Adsense Map Alternatives

AdSense is not the only game in town and for many internet publishers it is not the most profitable option either.

The link below takes you to one alternative system. It's neat, tidy and integrates with a system that can make you over $50 for some clicks.

Furthermore, it incorporates a viral marketing element that can generate income for you at a later date even if you take your website down!

Best of all, it costs nothing.

There's more info here

http://www.AdsenseSide.com

Adsense Blogging

Since I started using AdSense there has been a huge increase in the interest in blogging. You know the kind of thing: people everywhere posting their random thoughts about whatever takes
their fancy on special websites.

The great news about blogging is that you can start a blog for nothing, get it hosted for nothing and yet still add your own AdSense code into your postings.

Result: a source of additional AdSense income that costs you absolutely zero apart from some time at your computer.

If blogging is a bit of a mystery or if you just want to know how you can exploit these free services to make more money with AdSense or with affiliate programs for that matter, you might like to take a peek at this book.

http://bloggingtothebank.com

Adsense Tools

I've sent you a fair bit of info about AdSense now and hopefully you've understood all the key elements about traffic, clicks, how much you get paid and so on.

A wide range of tools have been developed since AdSense first came along and many publishers have benefited significantly from these. For example, there are tools that build sites with
content for you. There are tools that set up links from other sites to yours which helps with the process of search engine optimization - the process of getting your site ranked highly
for important search phrases.

There are also tools that virtually guarantee to increase the number of clicks you get per visitor.

Personally, I'm very happy to pay good money for good products and so should you be. After all, if a product costs you x dollars and yet makes you 10x dollars it would be a perverse commercial
decision not to buy it.

Having said that, there is absolutely no point in paying more for a product than you have to. So today I wanted to tell you about an interesting website that does one thing, and one thing
alone.

It sells well-known internet marketing products at sharp discounts.

It's a site that I buy things from myself from time to time, especially when a product I want is suddenly offered cheap.

The site is a membership site but without any charges attached.
You just need to sign up to it and that's it. The product on offer changes every day and if you see one from time to time that you want, then that is the best place to buy it because
it will be cheap.

Let me give you an example.

Recently a product called SEO Elite was offered by the site for about 42% off the normal price. SEO Elite is an excellent product and normally sells for $167 (or at least it does at the time I'm
writing this email).

Through the site I mentioned it was on sale for $97 instead.
So simply by being a member of the site, buyers saved $70 which is a significant amount.

See what I mean?

At some point you will want to purchase some products to help grow your online profits and if you are going to do this, then you might as well pay as little as you can.

Sign up here. As I said, there's no cost.

http://getresponse.com/t/9483593/397277/172318076/

Adsense Insider Part 5

I said earlier that there are things you can do if you find your site is not accepted by Google and by far the most useful thing to bear in mind is that Google seeks out information. So unless your website has a lot of information in it, you probably won't get accepted.

Now as you can imagine, this is not a clear cut issue.

Who decides whether your site is information rich or not?

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AUTOMATIC SITE ASSESSMENT
********************************

The answer is that in the first instance Google's own spider, the software that scans your site, is the first arbiter. If it 'thinks' your site is content rich then you will pass the first hurdle. And this is where some sites fail.

The spider is an automated system and it makes quick, not always accurate judgements which gives you the first clue about getting your site accepted:

If your site is rejected fast by which I mean within a couple of hours or so, it has probably been rejected by Google's spider on the basis that it doesn't understand what your site is about too clearly or it hasn't found much content.

So you will have to get to work and add content - write further copy relevant to your main them, scan the web and find good articles to post (but make sure you get the appropriate permissions). All this will help.

And then submit again.

BE WARNED: there is a rumour going round that one site was rejected and it simultaneously got dropped from a previously high ranking on Google's search results page. It's only a rumour, but be warned.

Similarly, if your site is accepted fast, it will almost certainly have been accepted automatically.

******************
Human intervention
******************

However, there appears to be a middle case where the spider is not sure whether your site qualifies or not.
And in this instance, the site is referred to a human who makes the decision.

FactsAboutAdSense.com passed straight through the acceptance process because it has a load of content in it, has a clear theme running right through the site and is designed to move up the search engine ranks too.

TIP:

If you are thinking of applying for AdSense, check out sites that compete with your own for traffic and see if any of them have been accepted. If they have, compare the content in them to your own to see if you exceed theirs. (This is quite a subjective process but it can help you)

If you are rejected, you can always apply again.

**************
Multiple sites
**************

Google actively discourages you from running several AdSense accounts on different sites. I'm not clear why they do this at the moment apart perhaps from saving operational costs involved in printing and posting checks.

