The web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. The dot-com balloon is said to have burst but savvy publishers have grabbed the coat tails of the Google search monster and employ Google AdSense on content-rich websites. Google AdSense, a pioneer for providing content-sensitive advertisements, has been a boon to webmasters looking for alternatives to amortize their web trafffic.
How Does Google AdSense Work?
The concept is simple: The publisher or webmaster inserts a java script into a website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script pulls advertisements from Google's AdSense program. The ads are targeted and related to the content contained on the web page serving the ad. If a web surfer clicks on an advertisement served from Google, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying Google for the click.
Google handles all the tracking and payments, ultimately providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive, targeted ads, without the headache of having to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor clicks or track statistics, any of which could easily become a full-time job.
While Google AdSense, like many pay-per-click programs, is plagued by claims of click-fraud, it is clearly an effective revenue source for many reputable web businesses. There seems to be no shortage of advertisers in the AdWords program from which Google pulls the AdSense ads. Webmasters seem less concerned by the lack of information provided by Google and more interested in cashing their monthly checks from Google.
The Evolution of AdSense
While Google's initial system was fairly rudimentary, only providing publishers the option of displaying a handful of advertising formats, the technology behind even the first ads was anything but simplistic. The technology used to employ Google AdSense goes far beyond simple keyword or category matching. A complex algorithm is used to determine the content contained on the web page serving the ad. Once the content is assessed, and appropriate ads that contain related content are served.
Early on, Google implemented a system that allows publishers to filter advertisements from competitors or sites which they deemed inappropriate. Google also allows vendors to specify an alternative advertisement, in the unlikely event that Google is unable to provide related content ads.
The Progression of Google
Google has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Google now offers a system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters can choose from twelve text ad formats and can customize Google advertisements to complement their website and fit into existing webpage layout. The options provided allow webmasters to select and create custom color palettes that match an existing website's color scheme, making the ads a much more natural fit.
Many sites have been able to integrate ads into their site design using different ad formats.
Sample sites with integrated ads:
Investing Partners - http://www.investing-partners.com
Podcasting Tools - http://www.podcasting-tools.com .
RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com
Online Reports
Google recently took a huge step forward, providing publishers the ability to track their earnings based on webmaster-defined channels. Recent improvements to the Google AdSense reporting have resulted in webmasters having the capability to monitor an ad's performance with customizable online reports that can detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters now have the ability to track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Webmasters can quickly spot and track trends. The new flexible reporting tools allows webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, providing webmasters insight into what pages, ads and domains are performing the best.
Reporting is real-time, allowing webmasters to quickly assess the effectiveness of any changes. The new reporting makes it significantly easier for webmasters to optimize and increase click-through rates. Optional reporting allows webmasters to monitor traffic, viewing both ad impressions and page impressions.
Advertisers realize the benefits associated with having their ads served on targeted websites, increasing the likelihood that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product or service.
Truth Still Not Revealed
Google still does not reveal what percentage of the advertising revenue earned is paid to the webmaster serving the ads, but they have made strides related to disclosure, recently lifting the ban preventing webmasters from disclosing the amount they earn through serving Google ads.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
How to Make Every AdSense Ad on the Google Network Pay You!
Wouldn’t it be great if every keyword in Google’s entire inventory could be relevant to your site? Imagine that no matter what any person searched for, all of the ads that came up in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) paid you whenever someone clicked on them.
Sound good to you? That’s great. I think it sounds pretty cool as well, so let’s get busy making it happen for your web site.
Here’s a very much overlooked opportunity for AdSense users
That opportunity is called Google Search and this is how it works:
Tucked inside of your AdSense control panel is a section for creating a Google search box. Most AdSense users don’t even pay attention to it, and that’s a shame because hidden inside of that box is a lot of money that’s wanting to be yours.
When you add that search box to your web site you are creating an instant portal into Google’s entire keyword inventory. Any time a visitor runs a Google search from your site, every resulting AdWord ad that appears on the SERPs is tagged back to you. That means that no matter which ads they click on, money goes in your pocket. Got that? What an amazing earning opportunity.
