Throughout this book, i’ve been expiaining ail the different ways that you can optimize your site and boost your revenues, in this chapter, ive coiiected some exam pies.
Ail cf these are reai sites that empioyed the techniques that I describe in this bock to make more money. iii taik you through them so that you can see exactiy what they did, why they did it — and how you can do the same.
25.1 JourneyAustralia.com — Unmissable Ads Down Under
Fig. 25.1 JourneyAustraiia.com puts its ads front and center.
it can take some courage to make your ads the most important thing the user sees when he looks at the page, but that’s the approach that JourneyAustraiia.com takes.
You can’t miss these ads! They’re right above the foid and siap-bang in the middie. They’re the first thing the reader sees even before he knows what the site is about.
—
A
Australia: Your First Choice Holiday Destination
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Austraija should be your first choice for a holiday. We have clean white beaches in abundance, modem cosmopolitan cities, unspoiled rainforests and national parks, the worlds greatest marine attraction and an unequalled number of marine parks, as well as huge tracts 0f outback for you to explore. Not to mention our weather!
Navigation
196
pict24.jpg
Note too the picture right next to the ad unit. That helps to keep users’ eyes in the ad zone, but you have to be very careful doing that. Google’s ban on “misleading” images is vague enough for them to act on any picture placed next to an ad unit any time they want. That doesn’t mean they wiII but you dont want to give them an opportunity. JourneyAustralia.com seems to have found the right sort of image to use. If you’re not sure about your image though, it’s best to leave it to one side.
The strategy of placing an ad unit in the middle of the page though is very simple. lt’s about as subtle as a slap in the face but it can be very, very effective.
Do you have the courage to try it?
25.2 Great I deas For I ntegration From FreeAfterRebate.com
Fig. 25.2 Perfectly blended ads at FreeAfterRebate.com.
Few sites do a better job of integrating their ads with the text as FreeAfterRebate.com. The ad units have lost their borders, the text matches
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the text of the content and the background color is the same as the background color of the Web page.
The content itself is short as well. In fact, it looks a lot like an ad! That’s a great strategy to use. lnstead of blending an ad unit into a Web page, you can create content that matches the ad unit. 1m not sure whether this is what FreeAfterRebate.com did but there’s no reason why you couldn’t do it.
First, you’d decide on the format of your ad units, then you’d create very short articles that follow the appearance of those units. Because you wouldn’t be able to include much more than a headline, a sentence or two of text and a link, you could really only use this strategy on pages that discuss products, or home pages that offer teasers to longer articles.
Look too though at the way this site uses an image. lnstead of placing a picture right next to an ad unit, FreeAfterRebate.com puts it above the ad unit. That’s another great solution to copy.
25.3 Gifts-91 I .com Gets Emergency Treatment With Multiple Ad Units
The most Adriana Copaceanu’s site Gifts-91 I .com had made in one month was $31.19 —not much more than a dollar a day. She put a main ad unit above the fold, a second unit at the bottom of the page and an Ad Link unit on the right.
After making the ads more prominent and adding more of them, revenues dou bled the following months and reached as high as $200 in the month after that!
That’s was SO simple. lt’s a great example of how just a small change in AdSense can yield massive resu Its.
Cou Id Adriana do more? Probably. But this is a pretty good start! Check out Gift-91 I .com at www.Gift-91 I .com.
198
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Everything you have n Life is a gift. Your parents gave you the gift
of Life and love. Your siblings gave you the gift of companionship
and belonging. Your grandparertts gave you the gift 0f heritage and
[egacy. Your friends give you the gift of their time, trust and —-
Fig. 25.3 Gift-911 .com gives its own revenues some first aid above the fold...
25.4 Fire Fox Plugin Reviews — Getting Your Clicks Faster
This blog offering tips and reviews for users cf Firefox also has some pretty good exam pies for users cf AdSense.
Just see how iong it takes you to find the ads in the screenshot beiow. Do you notice how you just dont spot them right away? But as you read the content — and it’s great content — you just can’t miss them.
Again, the ad unit’s text and background coiors match the design cf the biog’s content, biending the ads in perfectiy. And by piacing the ads inside the articies, users can’t heip but read them.
There are a coupie cf other things to watch eut for though.
First, the referrai button is right in the middie cf the articie. But it’s an articie about Firefox 50 that’s iikeiy to get a iot cf ciicks. ;1
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199
pict25.jpg
The second thing to look at is the fact that this blog also uses Kontera’s ad system. AIl of the links relate to Internet terms — the topic of the blog — and by just moving the color up a tone from the color of the content, they stand out and look inviting.
That’s a great mixture of ad unit blending, referral buttons and contextual ad systems that can bring great results.
r.flT’—eflnrvr.,.
Fig. 25.4 Lots of ads, lots more blending at firefoxpluginreviews.blogspot.com.
25.5 Offshore BankingCentral.com Brings Home The Bacon
One of the great things about optimizing your AdSense ads is that with a little bit of thought, you can really come up with some very clever ways of blending the ads into the page.
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pict26.jpg
Offshore Banking Central
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Fig. 25.5 A link unit disguised as a nav bar at OffshoreBankingCentral.com? lt’s easier to do this with some ads than others.
Leaderboard text links, for exam pie, can be very useful. A lot of people turn their nose up at horizontal text links. They think that because they’re so small flot enough people will see them to click on them. While vertical link units can be easily integrated into a list of links, there’s no good place to put a horizontal unit.
That’s a big mistake.
OffshoreBankingCentral.com shows j ust how powerful a well-blended horizontal link unit can be.
This site has two sets of ads: a vertical ad unit on the left separated from the rest of the page with a gray background (Id be interested to know how well those ads perform but I suspect they’d do better with a white background); and horizontal link unit at the top of the page.
That link unit just does an outstanding job.
The unit displays four links right beneath the navigation bar. Each one of those links contains either the word “offshore” or the word “banking.” Even though “Ads by Google” is still there right next to those links, they still look like another une of navigation links leading to relevant parts of the site.
I think there’s a very valuable lesson there about the value of link units.
201
While it’s true that link units contain very littie information, used correctly
that can be an asset. Had there been another une or two describing the site those links lead to, it would have been clear that those links are ads. As it is,
they’re perfectly blended.
How can you copy what Offshore Banking Central did?
Easy. Create a very simple navigation bar made up of links rather than tabs and place your horizontal link unit directly beneath it. You’ll need to make sure that you’re hitting the keywords in just the way you want but if you pull it off, you should see some fantastic resu Its.
25.6 Subtle Ad Linking At Sudoku Links
Fig. 25.6 Columns cf ads at SudokuLinks.com...
You have to look hard to spot the ads at SudokuLinks.com. The entire site consists of a series of vertical columns, filled with links. One of those columns is a vertical AdSense column which is placed in the middle of the page, not at the side where it would be ignored.
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Daily Sudoku
Sudokus-Online com
Goobix Sudoku
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Play Sudoku
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ComputorEdge Sudoku
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Sarnurai Sudoku solver
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Sudoku Onhine
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Games punie
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Puzzles! How Many Can
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Printable Sudoku Grids
Large Pencilmark Grids
Sudoku Flints (5 grid sizes)
sudokuorg uk
Four blank grids (POF)
Samurai sudoku blank grid
Christmas Puzzles
Searching for Christmas
puzzles? See OUF
Christmas puzzles guide
Chntmas-PunI.ύr,
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sudoku com forum sudoku org uk forum sudoku programmers forum
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sudoku 4 kids
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This is certainly a striking example of one way to blend an ad unit into a Web page but I doubt it’s going to work for everyone. You might be able to follow this strategy on a Resources or Links page on your website but clearly the biggest problem is the lack of content.
The only content on the page consists of a small column right beneath the ad unit explaining how to play Sudoku.
That could be the sort of thing that drives down click value; Google prefers sites with lots of content rather than pages that contain nothing but links.
But you could still use this strategy on a site with dynamic content by, for example, placing teasers to articles in vertical or horizontal columns, that match the AdSense unit. And you could make those content columns more obvious than pushing them to the bottom of the page.
In general though, this looks like an extremely effective strategy. If you can make it work for you, you should see some great results.
ksazyaaa UUOKU
SudokuPuzzlesorg
Sudoku Addict
Sudoku Prime
Sudoku Puzzles
Sudoku Player
Online Sudoku
Sudoku Live
Sushi Sudoku
Suduko Chimp
Sudoku Madness
Sudoku ofthe Day
Sudoku (Flash)
Puzzles
fle Guardian (UK)
fle Times (UK)
The Hindu (India)
USA Today
Cambridge Evening News (UK)
Chicago Sun-Times
derStandard (Austria)
fle Daily Mail (UK)
Piaytoad com has Oie largest Game selection the web Totally Free!
wiw.PlaytcaC oem
Amazon .com Sudoku books Amazon Sudoku caiendars ;1
Sudoku Giits;0]
Sudoku Place (r-shirts mugs) Sudoku-Style com shirts
Sudoku Variants
Sudoku Variations
Sudoku Puzzles
Top Notch Two Deku
Sudoku Susser (free)
SuDoku (free)
Downloads for Phone!POA
Fig. 25.7 .. .but flot too much content.
25.7 Go4th.org Takes AdSense Forward
Go4th.org also uses vertical columns, but this site has a much heavier focus on content and still manages to blend the ads in well. In fact, placing a ;1
Adee on th sfte;0]
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How To • Sudoku Sudoku is easy to leam. but sudoku puzzles can he very hard ta solve Enter digits from 1 to 9 in each empty ceiL Every row. every column. and every 3 x 3 box should contain one et each digit. True sudaku puzzles should each have a unique solution that can be deduced purely by logic with no guessing involved. Sudoku can vary tremendously in difficulty and most puzzles are graded into categories depending on the type of Iogic that s required to solve them.
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Pappocom Sudoku ($)
Sudoku (S)
SadMan Sudoku ($)
fle Sudoku Challenge ($)
Sudoku World (s)
Su Doku Live ($)
Downloads for Mac
Sudoku Fun Widget (free)
Sudaku Susser (free)
Sudaku Companbn (S)
MacSudoku 2.1 ($)
UniSudoku 1 3 (s)
Su Doku Live ($) Downloads for Linux
Sudoku $50.000 Tournament sudoku.Qrg uk (daily) sudokucom (menthly) Sudoku League
Miscelianeaus Sudoku
Wikipedia
Yahoo! Sudoku Directory
Sudoku Solutions
How many sudoku puzzles?
203
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vertical ad unit on the side of a blog has becorne pretty rnuch a standard layout for rnany online publishers. You have a sidebar full of links, a link unit under the blog entry headline and a skyscraper on either the left or the right.
lt’s the obvious way to lay out a blog page, and it works.
But that doesn’t mean you still can’t be creative and corne up with new ways to blend those ads into the page and rnake thern rnore attractive to users.
Go4th.org does this in a really interesting way.
The blog entry — or rather, the articles that the site posts — are positioned in a wide space in the rniddle of the page sandwiched between two sidebars. The sidebar on the left is where the ads go. The sidebar on the right contain a bunch of links to external sites.
And this is where things get clever...
The design cf each of those areas is exactly the same. Even the “Ads by
G0000gle” line has been copied and turned into “May lead to external sites.”
That helps to draw the two parts together, an idea which is polished off by
putting the word “More” above the ads and “Links” above the external links.
Those ads just don’t look like ads any more; they look like the same sort of recornrnended links that are on the right hand side.
Fig. 25.8 More links... sorry ads, at Go4th.org.
204
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Regrets, Ive had a few - but then agairi, toc few to menbon. The volce cf the crooner. Dean Marbn, echoes in my mmd alter ail these years. The reason he has few regrets - srngs ho, I did t my way.
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Lookrrg back or rny Irfe brings a drfferert perspective enbrely. Each hrne I drd t rny way L farled - miserabiy. When I was eiqhteen I wanted to leave home. We couidrit afford colleqe wid there were few resources for assistance. I had few clerical sk,lIs, as I had flot taken business-related classes in school so t was difficuit to obtain eruployment that would pay enaugli for me te ive on my own. t wanted ta be a journalist. I craved freedom.’ I thaught, If I can only get out from under Daddys thumb III be happy. III find a way ta get the education I need to become a journahst.
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This isn’t the only place that the site blends ads well into the page. There’s a second set of ads at the bottom of each article entry. What’s nice about these ads is that they follow a little author bio that includes links itself. That helps users get used to reading content that contains links and might be ads.
Could the site get more clicks by replacing that banner ad unit with a square unit at the beginning of the article? Maybe. But that’s exactly the sort of thing that can easily be tested.
The Littie Girl Who Saved My Baby
by Brenda R. Paul
I was at home with my nine-month old baby. He was on the couch while I went to the bathroom. While there the doorbeil rang and to my utter amazement a littie girl who Iooked to be around ten-years old stood there at the screened door with my baby in ber hand. I was shocked, wondering how she had gotten my baby out of the house,
When I went ta open the door, she said, ‘Mamn, your baby was crawling on the porch and almost feli down the stairs.” I was in total shock wondering how did he get off of the couch and out of the screen door. I thanked the littIe girl over and over again and she said dont worry and have a nice day then turned to walk away. t tumed to go into the house with my baby and thought about giving the littie girl some money for my appreciation. But when I turned arounci she was gone.
I looked up and down the Street but she was gone as if she had vanished. t neyer saw that
littie girl again. I described her to people in the neighborhood but no one seemed to know whom
I was talkirig about.
My family members bat I told the story to did flot believe me, however that was the day I started to really believe in angels. In my heart, I knew that God had sent his angel ta protect my son. He s now ten years old and very wise and interested about God and his word.
Content s syndicated by Awesome Web Esseritials from copyrighted material on
http://ibelieveinangels.com. For information on how you may add this syndication to your site, visit http://awesomewebessentials.com. ©Linda Van Fleet
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Fig. 25.9 From bio to banner.
If you wanted to use a similar strategy on your site though, ail you would need to do is put two sidebars on your site, make sure that they both look exactly the same but put ads in one and links in the other.
Easy!
25.8 Smart Ad Placement At DogToysMart.com
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Fig. 25.10 Featured ads at DogToysMart.com
The challenge for AdSense publishers is to persuade people to look at your ads without letting them realize that what they’re looking at is an ad. One general strategy to do that is to camouflage them on the page.
DogToysMart.com does this in a truly fantastic manner.
lt’s got the usual vertical ad unit in a sidebar and a link unit at the bottom of a list of other links. But above each section, the site also has a very neat header which it carnes into the ad sections.
So the left-hand side bar contains sections called “Information”, “Resources” and “Sponsored Links.”
“Sponsored Links”?
You got it. That’s where the link units are.
The right-hand sidebar does the same thing, calling the links in its ads “Featured Sites.”
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But it’s in the middle of the page that this technique works the best. There’s an introduction, a section marked “New Products”, a section marked “Featured Sites” and a section marked “Recommended Reading.” By sandwiching the ads between two sections offering valuable products, the site makes the ad section looks like it contains something valuable too. It looks like it’s been put there by the site itself and not by a third party and 1m sure it’s going to deliver great results.
The moral of this story is that one method of promoting your ads is to put them between two other valuable areas instead of at the bottom of the article or whatever it may be. That might requ ire that you create those sections specially for the purpose... but it cou Id well be worth the effort.
25.9 Matching Articles To Ads... And CelI Phones
The usual way to blend ads into the site is to do 3-Way Matching: to make the ads match the rest of the site in terms of background color, font color and font size.
It is possible to take a different approach though: you can make the site match the ads — or at least elements of it. Chris at GetACellPhone.com provides a fantastic exam pie of this.
He’s put one ad unit in the left-hand column but right above it and right below it, he’s also put introductions to two articles. The headline of each article is a link to the rest of the piece further in the site and matches the headline of the ad.
That makes the ads look like links to articles, and it’s a great idea.
What I really like about this set-up though is that there’s no space between the two introductions and the “Ads by Google” line. It makes the articles look like the ads, leaving the ads free and clear.
As a strategy, it’s very easy to copy, but Id take it further. You can match the color of the URL under the ad to the color of the links on the rest of the page and restrict the size of the introduction to just two line —just like the ads.
Make the rest of the page look like the ads and you’ll do some great matching.
