How To Read Your Visitors Like A Book

Making Sense Of Stats, Logs And Reports…
Stats are a vital part of your success. If you can’t follow the results of all the changes you’re going to be making to your ads and your pages, then you’re never going to maximize your revenues. But reading your stats can be confusing. You’re going to be staring at all sorts of tables filled with all kinds of numbers which can be rearranged and reorganized in all sorts of different ways. That’s why it’s crucial to know how to read your stats and understand the figures.

The Most Important Stat Of All
There’s one figure that’s more important than any of the others. Know which one I’m talking about? Revenue! If you aren’t making money, no other stats matter. If you are making money though, the next stat you want to watch is your CTR. The higher the percentage of clicks to page impressions you receive, the higher your CPM will rise — and the higher your revenues will become. When you make a change to your ad placement, to your keywords, to your ad colors or anything else, wait a week and check your stats to see the result. And look first at your revenues. Bear in mind too that when you have multiple ads on a page each ad unit counts as one impression — but you won’t be able to get three clicks from them! Multiple ad units then can reduce your CTR while still giving you good revenues. You might also want to translate your results into charts. If you do want to do that, the most important things to look for are trends in CTR and in earnings. Tracking impressions too will also let you see any radical fluctuations in traffic.

Optimum CTR

Much of your success will depend on lifting your CTR as high as possible. Obviously, the more people who click on your ads the more money you should make but it’s not always easy to know when you’re inviting as many people as possible to get clicking. I’ve gone from less than 1% CTR to over 8% on some sites but I know of some sites that are getting over 30% CTR! Your CTR will depend on a number of different factors, including:
• Site Content — Some types of content get more clicks than others (but don’t necessarily make more money per click...)
• Site Design — We’ve already talked about the importance of where you place your ads and how you place them.
• Number Of Links — Why give your ads competition? If people want to click away from the page, you should get paid for it.
• Ad Relevancy — If you’re not getting served ads that are relevant to your content, you’re going to have a low CTR.
AdSense Arbitrage
Once you get to grips with the numbers that you see on the stats pages and your logs, you might notice something interesting. You might see for example, that you’re getting 5,000 ad clicks on a page each month and that page is generating $1500. Divide $1500 into 5,000 clicks and you’ll realize that each click for that type of content is bringing you 30 cents. That means that when you come to buy content, as long as you spend less than 30 cents for a click to that page, you’re going to make a profit. And one way to do that is to open an AdWords account and buy advertising space on Google’s search pages. You could pay as little as 5 cents per click, giving you a profit of 25 cents each time your 5-cent users click on your 30-cent ads. That’s AdSense arbitrage and it sounds like a foolproof way to increase your revenues. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. The first problem with arbitrage is that you can never get a 100% CTR. Not every 5 cent click you buy is going to give you 30 cents back — and every impression that doesn’t result in an ad click is going to eat into your profits.
With these kinds of figures (and obviously, yours are going to be different), you’d need a 16% CTR to break even. (If every ad click costs 5 cents and gives you 30 cents, you can afford to lose five out of every six clicks or 16%). So if you can see that you’re getting a 16% CTR, buying advertising on AdWords to send traffic to your AdSense ads could be a good deal. Or not. The second problem with arbitrage is that your CTR rate is based on users coming from your current traffic sources. The users you buy through AdWords might behave differently. They’ve already clicked on an ad once so they might not want to click on an ad again. Or alternatively, because you know they’re the type who do click on ads, it’s possible that they’re exactly the type who’ll click on the ads on your page. Results from using arbitrage vary. Some people report that the clicks they buy on AdWords give them less revenue, others report that they’ve increased their CTR. The real key to arbitrage success is buying traffic based on the right keywords. And to do that you need...

How To Make AdSense Work With Internet Communities And Commercial Sites

Maximize your AdSense Revenue from Internet Forums, Message Boards and Discussion Groups! Earlier in this book, I mentioned making revenue from blogs. But blogs certainly aren’t the only types of content online or the only types that can use AdSense. In an active Internet Community, users generate most of the content.
You cannot completely control the keywords or the topics, which means AdSense might spring some surprises with the ads that show up. (Just have some Alternate Ads handy, in case AdSense pulls up a series of non-paying public service ads.) Unlike passive surfers who like to explore your website for relevant information, forum members are very focused on their messages and the responses they attract.
Many publishers that play host to Internet Communities complain of negligible CTRs, scattered keywords (low content relevance) and low cost per click. What they don't realize is that Internet Communities are a hidden gold-mine which inspire fanatical loyalty, repeat visits, unique content and a high level of user involvement with the content. Mega-brands such as Apple and Harley Davidson were built on the same foundation — a deep sense of personal bonding, high involvement with the product and strong referrals. You can achieve the same result with your website! While all Internet Communities are not the same, they do have the same key strengths. You just need to recognize them and find new ways to cash in on them — as some savvy web publishers are doing already!

Google’s Forum Heat Map
Just as Google produced a heat map for standard websites, they’ve done the exact same thing for forums. You can find that map, together with their suggestions at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/six-adsense-optimization-tips-for.html. On the whole, Google’s tips are quite sensible. They recommend that a skyscraper on the left is a good idea and that horizontal ads should be placed beneath each forum entry. They also suggest putting a leaderboard at the bottom of the page, but before the footer, and opting in to take image ads.



I’m not sure about all of those suggestions though. Here’s why:
• Forum Members are very focused on their topic of discussion. Ads that appear on the top, bottom or side margins of the page may not distract them from their main objective — which is to read and write the posts!
• The best way to capture their attention is to put your ads at the end of the top posting on each page. Posts that appear on top are read more often, and usually set the tone for the rest of the discussion. Many web publishers swear by Google's 728x90 leaderboard ad with two ads trailing top-of-the-page posts.
• What gets the most clicks in any forum? The forum buttons of course! Put your ads close to these useful buttons, sought out by users to search threads, create a new thread or post a reply. Check out this example:

There are two kinds of ad units on this forum page at DealofDay.com. First, I’ve placed a leaderboard immediately beneath the navigation bar. It’s impossible to miss there. Users have to look at the navigation bar and when they do, they’ll see the ads. But just look at the second ad unit. Can you see it? It’s a horizontal link unit embedded in a space usually used to describe the thread.
I’ve even managed to make the “Ads by Google” line — which is usually a click-killer — match my thread titles. And because the ads are so relevant, there’s a great chance they’ll generate clicks. Even better, users on forums are used to clicking several time to get the content they need. They’ll click on the general title of the forum thread, then the entries and the user profiles and so on. That means that when they click on a link unit, there’s a very good chance that they’ll also click on the ads that turn up. So that’s two great ways to use ads on a forum: by placing them beneath the navigation bar; and by embedding them in the thread table. There’s another method though and it’s so easy you’ll be amazed that everyone isn’t doing it...
Without ever asking users to click, the heading "Deal of Day" turns the Google Ads into a recommended resource for finding the day's top deals. Impressive forum stats, such as the number of members, threads and posts appear alongside the ads, making them look more legitimate. The sheer number of users creates a sense of urgency to check them out before other members get their hands on the coveted deals!
• Make sure you apply the same text formatting as the user-generated content. It's important to gain your users' attention first — then pitch your message when they're all ears!
• Try putting the ads at the bottom of each post. If users spot the pattern and your click-throughs start to drop, try putting the ads at the bottom of every alternate post. The key is to keep them guessing!
• Don't break up a post by putting ads in the middle. Since forums have user-generated content, people are more sensitive to these intrusions and might be offended if you make it seem as if the ads are their personal recommendations.
• Don't lump a bunch of ads together in the middle of the page. It works well with 'passive' visitors, but your forum members will read right around them!
• Allow users to pull up targeted ads with a Google Search Box! How often has a forum posting piqued your interest enough to launch a Google search? Once? Twice? All the time? If you're anything like me, the Google Search Box is an added convenience, welcomed by most users. It makes your visitors stay! And if they click an ad from the results page, you make money!
Which of these strategies will work for your Forums? Only time can tell — but don't forget to track your results with Google's FREE AdSense Channels. There are publishers who have made a fortune with their community pages. It doesn't take rocket science. But a little persistence goes a long way!

Strategies To Benefit From Smart Pricing

Strategies To Benefit From Smart Pricing

The challenge for publishers trying to keep their ad rates high is that there’s no way to know exactly how many of your clicks are converting into sales for your advertisers. You can’t even tell what would count as a sale for the different advertisers you’re promoting. The best you can do is keep track of your clicks and your revenues, and make sure that they rise and fall at the same rates. If following your stats was always important, Smart Pricing has made it absolutely vital. There’s little point in spending hours trying to increase your CTR if the value of your clicks is dropping like a rock. So what should you do if you notice that your income is dropping but your CTR rate remains the same? The first thing you should do is protect yourself. Because one site with a low ROI can affect all the sites in your account, dividing your sites between different accounts would prevent all of your revenues falling if one site underperforms. Officially, that’s a breach of TOS, so you can’t really do it But I don’t see why two different sites can’t be owned by two spouses. If you own more than two sites though... well, I guess you’re stuck. Next, if you suspect that one page has a low ROI, try removing the AdSense code from that page, wait a week and see if you can spot an improvement in your ad prices. If there’s no improvement, replace the code and try taking the code from a different page. You want to find the page that’s poisoning your earnings and keep AdSense ads off it until you can bring in the kind of traffic that suits your advertisers. And that’s where you’re most likely to find the underperforming pages. The pages that are most likely to have the greatest conversion rates for advertisers are those that have the most loyal following. The closer the connection between your site and the interests of your visitors the more likely they are to click on your ads — and buy when they click. So it’s also a good idea to create niche sites that appeal to niche audiences, rather than general sites that bring in audiences interested in a bunch of different things. Those sorts of users will also only have a vague interest in some of the things on your site and could lower your conversion rate.
You might have a blog, for example, in which you discussed your interests in... oh, dogs, computer games and the movies of Mel Gibson. That would bring in users with three different kinds of interests... and three different kinds of ads. But a dog-loving user who clicks on an ad for Mel Gibson DVDs is less likely to actually buy than a Mel Gibson fan. Your conversion rate would drop and the value of every ad you promote would fall too. But if you created three separate blogs, one for each of your interests, you would receive fewer false clicks, and a higher rate of conversion. Ultimately then, the ideal strategy is, as always, to create good content that attracts genuinely interested users.

Smart Pricing... And What It Means For Your Income

One of the more difficult aspects of using AdSense is keeping up to date with changes that Google likes to introduce from time to time. Most of these changes are pretty minor. That doesn’t mean that you can ignore them — you will need to be aware of them. But you won’t usually have to make massive changes to your site and the way you’ve optimized your ads when Google adjusts its policy. One change that did have a dramatic effect on publishers took place in April, 2004: Google introduced Smart Pricing. We’ve already felt some of its effects in this book. Now we’re going to explain exactly what it means... First, let me just say that Smart Pricing was a pretty smart move, especially for advertisers. The principle is simple: before Smart Pricing, advertisers paid the price they had bid for each click their ad received on a website... regardless of whether that click resulted in a sale. The result was that some advertisers were receiving large numbers of clicks — for which they were paying large sums of money — but were seeing only a low return on that investment (ROI). Not surprisingly, they were drifting away to other ad distributors, particularly Yahoo!, in the search for visitors who wouldn’t just click but buy too. To improve advertisers’ ROI (and win them back from Yahoo!), Google lowered the price of ads on sites that tend to give advertisers few sales, even if they give them large numbers of clicks.
To put it another way, the same ad can now cost different amounts when it appears on different sites. And of course, that same ad will pay publishers different amounts too. Before Smart Pricing, publishers had focused solely on attracting as many clicks as possible. With Smart Pricing, a site with a high CTR can still earn less than a site with a low CTR. So how does Google measure an advertiser’s conversion rate and what can publishers do to increase their conversion rates to ensure their ad rates remain high? This is where things get tricky. Google is playing its cards pretty close to its chest when it comes to the methods it uses to calculate Smart Pricing and even measure ROI.
What Google Has Said About Smart Pricing
This is what Google has officially told us about Smart Pricing:
• The price of an ad is influenced by a number of different factors.
Those factors can include: the bid price; the quality of the ad; competition from other ads in the same field; the location of the ad as part of a marketing campaign; “and other advertiser fluctuations.”
• The ad price is not affected by the clickthrough rate.
Sending advertisers large numbers of clicks will not increase the bid price. (That doesn’t mean that CTR isn’t important at all for your revenues; it’s just not important in determining the amount you receive for the click.)
• “Content Is King.”
Google makes it pretty clear that sites that will benefit most from AdSense are those that “create compelling content for interested users.” They also emphasize the importance of bringing targeted traffic to look at that content. Those are two different factors which together create a site with loyal, appreciative users. Just the sort of thing that every serious webmaster wants.

