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. 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 crawlers will check your site and serve up
ads based on the keywords and the content on your page. Bear in mind that
Google’s crawlers can’t read graphics or Flash or pretty much anything that
isn’t text. I’ll talk about content in detail in Chapter 11 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.
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.
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 <font> tag for your heading, try
using the <h1> tag with headings that contain your keywords. That should
help them to stand out to the crawlers. And if you don’t have any headlines at
all, try adding some.
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.
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.
On the more professional side, WordTracker
provides a wealth of keyword research tools that unearth pure gold. You can
check it out at www.WordTracker.com. 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 17 for more on finding
the most up-to-date high paying keywords.
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. 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 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. The lines you want to use to emphasize particular sections of
your Web page are: <!-- google_ad_section_start --> Section text. <!--
google_ad_section_end --> The rest of the page won’t be ignored, but those
particular lines will receive a heavier weighting. If you want to tell the
crawlers to ignore particular sections, you can use these lines: <!--
google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) --> Section text. <!--
google_ad_section_end --> You can highlight (and de-emphasize) as many or as
few sections as you wish, but what you can’t do is use these instructions
solely to highlight keywords. So you can’t put them around particular single
words or phrases on your page and hope to see ads that relate only to those
terms. In fact, Google recommends that you highlight a sizeable portion of text
— as much as 20 percent — for the targeting to be most effective. The result of
targeting small amounts of text could be irrelevant ads, public service ads...
or even a banning if you deliberately tried to bring up ads that have nothing
to do with your site. Section Targeting is probably most useful if you have a
Web page that covers lots of different topics. So if you had a blog about MP3
players but had written an article about rap music for example, you could use
Section Targeting to ensure that you didn’t lose ads about the music players to
ads about rap music. Or you could tell the crawlers to ignore your readers’
comments and focus on your own entries. And presumably, there’s nothing wrong
with stuffing a paragraph with keywords related to your subject and telling the
crawlers to focus on that section to ensure that your ads stay targeted. It’s
definitely something that you want to play with.
If there’s one problem with Section
Targeting though, it’s that it can take up to two weeks before you see the
results — the time it can take for the crawler to re-visit your page. So it’s not
a fast process and that can make it a bit of a blunt tool. But it’s not blunt
enough to be ignored.
1.8 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 site. 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!
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. 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. This doesn’t always
work but with a bit of luck, you should find that you receive new ads within a
few minutes.
11 Google Ads Preview
Don’t want to wait for the robot? No
problem. The Google Ads Preview tool at http://googleadspreview.blogspot.com/ lets you see the ads your site is likely to receive right away. Google
has its own tool for this, but this program by Digital Inspiration is much
better. That’s not just because it also works with Firefox (Google’s preview
tool only works in Internet Explorer) but mostly because it lets you compare
different programs and formats side by side. When you’re just starting out,
that’s not really important. But when you’re combining AdSense with Chitika
eMiniMalls it’s useful to see what effect a single change can have across the
different ads you’re displaying. You can also compare the AdSense ads with those
served by Yahoo! Publishers Network. And here’s the real kicker: the Google
Ads Preview Tool also lets you toss in keywords and see which ads turn up. Try
it! Surf over to the site, toss in a keyword relevant to your site and see what
ads you’re likely to receive. Note that I said which ads you’re likely to
receive, not which ads you will receive. That’s an important difference.
Google uses all sorts of criteria to decide which ads you’re going to get. I’m
not sure which criterion this preview tool uses to choose ads for keywords but
I can’t see it emulating Google completely.
sssUse the tool to preview the ads on your
site and you’re on pretty firm ground. You’ll get a great impression of the ads
you’re likely to get and you can either match your content to it or change your
content to bring up some different ads. Use it to preview the ads you’re likely
to get with a certain keyword and you’ve got a guide to where those keywords
can take you. Either way, you’ve got a very useful tool.
12 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. Google lets
you get rid of that space by collapsing the ad, tossing in an image or by
creating a color block in the same tone as the background color. But that seems
like a waste to me. That space can earn you money. If something goes wrong with
your contextualization, you want a back-up that brings revenue. The most
obvious solution 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.
I’ve created my own default set of ads for
various block sizes. You can see an example of this at www.worldvillage.com/336x280-1.html.
My
own version of AdSense. Just don’t run it on the same page as real AdSense ads
or Google will be unhappy with you. A great replacement for pesky PSAs, right?