207
Motorola Accessory Outiet
chargers, cases, headsets, car dl, batteries, hoieters, data caties
awe factoydirectœiiuieo oeru
CelI Phone Signal Booster
Solve Vour Celiular Communicaten issues.
Excetent Customer Support’
CeiiAntns,ss,n
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GetAeIIPhone.com
Get More From Vour Cd Phone witb Mobile Search Bob Rot
Mobile Search b here.
The percentage of domestic users that have tred mobte search s srrioll, but growing rapidly. Why? Because the services make sanse, they have an easily understandable value and they on be used in-rnedately. Mobile search provides you with valuable information while on the go: business directory, driving directions, sports scores, stock quotas, flight info, and more. But, what b this thing caled “mobile search?’ Simply, t is die process of locating mobile downloada and mobile information via a mobte device.
‘lJsnng a mobile device and SMS, or Short Message Service, wireless customers on now get directions to nearby restaurants and other information fi’om the curb. Analysts say that’s a potent combination, not only for consumers, but for the fast-growing Web search business,’ says Wendy Widman of CNET’s News.com. How do you use if?
Grab your mobile device and try itl Most services, such as 4INF0’s, are free aside ftom your carrier contract charges (which, for most, b tan cents per message, or less). You on choose to text message your quenes (on 4INFO, send to 44535) or access the mobde web on your phone (on 4INFO, access httir.Ilwap.4!NFo.net). Then, try die followiig examples:
Local Business Drrectory: biz type + zip code or city name
Ex: ‘towing 92111” or ‘pizza lOttl’
Weather: w + z code or cty name
Fig. 25.11 Play “spot the ads”
at GetACellPhone.com.
25.10 Brewing Up Profits With Herbai Tea
Some of the most effective optimization strategies are very simple. Some are very creative. At TeaHerbalTea.com, we get both types.
The site has three ad units above the fold: a banner ad immediately beneath the header; a horizontal text link above the content; and a large rectangle embedded in the content.
But look at how each of those units is blended into the site. The banner’s background is lime-green, the same color as the site’s background, the titles match the color of the site’s header and the URL is kept just a tone or two above the background to make it almost invisible.
The unit embedded into the article follows a similar strategy. The title of the links match the title of the article, the description is kept black and the URL is a light color so that it almost disappears into the background.
VS
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lcd Phone Rnaourc
Cet A cdl Phone Home cdl Phone Articles I Contact lis
Feattwed Cd Phone Artide
The issue cf driving end ccli phones heu become a prominent ccc. On the stases cf Newycrk, New Jersey and OC. as oeil as in the province cf Nev.foundiand, ccli phone use chue driving heu been benned. Oc pou think this is e gcod dec or net’ Os...
Ccli Phone Rawieses. Mobile Phones
shopping For A Mobile Phone’ Vou shculd Read 5ome Ccli Phone Revievo First’ Before buying e ccli phone. the first thing ycu’ra most likely te do is conduct cnrns searches on the ccii phcnes ycu’ra ccnsiderina. But chat mekes e good mobile phone?... Ada bv Gssscoscie Advertise on this sec
208
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It’s in the text Iinks though that things get really interesting. The site has been designed so that it looks like there are little tabs above each of the links. That’s great idea. Would Google like it? lt’s hard to say. So far, it’s not doing this site any harm, and it’s not an image, but you might want to clear it with your friendly AdSense rep before you put in your site.
Herbai’
4rea
Herbai Tea Real Okumas Wu-Long Organic Siimming Tea
Gourmet caffeine-free herbais - view Beware ot Cheap Imitations’ Real Lose 1 Jean Size Every 7 Deys’ Ancient
photos & read customer reviens Okumas Wu-Long Tea. Green Tea Meufs Fat.
uw.adagio.corn •r.,-..,Prem,um Vuiong.ccrn .svv..ImperiaiGkinawanTee.com
P45 by Gacocoopie Aduertise on this site
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Ada b Gooqie Herb Tea Ginseng Tea Green Tea Cafe Tea Plant
Tea,Hertit Tee Naiegation
Me ity Google
Tea, Herbai Tea Hustory Herbai Heaith Tee Shop Herbai Tea
Buy Green, Chinese, Herbai, Heaith Wide Variety 0f F,nest Quaiity
Tee, Herbai Tea \‘aruetues Tees
What is herbai tea?
Tea, Herbai Tea Heaith
Benefits Green Tee Extract Herbai tea, sometimes caiied tisane s flot
Get The Skiriny Oit Diets Read titis 6efore you Duy. tea, per se. Rather than tea, herbai tea is file
Tea, Herbai Tea News - name 0f most beverages made from a plant
other than the tea plant.
Contact Tea Herbai Tee Wholesale Gourmet Tee
Beairtifoly packaged tees Perfent addition f0 yrnlr store Tins & Herbai tea s typjcaiiy made bi’ pourina
Tea Herbai Tea Site Map buik boiling water over leaves, seeds, fiowers or
. other piant parts and ietttng t sit, or steep, a
few minutes until the water retains file flavor
The HerbaI Tee Directory 0f whatever piant(s) s (or are) used for file
Earn money Directory 0f Herbai Tee Deais. F,nd Herbai Tees Quickiy herbai tea. The piant parts are tfien removed
hit shnwinrs rninvant from Die iiquid, usualiy by strauning t in
Fig. 25.12 Three superbly blended ads at TeaHerbaltea.com...
lt’s worth asking about.
The sites ads don’t end there though. There’s another ad unit below the fold in the middle of the page, a Google search box at the bottom of the page and even a couple of referral buttons and an Amazon ad on the left. And with that second square ad unit turning up such well-targeted ads, there’s a great chance that they’ll get clicked.
If you’re wondering about that “Ads by Google” logo in the first embedded ad unit, Google does have a habit of testing different approaches on its ad units. It looks like they were doing a little experiment here. Lets hope they keep it; it looks a lot better than the long “Ads by G0000000gle”.
I
209
Orqanic Loose Green Tea
Rooibos, jasmine tea. oolong green tea. black tea
Varieties 0f Tea and Herbai Tea
There are numerous varieties o! reaF’ teas and herbai teas. As mentioned previously, tea cornes from the Carnell,a sinensis plant, whiie herbai teas are made with parts from other plants. Tea blends are usualiy made by mixing tea and other plants fora unique, fiavorful brew. More on varieries of tea and herbai tea»
Believed Heaith Benefits 0f Tea and Herbai Tea
Tea and herbai teas have historicaily been believed to have a wide variety o! heaith benefits. Tea naturaily contains caffeine, a known stimulant. Certain herbai teas have been said to cairn down, or soothe. the person imbibing sucti teas. More on die beiieved heaifh benefiis of iea and herbai rea»
Gougle ________ [ Search
0 Web O www.teahetbaltea.com
Fig. 25.13 ...and rounding it ail off with a search box.
25.11 Whispy Makes Ad Units Disappear!
Sometimes, ycu really dont have to do toc much to get the sort cf cptimized ads that bring fantastic results. Whispy.com has done a great job cf blending its ad links into its site.
First, it’s used links in different colors. In general, that’s not a gccd idea; ycur users expect to links to be blue se that’s the color ycu shculd make them — and the color you should make your ad links toc.
But Whispy is only using two different kinds cf blue: a bold blue which functions as the title for the profiles, which link to the content; and a lighter blue for the links in the sidebars.
When the user sees ad links in exactly the same color, heu just assume he’s looking at more content links.
This is a very simple strategy that anyone can copy: just make sure that your ad links are the same color as the rest cf your other links... and hide those ad links in a list cf content links.
Very simple. Very, very effective.
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Fig. 25.14 Just a perfect example of a camouflaged ad unit. How long did it take you to find it?
25.11 Mixing AdSense With Kontera On DealOfDay.com
Ever since Google changed its policy to allow publishers to combine different ad programs on the same page, finding ways to make the most out of multiple ad units has proved an exciting challenge.
I talked about how I blend horizontal ad units into my forum on
DealOfDay.com but recently, l’ve also been playing around with adding
Kontera’s ads on those pages too.
Earning revenue from forums isn’t easy. I ‘m more likely to plan a forum as a way of supplying a service to my readers and building a community than as a way of earning income. People are just too focused on looking for answer to their questions to spend their time clicking ads. CPM ads often do better here.
But blending AdSense into the forum can work very well. And now l’ve found that adding link ads helps even more.
Notice how the two sets of ads look different and offer different things too. The AdSense ads look like category headings. I n fact, this thread category was specifically about bargains on baby products, 50 I couldn’t have asked for a better keyword there.
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The Konfera ads f hough focus on specific producf s. That’s fheir strength, and fhaf’s why if pays f0 use highly fargefed ferms when you’re using Konfera (so “Tylenol” nof “painkiller,” “Playsfafion” nof “video game sysfem”).
The result on this forum was that I got to offer my readers a range of different types of ads... and picked up two different kinds of income.
toN free numbers ta cail for baby items
Ads by Goo Baby Catalog Coupons Child Coupons Formula Coupon Bab, Pr: iu:ts zarr r -
1-800-222-9546 Free Similac, Isomil or Other Formulas, & Coupons
1-800-485-9918 Free Can of °Store Brand’ Formula from PBM Products
1-800-864-9714 Free Can of ‘Parents Choice” Soy or MiIk Formula from Wal-Mart
1-800-587-3721 Free ‘arents)
1-800-843-6430 Free “D t10t3130 rablecapsx$5195 ;(3 months & legs)
NO PRESCRIPTION REQUIRED. GENERIC TYLENOL
1-800-292-4794 Free °L. w/CODEINE 30 mg. Effective PAIN RELIEF. ng sreastfeeding
Worldwide delivery.
1-800-588-6377 Free Cç v. anetshcç’nq -• dfl’rïtflal._t, ;, Stickers (x5O
1-800-222-9546 Free Similac £somil arid Other Formula Coupons from Ross Pediatncs
1-800-962-5357 Free Product Coupons for Tylenol Products of Vour Choice
1-800-344-1358 Free $5 Rebate on a Case of “Babymil’ or “Sabysoy” Formulas
Fig. 25.15 Increasing my earning potential by combining ad systems on the DealOfDay.com forum.
25.12 000gle Ads And eMiniMalis At GPSReview.net
0f course, Konfera isn’f fhe only extra revenue source that you can use with AdSense units. For many sites, Chitika’s eMiniMalls can make a very profitable addition.
GPSReview.net is a great exam pie of the sort of site that can benefit the most from Chifika’s services — as well as a great exam pie of the right way to do it.
And again, it’s a very simple opfimizaf ion.
The firsf thing f0 nofe abouf fhe sife fhough is fhaf if’s producf-related. Sites that focus on products are always going to be the best option for eMiniMalls. Chitika produces very specific ads that will appeal most for people looking for producfs rafher fhan simply furfher informaf ion. That’s whaf AdSense does, and like Kontera, if’s why Chifika’s ads work 50 well wifh Google’s.
212
armin GPSatGP
jj jPm and have t Tomorrowl Revij ComPahsons GPSNOW on’
Fig. 25.16 AdSense finds eMiniMalis at GPSReview.net.
That doesn’t mean though that you can only put eMiniMalis on productrelated sites. You can put them on any site. But publishers with pages that talk about products are Iikely to see the best resuits with them.
There’s no reason, in fact, that you couldn’t add a sub-directory to your website that offers reviews of the products related to your topic. So if you blog about television shows, you could offer DVD reviews. If you write about mortgages, you cou Id offer reviews of home furnishings. If you write about coffee, you could offer information about coffee machines... and provide ads
that let people buy them.
Once you’ve done that, you’d be able to copy what Tim Flight of GPSReview.net has done on his site.
Tim has put a big leaderboard right across the top of the page. By giving it a frame that matches the rest of the site, he’s done a great job of blending if in
and it’s in a very prominent position
And do you see how it’s only showing one ad?
That’s probably because he’s been site-targeted by an advertiser who’s prepared to pay a premium to be sure of appearing on Tim’s site.
____ Review Shopping GPS Forums Cai-itad
I IlSearchi
RSS Feed - Atorn Feed Feed Terms cf Service
Destinations
Read GPS reviews for Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, Lowrance, and others for auto navigation, handheld recreation, aviation, and bluetooth GPS receivers.
Goodbye, SVN-15 “Firebird”
Cdl Phone GPS
Fleet Tracking
Geocoding
Geofencing
Geotagging
Golf GPS
GPS Definitions
GPS Games
GPS Maps
GPS Patent Watch
GPS Receivers Alpine
j
Description Product Search f De&s j
n FHUUNIII Camera Addict $289MO Just like people, satellites have a limited life-span. And so taday we say goodbye ta a dear old friend who has guided us through the Iast sixteen years. SVN-1S was better knowr, ta closest friends as Firebird, a nickname pinned on SVN-1S by co-worker at Boeing. Bern (errr. - launehed) on October 1, 1990 the first few minutes of life were scary, beirig hurled alorig at thousarids of miles per hour from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Continue—> Goodbve. SVN-15 ‘flrebirdj
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Tim has then placed a small eMiniMali between the titie and each content article so that it looks like part of the post. lt’s totally unmissable — and raised his income by 200 percent!
Personally, I ‘d have gone a little further and experimented with a wellblended AdSense half-banner at the bottom of each post to give readers a place to go if they dont want to go to the article. (On the article itself, Tim prefers to use another eMiniMall, followed by a Recommended Product Unit, an exclusive link unit supplied by Chitika to select publishers).
Id also want to put a small link unit in the sidebar... but that’sjust me. Even keeping it simple though, Tim’s GPS site is earning him great revenues.
With AdSense though, you should always be looking for ways to earn even more.
Conclusion
AdSense can give you huge amounts of money. It can pay your mortgage, make your car payments and send you on the sort of vacations you’ve only dreamed of. If you want, it can even let you give up the day job and look forward to a life of working at home, in your pajamas with no boss other than yourself.
Or it can give you enough money to buy a couple of candy bars each week.
The secret of AdSense success isn’t complicated. You don’t have to spend years in a classroom learning a new skill or head out to get a diploma. The principle is very basic:
Serve interesting ads to users in a way that makes them want to click.
You do that with layout. You do that by choosing the right size of ads. And you do it by blending the ad into the page.
Choosing the right keywords is important too, and SO is bringing traffic to your site at a low price before selling them on to advertisers for a higher one.
Most important though is to keep a close eye on the resu Its of everything you do SO that you can see what works and what doesn’t.
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In this bock, Ive told you everything you need to know to supercharge your AdSense earnings. Apply the techniques I’ve described here, track the resuits and you should see your incomes rise as quickly as mine did!
If you want to keep learning about AdSense, you might want to check out my Instant AdSense Templates Starter Kit and my Monthly Templates program at http://www.MonthlyTemplates.com
And finally, if you’ve enjoyed this bock and seen your revenues rise after implementing the strategies I recommend, you can pass on the word — and get paid for it.
If you know a publisher who could benefit from AdSense, you can join my affiliate program at http://www.adsense-secrets.com/affiliate-signup.html and help others earn more. How can that be bad?
Good luck!
215
Glossary
The online advertising world uses ail sorts of jargon to describe different bits of the process. If you’re confused by a term, you should be able to find your answer here.
3-Way Matching —A method of blending ads into a Web page by matching the ad’s background color, font color and font size with the surround page content.
AdSense Code — The instructions to display ads on a Web page are contained within a piece of HTML code that is copied from Google’s AdSense site. The code must be pasted onto each page on which you wish to display an ad.
Ad Rank — The order in which the ads appear in an ad unit is determined by Google. The ads at the top of the list should give you the most money based on cost-per-click and clickthrough rate.
Ad Unit —A group of ads displayed together as a set. You can display up to three ad units on one page, in addition to a search box and referral buttons.
Alternate Ads — Pre-determined ads that are served in place of public service ads when Google is unable to find contextual ads.
Channel — A method of tracking resu Its across pages, sites, dom ains or any criteria set by a publisher.
Click — A click by a user on an ad. In stats reports, the clicks column may include invalid clicks but not clicks on public service ads.
Clickthrough Rate (CTR) — The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of impressions the ad receives. The higher your CTR, the better.
Contextual Advertising — Ads that are related to the content of the Web page on which they appear (as opposed to traditional banner ads that are served regardless of the content of the page).