What Else Do We Know About Smart Pricing?
What Google has told us about Smart Pricing isn’t much. It also raises at least as many questions as it answers: How does Google judge the quality of an ad? How can they tell the role an ad plays in a marketing campaign? What are the other “advertiser fluctuations”? And perhaps most importantly, how do they track the results of the clicks? All of those pieces of information would be very useful to a publisher. But Google wasn’t letting on.
Fortunately, publishers caught a break. Jennifer Sleg, the author of an excellent contextual advertising blog at www.Jensense.com, (you should definitely make this site a part of your regular reading) was contacted by an advertiser who was being tempted back from Yahoo! to Google. He told Jen what the AdSense salesman had told him about Smart Pricing. She told us. This is what it boiled down to:
• Smart Pricing is calculated across an AdSense account.
So if you have a number of different sites covering a range of different topics and one of them delivers a low ROI, all of your ad prices may be lowered.
• Smart Pricing is evaluated weekly.
If you believe that an ad is delivering a low ROI, you can remove it from your site and you should see higher ad prices within a week.
• Smart pricing is tracked with a 30-day cookie.
Users don’t have to convert immediately into a sale (or whatever will count as a conversion) for you to benefit. They can think about it for a month and you’ll still get the benefit.
• Image ads are affected by smart pricing.
Few serious publishers use image ads except when they’re receiving CPM campaigns. Was this a reference to ads in low locations receiving lower rates?
• Prices may be reduced even below an advertiser’s minimum bid.
So looking up the bid prices for targeted keywords won’t help you very much; if your ROI is low, your rates could be lower than the minimum quoted.
• Conversions accounts are tracked by advertisers opting into AdWords Conversion Tracking.
But we still don’t know what Google is tracking or how it’s making calculations with its results.

Fast Decision-Making With A/B Testing

Fast Decision-Making With A/B Testing
One of the problems with tracking Channels is that collecting all the data you need can take time. If you wanted to know whether you should put a skyscraper or a small square in your sidebar, you’d have to start with one type of ad unit, collect results for at least a week to make sure that they’re representative, replace that unit with the second type, follow those results for a week and compare.

Tracking Tools
There’s a whole range of different tracking tools available to fill the gaps left by Google’s Channels. Here is a quick run-down of the main ones: AdSense Log
http://www.metalgrass.com/adsenselog/index.html
Created by MetalGrass, this stats analyzer has easy-to-read graphs and charts. They also use Google’s own stats rather than tapping into your server’s MySQL.
You can check your account as frequently as you want and the log will even you give you a sound, an email or a pop-up window when new data is available. Price $50. Free 30-day trial. AsRep
http://www.asrep.com
AsRep lets you track all of your stats in real time. That includes each of your three regular ad units, an AdLink unit and up to two search boxes on each page.
The program also captures colors, format and channels, and whether the units are showing ads or alternates.
Price $50. Unlimited evaluation version available. CSV AdStats
http://www.nix.fr/en/csvadstats.aspx
CSV AdStats is less of a tracker and more of a number-cruncher. You can download Google’s CSV data file and conduct a full stats analysis to check averages and create charts.
A useful way to squeeze more sense out of your stats.
FREE Google AdSense Tracking Script
http://www.biz-directory.org/adsense/ The Google AdSense Tracking Script lets you see the domains and files where clicks occurred, hourly and daily stats and who clicked what, where and when. Price $100.

TWO TOOLS YOU CAN’T DO WITHOUT!
If you are serious about making money with Google AdSense, there are two tools that you really need to download. I was closely involved in the production of both of them. I’d like to say that I didn’t create these tools to make a profit, but that’s not really true. I did create them to make a profit... but a profit as an AdSense publisher not as a software developer. The fact is, none of the tracking software that I saw on the market was giving me all the information I wanted. And I want to know everything! I want to know where my users are coming from, what they’re looking for, which ads they’re clicking, how many unique visitors I’m receiving, which colors work best etc. etc. With AdSense, I don’t think it’s possible to have too much information. No one was really willing to supply me the tools to gather and analyze that information. So I built them myself. AdSense Detective
The first of these tools is AdSense Detective. You can signup for a free trial at http://www.adsensedetective.com/members/register.php I developed AdSense Detective together with my good friend, Robert Puddy, who’s really another AdSense giant. We wanted that program to fill in all the knowledge and data gaps that we possibly could. That’s why in AdSense Detective, you’ll be able to discover: Which domains, directories and pages of your websites users clicked; The referring domains, pages and search terms that sent you visitors; Which ad units, colors and formats were bringing you the most clicks; The precise copy of the AdWords that you can check against page relevance; The search terms used by visitors to find your page; and... The exact AdSense channels of every ad clicked so that you can see which position on your page is bringing you the most money! If you’ve got all that information, then frankly you’ve got everything you need to bring home the bacon.



AdSense Buddy Of course, you still have to analyze and process all that data. That’s what my next tool does, and you can download it for no charge at all.
At time of writing, it’s in beta. By the time of reading though, it should be available for download at www.AdSenseBuddy.com.
The idea of the program is to make it as simple as possible for you to make sense of your stats. And because the program has been created by someone who not only knows AdSense, but uses it every day, you can be sure that it was made with the end user in mind so it should give you everything you could ask for. If there’s something I’ve left out, you probably don’t need it. You’ll be able to follow your CTR and note your impressions. You’ll be able to see your results by just rolling over the task bar. And I’ve even included an AdSense journal so that you can keep track of what’s working and what isn’t. That alone makes it worth downloading.

