The AdSense Advantage - Day 3
"Optimize Your AdSense Sites For Maximum Click-Throughs and Payouts"
In the last lesson, I showed you exactly how to find the most profitable niches. Discovering them is only one part of the plan.
Once you've found some niches to conquer, it's time to start building your empire. Or what a lot of marketers today like to call, 'Virtual Real Estate' (or VRE). Building an AdSense site is one thing…but building your very own 'virtual' real estate is an entirely new level.
Last lesson, you learned that you need to test your sites for at least 3-6 months before you decide if the idea is going to work for you or not. Of course, that doesn't mean that you should sit around waiting for one site to show results before getting started on the next one. Keep building your sites.
Remember…Don't stop building. You can always change and test other strategies for those sites.
While AdSense isn't the only way to make money off your website, it is definitely one of the easiest - all you have to do is configure your ad, drop it into your site template and pat yourself on the back - you're done for the day.
Unfortunately though, setting things up, and actually making money from AdSense are two different things. To earn money from AdSense you need:
Website Traffic (visitors) | |
Clicks on your ads (high click-through rate) | |
High-paying clicks (top-paying, most profitable keywords) |
Today - I'm going to walk with you while you learn how to totally optimize your AdSense virtual real estate (VRE). I'll show you the optimal placements for your AdSense ads and how to quickly increase your CTR (click-through rate) by 100%.
Of course, you need to test all of what I say on your own. But each tip has been tested and proven by yours truly to be produce high-end results.
“How Do You Get People To Click On an Ad?” |
 | Make them pay attention to it – if they aren't looking, they aren't clicking. |
Have ads that match the reader's needs – search engine visitors are typically looking for information on a particular topic – are you giving them that information? Are your ads? | |
Overcome the “this is an ad – ads are bad” psychological barrier – in our society and on the Internet we are continuously bombarded by ads and there is a subconscious resistance to them – you have to either overcome it or ... as I'll show you, sidestep it. |
“Attracting Attention” |
Most people think that the best way to attract attention is to use bright colors and generally make sure that the ads stand out. It's a good idea in theory, but think of what happens in the real world...
The first time you see a bright, garish advertisement, you look at it because it is distracting, not because it is appealing. The second time though, the advertising is less distracting, although you still look at it. By the fifth time around, you are able to ignore the bright ad completely and focus on what you were doing before.
This phenomena is called ad-blindness - our minds shut out the distractions of ads that are not helping them get what they want.
So first you have to figure out what your readers want. Then you have to make sure that your ads match that.
“Relevant Ads” |
Since they have come to your website looking for more information on that topic, you'd want your ads to be about the same subject so that your visitors pay attention to the ads (because they are relevant to they are searching for) and click on them.
In my experience, don't waste your time with AdSense banner ads - especially if your site is a content-only site. What I mean by this is that your site's primary purpose is to provide content information instead of trying to sell a product or service. Banner ads act as "distractors" instead of aiding in more clicks.
“How To Combat Ad Discrimination" |
By changing them into information (i.e. don't use something that looks like an ad).
Quite simply put, your AdSense blocks should be less like ads and be more like the text on your pages. Since your visitors came to your website looking for information on a particular topic, your goal is to ensure that your ads look as much like that information as possible.
“Targeted Ads" |
If the ads are not relevant to your site's topic, not only will they be out of place but they will also become 'distractions' - visitors will cast them aside as 'fluff' that is outside the realm of information that they are looking for.
Make sure that each page on your site is focused on a single keyword phrase - use that keyword throughout your article as well as in all the right areas (title tag, header tag).
Restricting the focus of the topic you are writing about also lets you write keyword-rich content in a natural, conversational voice - you're not forcing the keywords in but instead talking about them as you would talk to another person.
“Proven Ad Formats" |
High CTR Text AdBlock Formats:
336 x 280 (large rectangle)
300 x 250 (rectangle)
250 x 250 (square)
Almost any of the AdLinks units seem to work well as long as they are incorporated into your content appropriately. (If you're not familiar with the difference between AdBlocks and AdLinks, see your Google AdSense account for more details).
The reason these formats get more clicks is because they resemble content areas more closely - and as you will read in the next tip, it's easier to position these ads in the most visible areas of your website.
Below is an AdLinks unit with 4 ads appearing. Notice how well it resembles the content areas. They are in an optimal placement for high click-throughs.
Low CTR Ad Formats: 468 x 60 (banner ad) 160 x 600 (wide skyscraper) 120 x 600 (skyscraper) |
Banner ads almost never work - the format is synonymous with traditional advertising and because of this it tends to get ignored (e.g. ad-blindness).
