Just don't seem to make money with Adsense on this site

[robobobo]

Hey Guys,

I've got this site - Tech Hints, Tips, Guides, Reviews and Discussion - Techinfo-4u | Techinfo-4u is your number one resource for tech hints,tips,guides,reviews,discussion and even more tech stuff which is doing ok with visitor hits - I get a couple of hundred a day, I've got people commenting on posts etc.. and lots guest posts being submitted

But for some reason I can barely make a penny off it with adsense, there's several days where I make nothing what so ever, I generally end up with about 20 quid at the end of the month from it

Now I had another site - similar niche and I was getting a lot more than that from it, even when it had less traffic,

I've recently changed the site layout and all the ad positions but still there's very very few clicks

Anyone got any ideas? Or all my readers using adblockers or something!

Thanks

[mmickeals]

Hello Robo,

There are several things that come to mind about your poor CTR after reviewing your site. I saw ads for the following appear

• Top 5 Cloud Computing See Our List Of The Top 5 Consumer- Rated Cloud Computing Providers! K7Cloud.com
• Nasuni Cloud Servers: Nasuni is the secure way to use the cloud of your choice. Free trial
  Nasuni.com/Cloud_System
  
• Samsung k-12 technology: Samsung Introduces New Classroom Products. The Future Of Education!
  

To get high CTR, you need to drive targeting buying traffic to your site. I imagine that someone who is coming to your site is not targeted to the above ads. Also, your traffic may not be buying traffic.

Also, the ads themselves are not placed in the generally accepted best positions. For reference, look for a website heatmap. You will find that the top left is the "hottest" spot on a webpage, and is where website visitors will first look when they view your site. You do have a small skyscraper block close to this position. I would test a different theme, that allowed you to move this block more to the upper left. I would also test a wider block here to see if there is improvement.

You also have an ad block on the bottom right. This is the worst location to place it. Also, it is only visible on your home page. My preference is to place an ad block underneath the category navigation bar on the top. I generally see high click through rates in this location, though PPC tends to be lower. All a trade off to see what works best for your site.

While I have been writing this post, I have also been reviewing your site, and a couple of other things jump out to me too. In regards to the ad blocks, you are wasting a precious opportunity by only including a single skyscraper ad on the post pages. Try to include a block within the article yourself. This is a dramatic way to increase clicks.

And finally, the biggest thing that comes to mind is that most of your traffic is likely bot driven or is traffic looking for blog comment backlinks. In the print your photos article, you have 5 comments. To my eye, all five comments are what I would consider link spam. 2/5 look to have been placed manually, where the poster at least read through your article for the comment. THe other 3 were most likely placed by auto backlinking software. This could be a major reason you are seeing poor CTR's. It is hard to get a high CTR when alot of your traffic is just coming to your site to build links.

[robobobo]

Thanks so much for your detailed reply mmickeals

I agree with you that the left hand side is the best spot for ads alright.

The reason I had an ad half way down the page on the right was so that I could have my social media (twitter,facebook etc..) above it to try and build my subscriber base - I've moved the ad up to the top now

Also I only have that showing on the homepage because I can't show it on my posts as I would be breaching google's tos - I actually have another ad in the post which you must have missed. It was half way down the post in the content, but I've moved it up to the top now. Then I also have the banner in my header on every page which you must have missed too

I might try a wider skyscraper on the left column and see how that does.

Also personally I think that the image only ads look better on sites, but I read recently that you get better ctr with image and text ads enabled, what's your view on this?

Finally, I'd agree with you that I do get a couple of people who just come for comments and back links, and I generally do remove the spammy ones

thanks again for your detailed review

[mmickeals]

I agree that the image ads look better, but looks are not what matter. Money speaks in this business. In my experience, I get more clicks by mixing images and text ads. Testing is important here because generally image ads will pay more per click. So it becomes a game of which method pays more. I will tell you that 90%+ of my adsense sites use both text and image.

I took another look at your site as well. Sorry about missing the blocks. It was a quick look through. But right now it looks much better. I imagine that your CTR should increase with the changes you have made. I would be interested in hearing if you do notice an increase, and how much of an increase it is.

At this point, the only major recommendation I can offer is to play with the ad settings in your adsense account. On the home page, I got an ad for a gold plated cell phone, an ad for cloud server storage, and an ad for an auction site. It is up to you to decide if these ads target your traffic correctly.

Before the changes that were made, I would estimate that you were recieving a CTR of around 0.5%. With the current layout, I would not be suprised if you were getting around 1-2%. By optimizing the ads for your traffic, you should potentially achieve around a 3-5% CTR. Also, the ads that are currently being served should yield a much higher amount of money per click.

