AdSense works better than just about every other type of online advertising for one simple reason: the ads are relevant to the content on your page. Users click on the ads because they find them interesting.
And they come back and click on them again because they find your content interesting.
If your site doesn’t have good content, you’re going to struggle to attract users and links, and you won’t be able to persuade anyone to come back to your site.
Having the right content then is crucial to having good revenues with AdSense. It’s also crucial to the relationship you have with Google’s indexing mechanism. Remember, Google is a search engine first and foremost. Their purpose is to provide the web user with the best search results for the terms they are seeking. If you are providing quality content, you have a greater chance of seeing your search results come up higher on the page.
Fortunately, it’s also easier than ever to fill your site with page after page of sticky content, each of which contains ad units and opportunities to earn revenue.
The most obvious way to create content is of course to write it yourself. Pick a subject you like and pour your heart out. If you know everything there is to know about video games, you could set up a site stuffed with reviews, news and walkthroughs, and write all the articles yourself. Your AdSense units will give you ads related to gaming and as long as they’re positioned properly and look right they should give you more than enough revenue to fund your video gaming habit and then some. You can do the same thing for any topic you wanted.
But remember, if you’ve created your site to make money, then writing the content yourself means that you’re working for that money. When you count your revenues, you have to factor in the time and effort it took you to make those revenues.
That’s one of the reasons that many people look for other, easier ways to get content around their ads. (The fact that they just don’t like writing is another good reason.) Fortunately, there are plenty of ways of creating effortless content and some of them are even free.
11.2 Making Bucks With Blogs
Writing blogs isn’t exactly effortless, but it is something a lot of people do for fun and because they’re updated regularly, Google loves them. If you’re going to write a blog anyway, then you should certainly be making money out of it.
The biggest challenge when writing a blog is getting ads that give you good revenues. Because your entries are going to be talking about all sorts of different things, there’s a chance that you’re going to get ads on all sorts of random topics.
That’s fine, unless your ads are barely giving you enough revenue to pay for the blog.
If you find that you’re getting lots of ads related to “blogs” for example, instead of what you’re blogging about, you can try changing the meta name in your template. Delete the <$Metainfodata$> tag and replace it with your own keywords and description:
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<meta name="keywords" Content="Your keywords">
<meta name="description" Content="Keyword-rich description">
Make sure that your blog has plenty of keywords and use lots of headlines containing key phrases, repeating them throughout the blog.
Above all though, make sure that your blog has plenty of text. It might be fun to stuff your pages with pictures of friends, family and pets but Google can’t read them and you’ll end up with public service ads instead of revenue.
11.3 Adding AdSense To Your Blog
Not all blog sites use the same template so how you add AdSense to your blog will depend on the company you’re using.
For users of Blogger.com, which is owned by Google, one option is put the ads in the template section of the site:
<!-- Begin .post -->
<div class="post"><a name="<$BlogItemNumber$>"></a>
<BlogItemTitle>
<h3 class="post-title">
<BlogItemUrl><a href="<$BlogItemUrl$>" title="external link"></BlogItemUrl>
<$BlogItemTitle$>
<BlogItemUrl></a></BlogItemUrl>
</h3>
</BlogItemTitle>
<!--Your AdSense code -->
You can see on my own blog at www.joelcomm.com how I put ads directly above my text. http://crayfish-info.blogspot.com does the same. The ads here are centered above the <div> tag and he’s added a <br> break tag to add a gap between the head and Google and help his ads to stand out.
To do the same thing to your blogspot blog, click “Change Settings” on the Dashboard and then click “Template Tab.” Somewhere on the page, below the CSS material, you should find a section of code that begins:
<p id="description"><$BlogDescription$></p>
</div></div><br>
The code should then look like this:
<div align="center">
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-xxxxx09818xxxxx";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 90;
google_ad_format = "728x90_as";
google_ad_channel ="117893460x";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_color_border = "336666";
google_color_bg = "669966";
google_color_link = "CCFF99";
google_color_url = "003333";
google_color_text = "FFFFFF";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script></center></div>
<!-- Begin #main — Contains main-column blog content -->
Before uploading, check the preview to make sure that the ads are where and how you want them, then “Save Template Changes” and “Republish” to refresh the blog.