The only time I've seen banner ads work are if they are placed at the bottom of an article - but even then the CTR is too low to merit any recommendations.
Avoid the low CTR ad formats and stick to the high CTR ones on your websites. In fact, use the 336 x 280 and 250 x 250 rectangle formats whenever possible. But make sure that you tie in this tip with the next two as well.
“Optimal Ad Positioning"
The position of your ads will have a great impact on whether your readers pay attention to your ads, and as a result it will affect your CTR as well.
You want your ads to be in the center and middle of the page – to make sure that they get maximum visibility. Of course, you still have to make them look like part of the text, otherwise you'll just turn readers off and they will close the page instead of clicking on a link or an ad.
This tip relates to all “advertisements”. This is why ‘contextual ads’ work so well. Contextual ads are links placed directly in the content of your webpages. They usually promote affiliate products, but some work similar to PPC publishing where you’re paid per-click.
Contextual ads work so well because they appear as related content. They don’t appear as ‘blatant ads’, so the readers don’t turn on their ad-blinders. We’ll talk more about this when we discuss other ways to monetize your sites.
There are two ways to place AdSense ads inside content:
One: Place rectangle ads (such as 250 x 250) above the content (below the heading, above the content body) – so if you had a page on “dog training” it would go something like:
|
Two: Place rectangle ads inside the content (aligned to the right or left) and let the content wrap around them. This would look something like…
I personally prefer the second option, as it allows you to put ads in a prominent location without giving your website a spammy look, but in some cases if it is implemented right you can pull off the first strategy as well.
Color Combination |
As a general rule of thumb, blending your ads in with the colors of your website will increase your CTR because it will cause your ads to look less out of place and more like part of the content. So if your website's background is white, the ad background and border color should be white as well. If the site's background is gray, make sure the ad background (and border) is of the same exact color as well.
Similarly, the link text color should also match that of the site text.
Here’s a great example site where they have made their link text color and design of their AdSense ads look similar to the rest of the links on the site.
There are two more points to think about…
The Link URL colors
The Advertiser URL colors.
Traditionally, choosing a ‘blue' link url color works best, no matter what your site color theme, because people are used to understanding blue underlined text as being a link that can be followed (this goes back to making ads look less like ads and more like the text around them).
Add to this the fact that many of your visitors will probably be search engine users. This means that you don't really need to worry about your link url color standing out too much – for the target group of visitors who are most likely to click on your ads, they wont have enough time to get used to a different color scheme on your website. For them, blue links are the most noticeable and obvious routes of getting access to more information.
For the Advertiser URL link, try to make sure that it does not ‘stand' out from the page. You can do this by choosing a color that complements (and not contrasts) with the background color of your site. On a white background I'd suggest going with light-gray.
All this is designed to make your ads look less like ads and more like regular text.
Profitable Keywords |
Getting a lot of traffic and getting that traffic to click on your ads as much as possible is all good, but if the keywords your site is based on are of low-value (that is, advertisers are not bidding too high on them), then you're basically putting in a lot of effort in building traffic and optimizing your website for nothing.
Try to build websites around terms and niches in which advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money – this way you will really start to notice a difference in your AdSense earnings once you apply the techniques I've listed above.
How do you find profitable keywords, you ask? The way I see it you have three options:
Buy high-paying AdSense keyword lists from sites like AdSenseHeaven.com.
Use a software like Keyword Elite that does everything for you.
Or, get your free list of 40,000 top-paying keywords at HyperVRE.com
Option 1 will cost you a lot of money if you are looking to build several AdSense sites – and as you already know from our last lesson… Building VRE sites is a numbers game. You want to have dozens of websites bringing in income instead of one big fat website.
Option 2 – well, I've discussed Keyword Elite in the last lesson, so I'll let you guys check it out and make your own decision. All I'll say is that you can build high-paying lists in just minutes; it definitely beats the first option.
Option 3 will obviously save you money since it’s free with a Silver membership. But then again, you may not be able to manually get ANY keyword of your choice. However, since there are over 40,000 keywords in the list, you should certainly find some very profitable niches.
That's all for today – I hope that you will use the tips in this lesson to improve your site's CTR and if you are still focusing on low-paying keywords, I'd suggest that you drop everything you are doing and focus on getting into a profitable niche first.
Remember when I told you that Google is one of the most secretive companies in the known world? Well… I’ve cracked a bit of a ‘top secret’ that Google won’t ever tell you. And I’m going to fill you in on that confidential intelligence in our next lesson!
Stay tuned because it’s going to be a doozy.
Matt Callen
Internet Marketer
www.HyperVRE.com
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