By combining AdSense with the Google search box you open yourself up to an incredible opportunity to monetize your site. In fact, many AdSense users say that they earn more money from searches then they do from AdSense ads on their own page. And it makes sense when you think about it.
A clever idea gets even better
Just as you would expect, Google doesn’t leave you hanging without support or some great ways to make even more money. Take a look at the features and options that you can set up right from within your AdSense control panel.
Customized look and feel
You can grab the standard Google search box and be up and running in seconds. Or you can add your logo and make the box match your site’s color scheme with over 200 available colors.
Control the scope of your user’s search
You can configure the search box to search just your site or the entire Google network. It’s your choice. You can even provide your visitors with radio buttons that let them perform either search. No matter which search they choose, you’re making money every time they click on an ad.
Google will even host your internal site search result pages for you so you don’t have to spend a penny buying extra bandwidth or disk space from your ISP. How’s that for user-friendly?
Online Tracking Tools
Of course, Google also provides you with online tracking and reporting tools so you can see how well your shiny new search box is doing for you. You can see your queries, clicks, click-through rate and total earnings just like with your AdSense for Content ads.
So if you’re not earning money from every ad in Google’s inventory, log into your AdSense control panel and make it happen.
Sound good to you? That’s great. I think it sounds pretty cool as well, so let’s get busy making it happen for your web site.
Here’s a very much overlooked opportunity for AdSense users
That opportunity is called Google Search and this is how it works:
Tucked inside of your AdSense control panel is a section for creating a Google search box. Most AdSense users don’t even pay attention to it, and that’s a shame because hidden inside of that box is a lot of money that’s wanting to be yours.
When you add that search box to your web site you are creating an instant portal into Google’s entire keyword inventory. Any time a visitor runs a Google search from your site, every resulting AdWord ad that appears on the SERPs is tagged back to you. That means that no matter which ads they click on, money goes in your pocket. Got that? What an amazing earning opportunity.
By combining AdSense with the Google search box you open yourself up to an incredible opportunity to monetize your site. In fact, many AdSense users say that they earn more money from searches then they do from AdSense ads on their own page. And it makes sense when you think about it.
A clever idea gets even better
Just as you would expect, Google doesn’t leave you hanging without support or some great ways to make even more money. Take a look at the features and options that you can set up right from within your AdSense control panel.
Customized look and feel
You can grab the standard Google search box and be up and running in seconds. Or you can add your logo and make the box match your site’s color scheme with over 200 available colors.
Control the scope of your user’s search
You can configure the search box to search just your site or the entire Google network. It’s your choice. You can even provide your visitors with radio buttons that let them perform either search. No matter which search they choose, you’re making money every time they click on an ad.
Google will even host your internal site search result pages for you so you don’t have to spend a penny buying extra bandwidth or disk space from your ISP. How’s that for user-friendly?
Online Tracking Tools
Of course, Google also provides you with online tracking and reporting tools so you can see how well your shiny new search box is doing for you. You can see your queries, clicks, click-through rate and total earnings just like with your AdSense for Content ads.
So if you’re not earning money from every ad in Google’s inventory, log into your AdSense control panel and make it happen.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Concentrate on what's important
This is only my second letter in seven or eight weeks. Sorry about that, but at first I had no Internet connection when things went wrong with my satellite service (I'm now on wireless broadband)
and then I developed a quite serious illness which I'm slowly getting over.
If you want to, you can read more on my forum I reckon you should go there anyway, it's a great community.
Incidentally the forum posts are being indexed by Google, which makes it a good place to get links to your websites - as long as you've got something useful/interesting to say that is :)
Ok, I'll keep this relatively short because I'm still not feeling too good. But I hope that normal "service" has now resumed.
and then I developed a quite serious illness which I'm slowly getting over.
If you want to, you can read more on my forum I reckon you should go there anyway, it's a great community.