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) — The amount an advertiser pays for each click his/her ad receives. AdSense uses a range of different types of Cost-Per Click: Maximum Cost-Per-Click —The maximum amount an advertiser is prepared to pay for each click.
216
Actual Cost-Per-Click — The amount an advertiser is charged for each click. The rate wiII vary according to the Smart Pricing rate of your site and the bidding price of competitors. Google always tries to charge advertisers the lowest rate possible.
Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM) —The amount an advertiser pays each time his/her ad is displayed. Like CPC, AdSense refers to different types of CPM:
Maximum Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions — The maximum amount an advertiser is charged for an impression.
Actual Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions — The amount an advertiser is charged for each impression. In general, this will be one cent more than the price required to keep the ad in its position on the page.
Effective Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (eCPM)—The cost of 1,000 ad impressions. Used by publishers to compare income rates across channels (and advertising programs). To calculate your eCPM, simply divide earnings by impressions (so $200 earned from 50,000 impressions would yield an eCPM of $4.00).
Filters — Used by publishers to block specific ads or groups of ads.
Google AdWords — Google’s advertising program. Advertisers submit their ads to Google, specifying their maximum CPC and total advertising budget. The ads are distributed across AdSense publishers.
Impression —A single display of an ad somewhere on Google’s ad network. Page Impression —A single display of an ad on a publisher’s Web page.
Pay-Per-Click — Often used interchangeable with Cost-Per-Click. Refers to a method of online advertising in which advertisers pay only when action is taken by the user and not only when an ad is served (CPM).
Public Service Ads (PSA) — Ads for non-profit organization that are served on Web pages when Google is unable to find relevant ads or cannot read the content on a Web page. Publishers are not paid for displaying public service ads.
Publisher — A member of AdSense whose sites display the AdSense code and Google’s ads.
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) —A process 0f raising a sites rankings in the various search engines. This usually involves creating Iinks from other sites, targeting keywords and building traffic.
Site Targeting — A strategy used by advertisers to choose on which sites they would like their ads to run.
Section Targeting — Lines of code used to focus Google’s robots on specific, keyword-rich areas of a Web page.
Smart Pricing —A system used by Google to determine the value of the traffic sent by your site to advertisers and to price your ads accordingly. Sites that deliver high conversion rates to advertisers earn more than sites with low conversion rates.
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I regularly receive email from readers. Everyone is so excited when they apply my tips and see their AdSense revenue increase! Here are a few emails and comments I received recently.
“I hate ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes - but by doing the ‘quick’ items covered in his bock, I quadrupled my daily earning average. Yes, ycu read that right. My income went up four times!” — Raymond Camden
(www.fusicnauthcrity.ccm/Reviews/Article.cfm/Articlel D:4509)
“I dont know if you remem ber me but I was the skeptic that purchased your bock a month age. I wanted te give ycu the an update on the resuits cf implementing some cf the changes you recommended. In the month since Owning AdSense Secrets, my click-thrcugh rate has more than TRI PLED and my daily earnings have QUADRUPLED, just like the calculator on your page said! Thank ycu SO much!” — Name withheld by request
“I purchased your eBook yesterday. By 2:30 this afternoon l’ve already generated TWICE my average daily AdSense revenue. Althcugh l’ve cnly implemented the first step recommended in your bock, it looks like l’ve already tripled my AdSense income. Thank ycu!” — Kenn Nesbit
“I just wanted te telI you that I have tripled my stats after buying your ebook!” — Shawn Mcgarvey
“I really am benefiting from buying your bock! My AdSense click-thrcugh rates have increased 100% within a week cf using the tips and tricks from your bock! I have already made my money back that I invested in your bock. As a result I am presently making more money with AdSense on a daily basis than ever before. Thank you for sharing your insights.” — Kamau Austin
“Joel, I bcught your e-bock, and immediately tried some cf your suggestions. (From the time I started reading it, I cculdn’t put it down until I was done.) Te say my results were exciting is putting it mildly. We made over $500 in March on numbers that are still climbing! l’ve neyer written a referral letter before, but your bock was such an excellent value I felt obligated.” — Chris Bartram
“Just writing te say THANK YOU for your wonderful ebook. Ive increased my AdSense income by almost 300%, by applying your tips.” — Bingwen Lu
219
“1m flat EXCITED about your book. I just downloaded it late Iast week, read it on Saturday, and started making your
recommended changes in my AdSense Ads and some of the design on some of my sites to make the ads look less like ads. Unbelievable, but after only one day of changes on three of my sites, my click-through ratios have nearly tripled today! I have printed and read your book three times and plan to telI ail of my clients about it.” — Ed Hudson
I love to receive email like this and I hope you will take the time to write me and share your AdSense success story! You may send me feedback on my page at www.AskJoelComm.com or calI My toll-free testimonial recording une at 1-800-609-9006 x9257. International callers may use 678-255-2174.
May your Google AdSense revenues multiply! (That makes Google AND You happy!)
220
About the Author
Joel Comm is an Internet entrepreneur who has been
building successful web sites since 1995. Dedicated to
providing a family-friendly I nternet experience, JoeI’s
flagship site, WorldVillage.com, continues to be a
popular family-safe portai. Joel is the co-creator of
Yahoo! Games and author of the New York Times
Bestseller, The AdSense Code. Joel makes frequent
appearances at Internet marketing conferences and
seminar, conducting workshops and training others in the Iatest ways to make money on the Internet.
JoeI’s sites include:
JoelComm.com — JoeI’s BIog
AskJoelComm.com — Question submission page
AdSenseChat.com — Google AdSense Member Forums
DealofDay.com - a popular bargain-hunting community
FamilyFirst.com — Family-friendly sites reviews
More Resources bv Joel Comm
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NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACRIEVE ANY RESULTS FROM OUR IDEAS
AND TECRNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL.
The author and publisher disciaim any warranties (express or implied) merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The author and pubiisher shail in no event be heid hable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, speciai, incidentai or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectiy from any use of this materiai, which is provided “as is”, and without warranties. As aiways, the advice of a competent legal, tax, accounting or other professional should be sought. The author and pubhisher do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or apphicabiiity of any sites histed or iinked to in this eBook.
الأحد، 18 يوليو 2010
23. Troubleshooting — What To Do If You’re Not Getting The Resu Its You Want
Fcllcw the advice and strategies I lay out in this bock and ycu shculd find that ycu get the resuits ycu want: a big fat check every mcnth from the nice pecple at Gccgle.
But it doesn’t aiways work out that way. There will be times when you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why thingsjust aren’t going the way ycu’d like them to. When that happens, check out the list cf problems here and see if ycu can find a solution.
And if you can’t find a solution here, check out AdSenseChat.com. Whatever Ive missed here, you should be able to find there.
23.1 Low Revenues
This is the bottom cf une cf AdSense advertising and if ycur revenues are lcw then it couldn’t be clearer that you’re doing something wrong.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit cf work to make clear what exactly it is that you’re doing wrong.
If ycur revenues are much lower than you’d like then there are a number cf different possible reasons and ycu need te check each cf the fcllcwing in tu rn:
E Your traffic levels. If you don’t have the traffic, you won’t get the revenues. A lcw level cf traffic cou Id be one reason why you’re only making a lcw level cf inccme.
E Your CTR. Increasing your traffic might net raise ycur inccme as much as you want if your clickthrough rate isn’t ail it should be. Once you’ve checked your traffic levels, take a look at how much cf that traffic you’re converting into clicks.
E Your click price. When the ads change ail the time it’s not always easy te figure eut hcw much each click is wcrth but if ycu divide ycur daily income by ycur daily clicks ycu can get an idea cf hcw much you’re earning per click. If that figure is hovering around five cents, you’re not making much — and ycu need te be making more.
188
You won’t be able to make a move until you’ve figured out which cf these potential problems is yours, and it’s Iikely that your problem wiII be a mixture cf more than one of them.
Your first move then, when you’re not making the money you’d like, is to check each of these possibilities. Your next move is to solve the problem you’ve found.
23.2 Low Traffic Levels
If your problem is that your site isn’t getting the traffic it needs, there are a whole range cf different options you can take. I ‘ve covered the basic ideas in Chapter 20 — and you can take another look to see if there’s anything you’ve missed — but you also might want to try one cf the courses or bocks that specialize in generating traffic.
It might cost you a few bucks but when it comes to making money with AdSense just about any investment is worth the effort. You should be able to make it back in no time.
23.3 Low Clickthrough Rates
When your clickthrough rates are very low, you’re really in AdSense territory. This is ail about getting the right ads in the right places. There ail sorts of possible strategies that you can do and again, you’re going to have to check each one in turn.
E Are you using the right ad units?
Compare your site to the case studies in this book, to other sites on the Web and to the recommendations I make about where to put each of the different kinds of ad units. Those examples and
recommendations should be your starting point.
If they don’t work for you though, you’re going to need to do some experimenting. This can take a bit of time, but it’s well worth the effort. Try replacing an ad unit with one of a different size and follow the stats. If they improve, you’re on the right track.
E Are you using the right colors and font size?
This isa very easy one to fix. If the colors of your ads don’t match the colors on your site, change them.
E Are there better places on the page to put your ads?
189
Even if you’re getting the right ads and they’re well-blended, if no one sees them, no one will click them. Check to make sure your ads are in the most prominent positions. If you think you might do better if they were in different spots, move them and follow the resu Its.
23.4 Low Click Price
Raising your click price is one of the trickiest challenges in AdSense. Because Google decides how much to charge advertisers for a click on your site, you can only affect their decision indirectly. Again there are a few things that you can do:
1. Target different keywords
Different keywords pay different amounts. lt’s possible that your site is bringing up the lowest paying terms in your subject. Browse keyword sites such as Overture.com to see what people are paying for words in your field and try creating a page that focuses on the highest paying term.
If that page brings in good revenues, you’ve got a keyword problem — and that’s easy to fix. If you’re still getting a low click price, you’ve got a low Smart Price rating, and that’s going to take a bit more work to fix.
2. Buy better traffic
Your Smart Price suffers when your users click but dont buy. One solution is to buy better targeted traffic that’s more likely to be interested in what your ads are offering. For example, you cou Id try working backwards and target your traffic to the ads you’re currently showing.
3. Build better content
Or it could be that people are clicking your ads not because they’re interested in them but because they’re not interested in what’s on the page. Good quality content will deliver high quality clicks from people who are motivated to buy from your advertisers.
There are no shortcuts to building great content. You can try to focus on a topic that genuinely excites rather than building a site just for the money. You could try buying in some professionally written articles by taking a freelancer from eLance, and seeing if that raises your click price. Or you could just take another look at what your best competitors are doing — and do the same.
4. Rem ove poor-performing ads
190
Your Smart Price is affected by ail the sites in your account. One poor-performing site then can bring down your prices across ail your sites. If you own lots of different sites and your ads aren’t getting the price you think they deserve, one strategy could be to rernove the ads from the sites that you think aren’t doing so well.
Whichever strategy you choose, the goal will be to get more of the users to click on the ads to buy from your advertisers. You should start to see a change in your price within a couple of weeks.
23.5 Low Ad Relevance
if your ads aren’t relevant, people won’t want to click them. Try Section Targeting to focus Google on the ideas you want to emphasize. (if that works you might want to take things a littie further by turning each section into a different page. That wiii give even more ads and more opportunities to earn).
Aiternativeiy, you can play with the keywords on your page, change the titie of each page so that they inciude a keyword you’re trying to target or inciude more section tities. Ail of these options shouid heip to keep your ads on track.
23.6 Too Many Public Service Ads
Public service ads are another sign of a keyword probiem. You might not be hitting the keywords you want, or it couid be that there sirnpiy aren’t any ads for the keywords you’re airning for.
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you’ve got sornething to show instead of public service ads, nice though they are. You can specify an aiternate URL to show, use GoogieAdSensePius or try Googie Backfiii to make sure that you’re stiil earning even when the keywords aren’t working.
Your next step though, is going to be to fix the probiem. Make sure that Googie does have ads for the keyword you’re targeting (you can use one of the preview tools such as googieadspreview.biogspot.com to do this). if nothing cornes up, you’ii need to throw different keywords onto your page.
if something does come up — and it’s not what you’re getting — you can just use ail of the keyword strategies I mentioned eariier to dump those PSAs.
191
23.7 Too Few Ads In A Unit
Sometimes a four-ad ad unit will only show one or two ads. There’s nothing you can do about this and it’s not really a problem. If you’re getting just one ad, you could be earning by CPM instead of cost-per-click. If you’re getting two ads — as Google likes to serve them sometimes — you just have to hope that they’re doing it because it pays better.
With AdSense, you dont get to control everything!
24. Staying Up To Date And Learning The Latest AdSense Tips
AdSense changes ail the time and lots of people are following those changes. They’re talking about what those changes mean for publishers and how you can take advantage 0f them.
They’re also discussing the new contextualized advertising systems that appear from time to time and commenting on how well they work.
Most serious publishers pay close attention to these blogs and other sites. They’re an invaluable source of first-hand information from people who have been there and done that. They’ll save you a huge amount of time — and money.
Ive put a short list of some of the most important sites to look at below. This isn’t meant to be a complete list — that would be way too long — but these are a good place to start. They’ll keep you in the loop and make sure your questions get answered.
• www.JenSense.com
Jen’s contextual advertising blog is a great read. She’s always coming up with useful information and sometimes manages to dig up a real scoop (like what lies behind Smart Pricing). This should definitely be in your favorites.
• www.ProBlogger.net
Darren is a blogger making a healthy six-figure income with his online
thoughts and his advice about how to do the same thing. If you’re running
a blog, you really need to be reading it... and if you’re not running a blog,
you’ll still find enough great advice to keep you busy too.
192
• www.AssociateProarams.com/ discus/ index.i,hi,
Forums are a really great place to swap ideas and most importantly, ask questions. Publishers who are old hands at making serious money with AdSense are usually more than happy to share their knowledge. The forum at Associate Programs is a great place to pick up tips about everything from links to marketing.
• http:/ I Forums.DiciitalPoint.com
And the forums at Digital Point are at least as good, if not better, with plenty of information on AdSense.
24.1 Talking AdSense at AdSenseChat
Finally, there’s my own forum at www.adsensechat.com. You’ll find plenty 0f people here swapping advice and sharing news about AdSense and other contextualized advertising systems... including me.
I don’t want to blow my own trumpet toc much here, but if you’re finding this book useful you’ll certainly find AdSense Chat useful. lt’s like having your book updated constantly with several thousand smart, experienced AdSense users in addition to my own contributions.
Discussion threads range from how to make use of the latest releases from Google’s stable (you can be sure that in the time it takes you to read this book, Google will have brought out something new that l’ll need to discuss in the next edition) to what’s happening with Chitika and ail the other contextualized programs.
193
New ThredJ;0]
Threads in Forum: AdSense Toolbox Luuui Tou Jh this FoIj
Announcement: Site Rules Views: 1,641
bel Comm (Dr. Adsense) 08-18-2005
IIhre4 j Thread Starter :fl’7il Lest PostV
j AdSense Gold - Worth the rnoney? (3i2) Today 04:12 PM 10 361
Wowzerz by zmcnultv £4 —
r Gooqie Sitemap generator phpSitemapNG 02-06-2006 04:51 PM 2 190
— - ezymoneyathome by Slithervlmp —
Adsense Buddy Data Problem 01-27-2006 02:56 PM 6 259
— Rusty byj —
AdSense Buddy vl.1 Now Availabte! (‘ 1 2) 01-27-2006 12:47 AM 10 555
‘ bel Comm by SendOr —
, AdSense Buddy versions 1.1 or 1.11? 01-25-2006 08:55 0 81
“ wildfiction by wildfiction £4 —
Adsense Buddy problem: invalid username and password 01-25-2006 10:53 AM 0 51
adstracker by adstracker £4 —
ç j. “HTML Templates for AdSense” 01-25-2006 10:18 AM 8 289
maclin byç —
Customizing Private Label Content 01-25-2006 01:20 AM 2 174
LizS —
j Adsense Tracker 01-18-2006 02:09 PM 8 666
ezymoneyathome by Er;k Geurts £4 — Fig. 24.1: Talking tools at AdSense Chat.
