Tuesday, December 12, 2006

How to take higher CTR?

How to get higher CTR?
Post Adsense ads them on text rich pages and make sure that Adsense had a bunch of keywords to work with. Getting Higher paying keywords is better of course.
Learn how to get rid of public service ads, which pay you nothing for your efforts.
Avoid titles like the approved ‘Sponsored Links’ and ‘Advertisements’ above the Adsense ads. Why do you want to tell the world they are ads when google already puts ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with them. These two terms are the only ones allowed by Google TOS. Any other terms will get your account terminated.
Best Google Adsense Placement to get higher CTR?
Place Ads above the fold, i.e. you dont have to scroll down to see the ads. Moreover it loads before your entire page does.
Provide lots of free space around ads so that they stand out and users know where to find them
Experiment by changing the location of advertisements. Track them by channels to see which location works. Sometimes they can do wonders.
Many experienced Adsense users have reported better CTR with vertical ads rather than the horizontal ones. But that really depends on your site structure.
Usually it is recommended to place towers on your right, as users tend to use the mouse to scroll the bar on the right side wiht a higher chance to see your ads. Some have reported doubling CTR’s by placing towers to the left rather than the right, as people have got bored of seeing ads on the right, it has something to do with the sidedness of the brain which I do not understand and there is a tendency to read from left to the right.
Many sites will have small ads in the top right hand corner, as they claim it is the first place where the eye sees.
An excellent article on Eyetracking - What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes helps to tell you where users actually see first and in what order.
Best Google Adsense Link Colors to get higher CTR?
Match the colors of your ads with the colour scheme of your site. Blending with your sites color profile helps to identify them not as ads, but as links similar to those of your site. The more the AdSense looks like part of your site, the higher CTR you will get.
Blend ads with your page - remove the borders by having a similar color as your background helps to show ads as being part of your site. Do not blend text or the ‘Ads by Gooooogle’ with your background as it is against Google TOS. However, such blending may not work for you always due to banner blindness. Neither do they see the ads, not do they click on them. So a contrasting ad may suit your site better.
Experiment by changing the colors, background of advertisements. Sometimes they can do wonders.
I hope these tips help to get your Adsense CTR up by at least 100% if not more. Good luck!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Search Engine Positioning for the Weary

Search EnginePositioning for the Weary (By T. O' Donnell)

Do you want to get your site from page five to page one in Google? Here are a few tips to boost you on your way.
1. Clean Up Your HTML.
Keep a beady eye on Dreamweaver and avoid CMS software.
What, Dreamweaver, beloved program of pro webmasters everywhere?
Yes!

Dreamweaver adds lots of extra blank space to HTML code, and breaks lines. This is especially irritating in meta tags. Use EditPad's 'Find and Replace' function to get rid of newlines and double blank spaces in your pages.
Content Management Systems are a great time saver. An amateur can set up a professional-looking site in a few hours. The problem is they contain lots of code that's irrelevant to search engines. The top of a CMS page may contain only a few words relevant to its subject matter.
Then there's the duplicate content problem.
Blogs have duplicate copies of their own content; sometimes exact, sometimes excerpts.
Thousands of people are using the same CMS as you.
A search engine spider sees the same header, sidebar and footer content in every page in your site.
Result? Your page is down the SERPs for any competitive keyword. Assuming it's indexed at all.
These programs are written by geeks. Their primary aim is to eliminate code errors and add features. Your marketing comes a very poor second. They're also posting security updates every few months. More hassle.

Drastic solution:
1. Type your documents in a text editor like Editpad, then2. Use a Text to HTML converter, then3. (Use Dreamweaver to add formatting, then)4. Use a index generator to make a HTML list of those pages, then5. FTP them to your web site.
Benefits:
Search engine spiders get to the 'meat' of your page immediately;
You have more control over how the page looks;
You have more control over what an SE 'bot 'sees';
You're not relying on a MySQL database to maintain your site;
Hackers won't be able to deface your site easily.
A clever webmaster would look into Conditional Server Side Includes. You can use them to 'program' your web pages, while still presenting clean HTML to search engine 'bots.
And as for Microsoft FrontPage, I wish all my competitors were using it.

2. Get Lots of Links to Your Site.
Submit articles to article websites;
Pay freelancers to make software for you, and give it away free;
Submit to the top directories, like Yahoo and DMOZ, but don't spend much time or monëy. Only half a dozen are worth a damn for SEO;
Post in popular forums and blogs, if they will let you use straight hyperlinks in your signature;
Be controversial - assault a few sacred cows;
Do a press release, and think beforehand about how you can make it interesting to journalists;
Make a better, faster, cheaper version of a popular product.
That should get you a few decent links. With millíons of cheapo, 'me too', linkless sites out there, yours will stand out like a snowdrop on a dungheap.

3. Offer Something People Really Want.
You like fuschia leg warmers. You think other people do too. You make a website selling them.
Cue sad disillusion.
People want monëy, sëx, friendship, human contact, cars, drugs, health and happiness. They know what they want (not need, want). You've got to figure out a better way to satisfy that want, for a fat net profit.
Simple, ain't it?
Actually, yes it is.
Save time. Pick a very profitable, popular industry. Think up a way to give people a better product. Or faster. Or cheaper. Or all three! Research costs little. Thinking costs nothing.
Or just go off half-cocked. Employ a cheap, angry webmaster. Half-finish the site for a product you're not 100% sure there's a demand for. Then sit back and wait for traffic.
Then give up, go down to the pub and gripe to your pals: "The internet's sh*t, innit?".
Funny thing about offering a popular good with a new twist; you get links without cadging them.
4. Be First With a New, Popular Good(or a smarter second).
MySpace wasn't the first social networking site, but they did it better. They designed it to be viral. Members could compete to get 'friends', and everyone wants new friends, right? Users could put anything they wanted online, even if it looked cr*ppy. Censorship was minimal. Result: Huge popularity, without needing the search engines.
Not easily done, but again, research costs little. Thinking costs nothing.
Stop the daily slog. Go for a walk. Have a long bath. Play a game of street-hockey. And see what pops into your head.
If you feel good about it the next day, it may be a good idea. Test it before committing to it. If it still makes you excited a month later, you may be onto a winner.
If complete strangers start feeling the same, you definitely are!