Google Adsense - 5 Quick Ways To Increase Revenue, Boost Traffic and Raise eCPM
Updated May 21, 2008: Only making $1 or $2 per day on Google Adsense? Frustrated with building lots of web sites and writing lots of content without revenue increases? I'm running only a half a dozen web sites with not more than a dozen articles each, and generating more than enough to pay my mortgage using Google Adsense. See below for some quick tips on getting Adsense revenues up to a level that can ensure a decent income stream;
1. Enable channels
You can't manage what you don't measure. Set up "channels" in Google Adsense so that you can identify which sites and specific pages or articles are generating the big returns for you. Once you have found a page with a high eCPM (effective CPM), then use that page as a template for future articles. You can then monitor click through rates and eCPMs to ensure that you are maximizing and optimizing revenues. |
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2. Post, post, post!
Every knows that relevant inbound links increase a web site's value in Google's eyes. Beyond cross linking among your own web sites, you need to get out there and post on other high traffic (and high Google page rank) sites. Post on sites such as Digg.com, Squidoo.com and make comments on relevant articles that fit in with your page content.
Don't be overly promotional, but be sure to make relevant comments that add value, and then sign with your customized web site email: e.g. email@articlesite.com. This actually counts as an inbound link to articlesite.com, and drives some good relevant traffic too.
3. Big box ads and link units work
Speaking of big box ads, yes, they work. See mine? :) It has been shown that, sorry guys, bigger is better in the online ad world. Google "big box ad effectiveness" and you'll see what I mean. Wrapping text around ads, not just below or above, has proven to be key in making the reader click on ads. People read left to right, and so on every line - readers will be seeing relevant content ads in their peripheral vision. Be sure to enable image ads as well as text ads to take advantage of all of those publishers who buy Google Adwords on a CPM basis (there are lots). You can be making $ on not just clicks, but impressions to your site.
Also, place some link unit ads right next to your navigation area. Use a custom palette to make links the same colour as other links on your page. Don't add too many links - often the 468x15 size is adequate to ensure some decent clicks. In some cases, you may be able to increase revenue by double with that strategy alone!
4. Try CPC keyword arbitrage
While some think this is a risky strategy, it really doesn't have to be.
Worst case scenario is that you should be able to break-even on doing this. You just need to do the math. So, if you know that your average cost per click (revenue divided by clicks) for a given set of keywords and/or web site is $2.00, and your average click-through rate is 10%, then you will need
to set a maximum CPC when buying keywords at not more than 20 cents. Be sure to use sites other than Google to generate traffic such as Yahoo and MSN. Also try some lower cost tier 2 search sites such as FindWhat.com to generate traffic. Remember, a qualified click is a qualified click!
5. Generate some link bait
As mentioned, inbound links are gold when try to generate traffic. I've found that one of the best ways to get high inbound links is to offer something for free. For example, I give away free screencasting software on one web site I run, and have generated over 5,000 inbound links on that site alone. It's also easy to generate a web 2.0 user generated content site - such as a forum, a video site like YouTube or a news site such as Digg.com. You can buy cheap clone scripts from sites like hotscripts.com to do this. I bought a $100 script for making a used hybrid car site which now generates over $100 per month with over 4,000 monthly visitors! This kind of site gets lots of inbound links as users generate more and more content, and dynamically create more pages for you.
You can check how many inbound links a site has by typing "link: website.com" into Google.
Also use this strategy to identify what keywords to target with your content, and stay away from keywords that generate top 3 sites with too many inbound links already established.
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