Incidentally the forum posts are being indexed by Google, which makes it a good place to get links to your websites - as long as you've got something useful/interesting to say that is :)
Ok, I'll keep this relatively short because I'm still not feeling too good. But I hope that normal "service" has now resumed.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Eyes on your eCommerce Website
In a recent article I talked about Google AdSense placement based on eye-tracking research. However, research by The Poynter Institute, Eyetools and the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media has a lot to say about more than where to put an AdSense block.
Designing an eCommerce site is more than making it pretty. You have certain desired actions you're looking for from your visitors. You have specific things you want to be sure they see and hopefully act on. Now, there's some research that can guide your design. Certainly you want your site to look professional, but you want it to do its job as effectively as possible too.
People are surprisingly alike in some of their basic visual behavior. It's been argued that our evolution as hunter-gatherers has shaped much of our ingrained visual patterns. Whether you buy that particular argument or not there are still important commonalities.
Typical behavior on initially viewing a site is to do a fast scan of the entire visible screen with short focusing periods around the areas that attract attention. First pass tends to include headlines, the page logo, photo captions, subheads, links and menu items. And the big hot spot is the upper left corner of the screen. I haven't seen any definitive research on whether these patterns also hold for users with native languages that read any way except left to right, but I'm assuming most of you are building sites for left-to-right readers.
The clear message is that your most important real estate is in that upper left area and that the lower right (particularly if it's below the fold) is the least likely to receive much attention.
How you use your words in a headline, paragraph or link can make a huge difference in your success at capturing a visitor's attention. The concept is called frontloading. Wherever you can make sure your critical terms appear at the very beginning of headlines, links and other text. It's still got to make sense, but the first few words are far more likely to be at least scanned then the middle or end of a headline or link or the inside of a paragraph.
The exact same words can have drastically different capture rates depending on their order. You want to maximize the probability that the visitor will read a whole headline or link and then act on it. So put the most significant, enticing words first - the ones that are the best grabbers and convey the subject immediately.
You don't have a lot of time to mess about. It's been reported that a typical surfer may be off your page in well under 14 seconds unless something grabs his or her attention fast. Remember the upper-left? You want to do an especially good job with headlines, link and text in that area.
Dropcaps (where the first capitalized letter in a line is in a different, often unusual, font and extends below the normal text base-line), bolding, font changes and color changes can also serve as strong eye-attractors. If you try these techniques you need to be careful that you don't overuse them (your page will look like a mess), and it's extremely important that you test whether or not they're actually doing what you want. Annoying as it may be, running tests is the only way to make sure it's an improvement.
Do you use lists? Have you made sure that they're in-line and as close to the left margin as possible? Don't ever use an outline format with multiple indents. People scan down, not across and they tend to scan close to the left margin. Indent too much and it might as well be invisible.
An interesting testing result that I read somewhere said that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of site visitors don't even see centered headlines. Sure they look nice and a lot of sites use them, but if they're totally missed by even 3 percent of your visitors, you're paying a major price to look good. Suggestion? Put those headlines up against your left margin.
This also applies to links. Put those links up against the left margin, not inside a paragraph, centered or off to the right. And if you want any clicks on a link, never put it in that nearly unseen lower right area. Might as well just leave it off your page.
How about indented paragraphs? Now there's a great way to start an argument. Some argue that it attracts the eye, it's different, few sites use it so you stand out. Others insist that you're far better off staying left justified and frontloading each paragraph. There's only one way to resolve it for yourself, yeah, run some tests and see what works with your visitors on your site.
The bottom line is that once you get beyond the basics of placement, frontloading, and left-justified links and headlines, you need to test if you want to fully maximize the effectiveness of your website design. I wish there were a simpler answer too, but in the end only testing will tell you what works best for your site.
Designing an eCommerce site is more than making it pretty. You have certain desired actions you're looking for from your visitors. You have specific things you want to be sure they see and hopefully act on. Now, there's some research that can guide your design. Certainly you want your site to look professional, but you want it to do its job as effectively as possible too.
