Enterprise Mastermind

Google Adsense is still one of the easiest ways to generate revenue from an article based website. On a personal level I have had mixed results on the many websites I have used it on over the years and through a lot of trial and error (and legitimate research!) I have found various methods that can be used to optimise your Adsense ads and make them more productive and increase revenue. Here are a few of those methods.

Where on the page?

This is possibly the most important aspect of optimising your Adsense ads. Where the ad appears on your webpage will influence clickthroughs like no other tip I could give. The general consensus with ads is usually ‘put them above the fold’, that is, they need to be immediately visible on a webpage without scrolling. I disagree with this in that sometimes an ad may be better placed at the end of an article to increase clicks. Let me explain.

If you have an article reviewing the most recent mobile phone for instance, and you have a well set up and relevant Adsense unit, then that unit would probably be better placed at the end of the (favourable) article for 2 reasons. Firstly the reader has come to your review for a reason, and will most likely want to read the article before clicking any ads. The second reason is obvious, if the article and the link are related, and the article is favourable then they are more likely to then want that mobile phone more than ever and therefore click the ad.

Having given you this tip, the best way of finding what works with your particular layout is still by testing ads in different positions on your page and analysing the results. So try placing ads in key areas of your page and testing to see which works best for you.

Ads should match not clash

Unless you want the ads to take precedence over the main content or theme of your website you should always try and make your adsense ads match the look and feel of your pages. Makes sure the typeface and colour scheme of the ad is set to match or complement the website. If you want an ad to stand out try using a darker shade of an existing theme colour as a background and using a light typeface. By having your ads match the colour scheme of your website will prevent your site looking like it was built to sell only and make them look like part of the website itself.

‘Ad blindness’ is also a problem so if you have multiple ads use a script or plugin that rotates ads or use Googles own colour rotation settings within your adsense setup. Having ads show in different colours with each refresh of a page will decrease the chances of ad blindness significantly.

Relevancy is everything

Google uses automatic programs called robots (bots for short) to look through your webpages and see what sort of content they contain. The Adsense units then reflect the content of the page by advertising relevant products or services. So a mobile phone review might have ads to that particular mobile phone manufacturer, a mobile phone store or mobile phone accessories. Relevancy of your ads is important because an ad that reflects the search term your visitor used to get to your page in the first place is more likely to get a click and earn you revenue.

You can increase relevancy of a page by using specific header titles. Instead of ‘Mobile Phone Review’ you might want to use ‘Nokia N96 Mobile Phone Review’ therefore increasing your chances of an advert that mentions that particular phone.

Adding meta descriptions and meta keywords to your webpages will also help as will adding alt tags to any images on the page.

Sometimes Google screws up and ads with no relevancy to your webpage are shown or worse still, your competitors ads will be displayed. If this is happening you can filter them within your Google Adsense account pages by making a list of the URLs that show but shouldn’t and adding them to the Competitiive Ad Filter. (Adsense Setup >> Competitive Ad Filter). Once this is done ads from those domains will no longer show.

More is better

The more relevant copy, titles and links you have on a page the easier it will be to get relevant Adsense units to display. Also, the more copy you have the more ads you can display within the space and hence the more chance you have of a clickthrough.