And it’s really simple to use. Once you’ve received your registration key, you simply enter your AdSense email address and password. Immediately, you’ll see a pop-up summarizing your latest stats. (Want to see them again? Just mouse over the icon in the system tray.) Below those stats, you’ll also get links to the latest discussions at AdSenseChat.com. That will make sure you’re always up to date and that you’ve always got something to read! You can also download data to cover any time period you want and view the information as graphs to make your analysis a breeze. But it’s really the journal that I’m most proud of. The fact that you can keep a record of your changes together with the results of your changes makes following your stats very, very easy. I don’t know how I managed for so long without it.
And like I said, it’s absolutely free, so enjoy! Click here to download AdSense Buddy.

How To Read Your Server Logs

How To Read Your Server Logs
Various AdSense Tracking programs are currently sold on the Internet. This type of software runs on your own server which means it has access to vital visitor information. These packages are not affiliated with Google, but you can use most of them without violating the AdSense TOS. External tracking software can tell you many things that the Channels don't reveal, such as:
- Where your visitors are coming from;
- Where the ad-clickers are coming from;
- What search keywords led them to your web page.
Your stats package should compile and interpret your log files. It will tell you how many people visited your pages, how long they stayed, which are the most popular pages, what countries/domains they visit from, and how many bookmarked your site. Just about all the information you need. One thing that external Tracking software cannot do for you, is to tell you exactly how much MONEY a specific ad (or a group of ads) is making for you. Only Google's Channels can tell you that. External tracking software can tell you an ad's CTR, but your AdSense income also depends on factors such as the earnings per click, content relevance, your ranking on Google Search Results and many other factors besides.
Why? Because Channels can be quite confusing if you use them by themselves. Consider this example: In this hypothetical case, Jim has a website about fast cars, where he discusses his passion with thousands of like-minded visitors. He decides to find out which ads are doing better than the others.
What is that hidden ingredient that's jacking up those click-through ratios? The Channels won't tell. Jim now decides to install an external tracking software on his website.
After looking through his server logs, he finds that ads with the term "Car Accessories" are getting the maximum click-throughs. How does Jim know that? Simple. His tracking software tells him which ads his visitors are clicking. He also knows which sites his visitors are going to.
Jim found that of all his visitors, those who searched for the term "Car Accessories" were generating the maximum click-throughs on his web pages. Naturally, ads with the term "Car Accessories" were doing better than the others. Should Jim now optimize his website for the search term "Car Accessories"? For most web publishers, that's good enough to get down to work. But Jim is skeptical. Jim wants to know if his "Car Accessories" ads are also his top income generators. To find out, he creates a Channel to track the earnings of all ads with the term "Car Accessories" in it. He calls the new channel "Car_Accessories".
He looks through his tracking reports once again and finds that ads with the term "Car Parts" are also doing well. He found that while "Car Accessories" took the lead with 5% CTR, the "Car Parts" ads were generating a healthy 3% CTR. Jim is excited. He knows he's on to something big! Jim's tracking software has helped him uncover two great "leads". Which of these will lead him to his top income generator? The plot thickens…
Google won't tell you all reasons why the "Car_Parts" ads are making Jim more money. But Jim knows that the keyword "Car Parts" is probably more expensive, and that his website ranks better for that term. FINALLY-- Jim is ready to act on this information. Let's take a look at his various options:
1. He can use it to optimize his page for the search term "Car Parts", so that his content is more relevant. Jim knows from experience that when his ranking for the search term "Car Parts" goes up, so will his earnings per click. But it does have a downside. It might LOSE him his "Car Accessories" traffic! Jim knows that the price of keywords keeps fluctuating with the bids placed by AdSense advertisers. A keyword that's not so hot today can trigger a frenzied bidding war tomorrow! Jim doesn't want to lose his most responsive visitors, earning him a decent $500 per week.
2. Jim can optimize his page for "Car Accessories". But that comes with the huge risk of losing a whopping 60% of his earnings.
3. Jim can launch dedicated web pages for "Car Parts" and "Car Accessories".
4. Jim can optimize his page for BOTH search terms.
Jim decides to go with option 4 — optimize for BOTH search terms! Jim knows the old saying that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one at all. That's why he decides to play his cards carefully. Jim understands visitor behavior. He knows that his visitors like to read in "bite sized" portions. They take a bite here and a nibble there. But they never read a web page like a book, starting from the top and reading right through to the bottom. He tweaks his layout to make the "Car Parts" articles more visible. He smartly uses the hot car photos on his website to create several points of interest in his neatly laid out website. Jim knows that people will instinctively look at the car photos, then be drawn in by detailed information about car parts — followed by the strategically placed Google ads. To leverage this opportunity, Jim creates new space for content by tweaking the framework of his web page. Now Jim can capitalize his page layout by drawing people in with short, interesting 'content hooks' that build interest in the Google ads. He adds new side-bars with juicy tid-bits about hot new car accessories. These will act like instant magnets to visitors looking for car accessories. More importantly, they run right alongside the AdSense ads, which tempt people with hot new offers on Car Accessories. A specially designed "Accessories I love" section invites visitors to scroll down for more. Here Jim provides news, updates and impartial reviews about the Car Accessories Market. He entices visitors to check out new product launches with an integrated Google Search Box, which enables them to search within his website or search the entire web for relevant content. These changes not only make Jim's web pages more relevant; it makes his visitors more receptive to the ads. And there's more. Jim can now create new income streams for himself by plugging in new links to pages dedicated to car accessories, car parts and other keywords that are already attracting highly responsive visitors to his existing pages. Jim used his channels and server logs to drill deep and come up with a real gold-mine of information. You too can use these secrets to zero in on ads that make you the most money — and to find hidden sources of AdSense income.

