Google Adsense: Learn with Google for Publishers

Home Learn with Google for Publishers

Senin, 19 Desember 2016

How to optimize your Adsense ad placements for mobile users

Dark.net Desember 19, 2016 Comment

This is the final guest post from AdSense publisher Brandon Gaille. Brandon has built his small business marketing blog, BrandonGaille.com, to over 2 million monthly visitors in less than three years. He’s featured as our guest blogger to share insights and tips from his personal blogging experience to help AdSense publishers grow earnings. If you’re new to AdSense, be sure to sign up for AdSense and start turning your #PassionIntoProfit.

Every year more people are using their phones and devices to browse web pages. In 2013, mobile made up only 17% of web traffic. In 2016, this number has risen to over 38%. Within the next couple of years, mobile traffic will easily surpass 50%.

This is why you need to take time to optimize your AdSense ads for mobile traffic. Although you can easily grab a responsive AdSense ad unit, there are more ways to optimize your ad units for mobile. It may be the easiest way, but I’ve found that the easy way usually does not always produce the best results. I’ve tested the responsive ad units on my blogs against manual optimization, and the results were staggering.

The manual optimization of my ads produced a 54% increase in my AdSense revenue.

Here’s what I learned from the tests I ran:

#1 A large mobile banner at the top of the page earned the most money on my site

The highest producing location was below the title of a post and above the first paragraph. It’s important to know that AdSense amended their policy on ads above the fold on mobile devices, and you can no longer use the 300x250 ad above the fold on mobile.

#2 Hide the sidebar ads in tablets and mobile

The sidebar is going to be pushed down to the bottom of the post when it is viewed in mobile. This is essentially banishing any ads in the sidebar to no man’s land. Most premium WordPress themes will allow you to turn off ad spots in the sidebar. This will allow you to drop in an additional AdSense ad into the post to get maximum monetization from mobile.

#3 The best ad grouping was top, middle, and bottom

Out of all the mobile ad groupings, this one easily produced the most revenue for me. The grouping was made up of one 320x100 ad and two 250x250 ads. The first ad was below the title and above the first paragraph. The second ad was placed after the 6th paragraph of the post. The final ad was placed at the end of the post.

In addition to mobile optimization, I applied four AdSense optimization strategies, which resulted in an overall revenue increase of close to 300%. Whether you are making $500/month or $5000/month, a 300% increase can make a huge impact on your yearly earnings.

Go here to read all of my “5 AdSense Optimization Strategies that Will Increase Your Earnings.”

Posted By
Brandon Gaille

Brandon Gaille is an AdSense publisher. You can learn more about Brandon at BrandonGaille.com and listen to his popular blogging podcast, The Blog Millionaire.

If you’re new to AdSense, be sure to sign up for AdSense and start turning your #PassionIntoProfit.

Senin, 05 Desember 2016

How to create better blog titles that can drive more traffic to your ads

Dark.net Desember 05, 2016 Comment

This is the third of five guest posts from AdSense publisher Brandon Gaille. Brandon has built his small business marketing blog, BrandonGaille.com, to over 2 million monthly visitors in less than three years. He’s featured as our guest blogger to share insights and tips from his personal blogging experience to help AdSense publishers grow earnings. If you’re new to AdSense, be sure to sign up for AdSense and start turning your #PassionIntoProfit.

Over the past three years, I’ve crafted titles for over 5,000 blog posts and have received over 58 million unique visitors to date. With that many titles and that much traffic, it’s allowed me to identify what types of titles get the most traffic.

The title of your page or blog post will play one of the largest roles in how much traffic you receive. From my extensive experience, a really great title can move your blog post dis and increase the number of social shares by over 300%.

The bottom line is… If you fail to write a compelling title that gets people to click, then your post is doomed to wallow in mediocrity.

Here are a few title optimization tactics that have proven to drive the most traffic.

#1 Place a number at the beginning of your title

If you have a list formatted post, then you need to be using numbered titles every single time. Titles that begin with numbers are proving to drive traffic. This is largely due to the increased consumption of users reading list posts more than any other type of blog post. A list post typically has anywhere from seven to forty key points, which are listed out numerically.
This makes it really easy for anyone to scan through the big takeaways and decide whether to dive deeper into the article. When people see the number 13 at the beginning of the title, they know they can scan through all 13 key points in a matter of seconds.

A numbered title paired with a list post will drive more clicks to your post and list style posts have one of the highest engagement rates. Posts with more clicks and higher engagement often are rewarded by becoming more discoverable to users.

Here are a couple of examples of numbered blog titles:

11 Tools to Create Share-Worthy Content
17 Incredible Social Media Statistics

I recommend crafting numbered blog post titles for more than half of your posts.