I can’t stress enough how important forums like AdSense Chat are to publishers. I can only update this book once every six months or once a year. Us just too much work to do more often than that. But the forums let publishers talk AdSense ail the time.
It gives me new ideas, lets me see what problems other publishers have encountered and — more important — lets everyone weigh in with answers.
Part of being a successful AdSense publisher means visiting forums, posing questions, reading responses and adding your own experience. We want to know what you’ve been doing and how you’ve been doing it.
194
View FlrstUnread
bigcactus G
Adsense Pioneer
L Attracting Iligher Paying Keywords
Hello there feIlow click pals I
Would you please be sa kind as to take a 10 second look at the following page Ive created... http://www .carauctionphotos.cam/2006AZKrusel.htm
After collecting a number of high paying keywords from Keyword Explosion, I created an article with many of th keywords throughout hoping they wilI attract the higher paying Adsense ads. So far t really hasnt worked.
Any suggestions as to how I can attract the higher paying keyword ads to actually show up? Gratefully Yours,
Mark-’
I
tsutton G
Super Moderator Posts: 1S
L
Try using contentjsection target code in the text.
- Tony Sutton
- HyperBoard - Cames, Hardware & Software
- Deaf Forum - Discussion Board for Deaf, HoH and anyone who wants to know more.
I ;1
b%stnday,at:o2PM -;0]
bigcactus
AdSense Pioneer
L try using content/section target code in the text.
(Try using contentjsection target code in the text.)
1m not familiar with that.. .would you please advise me on how to Iearn more?
Thank you so much!
Fig. 24.2: Forums are a great for everyone to lend a hand.
And did I teli you that AdSense Chat is free to join? Hope to see you there soon!
iread Tooki ILseardi this lbreai
But it doesn’t aiways work out that way. There will be times when you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why thingsjust aren’t going the way ycu’d like them to. When that happens, check out the list cf problems here and see if ycu can find a solution.
And if you can’t find a solution here, check out AdSenseChat.com. Whatever Ive missed here, you should be able to find there.
23.1 Low Revenues
This is the bottom cf une cf AdSense advertising and if ycur revenues are lcw then it couldn’t be clearer that you’re doing something wrong.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit cf work to make clear what exactly it is that you’re doing wrong.
If ycur revenues are much lower than you’d like then there are a number cf different possible reasons and ycu need te check each cf the fcllcwing in tu rn:
E Your traffic levels. If you don’t have the traffic, you won’t get the revenues. A lcw level cf traffic cou Id be one reason why you’re only making a lcw level cf inccme.
E Your CTR. Increasing your traffic might net raise ycur inccme as much as you want if your clickthrough rate isn’t ail it should be. Once you’ve checked your traffic levels, take a look at how much cf that traffic you’re converting into clicks.
E Your click price. When the ads change ail the time it’s not always easy te figure eut hcw much each click is wcrth but if ycu divide ycur daily income by ycur daily clicks ycu can get an idea cf hcw much you’re earning per click. If that figure is hovering around five cents, you’re not making much — and ycu need te be making more.
188
You won’t be able to make a move until you’ve figured out which cf these potential problems is yours, and it’s Iikely that your problem wiII be a mixture cf more than one of them.
Your first move then, when you’re not making the money you’d like, is to check each of these possibilities. Your next move is to solve the problem you’ve found.
23.2 Low Traffic Levels
If your problem is that your site isn’t getting the traffic it needs, there are a whole range cf different options you can take. I ‘ve covered the basic ideas in Chapter 20 — and you can take another look to see if there’s anything you’ve missed — but you also might want to try one cf the courses or bocks that specialize in generating traffic.
It might cost you a few bucks but when it comes to making money with AdSense just about any investment is worth the effort. You should be able to make it back in no time.
23.3 Low Clickthrough Rates
When your clickthrough rates are very low, you’re really in AdSense territory. This is ail about getting the right ads in the right places. There ail sorts of possible strategies that you can do and again, you’re going to have to check each one in turn.
E Are you using the right ad units?
Compare your site to the case studies in this book, to other sites on the Web and to the recommendations I make about where to put each of the different kinds of ad units. Those examples and
recommendations should be your starting point.
If they don’t work for you though, you’re going to need to do some experimenting. This can take a bit of time, but it’s well worth the effort. Try replacing an ad unit with one of a different size and follow the stats. If they improve, you’re on the right track.
E Are you using the right colors and font size?
This isa very easy one to fix. If the colors of your ads don’t match the colors on your site, change them.
E Are there better places on the page to put your ads?
189
Even if you’re getting the right ads and they’re well-blended, if no one sees them, no one will click them. Check to make sure your ads are in the most prominent positions. If you think you might do better if they were in different spots, move them and follow the resu Its.
23.4 Low Click Price
Raising your click price is one of the trickiest challenges in AdSense. Because Google decides how much to charge advertisers for a click on your site, you can only affect their decision indirectly. Again there are a few things that you can do:
1. Target different keywords
Different keywords pay different amounts. lt’s possible that your site is bringing up the lowest paying terms in your subject. Browse keyword sites such as Overture.com to see what people are paying for words in your field and try creating a page that focuses on the highest paying term.
If that page brings in good revenues, you’ve got a keyword problem — and that’s easy to fix. If you’re still getting a low click price, you’ve got a low Smart Price rating, and that’s going to take a bit more work to fix.
2. Buy better traffic
Your Smart Price suffers when your users click but dont buy. One solution is to buy better targeted traffic that’s more likely to be interested in what your ads are offering. For example, you cou Id try working backwards and target your traffic to the ads you’re currently showing.
3. Build better content
Or it could be that people are clicking your ads not because they’re interested in them but because they’re not interested in what’s on the page. Good quality content will deliver high quality clicks from people who are motivated to buy from your advertisers.
There are no shortcuts to building great content. You can try to focus on a topic that genuinely excites rather than building a site just for the money. You could try buying in some professionally written articles by taking a freelancer from eLance, and seeing if that raises your click price. Or you could just take another look at what your best competitors are doing — and do the same.
4. Rem ove poor-performing ads
190
Your Smart Price is affected by ail the sites in your account. One poor-performing site then can bring down your prices across ail your sites. If you own lots of different sites and your ads aren’t getting the price you think they deserve, one strategy could be to rernove the ads from the sites that you think aren’t doing so well.
Whichever strategy you choose, the goal will be to get more of the users to click on the ads to buy from your advertisers. You should start to see a change in your price within a couple of weeks.
23.5 Low Ad Relevance
if your ads aren’t relevant, people won’t want to click them. Try Section Targeting to focus Google on the ideas you want to emphasize. (if that works you might want to take things a littie further by turning each section into a different page. That wiii give even more ads and more opportunities to earn).
Aiternativeiy, you can play with the keywords on your page, change the titie of each page so that they inciude a keyword you’re trying to target or inciude more section tities. Ail of these options shouid heip to keep your ads on track.
23.6 Too Many Public Service Ads
Public service ads are another sign of a keyword probiem. You might not be hitting the keywords you want, or it couid be that there sirnpiy aren’t any ads for the keywords you’re airning for.
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you’ve got sornething to show instead of public service ads, nice though they are. You can specify an aiternate URL to show, use GoogieAdSensePius or try Googie Backfiii to make sure that you’re stiil earning even when the keywords aren’t working.
Your next step though, is going to be to fix the probiem. Make sure that Googie does have ads for the keyword you’re targeting (you can use one of the preview tools such as googieadspreview.biogspot.com to do this). if nothing cornes up, you’ii need to throw different keywords onto your page.
if something does come up — and it’s not what you’re getting — you can just use ail of the keyword strategies I mentioned eariier to dump those PSAs.
191
23.7 Too Few Ads In A Unit
Sometimes a four-ad ad unit will only show one or two ads. There’s nothing you can do about this and it’s not really a problem. If you’re getting just one ad, you could be earning by CPM instead of cost-per-click. If you’re getting two ads — as Google likes to serve them sometimes — you just have to hope that they’re doing it because it pays better.
With AdSense, you dont get to control everything!
24. Staying Up To Date And Learning The Latest AdSense Tips
AdSense changes ail the time and lots of people are following those changes. They’re talking about what those changes mean for publishers and how you can take advantage 0f them.
They’re also discussing the new contextualized advertising systems that appear from time to time and commenting on how well they work.
Most serious publishers pay close attention to these blogs and other sites. They’re an invaluable source of first-hand information from people who have been there and done that. They’ll save you a huge amount of time — and money.
Ive put a short list of some of the most important sites to look at below. This isn’t meant to be a complete list — that would be way too long — but these are a good place to start. They’ll keep you in the loop and make sure your questions get answered.
• www.JenSense.com
Jen’s contextual advertising blog is a great read. She’s always coming up with useful information and sometimes manages to dig up a real scoop (like what lies behind Smart Pricing). This should definitely be in your favorites.
• www.ProBlogger.net
Darren is a blogger making a healthy six-figure income with his online
thoughts and his advice about how to do the same thing. If you’re running
a blog, you really need to be reading it... and if you’re not running a blog,
you’ll still find enough great advice to keep you busy too.
192
• www.AssociateProarams.com/ discus/ index.i,hi,
Forums are a really great place to swap ideas and most importantly, ask questions. Publishers who are old hands at making serious money with AdSense are usually more than happy to share their knowledge. The forum at Associate Programs is a great place to pick up tips about everything from links to marketing.
• http:/ I Forums.DiciitalPoint.com
And the forums at Digital Point are at least as good, if not better, with plenty of information on AdSense.
24.1 Talking AdSense at AdSenseChat
Finally, there’s my own forum at www.adsensechat.com. You’ll find plenty 0f people here swapping advice and sharing news about AdSense and other contextualized advertising systems... including me.
I don’t want to blow my own trumpet toc much here, but if you’re finding this book useful you’ll certainly find AdSense Chat useful. lt’s like having your book updated constantly with several thousand smart, experienced AdSense users in addition to my own contributions.
Discussion threads range from how to make use of the latest releases from Google’s stable (you can be sure that in the time it takes you to read this book, Google will have brought out something new that l’ll need to discuss in the next edition) to what’s happening with Chitika and ail the other contextualized programs.
193
New ThredJ;0]
Threads in Forum: AdSense Toolbox Luuui Tou Jh this FoIj
Announcement: Site Rules Views: 1,641
bel Comm (Dr. Adsense) 08-18-2005
IIhre4 j Thread Starter :fl’7il Lest PostV
j AdSense Gold - Worth the rnoney? (3i2) Today 04:12 PM 10 361
Wowzerz by zmcnultv £4 —
r Gooqie Sitemap generator phpSitemapNG 02-06-2006 04:51 PM 2 190
— - ezymoneyathome by Slithervlmp —
Adsense Buddy Data Problem 01-27-2006 02:56 PM 6 259
— Rusty byj —
AdSense Buddy vl.1 Now Availabte! (‘ 1 2) 01-27-2006 12:47 AM 10 555
‘ bel Comm by SendOr —
, AdSense Buddy versions 1.1 or 1.11? 01-25-2006 08:55 0 81
“ wildfiction by wildfiction £4 —
Adsense Buddy problem: invalid username and password 01-25-2006 10:53 AM 0 51
adstracker by adstracker £4 —
ç j. “HTML Templates for AdSense” 01-25-2006 10:18 AM 8 289
maclin byç —
Customizing Private Label Content 01-25-2006 01:20 AM 2 174
LizS —
j Adsense Tracker 01-18-2006 02:09 PM 8 666
ezymoneyathome by Er;k Geurts £4 — Fig. 24.1: Talking tools at AdSense Chat.
I can’t stress enough how important forums like AdSense Chat are to publishers. I can only update this book once every six months or once a year. Us just too much work to do more often than that. But the forums let publishers talk AdSense ail the time.
It gives me new ideas, lets me see what problems other publishers have encountered and — more important — lets everyone weigh in with answers.
Part of being a successful AdSense publisher means visiting forums, posing questions, reading responses and adding your own experience. We want to know what you’ve been doing and how you’ve been doing it.
194
View FlrstUnread
bigcactus G
Adsense Pioneer
L Attracting Iligher Paying Keywords
Hello there feIlow click pals I
Would you please be sa kind as to take a 10 second look at the following page Ive created... http://www .carauctionphotos.cam/2006AZKrusel.htm
After collecting a number of high paying keywords from Keyword Explosion, I created an article with many of th keywords throughout hoping they wilI attract the higher paying Adsense ads. So far t really hasnt worked.
Any suggestions as to how I can attract the higher paying keyword ads to actually show up? Gratefully Yours,
Mark-’
I
tsutton G
Super Moderator Posts: 1S
L
Try using contentjsection target code in the text.
- Tony Sutton
- HyperBoard - Cames, Hardware & Software
- Deaf Forum - Discussion Board for Deaf, HoH and anyone who wants to know more.
I ;1
b%stnday,at:o2PM -;0]
bigcactus
AdSense Pioneer
L try using content/section target code in the text.
(Try using contentjsection target code in the text.)
1m not familiar with that.. .would you please advise me on how to Iearn more?
Thank you so much!
Fig. 24.2: Forums are a great for everyone to lend a hand.
And did I teli you that AdSense Chat is free to join? Hope to see you there soon!
iread Tooki ILseardi this lbreai
QUI CK TI PS
22. AdSense Prohibitions, Mistakes And Problems
Google is very protective cf its AdSense program and is a pretty strict ad provider. It has a relatively long page cf Terms and Conditions
(www.google.com/adsense/terms) and monitors sites pretty closely. While YPN usually sends a warning to sites that it believes have broken its terms and conditions, Google has been known to cut people off right away.
And that can be pretty painful.
I do recommend that you read the AdSense Terms and Conditions. I realize that they’re flot much fun and they’re hardly a gripping read, but they are important, especially when you start really pushing your ads to their limits. To make it easier for you though, I ‘ve gone through those terms and pulled out the most important restrictions contained in them.
This Iist is not a replacement for reading the Terms page — you’re still going to have to do that. They just might make it clearer 50 that you’re Iess Iikely to make a very costly mistake.
• One individual or entity cannot hold more than one AdSense account; ail accounts will be closed.
This is important if you have many sites covering different topics and are worried about the effects cf Smart Pricing. You might want to open a separate account in a spouse’s name or open more than one business.
• You cannot modify the JavaScript or other code provided in any way.
Google is pretty strict about this. Cut into the code and you risk the axe.
180
• Web pages cannot contain solely ads, a Search Box or a referral button.
Blank pages with nothing more than AdSense ads are pretty rare; pages which contain only ads of different types are much more common. Google is working against these sorts of things and you’ll probably find yourself if flot banned, then almost certainly Smart Priced out.
• Ads cannot appear on pages that are “under construction,” used for registration, chat, contain aduit, objectionable or illegal content. And they can’t be used in emails either.
If you have a site that’s in any way morally objectionable, then AdSense isn’t for you. That’s the bottom une.
More relevant for most people though is the idea that you can’t put AdSense on every page of a website. There are ail sorts of pages on many people’s sites that really don’t contain any content, like password pages or error messages. You can’t use them as places to put ads.
• You cannot generate searches, clicks or impressions by any method other than genuine user interest.
So no automatic bots or clicking your own ads or any of that nonsense. That’sjust fraud and Google will spot it in a second.
• You cannot display anything on your Web page that could be confused as an AdSense ad.
That’s an interesting rule that prevents people from putting up affiliate links that look like ad units to try to cash in on Google’s brand. In theory, this rule could cause a problem for someone who blended the ads into the page by making link lists that looked similar to ad units. As long as those links aren’t ads though, and as long as you don’t write “Ads by G0000gle” on them, I doubt if Google would have a problem with them.
• You cannot put related images right next to an AdSense unit.
The old strategy of using images related to the ads to draws to ad units has gone. Google doesn’t want any picture next to an ad unit that looks like it’s part of the ad. There’s no clear definition of how far the images should be or how it defines ‘confusing’. The best bet is to use common sense, and if you’re going to put an image near ad unit, make it a logo, unrelated to the content of the ad unit or some part of the site.
• If you’re using a Google Search box, you cannot use any other search service on the page.
181
Again, Google wants a monopoly of services on your site. You can’t offer your users the option of searching through Google or Yahoo; it’s either-or, flot both-and.
