Cash Keywords

New Tool to Preview AdSense, Chitika and YPN

New tool hot off the presses from Digital Inspiration (saw it via ChitikaNews who pointed it out to me).   We knew someone would figure out how to see ad previews for your URL using the current "Big 3" Publisher Networks (MSN - you better jump in there soon, or buy out Chitika and make their New Year).  Just enter the URL of the page you want to preview ads on and you can choose from AdSense Color formats, and then select the link to the ad combo you want.

You have your Preview Tool choice of either an IE compatible download, a FireFox extension or an "all-in-one" online tool  Great job!

I tried cashkeywords.com and compared Adsense Yahoo. I got OK matching from Adsense, and poor matching from Yahoo, 1 out of 4 relevant ads and the rest ROS garbage - you know Vonage and Mortgage ads.  No Wonder YPN CTR is bad, but the one page I did test, despite a poor CTR still got some clicks well over $1 each and so it did as well as Adsense overall - however, I'm not sure what ads got clicked because what I saw on that test of YPN was junk. nice to be able to compare potential ads for the same exact page.....

Very Interesting Tips and Insight on Building AdSense Sites

There's a very interesting thread from a publisher who sounds very successful in Adsense after only 1 year on Digitalpoint AdSense forums called my tips.  Pretty generic title for an interesting thread started by Shoemoney on how he recommends putting together sites for Adsense. He shares some real insight, and answers questions straightforwardly.  Definitely worth a look - 15,000+ pageviews can't be wrong!

Jensense Reports One Site Can Affect Entire Adsense Account

We've only been able to speculate on how Google "smart pricing" affects AdSense revenues, but Jensense reports that one AdSense Support team member gave some interesting details about smart pricing including:

Smart pricing affects the whole account (not just a page or one site individually).

One poorly converting site can trigger smart pricing even if the site is unrelated to other sites in your account.

Smart pricing is tracked with a 30 day cookie - which might account for reports from some publishers of smart pricing "kicking in" 3-4 weeks after making major changes to their sites/pages with Adsense.

It's nice to know that it's possible to reverse the effects of smart pricing by removing poorly performing sites, but again this idea needs testing to see what effect removing poorly performing sites. 

And anyway, what _is_ a poorly performing conversion?  Do we gauge poor conversion using CTR? That's not the same thing as conversions.  From the AdSense Publishers perspective, we don't have the tools to know if our ads are converting well.  What if someone clicks thru fine, but doesn't buy a thing on the Adwords' Advertisers sites?   I have no way of knowing that information except to rely on Google - who has the data on conversions to some extent - to make the call (and hope it's fair).

Guess if my revenues drop noticeably then I am to assume that my sites aren't converting....?  Not an easy way to figure out what's wrong and try to fix it.

Create Rotating Adsense Ad Colors Easily

In case you missed it, Google's AdSense Optimization page has a section about rotating colors in your AdSense Ads easily.

...rotating color palettes is a simple way to add variety and freshness to your ads. All you need to do is hold down the Control key and select up to four color palettes when generating your ad code in the Ad layout code page of your account.

This technique can be great for sites with return visitors, so they notice the ads and reduce user "ad blindness." As with any changes, do as test to see if you need all 4 color rotation options,and what color combinations work best.

Adsense Test Code When Working Site Pages

I've been using a new app on some of my pages with Adsense and I needed to reload the pages ALOT. That got me thinking, "Gee, this is creating alot of impressions and what if I accidently click on an ad in the midst of the changes and reloads. Hmmm." Also you need to think about how the extra impressions will affect your CTR percentages as well.

I knew I saw a site that listed a test code you can use for your AdSense pages, for example, on pages under construction, or pages without real content on them yet (against AdSense TOS).  I decided to e-mail Google and I was told to use this code, "to prevent invalid clicks from being generated on pages where you'd like to do some testing":    google_adtest='on'

However, I actually used google_adtest='on' ; with a semi-colon added on the end, as each line of the AdSense Code also ends in a semicolon (I assume that keeps each line of code separate).

I added the code to the pages I was testing and I could see the impressions in the AdSense admin, but all other data said 0.  It 's worth the peace of mind, even though in the past I didn't add this code while working on a number of pages on any one of my sites.

AdSense FAQ compiled with common questions

AdSense FAQ at Webmaster Headquarters is a help for those questions that are commonly asked but aren't clearly answered in Google's AdSense Support area - Things like "what is a good CTR?" and "I clicked on my own ads by mistake!"Right now there are about 35 questions answered and more coming as people submit them.

Increase AdSense CTR up to 400% Using Images

I was looking for some buzz in the Adsense world and while the latest topic seemed dry, I saw a post in one of the AdSense forums that really got my attention.

This webmaster took a small mention about including images above the leaderboard made by another member, took a look at an example,  and tried it.  The results he had of a 400% increase in click thru rate (CTR) are remarkable to say the least.

What's more, it wasn't a fluke. A long thread developed on this topic, and it seems every webmaster that used this technique enjoyed some increase as well. You don't have to copy these sites at all. I believe it can work for almost any topic as long as the images are related to the topic.

It's well known in the print world that images with captions get read.  On the forum member site examples I saw, the images catch your eye, you read the "caption" - aka the AdSense ad text  - and it becomes more compelling to click. For some reason, Google doesn't put the URL on the leaderboard format, so it just adds to the illusion of a captioned photo.  In  the thread, someone shares that they got the OK from Google to use this technique, but caveat emptor, and don't use it if you are concerned about breaking Google's AdSense TOS.

AdSense Ads In Your Blog Text Code

Even though your blog software or app may be set up to add Adsense Ads to your blog, the location may be limited.  Having ads in a column on the left or right side of your blog is less intrusive, be common-sense (and experience) says, for better Adsense CTR, placing Adsense ads inside blog text works.

Rather than mess around with HTML, Blog Herald's editor, Duncan Riley, has a tidy bit of code, ready to use, and in an easily tweakable format.  Perfect!

Tiny Font Size Means More Adsense Revenues?

Roseanne van Langenberg of Marketing Defined not only says she is getting more stickiness and better Adsense CTR from small size fonts - her site is completely created with tiny fonts (the adsense ad fonts are slightly bigger though).  She says she's doubled Adsense CTR and now averages 3 page views per visitor.

I must say that the font is very small, and while I find reading online tiring anyway, her pages (I assume a 4 pt font or smaller) take concentration to read. I guess that forces one to slow down and read more because it's virtually impossible to skim.

One point to be made, though, is that Roseanne also made some ad placement changes and other page changes, so while the CTR doubled it's not absolutely clear that is what made all the difference.  But if you want to test it out by all means, it's worth a try.  I will try this techique on one of my sites using adsense and report back here.

All this was based on the Eyetrack III study that came to some very interesting conclusions, including utilizing smaller fonts.  It's been a trend lately in web design, but if everyone takes this advice, my online reading will be cut down noticeably or I will have massive migraines ;^)

PS. Just for clarity sake, I have my browser text size set to "medium"  - on IE go to "view" then "text size" and pull down to the setting you prefer.  Might have to start setting it on Largest one of these days.

AdSense Optimization tips from Google

Google has updated their Adsense optimization tips page with some tasty (and easily digestible) tips including: a page heat map that shows where users eyes go around a 3 column web page with a header and footer, best ad formats to use including the oft referred to large rectangle, and examples of ads that stand out and ads that blend in.

Interestingly, Google tells you how to select up to 4 color palettes so they rotate for variety - see item #4.

A careful read of this page (look at the sample ad page images carefully too - you'll see adsense ads embedded in tables, for example), and some testing provides as much useful info as most of the Adsense E-books out there!