A Conductor study on headline preferences also backs up what I’ve found to be true on my blog.

blog headline statistics numbered titles

#2 The odd number gets 20% more clicks than the even number

Although no one has figured out exactly why this happens, the odd numbered titles get more clicks than the even numbered titles. Here’s an example.
Odd Numbered Title: 11 Keys to Earning More Money on Adsense
Even Numbered Title: 12 Types of Ads that Convert

Before you hit publish on the blog post titled, “8 Crazy Ways to Double Your Ad Revenue,” take a moment to either add one more tip or remove the least valuable tip. This will allow you to capitalize on the extra twenty percent of clicks by having an odd numbered title.

Learn more about creating better blog titles from my blog and read all of the “17 Ways to Create Catchy Blog Titles That Drive Traffic.”

Posted By
Brandon Gaille

Senin, 21 November 2016

How to earn money blogging with AdSense

Dark.net November 21, 2016 Comment

This is the first of five guest posts from AdSense publisher Brandon Gaille. Brandon has built his small business marketing blog, BrandonGaille.com, to over 2 million monthly visitors in less than three years. He’s featured as our guest blogger to share insights and tips from his personal blogging experience to help AdSense publishers grow earnings. If you’re new to AdSense, be sure to sign up for AdSense and start turning your #PassionIntoProfit.

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to build a residual income with Google AdSense. However, most bloggers are doing it the wrong way, and that’s keeping them from growing their earnings to a whole new level. Today, I’m going to share with you the four pillars that helped me build my blog traffic to over 1 million monthly visitors in less than 18 months after my first blog post.

My blogging success story is rather unique. For most of my thirties, I was mentally and physically disabled because of damage done by a small pituitary brain tumor. I was fortunate enough to find a doctor that identified the right combination of medicine to bring me back from the depths of nowhere. My mental cognition was regained a mere months before my pregnant wife was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. I was able to be there for my wife. Our first son was born healthy, and my wife officially beat cancer two months later.

The fear of our health problems returning led me down the road of creating a blog. One of my top skills is reverse engineering successful systems and rebuilding them into a more productive system. Before my health was ravaged, I had built several multi-million dollar companies on the back of this unique skillset.

Before I made my first blog post, I spent six months researching the blogs that received the most traffic from Google organic search. I identified the specific tactics from over 70 high traffic blogs. Then I ranked the tactics by the most productive, and I eliminated the bottom 80%. This is what I built my blogging system upon. Within four months of launching the blog, I had surpassed 100,000 monthly visitors. Today, my blog receives over 2 million monthly visitors.

Here are the four pillars that my system was built upon:

Pillar #1 – Keyword research

Most amateur bloggers fail miserably at keyword research. The reason for this is because they are overwhelmed by all of the data, and they are usually using the wrong tools. I will be breaking down my simple system for identifying keyword phrases that serves as the topic and title for future blog posts. This will allow you to blog with a purpose. And that purpose is to create blog posts that consistently produce organic traffic.

Pillar #2 – Compelling blog titles

You can write an epic 4000 word post, and it can doomed for failure because of a poorly chosen title. The post title is a very important part of the post, and often overlooked. I’ll be revealing my Perfect Title Formula, which will allow you to craft blog headlines that drive a ridiculous amount of traffic and social shares.

Pillar #3 – Engaging content

Over the last three years, I’ve perfected my blog’s ability to engage new visitors. The average visitor spends 5 minutes reading one of my blog posts. I will be sharing the eleven techniques that I apply to my blog posts to achieve absolute engagement.

Pillar #4 – Getting High Quality Links

The key to remember here is quality over quantity. Do not waste your time chasing low quality links or adding your blog to a directory. There are two strategies that work better than everything else, and I will show you exactly how to execute them.

Over the next four weeks I’ll be sharing tips on how to increase your AdSense earnings right here on the Inside AdSense blog. In the meantime, go here to keep reading “How to Build a Blog to Over 1 Million Monthly Visitors” and find out how to apply the four pillars to your blog.

Posted By
Brandon Gaille

Senin, 12 September 2016

The secret to share-worthy content

Dark.net September 12, 2016 Comment

People love to share things with their friends, family, and colleagues. Presenting your users with relevant and unique content is the best way to encourage sharing and give you a competitive advantage. Content that is underscored by emotion, in particular, can help you strengthen your brand’s presence.

Here are some tips to help you get into the minds, and hearts, of your audience:

1. Be relatable

Taking the time to research what your visitors are interested in is the first step to creating shareable content. Diversify to cover multiple facets of your audience’s interests by including work, lifestyle and social topics to keep things fresh and engaging. Contextualizing your stories also increases the chances of your audience relating to and wanting to share your site.

