Tastybuds

Google’s two products, AdSense for Search (AFS) and AdSense for Content (AFC), have much in common, but there are also some key differences. Most people who signup start with AFC, but they are missing out if they don’t implement AFS.

AFC targets content pages, and tried to find a relevant advertiser given everything you put on that page. It is a difficult task, but Google does a fairly good job of matching advertiser to publisher. To help, you can implement Section Targeting, which gives Google a better idea of what your true content is, and can increase CPC (better advertiser match) and CTR (more relevant).

AFS is triggered when a user searches through you site, and in these cases, Google really excels. Google is given an exact keyword or phrase that the user is looking for. Also, Google has more advertises paying into AFS specifically because it is better targeted. The payouts are almost always higher, and because the ads are way more relevant, the CTR is usually way higher.

Most sites do not implement AFS, even though it is fairly easy to set up. Once you are set up, there are several things you can do to optimize. First of all, just like any other ad, you should test several styles and locations on the page. You wihout a doubt will find something at least 20% better than where you started, and often more.

But after doing these basic optimizations, you might realize that one of your main problems is not enough traffc to the search results pages. To fix this, you need to play around with where your search boxes are. Add more of them, put them in different locations, and start testing how they are styled. Once again, you will fairly quickly see large gains to traffic, which then leads to revenue.

One last tip is to start playing around with forced keyword searches. This is where you create a direct link to a valuable search results page. This page might be valuable because it has a ton of good article results which you users will like, or because of high paying AFS ads. Use <a href=”https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=3″>Google’s Keyword Tool</a> to find the best paying, but still relevant terms, and start trying them out. Don’t forget to once again test style, location, and which terms you are using to maximize your Google revenue.

Users who come to your site via Google, and other search engines, are much different than users who come directly to your site. Organic users know they are coming to your site and are familiar with it. Search users, on the other hand, are looking for something specific, which they may or may not find on your site.

Because these users are so different from each other, you should optimize your pages for each type of user. You can have different navigation structures, extra information for search users, special deals, or simply rearrange what you do have. It is difficult to know exactly what works best, but keep your key metrics in mind, segregate your audience, and optimize each one.

Even for something like AdSense, which you might believe has an overall “best” style and position should be tested for each type of user. You will often find that what performs better for one group of users will be quite a bit different than what performs for others.

Also, you might have different goals for organic users than for search engine users. For search engine traffic, you may want to drive them to register on your site; or you may want to immediately monetize them as best as possible; or you may want to lead them to a key information page. Whatever your goals, realize that they may differ for each audience segment.

A simple method to do this sort of testing is to cookie users that came directly from www.google.com, or any other sites you would like to segment. Then, for each page you display, and for your tracking software, look at the cookie, and act accordingly. Run the same exact test on both sets of users, and you may find the best result is different for each.

There are many techniques to try and gain traffic, but it is important to always keep in mind the size of your site. Larger sites should focus on much different things than small sites, and every shade in between has it’s differences.

As a tiny site (less than 10 visits per day), most of my traffic is coming from comments and trackbacks on other blogs. But as I gain in size, search engines will begin to be much more important. Just by writing about my interests I have already gained quite a bit in my SEO rank, but it is time to make a more deliberate effort.

One of the first things you should do is figure out what your niches are, and focus on getting as much content on them as possible. Most people already have a general idea of their niche, but you need to find the keywords and phrases that will define your site. For me, some of my niche keywords are: “optimizing adsense”, “getting more traffic”, and “increase monetization”.

Most people already know what to do once they have these keywords: use them in your titles, tags, categories, and scatter them across your content. But the hard part is coming up with them. It is a delicate balance between using high traffic keywords while trying to stay in areas that are not so competitive.

To help you in this SEO battle, there are two major tooks you should be using, and not suprisingly, both come from Google. First, you should use the Google AdWords Tool to analyze your site, and come up with some high volume keywords. Then, you should use Google Search to see how many search results come up. Trying to use “SEO”, will get you nowhere as a small site, because you have to compete against millions of other sites.

Pick keywords that are appropriate for your website size. Get to the top 10 of a 1000 result keyword and you will pick up a tiny bit of traffic. Then move on to something in the 10,000 result range. For whatever range you are in for number of results (competitors), try and pick the keywords with the most searches. Of course, with all of this, you will have to make sure you know enough about the topic to write a lot of good content.

I am developing a tool that will allow you to feed in keywords and search volumes from Google’s AdWords Tool. It will scour Google Search for each keyword to find how many competitors you have. Then, after recommending which keywords to use, it will track your rank on an ongoing basis to see how you are doing. I will let you know when this tool is available for use.

I just got my first traffic from Google after more than 30 posts. All of my other traffic so far has been from comments or trackbacks from other blogs. But even though the majority of traffic isn’t currently coming from Google, I am guessing that that will change soon.

I should have started earlier, but I just began monitoring where my site ranks with various search terms. This is an extremely important excercise, as it correlates to how often people will find me. A search for “danny gabriner”, currently only ranks third, after my LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. I should be the number one listing, considering that term is my domain, but because I never write it out, and those other two sites are massive, I could see why I am behind.

More imporant terms to monitor ate things like “optimizing adsense”, which is written on every single page, and I often write about. This is a highly competitive search term, and when I first checked, I was number 83 on the list. However, after only a few days, I have jumped to number 28. Once I get into the top 10, I expect quite a bit more traffic from this query.

A related term that gets far more searches is “optimize adsense”. I don’t write this term nearly as much as I should, and currently rank 133. As I become more concious of the important search queries that relate to my topics, I will focus on the SEO factor, and plan on tracking my progress in the Google rankings.

In addition to seeing where I rank on Google, I will be using Google’s AdWords Tool to find the keywords that are most imporant to me. Robert Scoble recently wrote a post on the lack of knowledge of this tool, and he is right that most people could gain heavily from it’s use.

My next steps are to compile my list of important keywords, and then I will start continually tracking and trying to improve my ranking on Google. There are so many SEO techniques that we all know to gain traffic, but this will actually give me a good idea of my progress.

I have always been a bit lost when it comes to Twitter. I started off using it by following a few people who had blogs I read, but because I was only following these few people, I was pretty much getting their blog posts recycled back to me.

A short while ago, twitter bought Summarize, and turned it into search.twitter.com. This tool is very useful for quite a few reasons. First of all, you can search for your niche topics (like optimizing AdSense), and find people who have either just posted, or who are interested in your topic. This is similar to searching on Google, but there are some added benefits.

First of all, the content is much fresher, as many of Google’s results will be years old (although some of those can be good too). Second, if people are asking questions or are having difficulty with something, you can respond to them directly and immediately. So not only are you finding good resources, but you are establishing yourself in a community of people interested in the same topics as yourself.

As you begin to find these people on Twitter who share your interests, you can refer them to your posts, and if you have good enough content, gain some dedicated readers.