Help Google help your sites display the right ads

As an AdSense sponsoring web site, your goal is to have contextually relevant ads displayed whenever a visitor comes to your site. That’s the goal, and it sounds simple enough, but sometimes it seems that Google is bent on not cooperating with you in the least.

If there are times when your web site is displaying apparently random ads which have no relevance to your site at all or worse, it’s displaying non-revenue Public Service Ads (PSA), then that’s a sign that you need to work harder to help Google make up its mind.

Google uses a pretty effective set of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to sniff the content on your site so it can serve up the most relevant ads out of its extensive inventory. However, since no humans are involved in this process, it’s actually pretty easy to lead the poor spider down the wrong path.

It’s not enough to simply depend upon your site’s keywords to pull the right ads from Google; you have to pay attention to the context in which the key words are used as well or you could get some surprises.

For example, suppose that you have some text on your page that reads “I love Guns ‘N Roses”. There is a good chance that you will either end up with PSAs, because “Guns” is a known Google “stop” word that triggers PSAs, or ads from 1-800-Flowers thanks to the key word “Roses”. But if you modify your content slightly to have it read something like “I love the heavy metal and hard rock bands like Guns ‘N Roses”, then you should start pulling ads that match your site’s theme.

The words “heavy metal” and “hard rock” are called supporting keywords. Their job is to help define the context that the actual key word is being used in.

When the Google spiders are fed both supporting and actual key words they are better able to make the right decisions on your behalf.

The position of your key words also plays a part in pulling the right ads. Words that are closer to the top of the page have more “weight” than those that appear farther down. Tags are also important. H1 and H 2 tags have a higher precedence over P tags, and B tags are significant as well.

The key to getting the right ads to appear on your site is to fine-tune the supporting key words and tweak your tags until you are seeing what you want to see.

Once you reach that goal, you can read our article on Smart Ways to Attract Higher Paying AdSense Ads, and Tips for Maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenues for even better results.

Sometimes it seems that the Google spider is doing all it can to not get along with you. The next time you have that thought, stop to consider the possibility that the Google spider is having the same thoughts about you!

Be safe and NOT do any of these 10 AdSense blunders

There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!

1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account.

Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is.

2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to change.

Any attempt to bypass Google’s built-in algorithms not only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but it threatens the financial modle that Google operates under. You’re not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough pockets to drag you through every court in the land if you damage their business with your hacking antics.

3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration, confirmation, and all "thank you" pages.

Don’t ask me why you can’t put your ads there. It makes sense to me that those would be wonderful locations. Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a hanging offense according to their Terms of Service.

4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor's ads (like Overture's) on the same page at the same time.

That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn’t demand 100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from their competitors.

5. Don't "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for clicking on your Google AdSense ads.

This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the time. Any of the “get paid to do stuff” sites that put Google ads in the member’s control panels are walking the plank and they don’t even realize it. Even those sites with the polite little messages asking you to “help keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor’s ads” are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google ads.

6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even if you are genuinely interested in the product or service and are thinking of buying it!

Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this activity and it won’t be long until you find yourself getting a goodbye note from their fraud team.

7. No misleading labeling

Google is very specific about what text can be placed around their ads. Their Terms of Service state: “Publishers may not label the ads with text other than ‘sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements.’ This includes any text directly above our ads that could be confused with, or attempt to be associated with Google ads.”

This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and barking up Google’s tree when they clicked on an ad that led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were expecting to visit.

8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks

You may be tempted to buy one of those “generates thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds” programs that are so popular these days but I’ll tell you this: Their days are numbered. Google is wise to such shenanigans and they will be hot on your trail. Other prohibited gimmicks include:

• ”Sneaky” page redirects that send a visitor off to a different site then they were expecting to visit.

• Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have substantially duplicate content.

• Hidden text or links of any type.

• Excessive outbound links on any page. Google recommends no more than 100. I’d keep it way below that.

• And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google’s mouth: “Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your website may be affected adversely by those links.

9. Don’t advertise anything on Google’s prohibited items list.

It’s a lot shorter lists than PayPal’s or eBay’s, but it includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or hard alcohol (I guess wine is OK), weapons, and the other usual stuff.

10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from running an honest site that’s designed to make the most out of this very profitable opportunity that Google offers!

