Utter frustration with Adsense

Been around the $5 a day mark for ages!

[uk_webber]

I am becoming very frustrated with Adsense. After one year my average CTR is under 3% and I just can't get it higher.

I have one content rich site of 250 pages and one affiliate targeted site of 50 pages. I am not too worried about the smaller site as I make good money from affiliates but the larger site depends on adsense.

I have read these forums comprehensively for tips and tried a number of different ad placements and techniques to no avail!

Another frustrating thing is the ads are often off topic - it is a travel site and the ads are often nothing to do with this subject.

I am getting to the point of dumping adsense and searcing for alternatives.

Any other advice would be helpful.

[moneyraker]

How many uniques and page views do you get from your 250-page site? My estimate based on your info is around 1,500 page views a day? Is this correct?

To have a CTR of 3% for pages whose ads are irrelevant to the content is already an achievement. You can therefor easily increase your CTR% with better keyword targetting. I think your real limiting factor is your EPC. What is it at right now?

[uk_webber]

Sorry for sounding thick but how do I work out my EPC?

[wheelie34]

EPC = earning per click

divide your daily earnings by the amount of clicks, that will give you your EPC, do it over a month

[uk_webber]

0.37 per click over the last month,
0.35 per click over the last year.

By the way I only average 500 page views a day (according to adsense) and probably more than half the adverts are fairly well targeted.

[moneyraker]

Given your stats, I think you're OK. Your EPC and CTR look respectable as they are. You need to work on the traffic though - go for something like 5,000 impressions a day. That would give you about $50 a day. I know...I know...it's easier said than done. :)

[uk_webber]

I guess this would be the case - thanks for this feedback, much appreciated.

My big site does really well on Yahoo.com - 2nd for a fairly popular (5m results) two word travel related search term but it does n't deliver the visitors!

I think I need to focus more on Google SERPS and link development. To be honest I have been focusing more on content than link development which is probably why Google are still shunning me to some extent!

[georaza]

Mr. moneyraker

From where I can get the cheapest quality targetted traffic?

[James]

I have adsense code on over thirty thousand content rich pages across multiple domains/sites and I cannot get it more than than $5-10 a day in total.

I have plenty of pages which cover high value terms, but never seem to see any action on them. Just 3-8 cents a click terms seem to do something.

Once again the be all and end all of this business is Traffic, and little more else.

I once made a page for 3 legged camels with 4 humps and false teeth, and I got uniques to that page believe it or not.

All those sites that offer advice on adsense, and keyword lists etc, all fall down on the first principle...."Traffic". We all know traffic will bring clicks on adsense ads...but few, if any people can actually sort the traffic problem out.

[uk_webber]

Well said James.

[moneyraker]

Hi Georaza,

Sorry - I am not a good person to ask about purchasing traffic. I have never done it myself. I just rely on adding content regularly to boost my traffic. Maybe the others on this forum who have experience with purchasing traffic can give you the answer. Cheers! :)

[ownerrim]

"I once made a page for 3 legged camels with 4 humps and false teeth, and I got uniques to that page believe it or not."

Traffic is definitely the be-all, end-all. And it seems in many genres that one must write not dozens, but many hundreds of pages just to make a few bucks a day. Not an easy biz in the least. However, if you do write content (and I mean lots and lots of content) your site will certainly without a doubt stand out. The fact of the matter is, most webmasters either do not like to write or cannot write particularly well. And this shows through in the majority of websites. Even the so-called "content" sites are filled with nothing more than canned-sounding text. It's for this reason that blogs began to take off. They're full of original writing that at the very least sounds sincere and honest. And that's what people want. They may click on ads, but they don't want to feel as though they are being "herded" toward ads. They want web content that feels "real". And if you create tons of "real" web content, you'll get the traffic.

[roadhazard]

uk_webber: How old are your sites? If they are more than 3 years old, and you optimized the tags, you should begin to get more G. traffic. My site is just over one year old. Low traffic, but CTR is often 17-25% I have no idea which Adsense products are selling. The payouts are low, but now I have them up to a little over $2 per day usually. All the Adsense ads are in the heat spot and blended. When I made these changes, the CTR improved a lot. This site has about 1000 pages and building. My focus is to try to think of products people want and need. So the site looks like it is designed to help the visitor, not designed for high commissions. The site makes a gentle impression due to soft colors, and has easy navigation. Maybe these are reasons it SEEMS at this point to be moving ahead. Hope this helps.

[hunderdown]

I think I need to focus more on Google SERPS and link development. To be honest I have been focusing more on content than link development which is probably why Google are still shunning me to some extent!

I think you've answered your own question. Your EPC is decent--in other words it's right about the same as mine!--and you've done what you can to optimize for CTR.

Careful link development and making sure your site works well for Google are the way to go.

[Alioc]

uk_webber, another "problem" with CTR is that when you tell a lot about a topic, visitors will be less likely tend to click(to get more info). It's hard to find the right balance but it's true. If you've very quality content and if you're describing a topic from A to Z, that's good for return visitors but then these visitors will not be the ones clicking on ads. Anyone agree?

[hunderdown]

Alioc, I don't agree. Some of my most detailed articles get my best CTR. In some cases it may be because the incoming traffic wanted information on big red widgets and I gave them little blue widgets, but that's clearly not true in all cases.

It depends partly on the intentions of the incoming traffic. Someone considering buying a book about widgets is more likely to click an ad than someone wanting free information about widgets, so my book review pages do quite well (even though I also give people the opportunity to buy the books from online bookstores I'm affiliated with.).

[Alioc]

It depends partly on the intentions of the incoming traffic.

I agree on that.

[FromRocky]

Been around the $5 a day mark for ages!

After my AS earning had been steadily increased around 25% each month for 12 uninterrupted months, it has been stuck at one place for the last 8 months. Three main reasons which causes this behavior are:
1. Decline of organic traffics
2. Increase of KW cost for PPC traffics
3. Decline of EPC