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Showing newest posts with label Case studies. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label Case studies. Show older posts
Get Goghing with AdSense for search
A few months ago, we shared a number of AdSense for search optimization tips with you. Here's the story of one AdSense publisher who recently tried some of these techniques and saw substantial results after making a few small changes.
VanGoghGallery.com is an art resource site that provides information about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Site owner Greg Alexander runs the Van Gogh Gallery to educate and share information about the artist, and has also used the site to explore new Internet marketing techniques. Greg joined AdSense in 2007, and although he didn't know much about the program at first, he found it "a great opportunity to generate some revenue without spending the effort to sell ads." He also tried other ad providers, "but none of them yielded the results that AdSense did. In addition, AdSense was the only one that provided relevant ads for our visitors."
To help users navigate through the many pages of the Van Gogh Gallery, Greg added an AdSense for search box to the right column of his pages. By enabling SiteSearch and displaying search results on his own pages, he was able to help users find what they were looking for while staying on his site.
As an optimization experiment, Greg recently moved his search box to the center column of his pages and extended it to twice its original width.
In addition, Greg made slight changes to the search results pages -- he removed the borders from the ads and search results, and added a new search box to the search results pages. According to Greg, "altogether, these changes took less than 15 minutes to do."
After making these updates, Greg noticed a dramatic and immediate increase in the usage of search on the Van Gogh Gallery. He found that "the number of queries performed each day increased 8 to 10 times, and search ad clicks and revenues increased even more." His search earnings quickly grew from less than a dollar a day to double digits since his optimization test. "Now we frequently receive more search ad clicks than our total number of searches pre-optimization," says Greg. "I'm still amazed at how simple changes can have such an incredible impact."
Greg has started using the earnings from his AdSearch optimization efforts to build and host additional websites about other artists. "Ultimately," Greg says,"we hope to use the earnings to fund research trips to Europe to see the works of the masters and expand the quality of information we offer visitors to our sites."
Have you also tried our AdSense for search optimization tips and found success? Let us know.
VanGoghGallery.com is an art resource site that provides information about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Site owner Greg Alexander runs the Van Gogh Gallery to educate and share information about the artist, and has also used the site to explore new Internet marketing techniques. Greg joined AdSense in 2007, and although he didn't know much about the program at first, he found it "a great opportunity to generate some revenue without spending the effort to sell ads." He also tried other ad providers, "but none of them yielded the results that AdSense did. In addition, AdSense was the only one that provided relevant ads for our visitors."
To help users navigate through the many pages of the Van Gogh Gallery, Greg added an AdSense for search box to the right column of his pages. By enabling SiteSearch and displaying search results on his own pages, he was able to help users find what they were looking for while staying on his site.
As an optimization experiment, Greg recently moved his search box to the center column of his pages and extended it to twice its original width.
Before
After
In addition, Greg made slight changes to the search results pages -- he removed the borders from the ads and search results, and added a new search box to the search results pages. According to Greg, "altogether, these changes took less than 15 minutes to do."
After making these updates, Greg noticed a dramatic and immediate increase in the usage of search on the Van Gogh Gallery. He found that "the number of queries performed each day increased 8 to 10 times, and search ad clicks and revenues increased even more." His search earnings quickly grew from less than a dollar a day to double digits since his optimization test. "Now we frequently receive more search ad clicks than our total number of searches pre-optimization," says Greg. "I'm still amazed at how simple changes can have such an incredible impact."
Greg has started using the earnings from his AdSearch optimization efforts to build and host additional websites about other artists. "Ultimately," Greg says,"we hope to use the earnings to fund research trips to Europe to see the works of the masters and expand the quality of information we offer visitors to our sites."
Have you also tried our AdSense for search optimization tips and found success? Let us know.
Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 2:46:00 PM
Six ways to experiment with AdSense and grow your earnings
Welcome to our first-ever guest blog post on Inside AdSense. We're thrilled to have none other than Blogging Evangelist himself, Darren Rowse, to share his expert tips on AdSense optimisation.
Darren first discovered blogging in 2002, and initially thought he'd turn it into a hobby to supplement his full-time job. These days, Darren runs a handful of successful blogs, his most popular being Digital Photography School, and has co-authored a book. He also posts regular tips and advice on ProBlogger.net, a respected and successful resource for bloggers around the world.
We recently caught up with Darren at his home office in Melbourne Australia, and asked him about his experience with Google AdSense.
October 4, 2003 is a date I'll never forget - that was a day that my life changed. It was the day that I discovered AdSense and added it to my very first blog. I added that first advertisement to my blog on a whim, with what I thought was the lofty dream that I might be able to pay for my blogs hosting costs. Over 5 years later, those little text ads have paid my mortgage, fed my family, and enabled me to move my blogging from a hobby, to a part time job, to a full time job and beyond.
It's not been an 'overnight success' by any means but as I've learned to use it, AdSense has been one of my highest online income streams.
My #1 Tip for Using AdSense
If I had to narrow my advice on using AdSense down to a single word it would be 'experiment'. Let me explain.
That day back in October of 2003 I had no idea on what I was doing. The next day when I logged in to see how much I'd earned it was barely enough to buy me a coffee.
However, on that day I decided that those few dollars in earnings showed potential and I determined within myself to learn how best to use AdSense to grow that income. Almost everything I've learned since that day has been through trial and error.
It has been a long process of testing and tracking results. You see, while there are a few good home truths that seem to work on most sites, every website that I've used AdSense on is different. Some things work well on some sites, but it is rare to find something that will work on every site. As a result I tend to experiment with my use of AdSense in these six ways:
There are books, blogs, articles, forums, and other kinds of resources available to AdSense publishers to help them learn how to use AdSense better. However, in my experience the best way to learn is to 'do'. Put time aside to try new things and then put more time aside to review what you learn.
But don't leave it at that. When you learn something -- test it against something else (do some research on A/B split testing to learn how to do this). This continual learning will help you to grow in your own expertise of AdSense and increase your earnings.
Darren first discovered blogging in 2002, and initially thought he'd turn it into a hobby to supplement his full-time job. These days, Darren runs a handful of successful blogs, his most popular being Digital Photography School, and has co-authored a book. He also posts regular tips and advice on ProBlogger.net, a respected and successful resource for bloggers around the world.
We recently caught up with Darren at his home office in Melbourne Australia, and asked him about his experience with Google AdSense.
October 4, 2003 is a date I'll never forget - that was a day that my life changed. It was the day that I discovered AdSense and added it to my very first blog. I added that first advertisement to my blog on a whim, with what I thought was the lofty dream that I might be able to pay for my blogs hosting costs. Over 5 years later, those little text ads have paid my mortgage, fed my family, and enabled me to move my blogging from a hobby, to a part time job, to a full time job and beyond.
It's not been an 'overnight success' by any means but as I've learned to use it, AdSense has been one of my highest online income streams.
My #1 Tip for Using AdSenseIf I had to narrow my advice on using AdSense down to a single word it would be 'experiment'. Let me explain.
