Seeking Revenue » take note

Poor converting sites can hurt you

Ken — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:14:30 +0000

I am taking down Adsense on a few sites as a test after reading how one poorly converting site can “smart price” an entire AdSense account.

This was pretty old news (posted Oct 2005, a year ago) and it is a surprise that I had not ran across it all these while.

How much truth this piece of information still holds? Maybe my test and some research will show some results.

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Collection of Creative Adsense Placement

Ken — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:42:00 +0000

Users are getting immuned to Adsense ads because it is getting too common. Many are simply not looking on them or are subconsciously shutting them off.

What can you do as an Adsense publisher?

If visitors are not looking at ads, they are certainly not clicking it. If they are not clicking it, you are not getting revenue.

One way to deal with this is to be creative with ads placement. Instead of just sticking an ads anywhere, place it creatively to attract attention (or reduce attention as the case maybe).

Here I look at some examples I had collected from my surfing around other people’s site. Maybe they can inspire you.

Before looking at some the examples here, beware that you have to comply with Adsense policies in putting up you ads. Be careful not to cross the line.

Design BlendingThe idea is to blend the ads nicely into the content so that visitors do not notice they are ads but part of the site’s navigation or links.
The is a simple idea but not many do it well.

Here is an example from BlogDesignSolutions
Notice how the ads and text links nicely blend with the overall color tone and layout.
(I wonder why the 468×60 ads do not show a “Ads by Goooooogle” which is the norm.)
Visual blocks

I called this method visual blocks because it artificially creates blocks that guides naivgation.

Here is an example from MindBlog.
Notice the text link unit in the 3rd blue column. This bends in well with the other color content blocks.
Next, notice how the 4 ads in the Leaderboard unit is directly under the 4 color blocks. This again guides navigation.
Image guides
Another variation of visual block is to use images to guide the eyes to the ads.

Here is an example from worth1000.com
The images are sized nicely to match the 4 ads Leaderboard. (Note that this may be in violation of Adsense’s policies)

Here is an example from supriyadisw.net.
The images are next to 336×280 ad unit.
In additional, take a look at the style of the text links unit on the right and the Catagories. A clever use of design blending.
Pseudo NavigationThis technique uses the link unit creates an impression that the ads is part of the navigation.
See this example from MyMoneyBlog.
The link unit on the top is aligned with the menu below, creating a menu effect.
Artificial TabsAn improvement to the pesudo navigation is to create the impression of tabs.
This example is from sapiensbryan.com
See how the design creates a tab-like effect on the navigation.
Creative FrameWhy do you need to frame the Adsense ads in squares or rectangle? Can you frame them up more creatively?
However, be sure not to be too creative.

This example is from Plan59
The ads are in a retro-looking trapezium with shadow effect.

Another example from Karen Cheng
Great looking torn-carton background for the ads.
DisorientationIf you can’t convince them, confuse them. As Seth Godin suggested, you do not want the user to see something familar which they will ignore. Some research has even shown that messy design works better.
Take a look a this example from MyMoneyForest
Where do I start clicking? Maybe one of those ads.

Have you come across any other interesting ads placement ideas to share?

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Incredible claims

Ken — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:54:27 +0000

You might have seen some of these claims

Here’s one

Discover How 2 Men and a Baby in a Minnesota Basement Generated $184,127 in Just 12 Short Weeks Starting with No Money, No List, No Products, and No ‘Insider’ Contacts …

And this,

Finally, The Truth On How To Make Money From Google Adsense Program – Here’s Your Chance To Discover The System That Has Been Proven To Work, Generating Over US $100,000 per Month — Systematically!

No link love for them. But you can easily find them by doing a search.

I believe many people brought such program from these self-proclaimed famous marketer, which is why you see so many of such program floating around cyberspace.

Are the people too busy making 100k per month? Or are they too shy to say they had been duped?

Did you brough one of such program? Share your story.

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Famous Marketers?

Ken — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:21:05 +0000

Last week I asked How many famous marketer do you know?

I come across so many sites claiming to be successful, famous marketer that I wonder if they are really worth their salt, or rather word.