Of course, you don’t have to place AdSense directly above the text. Another option is to embed the ads within the text so that they appear after particular entries. That would limit you to three entries per page (if you wanted an ad unit after each entry) but it could increase your click-throughs.
Blogger now lets you do this automatically. Click the Template tab, then the Page Elements link and finally, Edit in the Blog Posts section. You’ll find a check box that lets you show ads between posts on the home page.
You’ll even be able to format the ads from that same control panel, making the whole process very, very simple.
11.4 Old Content
Blogs have to be written all the time, but if you’ve ever written anything in the past, don’t just let it gather dust on your shelf. Give your old work a new lease of life by throwing it onto the Web!
For example, “Low Fat Linux” by Bob Rankin was written years ago. You may be able to find it on Amazon.com, but it’s not likely that many people are buying it because you can read the entire book for free at www.lowfatlinux.com.
Bob’s content has done its job of selling copies. Now it’s doing a second job, selling clicks to ads.
What have you got lying around that could be earning you money?
You might have an ebook of your own that isn’t selling very well. Instead of attempting to sell your ebook for $19.95, why not turn it into web pages and make it available for free for all to enjoy? Paste your AdSense code on the pages and you may make more from the ads than from sales of your ebook. Repurposing old content is a fantastic way to draw water from your own well.
I did this with a book that I’d written about online dating. The home page contains a list of chapter headings with a skyscraper ad on the left and a Google search box beneath it. There’s also a banner on the top, which I expect people largely to ignore. That ad does however make the ad unit look less commercial and the text ads match the list of chapter headings (although I used red for the links to match the color scheme of the page).
Note that this is a professional-looking website. That’s important. The fact that you’re using old content is no excuse for using an old design. You still have to make the page look good and pick up high-quality traffic if you want to get the clicks and the revenues.
On the internal pages, I’ve pushed the ads a little harder. Above the fold, there’s no real content except for ads. To stop people from scrolling away immediately though, I’ve used a nice big picture. I know that users will stop to look at that image. They’ll then look at the ads and only after they’ve done that will they scroll down to read the page.
I’ve also put a long list of links on the left under the skyscraper to help the ads blend in and placed a third unit at the bottom of the page next to the free download.
And the best thing about this strategy is that I’ve got so many pages of content to use. Each page is a separate chance to capture more clicks. I could even spin off the content on those pages and market them as individual articles or websites.
11.5 Volunteer Writers
To use old content, you have to have content in the first place. If you don’t happen to have any out-of-print books that you’ve written lying around — and you don’t feel like writing something new — another option is to ask people to write for your site for free.
Lots of people like writing. Just look at Amazon. They didn’t pay a penny for all those book reviews. Their users write them for free and Amazon benefits.
When I started www.WorldVillage.com, I didn’t have money to pay the people who reviewed software for me. Instead, I contacted the game companies and received complimentary copies of their computer games, which I then forwarded to a staff of volunteer writers. The agreement was that they would provide me with a written review of the game and they would keep the game as payment. I’ve got dozens of game reviews that bring users to my site and get them clicking on my ads. I didn’t pay a penny for them but years later they continue to generate revenue for me.
You don’t have to use reviews though. Whatever the subject of your website, you can add a line asking people to send in their thoughts and comments.
You can just say something like: “We want YOU! We want your thoughts, articles and comments. Send your submissions to editor@yoursite.com and we’ll post them here.”
You can then create a whole new set of pages for your users’ submissions and put AdSense on each one of them.
11.6 Build Thousands of Pages with Other People’s Content
What is the focus of your web site? Is it all about parenting? Do you help people with their finances? Does your newsletter introduce people to new web sites? Or is your focus on the legal field? Regardless of your niche, you can benefit from taking advantage of one of the little-known secrets of AdSense experts… FREE syndicated articles.