• You cannot put anything between the ad Iink and the ad site.
So if you were thinking of trying to capture your lost traffic by redirecting ad clicks to another of your sites, think again. But who thinks of that?
• You cannot communicate to advertisers directly concerning the ads on your site.
That would have been quite useful. You could have written to an advertiser and suggested ways in which they could make their copy more effective for your users.
0f course, you could also suggest they advertise directly on your site and cut out the Google middleman...
lnterestingly though, you can do ail of this on your “Advertise on this site” landing page.
• You cannot change the order of the information in an ad unit.
This is pretty well covered by the ban on changing the code. But again, it might have been nice to put the ads that are most likely to get the most clicks at the top of the list, even if they pay less. But putting the ones with the highest bid price there though isn’t a bad idea either.
• You cannot reveal your click-through rates or any other information about your site performance.
Which is why I haven’t quoted my own CTR figures in this book. But you can reveal the amount of Google’s gross payments to you, which I have done.
These rules are ail pretty straightforward and for the most part, easy to follow. Usually, if someone has been banned from AdSense it’s because they’ve clicked on their own ads and Google didn’t believe that it was an accident. That’s just rotten luck.
22.1 The Biggest Mistakes That AdSense Publishers Make... And How To Avoid Them
Clicking on your own ads isn’t the only bad luck AdSense publishers have run into. There are lots of different ways that you can make a mistake when using AdSense and while some of them Google will be pretty quick to telI you about, others you’ll only feel in your pocket.
182
Here are seme of the biggest mistakes yeu can make when using AdSense. Be aware of them...and beware of them!
Big Mistake # 1: Not Being Familiar With Google’s TOS
On the one hand, this is an easy mistake to make. The terms cf service change ail the time and what’s legal one day could be illegal the next — and yeu ceuld know nothing about the change.
On the other hand though, if something you’ve been doing is suddenly made illegal you probably shouldn’t be doing it anyway.
The bettem une is to check the TOS regularly and to make a habit of browsing the AdSense forums. Even if you miss a change, it’s unlikely that other people will.
lt’s a mistake not to stay informed.
Big Mistake #2: Inviting Others To Click Ads
That click ing your own ads is a mistake is pretty clear. There’s no reason to do it and no excuse for deing it.
That aise includes asking other people te click on the ads for yeu.
For site ewners used te asking their users te support their sponsors, this can take some getting used to. Once the ads are up and optimized, there’s nething more that yeu can de te persuade people te click.
If you’ve got a une on your website that asks people to support your sponsors or if you’ve been asking people to click on your ads in any sort of way, you’re making a giant mistake.
That’s the sort of mistake that can get you banned.
Big Mistake #3: Using The Wrong Ad Blocks
These first twe mistakes will get yeu banned. The remaining mistakes will “only” cost you money.
Cheosing the wreng ad blecks is one cf the easiest mistakes te make. Almest any bleck can fit in almest any space but enly ene bleck will give yeu the highest revenues possible.
Use this bock as a guide te which blecks suit which locations best and check eut the case studies te see hew ether people are using a similar spot. Even if you’re happy with your resu Its SO far, it’s always possible that you cou Id do even better.
183
Sitting on your laurels with the wrong ad block is certainly a mistake.
Big Mistake #4: Using The Wrong Colors
Exactly the same is true of your choice of colors. Forget about looking for some nice contrast or coming up with some snazzy design, you want the colors in your ads to match the colors on your site.
The background color should be the same as the background of your site and the font colors should match too.
Any other color is usually a mistake.
Big Mistake #5: Poor Page Placement
Some places on your page are much more powerful than others. You want to put your ads where your users are going to be looking, not where they’ll make the page look good.
That might be at the beginning of an article, in the sidebar, at the top of the page, next to an image or any one of several dozen other spots.
Don’t be shy about putting your ads front and forward. As long as they’re blended into the site, they won’t be anything like as obtrusive as you think. They’ll be right in front of your users and attractive enough to click.
Big Mistake #6: Not Using AdLink Units
A common mistake that people make when they first start using AdSense is to assume that only the ad units are worth taking.
That’s a big mistake.
Clicks on AdLink units make up a serious part of my AdSense earnings. When used properly, they should be a serious part of your AdSense earnings too. Don’t overlook AdLink units just because they’re small. Put them in the right place and you’ll find that they can be very, very powerful
Big Mistake #7: Not Checking And Analyzing Stats
One of the biggest differences between AdSense publishers who get the big checks and AdSense publishers who earn pennies is that the big earners are addicted to reading their stats — and they understand what they’re reading.
lt’s very tempting once you’ve set up your site and put on your ads to just kick back and look at the bottom line. But the other lines telI you what’s working and what you should be doing.
Read your stats carefully and regularly.
184
Big Mistake # 8: I gnoring Channels
If you’re not sure how to use channels, don’t let it ride. Read the chapter on channels again, build some and play with them.
For some people channels can look a little scary. You have to build them from scratch, you might flot be too sure which channels you should create or what you should do with the data the channels should give you.
None of those is a good excuse. Channels are easy to build and they give you heaps 0f information about the way each 0f your Web pages is operating that you just couldn’t get anywhere else.
If you’re not using channels, you need to start.
Big Mistake #9: Not Keeping An AdSense Journal
When you were at school and your English teacher told you to keep a journal, you probably groaned, ignored her... and made up a month’s worth of entries the day before you were supposed to bring it in to class.
When you’re trying to make a lot of money with AdSense, keeping a journal is vital. lt’s the only way to keep track of your changes and what happened when you implemented those changes.
Every time you use a different ad block, push a different keyword or try a new location on the page, write it down, wait a week and write down the effect. If you’re doing the same thing time and time again because you forgot what happened when you did it last time, you’re wasting your time and your money.
Big Mistake # 10: Building Huge Sites Overnight
lt’s possible to go from no site to AdSense site in just a few minutes (plus the time it takes to get the confirmation letter). But it will take a little while longer to build the sort of massive site that keeps users coming back and builds a loyal base.
Sure, you can use free books to filI dozens of pages and you can use already prepared content, but neither of these methods are as good as creating a huge site filled with original material.
That takes time.
Rush it and it’s more likely you’ll end up with a lot of trash that kills your clicks and ruins your Smart Pricing than a quality site that makes you money. lt’s better to be small and good than big and bad.
185
Big Mistake # 11: Building Throwaway Sites
And if it’s a bad idea to build large trashy sites, it’s a terrible idea to build small, trashy sites.
Check out the AdSense forums long enough and there’s a good chance that you’ll come across plenty of publishers who believe not in creating good quality sites but in building small garbage-y ones and trying to squeeze as much revenue out of them as possible.
The advantage is that you can throw up a lot of them in a small amount of time and for little cost.
The disadvantage is that the returns are small too — and most important, they’re just no fun to do.
I thoroughly enjoy managing every one of the sites Ive created. lt’s because
I enjoy them that my users enjoy them. That keeps them coming back and it
keeps them clicking. And it keeps me coming back too.
If you’re building throwaway sites just to make a quick buck, you’re working too hard... and that’s a giant mistake.
Big Mistake # 12: Doing AdSense Halfway
This was the big mistake that I made for a long time. lt’s also the big mistake that about 95 percent of AdSense publishers are making.
They create their site, put up an AdSense, maybe they’ll optimize it a little (and maybe not), and then they’ll wait for the checks to come in.
Making a lot of money with AdSense will take a lot of work. It can make you more money than most people will make in most fulI-time jobs but it’s not the sort of thing you can throw up in a morning and then spend the afternoon shopping for your beach house in Cancun.
You can start earning in the morning. But if you want to make real money, you’re going to have to go ail the way.
Anything less is a big mistake.
Big Mistake # 13: OnIy Using AdSense
Don’t get me wrong, I still think that AdSense is the greatest way to earn money from a website short of buying Google.com. But ever since Google changed it TOS to allow other kinds of advertising systems on AdSense pages
— even other kinds of contextualized advertising systems — Ive been happily mixing, matching and earning even more.
186
You shouid certainiy use one of the text iink services like Kontera. You can use Chitika’s eMiniMails if you have a good product-related site. You can recommend affiliate products. You can mix different payment systems so that your pages are earning by impression, by click and by sale.
You shouid have every base covered and every income stream up and ru nn in g.
22.2 What To Do If Your AdSense Account Gets Closed
Most of the mistake peopie make at AdSense hit them in the waiiet. Some mistakes though can hit where it reaiiy hurts and get your account ciosed. So what shouid you do if you get that dreaded email from AdSense informing you that your account has been shut down?
Weii, the first thing to remember is that you’ve pretty much got no power at ail. Googie’s Terms make it very clear that they have the right to kick someone out of their program whenever they feei like it and there’s no court of appeai.
But the peopie at Googie aren’t a nasty bunch and they wiii listen to you if you feei you’ve been hard done by. Your first step then shouid be to send them an email asking why you’ve been banned and expiaining that your click was accidentai.
Usuaiiy, as long as you’re telling the truth and there weren’t too many clicks, you shouid be fine. Simiiariy, if you know you’ve ciicked on your own ads — or if you know that someone else has been ciicking on your ads (that can happen too sometimes) — you shouid drop Googie a une immediately. You’ii iose the value of those clicks, but at least you’ii keep your account open.
And if ail else fails and you find yourseif cut off, there’s aiways Yahoo! Pubiisher Network combined with Chitika and Kontera ads.
it’s uniikeiy you’ii make as much as you did with AdSense, but you wiii stiil make something.
At the risk of sou nding like a commercial, one of the best ways to prove that you didn’t click your own ads if you receive the dreaded “invaiid clicks” email from Googie, is to use AdSense Detective. By tracking ail clicks and their origination, your AdSense Detective 10g couid come in handy to prove your innocence if needed.
187
Google is very protective cf its AdSense program and is a pretty strict ad provider. It has a relatively long page cf Terms and Conditions
(www.google.com/adsense/terms) and monitors sites pretty closely. While YPN usually sends a warning to sites that it believes have broken its terms and conditions, Google has been known to cut people off right away.
And that can be pretty painful.
I do recommend that you read the AdSense Terms and Conditions. I realize that they’re flot much fun and they’re hardly a gripping read, but they are important, especially when you start really pushing your ads to their limits. To make it easier for you though, I ‘ve gone through those terms and pulled out the most important restrictions contained in them.
This Iist is not a replacement for reading the Terms page — you’re still going to have to do that. They just might make it clearer 50 that you’re Iess Iikely to make a very costly mistake.
• One individual or entity cannot hold more than one AdSense account; ail accounts will be closed.
This is important if you have many sites covering different topics and are worried about the effects cf Smart Pricing. You might want to open a separate account in a spouse’s name or open more than one business.
• You cannot modify the JavaScript or other code provided in any way.
Google is pretty strict about this. Cut into the code and you risk the axe.
180
• Web pages cannot contain solely ads, a Search Box or a referral button.
Blank pages with nothing more than AdSense ads are pretty rare; pages which contain only ads of different types are much more common. Google is working against these sorts of things and you’ll probably find yourself if flot banned, then almost certainly Smart Priced out.
• Ads cannot appear on pages that are “under construction,” used for registration, chat, contain aduit, objectionable or illegal content. And they can’t be used in emails either.
If you have a site that’s in any way morally objectionable, then AdSense isn’t for you. That’s the bottom une.
More relevant for most people though is the idea that you can’t put AdSense on every page of a website. There are ail sorts of pages on many people’s sites that really don’t contain any content, like password pages or error messages. You can’t use them as places to put ads.
• You cannot generate searches, clicks or impressions by any method other than genuine user interest.
So no automatic bots or clicking your own ads or any of that nonsense. That’sjust fraud and Google will spot it in a second.
• You cannot display anything on your Web page that could be confused as an AdSense ad.
That’s an interesting rule that prevents people from putting up affiliate links that look like ad units to try to cash in on Google’s brand. In theory, this rule could cause a problem for someone who blended the ads into the page by making link lists that looked similar to ad units. As long as those links aren’t ads though, and as long as you don’t write “Ads by G0000gle” on them, I doubt if Google would have a problem with them.
• You cannot put related images right next to an AdSense unit.
The old strategy of using images related to the ads to draws to ad units has gone. Google doesn’t want any picture next to an ad unit that looks like it’s part of the ad. There’s no clear definition of how far the images should be or how it defines ‘confusing’. The best bet is to use common sense, and if you’re going to put an image near ad unit, make it a logo, unrelated to the content of the ad unit or some part of the site.
• If you’re using a Google Search box, you cannot use any other search service on the page.
181
Again, Google wants a monopoly of services on your site. You can’t offer your users the option of searching through Google or Yahoo; it’s either-or, flot both-and.
• You cannot put anything between the ad Iink and the ad site.
So if you were thinking of trying to capture your lost traffic by redirecting ad clicks to another of your sites, think again. But who thinks of that?
• You cannot communicate to advertisers directly concerning the ads on your site.
That would have been quite useful. You could have written to an advertiser and suggested ways in which they could make their copy more effective for your users.
0f course, you could also suggest they advertise directly on your site and cut out the Google middleman...
lnterestingly though, you can do ail of this on your “Advertise on this site” landing page.
• You cannot change the order of the information in an ad unit.
This is pretty well covered by the ban on changing the code. But again, it might have been nice to put the ads that are most likely to get the most clicks at the top of the list, even if they pay less. But putting the ones with the highest bid price there though isn’t a bad idea either.
• You cannot reveal your click-through rates or any other information about your site performance.
Which is why I haven’t quoted my own CTR figures in this book. But you can reveal the amount of Google’s gross payments to you, which I have done.
These rules are ail pretty straightforward and for the most part, easy to follow. Usually, if someone has been banned from AdSense it’s because they’ve clicked on their own ads and Google didn’t believe that it was an accident. That’s just rotten luck.
22.1 The Biggest Mistakes That AdSense Publishers Make... And How To Avoid Them
Clicking on your own ads isn’t the only bad luck AdSense publishers have run into. There are lots of different ways that you can make a mistake when using AdSense and while some of them Google will be pretty quick to telI you about, others you’ll only feel in your pocket.
182
Here are seme of the biggest mistakes yeu can make when using AdSense. Be aware of them...and beware of them!
Big Mistake # 1: Not Being Familiar With Google’s TOS
On the one hand, this is an easy mistake to make. The terms cf service change ail the time and what’s legal one day could be illegal the next — and yeu ceuld know nothing about the change.
On the other hand though, if something you’ve been doing is suddenly made illegal you probably shouldn’t be doing it anyway.
The bettem une is to check the TOS regularly and to make a habit of browsing the AdSense forums. Even if you miss a change, it’s unlikely that other people will.
lt’s a mistake not to stay informed.
Big Mistake #2: Inviting Others To Click Ads
That click ing your own ads is a mistake is pretty clear. There’s no reason to do it and no excuse for deing it.
That aise includes asking other people te click on the ads for yeu.
For site ewners used te asking their users te support their sponsors, this can take some getting used to. Once the ads are up and optimized, there’s nething more that yeu can de te persuade people te click.
If you’ve got a une on your website that asks people to support your sponsors or if you’ve been asking people to click on your ads in any sort of way, you’re making a giant mistake.
That’s the sort of mistake that can get you banned.
Big Mistake #3: Using The Wrong Ad Blocks
These first twe mistakes will get yeu banned. The remaining mistakes will “only” cost you money.
Cheosing the wreng ad blecks is one cf the easiest mistakes te make. Almest any bleck can fit in almest any space but enly ene bleck will give yeu the highest revenues possible.
Use this bock as a guide te which blecks suit which locations best and check eut the case studies te see hew ether people are using a similar spot. Even if you’re happy with your resu Its SO far, it’s always possible that you cou Id do even better.
183
Sitting on your laurels with the wrong ad block is certainly a mistake.
Big Mistake #4: Using The Wrong Colors
Exactly the same is true of your choice of colors. Forget about looking for some nice contrast or coming up with some snazzy design, you want the colors in your ads to match the colors on your site.
The background color should be the same as the background of your site and the font colors should match too.
Any other color is usually a mistake.
Big Mistake #5: Poor Page Placement
Some places on your page are much more powerful than others. You want to put your ads where your users are going to be looking, not where they’ll make the page look good.