That day back in October of 2003 I had no idea on what I was doing. The next day when I logged in to see how much I'd earned it was barely enough to buy me a coffee.
However, on that day I decided that those few dollars in earnings showed potential and I determined within myself to learn how best to use AdSense to grow that income. Almost everything I've learned since that day has been through trial and error.
It has been a long process of testing and tracking results. You see, while there are a few good home truths that seem to work on most sites, every website that I've used AdSense on is different. Some things work well on some sites, but it is rare to find something that will work on every site. As a result I tend to experiment with my use of AdSense in these six ways:
- Ad Position - Most AdSense publishers have seen the neat little heat map that AdSense has produced to show where ads work best on websites. In general it works fairly well and is a great place to start, but make sure you experiment with new positions for ads and see what works best for your site.
Hint: Ads near (or even surrounded by) content have worked the best. I've also found ads at the end of content perform well. People get to the end of reading your article and then are looking for something to do or click -- an ad positioned there can work well.
- Numbers of Ads - More ads earn more than less ads... don't they? Unfortunately it isn't always the case.
Test different combinations and numbers of ad units on your site. There's usually a 'tipping point' where you hit a ceiling of how many ads your users will accept -- push it too far and you could hurt reader engagement, traffic, and in the long run your earnings. On the flip side of this, don't be afraid to have more than one or two ads on a page, particularly if you have long pages with lots of content. - Ad Design - I can still see the first ads that I first used on my blog back in 2003. I can still see them because they fried their imprints into my retina -- they were so LOUD!
I figured that the ads would do best if people noticed them so I went for the most crazy color scheme I could come up with. Over the years I began to experiment with different combinations of ads and found that more subtle or blended ads tended to work best for me. Having said that, you can sometimes blend too much, to the point that the ads become invisible to your reader. So test different colors and designs of ads to see which work best. Use the ad rotating tool that AdSense offer publishers to rotate different designs to work against ad blindness among regular readers. - Ad Sizes - AdSense offers us a range of different ad sizes, so experiment with them all to see which works best. Hint: Some might think that the bigger the ad the better it performs. This is not always true.
For example, I found that the 'large rectangle' ad (336 x 280) didn't work as well for me as the smaller 'medium rectangle' ad (300 x 250). It turns out that more advertisers (at least those in my niche) prefer the medium rectangle ad as it's a more standard ad unit size than the larger one. Again, the key is to experiment and see what works best for your site and niche. - Ad Formats - I've found that choosing image and text ads works better than just choosing text ads, but that's not the only choice we get as AdSense publishers.
AdSense also allow us to run link units, AdSense for search, etc. I've found that each of these different formats will work differently from site to site. I've had blogs where the link unit ads were the best performing units on the site while on other sites it didn't really perform at all. You'll never know unless you test it! - Which Content Converts? - One of the best advances that AdSense has made in the last year has been the integration between it and Google Analytics. To be honest I'm still digging into the metrics that this opens up, but the insight that this gives has amazing potential to increase earnings.
By looking at this data you can see what type of content is converting and what isn't. You can also see what type of traffic is converting and what isn't. For example, I've found that search engine referrals are converting better than traffic from social media sites on one of my blogs. Knowing this is powerful as it tells you what type of ads to serve to what types of traffic, what type of promotion to put effort towards, and what type of content to write more of.
There are books, blogs, articles, forums, and other kinds of resources available to AdSense publishers to help them learn how to use AdSense better. However, in my experience the best way to learn is to 'do'. Put time aside to try new things and then put more time aside to review what you learn.
But don't leave it at that. When you learn something -- test it against something else (do some research on A/B split testing to learn how to do this). This continual learning will help you to grow in your own expertise of AdSense and increase your earnings.
Friday, February 06, 2009 at 9:15:00 AM
Asking Dave Taylor about AdSense
AskDaveTaylor.com offers tech support Q&A on subjects ranging from mp3 players to Linux to AdSense. We recently chatted with founder Dave Taylor about his site and his AdSense experience.
Inside AdSense: Where did the idea for your 'Ask Dave Taylor' site come from?
Dave Taylor: There's a great backstory, actually. I've written twenty different books on various business and technical topics, including Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours and Creating Cool Web Sites. Each time I'd publish, I would be sure to include my email address and other contact information. Problem was, people would send me email with questions. Lots of email with questions.
Over time I found myself answering the same questions again and again and realized that there had to be a better way for readers to search through an archive of already answered questions. I tried an online discussion forum, but it didn't really work very well (though it did give me an excuse to write my own bbs system from scratch, but that's another story!).
Then early in 2003 this "weblog" thing started to gain a bit of traction. When I first saw how it was built upon the concept of an author writing entries and others being able to add their comments, I realized that it could be ideal for my needs.
IA: Why did you join the AdSense program?
DT: As a businessperson, I had always viewed my website as a cost center. I mean, you had to pay for hosting, you had to pay for graphic design, you had to pay for Internet connectivity, etc. That was just my mindset. It was a marketing expense and its purpose was lead generation for my consulting and book sales.
In mid-2003 my friend told me about this "AdSense thing" and said that he'd been experimenting with it and making some money. So I finally decided that I'd try putting some adverts on my site (I'd been on the Web since 1996 but never had any adverts on my sites until that point). That first month I made more than I expected by simply adding the AdSense adverts to my pages and was surprised as heck. Then it started to grow...
That's when it hit me, that my website was becoming a profit center for my business, not a cost center. I began to pay more attention to the site and published new content on a more regular basis. Within a few months I was earning enough to pay my mortgage, and today my website, and specifically Google AdSense, is a primary revenue stream for my entire company.
IA: Can you talk a little about your experience with optimizing your ads?
Once I began working with AdSense in earnest, I began to wonder how ad placement, size, color, and design would affect earnings, and how to balance my desire to offer a splendid user experience with the need to simultaneously maximize revenue.
Enter A/B testing. I read and talked with many AdSense publishers, tried what they suggested and what had worked for them, fiddled with my own ideas, and generally tried every variation I could imagine to see if I could improve the click-through-rate of my ad blocks. The greatest boosts I saw in clickthrough rate were when I moved the advert into the middle of my articles, when I made sure it had the same color background as the material around it, and when there wasn't a solid border or other visual element to make the ad stand out from the surrounding content.
Truth be told, I've also paid close attention to the sites profiled on the AdSense blog, looking at how they integrated ads into their own design and trying to emulate their successful techniques on my own site.
IA: Glad to hear you used the blog! Any other optimization tips for our readers?
Do you also have an AdSense success story to share? Let us know.
Inside AdSense: Where did the idea for your 'Ask Dave Taylor' site come from?
Dave Taylor: There's a great backstory, actually. I've written twenty different books on various business and technical topics, including Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours and Creating Cool Web Sites. Each time I'd publish, I would be sure to include my email address and other contact information. Problem was, people would send me email with questions. Lots of email with questions.