Churning our maximum income from your AdSense ads

Despite what you may hear, the Google AdSense program is not for everyone. There are some types of web sites that do poorly no matter how hard the owners try, and there are others that should be doing well but the webmaster simply isn’t putting in the effort to make things happen.
Here are some tips to make AdSense work better for you. If you do them all and you’re still not having any luck, then you just might be running one of those sites that don’t make money

1. Determine if your visitors are “in the mood”

Like I mentioned at the top of this article, some web sites just don’t work with pay-per-click programs.
The best performing sites fall into one of these categories:

• Sites where users go and expect to buy something while they are there. E-commerce sites fit the bill here..
• Sites where users go to find specific information on something that they want to buy now. Music and video review sites, vacation information sites, resume building sites, etc. You don’t have to actually be selling these types of things; your site can just be a mecca for information pertaining to these things. Then, when the visitor comes to read your content, they are more likely to click on your ads.

• Sites where people who have disposable income and a credit card like to visit. This includes sites with money management, investing and lifestyle content.

• Sites that draw a large amount of new users every day. Free coupon sites and “How to” sites are good examples.
• Sites where people go who expect to read ads. Classified ads and shopping comparison sites fit into this category.

2. Make sure that your visitors don’t feel that you just want to grab their money

Give them plenty of relevant and well-written content. If writing isn’t your best skill then hire someone to do it for you. Good content brings steady traffic and steady traffic pays the bills.

3. Play by the rules

Google has some very specific Terms of Service (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) for participating in their AdSense program. Learn those rules and follow them so you don’t lose all of your investment by getting shut out.

4. Use the tools that Google gives you

Google gives you tools for determining the best keywords for your site, measuring ad performance, and setting up different ad “channels” for fine-tuning ad results. These guys and girls are the 800 lb. Gorillas in the Pay-Per-Click market. They didn’t build these tools just to keep their programmers busy. Take advantage of their knowledge for they are very big and you are not!

5. Tweak, fine-tune and then tweak again

You should never be happy with your AdSense performance. If it’s good, then you need to make it great. If it’s great then you need to make it amazing. If it’s amazing then you need to take it to the UPS club. The UPS club? Google sends all checks over $10,000 per month to the webmaster via UPS overnight delivery. Now there’s a club that I wouldn’t mind belonging to.

6. Get more traffic

No matter how much traffic you have, you need more. More eyeballs translate to more clicks. Even if you’re only pulling a 2% click-through. That’s a lot of clicks when you have thousands of visitors each day.

7. Experiment with new keywords

New keywords can bring new ads and new eyeballs along with it. Set up some new pages on your site and experiment with different content. Once you get something that’s working then refer back to Tip # 5.

You can see results in near real time when you use Google’s AdWords. Don’t be afraid to be different. If something that everyone else is doing doesn’t work for you, then invent something that does work and get it on your site.

Are you getting ahead with AdSense?

Some owners of content sites are earning four and even five-figure incomes per month selling "nothing." They're doing this by selling their targeted traffic to other websites through Google's AdSense program.

If you're not familiar with (r)AdSense, it's where (r)Google pays website owners ("publishers") to run ads on their sites. Google accepts paid ads from advertisers, and then shares this revenue with the publishers who allow these ads to be displayed on their sites. They pay based upon clicks generated from the publishers' sites.

Many publishers have discovered that running Google AdSense ads is more lucrative, and less trouble, than marketing their own products or services. So an entire industry has sprang up around monetizing websites using AdSense and other pay-per-click programs.

The "industry" is mature enough that seminars are even held that teach how to best monetize your content sites. I'll be attending a seminar, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 9th - 11th, 2005, that has this very focus. You can read more about it at: http://WillieCrawford.com/new-orleans-seminar.html

Since MOST people I've communicated with aren't earning four or five-figure incomes per month, let's examine how you increase your chances of earning these amounts.

First of all, your website has to be on a topic (a niche) where people are spending lots of money. There are niches where advertisers often spend $40 - $50 per click... just to get visitors to their websites. Obviously, these visitors buy "things" on these websites that make it worthwhile to pay that much for the traffic.

In case you're wondering what keywords any "sane" marketer would spend $50 on a single click for, read on...

Certain visitors to websites, that later convert to customers, could literally be worth thousands, even millions, to marketers. These marketers know the lifetime value of their visitors, and have the conversion rates calculated! Markets where customers can be this lucrative include legal/lawsuits, medical, higher education, real estate, new and used vehicles, investments, travel, and products offering residual income. There are many others.

I actually have a list of over 9000 keywords that I consult when building a new site, or optimizing an existing site. Doesn't it makes perfect sense to create sites that attract visitors with a high value-per-visitor?

You can grab a copy of my list along with a few personal notes on how to monetize these high-value keywords at: http://9000TopPayingKeywords.com

The keywords on the list above range from 93 cents to $108 per click. There ARE higher priced keywords but you probably don't want to focus on them since the competition can be incredibly cutthroat. There are niches where your competitors will actually sabotage your efforts. Money does that to some people :-)

It makes economic sense to build a site around topics where people are actually spending money already.

