It’s been a while since my last AdSense post so to continue with the series on From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense here is Part 6. If you haven’t been following along or need a quick recap our Money Making Formula is $ = V x CTR x CPC. In previous posts I focused on:

V (Volume of Traffic)

1. The formula for AdSense success: $ = V x CTR x CPC
2. Have other people write the content for you

CTR (Click Through Rate)

1. Location, Location, Location
2. Don’t Make Ads Look Like Ads!
3. Focus on Ad Relevancy

Today’s lesson is…

Get the Right Traffic

We’re still going to focus on improving your CTR for this lesson and where your visitors come from can have a dramatic effect on how much money you can make.

There are a number of ways you can drive traffic to your website including getting repeat visitors and finding new visitors through search engines, social media, and partner websites.

“It’s called banner blindness – the more people visit the same website, the more they know where the ads are, and the less likely they are to click on them.”

Repeat vs. First Time Visitors

Let’s first focus in on getting repeat versus first time visitors. Repeat visitors are more loyal, will buy more from you, will tell more people about your site, will link to you… but they won’t click on ads! It’s called banner blindness – the more people visit the same website, the more they know where the ads are, and the less likely they are to click on them.

Think about your own experience with your favorite blogs and websites. When was the last time you clicked on an ad from that site?

This is a main reason why bloggers can have a hard time making money through AdSense – it’s not that blogs themselves are not profitable, it’s that many of the visitors are returning blog subscribers and they won’t click on your ads. If you have a lot of loyal, repeat visitors then you’ll likely have a better time selling your own product or recommending other products and taking a commission because these people trust you and will listen to your recommendations whereas a first time visitor doesn’t know who you are and won’t care about your suggestions – but they will click on your ads.

If you want to make more money through AdSense, the message is simple: You need to focus on getting those first time visitors.

Not All First Time Visitors Are Created Equal

Now that we’ve established that you need to focus on first time visitors, the question becomes “What kind of traffic source should I focus on? Search engines? Social media? Partner websites?” I’ll break these down for you individually.

Social Media: There is no question that social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Digg can drive thousands and thousands of visitors to your website. I’ve had an article hit the homepage of Digg and it actually caused our servers to melt because we had too much traffic coming all at once.

“If you serve up too many AdSense ads that don’t get clicked, Google will stop showing high paying ads on your site so not only can social media traffic cause your website to crash, it won’t lead to a lot of clicks, and can actually reduce the quality of future ads that get shown on your site.”

Great news right? Unfortunately no… almost none of the social media traffic clicked on my AdSense ads. People who come from social media websites  a) are generally very web savvy and quickly spot your ads and ignore them and b) are browsers looking for a way to kill time – they aren’t really interested in solving a problem and are unlikely to click on an ad that offers a solution to a problem.

Even worse, if you serve up too many AdSense ads that don’t get clicked, Google will stop showing high paying ads on your site so not only can social media traffic cause your website to crash, it won’t lead to a lot of clicks, and can actually reduce the quality of future ads that get shown on your site. Social media definitely has a place in your overall marketing efforts but don’t count on it to help your AdSense revenue.

Partner Websites: Partner websites can be a good source of targeting traffic, assuming that the referring site is related to your own. If your website is about cars and you get linked from a beauty supply website, I wouldn’t expect too many click conversions.

Traffic from partner websites will generally have a higher conversion than social media traffic but you will still get a lot of people who are just browsing and aren’t really interested in your content or ads . It can also be really hard to get a lot of traffic from partner websites that is targeted. Remember the V in $ = V x CTR x CPC Money Making Formula is Volume of Traffic. If you can’t get many many people coming to your site then you won’t make much money with AdSense.

“Search engine traffic is the holy grail of AdSense revenue and should be your primary target.”

Search Engines: Search engine traffic is the holy grail of AdSense revenue and should be your primary target. People who come to your website through search engines are typically looking for a solution to a problem which will make them more likely to click through on ads. They are also not as web savvy as social media visitors so if you do a good job in not making your ads look like ads, they will spend more time reading your AdSense offers and clicking through on them which means money in your pocket.

To get some tips on how to improve your search engine rankings and traffic there are a number of great bloggers who cover the topic and I also write a regular series on search engine optimization as well.

The bottom line here is if you want to have a high click through rate then you need to focus on getting as many people finding your website through the search engines as possible. Google has suggested that an average click through rate should be 1-5%. If you’re not in there (or above… why do you just want to be average?) then it’s time to focus on getting more search engine visitors and the other methods I’ve already discussed to improve your click through rate.

What have your experiences been with search engine vs. social media vs. repeat visitors and their impact on your AdSense revenue? Do you have any examples to share?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

Photo credit: labnol

In my first two posts in this series I discussed the AdSense formula $ = V x CTR x CPC and how to increase your V through search engine optimization, Twitter, and getting others to write content for you. Today I’m going to assume we’ve solved the “How do I get traffic?” problem and move on to the next part in the formula – the Click Through Rate (CTR).

Now we’re worried about getting the people who are coming to our site clicking through on our AdSense ads. All the traffic in the world won’t help you if they don’t click through on your ads.

“It might make sense logically to put it at the top because that’s where everyone else is putting it but it’s exactly that reason why you should choose a different location.”

Location, Location, Location

You’ve heard that in real estate the location of your property is the key to getting a high sale price. The same principle applies to websites and Google AdSense – the location of your ads can make a big difference in how much money goes into your wallet every month. Most people who get started with AdSense end up putting the ads in the low value areas which result in poor earnings.

Because Google only earns money through AdSense when you earn money they have provided a number of tools to help you be more successful. One of the most important ones is their Heat Map. According to Google:

“Certain locations tend to be more successful than others. This “heat map” illustrates the ideal placing on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance).”

