Tips to Improve your eCPM with Google Adsense
Google Adsense Hack #1: Write Good Content This would seem like a no-brainer but a lot of people forget that the ads are contextual. If you don’t write long enough posts, or posts with sufficient keyword density you will not get ads that make sense for your content. So good SEO is also good for eCPM’s.
Google Adsense Hack #2: Write Good Clean Content
Sure you write to an urban hip hop audience and the F-bomb is just part of the gait of your speech, but those words on the negative keyword list are driving your eCPM’s down and getting you more PSA’s than ads. There are a whole host of words I’m not going to list which you should avoid. Most are four letters, but some of them are just words that are negative, so try and avoid implying something is less than stellar unless you can do it in long phrases that the robots can’t understand.
Google Adsense Hack #3: Put Ads Where They Will Be Seen
Putting one of your 3 Google Adsense blocks in the footer, where it isn’t likely to get seen, isn’t going to make you any money. Put your ads in or near your content. Don’t try and put them next to the scroll bar hoping for mis-clicks, just put them where they can be seen. And make them a color scheme that compliments your site, but makes them stand out. Not stick out like a sore thumb, just make sure they aren’t invisible.
Google Adsense Hack #4: Help Google Find Context
Most people don’t know that they can tell Google what part of their content is important, and relevant.
Using the tags
google_ad_section_start
google_ad_section_end
You can tell Google which part of your page is the content. This helps a lot if you, like me have related content on the page. I wouldn’t want Google to look at my category list to pick what to run ads for, because you are reading about SEO and SEM for this post, so those posts, on Camping are probably not what the ads should target.
Google Adsense Hack #5: Black Lists
See an ad which you know will never convert with your audience? Black list it. I even black list high paying ads if I don’t agree with what they are selling. Like the Daily Horoscopes SMS messaged to your Cell phone for only $1 a day… I’m sorry no one should pay $30 a month for a computer generated horoscope.
Google Adsense Hack #6: Use Link Units Sparingly
Link Units don’t pay as much per click. As a result you have to consider when they are a good investment of space. On a page which is less content dense a link unit may perform really well. I also find that they do really well on pages which are driven by search traffic which doesn’t really relate to what is on the page. I have a page about how I’m an Omniscient Deity of Video. It is the top hit for “Omniscient Deity”. People who arrive on this page are rarely looking for me, or things related to video. Poof a great choice for a link unit.
Link units also do well on pages which are about things that don’t monetize well. Or pages that are only getting PSA’s.
Google Adsense Hack #7: Guard the Golden Egg
So another ad company which doesn’t do CPC ads offers you 75 cent CPM’s to add their ad to your page. I’m getting $29 eCPM’s on my pages meaning an adblock is worth $9.50 or so eCPM. I could take that 75 cents and if the ad was placed some where no one would see it, I Might make an extra 50 cent CPM, because it wouldn’t hurt my CPC ads that much. But if I put it somewhere that made sense for the advertiser likely it wouldn’t make sense for me.
I am careful to way risk/reward when using other advertisers. Having a back up so that you don’t get PSA’s is a good idea. Because 75 cent CPM’s vs 0 cents PSA’s is a good deal. But be careful not to cannibalize the Goose, in hopes of getting something that will actually lower your over all performance.
Google Adsense Hack #8: Experiment
It takes a couple of tries to get your ad layout and colors right. So change them up from time to time to see what works.
Google Adsense Hack #9: Change Them Up
Just because you did what I said in #8, doesn’t mean you are done. If you have loyal readership you need to move the ads every so often, so that they aren’t always in the same place, or your readers will learn to ignore the ads. They get so used to the lay out of your page they stop looking at the places that aren’t the content.
It’s too Cliche to do 10
I’m only doing 9 Hacks/Tips for Google Adsense because everyone does top 10’s. This should help you out, and while it is not comprehensive it is a really good start and I didn’t see any articles that laid things out this simply, and this completely.