Over time I found myself answering the same questions again and again and realized that there had to be a better way for readers to search through an archive of already answered questions. I tried an online discussion forum, but it didn't really work very well (though it did give me an excuse to write my own bbs system from scratch, but that's another story!).
Then early in 2003 this "weblog" thing started to gain a bit of traction. When I first saw how it was built upon the concept of an author writing entries and others being able to add their comments, I realized that it could be ideal for my needs.
IA: Why did you join the AdSense program?
DT: As a businessperson, I had always viewed my website as a cost center. I mean, you had to pay for hosting, you had to pay for graphic design, you had to pay for Internet connectivity, etc. That was just my mindset. It was a marketing expense and its purpose was lead generation for my consulting and book sales.
In mid-2003 my friend told me about this "AdSense thing" and said that he'd been experimenting with it and making some money. So I finally decided that I'd try putting some adverts on my site (I'd been on the Web since 1996 but never had any adverts on my sites until that point). That first month I made more than I expected by simply adding the AdSense adverts to my pages and was surprised as heck. Then it started to grow...
That's when it hit me, that my website was becoming a profit center for my business, not a cost center. I began to pay more attention to the site and published new content on a more regular basis. Within a few months I was earning enough to pay my mortgage, and today my website, and specifically Google AdSense, is a primary revenue stream for my entire company.
IA: Can you talk a little about your experience with optimizing your ads?
Once I began working with AdSense in earnest, I began to wonder how ad placement, size, color, and design would affect earnings, and how to balance my desire to offer a splendid user experience with the need to simultaneously maximize revenue.
Enter A/B testing. I read and talked with many AdSense publishers, tried what they suggested and what had worked for them, fiddled with my own ideas, and generally tried every variation I could imagine to see if I could improve the click-through-rate of my ad blocks. The greatest boosts I saw in clickthrough rate were when I moved the advert into the middle of my articles, when I made sure it had the same color background as the material around it, and when there wasn't a solid border or other visual element to make the ad stand out from the surrounding content.
Truth be told, I've also paid close attention to the sites profiled on the AdSense blog, looking at how they integrated ads into their own design and trying to emulate their successful techniques on my own site.
IA: Glad to hear you used the blog! Any other optimization tips for our readers?
- Focus on generating really good content that meets real user needs.
- Design your blog so that there are minimal distractions for the user.
- Wrap your blog entry around the Google ad unit and put the ads where users will see them, though make sure you have them visually distinct from your content: trying to trick readers into clicking on ads is a definite no-no and anti-reader too.
Do you also have an AdSense success story to share? Let us know.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 11:06:00 AM
Chasing the perfect layout with AdSense for search
AdSense publisher Next Small Things has long understood that search is the entry point for users to find what they're looking for on the web. In fact, the idea for CoolChaser.com, a MySpace layout creation and customization site (and Next Small Things's largest business to date), came from the observation that many web surfers were using the company's search engine to find instructions to change their MySpace backgrounds. The observation and ensuing business idea has paid off, and in just one year CoolChaser.com has gained a loyal user base: over 200,000 users are now finding or creating layouts on the site every day. "CoolChaser has become a one-stop-shop for layouts because of the ease of use and the choice and ability for users to express what they feel at the time," says founder Chao Lam.With over 20 million user-submitted layouts (and 3,000 created every hour), it was becoming increasingly difficult for users to find the layouts they were looking for. "We were getting a lot of requests from users to provide some sort of search mechanism so that they could easily find what they were looking for," developer Sachiko Kwan says. As an existing AdSense publisher, Kwan decided to try AdSense for search and was immediately impressed by the quick setup process and the accuracy of the results. With the new SiteSearch feature, Kwan was able to restrict the searches so users didn't have to leave the site to find what they were looking for. In addition, the new watermark feature allowed Kwan to add the search box without any rearrangement in the navigation bar.
Most recently, Lam and Kwan began optimizing their search for better performance and user experience. If a user wasn't creating a layout, they were looking for one. So Kwan moved the search box from the upper right corner of each page to the center of the header and also added a second search box to the bottom of every page, in case users who were done browsing needed to search again. On the search results page, she changed the ad borders to a lighter color to better blend in with the site's pages.
Within a week of making these changes, Lam and Kwan saw their daily search queries on CoolChaser increase by 40% and earnings more than double. Since implementing AdSense for search on CoolChaser, search has become the second most popular functionality behind creating layouts. Lam and Kwan continue to focus on user experience, and they are now working to refine search results using keywords and labels. "There's such an enormous variety of things people search for," Lam says. "AdSense for search is really working for us."
Have you had success with AdSense for search, or our new optimization tips? If so, we'd love to hear from you.
Monday, September 08, 2008 at 11:04:00 AM
Game on for GameScene
Back in 1995, Gary Rosenzweig published some of the world's first web-based games. Some of his early games as well as more than 100 created by CleverMedia, the company he later founded, are available at GameScene.com.
"Even in those early days, it was clear to us that web advertising was the best way to earn money from our content," says Gary. Revenue from ads offered him creative and financial freedom to be both a game developer and publisher. But the early ad banner market was volatile and fluctuated constantly. It wasn't until he joined the AdSense program in August 2003 that Gary was able to get consistent high-level performance from advertising.
"AdSense not only performs better than banner ads, but is also much better for site visitors," Gary notes. "The text ads and high-quality display ads used by Google were a far better experience than the pop-ups, pop-unders and interstitial ads still used today by our competitors."
At GameScene.com, CleverMedia uses 160x600 wide skyscrapers next to the games, and 300x250 medium rectangles on instructions pages. Gary encourages other publishers to test different ad formats and placements on their own sites, especially as their users grow and change. Having non-obtrusive but relevant advertising on high-traffic pages provides the revenue CleverMedia needs to keep making innovative web games.
Have your own success story to share? We'd love to hear from you.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 12:50:00 PM
Doing his Music Thing
As a fan of gadget blogs such as Gizmodo and Engadget, Tom Whitwell started Music Thing in 2004 after realising that there were no similar blogs for music gear. The blog showcases unique and strange instruments, and traffic grew as gadget sites began to link to Music Thing. Now, the site receives tens of thousands of visitors each day.
In July 2007, Tom wrote an article for The Times discussing his passion for his blog's content, despite the low AdSense revenue he had earned since joining the program in August 2004. His friend James noticed the article and encouraged Tom to make a few changes to improve his earnings. According to Tom, "this was the incentive to tidy up my template a bit, and think more about ad placement."
Tom started by moving the ad unit on his homepage above the fold and opting into image ads, to ensure that all available ads would compete against one another. On his article pages, Tom added link units at the top of each page and placed a medium rectangle below each article. In addition, he removed the borders from his ads and adapted the colours to blend better with the site.
