AUTOMATIC SITE ASSESSMENT

The answer is that in the first instance Google's own
spider, the software that scans your site, is the
first arbiter. If it 'thinks' your site is content rich
then you will pass the first hurdle. And this is where
some sites fail.

The spider is an automated system and it makes quick,
not always accurate judgements which gives you the
first clue about getting your site accepted:

If your site is rejected fast by which I mean within a
couple of hours or so, it has probably been rejected
by Google's spider on the basis that it doesn't
understand what your site is about too clearly or it
hasn't found much content.

So you will have to get to work and add content - write
further copy relevant to your main them, scan the web
and find good articles to post (but make sure you get
the appropriate permissions). All this will help.

And then submit again.

BE WARNED: there is a rumour going round that one site
was rejected and it simultaneously got dropped from a
previously high ranking on Google's search results
page. It's only a rumour, but be warned.

Similarly, if your site is accepted fast, it will
almost certainly have been accepted automatically.

******************
Human intervention
******************

However, there appears to be a middle case where the
spider is not sure whether your site qualifies or not.
And in this instance, the site is referred to a human
who makes the decision.

FactsAboutAdSense.com passed straight through the
acceptance process because it has a load of content
in it, has a clear theme running right through the
site and is designed to move up the search engine
ranks too.

TIP:

If you are thinking of applying for AdSense, check
out sites that compete with your own for traffic and
see if any of them have been accepted. If they have,
compare the content in them to your own to see if you
exceed theirs. (This is quite a subjective process
but it can help you)

If you are rejected, you can always apply again.

**************
Multiple sites
**************

Google actively discourages you from running several
AdSense accounts on different sites. I'm not clear
why they do this at the moment apart perhaps from
saving operational costs involved in printing and
posting checks.

However, it does mean that once in, you're in. For
example, I run a website called CommercialReality.co.uk
which is where I sell my consultancy services and I
host some AdSense ads there on the page
http://www.commercialreality.co.uk/marketingtools.htm

I suspect though that there is inherent danger in taking
your successful application from one site and stretching
it across to a very poor site because Google will always
be jealous of its brand image. If I get any more news on
this I'll let you know.

There's something else to think about too. Google is most
likely to place HIGHER earning ads on your site because, whilst
on Google's own page there can be up to 8 ads, with AdSense
there can only be a maximum of 5.

If you were Google, what would you do? Place the lower
bidding ads, or the higher ones?

Don't forget however that not all AdWords ads are
syndicated out into the AdSense program.

Implementing AdSense into Your Site.

Of course, you first of all need to get accepted into
the AdSense program.

Assuming your site has made the grade, you will get an
email from Google with the title Welcome to AdSense.

This will include a link to a page on Google where you
enter your username and password.

Make your password non-obvious because when
you log on to your account, you say where the
money goes and you don't want someone else
redirecting it do you?

Included in your AdSense control panel is a form where
you specify what shape of ads you want to display and
when you make your selection, some JavaScript code
appears in a box below. All you need to do is cut
and paste this code into your site.

But there are some decisions you need to make first.

There are three steps.

1. Decide which pages you want to place AdSense ads on.

2. Decide what format ads you want on each page.

3. Paste the code in the site

***********************
Where to place your ads
***********************

Do you want AdSense ads on your home page?

This depends on what your site is about. Remember,
unless you are writing a site specifically to get
AdSense revenues, the main aim of your site is not
going to be getting clicks that TAKE PEOPLE AWAY from
your pages!

The best place to put ads is on content-rich pages
that you already have but which are not producing
any revenues for you already.

***************
AdSense formats
***************

Google offers lots of formats for your ads. We can't show
them in this email but you can find out more about them at
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/
adsenseformattingguide.htm

You should pick the one that fits in best with your
existing page structure unless during the review
process you decide to undertake a major re-vamp!

Google allows multiple formats across your site but
until recently only allowed you to place one block of ads
on each page. This has now increased to 3 blocks on the
same page.

*************
Color schemes
*************

Google lets you specify what colors the ads will appear
in and there are two schools of thought about what is
best.

You can design ads so that they fit well with your
existing web design.

Or you can make the ads stand out strongly by
choosing a marketedly different color palette.

You can now get sufficiently
high resolution statistics from Google to find out
which ads work best on your site.

I cover this in detail in my book
The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense.

************
Pasting code
************

This is either easy for you or difficult! If you
routinely look at the HTML in your web pages, the
process is straightforward: just locate where in the
page you want the ads to go and paste the code in.

If HTML is a foreign language you'll need some help
to begin with.

