Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Making Adsense work in the smart pricing era

Smart pricing has changed Adsense. Publishers are seeing lower per click payouts and are lamenting the inability of their old methods and systems to produce a profit under the current circumstances. The old guard of Adsense gurus, meanwhile, continues to hold tight to a perspective born before smart pricing became a reality. They continue to encourage new publishers to follow their methods for Adsense success. Others have overreacted, announcing that Adsense is no longer a viable moneymaking opportunity. Some have even argued that smart pricing killed Adsense.

The old guard gurus are merely protecting their own best interests. As long as they can pretend nothing meaningful has changed, the longer they can continue selling their systems and software. Those tolling death bells for Adsense are stirring up controversy for the sake of promoting click-flipping and other wealth-production strategies. The only people who seem to have it right are those publishers who have noticed that the old Adsense gravy train has run out of steam and who have discovered that the future of Adsense lies in treating it differently than before.

Instead of proclaiming the death of Adsense, savvy users are taking a different approach to the changed environment. Adsense still has a place and can still be a valuable part of a successful overall strategy. However, the previously embraced strategies that were premised on constructing lower-quality sites en masse and monetizing them exclusively with Adsense are no longer tenable.

Instead, Adsense can be used as one of a multiplicity of revenue-producing tactics on smart sites designed to provide visitors with real value. Earlier Adsense techniques were based on sending mass traffic to a site and collecting ad clicks exclusively. In many cases, the sites were actually designed in a way that aimed to make people want to leave rapidly, using Adsense ad blocks as an “escape route.”

Smart pricing has decreased the per click payout of such prices by such a substantial margin that one cannot hope to profit from those strategies in any meaningful way. Instead, smart publishers will create better sites that really interact with visitors in a meaningful way. Relevant contextual advertising fills the role of one many services offered to visitors. Instead of being the “only way” to make a dime, Adsense can be used as part of a full roster of moneymaking opportunities.

Not only does this strategy allow webmasters to effectively tap into to other revenue sources (some of which are more valuable than Adsense ever was in its heyday), it also comports with Adsense’s own recommendations for improving per click values in a smart pricing environment. There are more ways to make money and one can make more money with Adsense at the same time. Regardless of what some might be announcing, there is no reason to give up on Adsense. You just need to use it differently.

Adsense did not change in a vacuum. While it lumbered toward smart pricing, web access, technology and user expectations were also in a state of flux. Today, the old methods of top-down site design premised on the old publication model is outmoded. The arrival of what many are terming “Web 2.0” reflects the convergence of several different trends. Those who will successfully use Adsense as a monetization strategy today and in the future are aware of those trends and how to approach them to effectively generate a substantial income.

Adsense has changed. Do not believe those who tell you that “business as usual” will still work like a charm. Adsense is not, however, dead. It is still a strong and vibrant means by which to earn. The old Adsense business models are dead. They just do not do the trick anymore. You can make money with Adsense, but it will require the use of strategies that merge appropriately with the current environment and trends. Sites that seek to provide real value to visitors can make use of multiple revenue earning strategies including Adsense and will succeed regardless of smart pricing adjustments.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How to Increase Your AdSense Earnings With Competitive Ad Filtering

Most often today, when you hear people talking about optimizing for Google AdSense earnings, they talk about picking a particular niche, etc., but what happens then if you are already into a niche and you want to optimize your Google AdSense earnings even more? There is a simple solution.

The Competitive Ad Filter

The competitive ad filter is a simple tool that Google incorporated a few years back. It does what it says it does. It blacklists URLs that you simply don't like from showing up in your ads. This can be for any apparent reasons.

  • An advertiser's click through is low. Using tools like Spyfu to "spy" on an advertiser's budget.
  • The site that is listed on ad makes your site "look" bad. This can be from how the ad looks, or how the advertiser's site looks it self.
  • It is one of your competitors.
Either one of these reasons may quickly cause the webmaster to react, that is why Google incorporated the competitive ad filtering. A Google tutorial on how to use the competitive ad filtering system, can be found here.

Now with the ability to blacklist any of the advertiser's site to appear on your Google AdSense listings and the power to identify an advertiser's budget, you can somewhat help improve your AdSense earnings by simply separating MFA sites from serious competitors.

What are MFA Sites?

MFA sites or should I say "Made for AdSense" sites is another term many publishers use to distinguish serious advertisers from simply phonies who pay only a penny for a click through. Although it is rare for a MFA site to appear on a site's listings, it is still possible. That is why blacklisting MFA sites is a great way to simply cross out sites that pay little to a penny for every click and leave only advertisers that pay plenty of pennies more, depending on your niche.

Your Objective

Your objective is to simply cross out MFA sites or any advertiser site that you don't want to possibly appear on your AdSense listings with spying technology like Spyfu to look at an advertiser's budget. If you have any other tool besides Spyfu that works best for you, feel free to share as well.

Now that Google enables Google publishers to be able to blacklist over 1,000 sites, it is almost impossible to run out of room to list out those pesky MFA sites from appearing and increase your AdSense earnings.