That might be at the beginning of an article, in the sidebar, at the top of the page, next to an image or any one of several dozen other spots.
Don’t be shy about putting your ads front and forward. As long as they’re blended into the site, they won’t be anything like as obtrusive as you think. They’ll be right in front of your users and attractive enough to click.
Big Mistake #6: Not Using AdLink Units
A common mistake that people make when they first start using AdSense is to assume that only the ad units are worth taking.
That’s a big mistake.
Clicks on AdLink units make up a serious part of my AdSense earnings. When used properly, they should be a serious part of your AdSense earnings too. Don’t overlook AdLink units just because they’re small. Put them in the right place and you’ll find that they can be very, very powerful
Big Mistake #7: Not Checking And Analyzing Stats
One of the biggest differences between AdSense publishers who get the big checks and AdSense publishers who earn pennies is that the big earners are addicted to reading their stats — and they understand what they’re reading.
lt’s very tempting once you’ve set up your site and put on your ads to just kick back and look at the bottom line. But the other lines telI you what’s working and what you should be doing.
Read your stats carefully and regularly.
184
Big Mistake # 8: I gnoring Channels
If you’re not sure how to use channels, don’t let it ride. Read the chapter on channels again, build some and play with them.
For some people channels can look a little scary. You have to build them from scratch, you might flot be too sure which channels you should create or what you should do with the data the channels should give you.
None of those is a good excuse. Channels are easy to build and they give you heaps 0f information about the way each 0f your Web pages is operating that you just couldn’t get anywhere else.
If you’re not using channels, you need to start.
Big Mistake #9: Not Keeping An AdSense Journal
When you were at school and your English teacher told you to keep a journal, you probably groaned, ignored her... and made up a month’s worth of entries the day before you were supposed to bring it in to class.
When you’re trying to make a lot of money with AdSense, keeping a journal is vital. lt’s the only way to keep track of your changes and what happened when you implemented those changes.
Every time you use a different ad block, push a different keyword or try a new location on the page, write it down, wait a week and write down the effect. If you’re doing the same thing time and time again because you forgot what happened when you did it last time, you’re wasting your time and your money.
Big Mistake # 10: Building Huge Sites Overnight
lt’s possible to go from no site to AdSense site in just a few minutes (plus the time it takes to get the confirmation letter). But it will take a little while longer to build the sort of massive site that keeps users coming back and builds a loyal base.
Sure, you can use free books to filI dozens of pages and you can use already prepared content, but neither of these methods are as good as creating a huge site filled with original material.
That takes time.
Rush it and it’s more likely you’ll end up with a lot of trash that kills your clicks and ruins your Smart Pricing than a quality site that makes you money. lt’s better to be small and good than big and bad.
185
Big Mistake # 11: Building Throwaway Sites
And if it’s a bad idea to build large trashy sites, it’s a terrible idea to build small, trashy sites.
Check out the AdSense forums long enough and there’s a good chance that you’ll come across plenty of publishers who believe not in creating good quality sites but in building small garbage-y ones and trying to squeeze as much revenue out of them as possible.
The advantage is that you can throw up a lot of them in a small amount of time and for little cost.
The disadvantage is that the returns are small too — and most important, they’re just no fun to do.
I thoroughly enjoy managing every one of the sites Ive created. lt’s because
I enjoy them that my users enjoy them. That keeps them coming back and it
keeps them clicking. And it keeps me coming back too.
If you’re building throwaway sites just to make a quick buck, you’re working too hard... and that’s a giant mistake.
Big Mistake # 12: Doing AdSense Halfway
This was the big mistake that I made for a long time. lt’s also the big mistake that about 95 percent of AdSense publishers are making.
They create their site, put up an AdSense, maybe they’ll optimize it a little (and maybe not), and then they’ll wait for the checks to come in.
Making a lot of money with AdSense will take a lot of work. It can make you more money than most people will make in most fulI-time jobs but it’s not the sort of thing you can throw up in a morning and then spend the afternoon shopping for your beach house in Cancun.
You can start earning in the morning. But if you want to make real money, you’re going to have to go ail the way.
Anything less is a big mistake.
Big Mistake # 13: OnIy Using AdSense
Don’t get me wrong, I still think that AdSense is the greatest way to earn money from a website short of buying Google.com. But ever since Google changed it TOS to allow other kinds of advertising systems on AdSense pages
— even other kinds of contextualized advertising systems — Ive been happily mixing, matching and earning even more.
186
You shouid certainiy use one of the text iink services like Kontera. You can use Chitika’s eMiniMails if you have a good product-related site. You can recommend affiliate products. You can mix different payment systems so that your pages are earning by impression, by click and by sale.
You shouid have every base covered and every income stream up and ru nn in g.
22.2 What To Do If Your AdSense Account Gets Closed
Most of the mistake peopie make at AdSense hit them in the waiiet. Some mistakes though can hit where it reaiiy hurts and get your account ciosed. So what shouid you do if you get that dreaded email from AdSense informing you that your account has been shut down?
Weii, the first thing to remember is that you’ve pretty much got no power at ail. Googie’s Terms make it very clear that they have the right to kick someone out of their program whenever they feei like it and there’s no court of appeai.
But the peopie at Googie aren’t a nasty bunch and they wiii listen to you if you feei you’ve been hard done by. Your first step then shouid be to send them an email asking why you’ve been banned and expiaining that your click was accidentai.
Usuaiiy, as long as you’re telling the truth and there weren’t too many clicks, you shouid be fine. Simiiariy, if you know you’ve ciicked on your own ads — or if you know that someone else has been ciicking on your ads (that can happen too sometimes) — you shouid drop Googie a une immediately. You’ii iose the value of those clicks, but at least you’ii keep your account open.
And if ail else fails and you find yourseif cut off, there’s aiways Yahoo! Pubiisher Network combined with Chitika and Kontera ads.
it’s uniikeiy you’ii make as much as you did with AdSense, but you wiii stiil make something.
At the risk of sou nding like a commercial, one of the best ways to prove that you didn’t click your own ads if you receive the dreaded “invaiid clicks” email from Googie, is to use AdSense Detective. By tracking ail clicks and their origination, your AdSense Detective 10g couid come in handy to prove your innocence if needed.
187
20. Getting Traffic To Your Web Site
One of the most frequent questions I am asked is “Will your ebook teach me how to get more traffic to my web site?” Lots of people have written books — and series of books — on generating traffic. The focus of this ebook is to show you how to maximize the traffic that you already have. And while tips
165
for building pages through forums and free content are excellent ideas, they are no replacement for a solid course on how to get more people to visit your site. Because this question is 50 common though, I will address it briefly in this chapter. III give you the basics, describe some unusual ideas that some people are using and telI you where you can get ail the information you need.
In the next chapter, you’ll also find a quick run-through of search engine o pt i m i za t ion.
20.1 Advertising
Lets start with the obvious: buying advertising. We’ve already talked about AdWords/AdSense arbitrage but exactly the same principle applies to buying your traffic from other sources too.
For example, the minimum price for advertising at Overture is ten cents per click and you must spend at least $20 each month. If you can see that the ads being served on your site are generating less than ten cents per click then you’re neyer going to make a profit.
Exactly the same is true of any other pay-per-click advertising campaign.
One of the advantages of following your AdSense stats is that you can estimate how much the clicks on your ads are worth. That can telI you how much you can afford to pay for clicks from other sites when you buy advertising.
It might well pay to advertise, but before you buy make sure it pays a profit.
20.2 Reciprocal Linking
Many people focus on lin king in order to improve their search engine rankings. That’s important but don’t forget that the links themselves can be one of your biggest sources of traffic!
Probably the easiest way to invite links (apart from searching out related sites and writing to each one) is to add a “link” section to your pages where webmasters can choose a banner, button or text link to place on their site. On the same page, they can also submit their own site for linking. That should help you swap links without being swamped by sites looking for free placement.
The most critical factor when requesting a link though is where the site places it. Links on the home page always do better than a link buried on one
166
of the internai pages and a good banner or graphic iink on a site with content reiated to yours wiii usuaiiy get more ciicks than a text iink.
if you find that your iinks aren’t appearing on the pages you want, there are a cou pie of simpie remedies that you can use.
The first is to ask for a better position! if you have a good reiationship with the webmaster or if it’s a smaii site, there’s a good chance that they’ii agree. it certainiy won’t hurt to ask.
Not everyone is 50 generous though, and another option is to offer something in return. A iink in a simiiar position on your own site can make a good deai if your sites are of simiiar size but you can aiso offer content or even a speciai page for that sites users.
if you have a site about furniture for exampie, and you want a iink at a top directory for home furnishings then you couid create a speciai weicome page for users of that site to draw them deeper into yours and deiiver targeted ads. You might even want to go as far as creating a sort of co-branded version of your site for their users to ciick into. As iong as you’re getting paid when the users ciick on the ads, what do you care whose design they’re iooking at?
20.3 SendAFriend
There’s nothing iike virai marketing to promote your site! it’s free, it comes with trusted recommendations and it gives you great CTR.
Each of your content pages shouid have a iink marked “Send a friend” which opens a form 50 that the user can send your URL onwards. Untii Googie aiiows ads in emaii, there’s iittie point in AdSense mem bers sending actuai content but there’s no reason why you (or your users) can’t send iinks to pages with ads.
20.4 RSS Feeds
One of the chaiienges of keeping your user base is that readers can be pretty forgetfui. Adding an RSS feed to your site is a great way to iet peopie know that a new post has gone up and that they shouid stop by and take a iook
You’ii want to make sure that your headiines are attractive and inviting. Many users don’t iook past them, SO if they don’t do the job, the post won’t be opened or read, and the user won’t ciick to your site. images can aiso heip your feeds to stand out.
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lt’s rarely a good idea to send more than RSS post to a subscriber each day. The mest cemmen reason that users unsubscribe isn’t poor content or too much advertising, but toc many pests.
One geed strategy then is te divide your RSS feeds by theme and let subscribers enly receive pests en the tepics that interest them mest. If you’re writing about a range of different themes, that sheuld already help te keep the deliveries dewn te a manageable level.
The only other choice you’ll have to make is whether to include the whole pest in yeur feed or just a teaser te bring people te yeur site. When the goal cf the feed is te get people back te yeur site te click the ads, yeu might think that there’s little point in giving them the whole article in their feed reader. But readers will often unsubscribe if they can’t see the whole article. That weuld reduce yeur subscriber base. Yeu might be better off giving them the whele article and inviting them back te yeur site te add and see cemments. Test beth options and see which werks best fer yeu.
20.5 Offline Marketing
One cf the biggest mistakes that people make when they build an Internet business is to forget that there’s a world outside the Internet! Just because you make money out of traffic doesn’t mean you have to source ail of that traffic enline.
Yeu sheuld make sure that yeur URL is listed en ail cf yeur marketing material: yeur business cards, Yellew Pages ads, flyers, envelepes, freebies and just about anything else yeu can think cf.
Yeu sheuld certainly have yeur site address in yeur email signatures.
20.6 Promoting Your BIog
Ive talked quite a bit about blogging in this bock, mestly because I knew from experience that it’s possible to make a very nice income from a good blog but also because a lot of people aren’t making the most of the blogs they have.
If you’ve got AdSense on your blog, there’s a whole range cf different things that yeu can easily de te increase yeur traffic and earn extra cash.
The first thing yeu sheuld de is make sure that yeur bleg is set te ping rpc.pingematic.cem as seon as you’ve updated. Pingomatic.com offers a free
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ali-in-one pinging service that covers ail the large blog directories and search engines. On Blogger.com, you can find this in your settings; other blog tools, such as Movable Type and Wordpress have a similar option.
You should also set up an RSS feed to let people know when you update. Apart from the fact that you can now place ads on your feeds, it will also keep your regular users coming back to see more ads (and to see your latest posts).
I nstead 0f linking to the previous month’s or the previous week’s posts, each page should also have its own link. Sounds obvious, right? And yet how many blogs have you seen with one link to about twenty different entries? One link per entry means more pages for ads, better links from external sites and higher search engine rankings.
You should certainly comment on other people’s blogs, especially those that write about the same sort of things as your site, but ultimately the best way to get traffic to your blog is to make it good. If your writing is dulI or difficult to read, it doesn’t matter how hard you push it, no one will want to read it — and those who do stay won’t stick around to click the ads.
20.7 Public Relations And Publicity
Just about ail of the methods that you use to bring people to your site will cost you money. You’ll have to pay for ads on other sites, you’ll have to give up valuable real estate on your site to lists of links and you’ll have to decide how much you want to pay for an AdWords campaign or to get yourself promoted through Overture.
Publicity can be free.
It doesn’t have to be of course. You can pay a PR expert to publicize your site for you and place articles in the press on your behalf... but it’s not necessary and they can be too expensive for most sites, especially at the beginning.
Or you can simply create a good quality press release yourself, fax it out to the media and wait for reporters to calI.
Sound difficult?
It really isn’t. A press release is just one page and will take between twenty and forty minutes to write.
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There are a number of rules you have to follow: you need a gripping headiine; you have to include a quote; and you have to be available for the interview to narne just three. Most irnportantly though you have to have a story the press wants to run.
Telling them that you’ve just launched a new site isn’t going to cut it. Telling them that your new site is going to set a new trend or change some people’s lives just rnight.
Think about the effect that your piece of “news” wiII have on the public and you’ve got the beginnings of a great story.
And what do you get in return for doing that? Well, not only do you get the narne of your business in the press, you also get the halo that cornes with it. When you’re in the media, people assume that you’re an expert. You becorne the nurnber one source for whatever your website offers.
And to underline that fact, you can even put a button on your horne page that says something like: “As Seen On CNN!”
Sound good?
The real expert on rnarketing through free publicity is Paul Hartunian. This is the guy who bought a hunk of wood that had been cut frorn the Brooklyn Bridge during renovations, cut it into one-inch cubes and wrote a press release with the headline “New Jersey Man SelIs Brooklyn Bridge For
$19.95”.
He was on CNN for two days and the story was run as far away as Peru.
He now lives on a 30-acre estate and teaches people how to use publicity for
their businesses. You can order his publicity kit at www.hartunian.corn.
20.8 Learn From A Pro
Do you know John Reese? If not, you probably haven’t spent much time in Internet rnarketing circles. John is the leading guru for teaching people how to get rnore traffic to their web site(s). He leads special rnulti-day serninars to srnall groups, charging up to $5000/person to attend. And you know what? His students walk away feeling that they got a BARGAI N!
John has now rnade his rnarketing course available to the general public at a FRACTION of the cost. lt’s full of DVDs, audio CDs, textbooks, workbooks and tip sheets to help you build a cornprehensive Internet rnarketing strategy.
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I own a CO 0f John’s Traffic Secrets and am pleased to give it my very personal endorsement. While I could attempt to teach you everything I know about Internet marketing, there is no point in attempting to reinvent the wheel. Everything you need to know is in this is course, and the investment is very minor for people who intend to build a successful Internet business that wiII Iast.
If you want to read more about John’s Traffic Secrets course, click the Iink below.
TrafficSecrets.com
21. Search Engine Optimization
In the previous chapter, I talked about a number of different ways that you can increase your traffic. Probably the most important method though is to get a high ranking on search engines. That’s free traffic.
Again, there are ail sorts of books and experts who can help you improve your SEC and win a top spot for a site. I have had experience with a number of strategies that could help you improve your ranking. I’d like to share them with you now.
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pict21.jpg
21.1 Robot.txt
The first thing you need to know about indexing your site at search engines is that you control which pages are indexed and which are excluded. You do that with a file called robots.txt.
Robots.txt contains nothing more than a record of which robots should index which pages.
Without going into too much detail, there are two conventions used in a robots.txt file:
User-agent: [Defines which robots the site is addressing.]
Disallow: [Allows you to list the sites or robots you want to exclu de.]
In general, you’re probably going to use “User-agent: *“ to make sure that you’re addressing the robots of every search engine and you’ll probably want include ail of your pages (although you might want to exclude your directories: “Disallow: !cgi-bin!”).
Robots.txt just allows you to control which robots index which pages. lt’s important to have in your directory but it won’t really increase your search engine rankings.
Titles, URL’s and links are much more important.
