Content is king

You already know that AdSense works by crawling your web pages for content, then delivering ads based on that content. This means that if your content is limited, our crawler may have difficulty identifying the information on the page. As a result, you may see ads that are not directly relevant to your page, or public service ads.

Here's a fix: Ensure that your pages are full of compelling content. The more targeted, full-text information you provide to our crawler, the easier it will be for our system to determine what your pages are about, and the greater the relevance of the Google ads will be. This enhances the effectiveness of the AdSense program, resulting in a better experience for your users, not to mention for the advertisers appearing on your pages.

Here’s a simple equation that spells it out:

1. A content-rich page = Highly-targeted ads
   
2. Highly-targeted ads + Interested users = Healthy clickthrough & conversion rates
   
3. Healthy clickthrough & conversion rates = Success!

Remember -- you can also use page section targeting to focus our crawler on certain sections of your page that may be more content-rich than others.

The Google ads appearing on your site then serve as supplemental content, providing useful information to your users that pertains to the content you’ve worked so hard to develop. So help us help you -- optimize your page with good content.

UPDATED for accuracy

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Phoebe's ad design tips

(Photo: Cody Ho assuming photo responsibilities for Phoebe Ho)

I can understand throwing away a penny here and there, but it would be pretty ridiculous to toss out hundreds of dollars every day. This is how I feel about optimization. There are many simple ways to increase revenue, but publishers often overlook how easy it is to make changes. Take the case of one publisher, who tried changing his 468x60 banner to a 300x250 rectangle and saw his revenue double! Afterwards, of course, he regretted not making the change earlier.

My goal is to make sure you don't have the same regret when you realize you could have already made extra money -- if only you'd optimized sooner. So in order of "biggest bang for the buck," here goes:

1) Make sure your colors are appropriate for your site and ad location. It's the easiest change to make that can increase your revenue up to 4x!

2) When choosing formats, remember: "Wider is better." Though you always want to be sure the format fits into the space on your pages, use 160x600 instead of 120x600 and try using rectangles as much as you can. 336x280 and 300x250 are our best performing formats. And since they support image and video ads, you'll even have more advertisers bidding on these ad spaces than other formats.

3) Like Geoff said earlier this week, "Set your site on fire!". Make sure you place the ads where your users will see them. This is why "above the fold" is so popular, because most users will not scroll below the fold line. In the same way, people often look for menu bars on the left side of a page so ads in that location are "hot." If your design layout allows it, sandwich the ads with content: placing a rectangle in the middle of a long article not only helps your visitors read those ads, but it also gives them a visual break.

Just try these tips -- it may take you 5 minutes or an hour, but you'll never know until you do if they will make you even more money. What have you got to lose?

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Optimization Month, Week 3: The many features of AdSense

At this point, you probably know your ads like the back of your hand. You've removed the borders, relocated them above the fold, and are awaiting results. In the meantime, you might be asking: "What else can I do to optimize?"

I’m glad you asked. AdSense isn't just ads; within your account, there are a number of features that you might never have noticed. This week we'll be focusing on some of these less-visible gems that can also contribute to revenue increases. As the saying goes, don't put all your ads in one basket. ;) Diversify with some other features!

Maybe your site is full of great content users will love (if only they can find what they're looking for) or maybe you're already using your own search model, but don't have a way to monetize it. In either case, AdSense for search is a great solution.

If your users are always looking for new products and services to try, and you're looking always looking for a new revenue stream, give referrals a gander.

Once your ads are visually appealing enough to catch the eye, they still need to catch your visitor's interest. You can use section targeting to emphasize the important parts of your content (of course it’s all important, but who are we kidding? Not all content is created equal).

You know your site is great. Advertisers know your site is great. Wouldn't it be great if they could easily target ads right to your site? They can, using Onsite Advertiser Sign-up.

We'll explore these features in more depth throughout the week, so be sure to check in again for more details.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Referrals around the world

Back in May, we launched our new and improved referral buttons. Now these new buttons are available for additional products and languages. You can choose from several different colors and options, and the buttons are in a sleeker, web-friendly GIF format -- all the better to blend in with your site.