Just remember that Google doesn’t like it when publishers use ad units that
mimic AdSense ads ON THE SAME PAGE as live AdSense ads. That’s why I only use
this format for PSA replacement. But there are plenty of other options. For
example, you could 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. Probably the best way to turn that wasted space
into revenue though is to place a Chitika ad there. I talk about Chitika later
in this book, in the chapter about other ad systems. The company has some
fantastic looking ad units, and they can be used in conjunction with AdSense.
Having a Chitika ad automatically replace a PSA ad is, I feel, the perfect
solution until you manage to sort out the problem with your AdSense unit. The
principle is the same as the AdSense-like ad units I used to use: create a
blank page on your site, add your Chitika code and use the URL as your
alternate AdSense URL It’s really very simple and very effective.
13 Blocking Ads
Another useful 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 URLs 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.
14 Placement Targeting
Most of the ads that appear on your site
will have been placed there as a result of Google’s contextualization program.
AdSense figures out what your site’s about and serves relevant ads. That’s how
the system works. Some of the ads though might appear as a result of Placement
Targeting. Instead of crossing their fingers and hoping that their ads appear
on good sites, advertisers are able to choose the sites on which they place
their ads. They can even choose the Channels on which to place their
ads. I’ll discuss that in more detail in Chapter 12. Ads targeted in this way
still have to compete with those submitted by other advertisers so they should
improve the value of your clicks. But there is a risk... There’s also a
chance that they’ll come from competitors hoping to steal some of your users. That’s
why it’s important to sign up for the Ad Review Center. (You’ll find the link
on the Competitive Ad Filter page under the AdSense Setup tab.) Continue
agreeing to receive all ads automatically. If you ask to review them first,
you’ll have 24 hours to do so, during which time they won’t compete in the
auction. That will cost you money. But keep a close eye on your ad units. If
you spot a competitor that you don’t want to advertise, use the Review Center
to block them. (And remember, you’ll have to give a reason which will be passed
on to the advertiser, so be polite!) The Review Center
lets you see all the ads targeted to your site. That can make pretty
interesting reading! In the past, there was another way that publishers could
target websites, and that was on the sites themselves. Publishers could place
an “Advertise on this site” link next to their ads and lead advertisers to a
landing page that they could stuff with information about their users. Google
no longer offers this option but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it
anyway.
Place the link at the bottom of the page,
so that it’s not in the way and invite advertisers to submit their own ads.
You’ll need a landing page that offers information about your users so that
advertisers will know what they’re
getting — but most importantly, you’ll
need to know how much you’re currently receiving on average per click or per
thousand impressions. There’s not much point in accepting ads that pay less
than those that Google is giving you!
15. a word, yes! This is what Google has to say about CPM ads, the type of
ads you could receive from a placement-targeted campaign (my emphasis): You'll
earn revenue each time a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions, also known as pay-per-impression)
ad is displayed on your site. You won't earn additional revenue for clicks on
these ads. Please note that the placement of CPM ads on your pages can
affect the amount an advertiser pays for that impression. Placing your CPM
ad units below the fold, or in an otherwise low-impact location,
may result in lower earnings than if the ad unit was placed in a conspicuous
location. So if you were thinking, “Great! I’ll encourage click-throughs
above the fold and get paid per impression with an expanded text ad at
the bottom of the page...” think again. Google claims that CPM campaigns have
to bid for space on publishers’ websites in the same marketplace as CPC ads,
and that therefore you would only receive a CPM ad if it’s the highest paying
option. If advertisers are paying less for a CPM ad at the bottom of a page,
it’s less likely then that you’re going to get one down there. Now, how Google
is figuring out where on the page you’re putting your ads beats me. Their love
of Smart Pricing (see Chapter 13) though, suggests that they could be comparing
advertisers’ sales results with the number of impressions and assuming that
sites with high impressions and low sales have put the ads in out-of-the-way
places. Whichever method they’re using, the end result is that you’re still
going to see higher revenues from ads in the best locations and less from the
worst spots.
Google gives you limited control over the
ads you receive but you should make full use of the control you do have. The
good news is that if you do get it wrong though, you don’t worry too much any
more. Ad units now come
with “next” and “previous” buttons that
let users scroll through additional ads. It’s a change that Google implemented
after months of testing which suggests that it improved clickthroughs but it’s
hard to say by how much or what effect it’s likely to have. I haven’t noticed a
dramatic rise in earnings since the system was launched across the network.
It’s likely that these buttons are used by the sorts of users who are keenest
on clicking ads. Now some of them can find better ads... and without you having
to play with keywords.
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