Note that the banner spots at the top of the page, bottom of the page and right side of the page are not high paying locations. This is where most websites owners who are new to AdSense will put their ad units and it might make sense logically to put ads at the top because that’s where everyone else is putting them but it’s exactly that reason why you should choose a different location.

People have “banner blindness” and are used to seeing ads at the top, for example, so they ignore it and move downwards to where they think the content will be. You can see from the Heat Map that the highest payout area is in the middle of the page within the primary content of the page – not where you would expect ads to be which is exactly the point. According to Google:

“All other things being equal, ads located above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. ”

What If I Run Forums?

For all you website owners with forums, Google hasn’t forgotten about you and they launched a different Heat Map specifically for you. Here is what Google has to say and what the Heat Map looks like:

“Because forum regulars tend to skip the header and go straight to the meat of the thread, placing your ad unit above or below the first post can be more effective than ads next to the logo. Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post. This provides users who make it to the end of a thread with a ‘next step’ when the content ends. Try to avoid placing it after the footer, though, as your readers will likely move to the next thread without seeing the ad. ”

What If I Have A Blog?

Finally, if you are a blogger and want to make money from AdSense, Google has two suggested layouts to choose from. See which one works best for you. Here are Google’s comments and the layouts:

“In general, wider ad formats tend to be more reader-friendly. Placing an ad unit after the first post will likely catch your readers’ attention. Take a look at our sample implementations to get some ideas. Also, consider placing a Skyscraper (120×600) or vertical link unit on the right side of your blog. ”

One of the greatest parts about running a business through AdSense is that you can quickly test different variables and see what generates the best results. Whether you have a website, forum, or blog, use these layouts as general templates to help figure out starting points for where to put your AdSense ads. Keep testing until you find the location that works best for you. Changing my ad locations was the first thing I did to optimize my AdSense and helped move me from having a website to having an online business.

In Part 4 of this series I will continue to look at how you can increase the click through rates of the AdSense units on your pages.

As always I look forward to your comments. What experience have you had with changing the location of your AdSense ad units?

Making money from a website used to be extremely challenging – not only did you have to produce great content and promote it effectively, you also had to go out and find advertisers to give yourself a revenue stream to live off of.

Enter Google AdSense

Google changed the playing field for many web publishers because they went out and found you advertisers for your website. Every time your users click on one of your ads, you get paid and Google takes a commission. As Google AdSense grew to become the largest online ad network they could also find targeted advertisers who might only advertise on one of your pages but not the others because it was of specific interest to them. That kind of needle-point precision helps increase your number of clicks because it’s more targeted information and also would have been nearly impossible to manage if you had individual advertisers approaching you to place ads one page at a time.

Best of all, Google AdSense is extremely easy to install. You just have to copy and paste a few lines of code into your website template and Google takes care of the rest!

“I thought to myself “You CAN make a living from this!” Four months later, in May, I passed the $300 per day mark for the first time.”

Making Real Money From Google AdSense

Most website owners that have AdSense installed barely earn enough each day to buy a cup of coffee. When I first started in January of 2005 I was making $0.27 per day. I thought to myself “I’ll give this AdSense thing a try.” By May, as my traffic grew, so did my AdSense revenue. Suddenly I was making $1.17 per day. Unfortunately a lot of website owners never get past this stage. I thought to myself “Maybe I can do better” and delved into the world of AdSense optimization, or in other words, figuring out how to make the most from the traffic I had coming to my site. The hardest way to  make money is to increase your number of visitors. The easiest way is to make more money from the visitors that you already have.

After optimizing my AdSense and continuing to grow my business I first crossed the $100 per day mark in January of 2006. I thought to myself  “You CAN make a living from this!” Four months later, in May, I passed the $300 per day mark for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history. In this series I hope to share with you some of the tactics that worked for me and hopefully you can use them to grow your online business as well.

“Most online entrepreneurs who try AdSense get one or two of the important success factors but not all three which is why they can only buy themselves a cup of coffee per day from their AdSense earnings.”

$ = V x CTR x CPC

This is the most important formula that you need to know if you’re planning on using AdSense to make money. The money that you make ($) is equal to the number of visitors (V) that you get to your site multiplied by the click through rate (CTR) of those visitors onto the ads on your site multiplied by the cost per click (CPC) of the ads being clicked on. If you want to be able to live off of your website then you need to have traffic coming to your site, a high percentage of the visitors who come to your site clicking through on your ads, and you need to be in a niche topic where people are willing to pay a lot of money to advertise. You need all three working together to be successful. Most online entrepreneurs who try AdSense get one or two of the important success factors but not all three which is why they can only buy themselves a cup of coffee per day from their AdSense earnings.

Let’s look at the following chart to explain this important point:

You could have an extremely popular site but if it’s not optimized for AdSense and it’s not in a high paying niche then you’re only going to make pocket change from your earnings. Similarly if all you do is optimize for AdSense but don’t have many visitors and you’re in a low paying niche then you still won’t be making very much. Finally, if you are in a great niche but have low visitor numbers and don’t AdSense optimize then you’re again just going to be scraping by.

Even if you get two of these factors right you still won’t hit a big payday. For instance if you have a popular website and optimize for AdSense but it’s in a niche that doesn’t pay well then you will need to find a day job to support yourself. You’ll get the same results by picking any two of these factors.You will only break out when you can get all three working together. The reason is because each number is multiplied by one another. If you have the equation A x B x C, even if A and B are massive numbers, if C is very low, you’ll still end up with a small amount.

For information on how to increase your Visitors you should learn about search engine optimization and Twitter. In Part 2 of this series I will look at another way to dramatically increase your Visitors and then continue the series by discussing ways to maximize your CTR and CPC to help you start earning a real living from AdSense.