Many writers want nothing more than to have their work published and read. Syndicated content is a dream-come-true for writers AND publishers. For the writer, it exposes their work to a larger audience. And for the publisher (that’s you!), it means more quality content for your site. You might not be aware that there are literally THOUSANDS of articles available online which you can easily add to your web site!
Of course, the trick is knowing where to find these articles. Below is a list that can get you started by showing you where you can find over 30,000 articles that are ready to be placed on your own web site.
Please note that each site has its own restrictions and rules for using its content. In all cases, you must leave the author’s name and web site link intact. Some sites require that you also link back to the site where you found the article. This is critical! Remember that while you are allowed to use the articles on your pages, the content is still property of the author. Please give credit where credit is due!
You may wish to publish articles only relevant to your topic, or you may wish to become a publishing powerhouse, adding thousands of new pages to your site. Regardless of how you wish to approach it, here are a few sites that provide you with thousands of FREE articles that you can republish on your web sites.
EzineArticles.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com A fantastic resources featuring over 21,000 articles covering a huge range of topics. However, they do have a limit of 25 articles/year for each site. Look through the categories and you can select some gems.
DotComWomen.com
http://www.dotcomwomen.com/free-content.shtml Nice selection of articles targeting women.
John Watson
http://members.tripod.com/buckcreek John offers his stories for site owners to enjoy and place on their sites.
ValuableContent.com
http://www.valuablecontent.com/ The site name delivers as promises. Dozens of categories with hundreds of articles for you to publish. Marketing, business, humor, internet, legal, computing, sports, travel and many more.
Patricia Fripp
http://www.fripp.com/articleslist.html Patricia Fripp is a businesswoman, marketer and motivational speaker. Her site offers over one hundred articles perfect for any business-oriented site.
ArticleCity.com
http://www.articlecity.com This one is a source of articles that will keep you busy for weeks on end. ArticleCity offers over 12,000 articles that you can place on your site. If the topic exists, you can bet that this site will have an article on that topic. I recommend spending a great deal of time selecting articles for your site here.
Want to find more? Simply do a Google search for "free articles" and see what turns up. Fine tune your search for your topic to find articles relevant to your site, such as “free parenting articles” or “free financial articles”.
Now that you know where to find free content, you can build hundreds or thousands of keyword relevant pages and place your AdSense code on them to generate more revenue.
11.7 Add Public Domain Works To Your Site
One of the best kept secrets of free content comes in the form of Public Domain works. Basically, these are books, articles, recordings and pictures whose copyrights have expired. Since they have not been re-registered with a copyright, they enter the public domain. What does that mean? It means ANYONE (including you) can publish, re-publish and/or sell the works without paying a commission to anyone!
Think about this. You can build a site with HUNDREDS of pages just by publishing one public domain book on your site! Think of all the AdSense impressions you can deliver. The possibilities are endless.
I have two sources that you will want to investigate to find Public Domain works that you can begin using immediately
Idea #1 — Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the oldest producer of free electronic books on the Internet. Their collection of more than 15,000 eBooks was produced by hundreds of volunteers. As of this writing, the top 10 most popular works on Project Gutenberg are:
● Manual of Surgery by Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson
● Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life by E. A. Wallis Budge
● Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by Paul Lacroix
● Kamasutra by Vatsyayana
● Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
● Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 01 by Elbert Hubbard
● Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser
● Great Britain and Her Queen by Annie E. Keeling
● Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
● The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by Leonardo da Vinci
Check out their entire library at www.gutenberg.org/
Please note that while you may republish these works on your site, you are not allowed to resell the works themselves.
The downside of using works from Project Gutenberg is that hundreds of other people may already be using them. You might opt for less popular works in order to get better search engine placement.
Idea #2 – Public Domain Riches
Very few people have mastered the art of turning public domain works to cash like Yanik Silver. Yanik has made a ton of money with public domain and his course shows you how you can do the same.