However, it does mean that once in, you're in. For example, I run a website called CommercialReality.co.uk which is where I sell my consultancy services and I host some AdSense ads there on the page http://www.commercialreality.co.uk/marketingtools.htm

I suspect though that there is inherent danger in taking your successful application from one site and stretching it across to a very poor site because Google will always be jealous of its brand image. If I get any more news on this I'll let you know.

There's something else to think about too. Google is most likely to place HIGHER earning ads on your site because, whilst on Google's own page there can be up to 8 ads, with AdSense
there can only be a maximum of 5.

If you were Google, what would you do? Place the lower bidding ads, or the higher ones?

Don't forget however that not all AdWords ads are syndicated out into the AdSense program.

Here's a page that will tell you more about how Google shares AdSense revenuue with publishers. The key point here is that whilst the headline figure looks good, it is skewed
in favor of Google's largest clients.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/2419-3-10.htm


*****************************************************

Well that's the end of the course. I hope you now feel
better informed about Google's AdSense system.

Adsense Insider Part 4

Today we are going to deal with the process of implementing AdSense into your site.

Of course, you first of all need to get accepted into the AdSense program.

Assuming your site has made the grade, you will get an email from Google with the title Welcome to AdSense.

This will include a link to a page on Google where you enter your username and password.

Make your password non-obvious because when you log on to your account, you say where the money goes and you don't want someone else redirecting it do you?

Included in your AdSense control panel is a form where you specify what shape of ads you want to display and when you make your selection, some JavaScript code appears in a box below. All you need to do is cut and paste this code into your site.

But there are some decisions you need to make first.

There are three steps.

1. Decide which pages you want to place AdSense ads on.

2. Decide what format ads you want on each page.

3. Paste the code in the site

***********************
Where to place your ads
***********************

Do you want AdSense ads on your home page?

This depends on what your site is about. Remember, unless you are writing a site specifically to get AdSense revenues, the main aim of your site is not going to be getting clicks that TAKE PEOPLE AWAY from your pages!

The best place to put ads is on content-rich pages that you already have but which are not producing any revenues for you already.

***************
AdSense formats
***************

Google offers lots of formats for your ads. We can't show them in this email but you can find out more about them at http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/adsenseformattingguide.htm

You should pick the one that fits in best with your existing page structure unless during the review process you decide to undertake a major re-vamp!

Google allows multiple formats across your site but until recently only allowed you to place one block of ads on each page. This has now increased to 3 blocks on the same page.

*************
Color schemes
*************

Google lets you specify what colors the ads will appear in and there are two schools of thought about what is best.

You can design ads so that they fit well with your existing web design.

Or you can make the ads stand out strongly by choosing a marketedly different color palette.

You can now get sufficiently high resolution statistics from Google to find out which ads work best on your site.

I cover this in detail in my book The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense.

************
Pasting code
************

This is either easy for you or difficult! If you routinely look at the HTML in your web pages, the
process is straightforward: just locate where in the page you want the ads to go and paste the code in.

If HTML is a foreign language you'll need some help to begin with.

Practically, the best way forward is to experiment a bit. Put the code in, have a look at the page (and Google will immediately start posting ads on the page although they may not be context-targeted to begin with - more on this later.) If you like what you see, stick with it. If not, move it around, use a different format (go back to your AdSense control panel) and do it again.

*****************
What happens next
*****************

As soon as your new page is viewed (even if you preview it in FrontPage), Google gets alerted to
its existence and sends out some ads.

Now if Google doesn't know anything about the page you will see so-called Public Service ads which are about charities and so on.

However, in around 15 minutes (it's that fast) you will start to see ads that are context-targeted.
They will be more relevant to your page.

But this will only happen if Google can work out what your page is about, so check that the copy makes it clear and that the page title, headings and meta tags are consistent and valid.

*******************
Rejected by Google?
*******************

If you can't get into the AdSense program, don't despair! There are things you can probably do to improve your chances and you can re-submit your site.

Look carefully at the criteria for acceptance again on Google own site.

Make sure you have relatively clean content, with lots of text (Google can't "read" the content of a picture and it doesn't deal well with Flash animations) and focus your copy on the theme of the web page.

You will also need to ensure that your site is big enough so that it isn't regarded as too trivial.

Some people say you should go for at least 20 pages but in our experience you don't need that much - you just need good content.

*******************

Quite a short day today.

Tomorrow, we'll cover some tricks for getting accepted even on small sites and how to interpret the earning statistics.

I'll also give you a link that currently at least shows you what sort of earnings you should expect.

Google forbids people from releasing this info - but I've found an independent source on the internet that I'll share with you.

Adsense Insider Part 3

We know that AdSense revenue was controllably dependent on

* Click thru rate
- you need to encourage those clicks- but watch out you don't break Google's rules.

* Click thru price
- have content relating to high value keywords

* Page traffic
- more visits equals more clicks

The focus today is on Page traffic.


