Google Adsense & Beyond

Adsense Custom and URL Channels can double your income

2009-07-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

Adsense Channels explained

Adsense Channels is a way to keep track of how individual ad units are performing on your site or blog. This tracking of individual ad units is extremely important in Adsense Optimization simply because unless you know what is performing and how, how will you improve the performance? Adsense Channels for content come in two varieties.

Adsense Custom Channels - These are used to track performance of individual Adsense ad units.
Adsense URL Channels - These are used to track performance of a single page of your site or blog.

There are also Channels for Custom Search and Feeds which will be discussed in the post below.

Both these Channel concepts are discussed in detail below. If you feel your Adsense income is not that great, then spare a few minutes to read this article. Using Channels to Optimize could double or even triple your Adsense Income in a couple of days.

Adsense Custom Channels

You can think of Adsense Custom Channel as a label which you can attach to one or more Adsense Ad units. The benefit of attaching these 'labels' or channels is that later on you can view Adsense earnings reports for particular labels and that lets you understand how individual Ad units are performing. You can attach multiple (up to 5) channels to a single Ad units and you can also attach a given Adsense Custom Channel to multiple Ad units. This allows you great flexibility to test your Adsense performance. The best way to learn about Adsense Channels is to start by creating one. Creating Adsense Custom Channels is easy. Whenever you create a new Ad unit, or try to edit an existing Ad unit, Adsense will eventually take you to a page which looks like the following.
Now, to attach a Custom Channel to this Ad unit, simply select from the list of Channels that is displayed. If you have not created any Custom Channel yet, or would like to create a new channel, click on Add new Channel to create a new Custom Channel. It is advisable to choose a name which will tell you more about what that Channel describes. For example, my GA-RectPostTop above is a Channel which I have attached to the top left rectangle on this page.

Adsense URL Channels

URL Channels don't track individual ad units, but they tell you how a particular page of set of pages is doing. Creating URL Channels is even easier. Simply do the following.

Click on Adsense Setup
Click on Channels
Under Adsense for Content you will see Custom Channels and URL Channels. Click on URL Channels.
Click on Add new URL Channels. You will be on a page which looks something like the image below.
Then simply copy paste the URL for which you want to create URL Channel.

Remarks: Adsense URL Channels can be created not just for single pages but also for domains. For example, in the above image you will notice that I have a URL channel niftyprediction.blogspot.com. This URL channel lets me keep track of earnings on all pages which are in my blog niftyprediction.blogspot.com. Similarly Hubpages.com. However the third URL channel is for a particular single page. Get the idea? if not, ask in a comment.

How I use Adsense Channels?

Take a look at my sample page on Web hosting for example. Every page on my main blog has three ad units.

Wide rectangle on the top left.
Wide Skyscraper on the right.
Wide rectangle on the post bottom.

I have created one Custom Channel for each of the above Adsense Unit. I can easily go to Advanced Reports Tab in my Adsense account and run a report to see performance of these Ad units. (click image to enlarge report).
Earlier I have tried even more type of ad units, and after a lot of experimenting with them by using Channels, I have found that this combination works best for me. I have also found that text ads work best for me than image ads. Coming to this conclusions would have been impossible without the use of Custom Channels to test each Adsense unit thoroughly one-by-one. I also use Adsense URL channels to see how some of my individual articles are doing and that helps me understand which articles are best in terms of revenue etc.

Adsense Channels for Custom Search and Feeds

You can also create Adsense channels for your Custom Search units or for the RSS feeds that you have monetized. Usually one does not deal with several custom search units or several feeds. So managing channels for these is rarely necessary. If in case the need arises, go to Adsense Setup -> Channels. Then click on Adsense for Feeds or Adsense for Search.

3 SEO secrets - Keyword Density, Links & guess what...

2009-07-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization for you !

Almost every article among the past 250 to 300 articles I have written on my main blog, I have tried to use almost all textbook tips and tricks of Search Engine Optimization. Some tips worked. Most of them didn't. This post is a summary of my experience. It contains a list of three simple SEO Tips (or secrets?) which I think are sure-fire way to your success to achieving more traffic for your website or Blog.

If you are new to SEO, then grab an easy chair and invest a couple of minutes reading this article on Search Engine Optimization. The SEO tips and explanations mentioned below may work wonders for your Blog or Website traffic.

3 effective SEO tips

I like to think of Search Engine Optimization as the art of writing an article in order to achieve the following three goals.