From Yanik’s web page, here is what you will learn in Public Domain Riches…
* The best places online (and off) to actually find public domain works. (I'll hand you over my best resources on a silver platter.)
* How to find a slew of public domain works in 3 minutes or less on just about any subject you want with just one click!
* How to determine exactly if a work is in the public domain. (Especially where to research if a work from 1923-1963 is really in the public domain. Remember, this is where the real bonanza of recent material can be found - but this can also be a dangerous "gray area" for many works if you're not careful).
* How to tap into the vast repositories of government publications. Yes, Uncle Sam publishes more content than anyone else and much of it is - can I hear the magic word again? - FREE!
* What to do if someone challenges your public domain claim.
* How to wade through the deliberately misleading copyright notices on many works that should really be public domain. (But on the flipside - you'll want to know how to look threatening so any "Two-bit Johnny" won't rip off the material you found in the public domain.)
* The 7 different ways to profitably use public domain info.
* How to quickly and easily put public domain works into a "saleable" format.
* The secret to modifying public domain works so they are exclusively yours alone and then selling them for hundreds of dollars!
Yanik knows public domain, so you might want to check out Public Domain Riches.
11.8 AdSense In RSS Feeds
One of the biggest changes to take place on the Internet recently has been the growth of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. These let subscribers see when a site has been updated and sends them information instead of waiting for them to come to the site to see it for themselves.
The good news is that Google is starting to put AdSense ads in RSS feeds.
The system is new and Google is still testing it as I’m writing this book but if you’ve got an RSS feed on your site (or want to set one up) and you’ve got more than a hundred subscribers, your site can join their team of Beta testers.
There seems to be little room for tweaking the ads, although it’s a safe bet that the same principle of blending the ads into the page would apply as much here as on a Web page. At the moment though, the ads only appear after the content, at the bottom of the URL. You can apply for the program at http://services.google.com/ads_inquiry/aff
Alternatively, if you don’t want to be a Google guinea pig, Kanoodle is ahead of them. You can use their program at www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool.
11.9 AdSense On Mobile Phones
RSS could prove to be a powerful revenue source for AdSense publishers. It can certainly be a good way to inform users that you’ve got new content and bring them back in to view it.
I’m not sure about AdSense on mobile phones.
AdSense started allowing publishers to place one ad unit on mobile Web pages in September 2007. You can select the colors, specify the kind of code your mobile page uses (“wml (WAP 1.x)”, “xhtml (WAP 2.0)”, or “chtml”), and choose ad units with images or one or two text-link ads (although the double unit can only appear at the bottom of the page.)
It’s currently available in thirteen countries, including US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan.
It sounds like a good idea, but AdSense for mobile has its challenges. Phones have not shown themselves to be good ways to surf the Web.
The screens are tiny, the downloads are slow and it’s very expensive. Most people are prepared to wait until they get home or to the office to look at a website, rather than do it on their mobiles.
There are exceptions though. Surfing on phones is fairly popular outside America (especially in Japan). In the United States, it might be used for information that changes quickly such as sports news or finance. If you have a site on either of those topics or which is popular in Asia, you might want to create a page that will work on a mobile, offer breaking news and place an ad on it to see how much it earns.
My feeling is that it won’t be worth the effort but it’s still early to say for sure.
Much depends on what happens in the mobile phone market. If phone companies copy the iPhone and offer built-in wi-fi, then publishers won’t need to build special pages for mobiles. Doing so would be a waste of time — and if you have to pay programmers, a waste of money too.
On the other hand, if Google’s phone software makes mobile browsing more popular then the market could become large enough to make building special mobile sites worthwhile.
Although you’d still want to be sure that Google’s mobile ads do better than AdMob’s, a rival service. At the moment, reports are mixed, suggesting that results depend on the content.
In general then, my feeling is that if you currently have a mobile website, AdSense for mobiles might a pretty useful addition although you’d want to test it against AdMob. Optimize the ads as much as you can and put them on the sort of content people on the move are likely to need.
