Ling’s Affilorama Mini-Course: Google Adsense

Read Mark Ling’s Affilorama Mini-Course titled “Google Adsense”. [Watch Video]

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Mini Course 5 Notes: Google Adsense

Welcome back to the Affilorama.com 6 Part mini course!

In this lesson, we’re going to be taking a look at the very exciting opportunities provided by Google Adsense.

We’ll also be checking up on the split tests that we set up in the previous video lesson.

To check up on split tests, go to http://adwords.google.com and login to your account.

In the first split test that we carried out we created the following two ads:

By placing KeyWord in brackets in front of our title, the phrase that the searcher entered into Google appeared as the title for my ad. Unless, of course, the phrase they entered used too many words.

My split tests results for this show a big difference in clickthrough rates for the two ads – even at this early stage!

There is a 1.8% clickthrough rate for the ad with {KeyWord} in the title, as opposed to 0.83% for the plain title.

Incredibly, the ad with {KeyWord} in the title has always had a higher click-through rate every single time I have split tested this!

I can also see that the ad with the normal title has been charged at 36 cents per click by Google, while the ad with {KeyWord} in the title has been charged at 37 cents per click.

How does Google work this out?

I guarantee that if we were to choose the normal titled ad with the lower click through rate, Google would eventually charge more for that ad to make up for what they are losing because of my decision to use the the ad with less clickthroughs. They could well end up charging 50 cents per click, plus I would have a much lower click through rate!

So you can see how important it is to try and get a higher clickthrough rate in order to keep your costs per click down. This split test also emphasizes how well the KeyWord technique works!

For my other split test example, I tested the capitalization of the initial letters in the title against no capitalization.

There was quite a significant difference for this test too with a 2.17% click through rate for capitalization as opposed to a 1.54% click through rate for no capitals.

Now there is something rather odd here. In my statistics I can see that 349 people have clicked through my ad with capitalization, but only 18 have clicked through the ad with no capitals. Doesn’t really sound like rates of 2.17% and 1.54% does it

So what on earth is Google up to here?

It works like this. Google favors the consistently performing ad against the new ad whenever I perform a split test. Because I normally use capitals, Google knows that this usually performs well for me.

So instead of sending equal amounts of traffic to both ads in the split test, they only gradually build up the amount of traffic that they send to the new ad (in this case, the one with no capitals in the headline).

It seems like Google tests the water with the new ad, and unless it is doing well, they won’t send a lot of traffic to it.

This benefits both them and you. Google don’t lose out on making money from clickthroughs, and you don’t waste money on an underperforming new ad. Your new ad will only take over if it starts getting more click throughs than your other ad.

Also, while this new ad is in the testing phase, it will generally cost less per click while it has a lower click through rate.

Why?

I find that whenever this happens, it usually turns out to be a short term thing. While people are experimenting with their ads, Google charges reasonably random rates for cost per click based on the position they place you in.

It’s quite likely that new ads are shown at a relatively lower position – number 8 for instance – so the cost per click is a lot lower. However, if I decided to run this ad in the long term, the cost per click would become a lot higher.

I should note here that this is an extremely short split test. Normally I don’t draw conclusions on the results of my split test until I’ve seen 100 clicks on the lesser performing ads.

Let’s move on now to the second part of this lesson on Google adsense.

Google Adsense

What is the difference between Google Adwords and Google Adsense?

This is the first question most people ask me!

Google Adwords are the sponsored links that appear down the right-hand side of the page beside the organic search listings:

For example, the above site is www.dogbreedinfo.com. The creator of this site is making money from running Google ads on their website. Whenever someone clicks on one of these ads, they earn money.

How do you get Adsense on your site?

It’s very easy to get Google ads placed on your site. You simply fill out a form to apply, and Google will places ads on your site. We’ll go into this a bit more further along in the lesson.

Google automatically places ads on your site after you sign up. You don’t choose the ads that are placed on the site, rather, Google selects ads to be shown on your site based on the site’s content.

Thus it’s very important to have relevant meta tags on your site, along with an appropriate title

There are also three other factors that influence Google’s ad choice:

1. The sites that are linking to your website. These have a partial influence over the ads shown, so it’s vital that you are linked to relevant sites.

2. The sites that you link to. Make sure that the sites you link to are relevant to the topic of your site to help ensure appropriate ads are shown on your site.

3. Keywords in your page. The keywords on your page also have an influence. Make sure appropriate keywords appear in your content.

Take a look at another example of a site with Adsense now.

Go to: http://www.lovetest.com.

This site has a variety of ads. As you can see, they have matched the color-scheme of their ads to their site – look at the ads along the top of the screen for instance. They blend in so well, they hardly look like ads. This is a great tip for getting more clickthroughs! Split tests show that Adsense ads that look more like content than ads get a lot more click throughs.

To set up Adsense on your site….

You’ve got to have a website. If you don’t have a site and are unsure how to to put one together, then watch my video tutorials on making your own website.

Then, once your website is ready to go, type http://www.adsense.google.com into your browser.

A form appears that you must fill out to apply. It’s very straight forward. All it requires is the address of your website and some personal information.