Using custom channels, Tom was able to compare the effectiveness of his ad units on his article pages. Tom notes that "the block I'd considered my main ad (the skyscraper on the right) was much less effective than I'd thought. As Google suggested, the medium rectangle that I placed beneath each article is the biggest earner." Tom also found that small changes could go a long way -- he made a few template changes to ensure that the highest performing ad unit appeared first in the HTML code, which helped increase his earnings.
"It took me a few hours to optimise the site, after reading a few blogs about AdSense, looking at the advice from Google and my friend, and trying a few template changes," Tom says. "The results were amazing - with no extra traffic to the site, my average daily earnings have increased by over 500%." Although Tom doesn't plan to quit his day job any time soon, he notes that "every little bit helps."
After this experience, Tom recommends that other publishers "follow the optimisation suggestions as long as they leave you with a site you're happy with. If you lose confidence in your own site, you'll irritate your audience and lose interest in what you're doing. But at the same time, make sure you watch your statistics, so you know what works and what doesn't."
Do you also have an AdSense success story to share? Let us know.
In July 2007, Tom wrote an article for The Times discussing his passion for his blog's content, despite the low AdSense revenue he had earned since joining the program in August 2004. His friend James noticed the article and encouraged Tom to make a few changes to improve his earnings. According to Tom, "this was the incentive to tidy up my template a bit, and think more about ad placement."
Tom started by moving the ad unit on his homepage above the fold and opting into image ads, to ensure that all available ads would compete against one another. On his article pages, Tom added link units at the top of each page and placed a medium rectangle below each article. In addition, he removed the borders from his ads and adapted the colours to blend better with the site.Using custom channels, Tom was able to compare the effectiveness of his ad units on his article pages. Tom notes that "the block I'd considered my main ad (the skyscraper on the right) was much less effective than I'd thought. As Google suggested, the medium rectangle that I placed beneath each article is the biggest earner." Tom also found that small changes could go a long way -- he made a few template changes to ensure that the highest performing ad unit appeared first in the HTML code, which helped increase his earnings.
"It took me a few hours to optimise the site, after reading a few blogs about AdSense, looking at the advice from Google and my friend, and trying a few template changes," Tom says. "The results were amazing - with no extra traffic to the site, my average daily earnings have increased by over 500%." Although Tom doesn't plan to quit his day job any time soon, he notes that "every little bit helps."
After this experience, Tom recommends that other publishers "follow the optimisation suggestions as long as they leave you with a site you're happy with. If you lose confidence in your own site, you'll irritate your audience and lose interest in what you're doing. But at the same time, make sure you watch your statistics, so you know what works and what doesn't."
Do you also have an AdSense success story to share? Let us know.
Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 1:01:00 PM
Building with AdSense
When Les Kenny and his family launched their do-it-yourself (D.I.Y.) website www.buildeazy.com in 2001 solely as a hobby site, they had no idea of the impact Google AdSense would have on their lives.
Les had spent most of his life building in both Sydney and Auckland, but his hobby was designing projects and writing about them. This inevitably led to the Buildeazy website, where he posts D.I.Y. woodworking and building projects. He caters to a universal audience by using general terminology and incorporating both metric (mm) and imperial (ft and inch) measurements into all his projects. Les and daughter Roseanne also wrote two successful kids D.I.Y. books published in Australasia. They had intended to write more books, but AdSense proved to be more lucrative.
In early 2004, Les incorporated AdSense into his website. Around March 2005, to his amazement, optimisation of the AdSense ad units throughout the site doubled the earnings overnight. The income from AdSense allowed both Les and his wife Jenny to give up their day jobs and work solely on their passions and hobbies. It has also allowed all of the family to get involved.
Les has spent a lot of time experimenting with his ad layout and colour, making use of the Manage Ads feature and custom channels. He found that the 300x250 medium rectangle was overwhelmingly the best performing. Using custom channels, he was also able to remove some units which weren't performing as strongly to reduce clutter on his site.
"Most of my pages now consist of only two ad units -a 300x250 medium rectangle at the top of the page and a 336x280 large rectangle at the bottom of the page. I have found that a couple of well placed ads on a page do better than a cluster of ads all over the page - and I guess it is also more pleasing for the visitors."
Once the AdSense units are placed and optimised, everything takes care of itself -- leaving Les and family to get on with what they enjoy most.
Monday, March 03, 2008 at 10:58:00 AM
Driving up placement targeting earnings
Carsurvey.org is a car review website published by CSDO Media Limited. Initially inspired by some of the earliest experiments in user-generated reviews, the site now hosts almost 100,000 English-language car reviews submitted by visitors from across the globe.
From 1997 to 2000, founder Steven Jackson ran the site as a hobby. However, the growing hosting costs became significant, so Steven opted to run ads to cover them. He joined the AdSense program and was impressed with the initial results, which were further improved by carefully optimising the location, colour and size of the ads. By 2005, the time demands of running a popular website while holding down a day job were no longer sustainable. The steady revenue from AdSense was a major factor in Steven's decision to leave his old career and devote himself full-time to running Carsurvey.org.
AdSense offered Steven many advantages. Its global reach matched Carsurvey.org's diverse user base, and the fact that it separated the selling of ad space from the management of the site was very important to maintaining the sites' independence and credibility. Steven says, "AdSense allows me to focus on running Carsurvey.org for visitors. As long as Carsurvey.org provides a useful service, AdSense helps pay the bills."
Ad placements
As a regular reader of Inside AdSense, Steven was quick to pick up on improvements to the custom channel feature, which allows advertisers to target specific site areas using ad placements. He updated his AdSense HTML code to highlight his site via ad placements and focused on the most important pages and locations within Carsurvey.org. This made the site more appealing to advertisers, as they could begin to target specific page locations and sections. In addition, it gave more prominence to Carsurvey.org in the AdWords site tool, as you can see in the image below.
Medium rectangles
In addition to implementing the ad placements, Steven also tried another AdSense optimisation tip and added more image-enabled 300x250 medium rectangle units to his site. Though initially skeptical, as using those units would mean both changing the page layout for all of Carsurvey.org and displaying fewer ads per page, Steven decided to give the change a try.
Accelerating revenue
The improvements were gradual at first, but soon Steven's revenue climbed as advertisers began targeting specific ad placements on Carsurvey.org, namely the new 300x250 units in prime locations. Within a few months, Steven saw his placement targeting revenue grow up to six times its previous level; it now represents 60-80% of his overall earnings.
"I can definitely recommend experimenting with the ad placements and image enabled ads, especially in the 300x250 and skyscraper formats recommended by Google. I thought Carsurvey.org was pretty well optimised, but this just shows that experimenting with AdSense ad placements and testing out new features can really pay off," says Steven.
From 1997 to 2000, founder Steven Jackson ran the site as a hobby. However, the growing hosting costs became significant, so Steven opted to run ads to cover them. He joined the AdSense program and was impressed with the initial results, which were further improved by carefully optimising the location, colour and size of the ads. By 2005, the time demands of running a popular website while holding down a day job were no longer sustainable. The steady revenue from AdSense was a major factor in Steven's decision to leave his old career and devote himself full-time to running Carsurvey.org.
