

The point is you might as well get this feature since it's free and it will help you observe and monitor the progress of your site.

Ad Placement

Where you place your ads is the single most important aspect for generating higher amounts of CTR, or click through rate. CTR is basically the level of success of one of your new Google Adsense ads.

Here is a list of things to keep in mind when placing ads:

  1. Make sure they are spaced apart. Ads that are clumped together are not pleasing to the eye, and readers will lose interest.



  2. Experiment! Through Adsense you can place channels that tell you how well your ads are doing. Constantly change things up and see how it affects your CTR so you can optimize the percentage.



  3. Make it work with your site. Make the ads almost "flow" into everything else. Color choice such as borders and background for the ad which can be determined with Adsense is critical to making your ads more appealing to the eye.



  4. Keep in mind these tested "hotspots" for ad locations. This really does help.

With these four tips in mind, there is a very good chance your CTR will increase. Traffic is one thing, but an improved CTR can double or even triple the money you are getting every day!

High Paying Keywords

So I probably should have mentioned this in the post about creating your website, but your first site really should just be a trial. What I'm going to talk about today is the importance of finding subject matter that helps generate the best income for you through Adsense.

The way Adsense works is kind of like an auction house. Certain companies bid to have their material shown in the Adsense windows, and the highest bidder wins. What you the advertiser wants to do is pick subject matter that will have higher bidders. Industries that sell merchandise that is worth great sums of money such as computers are more likely to have higher bids than industries that sell....well, napkins.

If you are serious about making a decent income off of Adsense, this is important to think about. If your site is about a subject that can have a lot of high paying keywords attached to it, then you are much more likely to get more money per click that you receive. Money received per click can range anywhere from $0.03 to $3. If money earned per click is something that's important to you, I recommend that you put some thought into the nature of products that Adsense will provide to you in their ads related to your site's content and to the interests of the people that visit your site.

Here are some examples of high paying google keywords where CPC stands for cost per click:

You can see the rest of these at http://www.highpayinggooglekeywords.com/

Max CPC ($) Avg CPC ($) Keyword
520.52 97.44 domains yahoo
418.63 79.81 domain name yahoo
145.71 68.91 dc hair laser removal washington
119.63 66.15 law lemon wisconsin
135.94 51.14 hair removal washington dc
493.73 41.97 domain registration yahoo
262.02 40.36 benchmark lending
438.23 38.05 domain yahoo
330.50 37.86 yahoo web hosting
121.86 37.29 hair laser removal virginia
121.27 36.59 peritoneal mesothelioma
46.38 36.55 ca lemon law
81.58 34.13 best buy gift card
96.87 31.10 adverse credit remortgage
234.33 30.98 mesothelioma information
48.68 29.77 law lemon ohio
54.31 29.34 att call conference
83.22 29.10 insurance medical temporary
82.33 28.95 illinois law lemon
82.33 28.78 mesothelioma symptoms
60.86 28.51 angeles drug los rehab
36.88 28.26 personal injury solicitor
101.30 28.23 att go
61.47 28.03 accident car florida lawyer
159.00 27.11 google affiliate
90.48 27.11 at t wireless
172.60 26.31 100 home equity loan
46.72 26.28 mcsa boot camp
40.18 26.19 anti spam appliance
93.12 26.17 adverse remortgage
37.33 26.00 chicago hair laser removal
53.70 25.98 att conference
101.26 25.84 at and t

Generating Traffic

The only way to generate lots of income from your Adsense site is by generating lots of traffic. Duh. But how do you go about finding the willing people that will come flock to your site? There is no trick to it. The sites with the most traffic are the most put together and professional looking sites. If your site gives people the information that they need, in time, people will be running to your site. Do you see how I said "in time"? Your site WILL NOT be popular right away. It just won't. It takes time for search engines to find your site, index it, and then have people start coming across it in searches. In the mean time, however, there are ways to go about increasing traffic on your own.

One way is to promote yourself in a social network such as Facebook or Myspace. These are valuable tools for showing a wide audience what you have created and what you can provide. You
can also submit your URL to search engines such Google or Yahoo to help speed up the process of them indexing your site. A wonderful site is Add Me which will submit your site to up to 20 different search engines!

This is work, and most people quit due to impatience and not waiting it out. The truth is you will not see great things right away just like any small business wouldn't see great profits right away. Time is the key. It takes time for people to find about you, and when that finally does happen, that's when you will start seeing results.
Check out Add Me!

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