Information that publishers need to implement and inform ad revenue strategies
Summary:
- Many factors affect ad performance, such as content quality, ad placements, media selection, and more
- High traffic doesn’t directly indicate high earnings
- Some practices may be equivalent to paying competitors
- Six informed steps to help publishers earn more from ad revenue
A publisher’s aim and objective throughout should be to increase CPC and CTR gradually. Here are six notable steps for publishers. Contact AdMedia to learn how we help publishers better monetize their sites.
1. Keyword Research
Try to find keywords with high CPC and search volume. Search to find specific keywords with low competition, high CPC, and high search traffic. After researching, start creating your website pages, blog posts, and articles on such high-value keywords. Always use these keywords naturally at the beginning, the middle, and the end of your content. It is also beneficial to add them to your headings or tags.
Grabbing keywords with a CPC higher than $2.50 can be incredibly beneficial. A page that only earns one dollar from five to 10 clicks is undesirable. Instead, a page that pulls an impressive four to five dollars out of just two ad clicks should be the goal.
2. Examine Content
Content is placed at the top of all the other tips because it is the most critical rule to follow on your SEO and internet marketing journey. It is the first thing visitors, advertisers, and bots (ad bots and crawl bots) will notice.
Low quality or outdated content will make your website rate much lower, and your CPC (the bids advertisers make to appear on your website) will significantly fall. This can also get you smart-priced, even if you generate quality traffic on low-quality content.
Provide your readers and visitors with something unique and worthwhile rather than something which has already been posted on a thousand other websites.
3. Sizes and Placements
Do not neglect the placement and size of your ads as they play an important into delivering a better user experience and thus, improving your earnings.
Where should you place your ad, and which of Google’s display ad sizes are best for your business?
The answer is pretty simple, place two ads inside your blog posts (or content) and one outside the post. Keep one 336 x 280 large rectangle ad on the top of the blog post just below the title and place the second ad in the middle of the blog post as a 468 x 60 sized banner. The remaining unit can be placed to the right of your post inside your sidebar.
Position ad units to not annoy your visitors by popping right in their faces. Instead, perfectly fit inside your content or in positions that you aim to get more clicks from. For example, a site that provides file downloads can have an ad unit near the download link to get a High CTR.
4. Monitor and Limit
Have you tried limiting the use of ad units? Publishers can typically increase CPC by reducing the ad units with the lowest CTR.
Lower-paying ads start showing on your websites if there isn’t enough content to support all the ad units. This may increase CTRs and bring in more clicks, but the ads may not be relevant to your website (public advertisements). This results in CPC falling and earnings decreasing. If you increase your ad units, ultimately, you are making it easier for advertisers to be shown on your website, meaning an even lower CPC (because of low bids).
Remove the low CTR ad units and replace them with the higher paying ad units with a higher CTR, and your earnings will rise automatically.
Remove the low-performing ad units from your website (Compare CTR and final earnings of different units). Better ads should be served to other remaining ad slots which are performing well, so earnings and CPC will increase.
5. Evaluate Ad Types
Both text and image ads can monetize your website. Limiting ad visibility to only image/media-rich or text ads can lower the bids for advertisers to appear on your website. Enabling both text and image ads can mean a higher CPC for publishers. The more advertisers bidding to appear on your website, the higher your CPC will be.
6. Reduce Fraud
Do you have an ad unit placed near the top of your content that gets a high CTR? Can this also be because of the location that some people end up clicking on your ad by mistake? When this happens, the visitors often back out or close the ad, usually counted as either an accidental or fraud click.
These earnings will most likely be reverted due to the low-quality nature of the click. Try to minimize any accidental or useless clicks on your ad units by preventing awkward ad locations.
Interested in learning how AdMedia helps publishers? Ready to better monetize your site? Contact us, today!