Creating Multiple Channels

Creating Multiple Channels

In the past, one of the biggest challenges for publishers was to decide which characteristic they should track on each of their ad units. Should they follow an ad unit’s color? Its position? Its size? Now those decisions are much easier. It’s possible to paste up to five Channel codes into one ad unit, allowing publishers to collect different information about the same ad. When you check your Channels, you’ll be able to how all your leaderboards or doing, as well as all your ads related by topic or color. That’s a huge help when it comes to understanding what your site is doing.
Your Channel Names — How To Keep Your Channels Secret And Win Channel Targeted Ads
Channels are extremely useful tools. You won’t be able to make the most of your site unless you’re using Channels to track the performance of your ad units — and acting on what you find. But there is one small problem with using Channels: the Channel name appears in your source code. That’s unlikely to cause you any serious problems but it is something you need to know. There are two reasons for that. First, you always want to maintain your privacy and create a professional impression. If you’re making your site available to the public — which is the only way it’s going to make money — you don’t want anything on there that you wouldn’t want the world to know. That includes the terms you’ve used for your Custom Channels. But the second reason is that when you create your channels, you’ll also be asked to mark a checkbox that says: “Show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement.” If you mark that box — and you should — advertisers will be able to try to place their ads across that channel. (They’ll still have to bid in the usual way but if the advertisers are keen enough to choose your site by Channel, there’s a good chance that they’ll also be keen enough to bid high enough to win.) So if you’ve created a Channel for all of the ad units placed at the top of your Web pages, then an advertiser who chose to advertise across that Channel could be sure that his ads would get prime placement. That mean your Channel names should be clear not just to yourself but to anyone else looking in too. If a Channel that tracks the ad units embedded in articles about Toyota cars for example, is called “Toy_art,” an advertiser could get the wrong idea... if he has any idea at all. If the Channel were called “Toyota_articles” though, he’d know exactly where his ads would appear. But getting the name right isn’t the only thing you should do to tempt advertisers to bid on Channel-targeted ad placements. You should also add a description that makes it both clear to advertisers what exactly they’ll be getting when they bid and attractive for them to do so. Something like: “Ads will appear in our top-performing units: above the fold and embedded in our main article.” That should help to encourage users to place your ads.
Of course, you also want to make your approach as attractive as possible. Advertisers aren’t going to be too interested in trying to get their ads into a leaderboard that you’ve put at the bottom of the page. Let them try to get into the best positions on your page — and raise the overall price of your clicks too. You do that by targeting your highest-performing ad units for Channel-based advertising. And finally, you should use ad placement invitations on Channels you’ve created for different topics. That will make it clear to advertisers that their ads will only appear on relevant pages.

What Custom Channels Should You Create?

What Custom Channels Should You Create?

With the range of Custom Channels limited only by your imagination, it’s not always easy to figure out which channels you need to create. I’d recommend that you build channels based on the following: Location Do ads do better at the top of your blog pages or on the side? Do you get more clicks from ads that you’ve slipped into the article or from the ads at the bottom of the page. Try creating different channels for each sort of location so that you can track how different locations are doing.

Ad Unit Different ad units can deliver different results. You might be using four or five different types of ad units across your sites. Make a channel for each type of unit so that you can get an idea about which units are the most attractive. Of course, location and ad unit are related but you won’t be untangle the data unless you have it! Color I keep saying that the color of your ads should match the color of your site. But not all your sites are the same color! You might well find that some color schemes win you more clicks than others — a fact which could influence your overall site design. Create different Custom Channels for different colors and you’ll have a better idea of how your designs affect your income. Link Units It’s certainly worth creating a channel to track the performance of your link units. These are special in their own right and you should know how they perform in comparison to your other ad units. While Google can now track ad performance for your specified domain name, please don't expect URL or Custom Channels to give you data about your visitors, such as who referred them to your website or which web browser they use. These are details only your server logs can tell you.

How To Create A Custom Channel

How To Create A Custom Channel

The URL Channels are especially useful if you have several websites, and have a general idea of the formats, colors, alignment etc. that works best for you. Remember though, you still need the original, Custom Channels if you want to track ads across different domain names, based on ad sizes, formats, colors etc. For instance, if I want to track left-aligned ads across all my websites (sites with different domain names), I need to group them together into a single channel and manually change the channel code for each page. First, I name the new channel:


Then I choose the Ad Type, Layout and Color of the ads I want to track: Finally, it’s simply a matter of allocating an alternate URL if I don’t want public service ads, selecting the channel and copying and pasting the code onto each of the pages that contain these kinds of ad.


Of course, I would then have to repeat the process if I wanted to track ads of a particular color or size. That’s very different to the process you use to create a URL Channel. URL Channels are tracked automatically without the need for you to paste code. With Custom Channels, you’re going to have to go back to your own site, add the code in the appropriate pages and upload the changes to your server. While that’s a bit of a headache, it’s a headache worth having.



Custom channels provide such a broad range of information — from how different locations are doing to how particular types of ad units affect your revenues — that without them, you’re working in the dark.

FOLLOWING THE FIGURES

Response Tracking: Your Hidden Pot Of AdSense Gold!
In the last chapter, we talked about content. Google won't let you ask visitors to click on your ads, or use other deceptive ways to make them click. But good content is an endorsement in itself. Some of its charm rubs off on the ads, making the ads more believable — and interesting! If you have a website with impartial product reviews, for instance, visitors are more likely to click the ads to learn more about a product, check out the latest prices or order online.
It’s crucial to create content that’s genuinely interesting. But your work doesn’t stop there. After setting up your AdSense Account, the first thing you want to do is play with your ad formats and placement to make the ads blend in. That's where the bulk of the "easy-money" is hiding. But once you've got that right, what next? You start tweaking the text and making all sorts of other changes to improve your CTR. But every time you make any sort of change to your ads, you must track the results. Consider this example: Joe Drinker has a great website about "How to make Beer at Home". It's doing well on AdSense, but not well enough. His week’s stats look something like this Joe is pretty happy with his CTR but wonders if he can raise his CPM and in the process, lift his earnings. So he looks up high-priced keywords related to his subject, and works the term "beer cans" into his content. A few days later he logs into the stats on his AdSense account and finds that that change has actually HURT his income Joe has not only disappointed a lot of collectors who come looking for beer cans — his site contains lots of keywords but little in the way of good content — he has also discouraged visits from people who want to make beer at home. His search ranking has gone down, making his website harder for people to find him and lowering his impressions. It's also hurt his earnings per click as the people who visit the site leave faster. What's worse is that he's also risked his AdSense standing! Now, does that make it a bad idea to optimize your website for AdSense? Not at all. It is actually a good idea, if you do it right. And by that I mean… No Shortcuts! There is a simple, step-by-step process to optimize your website for high-paying search terms. And this method is almost fool-proof! So why isn't everybody doing this? Simply because very few web publishers know how to use Tracking to their advantage. Tracking will not only help you minimize your mistakes, it will also reveal hidden pockets of money that you would have never found otherwise. Read on to find out how YOU can use Tracking to sky-rocket your CTRs and increase revenues per-click.