As far as the social media vs ad block, it really becomes a question of what is more important to you. Whichever you place on top, will yield a higher conversion rate. I suppose that this is more of an individual preference, and depends upon your goals for the site.

Good luck, and feel free to let me know how the site performs going forward

[lovboa]

Try changing to image ads for a while and see how it works out.

I don't think anybody said that image and text ads will get you a higher ctr. I think I know which thread you are talking about...and the discussion was that it increased his cost per click (cpc)...what it seems you need right now is a higher click through rate so changing to image only ads could really help you.

[WealthWithin]

The problem is not with the site. It's with the niche. Tech sites don't convert well with adsense. (I know because I used to have one).

Analytics will be able to answer you on this.

Look at the keywords in your Analytics. If they're mostly informational (eg. 'how to fix abc', 'will steve jobs resign' etc.) They're most likely college kids looking for information.

Also looking at the fackbook fans, it seems to most of the audiance is from India. (again, analytics will tell this is right or not). To get better clicks, you need traffic from 'buying' countries.

To fix this:
Target product or service related keywords that buyers use. Think of terms that are searched by CEOs, Purchasing managers etc.

And image ads - they don't get high CTR. They get high CPC. Try text only ads for a while, and try blend-in/contrasting ad colors.

[adsenselive]

I would advise using the "Competitive Ad Filter" I use this at least once a week on my main 3 sites, eliminate any ad urls that are nothing to do with your content - such as the "Peppa Pig World"(It's a new kids attraction near me) ads that were showing when I visited. I do find this helps.

Part of the other problem is that whilst your site is very good - look & content, you discuss a lot of different topics and hence this will cause the adsense bot to be confused as to what ads to service you with, and this almost certainly at the heart of the issue (An example would be a blog solely on heart disease would be likely to pull up more targetted ads, as a result of a more specific subject base). The only thing I could suggest would be using the ad filter, and upping the keyword ratio in each article, which should help.

Try the filter first as it's free to use and is good practice to do so, although not widely used it really will up the CTR when used regularly to eliminate the junk.
hope this helps you and others

[robobobo]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

The problem is not with the site. It's with the niche. Tech sites don't convert well with adsense. (I know because I used to have one).

Analytics will be able to answer you on this.

Look at the keywords in your Analytics. If they're mostly informational (eg. 'how to fix abc', 'will steve jobs resign' etc.) They're most likely college kids looking for information.

Also looking at the fackbook fans, it seems to most of the audiance is from India. (again, analytics will tell this is right or not). To get better clicks, you need traffic from 'buying' countries.

To fix this:
Target product or service related keywords that buyers use. Think of terms that are searched by CEOs, Purchasing managers etc.

And image ads - they don't get high CTR. They get high CPC. Try text only ads for a while, and try blend-in/contrasting ad colors.

Thanks for your reply

Yes it's true I seem to have a large following from India alright -my top countries are as follows

1. USA
2. UK
3. India

and then my top search terms
1. why do people buy macs
2. 3d
3. htc sensation tips and tricks
4. do i need a tablet pc
5. google chrome tips
6. lightweight laptops 2011
7. 3d glasses
8. 3d pictures
9. 3d images
10. htc sensation tips
11. gmail tips and tricks 2011

I've swapped back to text and image ads again as I think sometimes having 3 images shown at once is a bit overwhelming for the user, and hopefully there's higher ctr with them

But I think ultimately I need to target my site more,

Also I want to get rid of these annoying cloud computing ads, but in adsene the only option I can see is to enter the url of the ad that I don't want, but I can't get the url unless I click it, and that's against google's tos and I'm not risking my account for it

anyone any suggestions? there doesn't seem to be a cloud computing section in adsense

[blue5]

You got all the answers, but I must admit your blog is great. I like your design

[WealthWithin]

Originally Posted by robobobo

and then my top search terms
1. why do people buy macs
2. 3d
3. htc sensation tips and tricks
4. do i need a tablet pc
5. google chrome tips
6. lightweight laptops 2011
7. 3d glasses
8. 3d pictures
9. 3d images
10. htc sensation tips
11. gmail tips and tricks 2011

Out of all these keywords, the only ones I can see with any commercial value are,
6. lightweight laptops 2011
7. 3d glasses

I suggest they you try targeting some terms such as 3d television, top 10 3d tvs, best laptops 2011/2012, buy lightweight laptops, discount lightweight laptops etc.

Also hook your adsense to analytics, so you can find which keywords are making you money.

For informational keywords such as 'tips/info/how to', I've found amazon books (hand picked recommendations) convert better than Adsense.

[That Guy]

I've noticed that one of my sites can get some pretty decent traffic but I can't seem to be able to get clicks. The niche can also determine the kind of CTR you're getting so always keep that in mind.

[owenlee]

have you tried changing the ads to text only because what i see is image..test out the conversion..