Practically, the best way forward is to experiment a
bit. Put the code in, have a look at the page (and
Google will immediately start posting ads on the page
although they may not be context-targeted to begin
with - more on this later.) If you like what you
see, stick with it. If not, move it around, use a
different format (go back to your AdSense control
panel) and do it again.

*****************
What happens next
*****************

As soon as your new page is viewed (even if you
preview it in FrontPage), Google gets alerted to
its existence and sends out some ads.

Now if Google doesn't know anything about the page
you will see so-called Public Service ads which are
about charities and so on.

However, in around 15 minutes (it's that fast)
you will start to see ads that are context-targeted.
They will be more relevant to your page.

But this will only happen if Google can work out what
your page is about, so check that the copy makes it
clear and that the page title, headings and meta tags
are consistent and valid.

*******************
Rejected by Google?
*******************

If you can't get into the AdSense program, don't
despair! There are things you can probably do to
improve your chances and you can re-submit your site.

Look carefully at the criteria for acceptance again on
Google own site.

Make sure you have relatively clean content, with lots
of text (Google can't "read" the content of a picture
and it doesn't deal well with Flash animations) and focus your
copy on the theme of the web page.

You will also need to ensure that your site is big
enough so that it isn't regarded as too trivial.

Some people say you should go for at least 20 pages
but in our experience you don't need that much - you
just need good content.

Page Traffic

I don't know how much traffic your site currently gets
but you probably want more. However, there are two
different sorts of traffic: the casual visitor who is not
going to do much, is click/trigger happy and won't hang
around and doesn't come back.

Then there's the keen, genuinely interested, active site
participant. This is the sort of traffic you want to get and keep
because your job is to develop a relationship
with this type of visitor - not a one-night stand.

Why?

Because people who visit your site frequently are going
to be interested in what is on it and this interest will
extend to your AdSense ads - that's what Google
does for you automatically.

Interest = clicks. Clicks = money.

They'll also come back of their own accord and each time
they do, they might see another interesting ad too.


That thinking has helped us define who we want but we now
have two tasks ahead:

1. Getting these people to visit your site the first time.

2. Getting these people engaged in the site so that they
remember it, like it and come back frequently


Let's look at the first of these.

******************************
Getting the first time visitor
******************************

You are going to have to promote your website to people
who you know are likely to be interested in the contents
of your site.

There are 8 standard strategies:

1. Advertise your site offline using postcards, printed
ads, signs on your car etc. BUT GIVE PEOPLE A GOOD
REASON to visit in your ad.

2. Advertise your site online with AdWords and other pay
per click systems such as Overture - but watch you don't
spend more than you earn.

3. Get your site high on search engines (by building
excellent content - that's what they look for).
This is FREE and is the best method although it takes
time for a new site to get noticed. People searching
on a search engine are ACTIVELY looking for stuff
which means they are more likely to become active
visitors, visitors who return and click - if they
like what they find.

4. Promote your site in an ezine about your subject
matter (but make your writing interesting) and send it
to your regular customers or visitors.

5. Enter comments into discussion forums and include a short
link to your site. We did this for FactsAboutAdSense.com
in a brand-marketing forum and started getting visits
almost immediately - for ZERO cost.

6. Use PR techniques to get your site mentioned in the Press.

7. Include your web address in your email signature ALWAYS.
Again, this won't cost you anything but will increase the
visit rate - and it can work very well if you do more than
just put your web address on it - give them a reason to
visit. ("You could get paid by Google. Visit
FactsAboutAdSense.com to learn how" is what I use. It works.)

8. Publish an ebook about your subject and give it away but
include links to your website in it.


******************************
Keeping the relationship going
******************************

How does your site keep people engaged?

You need to give people

a * REASON, and

a * REMINDER,

to * RETURN


How do you do this?

***********
The REASON
***********

Make your site genuinely useful and informative about your
theme, product or service.

************
The REMINDER
************

You can't remind people to visit unless you know who they
are. So you need to get their contact details in return for
permission to keep in touch and an effective way to do this
is to give something away like a tip sheet, a guide, insider
knowledge and so on.

But, again, make sure it is useful and has value.

Now use this contact information to remind people about
your site.

The easiest way to do this is by email, but it is good to
vary the media sometimes and use snail mail too (so make
sure you get address details too.)

If you use email, you are probably going to need to automate
the process, otherwise you'll spend all day at your PC, and
the best way to do this is to use an autoresponder.

What an autoresponder does is send out emails automatically
when it receives new contact details but good ones do much
more than this.

I use one to distribute this AdSense Insider course and
I have programmed it to send out the 5 lessons in the course
automatically in sequence.

Here's some more info about it
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/autoresponders.htm

Your autoresponder should be easy to use, and provide you
with detailed testing and reporting capabilities as well as,
crucially, a facility that makes it easy for people to opt-
out from your mailing list. You must do this to avoid
being accused of spamming.

