Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Forums
Not generally the best performers. Generally the eCPM isn't underwhelming, unless you have a lot of traffic to support it. It could be a difference in the traffic triggered by the keywords. I assume that people looking for answers rather than products will be lesser quality in terms of conversions, so maybe that's why they get discounted.
Quality Informational Content
This gets a little murky. Quality content about product reviews will probably perform better than quality content about educational related topics (science and history comes to mind).
So maybe quality of the content is not a determinant of how good your earnings should be. Many members apparently agree. It's a quite common complaint that some feel they should be earning more because their content is quality. Is that some evidence, admittedly anecdotal, that quality of content is not a significant indicator of how much you will earn?
Approach and Topic of Content
From my observations it appears that some topics perform spectacularly better than others, especially if they are approached from a review of something that can be purchashed. I have noticed that things that sell well on Amazon tend to perform well with AdSense.
Humor Sites
Maybe I'm mistaken, but from posts here it seems like humor sites tend to underperform. Well, nobody's buying humor, they're consuming it. So nothing to click on.
Why do you think they are working?
Why do you think they are not working?
For example:
A site dedicated to business planning where your content is all about creating business plans. Your content provides the how-to while the ads provide the vendors offering business planning software and business planning consultancies. The content go hand in hand together and visitors who come to your site to learn about business planning are more likely to be interested in learning about where they can get a business planning software or who can do the business plan for them.
This the key IMHO.
Find a niche, where advertisers exist, with decent competition.
Find a fresh approach .
Pre sell ..
and the clicks come rolling in.
That's a good point. Not just finding a niche where advertisers exist, but with decent competition. Entering some keywords into Google and seeing how many adwords unit is a good way of gauging the health of a particular niche.
You will make money when something good or bad happened to her. For an example, I made extra money during her feud with ex-hubby Kevin Federline recently.
However, celebrity contents tend to earn less.
:D
The content that is working for me is when the ads are viewed as resources supportive of content. The ads are not just ads; but additional resources that visitors are most likely to respond to.
Indeed. On my site, a page may provide biographical data and a photo of an actress, for example. Adverts then offering the chance ro buy posters of said actress, or films in which she stars, are popular additional and relevant resources for the readers.
Matt
Example: You're one of the earliest beta testers for Vista. You see how the "user access control" works (the thing that asks users 15 times if it's OK to go ahead) and realize this is going to be a major pain. You start building content that targets things like "Vista UAC" and the like. Vista ships, the problem produces a slowly building wave of search traffic as it trickles out to more customers.
Part of the reason this works is the ability to build content that targets low-competition search phrases before they become high-traffic search phrases. If "<product name> <product problem>" is non-competitive, then you've got a potential winner.
Another reason it works is that being an early winner for a search phrase, you get the traffic analysis that lets you see what all the peripheral search terms are, so you can target those as well long before the competition has any idea what to target beyond the obvious.
Another reason it works is that if you look like the authoritative reference (even just offering annotated links to other sources can work great), people early-on are going to link to your page. You get that great "organic" IBL structure that is nicely distributed across time and URL space, probably with little effort. If it's a product/problem that is covered by multiple media outlets, then probably one or more of them is going to link to you in their coverage if you have good content. That provides both valued link love and referral traffic.
As usual, it's a big plus to actually have the best information on the topic, so Google notices that users who click on your SERP entry are happy with it and rewards you accordingly (since other people will eventually notice and try to target the same phrases).
Targetted Content on Product Defects/Shortcomings.
That sounds reasonable if you can get a lot of traffic in the short run, or if the product defects (and the solutions that advertisers are selling) are likely to be around for a while.
Another approach (and one that I like) is "evergreen" content on topics that are likely to remain popular month after month, year after year: e.g., a travel guide to Manhattan, a guide to French cookware and cooking ingredients, or a how-to guide for do-it-yourself home remodelers. Some of the material may need updating from time to time, but for the most part, each new page is an additional (a.k.a. incremental) traffic and revenue opportunity, not just a replacement for an obsolete page about last year's camera model or last month's celebrity scandal.
For educational or non product content, think about your visitor's behavior. Are they just browsers? What are they looking for? For casual surfers, try to make your ads stick out a bit because I've experimented with a couple of my friends who surf around either for leisure or information, and they basically click whatever that is interesting. They tend not to follow the ideal visitor's path and read through the article , etc. So in this way, you can help them by providing interesting ads related to who they are and what they are looking for.
Here's a hint. I am not sure how many of us are site designers, but I can safely say the majority of the population does not care about site design. Ugly sites may hurt us but everyone else are fine with them. So don't crank your mind up thinking of a nice raunchy creative design. Think of good content for your visitors, see what's their behavior and place your ads according and it will all work out.
Forums
Not generally the best performers. Generally the eCPM isn't underwhelming, unless you have a lot of traffic to support it. It could be a difference in the traffic triggered by the keywords. I assume that people looking for answers rather than products will be lesser quality in terms of conversions, so maybe that's why they get discounted.
I disagree with this as a "blanket" truth. I have a forum that gets above 7% click through, and the eCPM is very repectable.
Other then that I find content pages, that are about 3 screens worth in scrolling, houses three ad units successfully. The content is what determines the eCPM (and to some extent the CTR). Celeberaty websites might do well, but stars "fall" and these type of sites cannot withstand the test of time. (unless they cover all stars).
Static sites with useful information do well. I feel it is a myth that "crappy content leads to clicks, since they didn't find what they wanted" and feel the opposite is true. Bad content makes the Back Button popular, good content keeps them around, and the longer they are around the more likely they will click something. I am seldom satisfied with the content of a "good" site, simply because most times I want a second or third opinion, and I suspect lots of others do too.
My content is totally unrelated to politics. However, recently a high profile political figure became involved in a controversy that was relevant to information on my site, so I added a page about it.
My traffic shot up for this page immediately, but clicks on my ads were very few.
What I did get was a ton of email from people who disagreed with my political content.
Wasn't worth the hassle, so the political content is gone.
I noticed recently my shorter pages tend to do better than longer pages perhaps because i am satisfying the reader with all the content on the longer pages? I suppose it makes sense if you leave the reader hanging and wanting more information. On the other hand, my longer pages seem to encourage repeat visits but i am not sure how to convert repeat visitors using adsense
Don't just use adsense. There are affiliate programs which allow you to make money from the repeat visitors.