When this is completed, you’ll receive a login with a link and code that you copy and paste into your website.

And that’s all there is to it! You can start promoting Google Adsense straight away.

Watch Adsense’s tutorials on designing your ads to fit the background and style of your website. It’s incredibly easy to do, but ads that fit into your site work much better than those that stand out as ads.

Want to know a way of increasing your earnings from Adsense by an astounding 40%?

Have a look at the site www.languageimmersioncourses.com.

What do you notice about the Adsense ads here?

That’s right! They’ve got a small image above them.

This was an incredibly quick site to make. All it is, is a directory of language immersion sites (a very popular search term in Google). We make money from this site whenever people click on our ads.

And guess what? We noticed an astounding thing when we added images to our site. Our clickthroughs increased by 40% just like that!

Wow!

I bet you’re wondering how you can do that too!

It’s very simple. All you have to do is find some appropriate graphics to place in your website above your ads.

Remember that Google shows a variety of ads, and you can’t guarantee that the same ad will show in the same place each time. What you need to do then is find some images that are generic enough to match the variety of ads Google might place on your site. But at the same time, they must be specific enough to look relevant.

Let me tell you about yet another way to make money with Adsense ads.

The site www.salehoo.com has come up with an ingenious way of generating revenue from Adsense.

They have placed ads in the content of their site – but with a difference. This is not just any old free site. Nope. This is the members area!

The people viewing these ads have already purchased Salehoo when they see these ads. But because the ads are so effectively integrated into the page, they look useful and interesting – rather than blatant advertising. Incredibly, they work very well.

Salehoo is a fantastic product, it’s all about making money from reselling wholesale goods online and it’s packed full of great information. It also taps into a huge demand from people wanting to learn how to make money online.

So, if you have your own product, why not include a couple of Adsense ads in the member’s area? The ads should be subtle so that you don’t oversell the products.

You may have noticed that the images used in both Salehoo and Language Immersion Courses are cartoons.

We are lucky enough to have our own cartoonist on staff that draws these ads for us. However, you don’t have to have your own graphic designer to get images.

All you have to do is go to Elance.com where you’ll be able to hire people to draw cartoons and other images for you for approximately $10 an image.

Alternatively, you can find images from online sources such as clipart.com or istockphoto.com. Istockphotos charges $1 per photo, and the images you can find here will be perfectly sufficient.

The main thing you need to do once you’ve got your photo is crop to fit the ad size and cut it out so that it blends with the background of your site.

Photographs and cartoons have worked equally well for me, there doesn’t seem to be any difference in click through rate.

Do you need to put keywords in your image so that Google can read it?

In my experience, naming your image appropriately with image alt text doesn’t seem to make much difference, although you can test this for yourself if you want to.

Now, I’ve got heaps of other tips and tricks for Adsense.

I’ll tell you about one more in this lesson, but to find out the rest, you’ll need to read the main Affilorama course.

The main way of making money from Adsense is to make sites around products that people pay of lot of money to advertise.

Google doesn’t actually tell you what percentage of the clickthrough amount you make whenever someone clicks Adsense ads showing on your site, but it’s believed to be around 50%.

So, if people are paying around $1 per ad, then you receive around 50 cents per click.

A lot of people will build their sites around topics where people are only bidding 10 cents per click – such as dating sites for instance. However, the best sites – the ones you should be after! – are around topics like related to business and parallel importing. The really hot topics! These usually generate between 50 cents and $1 per click.

But how do you find these hot topics?

While there’s no way of finding out the exact amounts that people are paying for the top ads, you can find an estimate by looking at Overture.

For example, go to Overture.com and type in Spanish Immersion Courses.

Then click on the ‘Sponsored Listing’ link for the top listing.

A small pop up box will appear. Click on the link for the View Bids Tool.

Enter your search phrase again – i.e ‘Spanish Immersion Courses – and then enter the security code. This code is to protect against automated spiders doing thousands of searches and collating data.

A box will then appear, and I can see that the top advertiser is paying $1.95 for Spanish Immersion.

From this information, I can see that I’ll get approximately $1 every time someone clicks on an Adsense ad for Spanish Immersion courses.

I must emphasize that Overture is not related to Google, but its advertising system is very similar. Overture is the advertising mechanism for Yahoo, and it can provide a good estimate for Google search terms as well. There is no other site that competes as well with Google as Overture.

I’ll be talking a lot more about Overture in the paid members area.

What sort of topics should you be building sites for?

To start with, do some research by typing search terms into Overture and using the method I’ve just shown you to find top search terms.

Another great way of finding topics is to visit eBay or Yahoo Business. Use the categories to give you an idea of popular search terms for a number of different topics.

As might have guessed, you can also make money from Yahoo search marketing (Overture). But to find out about that, you’ll have to go into the Affilorama paid members area.

In the next lesson, the final part of the 6 Part Mini Course, we’ll be looking at how to make piles of cash by giving stuff away for free online. You won’t believe it until you see it for yourself! This technique is one of the best ways of marketing and I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

See you then!

Mark Ling

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