AdSense offered Steven many advantages. Its global reach matched Carsurvey.org's diverse user base, and the fact that it separated the selling of ad space from the management of the site was very important to maintaining the sites' independence and credibility. Steven says, "AdSense allows me to focus on running Carsurvey.org for visitors. As long as Carsurvey.org provides a useful service, AdSense helps pay the bills."
Ad placements
As a regular reader of Inside AdSense, Steven was quick to pick up on improvements to the custom channel feature, which allows advertisers to target specific site areas using ad placements. He updated his AdSense HTML code to highlight his site via ad placements and focused on the most important pages and locations within Carsurvey.org. This made the site more appealing to advertisers, as they could begin to target specific page locations and sections. In addition, it gave more prominence to Carsurvey.org in the AdWords site tool, as you can see in the image below.
Medium rectangles
In addition to implementing the ad placements, Steven also tried another AdSense optimisation tip and added more image-enabled 300x250 medium rectangle units to his site. Though initially skeptical, as using those units would mean both changing the page layout for all of Carsurvey.org and displaying fewer ads per page, Steven decided to give the change a try.
Accelerating revenue
The improvements were gradual at first, but soon Steven's revenue climbed as advertisers began targeting specific ad placements on Carsurvey.org, namely the new 300x250 units in prime locations. Within a few months, Steven saw his placement targeting revenue grow up to six times its previous level; it now represents 60-80% of his overall earnings.
"I can definitely recommend experimenting with the ad placements and image enabled ads, especially in the 300x250 and skyscraper formats recommended by Google. I thought Carsurvey.org was pretty well optimised, but this just shows that experimenting with AdSense ad placements and testing out new features can really pay off," says Steven.
Thursday, February 07, 2008 at 12:55:00 PM
AdSense in fashion for those who wear many hats
Here's another AdSense Story Contest submission, this time from internet entrepreneur Shawn Collins of New Jersey.
Shawn has been an affiliate marketer since 1997, and joined AdSense in 2003 after he found it to be a natural extension for monetizing his websites. He wears a lot of different hats as an Internet marketer -- not only is Shawn the co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference, but he also runs the Affiliate Buyer's Guide and is an affiliate himself.
Before AdSense, Shawn relied on running affiliate ads and selling space on a CPM basis. This could be hit or miss, as he would manually try to place ads that were the best fit. As his sites grew, he would sometimes forget about a time-sensitive ad, and that ad slot would become wasted space. "With the contextually served ads from AdSense," Shawn says, "my advertising is always fresh and spot on."
Shawn also blogs daily about affiliate marketing and maintains an affiliate manager resource site. His audience is savvy, since they're internet marketers as well, so he considers it essential that targeted, relevant advertising is served up to his visitors. According to Shawn, "AdSense is an ideal solution for my varied web properties, and I work with AdSense for content, AdSense for search, referrals, and video units."
As Shawn mentions in his video, one of the highlights of his day (sometimes many times a day) is when he logs in to his AdSense account. He likens it to holding a lottery ticket as he waits for his daily earnings to be revealed. "I try to guess the daily total, based on my past performance, which makes the whole process a little more fun. When I experiment with new placements or have a particularly good day with my traffic, it's always a thrill to see my milestones measured in AdSense commission spikes."
Shawn has been an affiliate marketer since 1997, and joined AdSense in 2003 after he found it to be a natural extension for monetizing his websites. He wears a lot of different hats as an Internet marketer -- not only is Shawn the co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference, but he also runs the Affiliate Buyer's Guide and is an affiliate himself.
Before AdSense, Shawn relied on running affiliate ads and selling space on a CPM basis. This could be hit or miss, as he would manually try to place ads that were the best fit. As his sites grew, he would sometimes forget about a time-sensitive ad, and that ad slot would become wasted space. "With the contextually served ads from AdSense," Shawn says, "my advertising is always fresh and spot on."
Shawn also blogs daily about affiliate marketing and maintains an affiliate manager resource site. His audience is savvy, since they're internet marketers as well, so he considers it essential that targeted, relevant advertising is served up to his visitors. According to Shawn, "AdSense is an ideal solution for my varied web properties, and I work with AdSense for content, AdSense for search, referrals, and video units."
As Shawn mentions in his video, one of the highlights of his day (sometimes many times a day) is when he logs in to his AdSense account. He likens it to holding a lottery ticket as he waits for his daily earnings to be revealed. "I try to guess the daily total, based on my past performance, which makes the whole process a little more fun. When I experiment with new placements or have a particularly good day with my traffic, it's always a thrill to see my milestones measured in AdSense commission spikes."
Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 2:11:00 PM
Sounds of success for Buenamusica
In just three years, Manuel Treto's Buenamusica.com has become quite a successful enterprise. A U.S. based Spanish-language site dedicated to everything associated with music, Buenamusica.com now receives around 100,000 unique visitors per day from users around the world.When Manuel first started, he knew he needed an ad network that would deliver both English and Spanish ads relevant to his U.S. Hispanic and Latin American visitors -- a one-stop shop with domestic and international inventory. "This was one of our biggest hurdles for monetizing the website," Manuel says. "Several of the networks I tried billed themselves as 'Hispanic networks', but after testing fifteen different ad networks on our site, we were happiest with AdSense. AdSense is better for Hispanic publishers because it usually outperforms all other ad networks by at least 50 percent in earnings, even those ad networks that are specifically targeted toward Hispanic sites."
With a staff of only five people, Manuel and his colleagues wanted a product that could adapt to their needs without requiring significant development resources. "The product's flexibility in terms of customization options is its most impressive feature," says Manuel. "What has worked the best for me is incorporating colors that are already associated with the site. We try to customize everything so that it matches the look and feel of the site, and users have commented on how nicely the ads fit into the page."
Manuel now employs AdSense ads on 100 percent of his pages. He also offers his users the ability to navigate through his site with the Google Custom Search Engine, which he has linked to his AdSense account. This has allowed him to monetize his search results and to generate additional revenue for the site. "The more exposure you give to Google the more money you are going to make, and every little bit adds up. I strongly recommend using other Google products. Using the Custom Search Engine feature is bringing a little bit of Google technology to your website, and you can't beat that."
If you'd like to share your own success story with us, please fill out our questionnaire. If you're not yet an AdSense publisher and would like to get started with Manuel's suggestions, you can submit an application today.
Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 2:19:00 PM
AdSense inspiration
A few weeks ago we posted the winner of the AdSense Story Contest, and as promised, here are a few more of the stories and video submissions we received. This one comes from AdSense publisher Amit Agarwal of Agra, India.
Amit is a professional blogger and personal technology columnist for the Financial Express and The Hindustan Times. He maintains a technology blog called Digital Inspiration, which draws readers from all over the globe and covers software reviews, web technologies, and social media. His latest venture, India Inc., carries news and analysis about business and finance. Amit also runs a message board where he personally answers reader questions on blogging, online monetization and software.
