Adsense Portal

Google is not that bad when it comes to ideas for improving our click through ratios. This is what I saw at a forum:


I just read a report (Full Article) discussing the occasional appearance of "favicons" in the text ads provided by google.

I did myself notice one such favicon but was too slow to get a screen-shot for you all. When I see one again I will capture it so you can see what I am talking about.

This is an interesting move by Google Inc.

If used in moderation, it is sure to attract users to click on the relevant Ads. If however everyone started using favicons i suspect that the web surfers would start to develop "ad blindness" and ignore the small graphics.

For those of you wondering what a favicon is, you might like to check out the following site -

http://www.favicon.com/

Saw it here.

Since the time I have been an adsense publisher there has been one rule that has been very clear for me: A rectangle ad unit is probably the best unit if you are serious about getting your ads clicked. Its not as if I have not experimented, I have tried almost everything but finally always seem to conclude that the large rectangle properly integrated is always the best bet.

Optimization for any ad unit like this was based on the basic assumption that there were four ads in each ad unit but when Google decided to put in two ads instead of the four ads in what they termed as an automatic optimization feature i was miffed. All my hard work had gone down the drain. Those images that I had placed close to ads seemed out of place and absurd all of a sudden. CTR had fallen down substantially too but I was relieved when I saw that four ads were back in place. Proof of the fact that as inscrutable as Adsense's working may be, they still do care enough about us publishers to listen to our suggestions. Thanks Adsense.

P.S. Its not as if they have totally abandoned two ads in the place of four. Its just that they no longer appear that often as they used to. I dont think they will stop their experimentation.

I was reading an article in the New York times when I saw this idea that could well be a very interesting tool to increase your earnings.

If you use third party advertisers not including Adsense and YPN then you will know that the bids for the ads on your pages will be dependent only on the number of visitors you bring in. The kind of money you get is dependent totally upon your traffic.

Well the story was that Nielsen/NetRatings, a leading company in kmeasuring internet traffic slashed the number of visitors to entrepreneur.com from 7.6 million to about 2 million. So where was the mistake?

Apparently the guys at entrepreneur used a very good shortcut. Pop ups for their stories were present on thousands of sites and whenever anybody visited those sites, the pop ups made sure that the traffic was to their site. So simple and yet so effective.

The strategy implied that if you dont wanna come to me I will come to you. Amazing thing was that somebody like entrepreneur.com which is a huge site used such tactics. Although i wont advice it for big website owners its actually very good for people with small sites.

Well last time I had told you that I will teach you how to write the perfect link request. For most purposes related to SEO I prefer to use the SEO Elite but this is one case where I would rather not use it. While people are becoming more and more aware about SEO and nobody will seem to have a problem with giving you a link; mass mailing is really not the solution especially if you want to find high PR link partners. So here are the main points to consider:

BE PERSONAL: Please try and take out the necessary time to visit the website you want that link from. Make sure that you find something good enough to talk about his site. Find out the name of the webmaster. If you know this much then you can write a personal letter. Start of by mentioning his name in the subject of your e-mail. Humans are designed to respond most favourably to their names. Seeing their name in the e-mail subject will almost guarantee that he will open your mail. Then asking for that link as soon as he opens the mail is not a good idea. Talk about how your site can add value to his site. Play up his ego by telling him how wonderful his site is. Tell him how your content reciprocates his.

PERFECT SUBJECT: As i said the subject of the mail plays the most important ole in deciding if your mail is ever opened. So make sure that his name is there in the subject line, then dont talk about the link request in the subject line. Something like Hi, John A suggestion for xyz.com is bound to work.

A TRICK: This is more like a fluke but it works. If there is a site that the website that this site is linking to but the link no longer works, then you can ask the webmaster to replace it with your own.

Next time around I will be talking about directories where you can find links. About 20 people requested for Brad Callen's book and they were mighty pleased with it. If you want one too, then send in a mail to djthere4u@yahoo.co.in. I will be glad to send you a copy too.

