What is the “AdSense formula”?

The only AdSense formula that you need to know is this:

earnings = number of clicks * average price per click

This is what I call the Fundamental AdSense Formula because you can derive almost every AdSense “secret” directly or indirectly from this formula. Do you want to earn more with AdSense? You have two ways of doing it:

1. Increase the number of clicks, and/or

2. Increase the average price per click

Your earnings will only go up if you do one or the other, and ideally both. It’s an obvious formula, yes, but it’s amazing how many people lose sight of it in their quest for increased AdSense earnings.

Increasing the Number of AdSense Clicks

Increasing the number of times the ads on your site or blog are clicked is the most obvious strategy. There are two general  strategies you can follow:

1. Increase the traffic to the site, and/or

2. Adjust the ads to make them more “clickable”

Getting traffic is hard and takes time, so don’t look at it as a quick fix. The best way to get traffic is to provide useful, unique content and to rank highly in search engine rankings for keywords related to that content. In other words, use standard search engine optimization techniques. DO NOT “buy” traffic or use “link farms” or other dubious techniques. Other tips for getting traffic:

1. Publish articles, even free ones, with links back to your site.

2. Include a link to your site in the signature at the bottom of your emails or in any forum postings you make (if the forum allows it).

3. Participate in forums/groups related to the content of your site or blog. The key is to participate, not lurk, and don’t just post messages promoting your site.

4. Add comments (relevant ones only, please) to other blogs, you can usually link back to yours. (This won’t help your search engine rankings, but it may allow others who are reading those comments to find your own site.)

5. Syndicate your content (trivial if you have a blog) and make sure that the content is registered with syndication aggregators.

6. List your site in relevant directories.

Adjusting the ads is something you can do almost immediately:

1. Position the ads on the page in order to make them more noticeable. Google even publishes a helpful heat map (see https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html ) for AdSense publishers.

2. Choose the best AdSense ad format that works for your site.

3. Change the ad colors either to make the ads blend in with your site or to make them stand out. Again, it varies depending on the site.

Whatever you do, DO NOT ENTICE VISITORS TO CLICK THE ADS. Google is very strict about this, see the AdSense program policies (found at https://www.google.com/adsense/policies ) for the details.

Increasing the Average AdSense Price Per Click

Increasing the average price per click you receive from AdSense is the other strategy for increasing your overall AdSense earnings. You can do this by:

1. Carefully targeting your content, and/or

2. Filtering out and avoiding low-paying ads

Content targeting isn’t just about creating relevant, unique content. It’s also making sure that that content is written to target the higher-paying keywords associated with a given topic. This means:

1. Figuring out which keyword variations for that topic pay more. Often the more specialized variations and phrases pay more than the “generic” terms.

2. Ensuring that the keyword density of the content favors the higher-paying keyword variations. See http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com/vioxx-lawsuit.html for an example of well-targeted ads due to appropriate keyword density.

And to reduce the occurrence of lower-paying ads, consider these two strategies:

1. Use AdSense’s competitive filter mechanism to screen out the ads that you don’t want.

2. Show fewer ads on a page. The fewer ads you show, the more the higher-paying ads get displayed and clicked.

Many publishers also report that their earnings increase if they remove ads completely from pages with few or no clicks. Again, the “less is more” strategy favors the higher-paying ads.

There’s No Magic

As you can see, there’s no magic involved to increasing your AdSense earnings. The Fundamental AdSense Formula is easy to understand, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to apply the formula. It takes time and effort to do it, just like most things.

Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common – keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is extremely important. Think about it: Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.

How to choose your keywords

Choosing the right keywords is the first step to better search engine positioning. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product.

Let’s say you sell sheet metal. What words would you search for when looking for the same product? Ask your colleagues and friends to think about the same question. This is perhaps the most important stage in your war for a spot in search engines’ top 20.

As you think about keywords, consider the following:

• Who needs your products?
  Think about who will use your products, then target them with keywords. For example, if you know that people in the fabrication industry need sheet metal, add words like “sheet metal fabrication” and “custom sheet metal” to your list.
• Include variations of your keywords
  People will search for your site using all sorts of keywords. Making your site easy to find means including misspelled, capitalized and plural keywords. Always include the longer forms of keywords too.
• Avoid wrong keywords
  Do not use “stop words” — particles like “and” and “the” and common words like “industry.” Remember, the more specific your keywords are, the better the chance that people who find your site through search engines will actually benefit from its content.
• Look at your competition
  If you have any competitors that are doing well online, look at what terms they’re advertising and ranking for. You can get ideas for your own terms by doing competitive research.
• Use suggestion tools
  Numerous suggestion tools are available to help you pick keywords and research keyword alternatives. Check out Digital Point’s Keyword Suggestion Tool, which has results from both Overture and WordTracker, Google’s Keyword Tool is also very useful.