This is yet another reason why content is king. Keep
providing information, information, information otherwise
they'll sign off - for good.

************************
Your visitors' behaviour
************************

How do people behave when they visit your site?

First time visitors make an extremely quick judgement about
your site, in fact you typically have just 10 seconds or
so to make a positive impression.

So you have to explain immediately why people should stay.

Don't worry about not catching everyone because you only
want targeted visitors anyway. The low interest types are
not going to help drive up your AdSense revenues.

A great way to do this is to put your number one benefit
statement into the headline on your home page.

Does FactsAboutAdSense.com do this?

You judge.

*******************************
The dreaded Corporate Yawn-fest
*******************************

What doesn't work is a corporate yawn-fest on a web site
that starts off with something like "We've pride ourselves in
providing you, the customer, with excellence in everything
we do..."

Apart from anything else, why would you believe them?

Now IF you get someone to stay on your site, they typically
have a little look round first before delving more deeply
into what you're offering.

Only if they continue to be interested are you likely to
get their attention enough to get their contact details.

And you may well not get them first time, which is why your
site must also give them a reason to return unprompted.

And the reason is

Content - again.

But when they do come back, they'll really have a good look
around and start to engage in the site.

And that is when you'll get the AdSense clicks.

*****************************

It's been quite a long session today and I hope you've taken
it all in. Do check out the Autoresponder info if you
haven't already got one because getting one is essential to
any half-decent web marketing plan.

Tomorrow we are going to look at the format and styles of
AdSense ads - Google offers a surprising degree of control
over ad placement and appearance.

High Value Keyword Report Download

First an apology: there's a bit of math ahead!

Yesterday we looked at AdWords and learnt how AdSense is
Google's AdWords syndication program that posts AdWords ads
on context-targeted websites:

Ads about binoculars appear on web pages with information
about binoculars on them.

It makes sense doesn't it!

Today we are going to look at the factors that affect how much
money you will get from Google if you sign up (and are accepted
for) the AdSense program, paying detailed attention to those
areas that are controllable - because many aren't.

****************************
The AdSense revenue equation
****************************

Revenue is generated for you when someone clicks on an AdSense
ad on your site. Google charges the advertiser for the click
thru and shares this revenue with you.

The amount you earn from an ad is given by the following equation

Income PER AD=

Click thru price X
Fractional pay out X
Click thru rate X
Page traffic X
Appearance frequency

The CLICK THRU PRICE is the price the advertiser is bidding to
place an ad under the AdWords program and is determined by a
complex real time automatic auction process: Google advertisers
set a maximum price they are prepared to bid for keywords
and they usually pay less than this.

The FRACTIONAL PAYOUT RATE is the percentage of its revenues
that Google pays out to AdSense partners. THIS FIGURE IS NOT
DISCLOSED BY Google. However, anecdotal evidence suggest the
payout rate is good and competitive systems such as 7search.com
payout around the 50% mark.

CLICK THRU RATE is the number of times the ad is clicked on
divided by the number of times it is displayed ("impressions").

PAGE TRAFFIC is the number of times people visit your web page.

APPEARANCE FREQUENCY is the number of times a particular ad
appears on your page (remember that ads are rotated by Google
automatically and successful ads are shown more often.)

To repeat: this is income PER advertisement, so to calculate
your total AdSense income you need to evaluate this equation
for each ad on all your web pages and add up the results.

By the way, Google saves you the bother and tells you the
answer.

But already the complexity of the process is apparent and of
these factors, some are completely out of your control:
Fractional payout rate and Appearance frequency being two.

So let's look at those three factors that are at least
partially within your control.

****************
Click thru price
****************

The Click thru price, whilst fundamentally determined by the
advertiser, CAN be influenced by the content of your website:
if you can modify your site so that it includes more content
related to higher value keywords, you are more likely to get
higher value click thru prices.

For example, if you run a site about Bird Watching you may
get ads posted about Bird Watching books. But why not
extend the site to include content about the best binoculars
for bird watchers?

Dedicate a page to this topic and you could find higher
value ads running on that page because binoculars sell for
more than books and businesses advertising binoculars may be
willing to pay more for keywords relating to them.

You could also run some pages about travel and hotels in
exotic locations where rich bird watchers like to take their
holidays.

It's all content relevant to your site but it is likely to
increase your AdSense revenues too.

-----------------------------------------------------------
TECHNOLOGY NOTE
-----------------------------------------------------------

The ads you get on different pages of your site will vary
according to the content of the page.

AdSense is that clever!
------------------------------------------------------------

If you've already got a site, you can get a tool from Google
called the AdSense preview tool. This lets you see what sort
of ads you'll get even if you haven't signed up for AdSense
yet.

