Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The one thing that helped me most was to transfer my sky-scraper ad-blocks from the right to the left side (in a conservative 3-column design).
[NOTE: Saying "above the fold" means nothing unless you state the screen resolution. Above the fold on my 1600x1200 setting has far different meaning than above the fold at 800x600.]
Got rid of DHTML menus and provided a very basic, simple set of menus. The menu pages (with 300 x 250 ATF of course) generated revenue on their own account and made navigation much simpler.
[NOTE: Saying "above the fold" means nothing unless you state the screen resolution. Above the fold on my 1600x1200 setting has far different meaning than above the fold at 800x600.]
It is also worth basing the 'fold' based on the resolution that the majority of you visitors use. ie my sites stats show that roughly 10% of my visitors have 800x600 resolution, the remaining 90% have 1024x768 or above so I would tend to base the 'fold' position on that.
Greg
Cancelling in-house ad accounts, that were paying too little.
There was a day when all I had was in-house accounts. Then, when I added Adsense in 2005 I thought I was in heaven.
Soon, I realized I had too many eggs in one basket, as I read through the publisher horror stories. So, I diversified and lowered my prices on in-house. Cheaper ads came flooding in. This reduced my ctr on Adsense. When I charted the variations, I was making less gross, than when I had fewer in-house.
Getting the in-house ads away from the Adsense ads helped increase ctr on the Adsense. Then, I cancelled several large accounts that were paying too little compared to what I was making on Adsense blocks on the same page. It wasn't just that they were paying too little, they were not as good of a match for my visitors as the Adsense ads were. They were really on the fringe when I approved them.
It was a hard decision to make. In the end, I decided not to diverse so much on any one site, but diversify in the type of sites I owned. Some have Adsense, which is a good match. Some do not have Adsense, because they are not a good match.
Some have only in-house, because I'm making a killing on those accounts and it works out well, because Adsense was a horrible match for the sites.
The bottom line, diversification within the network = good. Diversification within the site = not so good.
Two:
Removing content from pages that were drawing the least targeted ads, or ads that paid too little. One little word can draw ads that are only fringe, and pay too little. Pruning those words from content, got rid of those ads, for the most part. I must have pulled about 200-300 words per page, but kept the pages full of text by adding more targeted text to replace what I pulled, where possible.
Three:
Removed excessive ad blocks. One ad block per page is enough if you set up your account properly.
What one measure can help to increase your revenue most?
I see some users have been praising the performance of the 300x250 medium rectangle! Our research has proven that the 300x250 medium rectangle is actually one of our best-performing ad units. We recommend publishers to implement it above the fold, with both text and image ads enabled.
ASA
In other words, your mileage may vary.
Incidentally, I think the best performance comes with moving the ads around and changing format from page to page -helps to integrate them with the site and overcomes ad-blindness.
I have had to almost hide my ads, so well blended, so they don't see them on my main page. That only inched up ctr a tiny bit. The problem is, while I rank for thousand of keywords, the traffic almost all arrives to the main page, because Google has excluded most of my "supplemental results". When they arrive on my main page, if they don't see that I do in fact have what they are looking for, they just leave, almost instantly.
I have 3/4 of the people coming in on my main page staying 3 seconds or less. This is why my ctr is so dismal on that page, no matter what I have done to change it. Other pages, where I can better show the finely tuned keyword content they were looking for, the ctr is 20% or higher AND this is where I have my have my in-house ads. I have NO in-house ads on my main page. I have pulled them all long ago. It is impossible to feed over 200 main categories, in-house and Adsense on one page. Just imagine, if my main page had a 20% ctr !
Google shot themselves in the foot when they decided to drag all the traffic in on the main page. While I do rank #1 for my main keywords, and the six most popular pages listed below my listing, that is a long way from the 200 main topics I have. It is very difficult to direct traffic to 200 main topics from one home page, all above the fold so the visitor can see you do have what they searched for, and that you are not a MFA.
The key is to get as much of your own content above the fold, something to peak their interest so they will scroll down. If they don't see the content, that Google search term they saw to rank you for the keywords they entered, you look like an engine spammer.
Getting that content above the fold, high on the page, almost excludes the 3xx series ad blocks. I use a 1024 wide page, and it still doesn't leave much room to show the visitor I have what they came for. Yes, I have a 3xx block there, and that is surely the reason my main page ctr is so bleak. My ads are excellent, couldn't target better. But you piss off those visitors upon load, you're sunk. Maybe not today, but it is coming, you can bet on it.
This can mean, long term, a reduction in repeat visitors and less time spent on the page with a steady decline in Adsense revenue.
The single most important thing to increase your Adsense income, is for Google to bring back the ranking on secondary page content, driving traffic into them, where the content is, not to the main page of the site. It is the kiss of death for Adsense publishers ... very hard to overcome.
That my experience. I encourage others to get/use Google Analytics which reveals all your top Landing Pages... Optimize them! Then pull ads off the non-performers and see if your EPC goes up.
p/g
I see some users have been praising the performance of the 300x250 medium rectangle! Our research has proven that the 300x250 medium rectangle is actually one of our best-performing ad units. We recommend publishers to implement it above the fold, with both text and image ads enabled.
I had been using the medium rect with great success for over a year but my ecpm dropped out and never recovered.
After months of this I switched to a blended large rect and my ecpm has recovered.
I don't much like the look of it however and it most likely won't stay.
Andy