I don't know how much traffic your site currently gets but you probably want more. However, there are two different sorts of traffic: the casual visitor who is not going to do much, is click/trigger happy and won't hang around and doesn't come back.

Then there's the keen, genuinely interested, active site participant. This is the sort of traffic you want to get and keep because your job is to develop a relationship with this type of visitor - not a one-night stand.

Why?

Because people who visit your site frequently are going to be interested in what is on it and this interest will extend to your AdSense ads - that's what Google does for you automatically.

Interest = clicks. Clicks = money.

They'll also come back of their own accord and each time they do, they might see another interesting ad too.


That thinking has helped us define who we want but we now have two tasks ahead:

1. Getting these people to visit your site the first time.

2. Getting these people engaged in the site so that they remember it, like it and come back frequently

Let's look at the first of these.

******************************
Getting the first time visitor
******************************

You are going to have to promote your website to people who you know are likely to be interested in the contents of your site.

There are 8 standard strategies:

1. Advertise your site offline using postcards, printed ads, signs on your car etc.
BUT GIVE PEOPLE A GOOD REASON to visit in your ad.

2. Advertise your site online with AdWords and other pay
per click systems such as Overture - but watch you don't
spend more than you earn.

3. Get your site high on search engines (by building
excellent content - that's what they look for).
This is FREE and is the best method although it takes
time for a new site to get noticed. People searching
on a search engine are ACTIVELY looking for stuff
which means they are more likely to become active
visitors, visitors who return and click - if they
like what they find.

4. Promote your site in an ezine about your subject
matter (but make your writing interesting) and send it
to your regular customers or visitors.

5. Enter comments into discussion forums and include a short
link to your site. We did this for FactsAboutAdSense.com
in a brand-marketing forum and started getting visits
almost immediately - for ZERO cost.

6. Use PR techniques to get your site mentioned in the Press.

7. Include your web address in your email signature ALWAYS.
Again, this won't cost you anything but will increase the
visit rate - and it can work very well if you do more than
just put your web address on it - give them a reason to
visit. ("You could get paid by Google. Visit
FactsAboutAdSense.com to learn how" is what I use. It works.)

8. Publish an ebook about your subject and give it away but
include links to your website in it.


******************************
Keeping the relationship going
******************************

How does your site keep people engaged?

You need to give people

a * REASON, and

a * REMINDER,

to * RETURN


How do you do this?

***********
The REASON
***********

Make your site genuinely useful and informative about your
theme, product or service.

************
The REMINDER
************

You can't remind people to visit unless you know who they are. So you need to get their contact details in return for permission to keep in touch and an effective way to do this is to give something away like a tip sheet, a guide, insider knowledge and so on.

But, again, make sure it is useful and has value.

Now use this contact information to remind people about your site.

The easiest way to do this is by email, but it is good to vary the media sometimes and use snail mail too (so make sure you get address details too.)

If you use email, you are probably going to need to automate the process, otherwise you'll spend all day at your PC, and the best way to do this is to use an autoresponder.

What an autoresponder does is send out emails automatically when it receives new contact details but good ones do much more than this.

I use one to distribute this AdSense Insider course and I have programmed it to send out the 5 lessons in the course automatically in sequence.

Here's some more info about it
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/autoresponders.htm

Your autoresponder should be easy to use, and provide you with detailed testing and reporting capabilities as well as, crucially, a facility that makes it easy for people to opt-out from your mailing list. You must do this to avoid being accused of spamming.

This is yet another reason why content is king. Keep providing information, information, information otherwise they'll sign off - for good.

************************
Your visitors' behaviour
************************

How do people behave when they visit your site?

First time visitors make an extremely quick judgement about your site, in fact you typically have just 10 seconds or so to make a positive impression.

So you have to explain immediately why people should stay.

Don't worry about not catching everyone because you only want targeted visitors anyway. The low interest types are not going to help drive up your AdSense revenues.

A great way to do this is to put your number one benefit statement into the headline on your home page.

Does FactsAboutAdSense.com do this?

You judge.

*******************************
The dreaded Corporate Yawn-fest
*******************************

What doesn't work is a corporate yawn-fest on a web site that starts off with something like "We've pride ourselves in providing you, the customer, with excellence in everything
we do..."

Apart from anything else, why would you believe them?

Now IF you get someone to stay on your site, they typically have a little look round first before delving more deeply into what you're offering.

Only if they continue to be interested are you likely to get their attention enough to get their contact details.

And you may well not get them first time, which is why your site must also give them a reason to return unprompted.

And the reason is

Content - again.

But when they do come back, they'll really have a good look around and start to engage in the site.

