AdSense Optimization Boosts Revenue with a Few Simple Steps

AdSense optimization improves revenue results with proper use of keywords, colors, placements and content quality.

Optimization of the Google ad network is based on some of the same concepts as search engine optimization. It’s worthwhile to consider what happens without it.

Ask someone for a lot of money and don’t tell them why. They aren’t likely to hand over a dime.

Place contextual advertising such as Google AdSense on your website and don’t optimize your pages. The end result is no different. It is like asking Google for ads but not telling the ad-serving platform what is on the page. As a result, the platform won’t be able to deliver targeted advertising. Targeted advertising has high revenue potential.

The entire basis of success with AdSense optimization is targeted (contextual) advertising. The more optimized the page, the more targeted the ads on the page.

Consider a page with only a javascript game on it. The page has little textual content, so the ads are likely to be generic and of limited interest to the visitors.

Contextual ad optimization is little different than search engine optimization. Success with one requires the same set of skills as success with the other.

Basic Optimization

AdSense optimization requires some initial efforts at the setup and continue improvements for better results.

Google itself recommends using no more than three display ads and no more than three ad units (smaller text ads). It also recommends using the most popular sizes — such as 728 x 90, 300 x 250 and 300 x 600 — and use design techniques that blend, complement or contrast the ads next to the content.

Other techniques include making sure the ads are viewable, meaning that they are in the viewable area of the browser and do not require scrolling to see in their entirety.

For a 728 x 90 leaderboard, make sure it is located below the header and not above it. The 300 x 250 and 300 x 600 work best on either side of the page, while both the 300 x 250 and the 300 x 600 work well with content wrapped around them.

Keyword Targeting

Identify the 10 most popular pages on your site and focus on them for AdSense optimization, simply because they will produce the most revenue.

Each of those 10 pages should have at least one primary keyword phrase — two words in the phrase is OK while three or more is usually better.

That phrase should be contained in the title and meta description. It should appear in the headline and the body of the content. It shouldn’t appear in more than 2 percent of the total content to avoid the appearance of keyword stuffing.

Track results based on total page click-through rate. Once the CTR for each of the 10 most important pages strongly exceeds the site average, move on to the next 10 and and then the next.

Keyword Value

Successful publishing in any environment, whether in print or online, requires a growing audience as well as advertisers who value the content.

Although the first recommendation is a focus on the most popular pages, it also pays to look at the revenue value of the keywords on those pages.

A keyword that pays $1 a click is obviously more valuable than one that pays five cents a click. So it is worthwhile to research the value of the keywords on those popular pages.

Various free tools provide those values. The most important is Google AdWords keyword planner, which provides a “suggested bid” for each keyword that an advertiser plans to use to promote a product or service.

Sadly, there is no suggested bid for the keyword phrase that dominates this article — AdSense optimization.

But the story is much different for other keywords in the AdWords planner. “Search engine optimization” has a suggested bid of $18.81, while “seo optimization services” is $26.86.

While those bids sound attractive, the competition for them is intense and will take a huge effort to acquire audience for the site articles containing them.

It may be a better use of time to focus on secondary keywords that are more valuable enough to boost the overall site average.

Content Quality

The word optimization is usually used in the context of attracting search engine visitors and, in this case, higher quality AdSense ads.

AdSense optimization starts with using accurate, high-value and audience appealing keywords. But other parts of the article matter too.

Search engines have made it more and more clear that other factors impact not only audience but the revenue that those pages generate:

• Social media interaction
• The author’s reputation
• Article length
• Sources cited
• Engagement level
• Grammar
• Originality

Site publishers tend to publish an article and forget about it. Revisiting articles periodically is valuble if the result is more content, factual updates, grammar improvements, SEO tweaking, etc.

Search engines will respond to these changes — not as much as a response to new articles, but at least some kind of response depending on the quantity and quality of improvements.

Taking an organized approach to optimizing a site for contextual ads pays dividends — literally.