AdSense Optimization Tips | Optimization of Google Adsense

AdSense Optimization Tips (from google)

by petefreitag.com/item/413.cfm
More about Pete.

Google recently held a webinar for AdSense publishers. They gave out some adsense optimization tips that they have gathered over the past few years. The transcript is pretty lengthy, so here's the summary:

• Ad Location - "the middle, above the fold location perform best." Also "if you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is actually pretty successful"
• Ad Formats - "the top three formats are the 336x280 that you see on the page; the 300x250 medium rectangle; and then the 160x600 wide skyscraper." Additionally "the wider ad formats are doing better than the other ones and the reason is that they actually take up fewer lines. And so with every additional line, you have a chance of losing that interested user."
• Ad Colors - Pick colors that blend well with the site. Matches the background color, and compliments the site. Make them feel like a part of the site. They give an example where a customer went from blended background to yellow, and clicks dropped 65%
• Ad Blindness - if the colors stick out too much, readers may immediatly identify them as ads and not even look at them. Also frequent readers may stop reading ads so you could alternate positioning and colors to get their attention. "The more you blend in with the site, the less chance that ad blindness will occur."
• Experiment - this was a big theme in the webinar echoed by all experts. Use channels to test different colors, positioning, and formats to find out what works best. They show that you can more than double your revenue just by finding the right color, position, format combo.
• Image Ads - If you want to maximize revenue they recommend turning them on. I personally disable them in my account, because I find them too distracting/annoying to the user. Yes you may increase your CPC, but you will probably decrease impressions over time.
• Link Units - Don't take up much space, and also "allows the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear." I also bet google remembers what they click on and then tries to generate better ads for the page... just my speculation.
• AdSense For Search - You can use this for your site search, and you get a percentage of ad clicks.
• Focus on Content - Duh!
• Don't click on your own ads - One of the callers asked the question "I was just noticing that someone asked about clicking on their own ads and it says you're not supposed to. And I don't remember reading that. And I occasionally do click on the ads... So is that detrimental in some way?" - I can't believe they said that to google. Google's response was: "Yes, that's sort of chief among the terms and conditions".
• Impression Counter - Google confirmed that Page Impressions are counted when a public service ad (or alternate ad url or color) is displayed.
• Your site is unique - all these things may not matter, the best location, format, and color is different for every site. So again, go experiment.
  

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Get the Highest Paying AdSense Keywords for Free

AdSense Tips: Get the Highest Paying AdSense Keywords for Free

There is a great tool available that allows you to check out the highest cost-per-click (HCPC) keywords for Google AdSense, allowing you to write content with the highest-paying keywords in mind. It is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and it allows anybody to view the highest CPC keywords, for free, without having to log in or sign up. It was created to help people come up with new ideas for their AdWords campaigns, but you can use it to see which AdSense keywords will pay you the most so you can target your site's content for high CPC and generate higher advertising revenue. This tutorial will show you how to find these keywords with the AdSense preview tool and how to use that information to increase your cost per click. The AdSense preview tool is ABSOLUTELY FREE and is hosted by Google, check it out here. I will show two important things in this tutorial. First we will run a preliminary check against your website's current content to see the highest paying keywords related to your current content. After that we will explore individual keywords to find the very best keyword combinations and phrases so you can write new content (and rewrite old content if you wish) to display AdSense ads that pay much more than your current ads. Finding the Highest Paying Keywords for Your Current Website Articles First you need to figure out what keywords Google has targeted for your current website. Then you can use this information to tweak your current content to display higher-paying keyword ads. Browse to Google's Keyword Tool Select Website Content Enter your website URL (you can also enter a specific web page) Click Get keyword ideas Select Show All from the dropdown box Make sure Group keywords by common terms is checked Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use) Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency) Click Recalculate Now the columns below will display the estimated cost per click (CPC) for each keyword! Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest. You can now browse down the page to get an idea for which keyword phrases pay the most amount of money Now you can go back to your current articles and rewrite bits of the content, organizing phrases and keywords so they match up with the highest paying AdSense keywords. This will make a big difference, helping AdSense to place similar ads that pay much more instead of low cost per click ads. If you really want to get serious, the ideal solution would be to enter the URL of each article on your website and repeat this process, then rewrite your content to match the highest paying adsense keywords for each page. Finding New Keywords That Pay More Than Your Current Keywords Now that you have a good idea of what your website is currently capable of, it is time to explore new keywords. You'll be able to find keywords and keyword combinations that you aren't currently using to raise your CPC even higher. Browse to Google's Keyword Tool Select Descriptive words or phrases Enter a keyword or keyword phrase into the textbox Make sure the Use synonyms checkbox is checked Type the CAPTCHA word into the bottom textbox and click Get keyword ideas Select Show All from the dropdown box Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use) Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency) Click Recalculate to display the estimated CPC for each keyword Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest. Article by Patrick Swesey Awesome social website showcasing the latest and greatest stories in the world of Joomla! Login and submit your own articles! You can now see several keyword phrases, ordered by highest CPC. You can go back and adjust your existing articles to contain some of these higher paying keyword phrases, and use these phrases for content you write in the future. For all future content you write, do a little research with this tool to find the best keywords available before you write your articles. You can make subtle tweaks to your content keywords to drastically increase your CPC and overal AdSense revenue. You can also use this tool to find profitable topics, and base your articles on the higher paying keywords. Good luck!