The single most important thing that can shoot your search engine rankings through the roof is the anchor text of the inbound links that you receive to your site. Atleast thats true as far as Google is concerned. Most people think that the most important thing to get a good serach engine ranking is optimizing their page for the keyword of their choice. And they use various techniques like making sure that the keyword to be optimized is repeated a certain number of times in their pages (keyword density), or making sure that the title of the page contains their keyword or even highliting the keyword by bolding and italicizing it. All these are important but are nothing compared to the anchor text of your inbound links. They have the power to single handedly determine your Search Engine Rankings.

One very good example is giving a Google search for the phrase: "Click here". observe the first result that pops out, its the page for the Adobe Reader. Now thats unconventional. Lets check the page for optimization,

• The keyword is not present in the title.
• Its not even present once in the entire page.
• Its not there in the URL either.

Then why is it ranked so high for a keyword for which it has not even attempted to optimize? The answer to this question can be found by using a tool known as SEO Elite. Use that tool to find the anchor texts of the links to that page. You will notice that about 15-16% of the links pointing to the site contain the word 'here' and about 6% of them contain the word click. And many of these sites are high page rank sites so the page's ranking jumped up.

Next time around I will teach you how to write the perfect letter to get a link with an anchor of your choice... Moreover will also tell you about a few tools to do this most of it is free stuff so watch out.

Note: I learnt all about search engine optimization from Brad Callen. I have his book with me. If you are interested you can mail me and i will be happy to send it to you. Just write in here. I can guarantee that his books will boost your search engine rankings like anything.

Most of the people who read my blog have been adsense publishers for some time butyesterday a guy wrote into me asking me the best way to apply for adsense. What kind of a website should his first one be in order to make sure that his application is not rejected and is actually approved as fast as possible.

Well fact is that the best way to get selected as an adsense publisher is not through a website but actually through blogging and that too through a blog on Blogger. General observation suggests that people who join through a Blogger blog are approved the most easily. Many a times your request can be rejected if you donot have adequate content on your site but no such problems here. I applied for adsense with just two posts and that too about how my day was.

Then the best thing is that it can get you hooked to the habit of blogging. Once you start writing you realise the fun that it can be. I dont need tot tell you that it can be a great source for revenue and a perfect place for advertising your site.

Now to the crucial question Why do Blogger? No real answers but I suppose that Google likes the fact that you are posting at a place that is owned by them. They may just like the fact that they can easily track you...

Q. What is the fuss about?
A. In every adsense publisher's unending quest for making Google's ads look like their own content, one of the most valuable tools are image. An image next to the link of your ad will make it look like a link recommended by you. A very colourful or striking picture can take the viewers eye away from the 'Ads By Google' notification around the ads as the eye is naturally drawn to the colurful pics and the coloured links and not to the rather drably coloured Ads By Google sign.


Q. Is that really useful?
A. You might be wondering if doing something as simple as adding a pic will do anything phenomenal for your CTR. Then rejoice because the increase can be phenomenal, sometimes as high as 300% in some cases. But adsense optimisation has always been about taking care of the small details. For example even removing your border can give your CTR a 25% boost.

Q. Wait I have an idea! I have a site which basically does reviews of laptops. So I will place pics of laptops close to my ads, now that should make my visitors click.
A. Their you go, thats what a good adsense publisher thinks like but evidently Google doesnot think like that. In e-mails to the Google team they have informed me that I cannot place images close to my Google ads if these images have any relevance to the content of your site. So there is no way you can place those laptops there.

Q. Hey look at this:

Its real good. Must be generating loads of revenue for the publisher. And you cant stop him can you? Even his images are not related.
A.Yeah you are right it must be working really well for him. But what he is doing is actually illegal too. Google is not at all pleased with people placing their images that close to their ad units. Truth be told Google does not want those images there at all but its kinda lenient and wont have any problems with you placing images there if it fulfils two conditions: 1) There should be some distance between the ad unit and the images. 2) There should be a line seperating the images from he ads. The pic below should be a good example:

Q. If all these conditions are to be fulfilled then it seems like loads of hard work.Can I simplify the process?
A. Havent seen many tools that can do that for you, but there is this great plugin available for wordpress users, its known as the adsense beautifier.

Q. Maybe I can put an image in the background of my ad.
Well somebody did think on those lines and actually created a tool to do that. But I think its arther dubious. I have done a review. Read about it here.