21.2 Titles And URLs
I mentioned earlier that Metatags just aren’t what they used to be. I also said that it’s important that your titles and URLs contain the most important keywords for each of your pages in order to keep the ads relevant.
But those titles and URLs don’t just influence your ads; they also affect your search engine rankings.
A page about toy cars called cars.html might have a low ranking when someone looks for information about cars. Change the name to toy_cars.html and you should get a much higher ranking when someone looks for “toy cars”.
The more relevant your URL is and the easier it is to read, the better. www.domain.com/page is always an improvement than
http:!/domain.com!page.php?newsid= 1234583373. That’s why on my website www.familyfirst.com, I use URL’s like
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www.famiIyfirst.com/miss_abigaiIs_time_warp.htmI rather than strings cf num ber which confuse the robots.
One cf the first places you should look when you want to improve your rankings then is your titles and URLs.
21.3 Links
The more links you have, the better. And the better the sites that list those links the more they’ll be worth. It is always worth aiming to put your links on sites that look good and have high rankings. In fact, being listed on a poor site can bring your ranking down.
One of the best places to place Iinks to improve your search engine rankings is on forums. This isn’t an exchange; you post your links on their site, they don’t post their links on yours.
Make sure you browse forums regularly, add comments and include your URL in your signature. You’re likely to get the best results on good forums related to your topic but dont be fussy. Even unrelated forums can help to improve your search engine ranking.
Google’s spiders love forums and review them every week. And because these sites tend have quite high ranking, those posts will do wonders for your listings.
0f course, you shouldn’t ignore the SEO forums themselves for some good tips. www.searchengineforums.com is one good place to browse and http://forums.seochat.com is another. You should also check out my own forum www.AdSenseChat.com. Although this is mostly about AdSense optimization, not surprisingly, SEC issues are discussed often, especially as they relate to AdSense. lt’s a great source to dig up new ideas.
And if you’re going to putting your links ail over the forums, why flot do the same thing for blogs?
You can think of blogs as places to read som eone’s writings if you like, but don’t forget they also let you add your own feedback. That means that as an AdSense publisher, you should also be thinking of them as free places to post your links. Again, any blog is good but top blogs on your topic are probably the best.
Don’t forget to check out the SEO blogs too. wwwseobookcom is a good one, www.bradfallon.com is another and of course there’s my own blog at wwwjoelcommcom. You’re welcome to leave your links there!
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lt’s not just blogs and forum that that let you leave your details though. There are plenty of sites that welcome free content and would be happy to display your Iink if it means that they get an article in return. Start by looking at other sites on your topic and then try
www.ezinearticles.com. You don’t even need to write anything original when you do this. If you write a new entry to your blog, submit it to an article site at the same time as you upload it to your blog. Who knows where your links will end up?
The easiest way to put your links across the Web though is to do a link exchange. If you’ve got friends who have websites, start there. That’s very easy.
While linking from friends’ sites is straightforward and cost-free, www.linkmetro.com makes the whole Iink exchange process very formai. There’s a giant range of different sites that you can exchange links with 50 you can keep your links relevant and your ranking good and high.
You can also buy links on sites like www.Adzaar.com, www.AdBrite.com, and www.LinkAdage.com. Again, these allow you to choose sites on which you can place your own links but charge a fee for the process.
On my own site www.buyjoeldessert.com, for exam pie, I give page links to people who satisfy my sweet tooth with a donation to my cause. (1m still hungry by the way, 50 feel free to sign up, improve your rankings and make my dentist happy!)
Select and click the button below once.
3 Musketeers Bars $2.00 Love that chewy nougat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Homemade are best $3.00 D
Ads bv Gooaoooqle
Sponsors
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Hot Fude Sundae
With whippecl cream, yum $5.00 fl
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• Free Trpt Readincis
• WhiDlash 1niur
• Rowenas GoUrmet Cakes
• Rent 2 Own Homes
• TheZenofThin
• Perfumenut .com
• Couoon Codes Onhne
• Oavids Deal
• Asbestos Rernopal
• Billiofluepe
• Rorne Wallace
• Fractienal Ownershio
• Windows Reoistrv deaner
Chocolate Cake
Gotta have a whole cake $10.00 D
Fed By:
Rowenas Double Delicious Chocolate Cake $25.00 E
Or Define Vour Dessert:
• Scott Hildenbrand
• Rluearass Basset Rescue
• KoIIey K
• 3errold FoUtz
• aood eats
• Angeia Roberts
• Sieve Greerr
• Debra Sawvers
• Keith Woolley
• Bambini Kids
• CaroTana
• The Sam Fredom Phenornenon
• Km Sn, der
• Terr StockdaI
• 5ar Na
Feed Joel Comrn’ I
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Fig. 21.1 Links for sale on BuyJoelDessert.com.
I know of several associates who have done something similar, allowing their visitors a tangible way f0 say “thank you” for their online efforts. Smart site owners see opportunity in this strategy as you can acquire quality links rather inexpensively. Here are some additional examples:
www.buyleoalatte.com
www.buybarbaracoffee.com
You can actually acquire the “Buy Me A Drink” script that ail these sites run
on. Click here!
And finally, one resource that I highly recommend is WebRing
(www.webring.com). This is such an easy way to gather links on relevant sites that I can’t believe ifs not the talk of the net.
The idea is to link together sites on similar topics 50 that users can quickly find topics that they’re interested in. Nice for them. But ifs nicer for you when a bunch of links from similar sites rocket your SEO ranking. That’s exactly what Google and other search engines are looking for when they rank sites.
That makes WebRing a hugely powerful tool.
WebRing: We Bring the Internet
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175
Fig. 21.2 WebRing makes Iinking easy
21.4 Create Gateways
Usually, your Iinks wiII Iead directly to your home page. That’s where you see your site as starting and that’s where you want them to enter.
But if the content the user wants to see is on one of the internai pages, there’s no reason for them to have to ciick around to find it. Fui that page with keywords that reiate to the content on that page and it wiii have its own search engine ranking — and weii-targeted ads.
So if you have a site about cats and one of your pages was about cat food, it wouid make sense to put pienty of cat food keywords on the page. That wouid get you cat food ads and a high ranking on search engines when someone does a search for “cat food” rather than just peopie who wanted to know about “cats.”
21.5 Automatic Submissions
Submitting your site to au of the search engines from Googie and Yahoo! right down to the smaiiest ones, and optimizing each of your pages for high ranking can be a drag. You aiso have to keep submitting the site on a reguiar basis and constantiy check your position if you want to keep it.
The search engines are aiways re-indexing and reorganizing. A site that can be in the top spot one week can be a coupie of pages over a week iater. (Good news if you’re iow down, not 50 good if you’ve spent hours changing your pages to ciimb the rankings.)
That’s why many webmasters simpiy outsource their SEO 50 that they can con centrate on content.
There are iots of companies that do this. Search Engine Biaster for exam pie, iets you choose from over 600,000 engines but there are pienty of others.
Personaiiy, i think that’s a bit of a waste of time. Oniy Googie, Yahoo and MSN are important, in that order.
21.6 SEOTools
There are a number of toois that i recommend to heip with search engine optimization. The first is the Googie Tooibar, which wiii iet you keep track of
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your page ranking. You can download it for free at http://toolbar.poocile.com/poocilebar.htm I.
- Googlebar IJ
Fig. 19.2 The Google Toolbar: Pretty and useful too.
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The Alexa toolbar is also useful and will show you how your site ranks against others. You can download the Alexa toolbar at
http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/guicktour.html
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Fig. 21.3 The Alexa Toolbar: Is your site number one yet?
In short, you can find out exactly how your competitors have got to the top of the search engines, learn what they did — and do the exact same thing to swipe their spot.
You can learn more about SEC Elite and pick up your copy from www.adsense-secrets.com/seoelite.html
Reciprocal Manager
Reciprocal Manager takes much of the headache out of
managing your links. As you continue to optimize your
site, you will find yourself winning yourself more links
on other sites and being asked to host links from other
site. Reciprocal Manager creates a professional-looking,
neatly organized links directory that’s good for both ;1
—;0]
SEO Elite
SEC Elite is a really excellent tool for learning from your most successful
competitors. You can discover the optimum number
___________ of times to repeat keywords, where you should put
them, whether or not to use hi and h2 tags and even your competitors’ link strategies, and a huge amount more.
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pict22.jpg
your link partn ers and your visitors.
The program also lets you offer sites the option of placing their links on more than one site at the same time and, most importantly, to search for other sites to link to based on search word or phrase.
Learn more about Reciprocal Manager at http://www.reciprocalmanager.com.
Stomping The Search Engines
Finally, Brad Fallon is one of the biggest experts when it comes to SEC optimization. His wedding favors site grossed over $1 ,000,000 within a short time of launching, mainly due to his ability to get his site prime
placement in Google and the other search engines.
jlfr#J l’ve met Brad and chatted to him about his SEO optimization and I can telI you, he knows his stuff! I
thought I knew a bunch about SEC, but after spending a couple of h ours with Brad, I feel like a novice.
You can have thousands of web pages, but without a great search engine optimization plan, you many not be making the money you want to with AdSense. I HlGHLYrecommend picking up Brad Fallon’s 10 audio CD series, Stomping the Search Engines. It is over 8 hours of Brad’s teaching on how to duplicate his success for your web site(s).
I own the set and have begun listening to it. It is truly FULL of incredible material that you will find very useful to helping you reach your goals.
To read more about Stomping the Search Engines and acquire your own copy, click this link: http://www.adsense-secrets.com/seoexpert.html.
21.7 A Word About Cloaking
Cne issue that surfaced recently in the contextualized advertising world is “cloaking”: presenting a different site to the Google bot than the one you present to users.
There can be good reasons for doing this. If you’ve got a forum for example, the bot could read ail the information on your page related to forums, links and the design etc., find that it outweighs your forum content and serve you ads related to forums in general instead of your site in particular.
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pict23.jpg
You could also find that your search engine listings are affected toc: instead cf appearing nice and high on the results page following a search for your topic, you might only appear to people looking for forums. That’s not likely to win you rnuch traffic.
One solution is to strip the site down using javascript or one cf the tools available online 50 that when the Google bot cornes, it only reads the content.
0f course, you could also fool the bot into thinking that your site is about... well, anything really. You could sparn Google into showing your site to anyone who was searching for anything.
And that’s why Google banned the practice altogether.
Any form of cloaking, whether it’s to get better targeted ads, improve your search engine rankings... or spam the search engines isa breach of Google’s T0S and could get you banned.
So what should you do if you find that your design has a bigger influence on your ads and ranking than your content?
The best — and sirnplest thing to do — is to rnake sure that the description and keyword rneta tags are ail filled in properly with terrns relevant to your content.
Section Targeting can de-ernphasize problernatic areas cf your website and might well affect your search engine rankings (it’s certainly worth a try).
And if these don’t solve your problem, you might want to think of a redesign.
21.8 TrafficAndConversion.com
I said at the beginning cf this chapter that this bock is about AdSense and not about SEO rankings. That’s because I know much more about AdSense than I do about search engine optirnization.
We ail have our strong points and AdSense is rnine.
If you’re looking for someone whose strong point is search engine optirnization though, I recornrnend Mark Widawer at
www.trafficandconversion .corn.
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Many of the ideas in this chapter came as a resuit cf me raiding his brain for some great strategies. If you’re looking for more of the same, you should definitely check out his site and see what he has to say.
You won’t regret it.
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for building pages through forums and free content are excellent ideas, they are no replacement for a solid course on how to get more people to visit your site. Because this question is 50 common though, I will address it briefly in this chapter. III give you the basics, describe some unusual ideas that some people are using and telI you where you can get ail the information you need.
In the next chapter, you’ll also find a quick run-through of search engine o pt i m i za t ion.
20.1 Advertising
Lets start with the obvious: buying advertising. We’ve already talked about AdWords/AdSense arbitrage but exactly the same principle applies to buying your traffic from other sources too.
For example, the minimum price for advertising at Overture is ten cents per click and you must spend at least $20 each month. If you can see that the ads being served on your site are generating less than ten cents per click then you’re neyer going to make a profit.
Exactly the same is true of any other pay-per-click advertising campaign.
One of the advantages of following your AdSense stats is that you can estimate how much the clicks on your ads are worth. That can telI you how much you can afford to pay for clicks from other sites when you buy advertising.
It might well pay to advertise, but before you buy make sure it pays a profit.
20.2 Reciprocal Linking
Many people focus on lin king in order to improve their search engine rankings. That’s important but don’t forget that the links themselves can be one of your biggest sources of traffic!
Probably the easiest way to invite links (apart from searching out related sites and writing to each one) is to add a “link” section to your pages where webmasters can choose a banner, button or text link to place on their site. On the same page, they can also submit their own site for linking. That should help you swap links without being swamped by sites looking for free placement.
The most critical factor when requesting a link though is where the site places it. Links on the home page always do better than a link buried on one
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of the internai pages and a good banner or graphic iink on a site with content reiated to yours wiii usuaiiy get more ciicks than a text iink.
if you find that your iinks aren’t appearing on the pages you want, there are a cou pie of simpie remedies that you can use.
The first is to ask for a better position! if you have a good reiationship with the webmaster or if it’s a smaii site, there’s a good chance that they’ii agree. it certainiy won’t hurt to ask.
Not everyone is 50 generous though, and another option is to offer something in return. A iink in a simiiar position on your own site can make a good deai if your sites are of simiiar size but you can aiso offer content or even a speciai page for that sites users.
if you have a site about furniture for exampie, and you want a iink at a top directory for home furnishings then you couid create a speciai weicome page for users of that site to draw them deeper into yours and deiiver targeted ads. You might even want to go as far as creating a sort of co-branded version of your site for their users to ciick into. As iong as you’re getting paid when the users ciick on the ads, what do you care whose design they’re iooking at?
20.3 SendAFriend
There’s nothing iike virai marketing to promote your site! it’s free, it comes with trusted recommendations and it gives you great CTR.
Each of your content pages shouid have a iink marked “Send a friend” which opens a form 50 that the user can send your URL onwards. Untii Googie aiiows ads in emaii, there’s iittie point in AdSense mem bers sending actuai content but there’s no reason why you (or your users) can’t send iinks to pages with ads.
20.4 RSS Feeds
One of the chaiienges of keeping your user base is that readers can be pretty forgetfui. Adding an RSS feed to your site is a great way to iet peopie know that a new post has gone up and that they shouid stop by and take a iook
You’ii want to make sure that your headiines are attractive and inviting. Many users don’t iook past them, SO if they don’t do the job, the post won’t be opened or read, and the user won’t ciick to your site. images can aiso heip your feeds to stand out.
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lt’s rarely a good idea to send more than RSS post to a subscriber each day. The mest cemmen reason that users unsubscribe isn’t poor content or too much advertising, but toc many pests.
One geed strategy then is te divide your RSS feeds by theme and let subscribers enly receive pests en the tepics that interest them mest. If you’re writing about a range of different themes, that sheuld already help te keep the deliveries dewn te a manageable level.
The only other choice you’ll have to make is whether to include the whole pest in yeur feed or just a teaser te bring people te yeur site. When the goal cf the feed is te get people back te yeur site te click the ads, yeu might think that there’s little point in giving them the whole article in their feed reader. But readers will often unsubscribe if they can’t see the whole article. That weuld reduce yeur subscriber base. Yeu might be better off giving them the whele article and inviting them back te yeur site te add and see cemments. Test beth options and see which werks best fer yeu.
20.5 Offline Marketing
One cf the biggest mistakes that people make when they build an Internet business is to forget that there’s a world outside the Internet! Just because you make money out of traffic doesn’t mean you have to source ail of that traffic enline.
Yeu sheuld make sure that yeur URL is listed en ail cf yeur marketing material: yeur business cards, Yellew Pages ads, flyers, envelepes, freebies and just about anything else yeu can think cf.
Yeu sheuld certainly have yeur site address in yeur email signatures.
20.6 Promoting Your BIog
Ive talked quite a bit about blogging in this bock, mestly because I knew from experience that it’s possible to make a very nice income from a good blog but also because a lot of people aren’t making the most of the blogs they have.
If you’ve got AdSense on your blog, there’s a whole range cf different things that yeu can easily de te increase yeur traffic and earn extra cash.
