Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What Does Filtering Do?
Think about it this way, we all want targeted ads, well advertizers want targeted traffic. Filtering is one way to deliver targeted traffic.
Filtering traffic is nothing unusual, it's what a well designed site navigation system does everyday.
This is nothing more than a closer look at how to benefit from navigation cues. A navigation cue can be as simple as a couple well chosen words used as anchor text for a link.
Filtering your traffic reduces impressions, and in my experience, increases your earnings. That happens because your CTR goes up the more filtered your taffic is.
That happens because you are filtering out the less interested visitors which leaves you with the very interested viewers.
The result of that is that if one of these very interested visitors clicks an ad, the likelyhood of the advertizers converting that visitor to a sale (or whatever the advertizers goal is) increases dramatically.
Advertizers pay more for that kind of traffic, sometimes a lot more.
It almost sounds odd to say, but it more or less works so that less clicks can equal more money.
How to filter traffic.
First determine what subject related to your website you want to focus on. [How to do that is a topic for another thread] Give the topic a page of it's own.
Second, think about all the possible paths folks might follow on your site to get to that page.
HINT: A big bold ... "HOT DEALS ON..." ...type link is NOT the way to make this work.
Links to the target page are critical, but you want their use to be a natural progression for the very interested visitor. Remember, the idea is to end up with only very interested visitors on the target page.
OK, so back to the paths thing.
To make the most of this you need to understand who your visitors are. Even with no other input you can find most of what you need to know about your visitors in your log files. Study your search engine referals carefully to see what WORDS people are using to find your site. [Notice that I said WORDS, not phrases.]
Those WORDS are going to help you design the paths you need to make available to direct, and thus filter, your traffic. They might also help you decide what to focus on.
Once you know what words people use to find your website, stop and think really hard about what words you did not find in your logs, that's very important. These words might be even more important in helping you chose what to focus on if you haven't already decided.
If you really want this to work, you need tp provide more than one path. That's because a good number of people who end up being very interested and thus clicking on an ad, won't even have given a thought to the subject when they landed on your site.
The most interested will take the most direct path, even a very subtle cue will get these folks to click through to your target page. Others will take a less direct path, which gives you a chance to make them aware of their "need" for whatever it is the advertizer is selling.
Some people are going to take the longest path you offer, maybe 4 or more stops along the way, each stop filtering out more of the less interested, but by the time they get to your target page, they are going to be ready or nearly to jump on what your advertizers are offering.
What Happens on the Target Page
Visitors who are "ready" when they get to your target page might well just read the headline, scan the page, and almost immediately click an ad. So make the ads easy to find.
Your target page content is really aimed at the "nearly ready". For these visitors you need to provide at least a modestly compelling reason to click through to an advertizers site. Of course the more compelling your target page is the better the results are likely to be.
How Good is Good?
Well, you probably aren't likely to get a 100% CTR from your target page, or even close to it. But you can end up with very, very pleasant overall results.
In the End
None of this is hard to do, but you do need to think it through carefully to get the maximum benefit from it. You might also want to look carefully around the edges and in the dusty corners of your websites topic for inspiration.
one for me to flag
Its like putting in header area: "Looking for information on widgets?" Link to main area; and a "Looking for other stuff" to a page with links (with details) to my other sites.
Each of my sites has this and i get revolving traffic :)
No big theories, just cool thinking...
That's the beauty of the internet, everyone gets to do what they think works best for them.
I don't think it can get much simpler than what I outlined above. It's just a way to maximize the benefit some of what it takes to have a successful website anyhow.
After I began channeling ads and divided content pages up into themes my average CTR has more than doubled.
[edited by: medowl at 5:07 pm (utc) on Aug. 26, 2005]
Geotargeting the ads (even if only to exclude regions that certain networks don't pay for) can really make a difference.
If a webmaster is simply spewing content all over their site with no rhyme or reason, and hoping people will somehow randomly land on it through SERPs, they have a lot of work in front of them.
Follow the Google code, and make the site thin and usable by humans -- everything else will follow in time, including better targeting and ad revenue.
Geotargeting the ads (even if only to exclude regions that certain networks don't pay for) can really make a difference.
Higher checks is what matters
so has anybody actually seen higher "Earnings" by blocking certain countries?
AS payout is not based on conversion.
And I thought smart pricing was something we could only guess at.
I have noticed that Google is blocking certain countries, i.e. countries not targeted by AdSense. During my vacation I wanted to check my website via GPRS from a foreign country - and the ads did not turn up.
I have also noticed that AdSense hits are a bit lower the last month or so but the amounts per hit are up a tad. I'm not quite sure yet which ads are bringing in more than others.
During my vacation I wanted to check my website via GPRS from a foreign country - and the ads did not turn up.
Do browsers using GPRS support javascript and iframes?
Yes. Browsers are browsers nomatter what technology you use for sending the data packages.
On travels I connect my notebook to the internet via GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). This can be done using a cell phone or PDA.
Yes. Browsers are browsers nomatter what technology you use for sending the data packages.
Well said. Didn't think in that line, must be wine.
The more traffic your site has the more critical traffic filtering becomes.
Its the same deal in the adult industry. If you are trying to promote Niche X on a site with 90% Niche Y traffic then you are going to be blowing away money.
In this industry the people who understand the value of traffic are the ones that get ahead. This is why reseller traffic is borderline worthless (but the webmaster traffic visiting the reseller sites is worth big $.)
I would like an anawer. Who has lowered their traffic and made no other changes and made more money. No matter what kind of study you have done there is almost no way to prove your point becasue nobody knows how Google does things exactly. There are just too many varriables to really know for sure. Just because everytime you go to a picnic ants show up does not mean picnics bring ants.
I would like an anawer. Who has lowered their traffic and made no other changes and made more money
I have. And I made that change after a chat about conversion tracking and smart pricing with a certain company's engineer at the New Orleans WW conference. :)
I would like an anawer. Who has lowered their traffic and made no other changes and made more moneyI have
interesting...
would you say that the increase was statistically significant? and sustaiable.
Yes. Don't have the numbers in front of me and wouldn't share them if I did, but the change in my traffic was dramatic without dramatically affecting my earnings. (And I've been using this new approach since a few days after the New Orleans WW. It seems more stable than before.)
> sustaiable
Sustainable as in "If I get down to 1 visitor will I be making an infinite amount of money?" No, probably not. :)
The real lesson was a sufficient number of poor quality clicks means a statistically lower chance of conversion and a discount of all clicks. So, I stopped chasing raw quantity of visitors and am far more picky. Plus, I handle ad placement more conservatively by only putting them where a click would be likely to convert.
As in all things, YMMV. :)
If you're able to target a page to someone that has a high probability of buying, then why not cut out the middle man and sell your widget direct?
I can think of a number of reasons why not, one of them being that it might not be worth the extra work. I've also found that I can do well having BOTH affiliate links and AdSense ads on some of my pages.
I've also found that I can do well having BOTH affiliate links and AdSense ads on some of my pages.
If you're able to target a page to someone that has a high probability of buying, then why not cut out the middle man and sell your widget direct?
