With this kind of maintenance you would think the would be dead, and the webmaster starving. How true it would be if this was the only source of income. However, as I've noted in the past, this project is purely experimental - and the results are suprisingly good. As a summary I can say the traffic has increased approx. 30% each month, and AdSense income has increased approx 25% each month.
I've previously explained some of the methods that can be used to generate additional Adsense revenue from a low traffic site, and now it’s time to take those issues further.
On the background I’ve been collecting lots of statistical information about user behaviour. This is a method I prefer to call “skimming the milk”. With the project site I use a simple solution composed of:
- Web server log files - any web server can produce these
- Log of adSense clicks (what, where,when) – I use AdLogger for this, though there are better, commercial alternatives.
- Information on how much each AdSense click generated - There is a small inaccuracy due to the way AdSense statitics work, but IMO it’s acceptable.
Need some examples? What makes this single page so special that it has over 10% CTR? Or why does the keyphrase “Designer Cell phones” lead to over 20% CTR on average?
As always, feel free to share your comments and questions.
Spend some time getting Adsense to display more relevant ads
Let's see what the site already has: Section targeting...done Keywords in content...done Keywords in titles...done Add positioning...done Meta-data...done Single topic posts...done Block mfa/scam sites...done
So I'd say all the basics to increase ad relevancy have been done, and in general the targeting is pretty good if you come from the right neighbourhood/country/area (geolocation is a huge player in ad targeting)... You always have a possibility to try to play the game, but IMO you get more focusing on content quality issues than chasing something you have no real power to change.
I didn't look at the source code of the page, so I don't know what you have done. I was just giving my opinion about why one page has 10% and the other has 20% CTR.
As far as location, I'm in Bellevue. I'm sure I am getting the same Adsense ads as you in Seattle. The ads now include "bling watch" and "gold teeth".
I still disagree with your statement that you get more focusing on content than getting more relevant ads to increase your CTR. Of course it is not worth wasting time on low traffic pages. But if you have a high traffic page that is not converting well, I would definitely spend time on the ads.
Comments on increasing ad relevance...
I've had very mixed results with "Section targeting". So much that I don't even bother with it now.
Putting your keyword in the URL seems to help with targeting ads. 68.html hmmm... j/k ;)
If google media bot is having difficulty determining the "theme" of you page. There is a good chance that the SEs are also having that problem.
Link to the first article please?
Previous part(s).
You need to look at the ads displayed on the pages you are comparing.
Example: The "designer cell phone page" is displaying a "Free Cingular Cell Phone" ad. Someone searching for the designer cell keyword would be likely to click on a free cellphone ad.
Now the "gold plated nokia" page is displaying ads with "Cell Phone covers" in the adsense block and it is displaying "24K gold chain" in the Ad-link units. Someone searching for Gold Nokia is probably not going to click on an ad for a gold chain.
Based on my testing, Ad Relevance affects the CTR more than the location and the blending of the Ad.
Spend some time getting Adsense to display more relevant ads and I guarantee you will see an increase in your CTR.
to aaron:
note...over 10%... I didn't say how much over :) Anyway, the point I was after is that the site has several pages that perform notably worse than this single page (and some that perform better)... In order to make any site more profitable, it is important to identify pages that success and copy the success formula onwards.
As for tracking adsense click prices, it's as simple as checking Adsense account at specified intervals/events. It works extremely well with low traffic sites that receive a limited amount of clicks. And as said, it's not 100% accurate but close enough.
to aaron & egol: I'm well aware that ad's don't blend/integrate to site layout, but for some reason the current combination works much better than any blending.
Thanks. Glad you have tried it. On most of my pages ads that match the background/text/link colors perform best. However, I do have a few pages where the ads do better when they are formatted to stand out from the content. This is why testing is so important.
I recently came across this page and thought it must be getting great CTR, thanks to the ad blend.
Wow! That ad is blended so well that it is sneaky. Does Yahoo give that flexible formatting to everyone? That ad stretches to match screenwidth. I am using adsense with fixed height and width... and a very limited number of HxW sizes to select from.
I am not sure that I would consider a 10% CTR as "so special".
I have sites which probably look a bit more authoritative in nature (ie: easier to link at) and get thousands of daily visitors that average far greater than 10% CTR across the entire site, with the top pages getting somewhere in the 35 to 40% CTR range.
I don't think the ads are very well integrated into that site design.
What method did you use for tracking how much each adSense click generated?
See what happens if you make the ads have white backgrounds and white borders.