People are surprisingly alike in some of their basic visual behavior. It's been argued that our evolution as hunter-gatherers has shaped much of our ingrained visual patterns. Whether you buy that particular argument or not there are still important commonalities.
Typical behavior on initially viewing a site is to do a fast scan of the entire visible screen with short focusing periods around the areas that attract attention. First pass tends to include headlines, the page logo, photo captions, subheads, links and menu items. And the big hot spot is the upper left corner of the screen. I haven't seen any definitive research on whether these patterns also hold for users with native languages that read any way except left to right, but I'm assuming most of you are building sites for left-to-right readers.
The clear message is that your most important real estate is in that upper left area and that the lower right (particularly if it's below the fold) is the least likely to receive much attention.
How you use your words in a headline, paragraph or link can make a huge difference in your success at capturing a visitor's attention. The concept is called frontloading. Wherever you can make sure your critical terms appear at the very beginning of headlines, links and other text. It's still got to make sense, but the first few words are far more likely to be at least scanned then the middle or end of a headline or link or the inside of a paragraph.
The exact same words can have drastically different capture rates depending on their order. You want to maximize the probability that the visitor will read a whole headline or link and then act on it. So put the most significant, enticing words first - the ones that are the best grabbers and convey the subject immediately.
You don't have a lot of time to mess about. It's been reported that a typical surfer may be off your page in well under 14 seconds unless something grabs his or her attention fast. Remember the upper-left? You want to do an especially good job with headlines, link and text in that area.
Dropcaps (where the first capitalized letter in a line is in a different, often unusual, font and extends below the normal text base-line), bolding, font changes and color changes can also serve as strong eye-attractors. If you try these techniques you need to be careful that you don't overuse them (your page will look like a mess), and it's extremely important that you test whether or not they're actually doing what you want. Annoying as it may be, running tests is the only way to make sure it's an improvement.
Do you use lists? Have you made sure that they're in-line and as close to the left margin as possible? Don't ever use an outline format with multiple indents. People scan down, not across and they tend to scan close to the left margin. Indent too much and it might as well be invisible.
An interesting testing result that I read somewhere said that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of site visitors don't even see centered headlines. Sure they look nice and a lot of sites use them, but if they're totally missed by even 3 percent of your visitors, you're paying a major price to look good. Suggestion? Put those headlines up against your left margin.
This also applies to links. Put those links up against the left margin, not inside a paragraph, centered or off to the right. And if you want any clicks on a link, never put it in that nearly unseen lower right area. Might as well just leave it off your page.
How about indented paragraphs? Now there's a great way to start an argument. Some argue that it attracts the eye, it's different, few sites use it so you stand out. Others insist that you're far better off staying left justified and frontloading each paragraph. There's only one way to resolve it for yourself, yeah, run some tests and see what works with your visitors on your site.
The bottom line is that once you get beyond the basics of placement, frontloading, and left-justified links and headlines, you need to test if you want to fully maximize the effectiveness of your website design. I wish there were a simpler answer too, but in the end only testing will tell you what works best for your site.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Are you using both sides of the GoogleCoin
By now most of you realise that Google can give our websites the ability to appear within their results pages using a Pay
Per Click model (PPC).
This is called Google Adwords
Hopefully, you will also be aware that that Google offers website owners the ability to display these PPC results on
their own websites.
For this privilege, Google will pay the website owner a share of the PPC revenue earnt from any click throughs on the results displayed on their website.
This is called Google Adsense
So there you have both sides of the Google coin.
On one side, the ability to drive low cost targeted traffic and on the other side, the ability to generate revenue from
your existing traffic.
You'd think that was the end of it but really it is only the beginning.
Heads or Tails?
Heads it is….
Let's look at Adwords
There are those that think…
…write your ad, pays your money and away you go.
Which to 80% of the people using Adwords, this seems to work OK for them. Remember I said OK!
