AdMoolah News and Views

Yahoo has posted a blog entry about positioning ads for the best click-through rates. It is interesting to compare this with Google’s Heat Map.

Both agree that the best positioning is just above the main content on the page. After that though, the opinions differ a little. Google’s heat map suggests four places as the secondary positions: 1) On the left hand side below the top level navigation , 2) In the center below the top level navigation, 3) On the left side of the content, and 4) Below the primary content. Yahoo’s advice is: “In general, Margaret has a found that the second most active placement in terms of click-through tends to be the right-hand rail or margin.”

I think this is a useful reminder that what works on one site, may not work on another. The key is to experiment on your own site and see which works best yourself.

The official Google AdSense blog posted an entry about the AdSense experience a site called EngineringTalks has had.

Next, the team experimented with AdSense designs, focusing on optimization through typography and placement. They found the biggest influence on CTR was the similarity between the AdSense type (size and font), and the main body text of the page. The more similar the type, the higher the CTR.

This is an interesting tip, and not something that is mentioned often. I’m sure matching the fonts helps the ads blend in even more. I have tried this a little, but never have really done a full blown experiment with it.

For those who are curious, the EngineeringTalks site uses the following font style in their CSS stylesheet:

font: normal 13px/17px arial,helvetica,sans-serif;

JenSense has a great tip on displaying ads when a visitor to your site does not have JavaScript enabled. The basic technique is to use the NOSCRIPT tag like this…

<script>
... Google AdSense Code....
</script>
<noscript>
.... alternate ad here....
</noscript>

Obviously this means you need a non-JavaScript alternate ad, so this excludes programs like YPN or Chitika, but affiliate ads will work fine.

If you use Firefox (and you should), there is a great little Greasemonkey script that prevents you from clicking on your own ads.

Once its installed, if you try to click on your own ad, nothing happens. It could save you from those oh-crap-I-just-clicked-my-own-ad panic moments.

I highly recommend it.

Trying to increase earning by using the AdSense Competitive Ad Filter to block low paying ads doesn’t make sense. Google’s algorithms automatically display the ads that will make you the most money. This is in Google’s best interest because the more money you make, the more money Google makes. Trying to outperform Google’s algorithm is next to impossible. Google has much more information on the ads themselves and what works and what doesn’t work.

Let’s say you do some research with a click tracking script and you manage to identify an ad with a low CPC and you block the URL of the ad from our site. What could be wrong with that? Lots:

• What if this ad has a fantastic CTR? If this ad pays half of the other ads on your site put has a 3x better CTR, it would have made you more money than other ads.
• What if other ads from the same URL have a better CPC? Advertisers often have several campaigns going, each with different ads and CPCs, but the same URL. You could risk blocking a higher paying ad without knowing it.
• What if the advertisers change the bid price of an ad? Advertisers often change the bid price of an ad. They may find an ad was more effective than they thought so they are willing to pay more for it.
• What if there is a drop in ad inventory? Having blocked URLs could cause you to start displaying PSAs.

I run a site, XMLPatterns.com, that I have had AdSense on since February 2004. I put up some ads on it that had a similar color palette to the site, but they did not blend in. It never made a lot of money and I never expected it too. I have other sites that make much more than this one does, so I had always ignored the AdSense ads on it.

I recently decided to optimize the ads on the site to see what would happen. Before the change I had a single skyscraper (120×600) that did not blend in. I changed this to a wide skyscraper (160×600) that did blend in. I also added a 728×15 link unit to the very top of the page. The results were very good. Comparing the one month period before the changes (July 8th – Aug 7th) to the one month period following the changes (Aug 8th – Sept 7th), the earnings were 362% higher. Although this site is still not a huge earner, increasing every trickle helps. On top of the earnings increase, I think the site looks better because the ads now blend in.

If you have any case studies to report, the AdMoolah AdSense Tips and Tricks Forum is a great place to do it.

AdSense Tip #8: Effectively using High Paying Keywords

How can webmasters make the best use of high paying keywords? In the last tip we saw how to find high paying keywords, in this tip we will examine ways to use these keywords.

Have real content

The most important tip is to not create a website just for to display AdSense ads. The Google Program Policies specifically prohibit this:

No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

Basically, if you have real content on your site that people want to read, you should be fine.

How to let Google know what a page is about

To know what a page is about, Google’s robot crawls the page. It looks for keywords in different places, including the title tag, the URL, and the content of the page. Words in different elements on your page may have more importance than other elements. For example words in the title tags, header (h1, h2, etc.) or bold tags will be seen as more important than regular text. Also, words at the beginning of the content will be more important than words near the end of the page. A complete explanation of this is beyond the scope of this article, but a search for “on page SEO” should provide a good starting point for getting more information on this topic.

Use Better Keywords

As we saw in the last tip, different, but related, keywords are worth different amounts per click. For example we saw that the maximum bids for “house” was $1.41 while the maximum bid for “real estate” was $3.77. So, if you have a page about “buying houses”, it might be a good idea to say “buying real estate” instead. Again, make sure you put this keyword in all the important places on your page such as the title, url and headings to make sure the ads will match these keywords.

Focused Pages

It is a good idea to have pages that are focused on single topic. This way, you know that the people visiting the page are interested in the topic and that the ads will match the visitors interest. If you have a topic that is several pages long it could be a good idea to to break it into sub-topics, each of which are focused on one particular keyword.

This is part 2 of the question and answer session of the AdSense Optimization Webinar. The first part was posted here.

Q8. I have a bilingual French/English site. 2/3 of the pages are in French and 1/3 are in English. All of the ads that appear on it are in French.
A8. The sites are targeted by individual URL so the English pages should get English ads. If you are using sessions or cookies to show the English pages, this could be a problem for the Google bot. We also do Geo-targeting so that could affect things as well.