In the early days, Amit was only making a few cents on Digital Inspiration. After optimizing the site, however, his revenue went through the roof. Now AdSense helps Amit lead a very comfortable life. Amit says, "I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads are always so relevant to the content."
Amit has also found success with several other AdSense products and features. He currently uses referrals to recommend software to his readers, and has implemented link units to efficiently use space on his site. He also uses the Google Custom Search Engine, linked to his AdSense for search account, and so is able to monetize his search results while helping visitors navigate through his site's pages with greater control. As he notes, "Currently 75% of my site revenue comes through the Google AdSense program. And I get more time to focus on writing new content for my readers rather than hunting for advertisers. AdSense has helped change my life forever."
Amit is a professional blogger and personal technology columnist for the Financial Express and The Hindustan Times. He maintains a technology blog called Digital Inspiration, which draws readers from all over the globe and covers software reviews, web technologies, and social media. His latest venture, India Inc., carries news and analysis about business and finance. Amit also runs a message board where he personally answers reader questions on blogging, online monetization and software.
In the early days, Amit was only making a few cents on Digital Inspiration. After optimizing the site, however, his revenue went through the roof. Now AdSense helps Amit lead a very comfortable life. Amit says, "I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads are always so relevant to the content."
Amit has also found success with several other AdSense products and features. He currently uses referrals to recommend software to his readers, and has implemented link units to efficiently use space on his site. He also uses the Google Custom Search Engine, linked to his AdSense for search account, and so is able to monetize his search results while helping visitors navigate through his site's pages with greater control. As he notes, "Currently 75% of my site revenue comes through the Google AdSense program. And I get more time to focus on writing new content for my readers rather than hunting for advertisers. AdSense has helped change my life forever."
Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 11:20:00 AM
Meet mobile publisher Mikle
In September, we introduced AdSense for mobile content to provide a simple solution for increasing revenue from your mobile sites. We recently interviewed Jaehong Lee from Japanese mobile site Mikle to find out more about his experience with using AdSense for mobile content.Currently, Mikle's bulletin boards attract over a million unique visitors each month. With user-generated content ranging from entertainment to nutrition, Jaehong had been looking for a manageable way to monetize Mikle's mobile pages. He found his answer when he began using AdSense for mobile content this year.
Jaehong highlights the performance and convenience of AdSense for mobile content, stating that "the performance of AdSense has been way better than our expectations. Moreover, the features for managing ad performance are easier and more convenient than other ads services. It saves a lot of effort for us in managing and monitoring ads."
With features such as editorial review and the Competitive Ad Filter, AdSense for mobile content has saved Mikle substantial time. Jaehong explains, "We hire people to check all messages and comments posted on our site. The cost of this work was significant... AdSense for mobile content’s great performance lets us be free of a lot of work from managing ad performance. We now have firm profitability and can concentrate our resources on the efforts of service development and operation improvements."
To learn more, please visit our new AdSense for mobile content page.
UPDATED to fix typo
Thursday, December 06, 2007 at 1:43:00 PM
And the winner is...
Recently, we launched the AdSense Story Contest and asked publishers like you to send in video of your experiences with AdSense. We were thrilled by the enthusiasm and creativity you put into these videos. Although we can only award one winner, we'll be sharing some of our favorite submissions with you over the next few weeks.
And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
Congratulations to Don Vandervort from Hometips.com for his winning video submission! Before we show you his video, here's a little bit of background about Don and HomeTips.
Interestingly enough, HomeTips.com started out in a backyard clubhouse. Don converted the bottom floor of his sons' two-story treehouse into a small office, and launched HomeTips from that office in 1997 as an online portfolio to promote his books. In 2003, Don heard about the Google AdSense program and thought it might be helpful in generating revenue for HomeTips.
During the first week, Don remembers that AdSense revenue paid for coffee; in the second week, it paid for lunches. Now, AdSense revenue pays for all salaries, overhead, and business development. "Solid content is the secret to developing a following," says Don. "If you write expert content with your visitor's needs in mind, the rest will follow." We'll let Don tell you more about his site and his story:
You can also read more about Don's story on our Case Studies page.
Thanks again to everyone who participated, and stay tuned for other great AdSense stories in the coming weeks.
And now, the moment you've been waiting for...
Congratulations to Don Vandervort from Hometips.com for his winning video submission! Before we show you his video, here's a little bit of background about Don and HomeTips.
Interestingly enough, HomeTips.com started out in a backyard clubhouse. Don converted the bottom floor of his sons' two-story treehouse into a small office, and launched HomeTips from that office in 1997 as an online portfolio to promote his books. In 2003, Don heard about the Google AdSense program and thought it might be helpful in generating revenue for HomeTips.
During the first week, Don remembers that AdSense revenue paid for coffee; in the second week, it paid for lunches. Now, AdSense revenue pays for all salaries, overhead, and business development. "Solid content is the secret to developing a following," says Don. "If you write expert content with your visitor's needs in mind, the rest will follow." We'll let Don tell you more about his site and his story:
You can also read more about Don's story on our Case Studies page.
Thanks again to everyone who participated, and stay tuned for other great AdSense stories in the coming weeks.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007 at 2:05:00 PM
AdSense Publisher Stories: Askthebuilder.com
Askthebuilder.com's Tim Carter is one publisher who's been able to do great things with AdSense. Here's his story on moving from building houses to building websites and how AdSense has helped him along the way.
The AdSense Story Contest
Now that you've heard Tim’s story, we want to hear about your experience with AdSense. We've heard from publishers who've been able to keep their site free to users, quit their jobs, and even pay for their wedding! What have your AdSense earnings enabled you to do? Whether you have a blog, a small website, or an entire company, we want to hear your story. There's no need for a production crew or studio; you can create the video at home with a webcam.
Here's how it works:
UPDATED with new submission deadline
The AdSense Story Contest
Now that you've heard Tim’s story, we want to hear about your experience with AdSense. We've heard from publishers who've been able to keep their site free to users, quit their jobs, and even pay for their wedding! What have your AdSense earnings enabled you to do? Whether you have a blog, a small website, or an entire company, we want to hear your story. There's no need for a production crew or studio; you can create the video at home with a webcam.
Here's how it works:
- Shoot a video (2 minutes or shorter) about your story with AdSense.
- Fill out the submission form and submit your video as a video response to Tim’s video on YouTube.
- We will review your submissions and pick a few videos to be featured on the AdSense blog in the coming weeks.
- Where you are from and what you do for a living?
- Why did you create your site, blog, or forum?
- Who is your intended audience?
- How did you hear about AdSense?
- How has AdSense helped you?
- What are some useful AdSense tips you would give to other publishers so that they can see the same success?
- You need to have a YouTube account to participate.
- Be creative! Use props, backgrounds, and sets; however, please do not use any trademarked logos, images, or copyrighted material for which you don't have permission to display in your videos.