It makes sense to target a market where people have money to spend - and they expect to spend it on products similar to yours. In that sense, you can even set up site designed to generate traffic for governmental agencies, foundations, charities, etc. It's all about getting in front of the traffic and then re-directing that traffic to those willing to pay for it.

When setting up content sites, it's important that you not violate the terms-of-service at the pay-per-click management firm that you plan on using. For example, Google actually tells you that you should not build sites just for their AdSense program. Yet, they need sites to display their customers' ads in order for their program to work.

It's a delicate balancing act. Google wants to deliver relevant clicks to their customers. They know that traffic coming from "junky" or "spammy" sites may not convert as well for their customers. This would lower their customers ROI, and lead to many unhappy customers. This would drive Google's customers to their ever-growing competitors.

Google wants webmasters that have quality, targeted traffic to run AdSense Ads. When you set up a free blog on Google's Blogger.com they even have the AdSense invitation "programmed" into the signup process.

So how DO you win the Google AdSense War and get your share of that multi-billion dollar advertisers' revenue stream? You build high-quality content sites that focus on niches where people are spending money. It's as simple as that. You let those already doing it teach you what works best - it's a easy as that!

Google AdWords - The other facet of the Google advertising network

AdSense is one of the best ways to monetize your web traffic. People see those little “Ads by Gooogle” tidbits and they click like crazy. Or at least that’s the plan. But have you ever given though to where those ads are coming from? That would be AdWords, the Pay-Per-Click program for people who want to advertise their products on Google.

They are the fine men and women who are willing to part with some coin of the realm every time a visitor to your web site chooses to click on an AdSense ad. Google grabs the cash from the AdWords' member’s account, keeps some of it for themselves, and gives the rest to you. How much they keep and how much give away is a State secret, but who cares; just as long as we’re getting ours each month.

How AdWords Works

AdWords provides pay-per-click advertising to merchants who are willing to shell out anywhere from a minimum 05 .05 per click all the way up to a maximum of $100 per click. Can you imagine anyone paying $100 just to have someone click on an ad?

Anyway, the advertiser joins the AdWords program and gets a control panel similar to the one that we AdSense users get. They can write their ads, pick their keywords, and establish an advertising budget. They get tools to track performance as well as to help them pick keywords. There are no monthly minimum spends required and they can turn their ads on and off at will.

Once an advertiser is happy with their ad, it gets released to the network and shows up on web sites like yours and mine. That’s if the keywords on your site match the keyword requirements of the brand spanking new ad, of course.

They can’t “buy” their way to the top

Google doesn’t simply push the people with the highest paying ads to the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). They use a rather fair methodology that takes into consideration not only the maximum CPC (cost per click), but also includes a secret recipe for determining an ad’s placement based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. So, at least in theory, an ad paying .05 per click could rise above one paying $5.00 per click if it’s more popular with Google’s audience.

I say “in theory” because if the owner of the $5 ad is paying attention then he or she will see that they are being bested by a lowly nickel ad and do some serious rewriting to get back up to the top where they belong.

Personally, I’m not sure that I have the guts to invest a lot of money into hoping that people who click on my ad will actually buy something, since I still have to pay Google whether I make a sale or not. But, as a dedicated AdSense user, I’m sure glad that my AdWords brothers and sisters have more nerve than I do. And you should be thankful as well.

How AdSense has evolved...

The web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. The dot-com balloon is said to have burst but savvy publishers have grabbed the coat tails of the Google search monster and employ Google AdSense on content-rich websites. Google AdSense, a pioneer for providing content-sensitive advertisements, has been a boon to webmasters looking for alternatives to amortize their web trafffic.

How Does Google AdSense Work?
The concept is simple: The publisher or webmaster inserts a java script into a website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script pulls advertisements from Google's AdSense program. The ads are targeted and related to the content contained on the web page serving the ad. If a web surfer clicks on an advertisement served from Google, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying Google for the click.

Google handles all the tracking and payments, ultimately providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive, targeted ads, without the headache of having to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor clicks or track statistics, any of which could easily become a full-time job.

While Google AdSense, like many pay-per-click programs, is plagued by claims of click-fraud, it is clearly an effective revenue source for many reputable web businesses. There seems to be no shortage of advertisers in the AdWords program from which Google pulls the AdSense ads. Webmasters seem less concerned by the lack of information provided by Google and more interested in cashing their monthly checks from Google.