How To Track With Channels
AdSense now hands you 200 such chips. Use them to track ads on specific domain names or to group ads according to specific ad formats, keywords, their location on the page etc. You can use any other factor that might impact their effectiveness, based on the type of website you have.

How To Create A URL Channel
Google lets you create two kind of channels: URL channels and custom channels. With URL channels you can track clicks across your site’s pages. You can do this by entering four different kinds of URL in the “create new channel” box. Each type of channel gives you information of different accuracy: example.com tracks all the pages in your site and gives a general picture of what your site is doing; subdomain.example.com tracks all the pages in one particular subdomain; subdomain.example.com/widgets tracks all the pages in a specific directory; and subdomain.example.com/page.html tracks the clicks on one specific page. That’s a huge range of choices, from an overview of a site that might have hundreds of pages through groups of pages that concern particular subjects to the clicks you’re getting on just one page. So if you had three sites, one about custom cars, one about custom bikes and one about speedboats, the first thing you’d do is create a general channel for each site. You should always create a channel for each one of your sites. That will let you see not just how much money you’re making overall, but how much money each site is making. You’re not going to get too far without that sort of information! Now, let’s say that the custom car site had tabs for American cars, European cars, Japanese cars and classic cars. Each tab is a subdomain and you could create a channel for each subdomain too. Now you could see which topic is making the most money. And if you discussed one car on each page, you could also create channels for the individual pages and see which cars are the most popular and deliver the highest earning clicks. Sounds good, right? And it’s now very easy to do. Back in the bad old days, Google required you to manually change AdSense tags for each ad block you wanted to track. Many AdSense partners complained about these pesky old channels until Google launched the URL Channels to make life easier. Now all you have to do is sign in and click the tab marked “AdSense Setup” followed by the “Channels” link.


And the next step is to use the link marked “URL Channels” and enter the URLs you want to track. That’s it! You don’t have to do anything else. Google will start tracking the URLs you’ve added automatically.
So apart from creating URL Channels for each of your sites, which of the other URL Channels should you create? As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too much information. Major areas should certainly be covered and if you can go as far as tracking each page without going over the 200 channel limit, so much the better. It’s certainly worth tracking a few individual pages to make sure that the revenues are spread out across different parts of the site. If you find that one page is making lots of money and another is making none, you’ll want to know the reason why.

Buying Content/ Hiring Writers

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.

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 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 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.
While ArticleBot provides content, MetaWebs (www.metawebs.com) gives you the whole caboodle. You get a pre-built website already packed with content and SEO-optimized. In my opinion though, it’s a good idea to swap the content that you get with the site for your own. It will bring you more dedicated users — and that’s more likely to give you a higher income. It’s not a bad idea though to use a MetaWeb site to bring in money while you’re creating your own material. While MetaWeb and ArticleBot can certainly be used to generate AdSense revenue, CashPageBuilder was built specifically for AdSense. This is a very simple program to use. You can simply toss in a keyword phrase, choose the keywords and before you can say “How much is that worth?” you’ve got a site ready to roll. And even if you choose a high-earning keyword that other people have chosen, you’ll still get original 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 price. 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, when 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.

Building Content

Writing Content

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.

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: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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, England, 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.

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 companion ads placed above the screen, which can be either text or image-based, and overlay ads which appear at the bottom of the screen. Both can pay by impression or by click. 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.
Have you noticed what’s missing? That’s right, at the moment, you can’t choose individual clips yourself. That’s a huge hole in the plan and there have been complaints that Google has been serving automated video that isn’t very relevant. 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.

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.
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.

Using Multiple Ad Blocks

Using Multiple Ad Blocks


Google lets you place more than one ad unit on each page of your Web site. In fact, you can place: 3 ad units 3 link units 3 referral units 2 AdSense for search boxes What does this mean for web publishers? A real bonanza: you now have many more chances to hook readers with new ads as Google will show unique ads in each ad unit! With multiple ad blocks, you can also decide which ads are served in the best places for your site.
10.1 How Many Ads Is Too Many?
In general, I recommend that you put as many AdSense units on your page as possible. The more choices you give your users, the more likely they are to click. The only caveat to this is ad-blindness. Put lots of ads on your site and users are just going to ignore them. And when they ignore one unit, they’re likely to ignore them all.

This can be more of a problem for small Web pages than for larger pages such as those on blogs. On a short page, all those different ads can quickly outweigh the content; on a long page, you can scatter them about so that they’re less likely to get in the way of a user’s reading. One great solution is to have a long home page with lots of ads but which contains only the headlines and the first paragraph or so from each article. To read more, the user has to click to a page with just that one article. That page would have fewer units. But because those units would be influenced by just one article, the ads would be better targeted.

What To Do With Three Ad Units
The actual number of ads that you’ll choose will depend on the design of your site. But considering the range of different formats, you should find it pretty easy to squeeze in at least two ad units and usually three. Most sites for example, have room for a leaderboard (although you should also experiment with a link unit to see which of the two in that position gives you the best results). It’s also not too difficult to insert a rectangular unit into an article. You can do that with just about any article. That’s two units already. The final unit, a button or vertical banner, could do very well in a sidebar. Most people choose to keep the ads far apart, but you can also have some pretty dramatic effects by putting your ad units together. This isn’t a strategy that’s going to work for everyone, but creating a zone — at the top of your page maybe or between blog entries — can really make those ads look like content. After all, users are used to seeing ads in single blocks. When they see a whole section of the page given over to ads, there’s a good chance they’ll assume it’s content and give it some extra attention.

Where To Put The Search Boxes
The search boxes are usually easier. Probably the most popular place for these is one of the top corners or in the side bar. You could try putting the second one at the bottom of the page if you want to give users somewhere to go when they’ve finished reading, but to be frank, I doubt if you’ll make any more money with a search box down there than you would from the one at the top. They’re a good way to capture revenue from users who don’t click on the ads and are about to leave, but I don’t think that putting two search boxes on a page is going to give you more income than one. It’s possible and you can try it. But I wouldn’t expect any massive results.

Google Is Generous With The Link Units

Two search boxes might not make much of a difference, but I think that three link units might. They’re small enough to squeeze into all sorts of spots and they look so good at the top and bottom of a list of links that you could probably have fun with three of them. You do want to be careful about not overloading your page with so many ads that users stop seeing them, so if you don’t have space for all three use just one or two. And because link units look very different to ad units, I don’t think you have to worry too much about them competing for clicks — and ending up with nothing. They go very well with other ad units.

