How to Avoid Smart Pricing?

[vema123]

I've a site targeting on quite expensive keywords in it (around $8/click), yet I still get 'not so expensive' PPC (around 0.03 or so). What could be the problem? Is it due to smart pricing? If it is, how should I do to avoid smart pricing?

[The Expert]

I've been reading up on Adsense quite a bit and here are a few things that stuck in my mind:

1) Content - you need lots of content on your site...esp if it's new. 4 or 5 pages is not going to be enough to cut it.

There is a lot of other stuff on each page other than in your title tags and targeted keywords. This means that the search engines can be "confused" as to what your site is about which will cause them to mismatch your ads. If there is not enough content at all to make any type of decision they might just serve up Public Service ads until they can gather more info about your site.

As you build your content, make sure that it all relates to your main keyword. Write your content for the search engines...at least in the beginning. Find out what the "related" keywords to yours are using a tool like Market Samurai. Weave a bunch of those terms into your content as you create it. Make sure your keyword phrase is in the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Bold either this first or last instance of your keyword.

2) Legitimize Your Site - high quality sites have certain things in common for the most part and Google expects to see this stuff from reputable sites. So make sure you have a Contact page, a Privacy Policy Page (required by Adsense TOS anyway), and if possible, a Sitemap because "good ol' boy" sites tend to have these things. Put links to these three things in the footer of your site...or at least the homepage and do NOT NoFollow them.

3) Write Long-Form Content - I read about this from Grizz. He found that long-form content which is composed of articles 1,800 words or more with a sprinkling of SEO'd images mixed in tends to be smiled upon by Google both for adsense and SEO purposes.

As you can see, all of these things pretty much basic SEO principles. If you optimize your site to the max the Adsense side of things tends to fall in line.

Also, remember that your content is not the only thing that Google takes into account when dishing up Adsense impressions. It might not even be the primary thing they take into consideration. They also base Adsense performance on the visitor's pattern of action.

If your site is about Mesothelioma (which is reported to average just under $100 p/click!) but your visitor arrived at your site because something on one of your articles related to his search for "lung photos" and he clicked your Adsense add, don't expect to get paid out on the Mesothelioma keyword because that was not what the visitor was looking for when he arrived at your site which would translate into a poor conversion possibility for the advertiser once the visitor jumped from your site to the advertiser's.

[vema123]

Originally Posted by The Expert

I've been reading up on Adsense quite a bit and here are a few things that stuck in my mind:

1) Content - you need lots of content on your site...esp if it's new. 4 or 5 pages is not going to be enough to cut it.

There is a lot of other stuff on each page other than in your title tags and targeted keywords. This means that the search engines can be "confused" as to what your site is about which will cause them to mismatch your ads. If there is not enough content at all to make any type of decision they might just serve up Public Service ads until they can gather more info about your site.

As you build your content, make sure that it all relates to your main keyword. Write your content for the search engines...at least in the beginning. Find out what the "related" keywords to yours are using a tool like Market Samurai. Weave a bunch of those terms into your content as you create it. Make sure your keyword phrase is in the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Bold either this first or last instance of your keyword.

2) Legitimize Your Site - high quality sites have certain things in common for the most part and Google expects to see this stuff from reputable sites. So make sure you have a Contact page, a Privacy Policy Page (required by Adsense TOS anyway), and if possible, a Sitemap because "good ol' boy" sites tend to have these things. Put links to these three things in the footer of your site...or at least the homepage and do NOT NoFollow them.

3) Write Long-Form Content - I read about this from Grizz. He found that long-form content which is composed of articles 1,800 words or more with a sprinkling of SEO'd images mixed in tends to be smiled upon by Google both for adsense and SEO purposes.

As you can see, all of these things pretty much basic SEO principles. If you optimize your site to the max the Adsense side of things tends to fall in line.

Also, remember that your content is not the only thing that Google takes into account when dishing up Adsense impressions. It might not even be the primary thing they take into consideration. They also base Adsense performance on the visitor's pattern of action.

If your site is about Mesothelioma (which is reported to average just under $100 p/click!) but your visitor arrived at your site because something on one of your articles related to his search for "lung photos" and he clicked your Adsense add, don't expect to get paid out on the Mesothelioma keyword because that was not what the visitor was looking for when he arrived at your site which would translate into a poor conversion possibility for the advertiser once the visitor jumped from your site to the advertiser's.

Wow! Thank you so much for this useful tip. This is really new for a newbie like me. thank you