How to Increase Google AdSense Revenue
One of the best ways to earn money online is by using Google AdSense. If you are a blogger and your blogging/web software allows you to copy and paste HTML code, then you can implement Google AdSense. In this way you can earn extra income from your blogging hobby whether it is a part-time or full-time endeavor. This two-part article will help you maximize your AdSense income.
The most obvious problem faced by Google AdSense publishers is low AdSense revenue/income. How much you consider to be "low" depends on your expectations or target. Since one is not allowed to share or divulge detailed Google AdSense statistics with other person (see item seven in Google AdSense terms and conditions), we can only talk here about estimates, not actual data coming from a Google AdSense report.
As I mentioned in the introduction, this article is a two-part series that will hopefully increase your Google AdSense blogging income if you follow the techniques, methods and principles discussed here.
Setting Expectations and Assessing Situations
It is not a good blogging objective to earn a massive amount of Google AdSense income. In that situation, your blog is NOT a content-based blog; rather, it’s more of an affiliate blog which can be classified as "spam" in an extreme case. You may have seen such blogs, which have only a few words per blog post, but are cluttered with ads, or have content that is copied from other sources and then have Google ads placed throughout.
Of course, since you are also aiming for blog authority, search engine rankings and online popularity, you as a blogger should continually be writing great content and posting it on a periodic basis as a means of providing information to help visitors looking for content.
Google AdSense should NOT be the only reason you blog. If it is, you lack the motivation to continue blogging if your AdSense income falls below your expectations. Sadly, most of the time, you have no control over this.
In fact, it can be true that if your website is VERY good, you will have a low click through rate (CTR) for your Google AdSense banners, which can result in low AdSense income. Why? When visitors come to your website, they are looking for information. When they find your content sufficient, good and satisfactory, they will not need to look around your website and click Google ads.
What should you do for income in a case like this? Consider offering some services for a fee, or enable visitors to make a Pay Pal Donation (add a "thank you" button). Lots of visitors may be willing to donate some money for your good content.
{mospagebreak title=AdSense Income Expectations}
The best way to set expectations of how much income you can get from Google AdSense is to look at it like a long-term investment. Do not listen to stories of million dollars Google AdSense checks or those websites that say they are earning more than a thousand bucks in daily AdSense income and claiming that they achieved these figures in a short period of time. This kind of get-rich-quick scheme will never work in the long term.
This case is analogous to betting on a lottery, and leads you to the wrong mindset for setting realistic Google AdSense goals.
Instead, set expectations based on what your website can currently do (your content, niche, visitors) and what you are able to do (based on current time and commitment, skills, marketing techniques). Even aiming for daily amount of $ 0.85 is NOT low at all if you have great content and an authoritative website. Looking at this number in the long term, if that is your daily average:
$0.85 x 365 = $310.25
That is already higher than what your "NORMAL" bank savings account earns every year.
Here is an important tip: use keywords with SEARCHES in your post title tag. This first step is the most important. Let me give you a brief review of the previous article posted about Google AdSense a year ago:
Lack of knowledge of what keywords to target can be the root cause of low search engine traffic (which can account for 60% of all of your website’s traffic sources). Low search engine traffic can certainly affect Google AdSense clicks.
The above article link provides all of the tips and techniques you need to tackle researching the best keyword to target for your main blog page or important pages.
{mospagebreak title=Using Keywords Correctly}
Once you have decided on the best keywords to target, the easy way to directly implement it with some SEO benefits is to use those keywords in your post title tag. For example, say you have decided to target "How to write a suspense novel." You can write the title tag like this: "How to write a suspense novel – rare tips and techniques"
Put the most important keyword first, and make your title tag as descriptive as possible. For me, the most effective way to target keywords is arranging them from the most difficult/broader key word for your home page all the way down to the ones with low estimated searches (the least competitive keywords) as the ones you will be targeting for your daily or weekly blog posts.
For example, say I am running a PHP development website that focuses on customization of templates and layouts. Then I will use the higher traffic (broader) keyword as the main keyword to be targeted on the blog’s front page, while I use the keywords with lesser searches as the targets for blog posts.
Below is a sample screen shot that shows a rough glimpse of the blog structure. It includes the front page and blog post title tags:
The bold keywords are targeted keywords researched using the process above. The italic supporting words are there to make the title tag more descriptive and meaningful.
Bear in mind that since the main page/front page has most of the inbound links coming from other domains (most of the time), the broader/more difficult keyword will be targeted to this page. Also, blog posts should support the main theme of the website.
Why is this technique important? As soon as you have a lot of blog posts, Google crawls and indexes those URLs. According to the relevance of the keywords in title tags and your content, the search engine will return your deep blog posts in its results, thus contributing to an increase in website traffic, which in turn can increase your AdSense income.
{mospagebreak title=Easy Keyword Research}
The easy way to research keyword ideas for your blog posts is:
Step 1: Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Step 2: Set results tailored to "All Countries and Territories."
Step 3: Under "Enter one keyword or phrase per line," try entering your favorite keyword ideas at that moment. If you have a blog about playing Counterstike Source, then you might start with "Counterstrike console commands" if you are thinking of writing a blog post about the game’s console commands.
Step 4: Uncheck "Use synonyms." This will let Google’s keyword tool give you direct and related keywords pertaining to your query. After that, click "Get keyword ideas."
Step 5: Under match type, change from "Broad" to "Exact." This will give you a more accurate estimate.
Step 6: You can even click the link "Global Monthly Search Volume" to sort from highest to lowest keyword traffic.
Bingo! The targeted keyword idea has some traffic associated with it (and it is not competitive, since search volume is below 300~500), so you can write a blog post about it and use a descriptive title tag. For example, you might try "Counterstrike Console Commands: Complete List (Updated)"
The rule of thumb is that you need to maximize the potential of every blog post you make if you need to increase your Google AdSense income. One of the effective ways to do this is by researching keyword ideas in advance, before you write a blog post. This will ensure that your blog post attracts long tail traffic from search engines, which will not only help your AdSense effort, but also improve the SEO aspect of your website.
You will learn about AdSense banner location and CTR in the second part of this tutorial.
