Saturday, July 08, 2006

Get revenue from AdSense

AdSense

Introduction

What is AdSense and how can make money from it? Before looking at AdSense, I feel that it is necessary to give a brief description of pay per click advertising. The biggest and most powerful ppc system is called Google AdWords.


AdWords

You will have seen AdWords in action before. They are those little text ads that appear down the right hand side of Google’s search results. They are an amazingly powerful method of advertising. The ads you see are 100% related to the keywords that you type into a search. This means, that as an AdWords advertiser you are capable of displaying your ads in front of an audience that is already interested in your products or services. Never before have businesses been able to conduct their advertising in such a highly targeted manner. If your internet company rented holiday properties in Spain for example, you could set up your AdWords ads to appear ONLY when someone typed in keywords like “Spanish, Spain, holiday, rental, villas, apartments, properties etc.”

Of course, this all comes at a price. As an advertiser, you have to pay Google every time somebody clicks on one of your ads. Not knowing how to cost their system, geniuses at Google came up with the idea of letting their advertisers bid against each other for the value of their chosen keywords. This means, that if I wanted my ad to be displayed the most often when someone types the key phrases “Spanish holidays” into Google, I would have to out the bid advertiser who currently comes top of the list for this key phrase. The Internet has matured as a result of ppc advertising. The embarrassing days of the Dot Coms are well and truly behind us. The value of online businesses can now be measured because ppc advertising is a dynamic system that reflects real-world supply and demand. With ppc advertising, Google has enabled small online business to flourish whilst making tens of billions for themselves.

AdSense

With their follow up program AdSense, Google created an opportunity for everybody to get share in this lucrative market. AdSense is an extension of the AdWords program that allows any website owner to place AdWords ags on their site. However, the difference in this system lies in the fact that ads displayed come not from search phrases, but from the content of your site. As an AdSense user, Google gives you a piece of JavaScript that has your unique id embedded within it. This enables them to track the performance of the ads on your site. You simply paste this code into the html of your website. Then, when someone views your site, the JavaScript automatically fetches ads from the Google server and places them on your page.

Google does this with its advances content recognition technology. This technology is so clever, that it knows which country you are viewing a site from. It then places country specific ads accordingly. For example, if you had a site about fly-fishing, people viewing your site in Australia would see ads for Australian fishing tackle retailers, and in the USA people would see ads for American retailers. When someone clicks on one your ads, Google charges the advertiser. Google then takes a cut of the money and gives the rest to you. Although Google won’t disclose any details about their payout ratio, it is rumored that they take 32% and you get 68% Before you start thinking: why don’t I just click on my ads all day long and make loads of money? Google has thought of this and takes click fraud very seriously. They want their advertising system to work. They can tell if you have been committing click fraud and will bar you from AdSense FOREVER!

Making serious money

99% of AdSense users make next to thing. They stick code onto their website and sit back. When the money doesn’t appear they think the system is useless. This is good for us, because those in the know can make extraordinary amounts of legitimate, Google approved money. There is a simple formula to success with AdSense. Here it is:

HIGH PAYING KEYWORDS + HIGH TRAFFIC + HIGH CLICK-THROUGH RATIO = LOADS OF MONEY

The key lies in finding a niche market and creating a content rich, topical site within this market. You then fill the content of your site with high paying keywords. Next, through good search engine optimization and advanced inbound linking strategies, you build a high and constant flow of traffic to your site. Then, only after you have taken steps one and two, do you place the AdSense code into your site. You add the JavaScript whilst employing certain techniques that make the ads look more attractive. This will encourage more of your website’s visitors to click on the ads. This strategy, coupled with careful tracking of ad performance, will guarantee that you are making serious amounts of money with Google AdSense. If you want to be amongst the 1% of high earners make sure that you follow The AdSense Mint course step-by-step!