For the other 20% , these guys and gals, are testing,changing, innovating and working Google as hard as they can.
One such character is Chris Carpenter , whose GoogleCash is pioneering in the way that he works Google and now lets
other work Google just as hard.
"Like Bruce Lee taught us the art of fighting without fighting, Chris Carpenter shows us the art of website revenue generation without a website!"
Chris has shown examples of Adwords campaigns that cost cents to set up but pay dollars in commissions. None of my
current investments give me such a high ROI.
I have tried my hand at it and I am currently making around $4000 per month just from this one product. I am only
spending $250 on Adwords to get this return.
Why not have a look at Google Cash yourself.
http://www.j2-squared.com/google-cash-book-review.htm
Tails you win!
Secondly, while most people just cut and paste Adsense code into all the pages of their site, they just leave it at that
thinking job done!
They don't explore the high value keywords in their market or niche.
Why do that?
Well if you knew what the more profitable keywords and terms are, you can write content and these words can be displayed.
Google Adsense will then look at your page content and work out what to display.
You could double your income by changing words on your site. Maybe Life insurance to life assurance or personal loan to
loans or adverse credit to bad credit.
Also sites tend to use one format and one position for the ads.
Test, test, test
Try different layouts and work out which ones work best for you. You may be surprised.
Test, test, test
There are several tools that can help you identify keywords but the best for you would be either the Google Adwords program or Overture view bids tool.
Don't worry about thinking you are doing anything wrong. In fact, think about it - you will be creating relevant content for Google to display and for their users to read. Users are happy, Google are happy and you will earn more revenue from Adsense. So hopefully you'll be happy too!
Per Click model (PPC).
This is called Google Adwords
Hopefully, you will also be aware that that Google offers website owners the ability to display these PPC results on
their own websites.
For this privilege, Google will pay the website owner a share of the PPC revenue earnt from any click throughs on the results displayed on their website.
This is called Google Adsense
So there you have both sides of the Google coin.
On one side, the ability to drive low cost targeted traffic and on the other side, the ability to generate revenue from
your existing traffic.
You'd think that was the end of it but really it is only the beginning.
Heads or Tails?
Heads it is….
Let's look at Adwords
There are those that think…
…write your ad, pays your money and away you go.
Which to 80% of the people using Adwords, this seems to work OK for them. Remember I said OK!
For the other 20% , these guys and gals, are testing,changing, innovating and working Google as hard as they can.
One such character is Chris Carpenter , whose GoogleCash is pioneering in the way that he works Google and now lets
other work Google just as hard.
"Like Bruce Lee taught us the art of fighting without fighting, Chris Carpenter shows us the art of website revenue generation without a website!"
Chris has shown examples of Adwords campaigns that cost cents to set up but pay dollars in commissions. None of my
current investments give me such a high ROI.
I have tried my hand at it and I am currently making around $4000 per month just from this one product. I am only
spending $250 on Adwords to get this return.
Why not have a look at Google Cash yourself.
http://www.j2-squared.com/google-cash-book-review.htm
Tails you win!
Secondly, while most people just cut and paste Adsense code into all the pages of their site, they just leave it at that
thinking job done!
They don't explore the high value keywords in their market or niche.
Why do that?
Well if you knew what the more profitable keywords and terms are, you can write content and these words can be displayed.
Google Adsense will then look at your page content and work out what to display.
You could double your income by changing words on your site. Maybe Life insurance to life assurance or personal loan to
loans or adverse credit to bad credit.
Also sites tend to use one format and one position for the ads.
Test, test, test
Try different layouts and work out which ones work best for you. You may be surprised.
Test, test, test
There are several tools that can help you identify keywords but the best for you would be either the Google Adwords program or Overture view bids tool.
Don't worry about thinking you are doing anything wrong. In fact, think about it - you will be creating relevant content for Google to display and for their users to read. Users are happy, Google are happy and you will earn more revenue from Adsense. So hopefully you'll be happy too!
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