Publishers have found that it’s most beneficial to place referrals where they're relevant. Do you run a photo blog? Try using a Picasa referral button. Looking to boost revenue for your web hosting site? Implement a Firefox referral button and watch your earnings grow.

Don’t forget you can also implement referrals in a text link format. Text links easily integrate into your site and often convert better than buttons. Here are a few tips on generating more revenue with text links:

• You can endorse products you've enjoyed using and encourage your users to do the same.
  
• Use text links to integrate the ad more seamlessly within your site content.
  
• Try having the text links inherit the font and look of your site, so they fit in with your current text style and size.

If you’re not already displaying referrals on your site, you may be missing out! Publishers have let us know that they’ve seen an increase in earnings since they implemented the feature. One publisher with a history-related site told us, “I get 3,000 uniques a day, and was only making about $15/day with regular AdSense for content. Today, I tried Firefox referrals and beside my regular site income, I've already made an extra $17.20 -- and the day isn't over yet.”

Not only will you benefit from the extra earnings, but your users will learn more about other products such as Picasa, Firefox, and AdWords. To begin displaying the new referral buttons, simply choose Referrals from the AdSense Setup page of your account, then select the product you'd like to refer users to on your pages.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Search no further than your own site

If you haven't tried our AdSense for Search feature yet, now might just be the perfect time to put it to use -- we're pleased to announce that you can now display AdSense for search results within your own site. This way, you have the freedom to offer users web search while still maintaining the look and feel of your site. For example, you can keep elements like the header, footer, and site navigation panel the same for the search results page you create.

To use it, just choose the "Open results within my own site" radio button when you're generating your AdSense for search code. You'll also need to identify the page where you'd like to display your search results.



We'll give you two sets of code: one for the search box, and one for search results. Place the first set on a page where you'd like the search box to appear, and the second set on the page you'd like the search results to appear. Whenever users perform searches on your AdSense for search box, they'll be directed to the page on which you placed the search results code.

Since this new feature is part of AdSense for search, any Competitive Ad Filter and site-flavored search settings will still function as normal. You can also find detailed instructions for implementing this new option in our Help Center. Keep in mind that if you want your existing search boxes to take advantage of the new feature, you'll need to replace the search box code that's currently on your pages.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

How to win advertisers and influence ad competition

For today’s optimization tip, I'd like to focus on a site targeting feature: Onsite Advertiser Sign-up. This enables advertisers to quickly and easily target cost-per-impression (CPM) ads specifically to your site, from your site.

As a publisher, you'll be automatically opted in to Onsite Advertiser Sign-up. You can also customize the landing page advertisers will see when they click on the ‘Advertise on this site’ link within your ad units. This is your opportunity to market your site to advertisers, so don’t settle for the default description – this won’t convince advertisers why they should site target you. Write a sharp and compelling paragraph to engage advertisers and let them know what your site’s all about.



You'll benefit when more advertisers sign up to advertise on your site, since more competition among ads means more money for you. Just remember - keep it advertiser-friendly!

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Christian's Tips: Getting the most out of AdSense

I hope this week you've discovered a new feature or learned how to improve your use in a way that will benefit your site and your earnings. Today I’m going to share my top 3 tips for getting the most out of AdSense.

As a bonus, my advice will also help you climb the social ladder at your school or workplace. Prepare to grow your revenue...and your popularity.

1. Be friendly with everyone – If you want to be more popular in school, you can’t only get to know the drama students -- you have to make friends with the basketball team, the marching band, and the A/V club too. So many friends competing for your time makes it more valuable, just like more advertisers competing for your ad space makes it worth more. Without opting in to text, image, and video ads, you can't expect to get the most revenue possible for your ad space -- you need more advertisers competing in order to bid up the price of your ads. When the highest-paying advertiser wins, you do too!

2. Look your best – You don’t have to be a beauty queen or a male model to be popular, but you should present yourself as well as possible. To get the most out of AdSense, make your site attractive to advertisers spending site targeting dollars. As Natalie mentioned yesterday, site targeting revenue can have a big impact on your total earnings. When an advertiser checks out your site, let them see great formats, like the medium rectangle, in highly visible above-the-fold placements.

