New post on ProBlogger newsletters [19 Jun 2009]:
In this post Todd Fratzel from Home Construction Improvement and
Today's Green Construction shares how he doubled the AdSense revenue
on his blog with a few simple changes.
Several simple changes in my Adsense approach and layout have almost
doubled my blog's revenue. The results were so drastic and eye opening
that I convinced a friend (www.oneprojectcloser.com) to make the same
changes to his blog with even better results. The changes involve two
simple ideas that can be easily incorporated into any Adsense
monetized website or blog.
I've been blogging for over two years now and growing traffic,
authority and readership slow and steady. Along with the steady
increase in traffic the site has continued to increase it's Adsense
revenue at a similar pace with no sudden increases regardless of all
the changes and adjustments I've made. That was true until I took the
time to study many different published Adsense approaches. As I read
all of these different approaches three distinct ideas came to the
forefront.
Three Important Adsense Approaches
Less is More – This concept is really simple yet I hadn't really given
it much thought before. First off the top ad is the highest paying ad
and you want that in the best possible position.
Secondly, if you're using all three of the allotted Adsense units on a
given page then there are quite a few ads all competing for attention
or a click through. However, if you only use one Adsense unit then
you're limiting the number of ads served and improving the likelihood
that one of those ads will get clicked. Therefore, the theory is that
an advertiser will be willing to pay a higher rate for less
competition.
Size Matters – If you read enough Adsense guides you'll find that the
336 x 280 Large Rectangle is the most effective Adsense unit. It
typically offers four ads and they are likely to be very related to
the topic based on the position between the post title and body.
Position, Position, Position – Placing your Adsense unit above the
fold is imperative for success. This makes sense to me for one reason.
Every day my site (and I assume most sites) gets a majority of it's
traffic from search engines. This traffic is generated from people
searching for something. So when they land on my page and they decide
that it's not the content they were looking for then I want them to
see the Adsense unit right where they land so that becomes an
"outclick" option.
How I Doubled My Adsense Revenue
In order to understand the approach I used to double my Adsense
revenue I'll use two graphics that show the same post before the
changes and after the changes. First - the before shot:
And here's the after shot:
My Old Adsense Layout Included:
468 x 60 Text Only Unit located in the header area of my page.
468 x 60 Text Only Unit located between the post title and the body of the post.
468 x 60 Text Only Unit located at the end of the post before the
comment section.
Revised Adsense Layout Includes:
Remove the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit completely and replaced with an
affiliate banner. The idea here is to remove some of the units in
order to address concept #1 of Less is More.
Replace the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit with the 336 x 280 large
rectangle unit. This unit is above the fold between the post title and
body which makes it a very prominent position. This change addresses
both of concept #2 and #3 for Size Matters and Position.
Remove the old 468 x 60 Text Only Unit completely. I actually replaced
this with the new Chitika Jumbo unit which is also performing quite
well. Again the removal helps address the Less is More concept.
Immediate Results
If you look at the graph of my Adsense revenue over the last two
months you'll see that the increased revenue was immediate. The
changes were made as indicated by the Red Circle #1. As you can see my
revenue went from under $150 per week to almost $300 per week.
Immediate should be taken with a grain of salt, the increase happened
over several days and it's likely to take some time for Adsense to
incorporate the reduced number of ads being served on your site.
Summary Of Improved Adsense Layout
While I'd be naive to think that this will double any and all Adsense
revenue for any site I think the principal is worth evaluating on all
sites. The concept is really simple; make one large, well positioned
ad do all the work. This will make your page look cleaner and it's
likely to improve your revenue immediately. It's also important that
you follow some of the basic suggestions of blended ads that match the
color and fonts of your site. So far I've done this on two of my sites
and a friend's site with the same result, improved Adsense revenue.
Note from Darren: I think that the key with optimizing a blog for
AdSense (or other ad networks) is to experiment. The best thing that
Todd did here was to try something new and to track the results. What
he's done has worked for him but it might not work for everyone - the
key is to keep trying different combinations of numbers of ads, ad
sizes, ad positions, ad design (color, fonts etc) and to try different
ad types until you find what works best for your blog.
@Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
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