Here are some names I collected over the week. Any experience or encounter with them?

Mark Idzik
Russell Brunson
Stu McLaren
Cody Moya
Liz Tomey
Joe Cooper
Trent Brownrigg
Rich Schefren

How do you judge and trust content online? I have come to a point where I view every site that seeks to part me and my cash with suspicious.

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Site Wide Links

Ken — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:24:04 +0000

A few days ago I got my first Text Link Ads buy on my site. Exciting! So naturally I took a closer look at how I can optimise this source of revenue.

While reading their link buying guide (pdf), I learnt about site wide links. Something I had not paid attention to before.

Here’s what they have to say,

Site wide links can put your link on 1,000’s of pages on one domain. We do not recommend purchasing a large number of site wide links on unrelated websites. You can draw attention to your website because your competition may have 50 links and then your site starts showing up with 2,000 backlinks. This can potentially cause your competition to file a spam report if you are buying links on unrelated websites and could cause your site to be banned by a major search engine.

Having the same link text on too many site-wide links could also raise a flag for having too high of a percentage of the same anchor text pointing to your website.

A site wide link will not typically give you much of a boost over one link from the best page of a website on Google. Site-wide links can help more in some search engines like the new MSN Search and Yahoo! Search, but you still need to stay relevant.

It is more natural for a website to have a high percentage of single page links versus a much smaller percentage of site wide incoming links. Too many site wide incoming links could possibly trigger a red flag with the search engine.

(Underlines are made by me.)

Things to ponder:

How do I offer single page link with WordPress?
Am I not getting link buyers because I offer site wide and Text Link Ads warn against it?

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Disclosing Affiliate Links?

Ken — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 05:37:14 +0000

The views on disclosing affiliate links differs widely.

A while back Weblog Tools Collection introduced Text Link Ads (referral) with a referral link and Matt quickly pointed out that referral links should be disclosed.

Later, another post was quick to point out that the link is not a referral.

What is your opinion on disclosing affiliate links?

Having been on the reader’s side and now standing on the publisher side, I know the debate well.

As a reader, I do not like to be tricked into clicking on referral links. I had even seen link saying something but linking to another. However I do not mind giving the publisher the referral if the information is useful. Anyway it is someone else that is paying, so why not make someone happy.

As a publisher, the concern is readers bypassing the referral. Each click is a potential earning and if I can get more people to click, all the better.

Is there a balance?

My decision is to disclose affiliate referral using the title attributes in the link tag and if necessary mentioning it. I hope the reader will appreciate this action as a sincere introduction and give me the referral if I deserve it.

How do you decide?

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Watchout! Exclusivity Provisions

Ken — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:27:50 +0000

Since I mention about the need to read Agreement and then introduced Text Link Ads, I want to highlight the Exclusivity Provisions stated in the Text Link Ads’s Client / Publisher / Affiliate Agreement.

(note: the ???? was copied from the Agreement)

EXCLUSIVITY PROVISIONS.
A. If Customer is a publisher, it agrees that it will use the Company’s Services exclusively for its needs relative to placing static HTML links designed to drive traffic and increase popularity. This exclusivity provision does not apply to contextually driven ad programs (for example, Google???? Adsense program, Yahoo???? Search Marketing Ads) or to any other non static HTML link ads (for example, AdBrite????).

What does it mean?

Does it mean I cannot create other text links? How about link exchange? Blogroll? Advertiser approaching me directly?

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Marketing Giveaway

Ken — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:47:43 +0000

Very often I receive giveaway offers in my email. Most of the time I ignore them or simply sent them to the trash.

Don’t get me wrong, giveaway and offers are good way to promote your products and website. But there are so many crap or sneaky giveaways that good giveaway are overshadowed.

Just today I received an email introducing a giveaway offer. It looks decent enough so I gave it a try. There is a usual plot to up sell you other products which are always tempting. Then you are give free stuffs that seem linked from other sites.

Overall the free information are still worth a read. The elaborate setup for this giveaway is also worth learning from.

Try it yourself.