What To Do If You’re Not Getting The Results You Want Follow the advice and strategies I lay out in this book and you should find that you get the results you want: a big fat check every month from the nice people at Google. But it doesn’t always work out that way. There will be times when you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why things just aren’t going the way you’d like them to. When that happens, check out the list of problems here and see if you can find a solution. And if you can’t find a solution here, check out AdSenseChat.com. Whatever I’ve missed here, you should be able to find there.
23.1 Low Revenues
This is the bottom of line of AdSense advertising and if your revenues are low then it couldn’t be clearer that you’re doing something wrong. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit of work to make clear what exactly it is that you’re doing wrong.
If your revenues are much lower than you’d like then there are a number of different possible reasons and you need to check each of the following in turn:
You won’t be able to make a move until you’ve figured out which of these potential problems is yours, and it’s likely that your problem will be a mixture of more than one of them. Your first move then, when you’re not making the money you’d like, is to check each of these possibilities. Your next move is to solve the problem you’ve found.
23.2 Low Traffic Levels
If your problem is that your site isn’t getting the traffic it needs, there are a whole range of different options you can take. I’ve covered the basic ideas in Chapter 20 and you can take another look to see if there’s anything you’ve missed but you also might want to try one of the courses or books that specialize in generating traffic. It might cost you a few bucks but when it comes to making money with AdSense just about any investment is worth the effort. You should be able to make it back in no time.
23.3 Low Clickthrough Rates
When your clickthrough rates are very low, you’re really in AdSense territory. This is all about getting the right ads in the right places. There all sorts of possible strategies that you can do and again, you’re going to have to check each one in turn.
23.4 Low Click Price
Raising your click price is one of the trickiest challenges in AdSense. Because Google decides how much to charge advertisers for a click on your site, you can only affect their decision indirectly. Again there are a few things that you can do:
1. Target different keywords
Different keywords pay different amounts. It’s possible that your site is bringing up the lowest paying terms in your subject. Browse keyword sites such as Overture.com to see what people are paying for words in your field and try creating a page that focuses on the highest paying term. If that page brings in good revenues, you’ve got a keyword problem and that’s easy to fix. If you’re still getting a low click price, you’ve got a low Smart Price rating, and that’s going to take a bit more work to fix.
2. Buy better traffic
Your Smart Price suffers when your users click but don’t buy. One solution is to buy better targeted traffic that’s more likely to be interested in what your ads are offering. For example, you could try working backwards and target your traffic to the ads you’re currently showing.
3. Build better content Or it could be that people are clicking your ads not because they’re interested in them but because they’re not interested in what’s on the page. Good quality content will deliver high quality clicks from people who are motivated to buy from your advertisers. There are no shortcuts to building great content. You can try to focus on a topic that genuinely excites rather than building a site just for the money. You could try buying in some professionally written articles by taking a freelancer from eLance, and seeing if that raises your click price. Or you could just take another look at what your best competitors are doing and do the same.
4. Remove poorperforming ads
Your Smart Price is affected by all the sites in your account. One poorperforming site then can bring down your prices across all your sites. If you own lots of different sites and your ads aren’t getting the price you think they deserve, one strategy could be to remove the ads from the sites that you think aren’t doing so well. Whichever strategy you choose, the goal will be to get more of the users to click on the ads to buy from your advertisers. You should start to see a change in your price within a couple of weeks.
23.5 Low Ad Relevance
If your ads aren’t relevant, people won’t want to click them. Try Section Targeting to focus Google on the ideas you want to emphasize. (If that works you might want to take things a little further by turning each section into a different page. That will give even more ads and more opportunities to earn). Alternatively, you can play with the keywords on your page, change the title of each page so that they include a keyword you’re trying to target or include more section titles. All of these options should help to keep your ads on track.
23.6 Too Many Public Service Ads Public service ads are another sign of a keyword problem.
You might not be hitting the keywords you want, or it could be that there simply aren’t any ads for the keywords you’re aiming for. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you’ve got something to show instead of public service ads, nice though they are. You can specify an alternate URL to show, use GoogleAdSensePlus or try Google Backfill to make sure that you’re still earning even when the keywords aren’t working. Your next step though, is going to be to fix the problem. Make sure that Google does have ads for the keyword you’re targeting (you can use one of the preview tools such as googleadspreview.blogspot.com to do this). If nothing comes up, you’ll need to throw different keywords onto your page. If something does come up and it’s not what you’re getting you can just use all of the keyword strategies I mentioned earlier to dump those PSAs.
23.7 Too Few Ads In A Unit Sometimes a fourad ad unit will only show one or two ads.
There’s nothing you can do about this and it’s not really a problem. If you’re getting just one ad, you could be earning by CPM instead of costperclick. If you’re getting two ads as Google likes to serve them sometimes you just have to hope that they’re doing it because it pays better. With AdSense, you don’t get to control everything!
23.1 Low Revenues
This is the bottom of line of AdSense advertising and if your revenues are low then it couldn’t be clearer that you’re doing something wrong. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit of work to make clear what exactly it is that you’re doing wrong.
If your revenues are much lower than you’d like then there are a number of different possible reasons and you need to check each of the following in turn:
- Your traffic levels. If you don’t have the traffic, you won’t get the revenues. A low level of traffic could be one reason why you’re only making a low level of income.
