How do you Optmize an Image Based Site for AdSense?

Site has High Impressions, but Low Earnings

[StuntasticAudi]

Most of you probably saw my topic: Back to nothing @ [webmasterworld.com...]

Can you guys give me some suggestions on what to do to improve my CPM. Here are my website details:

My website is something you could consider a photo album. There are thousands of photos you can view. I display about 10 on each page so people have to click on next page to view more. This is set this way so the page loads quicker. With that my google adsense stats show that i get close to 350,000 page impressions a day but only 1400 clicks. - NOT GOOD!

All adsense ads are blended into the site with the same website theme. Here is what i display:

728x90 Leaderboard on top of each page.(website theme color)
160x600 wide skyscraper on the left side of each page(website theme color)
300x250 medium rectangle in the middle of the page (white background - black text)

I do not have any link units, skyscraper shows text and image ads. I also have one search box on some pages.

Now people browse through pictures so that produces a lot of page impressions. Once in a while someone will click on it. Stats arent so good when i get 350,000 page impressions and only 1400 clicks. Anything i should change about my setup?

[hunderdown]

How many unique visitors are included in those 350,000 page impressions?

[ken_b]

On these pages with 10 photos, are those thumbnails or full size photos?

What else is on these pages besides the photos?

Does each photo have a description or descriptive caption?

[Moglex]

I suspect that the nature of your problem is that people are set to expect to look at pictures, rather than read text.

As such they probably barely even see the ads.

ken_b has asked if you have captions. If not, they would be a good idea (provided the nature of the photographs is such that they would make people want to read captions), because you then get them to switch into "text mode", and the adverts would be more likely to be noticed.

[hunderdown]

Are the ads you see consistently on-topic for the page they appear on? And more to the point, are they likely to interest the visitors to those pages more than or at least as much as the pictures?

You say you have three adblocks on each page. Have you done an analysis using channels to see if one of the three positions is more productive than the others?

[lammert]

350,000 page views and 1400 clicks are not necessarily bad figures. It depends on the number of unique visitors to your site. In my photo albums I often see visitors viewing twenty or more pictures before they leave the site. If the average page views per visitor for your site is 10, you have a CTR of 4% which I wouldn't call bad at all for something like a photo album.

My opinion is that with these figures you should more concentrate on the value of each click than on the number of clicks. To get target ads, A good description with each picture might do this job. Although some niches just don't have high paying ads.

[alika]

StuntasticAudi, if you think you have followed the sitemap and optimized your site for Adsense, then I guess that's the only thing you can do. There's only so much you can change or do on a site.

Your type of site may not really be conducive to Adsense - your users came to your site to look at your pictures, not to buy a product or check out other resources. Your numbers are really low (although I'm sure some publishers get even lower numbers). Try to complement Adsense with CPM based banners. With that kind of impression, you'd make better money with CPM banners.

[LifeinAsia]

If all you have is pictures, you don't really have any content on the page. This is sort of a gray area as far as the ToS is concerned. If you haven't done so already, I would strongly suggest asking Google if they allow this.

As others have mentioned, since people are coming to view the pictures, they're probably not very interested in clicking ads.

Assuming that Google OKs putting AdSense up with no content, I would suggest limiting the ads to the first and last page of each set. It's most likely that in the middle pages people are going to be mostly interested in seeing what's on the next page. With ads on the first page you can capture some visitors who aren't interested in continuing on that set (maybe they thought the pictures would be somethign else). On the last page, viewers are more in the "finished with this, now what?" frame of mind. This should increase your overall click-through rate and may also increase your PPC amount.

[europeforvisitors]

With 350,000 impressions a day, you'd probably be better off with CPM ads from a traditional banner network (assuming that banner networks accept photo galleries).

[FrostyMug]

with these impressions, you can almost consider yourself a forum, only on your site people come in to view pictures, and just like on a forum, they do not buy anything.

i have some pages on my site which use a lot of images, and they're extremely difficult to convert or earn a high CPC on. most hits to these pages come from image searches, and i suspect these users only come in for images, nothing else.

[StuntasticAudi]

About 30,000-40,000 visitors a month. Each one browses for an average of 10-15 pages per visit. I do not have any descriptions for the photos. Just the names. The thing is I was getting 1400 clicks a day with less impressions and was making $100 more a day then i am now with almost double the impressions.

[StuntasticAudi]

With 350,000 impressions a day, you'd probably be better off with CPM ads from a traditional banner network (assuming that banner networks accept photo galleries).

Only one affiliate program approved me. Which pays about $100 a day just for impressions..which is the easiest money making affiliate program i've ever had. All others denied my site. I guess they don't allow photo album based sites. Does google have CPM ads? Do they pay just for impressions?

[hunderdown]

Did I get this right? 350,000 page impressions per day but 30,000 - 40,000 visitors per MONTH? If that's not a typo in your post, then you're doing extremely well, actually.

To answer your question about Google and CPM ads, you might want to read the documentation on the AdSense site, but yes, Google does do CPM ads. However, your site has to be targeted by the advertiser.

I'm still curious to know if you have analyzed the performance of the three adblocks....

[StuntasticAudi]

opps typo 30k visitors a day. No I dont have my channels set up. I am going to do that tonight to see what pays the best.

[europeforvisitors]

Only one affiliate program approved me.

Are you talking about affiliate programs or banner-ad networks? I was referring to banner-ad networks like FastClick.

[StuntasticAudi]

banner-ad networks

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Hi StuntasticAudi -

You mentioned that your site is heavily image-based. Does it contain a lot of text-based content as well? If not, this could be one of the reasons you are seeing disappointing results.

As you probably know, ad relevancy is tied to clickthrough-rate, and therefore overall AdSense performance. If your site is light on text-based content, try adding more descriptive texts and paragraphs to your pages. Also, make sure to incorporate ad placement and format suggestions from [google.com...] .

-ASA

[StuntasticAudi]

AdSenseAdvisor

Yes most of it is photos. There is some text but not much. I will work on it later tonight and see if i can add few things to it. Add more text and photo descriptions.

thanks