There are many ways to increase your AdSense revenue, and if you can take advantage of such techniques, you can improve your AdSense earnings tremendously to the point where AdSense can be your most important asset for making money with your site.
Increasing AdSense income comes down to increasing 3 things:
- Impressions
- Click-Through-Ratio (CTR)
- Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
1. Increasing Impressions
The simplest way to increase your impressions is to increase traffic to your site. That can be done in many different ways, from PPC advertising and media buys, to SEO, guest posting and so on. I am not going to get into details of how to generate more traffic here as that’s a whole another topic that is beyond the scope of this post2. Increasing CPC
In a sense, increasing Cost Per Click also comes down to on page stuff, more specifically, keywords! If you use AdSense, surly you know that it displays ads based on the content of your pages. So, if you have a post about investment, ads displayed on that page are more likely about investment, stocks, bonds and related subjects.Furthermore, not all AdSense ads are created equal. The amount of money you receive for each click will vary based on bids placed by Google AdWords advertisers. So, some keywords pay $.10 per click, while others may pay $5 per click.
Obviously, you can control (to some extend) what kind of ads are shown on your site, by using the right kind of keywords, more profitable keywords!
To increase your CPC you need an AdWords account where you can see an estimated price for any given keyword. Put your seed keyword in the AdWords tool and hit enter, you will be given a list of keywords along with their CPC. Simply pick the highest paying keywords and try to incorporate them into your posts.
Of course, you don’t want to sacrifice your content by shoving a whole bunch of keywords into it. Use these keywords appropriately and only where they make sense.
3. Increasing CTR
As we said, the more clicks you get on your ads, the more money you make. Increasing click-through ratio even by a small percentage can increase your revenue tremendously. Increasing Click Through Ratio comes down to on page stuff, which are:- Ad color
- Ad placement
- Total number of links
- Ad unit style
Ad Color
The color of ad have a huge impact on your CTR. Some people say bright colored ads do very well, while other believe ads with colors that blend into the site do much better. My personal experience shows somewhere in between is where it yields the best results.
Ad placement
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to increase CTR on your AdSense ads is placing the ad where it can get the most clicks.
The best place for placing your ad block is where the visitors of your site look at most often. In most sites it’s the middle left section of the page right around the title of your post and where the actual post starts.
The AdSense heat maps actually show you the best performing ad spots across the web. While you can draw inspiration from such tools, it is also important to note that every website is different. So, don’t just solely rely on Google’s heat maps for your ad placement. Do your own testing to determine what works bets for you.
There are a few standard places most bloggers use to place AdSense ads:
- Top of the page (Header)
This is the header section. It used to be one of the best performing spots, however, over the years many visitors have developed whats known as “ad blindness” where they simply get used to seeing ads there all the time, so they just ignore it.
- Bottom of the page (Footer)
This is not a very good spot to place ads for most sites.
- Right side of the page (right sidebar)
Ads placed in the sidebar usually do good. My own experience shows 160×600 Wide Skyscraper to be the best performing ad block in the right sidebar.
- Left side of the page (Left Sidebar)
Since many older websites used to have their site’s menu on the left side of the page, many visitors automatically look to the left upon arriving at a page. That explains why ads on the left tend to perform well comparatively.
- Upper Middle of the page (above the main post)
This is bay far the best spot for ads. It’s where most visitors are drawn to because the main content of the page starts there. My own experience and that of most bloggers shows that 336×280 Large Rectangle ad block is the top performing ad block for that spot.
When people are leaving a webpage they tend to click a link. Needless to say, to increase the odds of getting clicks on your ads, you need to decrease the number of links on your pages. The less option a visitor has for leaving, the more likely it is that he or she will click on your ad.
That said, you wouldn’t want to focus too much on this factor to the point where you sacrifice user experience for a few more clicks. A balanced approach is the best option here.
Ad Unit Style
Another one of the most important factors in just how much you can make with AdSense is the style of the ad you use. Fortunately, AdSense provides a great many options as far as ad styles. At the time of writing this post, there are 11 different ad unites to choose from:
- Leader board 728×90
- Banner 486×60
- Half Banner 234×60
- Button 125×125
- Skyscraper 120×600
- Wide Skyscraper 160×600
- Medium Rectangle 300×250
- Large Rectangle 336×280
- Small Rectangle 180×150
- Square 250×250
These are the things that can impact your AdSense earnings. However, as I mentioned before, every site is different. That means, an ad block that performs top of the line for my site, may perform poorly on your site, and vice versa. So, you can’t just rely on other people’s experience and what they say to make money with AdSense.
Constantly testing different ad placements, colors, and ad blocks is the best and most effective way of increasing your AdSense revenue.
