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.
6.2 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.
6.3 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.
6.4 Keyword Density
You’ll need the right keywords to get the right ads. But you’ll also need the right amount of keywords.
There’s no golden rule for 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.”
6.5 Keyword Placement
It shouldn’t really matter where you put your keywords, should it? As long as the right words are on the right page in the right amount of numbers, that should be enough to get you relevant ads, right?
Wrong.
One of the strangest results that people have had using AdSense is that putting keywords in particular places on the page can have an effect on the ads the site gets.
The most important place on your webpage is directly beneath the AdSense box. The keywords you place there could influence your ads.
For example, mentioning clowns in the space directly beneath the AdSense box could give you ads about circuses and red noses!
Keeping that in mind, you could play with your ads in all sorts of ways. If you had a site about camping for example, you might find that you’re getting lots of ads about tents and sleeping bags, which would be fine. But if you also wanted to make sure that one or two of your ads were about Yosemite or mobile homes, then mentioning those keywords once or twice on the page directly below the AdSense box could give you ads for sites with that sort of content too.
Bear in mind though that you’ll often find that you get ads that try to combine the main thrust of your site with the words in that keyword space below the ad box. So if you had a site about gardening and you mentioned “cabbages” beneath the ad box, you’re more likely to get ads about growing cabbages than ads about cabbage recipes.
Experimenting with the placement of the keywords could allow you to control at least one or two of the ads you receive and help keep them varied. That’s definitely something to try.
6.6 Keyword Frames
One of the reasons that websites don’t always receive relevant ads may be that all the navigation and other non-content words affect the way Google reads the page. If your links and other words take up lots of space, it could well skew your results.
One way to avoid your navigation affecting your ads is simply to create frames. You put all of your content in your main frame and the navigation material in a separate frame. Only the “content frame” has the Google code (google_page_url = document.location), so your keywords won’t be diluted by non-relevant words.
6.7 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.
6.8 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!
6.9 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.
6.10 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.
6.11 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.
Use 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.
6.12 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.
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.
6.13 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.
6.14 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’regetting — 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!
6.15 Does Location Matter For CPM Ads?
In 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 Copyright © 2008-2009 Joel Comm and InfoMedia, Inc. – All Rights Reserved 72
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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