Put Referral Ads Near The Recommendation
Referrals work will in all sorts of places. The old Google product referral buttons were most eye-catching when kept together. The new product referrals can work in sidebars but you’ll probably get the best result when you put them close to a recommendation in the text.
Putting It All Together
Experimentation and close tracking is the only real way to know for your site but you have to start somewhere. I’ve put three suggested starting points below. These aren’t meant to be final versions that will yield you the greatest income. They’re just meant to get you started quickly. You can then try swapping the locations of different units and see how those changes affect your CTR.

Putting Multiple Ads In Articles





On a Web page that features just one article, you could place a leaderboard beneath the navigation bar, a rectangular ad unit embedded at the beginning of the article and a link unit in a list of links in the left-hand sidebar. On the right, you could place a search box, another link list (perhaps to archives, RSS content or news) followed by a link unit, and you could put a referral ad inside the text either as an image ad or a text link. You could also try a second search box at the bottom of the page. Possible alternatives to try:
• Swapping the leaderboard or the second search box for a link unit;
• Replacing the link unit on the left with a vertical banner;
• Placing a half-banner at the end of the article instead of the second search box;
• Moving the link unit on the left to the top of the sidebar;
• Using a skyscraper on the right instead of a link unit;
• Or just taking out some of the ads to see if that brings in more clicks.

Putting Multiple Ads In Blogs


The best places to put ads on a blog is between the blog entries. Link units would probably be ideal here... but you’ve only got one of them. Instead, you could start with a half-banner or even a full banner and use a link unit in between two of the blog entries. A search button can be placed at the top of a sidebar on the right with a skyscraper blended into the second of two lists of links, and a second link unit between them. Again the referral unit can be placed inside one of the blog posts if the teaser is long enough. Possible alternatives to try:
• Swapping the link unit for another ad unit and using a link unit in place of the skyscraper;
• Using banners instead of half-banners;
• Embedding a rectangular ad unit into the text of the blog;
• Placing ad units next to photos in the blogs;
• Putting a referral ad in the sidebar;
• Adding an extra search box to the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.

Putting Multiple Ads In Merchant Sites

There are really two approaches you can take to using AdSense on merchant sites. The first is simply to treat them in the same way as blogs: put a link at the end of each section of advertising copy and place a banner or half banner beneath it. That ad unit should blend into the text above and below. You can use a skyscraper on the edge of the screen, a link unit beneath a list of navigation links, a search box at the top of the page and referral ads on the side. Alternatively, you could use graphic referral ads as images and write text about the products. That would give you an instant online store!
In the sample layout above, I’ve placed a large rectangular ad unit directly beneath a featured product. The feature would create the most attention and users would have read past it to reach the rest of the page. Whenever you’re using AdSense on merchant sites though do keep a close eye on the ads you’re serving; you don’t want to advertise your competitors! Possible alternatives to try:
• Using a text link instead one of the ad units between the marketing copy;
• Placing a large picture of a product on a page... and an ad unit right next to it;
• Using banners instead of half-banners;
• Placing a leaderboard either at the top of the page or at the bottom;
• Separating each piece of marketing copy with a large square unit.
And if you’re worried you’ve put in too many ad units... just take one out and see if your CTR changes.

Ordering Your Ads
These strategies make for useful default placements. But there’s one more factor that you should consider when you’re planning your ads: the way that Google distributes ads to multiple units on a page. The first ad unit to appear on a Web page always shows the ads that placed the highest bids. In other words, the higher an ad appears on a page, the more that ad is worth. Because ads that are above the fold tend to get more clicks than those lower down the page, you won’t usually have to do a thing to make sure that the ads that receive the most clicks are those that pay the most. If your Channels do show you that an ad unit at the bottom of the page is picking up more clicks than ad unit at the top of the page though, you might want try moving that unit to a higher position. Frankly, I doubt that’s going to happen very often. A bigger problem is if you’ve placed your ad units inside DIV tags, tables or other positioning codes. As far as AdSense is concerned, the first ad unit is the first one the robot comes across in the HTML code, even if that HTML code places the unit at the bottom of the page.
When you place multiple ad units on a Web page then, it’s important to make sure that the AdSense codes appear in your HTML in the same order that they appear on your Web page. That should ensure that the ad units with the highest clickthrough rates are always the ones with the highest value ads.

Google’s Referral Programs

Google’s Referral Programs

Fig. 9.1 Google’s Referrals let you add another revenue stream to your Web page. One of the biggest changes that Google has made to the AdSense program since the last edition of this book came out is in its referral programs. Initially, these were pretty poor. The products were Firefox, Picasa, Google Pack — a collection of different programs — and the AdSense program itself. If you had users that included publishers interested in signing up for AdSense then you might be able to make some money. (The AdSense referral pays $5 for a publisher who makes the same amount within 180 days, another $250 if the publisher makes $100 and a very nice $2,000 bonus if you refer 25 of these kinds of users). Most publishers though, don’t write content for other publishers. They were left hoping to earn a dollar a download for Firefox. Most found it more cost-effective to use that spot on their page for something else. It turned out that those early referral products were just filling space.
Today, Google offers referral products in more than 26 categories, from animals to travel. Those products come in every format you can imagine and pay different amounts for different actions. It’s a whole other way of making money on your website

What Are Referrals And How Do They Differ From AdSense?
The biggest difference between AdSense units and referral ads is why you’re being paid. Most AdSense ads pay for each click they receive. Some pay each thousand times they’re shown. Referral ads pay on a cost-per-action basis, or CPA for short. It’s not enough to get a click on an ad to earn income. The user has to do something when he reaches the advertiser’s site. That might be downloading a program, leaving an email address or even making a purchase. It’s very similar to an affiliate system in which you’re paid a percentage of a sales price for a product. The only difference is that payable actions aren’t limited to buying. Clearly, whatever the action the advertiser demands, it’s going to lower your success rate in comparison to your AdSense units. If 5 percent of your users click a referral ad and only 5 percent of those users take the action the advertiser wants, then you might generate only a few of these actions each month. Higher payment rates should make up for the lower conversions. We’ve already seen that the AdSense referral program can pay out $5 quite easily once you get the referral, but the payouts available on other referral products can be much, much higher than that. Although most seem to fall between $10-$15, it’s not hard to find referral products that pay more than $50 for each user that takes action.