2. Know what’s trending

Staying up-to-the-minute can require a lot of time and research. Luckily, online tools such as Google Trends can help you identify what’s important to your audience as well as offer helpful insights about people in specific regions you are trying to target. Being a thought leader means not only sharing up-to-the-minute industry news with your audience, but also offering insightful observations and predictions of what this may mean down the road. A trusted source is a followed source.

3. Increase your content’s shelf life

While timely articles are great for generating instant buzz, having content that maintains its importance over time yields higher traffic rate overall. Evergreen content is information that stays relevant no matter when it is consumed. Make sure to interlace trendier content with evergreen pieces every so often.

To learn more about familiarizing your audience with your brand, check out the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

Posted by Jay Castro
Audience Development Specialist
@jayciro

Kamis, 08 September 2016

[Video] Adopt these 3 key strategies to grow your online business

Dark.net September 08, 2016 Comment

Whether you're new to running a blog or an experienced website pro, check out this video featuring David, Oisin, and Raj from the AdSense team, to learn about the best ways to monetize your online content.

Did you know that 68% of users share online content to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about? Now, more than ever, it’s important that your audience loves your content. In the video below, we share 3 key strategies for you to boost audience engagement and jump start your earnings using AdSense.

Relate to your users’ interests
Diversify your content strategy
Make your content easy to consume

Watch our video to get started today.

Not using AdSense yet? Once you’ve watched the video, here’s how you can get started:

Make sure your website is compliant with the AdSense program policies.
Sign up for an AdSense account by enrolling your site.
Add the AdSense ad code to your site.

Kamis, 25 Agustus 2016

3 easy tips to build a relationship with your audience

Dark.net Agustus 25, 2016 Comment

Drawing new visitors to your site is only half of the battle. Having a plan for them to follow once they get there is the key to encouraging repeat visits and building a meaningful relationship with your readers.

To engage user-focused design for your site, it’s important to consider the following:

1. Keep It Simple

Gating desirable content can be a great way to learn more about visitors by prompting them to fill out a form or sign up for your newsletter to access it. However, roughly 67% of users will abandon an effort to obtain information or purchase something online if there are too many steps to take. Make sure your users get what they need in as few steps as possible. Matched content is another way to keep visitors from checking out too soon by increasing your odds of presenting them with content they are directly interested in.

2. Identify User Moments

People often look for inspiration and ideas while they complete a task online. Anticipating your visitors’ needs can help you set up your site to better serve them so you can capture and capitalize on these important moments. Whether they are purchasing something or just browsing, presenting this information in the right format can greatly increase the amount of time they spend on your site.

For example, if you’re an eCommerce site selling chocolates, having recommendations alongside each product such as gift boxes, complementing candy, and drink pairings can get your site visitor thinking about the holidays or gifts for their loved ones.

3. Create engaging Calls to Action

Bold “sign up” buttons and friendly prompts or reminders move visitors to take action. From bold colors and text to exaggerated size and other visual clues, there are a number of ways to make these important actions stand out on your site and even fun for users to engage with. In fact, our own AdSense team tested different campaign graphics on our marketing campaigns and saw higher implementation and engagement rates.

To learn more about familiarizing your audience with your brand, check out the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

Posted by Jay Castro

From the AdSense Team

@jayciro

Senin, 13 Juni 2016

[VIDEO] Understand your AdSense reporting

Dark.net Juni 13, 2016 Comment

Want to know more about AdSense Reporting? Good news: That's the topic of the fourth video in our #AdSense101 series.

Knowing how to analyze your AdSense reports is essential to improving your ad performance – they're loaded with insights and data that can help you grow your business and your strategies. AdSense reports and graphs are a quick and easy way for you to learn which of your ad units perform best or where most of your traffic is coming from.

Watch this video for more on what your AdSense reports can show you.

Stay tuned for other #AdSense101 videos and if there’s something else you’d like to learn more about let us know in the comments below.

Check out YouTube playlist #AdSense101 to learn more about...

AdSense payment process
Control the ads displayed on your site
Monetizing for Multi-Screen

Have a topic you'd like to see covered? Leave us a comment on the YouTube video page.

Posted by:

Barbara Sarti

Google AdSense team

Rabu, 13 April 2016

More defenses roll out to thwart Clickjacking

Dark.net April 13, 2016 Comment

At Google we defend our ad systems from fraud using technology in a variety of ways. Often our investment in these defenses goes beyond protecting against only known threats. Our engineering and operations teams are continually working to identify new and emerging threats. Once a new ad fraud threat is found, we move quickly to defend our systems against it using a combination of technology, operations, and policy.