3. Be well rounded – In high school, being a talented football player or a skilled musician makes you interesting. But being a star quarterback who plays first violin, gets straight As, and still finds time to volunteer at the local soup kitchen makes you amazing. If you’re only successful with the standard AdSense ads, it’s time to expand. Try link units, referrals, and AdSense for search and track the results. You might be surprised what your next success will be.

I wish you the best of luck with these AdSense tips -- and hope that this new-found popularity doesn't go to your head!

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Optimization Month, Week 4: Building and understanding your audience

If you've been following this blog for the past three weeks, you've already seen a ton of great tools to make your site as compelling as possible with AdSense...and if you haven't, what are you waiting for? Scroll down and read about all the techniques that we've touted during this Optimization Month. And now that you have all these great tools at your fingertips, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to updating your site. I'll wait until you're finished.

[time passes]

Congratulations! Now your site is ready for all your eager users, but wait ... wouldn't it be great if more people knew about your site and could truly enjoy the fruits of your labor? Of course it would -- that's why this week we'll focus on tips and tricks to drive quality traffic to your site.

We've assembled a team of specialists across Google to enlighten you on the many Google products that can help you optimize your site traffic and content. I've no intention of stealing any of their fire, so I'll simply whet your appetites a bit...

• Find out about the many webmaster tools that can help you inform the Google crawlers about your site.
  
• Make your site available to millions of users at the click of a button.
  
• Learn more about your users, from the pages they're visiting most to the amount of time they spend on your site.

And finally, to end the week we have something extra special. I won't ruin the surprise here, but suffice it to say that it'll be worth the wait.

UPDATED for accuracy

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://theadsensepublisher.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Be webmaster of your domain (or sub-domain)

If a tree falls in the forest and no one can hear it, does it make a sound? Even more perplexing: if you have a great, content-rich website and nobody visits it, is the content useful? Rather than debate this, I'd like to share with you five ways that Google webmaster tools can help you drive more users to your site and improve the visibility of the site content you've worked so hard to create.

1. Submit all of your pages to the Google index – for free.

By using Google Sitemaps to submit your URLs, you help Google's web crawler do a more complete and efficient job of crawling your site. Sitemaps enables you to submit all of your pages to the Google index, and it's particularly useful for making sure that we know about all dynamically generated URLs or pages that are not adequately linked to on your site. But please note: submitting a Sitemap will not guarantee inclusion or influence your PageRank, and isn't a replacement for creating compelling and useful content.

2. Find out how Google sees your site.

Once you've made sure we have access to your site, you can see the common words used to link to your pages and that are seen by Google. This allows you to see trends in your site's content, and can help you determine why you may be ranking for particular keywords. You can also see which page has the highest PageRank by month. Some site owners are surprised to find that this isn't always the home page. If an internal page has the highest PageRank, you might consider spending more time optimizing the ads there.

3. Diagnose potential problems.

We let you know if, and why, we're having trouble accessing your site or specific pages. If we can't crawl a page, we can't index it -- so fixing any errors we list can help improve your overall coverage. If the AdSense Site Diagnostics tool shows that you're blocking pages from MediaPartners-Google (the AdSense crawler), you can use the robots.txt analysis tool of Google webmaster tools to test changes to that file and make sure those changes allow access. You can also see what pages you are blocking from other Google bots -- this lets you experiment with changes to see how they would affect the crawl of your site.

4. Find out which queries drive traffic to your site.

Using Google webmaster tools, learn which Google queries created clickthroughs to your site and where you were positioned in the search results for that query. You can also view data for individual properties and countries as well. For instance, you can see the queries from users searching Google Images in the United States that returned your site in the results. You’ll only see properties and countries for which your site has data.



5. Get re-included.

If your site has disappeared from the search results, read through the Google quality guidelines, then correct any problems on your site and request re-inclusion from your Google webmaster tools account. Please keep in mind that the reinclusion request form is only available to people using Google webmaster tools.

There's more.

Google webmaster tools are evolving, and we frequently add more features. Stay up to date on the newest features with the Google Webmaster Central blog and get your questions answered on the Google Webmaster Help discussion group.

Here's to building a loyal following for your website and, in turn, optimizing your AdSense earnings!

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)