Fig. 9.2 J.G. Wentworth pays almost $77 for users who complete a form. That already makes them attractive. But referral ads are attractive for another reason...
You should be building multiple revenue streams by placing different kinds of ads on the same page.
Ideally, each Web page should use at least three different types of payment system. Those could be cost-per-click ads, cost-per-mille ads and cost-per-action ads. That would help to ensure that you get something out of all your users. A few users will take action on the referral ads and generate the most money per click for you. Some will click your AdSense ads and generate larger numbers of small payments for you. And your CPM ads will make sure that you get paid even if your users do nothing but look at your content and leave.

Signing Up For Google’s Referral Program
Putting referral ads on your site is very simple. Just click the Referrals link on the AdSense Setup tab and search for an ad by product, keyword or by category. Search by product and you’ll be able to pick exactly the ad you want. Search by keyword and Google will choose the ad for you, giving you what it thinks is the best performing ad to match the keywords you choose. You can enter up to ten keywords.
Search by category and Google will choose the best-performing ads within that category. You’ll also need to select your ad format — the formats available vary from product to product — and create a channel so that you can track the ad’s performance. Finally, place the ad (the category or the keyword) in your “Shopping Cart” and past the code. Start the process by deciding where you want the ad to go. It might take a bit of experimentation to find out which really is the best spot on the page — you’ll have learn whether that location will perform better with a referral ad or an AdSense unit — but you’ll have to put it somewhere. In general, you’ll probably find that it pays to keep the ad as close to the text as possible but the only way to find out which is actually the best setup for your Web page is to try different combinations and follow the results. If you find that over a week, an AdSense unit earns more income embedded in your text than a referral unit, try using a different referral unit to see if the problem is the product rather than the placement. And if the AdSense unit still performs best, move the referral unit somewhere else. One good option is to use a square or rectangular AdSense unit at the start of an article and place a smaller referral unit lower down as though it were illustrating the text. You can put up to three referral units on a single page but if your page isn’t very long, you might be better off sticking with one unit and optimizing it properly (I’ll explain how to do that below). You want your referral ads to be closely tied to your content and you don’t want them to compete with each other.

Choosing Your Referral Adsense

Fig. 9.3 So many choices, so many ways to make money... Obviously where you put your ads will be important. But choosing what you advertise will be even more important. One option is to go for the highest paying ads, put them on your site and hope. You’ll probably be hoping a lot and earning little. Unless your referral ads are closely linked to the content on your page, you’re not likely to get many clicks, let alone many conversions. It might be tempting to put J.G. Wentworth’s $76.92 ad on your site, for example, but unless you have the sort of users who are likely to want structured settlements, you’ll just be wasting valuable space on your page. It might also be tempting to choose keywords or categories and let Google do the thinking for you. It does a pretty good job with the ads in AdSense units, so why shouldn’t it do a good job with the ads in Referral units too? Google even gives you a checkbox marked “Pick Best Performing Ads” that overrules your choice and places what it thinks is the best ad for your site.
(Actually, that box does something else too: it automatically serves up a different ad if your chosen advertiser ends his campaign. Leave the box unchecked and you’ll be left with a empty space. The best solution is to pick a big company with a big budget and keep a close eye on your referral ads.) There are a couple of reasons why you should be choosing Referral ads yourself, by product, and not leaving it to Google.
The first is that the referral inventory is smaller than the AdSense inventory. That means there’s a much better chance that Google will get it wrong and give you something that’s close but not close enough. It also means that there aren’t so many ads available that you can’t browse them yourself and make your own decision. The choice you make should be a compromise between the price you can earn for the action and the closeness of the ad to your own content. That’s going to be a calculated risk at first, followed by experimentation to make sure you’ve made the right decision. The other reason you should be picking your own individual ads yourself is that you can recommend the products in your referral units. That’s an important difference in comparison to AdSense units and it’s a crucial element in optimizing your ads to get maximum conversions.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Referral Ads
Like AdSense units, referral units need to be optimized. The same principles don’t necessarily apply. The fact that you can recommend the products in your referral ads changes everything. You can recommend them because advertisers aren’t paying for the click. They’re only paying for the action. If a user reaches their site and does nothing, it’s cost them nothing. They don’t risk anything then, by having you send them users if those users turn out not to be interested. Recommending products that you advertise is the number one most effective way of rocketing any ad clickthroughs. You’re only allowed to do it for CPA ads such as referral ads and affiliate ads. Once you’ve chosen your ad then, try to mention the product in your text. Ideally, you’ll choose a product that you’ve actually used and enjoyed. That will make the recommendation personal — and that’s the best kind. Your readers trust you, so they’ll trust your judgment.
If you haven’t used the product though, try to find a website or a blog that gives it a good review and mention that someone else has said these people have done a great job. That’ s not as powerful as saying that you’ve tried it and loved it yourself but it’s better than nothing. It’s certainly better than abusing your readers’ trust by talking up something that you haven’t used and which might be poor. But here’s the thing... Once you’ve mentioned a product, people are going to look for it. Even if they see a banner and know it’s an ad, there’s still a good chance that they’ll click because you’ll have made them curious. That affects the format you choose. The range of formats available for each ad varies. But try to choose either a text link that you can slip right into your article, or a graphic ad that will attract ads. Usually, I don’t recommend graphic ads. But if you’re recommending a product — and if you keep the image close to the recommendation — it will more look like an illustration than an ad.

Creating Content For Referral Adsense
I’ve said that you should choose ads that match your content as closely as possible. I’ve also said that you should be recommending the ads in your referral units. The easiest way to do both those things is to write a post, choose a referral ad that’s related to the post and add a sentence or two mentioning the product. That’s very simple.An alternative approach is to choose an ad that matches the content of your site, then write a post that matches the product. The page can’t read like an ad. It has to be the same quality as all your other content otherwise users won’t read it and they won’t click the ads. The post would just find a reason to say something positive about the referral product. It’s a very easy way to create a revenue-generating Web page. In practice, you’re not going to be able to do this too often. You’ll probably find that there’s a limited number of ads that match your site. But even two or three pages like this on, easily reached and well-marketed, could give you some very nice extra income.