Recently we identified “Clickjacking” (aka UI Redress) as an emerging threat to cost-per-click display ads, and we’ve rolled out new defenses to protect advertisers against this threat. Clickjacking is a type of web attack where the appearance of a website is changed so that a victim does not realize they are taking an important action, in this case clicking on one or more ads. For example, a user may intend to click on a video play button or menu item, but instead clicks an invisible ad unit.


	Figure 1: An example of a clickable ad hidden behind a video playback button.

Moving quickly to thwart Clickjacking attempts

Earlier this year when our operations team identified Clickjacking activity on our display network, they moved swiftly to terminate accounts, removing entities involved in or attempting to use this technique to trick users. Our engineering team worked in parallel to quickly release a filter to automatically exclude this type of invalid traffic across display ads.

This approach delivered a one-two punch to publishers who violated our policies: our operations team, which forms an early line of defense against invalid traffic, cleaned out publishers from our ad systems, while engineers built a new filter as a durable defense to protect against Clickjacking traffic.


	Figure 2: An example of mouse-tracking, which leads to a page with lots of ads being opened regardless of where a user clicks.

Even as there are ongoing attempts to perpetrate this type of attack, our ongoing and proactive hunt for emerging types of invalid traffic has enabled us to move early and quickly to address Clickjacking threats on several occasions.

A combination of defenses

Our Clickjacking defenses operate at considerable scale, analyzing display ad placements across mobile and desktop platforms, evaluating a variety of characteristics. When our system detects a Clickjacking attempt, we zero-in on the traffic attributed to that placement, and remove it from upcoming payment reports to ensure that advertisers are not charged for those clicks.

This latest effort also is a great example of how our work against invalid traffic is at the intersection of technology, operations, and policy. Each piece plays a key role in keeping our ad systems clean and defended against ad fraud.

Equally important, our efforts also promote a level playing field for good publishers on our ad systems. And while our Ad Traffic Quality team works hard to keep our ad systems clean, we also rely on publishers to do their part in contributing to a healthy ads ecosystem.

Best practices for publishers

Publishers play a crucial role in delivering a good ads experience. We’ve included some relevant best practices below to remind publishers of ways that they can improve the ads experience on their web properties.

Double and triple-check implementations to verify that your sites contain no programming errors, conform to AdSense policies, and display correctly across different browsers and platforms.
For mobile devices, plan your layout carefully to accommodate limited screen real estate.
Avoid placing ads close to other clickable content to prevent accidental clicks. For more guidance on how to implement banner ads see our best practices video.
Monitor analytics often to spot traffic anomalies. For example, setting up Analytics alerts can show if an unusual amount of traffic comes from a particular ad placement or site.
Lastly, if you find suspicious activity, please report it via the Invalid Clicks Contact Form.

We’re proud of our work to protect our ad systems against emerging threats like Clickjacking, and we’ll continue to be vigilant as we fight the good fight against ad fraud.

Posted by: Andres Ferrate, Chief Advocate, Ad Traffic Quality

Rabu, 26 Februari 2014

Frequently asked questions around using Google Analytics 6 of 6

Dark.net Februari 26, 2014 Comment

Over the past five weeks of the Google Analytics insights blog post series we’ve looked at how to use Google Analytics to grow your business, optimize your mobile presence, increase user loyalty with Google and improve your overall user experience. We’ve also collected all of your questions to create a video covering the most frequently asked questions.

(Turn on English captions by using the captions button at the bottom of the YouTube video)

The video starts by exploring how integrating your AdSense account with Analytics gives you data that’ll help you optimize content, improve user experience and ultimately, increase your revenue. We then give you a demo so that you can get started straight away. If you’re interested in getting a better understanding of how visitors interact with your online content then you’ll enjoy the section about Universal Analytics and Demographic and Interest reporting. Don't forget to check out our help resources for additional information on each topic covered in this video:

We hope you’ve found the series to be useful. Many thanks for all of your comments and questions over the past five weeks.

Posted by Cemal Buyukgokcesu - Google Analytics Specialist
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

Rabu, 27 November 2013

Building an Audience: Making Social Media Work for You

Dark.net November 27, 2013 Comment

Looking for a way to grow online engagement with your users?

Social media is a great way for you to build an audience and increase traffic to your website, which can help you earn more revenue. Learn how other people just like you are using AdSense and Wildfire to do just that. If you haven’t yet perfected a way to utilize social media, you should tune in to our Hangout on Air on December 12th.

In this Learn with Google Hangout on Air, you’ll hear directly from successful AdSense publishers and a Wildfire social media expert to learn their perspective on best practices for attracting and growing an audience through social media. They’ll also share their tips on how to increase your revenue by monetizing with AdSense.

Join this event page to live stream the Hangout on Air on December 12th from 11:00-11:30am PDT.

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Felicia Rosado - AdSense Strategic Partnerships Team

Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.