AdSense implementation

How to register with AdSense

When you register with AdSense make sure that your site complies with their terms of service. You can find these at: http://www.google.com/adsense/policies You then fill in their online application form which you can find here: http://www.google.com/adsense After you submit your application form, Google will send you a confirmation email. Once you have replied to this they will begin processing your application. This can take up to three days; as it is a real person who will be reviewing your site. Then assuming you have been accepted, Google will send you an email that says welcome to AdSense.

The basics of AdSense

You will now be able to log into your AdSense account. Once you have logged in, you will see this at the top of your screen: Click on the AdSense for content tab. This page allows you to generate your own personalized AdSense code. You will be able to manipulate such factors as: Ad Type, Ad Layout, Color Palettes, Alternate ad URL or color, Channels and Framed pages. Once you have selected your options, Google will automatically generate the optimized code for you. You can then copy this from the bottom of the page and paste it into wherever you want on your website. Before doing anything, familiarize yourself with the program. There is no point in going over the details here, Google do a great job of explaining it themselves. Everything you could possibly need to know can be found on the AdSense support page: http://www.google.com/support/adsense

Increasing your CTR (click-through ratio)

Once you have got used to the program, you need to start thing about the best ways in which you can implement AdSense ads on your site. Good ad implementation can make the difference between a 1% CTR and 25% CTR.

Choosing the best ad format

AdSense offers a variety of different ad formats. Demos of which be seen here: http://www.google.com/adsense/adformats The general consensus is that there are three ad formats that outperform all of the others. In order, these are:

*336x280 large rectangle (four ads)

*300x259 medium rectangle (four ads)

*160x600 wide skyscraper (five ads)

These reason that these ads out perform the others, is because they hold the interest of the reader for longer. A wider text format is visually more pleasing. People read information in chunks, and the wider format allows them to take in more information in less time. Google allow you to place up to three ad units per page. NEVER directly encourage your site’s visitors to click on your ads. This is against Google TOS. They WILL find out if you are doing this and they WILL kick you out of the AdSense program.

Ad placement

Although these ads are the best ones to choose, they won’t achieve a high CTR unless they are correctly placed on your page. In other words, your ads will have to complement your page layout. Google have kindly given us a “heat map” of the most clicked on areas: The darkest shade of orange represents the most clicked area. Therefore, you will want to place a large rectangle or a medium rectangle ad in the centre of your webpage. It is best if you blend these ads in within the body of your copy. Here is a good example: The best place to put the wide skyscraper ad is down the left hand side of your page. After looking at the centre of the page, this is the next area that people tend to look at.

Ad color

The color schemes of your ads something that you absolutely must get right. A lot of AdSense users don’t bother and leave the ads in their defaults state. You can alter the color scheme of your ads by using the AdSense color palette: http://www.google.com/adsense/colors There are five factors that you can alter with the AdSense color palette. These are the color of your ad’s border, background, title, text and URL. The question is what color scheme is the best to use. Some people maintain that it is best to keep the ads as bright and as eye-catching as possible. While this might work on some people’s websites, from my experience, it is best to do the complete opposite. Ads perform much better when their color scheme matches that of your website. You must make the background, border and URL of your ads invisible. Do this by matching the background, border and URL of your ads with the background color of your webpage. Then, make the text of the ads the same color as the text of your website. And finally, make the title of your ads the same color as the links on your website.

Tracking ad performance

You will without a doubt become hooked on checking your income on the AdSense report page. When you start making serious money you can’t help yourself. While you are doing this, you should also take the time to monitor the performance of your ads. This allows you to then tweak your system for optimum performance.

Channels

AdSense allows you to set up channels within your account. You should create one for each and every page of your site. Based on the amount of money you earning, they sloe you to see which ads performing well and which ads are performing poorly. You can then weed out the poorly performing ads with ad filter.

Tracking scripts

Tracking scripts are simple pieces of code that you paste on to your webpage. They allow you to find out which specific ads have been clicked. You can compare the results of the scripts with the results of your channels to gain a more detailed perspective on your ad performance.

By James Fraser

THE ADSENSE MINT – Why pay $100 for an out of date AdSense eBook when you can download the new AdSense Mint Course absolutely FREE!!

Posted by art at 12:30 AM | | Comments