- You can disclose gross earnings, but not any specific AdSense statistics such as clickthrough rate or eCPM.
- Feel free to talk about your site, but don't advertise or encourage users to visit your site and click on your ads.
- By posting your video you give Google the rights to display, reproduce, and distribute your content.
- Your video must adhere to both YouTube and AdSense Terms and Conditions. Google has the right to remove any video submission that does not comply with these terms.
UPDATED with new submission deadline
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 4:47:00 AM
Optimizing Instablogs
Instablogs is a blog network that publishes more than 200 posts a day on 136 blogs spanning 16 niche channels, including luxury gadgets blog Bornrich and technology blog Gizmowatch. With 200+ bloggers blogging from all over the world, Instablogs has around 2 million unique visitors per month.Instablogs co-founder Ankit Maheshwari tells us that AdSense works well with each blog's unique content. “Since our blogs are very niche-oriented, it’s tough for us to sell our inventory directly to advertisers on blogs with less than 30,000 page views per month,” he says. “AdSense’s high CPC offering and huge advertiser database can help monetize the page views on any site irrespective of its size.”
Recently Ankit began to experiment with AdSense optimization. Although he was doubtful of the results, he tried a few minor tweaks on his site, such as opting in to displaying image ads and adding link units to the top of his pages. He also used information from his custom channels to determine the ad unit with the highest CTR on his pages – he then placed this ad unit first in the HTML source of each page. After a week of testing these changes, Ankit found that revenue nearly doubled. While AdSense revenue used to comprise 15% of the company’s advertising revenue, since optimizing it's increased to 25%.
Despite the success of his first optimization, Ankit has found that there isn’t one standard layout or ad format that is optimal for all of his pages. He says, “We’ve seen in many blogs that a few ad types perform better in different sections. For example, the large rectangle performs 70% better on the permalink pages of our Tattoo blog, while skyscrapers perform best on all other pages. At the same time, banner ads have performed really well on our Parenting blog.”
Today, Ankit continues to make small changes and frequently tests new layouts based on his custom channel data. He feels that “custom channels are not only a useful feature, but also the most important feature in the entire AdSense program for publishers.”
Friday, October 05, 2007 at 3:26:00 PM
The AdSense API on an e-commerce platform
A few months ago, I mentioned how e-commerce sites could use AdSense to increase their overall revenues without changing their current business s. Today Zlio.com has taken it to the next level by using the AdSense API to allow their users to implement this strategy.The core service of Zlio is to allow internet users to create and run their own internet shops. After a quick registration process, users can pick from millions of products and earn commission on every item bought from their ZlioShops. Aside from choosing their products, future shopowners can select from a few different templates to give their shops the look and feel they want. Finally, these shopowners can add text to describe the products and highlight their favorites.
Today, as added functionality, Zlio users can also add Google ads to their shops. Very much like what we currently offer via Blogger, users can pick shop templates that already include AdSense ad units without ever having to dig into the HTML code of their shop. We hope that this new API will help bring AdSense to existing Zlio users, and also that current AdSense publishers will try Zlio as a way to increase their current AdSense revenue.
The screenshot above shows an example of a shop offering scuba diving items -- you might notice that two AdSense ad units and one link unit have been placed on the page. From a revenue perspective, 60% of all the revenue generated from AdSense will go to the shopowner.
If you wish to create your own shop and associate it with your current AdSense account, you can visit Zlio.com and follow these steps:
- Select a general template for your shop.
- Create your own shop by choosing among the available products.
- Once you have selected products, go to My Zlio Shop > Revenue > AdSense for my shop.
- If you aren't an AdSense publisher yet, you can apply for an account through Zlio. If you already have an AdSense account, enter your AdSense e-mail address and your current zip code.
- Log into AdSense and grant access to Zlio to use your publisher ID by clicking on My Account > Account Access.
- Go back to your ZlioShop, where you'll be able to view your products and relevant Google Ads.
Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 10:12:00 AM
AdSense fits FixYa
As a technical support community website, FixYa.com helps people find the solutions and information they're looking for as quickly and as easily as possible. According to Yaniv Bar-Lev, FixYa's VP of user acquisition, this is why integrating AdSense into the site made so much sense. "Combining the contextual power of Google AdSense with our own user-generated content significantly improved the browsing experience, while helping us to easily monetize our complex site of over 700,000 products and several million web pages," he says.
With such a large site, Yaniv believes that the search capability of the site is an important element. "One of the most important things a user can do to help us provide better service is run a search for a problem or a product. The information gathered by the query allows us to quickly get the user to the information he or she was looking for," he comments. "However, it's always good to have a helping hand and provide external information from other sources, which is exactly what AdSense enabled us to do."
Yaniv recently began testing changes to the ad placements and formats on his search results pages. At the same time, he wanted to ensure a positive user experience with the ads on such an important section of his site. He found that by placing a 468x60 banner directly above the search results, an area of high focus for users, he was able to lift his revenue by 200%.
Before:
After:
Yaniv says that the key takeaway from this optimization is to continually test ideas and track the results. He also adds that "there's an added value in providing contextual ads in highly focused positions once you've gathered sufficient information on what the user is actually interested in, such as through a search query."
What's next for FixYa? "We are definitely going to continue working closely with AdSense to find new ways of improving monetization and service."
With such a large site, Yaniv believes that the search capability of the site is an important element. "One of the most important things a user can do to help us provide better service is run a search for a problem or a product. The information gathered by the query allows us to quickly get the user to the information he or she was looking for," he comments. "However, it's always good to have a helping hand and provide external information from other sources, which is exactly what AdSense enabled us to do."
Yaniv recently began testing changes to the ad placements and formats on his search results pages. At the same time, he wanted to ensure a positive user experience with the ads on such an important section of his site. He found that by placing a 468x60 banner directly above the search results, an area of high focus for users, he was able to lift his revenue by 200%.
Before:
After:
Yaniv says that the key takeaway from this optimization is to continually test ideas and track the results. He also adds that "there's an added value in providing contextual ads in highly focused positions once you've gathered sufficient information on what the user is actually interested in, such as through a search query."
What's next for FixYa? "We are definitely going to continue working closely with AdSense to find new ways of improving monetization and service."
Thursday, August 02, 2007 at 10:10:00 AM
Getting your forum site to perform well with AdSense
When Amit Kumar co-founded MegaGames Forum in 1998, Google Inc. was being run from a Menlo Park garage and AdSense didn’t even exist yet. Fast-forward 9 years to 2007: Amit still runs MegaGames Forum just as a hobby, but he earns enough revenue through the AdSense program to run a dedicated server and continue growing his site.
Amit wasn't so successful with AdSense right from the start. When he first started using the program in 2005, his earnings were nothing to write home about, and it was largely because he chose his ad placement, formats, and colors at random. After recently optimizing his ads, however, Amit was able to more than double his AdSense revenue and even improve the user experience on his site. Results may vary since every site is unique, but here are some tips that any forum site, large or small, can also try out to increase revenue.
