Posts Tagged ‘advertisements’
Are You Stupid? 90% AdSense Publishers Screw Up Placements
It’s an average morning on an average day while surfing the web for some info, and by checking out other websites for this we sometimes stumble upon publishers which are screwing their ad campaign around.
Bad ad placements and colors will not get you the money which you could be getting out of your website if you would place them correctly…. colors are important as well – however placements are even more crucial. In our previous post about the best AdSense placements we discussed various placements and ad designs including colors – using case studies and theories as our backup.
Update: It seems that the discussed site’s layout and css has been fixed. However our optimization tips still apply apart from the site’s design changes.
Bad AdSense Placements
How to Fix bad Ad Placements
As always, this will be included in our complete AdSense guide and it will serve as an example for other webmasters who publish ads. We made a list below which includes all the implementations suggested by us. You can use this a reference for your own website(s).
- Footer Advertisements
Probably the most infamous placement for an ad – the footer. Placing your ad here will not only get it NOT noticed, it will also take 1 contextual ad away from the 3 you can have per page. We can understand why people place their ads there, thrown away in corners. The ads are ugly – and in most cases destroy the layout and design of your website. We can only agree, however if you joined an advertisement program, you want to make money online – which won’t be possible if you tuck the ads away in the bottom. Do a little reading on the best adsense placements post we blogged earlier this week and you’ll understand why.
- Sidebar Placements
The sidebar has many placements for any kind of ad, be it direct advertising, affiliate or CPC ads. The problem with the sidebar is that CPC ads will only perform if they are placed above the fold. In this case we talk about AdSense, so blending your ad in the sidebar is important as well.
“Sponsors” and “Advertisement” is often used as a title above the ad in the sidebar. This is used because the site has a large readerbase and it will be easier for them to distinguish content from advertisements. Other sides which get a lot of search traffic would benefit more from removing the title above the ad, making the ad looking more like content, resulting in higher CTR.
Also be aware, the more down on the page you place your ads (especially skyscrapers) the less they get clicked because most visitors don’t scroll down that far. As you can see on the heatmap, placing them above the fold will get you the most clicks because they are placed in the hot zones.
- Coloring your Ad
Red title color, black text and a violet url color. Awesome combination to draw the attention to the ad. However it will most likely scare away the visitor from clicking it because it looks like an ad. Visitors do not like to get monetized, do you? That’s why we need to blend it with our content, making it not look like an ad. Picking a red title color while every other link on that site is blue/black is definitely a good way to make an ad outstanding but not make it perform.
As part of our complete AdSense guide on DuoBlogger we devoted several post – each more progressively detailed – to coloring your adsense units.
- Different Ad Formats
Leaderboards are, although under performing, still as popular as in web 1.0. It is important to understand why leaderboards died several years ago since the internet made it’s big boom. The average internet user got used to anything banner related advertising, making them not click the banners anymore. Have a look on Jakob Nielsen’s Banner Blindness research, and scroll down to the images. What can we see here?
Banner Blindness - notice the ads outlined in green
The people that took part in the experiment all took a little peek at the leaderboard and skyscrapers but weren’t interested in it at all. Now let’s get back to this – the main reason people visit your website is because of the content you share. Now wouldn’t it be smart (note: image) to insert ads inside your content, making it more likely people won’t read over them because all their attention is focussed there.
As of web 2.0 – rectangles and squares are the new and best performing ad formats.
Improve Adsense CTR
Today I was contacted by Kiraly Zoltan – he asked for some tips to improve the Click-Through Rate of his Adsense ads on his website. I opened the website and noticed 2 major mistakes in the layout of his adsense units.
Bad Adsense layout
Do you notice what he is doing wrong? If not then make sure to read my post about the best Adsense colors and the hot-spot ad positons.
The first problem is that he is using a 728*90 banner. Banners are Web 1.0 – nobody clicks them anymore. They suffer from the problem known as “banner-blindness”. We got used to normal horizontal banners and do not click them anymore. Leaderboard and banner ads are out! Don’t even think about using them if you have alternatives.
If you want to get a decent CTR and not one click per year then you must work with the large rectangles. They attract a lot more attention and look less like banners as long as they are not showing an image. Replace them on your website and I am almost 100 percent certain that your CTR will improve by 1-2 percent. I have been using the banners before as well and no, they did not work for me neither!
So how do you place two large rectangles next to each other? The answer is simple, use html to create a table for your Adsense units. The code to do so is:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Code 1</td>
<td>Code 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
That will place your Ads next to each other drawing more of the visitors attention and as a result improve your CTR. Really, whenever you make a website – this code will get you a decent amount of clicks!
The next problem with his Ads is the color. He is using #FEA20F as the link and URL color. What kind of color is that? Have you ever seen someone using it before? Don’t invent new Adsense improvement strategies! Use that what works! Blending Ads with bright URL color has never worked for me and won’t do for you as well. Choose a dark blue as link color. #000080 is definately my favorite and most successful one. The reason for choosing the blue is simple: people are used to blue hyperlinks and will consequently click them more often. #0000FF is the color almost all websites use for ad-links – that’s also a problem, people got used to it and do not click ad-units in that color that often anymore! Take a darker blue as link color!
