Three free AdSense tricks to boost your click through rates.
January 28, 2007
With AdSense being the second most requested subject for 2007 (according to the poll I took about a week ago), I was pretty sure you would find this cool little video by Ben Shaffer very useful.
The video is called "Three Little Known Tricks", and that's exactly what it is. The video contains three short tricks that you can apply today to your AdSense sites to improve your click through rate.
These aren't magic moves, just time tested techniques that we both use on every single AdSense site of ours. They work, they are effective and if you are not doing them, you should be.
Ben has been an associate of mine for some time now, and everything I've seen from him has always been worth looking at. This new video is no exception.
The Three Little Known Tricks video is free to watch and to learn from.
You can watch it by clicking here.
It's pretty short, so if you don't like it, you really have nothing to lose. There isn't a signup page or email address request or anything, either.
After watching it, I'd love it if you added your comments about it to this post.
Comments
17 Responses to “Three free AdSense tricks to boost your click through rates.”
-
Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
-
As to the first "trick," ad placement, Ben is correct that one has to determine what is best for a particular site by testing. In my experience, placement above the fold works best in almost all cases and results in higher-paying clicks.
The "golden triangle" seems to relate best to a search results page and does not necessarily correspond to the way people "read" web pages in general. Of course we know that people don't actually "read" web pages. They scan and click. The design and placement of all page elements helps determine and guide eye movement. Google's recent ban on the certain use of images near ads has caused many of us to dig deeper into page design and ad presentation. Experiment.
As to the second "trick," I was really excited when
I first learned about Google's ad targeting feature. But my results have been less than stellar so far. Sometimes Google is just inconsistent and hard to figure out. I've found that the best results come from proper SEO (page titles, proper use of h1/h2/h3 etc headings, linked text, keywords) and writing for people to read, not for the search engine spiders. It really works. If the ads are not "laser-targeted" and totally relevant to what your visitors are searching for, THEY WILL NEVER CLICK!
As to the third "trick," I find that blue underlined linked text works best, generally speaking, for the reasons Ben mentions. One thing I would add is that as far as not wanting the ads to "stand out" but rather to "blend in," I DO want the Google ads on my site to stand out. But I don't want them to scream "ADS." I want them to stand out as links to information or products or services that will add value to my site visitor. If they blend in too much, no one will see them. If they look like some foreign object that isn't even a part of the page, no one will click either. "Blending" means the ads look like they are a part of your site design and are totally related to your content.
Some site designers try to disguise Google ads to look exactly like they are part of the normal navigation structure of the page. I once tried this and found that no one clicked. People aren't stupid. I've been tricked into clicking on a link that I thought was an internal link, only to end up on a paid search results page. I wasn't happy.
Always respect your site visitors. They'll thank you for it by coming back to visit you again.
Here's another "trick" which I believe may have been mentioned by Jonathan in a previous post, but merits repeating: Don't put too many ads on a single page. Generally you will get higher paying ads if you just use one ad block on a page, near the top of the page. I removed a lot of ads from my site and my earnings actually went UP!
Thanks John for pointing me to this site. I am on Ben's list also, and always finds that he provides quality info.
What I would really like to know though is the best ways to get traffic to your site Adsense site. I saw your videos that you released and have purchased them and started to put them into use.
However, what I really would like to do is to create a system where the traffic continues to grow greatly overtime.
Please continue sending out your emails like this one. Unlike my opinions on other marketers, I would say that yours aren't often enough!
Jackie:
The top request for 2007 was traffic-building information (second was AdSense), so I'll be focusing on those two areas this year. Watch for my emails and blog posts.
In the mean time, did you download the transcript to the chat with SEO expert Aaron Wall? That might get you started.
I can't get the link to work, the page seems to be down. Anyone else having this problem?
Thanks
This link is broken in the text (and email)
http://www.jonathanleger.com/recommends/adsense-tricks.php
(please delete this comment after reading)
Seems fine for me. Great site!
Thanks for the great tips. We have found that by tracking things based on zones - we have found which zones do not perform on our site and which ones do.
The user's comment above about the ads not looking like ads is key as well.
Matt
Aramyus:
The link is working fine for me (and apparently for others). Try it again, perhaps it was a temporary fluke.
Great infos and… great price for the piece of software
Thanks!
Thanks for posting the link. Worth watching and considering. Learned a couple of things that were new to me! Of course, that isn't saying much as I am definitely in the newbie stage. Have had websites with adsense for almost a year, didn't do anything with them… and was surprised upon trying to get more serious about it that Google had over $200 waiting to pay me! Unfortunately, since getting serious about it, the revenue has actually gone down (doh!). Point is: info like this is very much on my radar now as I try to get this adsense thing figured out. Thanks again!
Jonathan, thanks for making the post.
To be sure, some of the stuff Ben mentions I learned in good detail with your Adsense Gold product - good stuff BTW. One "trick" that has worked for me as far as targeting is concerned is actually placing an h1 or h2 tag right above the ad unit. Wrapping your content around the ad unit works like a charm as well.
Also, there's a tip you gave some time ago that actually increased my earnings. It's the one where you actually suggest that we remove ads from poor performing pages. I did that and my eCPM went up! Strange… but cool.
Thanks again. Keep the great tips coming.
Jay
this is tips for beginners. but perhaps that's your audience. everyone else seems to like the tips, hehe.
Jonathan,
This video was a real eye-opener!
I have had trouble with unrelated adsense ads appearing on my pages and had no idea how to prevent this.
Ben's video has expalined exactly what I must do now! Thank you for showing me how this problem can be overcome.
Hey Jonathan,
I really found that Video presentation concise, informative and useful. Just the facts!
Thanks for sharing
max@work - caring, sharing and mentoring
The video does not even act as a compelling advertisement for what Ben wants to sell through this video.
It raises all the questions which all internet marketers and adsense enthusiasts know but provide no answers and assurance that these answers will be fulfilled by the product advertized.
Manoj
Hi John,
Watched the video.
First conclusion is that it is very similar to Mike Cheyney's video on AdSense.
That doesn't make it"wrong" by any means.
Second is that it will probably be useful for people who are totally new to AdSense and also anyone who does not want to or is unable to spend $97 on Mike Cheyney's video.
Probably will not be too useful for anyone who understands the following term: "Who else wants to …?". If you understand this term and it's usual context, then it's not for you because you'll find it rather basic.
The thing to mention is that it is "very similar" in content. It is also done by one of our fellow Brits. Good to see we're beginning to take notice of where the money is!!!
Competition is healthy …
Kev
Thanks for sharing this information. My site is informational and text heavy so getting the positioning and number of ad units is vital and I appreciate what seems basic to others. I will go and re-think the number and position especially.