With forums, the first post often contains the most relevant content on the page. By using the section targeting feature to emphasize this content, you can potentially increase CTR with better targeted ads. Visit this 'section targeting' link we mention for instructions.
If you decide to try out these tips, we’d love to hear about your success.
Amit wasn't so successful with AdSense right from the start. When he first started using the program in 2005, his earnings were nothing to write home about, and it was largely because he chose his ad placement, formats, and colors at random. After recently optimizing his ads, however, Amit was able to more than double his AdSense revenue and even improve the user experience on his site. Results may vary since every site is unique, but here are some tips that any forum site, large or small, can also try out to increase revenue.
- The welcome box ad
Many forums have a message above the fold on their pages welcoming users to the site and encouraging them to register. Placing a large (336x280) or medium (300x250) rectangle next to this message catches users’ attention right when they walk through the door (so to speak). By the way, these are our best performing ad units, and may also increase the number of site-targeted ads on your pages.
- The forum post ad
Based on previous testing, integrating ad units into your page content can improve clickthrough rate (CTR). It also provides a better online experience, since your users see relevant ads side by side with normal content. In forums, the highest visibility content is often the first post, so it makes sense to place the ads here. Again, large and medium rectangles are your best bet! - Blending colors and breaking down borders
Colors are important for making an ad visible to the user, but they should still blend with the design of the site. Removing the borders on your ads helps even more with this concept of blending. Don’t worry -- even with a well-blended implementation, the 'Ads by Google' label keeps your users from confusing ads with content.
With forums, the first post often contains the most relevant content on the page. By using the section targeting feature to emphasize this content, you can potentially increase CTR with better targeted ads. Visit this 'section targeting' link we mention for instructions.
If you decide to try out these tips, we’d love to hear about your success.
Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 10:28:00 AM
Mid-day more than midway to success
Note: Google does not sell or endorse any registration kits or CDs for the AdSense program. If you have reached this page after being asked to purchase a registration kit or CD, please know that Google is not affiliated with any offers of this nature. To sign-up for a free AdSense account, please visit www.google.com/adsense.
Mid-day.com is a newspaper website for readers in Mumbai, India which has been in the AdSense program since 2005. According to Gauri Daswani, who was the Mid-day.com Assistant Manager at the time, 50% of the site's revenue is generated through AdSense. "Monetization has become much easier with the AdSense ," she says. "To ensure good results from AdSense, it is imperative that we create compelling content which in turn accounts for a good user experience and definitely benefits Google's advertisers."
Initially, Gauri and her team relied on fixed ad colors and placements. They noticed that the site was earning a similar amount of revenue each month. "We had a problem choosing color codes and ad placements, which we didn't know could actually impact our revenue so drastically," she remembers. But she soon found the benefits of testing with custom channels.
"We placed channels on the ad units and changed the ad positions to understand the performance of each unit, resulting in much higher revenue," she says. For example, Gauri added a 300x250 medium rectangle to the bottom of each article and moved her link unit from the right sidebar to the left. In addition, she updated the colors of her ad and link units to match the look and feel of the rest of her site. Together, all of these changes resulted in a 60% increase in revenue.
"It is now easy to optimize the site's performance with custom channels. They give us a complete picture of how different ads are performing on our site, and help us to compare all ad units and pages," Gauri comments. Even now, her team continues to experiment with other changes to find what will perform best for Mid-day.com. "We have learned that subtle changes can produce significant results."
Mid-day.com is a newspaper website for readers in Mumbai, India which has been in the AdSense program since 2005. According to Gauri Daswani, who was the Mid-day.com Assistant Manager at the time, 50% of the site's revenue is generated through AdSense. "Monetization has become much easier with the AdSense ," she says. "To ensure good results from AdSense, it is imperative that we create compelling content which in turn accounts for a good user experience and definitely benefits Google's advertisers."
Initially, Gauri and her team relied on fixed ad colors and placements. They noticed that the site was earning a similar amount of revenue each month. "We had a problem choosing color codes and ad placements, which we didn't know could actually impact our revenue so drastically," she remembers. But she soon found the benefits of testing with custom channels.
"We placed channels on the ad units and changed the ad positions to understand the performance of each unit, resulting in much higher revenue," she says. For example, Gauri added a 300x250 medium rectangle to the bottom of each article and moved her link unit from the right sidebar to the left. In addition, she updated the colors of her ad and link units to match the look and feel of the rest of her site. Together, all of these changes resulted in a 60% increase in revenue.
"It is now easy to optimize the site's performance with custom channels. They give us a complete picture of how different ads are performing on our site, and help us to compare all ad units and pages," Gauri comments. Even now, her team continues to experiment with other changes to find what will perform best for Mid-day.com. "We have learned that subtle changes can produce significant results."
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 9:13:00 AM
A success story from India
When the Internet first boomed in India, many people proceeded with caution -- adoption was fairly slow compared to the U.S. But a few adventurous spirits jumped right in and have stuck with it for the long haul. Among them is Babychen Mathew, who left a career in journalism to start his own website, dancewithshadows.com. This site offers readers the latest headline news and feature stories on various topics. Babychen started this site as a hobby, and perhaps as an extension of his profession. Very soon after launching, he discovered Google and the AdSense program through various web development forums on the Internet. And the rest is history, he says.
“After exploring every bit of this Google product, with a few trial and errors along the way, I’ve discovered on my own the best ad formats and colors that suit my webpages,” he reports. Having tried almost every AdSense format and feature as they were offered, he settled for a vertical wide skyscraper (160X600) on the left sidebar and a horizontal link unit (728X15) along the top of his pages.
“Now, with the help of AdSense Support, I am currently using a medium rectangle (300X250) ad format too, and have integrated it into my content in some sections to capitalize on potential video ads,” Babychen continues. “I’ve tried other online ad distribution networks, and formats like flash ads and banner ads, but I was not very satisfied. While some were experiments, others didn’t cater to the Indian market, and a few others were plain irritating."
Today, Babychen is a happy publisher, with most of his revenue coming from Google AdSense. And he says he loves to recommend AdSense to all who will listen!
“After exploring every bit of this Google product, with a few trial and errors along the way, I’ve discovered on my own the best ad formats and colors that suit my webpages,” he reports. Having tried almost every AdSense format and feature as they were offered, he settled for a vertical wide skyscraper (160X600) on the left sidebar and a horizontal link unit (728X15) along the top of his pages.
“Now, with the help of AdSense Support, I am currently using a medium rectangle (300X250) ad format too, and have integrated it into my content in some sections to capitalize on potential video ads,” Babychen continues. “I’ve tried other online ad distribution networks, and formats like flash ads and banner ads, but I was not very satisfied. While some were experiments, others didn’t cater to the Indian market, and a few others were plain irritating."
Today, Babychen is a happy publisher, with most of his revenue coming from Google AdSense. And he says he loves to recommend AdSense to all who will listen!
