Google AdSense & Google AdWords
This is going to be my last post on Google Adsense and Adwords for some time, because, quite frankly, it’s fairly boring to most people who don’t have a website - i.e. a lot of people who come onto the site!
Google Adsense
As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve put a few Adsense boxes here and there on the site. I’ll desist from putting them in posts as of now, for two reasons:
- They get in the way of my writing - if I need to break it up, I’ll put a picture in;
- Everyone’s doing it, which means it is now officially NOT COOL.
Ok, you can make some money from them, but at the end of the day, I’d prefer people to read my blog than to disappear off and view some other site, half way through my post!
I have decided to keep only the sidebar adverts with this idea in mind: people look to the sidebar when they are considering where to go next - either somewhere in your site, or somewhere else (e.g. a blogroll link). If, at this time, they spot an advertiser’s site they fancy visiting, then, by all means, I’m happy for them to do this!
I have also built a few other sites which use Adsense as an initial form of advertising income, though, in all cases, the business model is set up so as to slowly phase out the use of Adsense when the site becomes more popular and sell CPM / CPC ads directly to publishers at such a time. Adsense is a great way to monetise small and medium sized sites, but once one enters the realms of high (targeted) traffic, then more revenue is often generated by selling CPM. In my opinion.
One worry that I have with Adsense is the often poor quality of sites who advertise with Google and pay the highest click through rates. One doesn’t usually have to go far in such sites to meet the “please pay now to get more” section, and such sites go entirely against my philosophy.
Another issue I have is sites built purely for Adsense, with little or no content of their own. I have no problem with a site which discusses cars in great depth, and is enjoyed by car lovers, displaying a few adsense ads which are relevant to their target audience. However, many sites just have a page, with a few links, some copied content, and a whole host of ads. Get with the program fellas, that is not a long-term strategy.
Anyhow, they are some of my thoughts on Googles Adsense system. In conclusion I’d like to say that I like it on the whole, and Adsense can be a valuable addition to a quality website (providing of course that the ads are carefully placed). On to Google Adwords…
Google Adwords
Of course, all of the ads displayed using Adsense come from those who have signed up and use Google Adwords, so what of that?
I have been experimenting extensively with Adwords with a few sites recently and I must say that my original fears were not completely allayed. There are a couple of issues which have led me to continue my focus on organic search improvement, and forging quality backlinks, these are:
- Suicide High prices - on competitive (and that means most common) keywords, the price is often far to high to bring in a consistent and useful level of traffic for a reasonable budget.
- Lack of ‘Click Value’ - of the clicks received over the past few months from Adwords, 60-70% viewed only one page and ‘bounced’ straight away (compared with 15% from all other sources over the same period). These clicks were, however, all charged for. In fact, even on the free sites I used Adwords on, only one OUT OF ALL clicks converted to even a registration. A flaw in the site itself? You might say that, however, the sites have performed well generally. Incorrect or inaccurate keyword choices? Not really, only keywords within the site’s accurate description were used. This suggests that a vast majority of clicks received on Adwords are either fraud clicks, or persons who click on anything but don’t read it (i.e. not a great target audience): the clicks were of little or no value.
Compared with getting quality links from recognised sites, or ranking highly in organic search for related keywords and phrases, Adwords is by far the biggest loser. What’s more, the other options cost you no more than time and effort, and not ready money!
The Alternative - Get more ‘organic’ traffic!
In my opinion, the best long term strategy is to develop a site which contains a lot of quality, well written content, which is relevant to the target audience or niche which the site operates with(in)
Be sure to title, tag and optimise your site correctly. Link to relevant and helpful sites within your industry (I will probably write more on this at a later date - it strikes me as odd how many sites appear afraid of the ‘competition’ instead of actually providing their visitors with good relevant sites to visit), and take other measures which will see some good quality backlinks coming into your site, and you’ll have more success, though it takes more time. This has all been said before, often in much better ways, but it is still true, don’t waste your money paying for traffic - spend your time making your site the best it can be! The rest will follow.
Other useful sites:
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