If you don’t have a mobile site though — or a Japanese audience or breaking news — you might want to wait before looking for a programmer to help you with the coding.
11.10 Google’s Video Content
The future of the Internet on mobile phones might be a little unclear. The future of video on the Internet seems to have been settled.
Users love it.
They watch television on YouTube and they’ve become used to seeing videos on blogs and websites. Even Oprah has now launched her own YouTube channel.
That’s both a challenge and an opportunity for publishers. It’s a challenge because creating original video content can appear difficult and look expensive. Actually, it doesn’t have to be either, although at the very least, you will need a digital camera.
And after putting together “The Next Internet Millionaire,” I can tell you it’s also a lot of fun!
But video is also an opportunity because you don’t need original content. There are tons of clips available on the Web that you can place on your own site and earn from the ads on your page and embedded ads in the video itself.
Two of the best places to find videos like these are Revver and Google itself.
Revver doesn’t have as big an inventory as YouTube, but it does share ad revenue. The site embeds an ad into the video, lets publishers place the clip on their own site and gives them 20 percent of the income. That might not sound like much, but don’t forget, you’re getting the content for free and you can still put AdSense units around it.
The alternative is to use Google’s video content... which is drawn from YouTube.
The videos come with two different kinds of ads.
Text overlay ads target signals in the video and on the Web page to produce relevant ads that pay on a CPC basis. InVideo ads, used on YouTube clips, pay on a CPM basis.
Interestingly, the overlay ad changes as the film progresses and users can even choose to move back and forward through the ads. They can also choose to close the overlay, which might not be so good.
You can only place one video unit on a page but you can change the surrounding color to blend the unit into your site, choose from three different sizes and select content by category, creator or receive it automatically targeted to keywords you supply.
When Google first rolled out this plan, it left a big hole.
It didn’t allow publishers to choose the clips themselves.
That made publishers very unhappy especially when Google served automated video that wasn’t very relevant.
There’s still a hole in the plan. Picking your own videos isn’t easy but it is possible. Here’s how you do it:
First, you’ll need to sign up for a YouTube account. That’s simple enough. Next surf to www.youtube.com/adsense_player and on the Edit AdSense Player page, look for suitable clips by “Category / Provider.”
Once you’ve found a video you like, enter the title in the field marked “Enter keywords here” on the Edit AdSense Player page. Make sure that you put the title in quotation marks so that you get exactly the video you want.
Save your changes and make sure it worked by looking at your Web page.
Sound like effort? It is a bit, and it would be nice to see Google make it all easier. Personally, I think making your own videos is a lot more fun... especially as there’s one more hurdle you’ll have to jump if you want to serve Google’s video content to your users.
You’ll need to be based in the US with an English language website... and serve at least a million video streams a month.
If you’re small then, you’ll need to break in your own video camera.
If you’d like to give it a try, click the AdSense Setup tab and choose the video units link. You’ll have to link your AdSense account with a YouTube account — you’ll only have to do that once — and you’ll then be free to create your AdSense player, choose content and paste the code onto your page. You won’t even need to host the video on your own site.
I think these video units can be a great way to enhance the content on any website. They’re very simple to use, offer additional revenue streams — and give you one less content post that you have to create yourself.
Much though will depend on the sort of creators available in your content field or the clips that Google decides to give you.
Test to see whether Revver or Google gives you the most revenue — I suspect that it will depend on the content of the video, so make a point of searching both for good clips — then get into the habit of offering films about once a week.
11.11 Use Your Newsletter To Drive Traffic!
Newsletters are fantastic tools to drive repeat visitors to your pages!
Here's one way to use them: Instead of mailing the entire newsletter, save a few juicy tid-bits for your website and provide a link for your visitors to click.
When subscribers click-through to get the full story, they're likely to click your ads. And send you another AdSense bonanza! For example, Prizepot (www.prizepot.com) is a contest and sweepstakes site with a new item each day. Their free weekly newsletter is sent with a teaser for all the new items posted that week. In order to find the entry form, you must click the link in the newsletter. Of course, when you arrive at the destination page, not only do you receive information about the contest, but you are greeted by AdSense ads. For a sample newsletter, send an email to join-prizepot@lists.worldvillage.com.