You can get it here
http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/adsensepreviewtool.htm?2


If you get ads that don't seem relevant there are 2 possible
causes:

1) Google doesn't know what your page is about, or
2) Google has never heard of your site.

Uh-oh!

We'll discuss how you get round these problems later on.

****************************
Estimating click thru values
****************************

Visit
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/
to find out how much keywords are being bid for on Overture,
a competitor to AdWords. This will give you an INDICATION
of the prices people are bidding on Google which in turn will
give you some idea about the click thru value of AdSense
ads relating to those keywords.

The rule is: aim high.

Alternatively if you already have an AdWords account you
can use the Keyword tool to find out the exact price of
any keyword - but remember AdSense is about content, not
keywords so, again, this is only going to be an indicator.

***************
Click thru rate
***************

Can you influence this?

YES.

You can. Here's how.

You use your page to sell the products and services that
are likely to be shown in the ads. To follow our binocular
example, if you post content about the benefits of excellent
(and expensive) binoculars and how they enhance the bird
watching experience, readers are going to be more
interested in buying binoculars than if you simply post
content about the different types of binoculars available
and they will consequently be more likely to click an ad.

http://www.factsaboutadsense.com/zeiss_binoculars.htm?2

You have to write sales copy that focuses on the generic
benefits of the products and services likely to be advertised
on your pages.

************
Page traffic
************

This is what web marketers fight hardest over.

No traffic means no clicks means no income. So you have to
maximise the number of people visiting your site.

About Adsense

AdSense is Google's syndication program for its AdWords
advertisements so first up, you need to understand AdWords
to make sense of AdSense.

*******
AdWords
*******

AdWords are small text-only ads that sometimes appear on the
right hand side of Google's search results page when you do
a search.

They are extraordinarily powerful - MUCH more so than you'd
think at first sight - for 5 reasons.

1. They are 100% targeted: the advertiser chooses which
keywords have to be entered before their ad is shown.

This means that you can make your ad appear ONLY in front
of people ACTIVELY LOOKING for information about a topic.

You sell binoculars? Then you can set up your AdWords ads
so that they show up ONLY when someone enters "Binoculars"
into Google's search box.

You can also restrict your ad coverage to specific countries.


2. You only pay for click thrus. If no one clicks on your ad
you don't pay anything but...


3. Google penalises ads that don't work well because it wants
only ads that are RELEVANT to the viewer to be seen. Poorly
performing ads get disabled automatically. This protects
Google's brand from being sullied by irrelevant ads.


4. Google lets advertisers rotate different ads for the same
keywords and AUTOMATICALLY shows the most effective ad more
often. Thus there is an in-built survival of the fittest
process going on where fitness is judged by real consumers
voting in real time.

If they click, your ad stays. If they don't, it doesn't.

Evolution can be extremely brutal - and fast!


5. Google gives advertisers incredibly detailed near real-time
response data so you can monitor and adjust your ad without
wasting much money.


*******
AdSense
*******

So where does AdSense come in this?

Well, Google has taken their excellent AdWords program and
extended it to non-Google web sites and branded it AdSense.

***************
Key distinction
***************

However, AdSense differs from AdWords in that Google, instead
of looking at the search terms entered into its search box
to determine what ads to show, looks at what keywords would
be relevant to the web site the ads are to go on.

Example:

If you have a site rich in content about binoculars, AdSense
technology determines that it would be an appropriate site to
post AdWord ads about binoculars on. (Google uses its existing
page ranking technology to assess a site's content.)

There's a good example of AdSense in action here on a web page
about web hosting.

http://www.1stprofitprograms.com/Web_Hosting.html?1

This AdSense technology is called "content-targeting".

*******************************
How you make money with AdSense
*******************************

The process is simple.

You sign up for AdSense and if your site is accepted,
(we'll cover this process later in the course) Google
gives you some code to paste into your web pages. It's
JavaScript stuff that you can simply add into the HTML
of your page.

When someone views your page this JavaScript fetches ads from
Google. If they then CLICK on your ad, Google charges the
advertiser a click thru fee and shares it with you.

This is entirely AUTOMATIC so if you have a content rich site
with lots of traffic that is not currently making you any money,
AdSense is something you should seriously consider.

Now maximising this process is much harder and it raises what
I call the content dilemma which we'll explore later too:

Is your site designed to earn AdSense revenue or
is its main objective something else?


So that's the background to AdSense.

***********

Tomorrow we'll look at ways to maximise the amount of money
that Google sends you.

There are two pretty complex processes going on behind the
scenes that we will examine, paying particular attention to
those things that are within your control. Not everything is!