Q9. What is the relationship between the AdSense “MediaPartners” crawler, the Google Search crawler and Sitemaps.
A9. The AdSense and Search crawlers are completely independent. The Sitemaps are for search only, they don’t affect AdSense.

Q10. Can publishers influence which ads are displayed on our sites?
A10. No. It’s probably not in the best interest of the publisher to try to do this by hand, Google algorithms do a good job of keeping the best ads on a site.

Q11. If there are multiple ad units on a page, do the ones closer to the top get the highest paying ads?
A11. Yes, the one that appears first in the HTML will get the best ads.

Q12. How are custom channels different from URL channels?
A12. Custom channels need the actual ad code to change. URL channels do not.

Q13. Are banner ads done on a CPM ($ per thousand views) basis?
A13. Most image ads are done on a CPM basis, but some are done on a CPC (cost-per click) basis as well. Some text ads are CPM but most are CPC.

Q13a. Does CPM on these ads go up with higher value content?
A13a. Everything is calculated by Google’s algorithms and the ad that has the best chance at making the most money will be displayed.

Q14. Can AdSense for Search be set up to search three different domains?
A14. No. Can only search a single domain.

Q15a. Which keywords have the highest payout?
A15a. There are resources on the web and books where you can find out about this.

Q15b. Can I somehow query this information through Google?
A15b. No. Since prices are set by an auction they are always fluctuating.

Q15c. Does having AdSense on my site help my PR or help get my site indexed quicker?
A15c. No. These are independent things.

Q15d. Is it possible to overdo keywords and have too many on the page.
A15d. I wouldn’t worry about this, just concentrate on having good content. Don’t create a site just for displaying AdSense.

Q16. We have a news site that does get crawled regularly by Google News. When we do get crawled by Google news we see a 5 or 10 times increase in AdSense revenue.
A16. Google News and AdSense aren’t directly related.

Again, they were constantly stressing that they wanted people to email them questions and feedback.

The third part of the AdSense Optimization Webinar was a question and answer session. This was the longest part of the webinar and I have split this into two posts.

The phone lines were opened for participants to ask questions. I haven’t listed any names in the questions, because I didn’t catch most of them. My notes aren’t completely accurate and I’m sure I have my own spin on the answers or questions. I am also paraphrasing and shortening these a lot, but I hope I get the main points across.

Almost every answer ended in the Google team members saying: “But if you’re still unsure, email us at adsense-support@google.com with your question”. They were really encouraging people to send feedback and questions.

Q1. I have multiple ad units on my page and ads only appear on the first one.
A1. Chances are there are not enough ad units in our inventory.

Q2a. How much does the topic of an ad affect its click price?
A2a. It varies quite a bit.

Q2b. Do you have any information about what the current rate for different keywords are?
A2b. No. But there are third party sources that this type of information is available from.

Q3a. I am having problems getting targeted keywords to subdomains.
A3a. It could be a problem with crawling or with determining the context on the page.

Q3b. Would you recommend using subdirectories vs. subdomains?
A3b. It shouldn’t make a difference. Ads are determined by individual URLs.

Q4a. How do you make sure your site is available for site targeted ads?
A4a. Make sure image ads are selected. Relevancy and size of the site are what helps you get targeted.

Q4b. Do link units pay differently than regular ad units?
A4b. No, the pay is identical.

Q4c. In the case study you showed for HybridCars.com the Google search box doesn’t have the Google Logo. Why not?
A4c. We’ll have to look into that.

Q5. What future improvements will you be making to the user interface?
A5. We’re trying to get the best information as quickly as possible, that’s what the new reporting changes were about. Send us your feedback for more suggestions.

Q6a. I am using 3rd Party tools like AdSense Tracker (a click tracking tool) and a desktop report tool. Will Google come out with these types of tools?
A6a. We can’t comment on what is going to come out in the future. Lots of publishers have been asking for better reporting.

Q6b. Are these types of tools compliant with the AdSense Terms of Service?
A6b. We can’t recommend any specific tool, but generally yes, these tools are compliant. If you have questions about a particular tool, feel free to email us about it.

Q7. I have been seeing the same ad on my site all the time. Are the ads always rotated?
A7. Google’s algorithms are always trying to show the best ads possible. Ads are rotated, but successful ads will appear more often.

The rest of the questions and answers will be in part 2.

The second part of the AdSense Optimization webinar was three case studies.

HybridCars.com

The site gets about 25,000 views per day.

Initially Hybridcars.com only had ads on a small percentage of their pages and they were making $80-90 dollars a day. They managed to increase this to $200-300 dollars a day by putting ads on the majority of their pages, and improving the positioning of the ads.

Advice from HybridCars.com was to put content first to keep visitors and to experiment with different ads.

www.geekzone.co.nz

Geekzone gets about 75,000 page views a day and has 7,000 RSS subscribers.

Originally the site had ads on the top right of the page. They increased their AdSense revenue by about $20-$30 a day by moving the ads to be positioned between the title and the content.

Changing the ads from ones that stood out to ones that blend in caused their revenue to go from $30-$40 a day to $90-$100 a day.

Their advice was to focus on content to bring in traffic and use good navigation to keep users on your site.

AskTheBuilder.com

They get about 100,000 page views a day.

When they switched from having ads at the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen, revenue increased by about 60%.

In one experiment, they went from using blend-in ads to ads with a yellow background and revenue dropped about 65%.

Their advice was to concentrate on having good content. Having 500-600 pages is far better than having 20-30 pages. Experimentation was again mentioned.