If you have a big, responsive mailing list — start turning it now into extra AdSense cash!
And if that isn’t a good enough reason to start producing a newsletter, it looks as though Google are also testing AdSense in the newsletters themselves. They’ve already been doing it for iVillage.com and there’s a good chance they’ll be extending it to other users soon.
You can either create a newsletter yourself — and mail it using a mass mailing system like Intellicontact.com — or you can ask someone to write it for you. ConstantConversions.com (www.constantconversions.com) is a copywriting service that specializes in newsletter writing. You can tell them about your site and they’ll do it all for you, from concept to inbox. You can even tell them you want it optimized for AdSense. They’ll know what to do.
To start your own email newsletter and auto-responder for your site, I highly recommend Aweber.com. With Aweber, you can build unlimited lists with unlimited autoresponders. That means you can have your list set up to automatically send email to certain groups at predetermined times. Along with their email broadcast services, Aweber is my first choice for many of my lists.
11.12 Buying Content/ Hiring Writers
One of the problems with free content is that you can get what you pay for. And if your site doesn’t have valuable content, it’s going to have an effect on your click-throughs.
The alternative of course is to pay professional writers to write for you. I’ve already mentioned www.elance.com as a good place to find designers but it’s a good place to find writers too. You can also ask ConstantConversions.com to write articles and blog posts for you.
The advantage of hiring writers of course, is that you can be sure you’re getting good content with little effort. On the other hand, you have to make that money back.
Try testing a writer to see how much profit a series of articles generates. If you pay $200 for five articles but find that your new pages don’t give you a $200 increase in revenues, you either need a new idea — or a new writer.
11.13 Automated Content
Finally, another option you can use to build a website is automated content. This will let you cut through the hassle of creating a website from scratch, dreaming up content and driving traffic. For a fee, you’ll be able to launch without delay a website that’s filled with information and already optimized for search engines.
As long as your ads are bringing in more money than you’re spending for the program, you’re making a profit.
There are a number of programs you can use to do this. ArticleBot at www.articlebot.com, for example, automatically rewrites existing articles to create brand new versions that you can post on your site. While you can’t take copyrighted articles as your originals, you can certainly use the tool to rewrite your own material and earn more cash by broadening your marketing, or by revamping public domain content.
But there’s a difference between original content and top-quality content.
The folks at Google aren’t crazy about pre-fabricated, useless content and it’s unlikely your users will be either. If all you’re doing is building a site to earn money — and not because you’re genuinely interested in the subject of your site — then maybe it doesn’t matter. You can still launch your pre-fabricated site, post your ads in good places and send traffic to your advertisers.
It’s worth remembering though that Smart Pricing was introduced precisely because of sites like these: sites with low-quality content get low advertising prices. It’s quite possible that having built your site, you’ll find that the prices you receive will drop because you’re not sending the advertisers users who are genuinely interested in their products.
The best way to ensure a high result from Smart Pricing is to give advertisers traffic that wants their product. Good content is the best way to do that.
If you are going to use pre-fabricated content though, then you can still try to keep the cost of your advertising space high by attracting good quality traffic. The users might not stay on your site for very long — and you don’t really want them to — but if you can lay out your ads in such a way that when those users click off the site, they end up at an advertiser who does have the content they want to buy, you should still make money.
One thing you do have to be concerned about though is combining sites with pre-fabricated content in the same AdSense account as sites with high-quality content. If your Smart Pricing value does fall, then your income could fall across the board.
The best strategy if you’re going to use these programs, I think, is to try to keep the sites you create with them in a separate account whenever possible, and just make sure that your income is always higher than any monthly fee.
On the whole though, you’ll probably find that it’s more enjoyable and more lucrative to create websites that you enjoy maintaining and that users like visiting. Those are the sort of sites that make the most money.
0 comments:
Post a Comment