You also don’t want the readers to have a look at the URL – you want them to look on the link and click that one right away. If they look too long on the URL they will notice that it is an advertisement and probably not click which means that you do not get any money at all. Make the link color a grey like #cccccc or the same color as the text in your advertisements. So if your text is black, then make the URL black, or grey.
2 Large Rectangles
That’s what gets you the highest CTR with Adsense in my opinion. Let’s have a look what Kiraly changed. He implemented my suggestions and is now using a #021588 as link color which is almost the same as the navy-blue #000080. But what the heck? Why is he using a #21588E as URL color? That’s not the best solution if you ask me. You should make it the same color as the text-color of your Adsense unit. In his case the text-color of his Adsense unit is #424242 which means that he should make the URL look the same. That way the people tend to look and click the Link of your ad more often.
One last thing which I would suggest in case of his website is to place the Adsense units not in the middle, but more to the left. People look at the top-left corner of a website when loading the website. That is in fact the best position for advertisements. Try to allocate your Ads more to the left by adding a <div align=”left”>(your table with the adsense ads)</div> around your table. That will move them right into the so called “hot-zone” and result in a higher CTR, too.
Embed all those changes and I am more than sure that you will experience a CTR-boom. I did the same on all of my websites and believe me – my click through rate is way better now. It is like in your local shopping-center. The people arrange their products psychologically to make you buy products more often. Same applies to the Adsense ads – you want to magically make users click them! Let me know if you need assistance with the placement and look of your ads.
Advertisement programs for blogs
Some bloggers are relatively unsatisfied with Google Adsense or other advertisement networks. You must know that there are other, still good networks. The market grows fast and still has open space for new advertising companies. I have been using several advertisement programs now and would like to give you some tips which advertisement programs are good.
You gotta decide between PPC (also known as CPC, stands for Pay per click), PPA (also known as CPA, stands for pay per affiliate and CPM (PPM, pay per impression). Some blogs tend to work better with CPA programs, others with CPC programs and others with CPM programs.
I made the experience that CPC programs run best when you have a niche blog. Your blog should not be about different topics, only about one. That way the CPC-programs can easily put related advertisements on your website which then tend to be clicked by your visitors more often. One very good advertising program is Google Adsense (you probably know it, if not you must be a newby lol). Because of the intense amout of advertisers Google is able to put extremely relative ads on your websites. As said before, the advertisements are appealing to the visitors and will consequently get clicks. To make it a little easier to understand: Let’s say your blog is about lawyers in a district of New York – there is an advertiser interested in putting advertisements on websites about exactly that topic. The ads are shown the user and they click on them because they were looking for a lawyer. Always keep in mind that the success to Google Adsense is the niche relevancy and the amount of clicks. The more clicks, the more money. The relevanter the better earnings per click (general sites suffer from smart pricing). I have mainly worked with Google as CPC program, but alternatives are Yahoo, Bidvertiser and some others of which I currently forgot the names.
The next category of advertisement are CPM ads. Those advertisements will get you money per impression. Sounds great because it is independent on clicks, however, those advertisement programs usually tend to pay out less. They do not have as targeted ads as the CPC programs, therefore do not have a large ROI (return on investment) for the advertiser. For me they pay out around 50% of what google-adsense pays. Usually you are forced to use those programs simply because you either got banned on adsense, or notice that your money per click gets lowered drastically. I worked togehter with some of them and made best experiences with: Adsdaq and Tribalfusion. If you need wellpaying pop-unders then Valueclick is the network to go. Their pop-unders pay out like on no other network. Cpxinteractive is good if you want income without really doing something. Just place their code and you can expect medium-earnings. The prior networks pay out well if you dedicate some time to play around a little. I will be writing a post about ad tiering for more money soon (helps to get more money out of CPM ads).
An alternative might be CPA advertisements for you. There some niches that are known to payout very well with affiliate advertisements. The dog niche for example will make you rich with CPA ads… You probably ask yourself why – in fact I did so too… It is fairly easy to understand – look at the audience of people that are interested in dogs. Most of them are 30+ and already have an income. Those people have money and usually (at least in Western-countries) do everything possible for the health and good of their pet. Those people are eager to buy products, the conversion rate is extremely high. An example: A dog is suffering from a disease – the person owning the dog searches for help on the internet and then finds your website. The person sees an advertisement related directly to her problem. The chance is high that she will click it and perhaps buy the product. So if the product costs around 500$ (some people pay that for the good of their dog) – then you get around 15% – what is 75$. Some friends told me that their sites where extremely well converting with a conversion rate of almost 5%! Wish I had such a blog and could run CPA advertisements hehe. Popular ones are the Ebay Commission Junction, Amazon-ads or Google Adsense. I have once been trying Zanox – but they scammed me around 200$. I am still waiting for a payout. Would love to know if you made better experiences with them.
