After quite a few years, Google AdSense is still the best way to make money online when you're using the cost per click (CPC) advertising publishing model. You can't, however, just slap the ads on any website and expect to see the money rolling in. It just doesn't work that way. Your website has to draw more than just a few visitors per day. Please follow along as I give you a few tips to consider.
Stay Focused
The very best way to operate a website is to stay focused on one major subject, which may or may not have sub-subjects involved. If you decide to work on a do-it-yourself (DIY) website, for example, you need to focus on DIY subjects. Straying off to totally unrelated subjects like life insurance, for example, isn't going to help you make money online unless it's by accident.
I write from experience and I've been doing this for more than five years. I have one site that gets well less than half the visitors that this one gets and it makes more money because it's focused on one subject. It's what Internet marketers call a "niche blog". I write articles on that blog maybe once every month or two. Actually, I plan to merge those articles into this website because I'm tired of maintaining multiple websites. But that's just me.
Even if you operate a more general website like this one, you still need to maintain your focus but it's for one page at a time. If I start out writing about making money online, I had better stick to that subject throughout the article. You see, Google AdSense works best by serving ads that are related to your keywords. This is especially true when your website traffic isn't coming from search engines.
Keyword Targeting, Internal Links and Backlinks
There are tools available which can help you to identify good keywords along with related keywords, such as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. While that particular tool is free, most are not. I rarely use anything myself. If you remain focused on the subject at hand, most of your keywords will appear naturally.
Regardless of how you determine your keywords, you need to target them on related pages. These are the internal links that will give you the most bang for the buck, so to speak. The proper use of internal links is one part of "onsite search engine optimization" you need to get good at doing. In fact, it's likely that, in these post "Google Panda" days, that good internal links carry more weight than incoming backlinks.
Unlike backlinks from other websites, you can control 100 percent of the keywords used as the anchor text in internal links. You can change them at will, as needed, without incurring any penalties. Backlinks, even those you can control, are much harder to manipulate without sending up red flags.
When you stay focused on the subject at hand, and your visitors aren't search visitors, Google AdSense uses your keyword structure to serve relevant ads. When you use a good linking strategy, and your visitors are search visitors, AdSense uses the search keywords to serve relevant ads. Those search keywords, as far as your website is concerned, are keyed in on your internal links and backlinks. The very best way to ensure effective keyword targeting is to use related keywords in the HTML title, the page title (using the HTML H1 header tag) and in the page content, with those same keywords contained within internal links to related pages.
Page Layout
It doesn't matter what page layout you're using, but where you place the AdSense ads does matter. Fortunately, Google provides the "One Click Optimizer" that will show you where you should place them. It will even tell you what sizes to use.
These are not guesses. Google has years of click data which tells them what layouts perform the best. If you want to know what ad styles are the most successful, you can get that information as well.
These ad placements are still relevant, even after Google introduced the page layout algorithm (or filter). Putting too many ads "above the fold" (1024×768 resolution with Google Chrome) detracts from the user experience. In my opinion, you should only have one ad like this (a banner ad) above the fold. Text link ads, like those used for Infolinks or Kontera, have no bearing on this because they don't push the actual text content down on the page.
If you haven't noticed, the layout for the page you're reading follows Google's recommended optimizations. Every once in a while, I'll test other ad formats or locations. I always come back to this layout because it's the one that gets the best click-through rate (CTR).
Stay Tuned
Stay tuned for the next installment of the series, where I'll write about Chitika and Infolinks. Unless you plan to visit often, signing up for my feed e-mail (once a day) is probably the best way to follow along.
A list of all my "make money online" articles is provided on my making money online page.
Similar Articles:
- Make Money Online — Using Chitika and Infolinks
- Make Money Online — Getting Traffic to your Website
- Make Money Online — Alternatives to AdSense
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is almost Useless unless you can get Visitors to your Website
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips for all Kinds of Websites
This article is published as: Make Money Online — Optimizing for AdSense
Such a nice quick guide! I've heard about AdSense so many times before, but I've never given it a try. I think now it's time to move on, and optimize my blog for Adsense. Thanks for the useful information and for the inspiration!
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