The Evolution of AdSense
While Google's initial system was fairly rudimentary, only providing publishers the option of displaying a handful of advertising formats, the technology behind even the first ads was anything but simplistic. The technology used to employ Google AdSense goes far beyond simple keyword or category matching. A complex algorithm is used to determine the content contained on the web page serving the ad. Once the content is assessed, and appropriate ads that contain related content are served.

Early on, Google implemented a system that allows publishers to filter advertisements from competitors or sites which they deemed inappropriate. Google also allows vendors to specify an alternative advertisement, in the unlikely event that Google is unable to provide related content ads.

The Progression of Google
Google has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Google now offers a system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters can choose from twelve text ad formats and can customize Google advertisements to complement their website and fit into existing webpage layout. The options provided allow webmasters to select and create custom color palettes that match an existing website's color scheme, making the ads a much more natural fit.

Many sites have been able to integrate ads into their site design using different ad formats.

Sample sites with integrated ads:

AllThingsLegal.info
CarMag.info
WantedFreeStuff


Online Reports
Google recently took a huge step forward, providing publishers the ability to track their earnings based on webmaster-defined channels. Recent improvements to the Google AdSense reporting have resulted in webmasters having the capability to monitor an ad's performance with customizable online reports that can detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters now have the ability to track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Webmasters can quickly spot and track trends. The new flexible reporting tools allows webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, providing webmasters insight into what pages, ads and domains are performing the best.

Reporting is real-time, allowing webmasters to quickly assess the effectiveness of any changes. The new reporting makes it significantly easier for webmasters to optimize and increase click-through rates. Optional reporting allows webmasters to monitor traffic, viewing both ad impressions and page impressions.

Advertisers realize the benefits associated with having their ads served on targeted websites, increasing the likelihood that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product or service.

Truth Still Not Revealed
Google still does not reveal what percentage of the advertising revenue earned is paid to the webmaster serving the ads, but they have made strides related to disclosure, recently lifting the ban preventing webmasters from disclosing the amount they earn through serving Google ads.

How to make AdSense income with your blogs

Google AdSense is undoubtedly the most popular Pay Per Click (PPC) program in the industry today. By enrolling your site under the said program, AdSense will display a series of ads on your pages. You stand to earn every time a visitor of your clicks on these ads.

They don’t have to buy anything, mind you. They just have to click on the ads and nothing more. These ads are by no means random. They are contextually relevant, meaning, they are assigned based on their relevancy to the subject of your site.

Could a blog substitute for regular sites when it comes to making money through AdSense? Yes people, blogs can also be provide an additional income stream through AdSense! In some aspects, a blog is a more efficient tool for this purpose.

There are people online today making six figures per month from Adsense alone. Unbelievable but true!

There are three determinative factors for the success of a site enrolled under the AdSense program.

1. The Cost Per Click (CPC) that is carried by the ads assigned to your site.

2. The number of page impressions, or simply put, the amount of traffic that passes through your site. If you garner a lot of page impressions, you have a better chance of acquiring a lot of clicks.

3. The Click Through Rate (CTR), which is the number of clicks your ads get per the number of visitors that visit your pages. The higher your CTR, the more you stand to earn.

CPCs are a given. If you’re dead set on a subject for your blog, then you will just be attracting a certain group of ads. But if you wish to make a blog for the primary goal of making money online, then you have to choose the right keywords before everything else.

Basically, your blog will be assigned certain ads based on the keywords prevalent in its entries. There are some keywords that will attract ads that pay high, and there are those that will attract ads that pay low. The trick is in finding the high paying keywords around which you will create your blog.

Here are some tips that will help you find those keywords with relative ease:

* Create an account at www.adwords.google.com . Adwords, of course, is the advertising partner of AdSense. When you become a member, you could take a peek at how much the going rates are for certain keywords.

* Visit www.adsensearena.com . This is one of the very few sites that give information about high paying keywords for free. It would rather be kept a secret by those who discovered it, so keep it quiet;-).

The number of your page impressions really depends on the traffic that you can generate for your blog. Blogs would have an easier time with this because, as we’ve previously discussed in past lessons, search engines love them. But of course, this is not set in stone. If your competitors, for example, are also using the blogging strategy, then you’re all in equal footing.

Increasing your CTR is an entire subfield in itself! There are a plethora of strategies dedicated for this purpose. We have discussed some of these tactics in my newsletter, as well as my own blog at http://www.malkeenan.com/blog . These include the choice of ad design, the placement of the ads, and the colors to be used, among other things. I’m telling you, increasing your CTR has become a science of sorts in recent years!