CPA advertisements really depend on the niche – for example on my main website (it is about computer games – D3scene.com) – I would not be able to make any profit from Affiliate advertisements. The audience is maily around 15 years old. Most of the users do not even have a credit-card or paypal account. The chance that they really buy the product is very low. And the money behind a computer-game is not higher than 50$ – making it unattractive for gaming niches to run CPA ads.
Another possibility if your blog is about a specific software would be to use Pay-Per-Install advertisements. Those advertisements get you money whenever someone installs software. However, you will need to merge the software’s .exe with some kind of sponsor program .exe – which will make the audience of your blog never come back. Trust me, if a website tries to install crap on my computer I will NEVER even open them again. Zangocasg is the most popular one.
All in all you need to experiment – there is no 100% perfect advertising solution for your blog. The advertising niche changes every year and has new products which might increase your money. I recommend you to try out different advertisement programs and to see which one performs best for your blog. Not that I know everything, but I already know a decent amount – still – there is so much that influences your advertisements and I can not tell you the perfect solution. As stated above – experiment.
Best Ad Programs for Blogs
What are the best ad programs to use when it comes to blogs? It is not as complicated as you might find it to be. Of course we have talked about adsense and the perks and the reliability it comes with, but what if you are not too keen on using the adsense program, what else can you turn to?
Chitika is another excellent ad program for your new blog. Chitika targets the content of your blog page by displaying relevant advertising to your chosen blog topic. If your blog is about hip-hop music, or politics, Chitika will ensure that your page’s ads will coincide with your blog’s topic. This program is excellent, they send you payment every month, and it can be a great way to earn some money off of your page. But do not shun adsense out just yet; remember it is the leader in advertising and making a profit. Try testing both of them at various times.
Try adsense for exactly one month, and track and see what your profit comes out to at the end of your month. Then when the next month rolls around, try out Chitika, or any other ad program. Try to do what works well for you, remember that it is all about experimentation. Do a split test and figure out which ad program is going to make you a bigger profit. If you are not happy with either one of those, try asking fellow bloggers, and finding out what has worked for them and what has not worked for them. You might find a fellow blogger that is a bit more seasoned to the blogging world, take them up on some of their advice, and build yourself from there.
Remember not to get discouraged if you are not making money right away, pick and choose, use programs on a trial basis and determine from there. There are hundreds of ad programs out there, and the two that were compared are among the leaders in the ad program world, the key is just to find what works for you, and how you utilize it. Figure out the INS and the OUTS to your chosen ad program; know how to work the system.
You have received a ton of information regarding Google adsense and how it can help you, and how you can make some money. Everything you read online may make the process seem quick and painless, but getting out there and getting heard can be the hardest part in the blogging world. If you are working with Google Adsense use this program to your full advantage. Search for any tips that you can get, take the tutorials, ask for advice, and get help.
There are message boards for Google adsense all over the internet, take the time to look and get your answers and your knowledge. Be careful not to get in over head, and just dive into the pool before you know how to swim. We all would love to make money being our own boss and working from home using online advertising for our sites and out blogs.
As long as you do your homework first, take your notes, and pass your tests you should eventually be at where you would like to be in the blogging and advertising world. Do not forget about your Google Adsense blog positions, your page’s color schemes, and weather or not to use either a CPC, or a CPA. Utilize your channels in every way possible to maximize and profit, and make sure you choose the right ad program for your blog. It does not come quick, so remember not to quit your full time job just yet!
So, here is a list of ad programs which you might want to take into consideration:
- Google Adsense
- Adsdaq
- Tribalfusion
- Valueclick
- Bidvertiser
- Yahoo Publisher
- Chitika
- Azoogle
- Zango Cash
- Adbrite
I must say that I had most earnings with Google Adsense. There is no program that can keep up with the large pool of advertisers behind it. A very important factor for the amout onf clicks which you get is the relevancy of the ads. Nobody would click on real estate ads on a website about dogs… Almost all other ad programs do not have real targeted ads, resulting in lesser clicks and lesser money.
If you don’t get a long with CPC programs where you get paid per click then I recommend you to test CPM programs. They pay you per thousand impressions. They are usually used for forums but might as well work relatively good with your blog. My favorite one is adsdaq. They have good support and a very easy to use ad-managing system. Everything for managing is made with ajax (lol, I love web 2.0ish ajax). If you like then you can set me as a referral (hendrik kleinwaechter). You can set the price of the every impression on your website, so you get at least the amount of money that you were looking for. You however won’t be able to fill the adspot completely, no problem, you can set google ads as alternate ads very quickly.
The best support undoubtedly has Tribalfusion. Really, you can call them, email them or IM them and you will get an answer within an hour. The account manager sets everything up for you! They are very helpful and I really appreciated that when I started working with them on one of my forums. They payouts weren’t that good.
I also once tried Adbrite but made really bad experiences with them…. Earning 30$ a day with Adsense I got .50 $ with them. Was really disappointed and moved away from them.
Let me know if you need help with choosing a good advertising program for your blog. Just use the contact me form and I will be there for you :-).
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