And that is when you'll get the AdSense clicks

Adsense Insider Part 2

Here's the link to today's lesson online.
Don't forget you can see working demos there.

http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/day2a.htm

------------------------------------
High Value Keyword Report Download

You can download your bonus keyword report from the link at the bottom of this page. As you'll learn in a moment, knowing which keywords are worth the most is an important part of maximizing your AdSense earnings
------------------------------------


First an apology: there's a bit of math ahead!

Yesterday we looked at AdWords and learnt how AdSense is Google's AdWords syndication program that posts AdWords ads on context-targeted websites:

Ads about binoculars appear on web pages with information about binoculars on them.

It makes sense doesn't it!

Today we are going to look at the factors that affect how much money you will get from Google if you sign up (and are accepted for) the AdSense program, paying detailed attention to those
areas that are controllable - because many aren't.

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The AdSense revenue equation
****************************

Revenue is generated for you when someone clicks on an AdSense ad on your site. Google charges the advertiser for the click thru and shares this revenue with you.

The amount you earn from an ad is given by the following equation

Income PER AD=

Click thru price X
Fractional pay out X
Click thru rate X
Page traffic X
Appearance frequency

The CLICK THRU PRICE is the price the advertiser is bidding to place an ad under the AdWords program and is determined by a complex real time automatic auction process: Google advertisers set a maximum price they are prepared to bid for keywords and they usually pay less than this.

The FRACTIONAL PAYOUT RATE is the percentage of its revenues that Google pays out to AdSense partners. THIS FIGURE IS NOT DISCLOSED BY Google. However, anecdotal evidence suggest the payout rate is good and competitive systems such as 7search.com
payout around the 50% mark.

CLICK THRU RATE is the number of times the ad is clicked on divided by the number of times it is displayed ("impressions").

PAGE TRAFFIC is the number of times people visit your web page.

APPEARANCE FREQUENCY is the number of times a particular ad appears on your page (remember that ads are rotated by Google automatically and successful ads are shown more often.)

To repeat: this is income PER advertisement, so to calculate your total AdSense income you need to evaluate this equation for each ad on all your web pages and add up the results.

By the way, Google saves you the bother and tells you the answer.

But already the complexity of the process is apparent and of these factors, some are completely out of your control:

Fractional payout rate and Appearance frequency being two.

So let's look at those three factors that are at least
partially within your control.

****************
Click thru price
****************

The Click thru price, whilst fundamentally determined by the advertiser, CAN be influenced by the content of your website: if you can modify your site so that it includes more content
related to higher value keywords, you are more likely to get higher value click thru prices.

For example, if you run a site about Bird Watching you may get ads posted about Bird Watching books. But why not extend the site to include content about the best binoculars
for bird watchers?

Dedicate a page to this topic and you could find higher value ads running on that page because binoculars sell for more than books and businesses advertising binoculars may be
willing to pay more for keywords relating to them.

You could also run some pages about travel and hotels in exotic locations where rich bird watchers like to take their holidays.

It's all content relevant to your site but it is likely to increase your AdSense revenues too.

-----------------------------------------------------------
TECHNOLOGY NOTE
-----------------------------------------------------------

The ads you get on different pages of your site will vary according to the content of the page.

AdSense is that clever!
------------------------------------------------------------

If you've already got a site, you can get a tool from Google called the AdSense preview tool. This lets you see what sort of ads you'll get even if you haven't signed up for AdSense yet.

You can get it here
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/adsensepreviewtool.htm?2


If you get ads that don't seem relevant there are 2 possible causes:

1) Google doesn't know what your page is about, or
2) Google has never heard of your site.

Uh-oh!

We'll discuss how you get round these problems later on.

****************************
Estimating click thru values
****************************

Visit
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/
to find out how much keywords are being bid for on Overture, a competitor to AdWords. This will give you an INDICATION of the prices people are bidding on Google which in turn will
give you some idea about the click thru value of AdSense ads relating to those keywords.

The rule is: aim high.

Alternatively if you already have an AdWords account you can use the Keyword tool to find out the exact price of any keyword - but remember AdSense is about content, not keywords so, again, this is only going to be an indicator.

***************
Click thru rate
***************

Can you influence this?

YES.

You can. Here's how.

You use your page to sell the products and services that are likely to be shown in the ads. To follow our binocular example, if you post content about the benefits of excellent (and expensive) binoculars and how they enhance the bird watching experience, readers are going to be more
interested in buying binoculars than if you simply post content about the different types of binoculars available and they will consequently be more likely to click an ad.

http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/zeiss_binoculars.htm?2

You have to write sales copy that focuses on the generic benefits of the products and services likely to be advertised on your pages.

************
Page traffic
************

This is what web marketers fight hardest over.

No traffic means no clicks means no income. So you have to maximise the number of people visiting your site.

There are a raft of techniques available and that's tomorrows topic.

To download your bonus High Value Keyword report click this link
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/adsensekeywords.htm