The first thing yeu sheuld de is make sure that yeur bleg is set te ping rpc.pingematic.cem as seon as you’ve updated. Pingomatic.com offers a free
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ali-in-one pinging service that covers ail the large blog directories and search engines. On Blogger.com, you can find this in your settings; other blog tools, such as Movable Type and Wordpress have a similar option.
You should also set up an RSS feed to let people know when you update. Apart from the fact that you can now place ads on your feeds, it will also keep your regular users coming back to see more ads (and to see your latest posts).
I nstead 0f linking to the previous month’s or the previous week’s posts, each page should also have its own link. Sounds obvious, right? And yet how many blogs have you seen with one link to about twenty different entries? One link per entry means more pages for ads, better links from external sites and higher search engine rankings.
You should certainly comment on other people’s blogs, especially those that write about the same sort of things as your site, but ultimately the best way to get traffic to your blog is to make it good. If your writing is dulI or difficult to read, it doesn’t matter how hard you push it, no one will want to read it — and those who do stay won’t stick around to click the ads.
20.7 Public Relations And Publicity
Just about ail of the methods that you use to bring people to your site will cost you money. You’ll have to pay for ads on other sites, you’ll have to give up valuable real estate on your site to lists of links and you’ll have to decide how much you want to pay for an AdWords campaign or to get yourself promoted through Overture.
Publicity can be free.
It doesn’t have to be of course. You can pay a PR expert to publicize your site for you and place articles in the press on your behalf... but it’s not necessary and they can be too expensive for most sites, especially at the beginning.
Or you can simply create a good quality press release yourself, fax it out to the media and wait for reporters to calI.
Sound difficult?
It really isn’t. A press release is just one page and will take between twenty and forty minutes to write.
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There are a number of rules you have to follow: you need a gripping headiine; you have to include a quote; and you have to be available for the interview to narne just three. Most irnportantly though you have to have a story the press wants to run.
Telling them that you’ve just launched a new site isn’t going to cut it. Telling them that your new site is going to set a new trend or change some people’s lives just rnight.
Think about the effect that your piece of “news” wiII have on the public and you’ve got the beginnings of a great story.
And what do you get in return for doing that? Well, not only do you get the narne of your business in the press, you also get the halo that cornes with it. When you’re in the media, people assume that you’re an expert. You becorne the nurnber one source for whatever your website offers.
And to underline that fact, you can even put a button on your horne page that says something like: “As Seen On CNN!”
Sound good?
The real expert on rnarketing through free publicity is Paul Hartunian. This is the guy who bought a hunk of wood that had been cut frorn the Brooklyn Bridge during renovations, cut it into one-inch cubes and wrote a press release with the headline “New Jersey Man SelIs Brooklyn Bridge For
$19.95”.
He was on CNN for two days and the story was run as far away as Peru.
He now lives on a 30-acre estate and teaches people how to use publicity for
their businesses. You can order his publicity kit at www.hartunian.corn.
20.8 Learn From A Pro
Do you know John Reese? If not, you probably haven’t spent much time in Internet rnarketing circles. John is the leading guru for teaching people how to get rnore traffic to their web site(s). He leads special rnulti-day serninars to srnall groups, charging up to $5000/person to attend. And you know what? His students walk away feeling that they got a BARGAI N!
John has now rnade his rnarketing course available to the general public at a FRACTION of the cost. lt’s full of DVDs, audio CDs, textbooks, workbooks and tip sheets to help you build a cornprehensive Internet rnarketing strategy.
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I own a CO 0f John’s Traffic Secrets and am pleased to give it my very personal endorsement. While I could attempt to teach you everything I know about Internet marketing, there is no point in attempting to reinvent the wheel. Everything you need to know is in this is course, and the investment is very minor for people who intend to build a successful Internet business that wiII Iast.
If you want to read more about John’s Traffic Secrets course, click the Iink below.
TrafficSecrets.com
21. Search Engine Optimization
In the previous chapter, I talked about a number of different ways that you can increase your traffic. Probably the most important method though is to get a high ranking on search engines. That’s free traffic.
Again, there are ail sorts of books and experts who can help you improve your SEC and win a top spot for a site. I have had experience with a number of strategies that could help you improve your ranking. I’d like to share them with you now.
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pict21.jpg
21.1 Robot.txt
The first thing you need to know about indexing your site at search engines is that you control which pages are indexed and which are excluded. You do that with a file called robots.txt.
Robots.txt contains nothing more than a record of which robots should index which pages.
Without going into too much detail, there are two conventions used in a robots.txt file:
User-agent: [Defines which robots the site is addressing.]
Disallow: [Allows you to list the sites or robots you want to exclu de.]
In general, you’re probably going to use “User-agent: *“ to make sure that you’re addressing the robots of every search engine and you’ll probably want include ail of your pages (although you might want to exclude your directories: “Disallow: !cgi-bin!”).
Robots.txt just allows you to control which robots index which pages. lt’s important to have in your directory but it won’t really increase your search engine rankings.
Titles, URL’s and links are much more important.
21.2 Titles And URLs
I mentioned earlier that Metatags just aren’t what they used to be. I also said that it’s important that your titles and URLs contain the most important keywords for each of your pages in order to keep the ads relevant.
But those titles and URLs don’t just influence your ads; they also affect your search engine rankings.
A page about toy cars called cars.html might have a low ranking when someone looks for information about cars. Change the name to toy_cars.html and you should get a much higher ranking when someone looks for “toy cars”.
The more relevant your URL is and the easier it is to read, the better. www.domain.com/page is always an improvement than
http:!/domain.com!page.php?newsid= 1234583373. That’s why on my website www.familyfirst.com, I use URL’s like
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www.famiIyfirst.com/miss_abigaiIs_time_warp.htmI rather than strings cf num ber which confuse the robots.
One cf the first places you should look when you want to improve your rankings then is your titles and URLs.
21.3 Links
The more links you have, the better. And the better the sites that list those links the more they’ll be worth. It is always worth aiming to put your links on sites that look good and have high rankings. In fact, being listed on a poor site can bring your ranking down.
One of the best places to place Iinks to improve your search engine rankings is on forums. This isn’t an exchange; you post your links on their site, they don’t post their links on yours.
Make sure you browse forums regularly, add comments and include your URL in your signature. You’re likely to get the best results on good forums related to your topic but dont be fussy. Even unrelated forums can help to improve your search engine ranking.
Google’s spiders love forums and review them every week. And because these sites tend have quite high ranking, those posts will do wonders for your listings.
0f course, you shouldn’t ignore the SEO forums themselves for some good tips. www.searchengineforums.com is one good place to browse and http://forums.seochat.com is another. You should also check out my own forum www.AdSenseChat.com. Although this is mostly about AdSense optimization, not surprisingly, SEC issues are discussed often, especially as they relate to AdSense. lt’s a great source to dig up new ideas.
And if you’re going to putting your links ail over the forums, why flot do the same thing for blogs?
You can think of blogs as places to read som eone’s writings if you like, but don’t forget they also let you add your own feedback. That means that as an AdSense publisher, you should also be thinking of them as free places to post your links. Again, any blog is good but top blogs on your topic are probably the best.
Don’t forget to check out the SEO blogs too. wwwseobookcom is a good one, www.bradfallon.com is another and of course there’s my own blog at wwwjoelcommcom. You’re welcome to leave your links there!
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lt’s not just blogs and forum that that let you leave your details though. There are plenty of sites that welcome free content and would be happy to display your Iink if it means that they get an article in return. Start by looking at other sites on your topic and then try
www.ezinearticles.com. You don’t even need to write anything original when you do this. If you write a new entry to your blog, submit it to an article site at the same time as you upload it to your blog. Who knows where your links will end up?
The easiest way to put your links across the Web though is to do a link exchange. If you’ve got friends who have websites, start there. That’s very easy.
While linking from friends’ sites is straightforward and cost-free, www.linkmetro.com makes the whole Iink exchange process very formai. There’s a giant range of different sites that you can exchange links with 50 you can keep your links relevant and your ranking good and high.
You can also buy links on sites like www.Adzaar.com, www.AdBrite.com, and www.LinkAdage.com. Again, these allow you to choose sites on which you can place your own links but charge a fee for the process.
On my own site www.buyjoeldessert.com, for exam pie, I give page links to people who satisfy my sweet tooth with a donation to my cause. (1m still hungry by the way, 50 feel free to sign up, improve your rankings and make my dentist happy!)
Select and click the button below once.
3 Musketeers Bars $2.00 Love that chewy nougat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Homemade are best $3.00 D
Ads bv Gooaoooqle
Sponsors
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Hot Fude Sundae
With whippecl cream, yum $5.00 fl
Cardmel Corn $7.00 Crunchy goodnessl
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• Free Trpt Readincis
• WhiDlash 1niur
• Rowenas GoUrmet Cakes
• Rent 2 Own Homes
• TheZenofThin
• Perfumenut .com
• Couoon Codes Onhne
• Oavids Deal
• Asbestos Rernopal
• Billiofluepe
• Rorne Wallace
• Fractienal Ownershio
• Windows Reoistrv deaner
Chocolate Cake
Gotta have a whole cake $10.00 D
Fed By:
Rowenas Double Delicious Chocolate Cake $25.00 E
Or Define Vour Dessert:
• Scott Hildenbrand
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• KoIIey K
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• aood eats
• Angeia Roberts
• Sieve Greerr
• Debra Sawvers
• Keith Woolley
• Bambini Kids
• CaroTana
• The Sam Fredom Phenornenon
• Km Sn, der
• Terr StockdaI
• 5ar Na
Feed Joel Comrn’ I
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Fig. 21.1 Links for sale on BuyJoelDessert.com.
I know of several associates who have done something similar, allowing their visitors a tangible way f0 say “thank you” for their online efforts. Smart site owners see opportunity in this strategy as you can acquire quality links rather inexpensively. Here are some additional examples:
www.buyleoalatte.com
www.buybarbaracoffee.com
You can actually acquire the “Buy Me A Drink” script that ail these sites run
on. Click here!
And finally, one resource that I highly recommend is WebRing
(www.webring.com). This is such an easy way to gather links on relevant sites that I can’t believe ifs not the talk of the net.
The idea is to link together sites on similar topics 50 that users can quickly find topics that they’re interested in. Nice for them. But ifs nicer for you when a bunch of links from similar sites rocket your SEO ranking. That’s exactly what Google and other search engines are looking for when they rank sites.
That makes WebRing a hugely powerful tool.
WebRing: We Bring the Internet
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175
Fig. 21.2 WebRing makes Iinking easy
21.4 Create Gateways
Usually, your Iinks wiII Iead directly to your home page. That’s where you see your site as starting and that’s where you want them to enter.
But if the content the user wants to see is on one of the internai pages, there’s no reason for them to have to ciick around to find it. Fui that page with keywords that reiate to the content on that page and it wiii have its own search engine ranking — and weii-targeted ads.
So if you have a site about cats and one of your pages was about cat food, it wouid make sense to put pienty of cat food keywords on the page. That wouid get you cat food ads and a high ranking on search engines when someone does a search for “cat food” rather than just peopie who wanted to know about “cats.”
21.5 Automatic Submissions
Submitting your site to au of the search engines from Googie and Yahoo! right down to the smaiiest ones, and optimizing each of your pages for high ranking can be a drag. You aiso have to keep submitting the site on a reguiar basis and constantiy check your position if you want to keep it.
The search engines are aiways re-indexing and reorganizing. A site that can be in the top spot one week can be a coupie of pages over a week iater. (Good news if you’re iow down, not 50 good if you’ve spent hours changing your pages to ciimb the rankings.)
That’s why many webmasters simpiy outsource their SEO 50 that they can con centrate on content.
There are iots of companies that do this. Search Engine Biaster for exam pie, iets you choose from over 600,000 engines but there are pienty of others.
Personaiiy, i think that’s a bit of a waste of time. Oniy Googie, Yahoo and MSN are important, in that order.
21.6 SEOTools
There are a number of toois that i recommend to heip with search engine optimization. The first is the Googie Tooibar, which wiii iet you keep track of
176
your page ranking. You can download it for free at http://toolbar.poocile.com/poocilebar.htm I.
- Googlebar IJ
Fig. 19.2 The Google Toolbar: Pretty and useful too.
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The Alexa toolbar is also useful and will show you how your site ranks against others. You can download the Alexa toolbar at
http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/guicktour.html
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Fig. 21.3 The Alexa Toolbar: Is your site number one yet?
In short, you can find out exactly how your competitors have got to the top of the search engines, learn what they did — and do the exact same thing to swipe their spot.
You can learn more about SEC Elite and pick up your copy from www.adsense-secrets.com/seoelite.html
Reciprocal Manager
Reciprocal Manager takes much of the headache out of
managing your links. As you continue to optimize your
site, you will find yourself winning yourself more links
on other sites and being asked to host links from other
site. Reciprocal Manager creates a professional-looking,
neatly organized links directory that’s good for both ;1
—;0]
SEO Elite
SEC Elite is a really excellent tool for learning from your most successful
competitors. You can discover the optimum number
___________ of times to repeat keywords, where you should put
them, whether or not to use hi and h2 tags and even your competitors’ link strategies, and a huge amount more.
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pict22.jpg
your link partn ers and your visitors.
The program also lets you offer sites the option of placing their links on more than one site at the same time and, most importantly, to search for other sites to link to based on search word or phrase.
Learn more about Reciprocal Manager at http://www.reciprocalmanager.com.
Stomping The Search Engines
Finally, Brad Fallon is one of the biggest experts when it comes to SEC optimization. His wedding favors site grossed over $1 ,000,000 within a short time of launching, mainly due to his ability to get his site prime
placement in Google and the other search engines.
jlfr#J l’ve met Brad and chatted to him about his SEO optimization and I can telI you, he knows his stuff! I
thought I knew a bunch about SEC, but after spending a couple of h ours with Brad, I feel like a novice.
You can have thousands of web pages, but without a great search engine optimization plan, you many not be making the money you want to with AdSense. I HlGHLYrecommend picking up Brad Fallon’s 10 audio CD series, Stomping the Search Engines. It is over 8 hours of Brad’s teaching on how to duplicate his success for your web site(s).
I own the set and have begun listening to it. It is truly FULL of incredible material that you will find very useful to helping you reach your goals.
To read more about Stomping the Search Engines and acquire your own copy, click this link: http://www.adsense-secrets.com/seoexpert.html.
21.7 A Word About Cloaking
Cne issue that surfaced recently in the contextualized advertising world is “cloaking”: presenting a different site to the Google bot than the one you present to users.
There can be good reasons for doing this. If you’ve got a forum for example, the bot could read ail the information on your page related to forums, links and the design etc., find that it outweighs your forum content and serve you ads related to forums in general instead of your site in particular.
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pict23.jpg
You could also find that your search engine listings are affected toc: instead cf appearing nice and high on the results page following a search for your topic, you might only appear to people looking for forums. That’s not likely to win you rnuch traffic.
One solution is to strip the site down using javascript or one cf the tools available online 50 that when the Google bot cornes, it only reads the content.
0f course, you could also fool the bot into thinking that your site is about... well, anything really. You could sparn Google into showing your site to anyone who was searching for anything.
And that’s why Google banned the practice altogether.
Any form of cloaking, whether it’s to get better targeted ads, improve your search engine rankings... or spam the search engines isa breach of Google’s T0S and could get you banned.
So what should you do if you find that your design has a bigger influence on your ads and ranking than your content?
The best — and sirnplest thing to do — is to rnake sure that the description and keyword rneta tags are ail filled in properly with terrns relevant to your content.
Section Targeting can de-ernphasize problernatic areas cf your website and might well affect your search engine rankings (it’s certainly worth a try).
And if these don’t solve your problem, you might want to think of a redesign.
21.8 TrafficAndConversion.com
I said at the beginning cf this chapter that this bock is about AdSense and not about SEO rankings. That’s because I know much more about AdSense than I do about search engine optirnization.
We ail have our strong points and AdSense is rnine.
If you’re looking for someone whose strong point is search engine optirnization though, I recornrnend Mark Widawer at
www.trafficandconversion .corn.
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Many of the ideas in this chapter came as a resuit cf me raiding his brain for some great strategies. If you’re looking for more of the same, you should definitely check out his site and see what he has to say.
You won’t regret it.
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