- Your CTR. Increasing your traffic might not raise your income as much as you want if your clickthrough rate isn’t all it should be. Once you’ve checked your traffic levels, take a look at how much of that traffic you’re converting into clicks.
- Your click price. When the ads change all the time it’s not always easy to figure out how much each click is worth but if you divide your daily income by your daily clicks you can get an idea of how much you’re earning per click. If that figure is hovering around five cents, you’re not making much and you need to be making more.
You won’t be able to make a move until you’ve figured out which of these potential problems is yours, and it’s likely that your problem will be a mixture of more than one of them. Your first move then, when you’re not making the money you’d like, is to check each of these possibilities. Your next move is to solve the problem you’ve found.
23.2 Low Traffic Levels
If your problem is that your site isn’t getting the traffic it needs, there are a whole range of different options you can take. I’ve covered the basic ideas in Chapter 20 and you can take another look to see if there’s anything you’ve missed but you also might want to try one of the courses or books that specialize in generating traffic. It might cost you a few bucks but when it comes to making money with AdSense just about any investment is worth the effort. You should be able to make it back in no time.
23.3 Low Clickthrough Rates
When your clickthrough rates are very low, you’re really in AdSense territory. This is all about getting the right ads in the right places. There all sorts of possible strategies that you can do and again, you’re going to have to check each one in turn.
- Are you using the right ad units? Compare your site to the case studies in this book, to other sites on the Web and to the recommendations I make about where to put each of the different kinds of ad units. Those examples and recommendations should be your starting point. If they don’t work for you though, you’re going to need to do some experimenting. This can take a bit of time, but it’s well worth the effort. Try replacing an ad unit with one of a different size and follow the stats. If they improve, you’re on the right track.
- Are you using the right colors and font size? This is a very easy one to fix. If the colors of your ads don’t match the colors on your site, change them.
- Are there better places on the page to put your ads? Even if you’re getting the right ads and they’re wellblended, if no one sees them, no one will click them. Check to make sure your ads are in the most prominent positions. If you think you might do better if they were in different spots, move them and follow the results.
23.4 Low Click Price
Raising your click price is one of the trickiest challenges in AdSense. Because Google decides how much to charge advertisers for a click on your site, you can only affect their decision indirectly. Again there are a few things that you can do:
1. Target different keywords
Different keywords pay different amounts. It’s possible that your site is bringing up the lowest paying terms in your subject. Browse keyword sites such as Overture.com to see what people are paying for words in your field and try creating a page that focuses on the highest paying term. If that page brings in good revenues, you’ve got a keyword problem and that’s easy to fix. If you’re still getting a low click price, you’ve got a low Smart Price rating, and that’s going to take a bit more work to fix.
2. Buy better traffic
Your Smart Price suffers when your users click but don’t buy. One solution is to buy better targeted traffic that’s more likely to be interested in what your ads are offering. For example, you could try working backwards and target your traffic to the ads you’re currently showing.
3. Build better content Or it could be that people are clicking your ads not because they’re interested in them but because they’re not interested in what’s on the page. Good quality content will deliver high quality clicks from people who are motivated to buy from your advertisers. There are no shortcuts to building great content. You can try to focus on a topic that genuinely excites rather than building a site just for the money. You could try buying in some professionally written articles by taking a freelancer from eLance, and seeing if that raises your click price. Or you could just take another look at what your best competitors are doing and do the same.
4. Remove poorperforming ads
Your Smart Price is affected by all the sites in your account. One poorperforming site then can bring down your prices across all your sites. If you own lots of different sites and your ads aren’t getting the price you think they deserve, one strategy could be to remove the ads from the sites that you think aren’t doing so well. Whichever strategy you choose, the goal will be to get more of the users to click on the ads to buy from your advertisers. You should start to see a change in your price within a couple of weeks.
23.5 Low Ad Relevance
If your ads aren’t relevant, people won’t want to click them. Try Section Targeting to focus Google on the ideas you want to emphasize. (If that works you might want to take things a little further by turning each section into a different page. That will give even more ads and more opportunities to earn). Alternatively, you can play with the keywords on your page, change the title of each page so that they include a keyword you’re trying to target or include more section titles. All of these options should help to keep your ads on track.
23.6 Too Many Public Service Ads Public service ads are another sign of a keyword problem.
You might not be hitting the keywords you want, or it could be that there simply aren’t any ads for the keywords you’re aiming for. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you’ve got something to show instead of public service ads, nice though they are. You can specify an alternate URL to show, use GoogleAdSensePlus or try Google Backfill to make sure that you’re still earning even when the keywords aren’t working. Your next step though, is going to be to fix the problem. Make sure that Google does have ads for the keyword you’re targeting (you can use one of the preview tools such as googleadspreview.blogspot.com to do this). If nothing comes up, you’ll need to throw different keywords onto your page. If something does come up and it’s not what you’re getting you can just use all of the keyword strategies I mentioned earlier to dump those PSAs.
23.7 Too Few Ads In A Unit Sometimes a fourad ad unit will only show one or two ads.
There’s nothing you can do about this and it’s not really a problem. If you’re getting just one ad, you could be earning by CPM instead of costperclick. If you’re getting two ads as Google likes to serve them sometimes you just have to hope that they’re doing it because it pays better. With AdSense, you don’t get to control everything!
