Recently, I found some
interesting settings in the
Google Adsense setup that
I discovered might have
been hampering my CTR.
After searching the topics
to find out other people's
experiences with them, I
found out that many had
3x to 6x the CTR after
implementing these, that
they did beforehand. And,
unlike most other things,
these work for ALL Adsense
implementations -
including HubPages,
because they involve only
settings in the google.com
adsense setup that you
need to change - not
changes in the code,
javascript or in the html of
every website that you put
Adsense on.
There are three of these
little settings to change.
First, you have to go to
www.google.com/adsense
to login to your account.
Now that you're logged in,
see the top bar with the
tabs for Reports, Adsense
Setup, My Account, and
Resources? Okay, now you
have to click on My
Account.
Once you're there, you will
be in the subtab Account
Settings. This is the right
subtab, so no changes
needed from here. But
anyways, scroll down.
Ignore all of the settings
about login information,
payment information,
address information, etc
etc etc.
The Adsense Punk: Your
FREE guide to
dramatically increasing
your Adsense income
There are three settings
areas that you want to pay
attention to, after scrolling
past the login and tax
information. What these
are are "Ad Display
Preferences", "Interest-
Based Ad Preferences", and
"Third Party Ad
Preferences".
First of all, the Ad Display
Preferences. Click this.
You'll find options to
change the font face,
change the text size, and
change whether your ad
units serve text and image,
or text only. Make sure this
last one is set to "text and
image" - even though your
CTR might be just a tiny bit
lower, you will have more
ads competing for space on
your site. Leave the font
face the same, unless it
doesn't match your site -
then, change it to match
the site. With the font size,
change it to "small" - I find
that these ads will be less
likely to blind users, and
that the small font will
entice users to read the
text more than large fonts
will. Large fonts killed my
CTR - small fonts sent it
through the roof.
Next up is "Interest-based
Ads Preference." What this
does, ostensibly, is tracks
Google searches made by
users, and delivers ads
based upon previous
searches that your users
have made? Translation? It
serves irrelevent ads. It
sounds great in theory, but
how are advertisers going
to target your site if your
users are viewing ads that
don't even relate to your
content? Disable this - that
way, you can better target
keywords on your site.
Finally, you have "Third
Party Ads Preference". The
question here is much like
above: do you want third
party ad networks using
Adsense to show their ads,
to gather user information
using tracking cookies? No.
Number one, I don't like
tracking cookies. And
number two, this is another
way that irrelevant ads will
get shown on your
websites. If I have a car site,
I don't want bodybuilding
ads showing to certain
users, clothing ads to
others, and "make money
online" ads to still others. I
want CAR ADS. And I want
the ad targeting to be as
direct as absolutely
POSSIBLE.
I mean, it sounds great in
theory to have ads showing
based on what users are
interested in, but the topic
that my ads are targeting
on MY SITE, might be
something that users don't
know that they are
interested in, but that the
ads BUILD interest. If
interest is built out of
nothing, that makes a click
more likely.
So what has my CTR done
since I flipped the last
three settings? It's up from
just over 1 percent to over
4 percent, consistently. My
CPC is very slightly less,
however, the CTR far more
than makes up for it. My
CTR is now almost as high
as my Kontera CTR.
Will this setting change do
the same to your CTR?
Most likely. Even if it
doesn't increase your CTR
too much, it's still good to
target your keywords
better, and to battle what I
consider is an unnecessary
nuisance and privacy
invasion: tracking cookies.
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