SEO TIP 1: Impress the Search Engine Crawlers - When a web crawler visits your blog or website, it scans your post to find out what it is about. Some of the important things that are analyzed are - (a) Your Page Title (b) The keywords appearing on your page (c)The links appearing on your page (both internal and external). Scroll down for details on how to master these three factors.
SEO TIP 2: Impress the Web Community - Whenever your article or page is found useful by other bloggers or webmasters, it often receives links, sometimes called backlinks. Details of backlinks discussed below.
SEO TIP 3: Impress your Site Visitors - Although this is mentioned as the third goal, this is increasingly becoming the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization. Search Engines like Google have a number of parameters of indicators which actually show whether users find your website or blog useful. It is very important to pay attention to these parameters discussed below.

Below is a step by step explanation of the terms appearing in the above mentioned SEO tips.

Title, Keyword Density, Links

Here are some quick SEO tips related to these three factors. The tips are self explanatory.

Before writing an article try to think of main keywords about which this article is going to be about. Try to think of keywords which people might actually use while they perform a Google search. The following websites are extremely helpful in getting keyword ideas : Google Adwords Traffic Tool, Google Adwords keywords ideas, Google Insights for Search.
Use two to five most important keywords in your title. Avoid unnecessary repetitions or over-stuffing of keywords though. Also try to make the title attractive and something which will arouse curiosity.
Tastefully sprinkle the main keywords throughout your post. Repetition is very important but so is taking care not to irritate your users or make it sound artificial. Overdoing it may cause your article to be considered as a Spam. This skill of achieving the right keyword density is achieved by practice and experience and it is hard to acquire it overnight.
Link to your own previous articles as much as you can. I would say minimum 3 to 6 links to your own posts plus preferably 2 or 3 external highly related links (not necessarily links discussing the exact keyword, but a related one).
When you display images on your post (try to put at least one image if possible), make sure you alter the Alt and title tags of that image. The tags must use one of the main keywords your article is about.

Backlinks and Page Rank

In the early days, search engines used to give a lot of importance to backlinks, i.e. the number of links which link to your page. Also important factors about backlinks were

1. Type of backlink - whether it is a one-way-link or a two way link exchange. One way links are more valuable.
2. The relevance and importance of the page that links to you. For a e.g. a link from BBC would be more important than a link from a blog which is two days old.
3. The anchor text which is used to link to your page. If the anchor text uses one of the keywords (rather than just something like 'click here' or 'this page'), then it counts more.

All the above data about backlinks to your page can be simplified and summarized in one single number called the Page Rank. You can read more about it on What is Google Page Rank. However there are some warnings I must state.

1. Backlinks are vulnerable to abuse. You can easily pay cash to get some. Thus Search Engines are playing lesser and lesser importance on backlinks these days. Indeed, if you engage in some unethical practices you might even be penalized by Google.
2. Backlinks is something which you need not worry about while writing the article. If you write a good content rich article, backlinks will follow automatically.
3. There is increasing evidence that Page Rank has less and less to do with actual Search Engine ranking. For example, the page rank of my main blog once suddenly dropped from 3 to zero. However my traffic did not decrease. On the contrary it was on the rise. So don't stress yourself too much thinking about improving your Page Rank. It is important for some other purposes which will be discussed in a later post.

Bounce Rate and Visitor Experience

This is the third but nowadays, in my opinion, one of the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization. Don't forget that the ultimate goal of Search engines like Google is to make sure that pages that appear on its search are actually useful for the users or visitors. That is why its complex search engine algorithm, which already takes into account over 200 factors, is every evolving. For example if lot of visitors, after visiting your website immediately hit the "back Button" of their browser and perform the search again, then it will negatively affect your Search Engine Ranking no matter how much effort you put into selecting keywords and getting the right keyword density. A related number is Bounce Rate. This is the percentage of visitors which exit your site by viewing just one page to the total number of your site visitors. The lower the bounce rate, the better. Bounce rate of less than 40% is awesome and anything over 70% is worrying. Don't worry about bounce rate too much while actually writing your article. However Keep in mind the following goals when you write an article.

Provide Actual Information or Content which is promised by the title of your article. Otherwise most visitors are sure to bounce off your site within the first few seconds.
Provide other useful links (external and internal) so that if a visitor doesn't find what he/she is looking for on your page, he/she may find it on the links provided by you.
Encourage your visitors to spend as much time on your web page as possible. This is extremely important.

Google always says that you should always indulge in only those SEO methods which are actually useful for your visitors. It has a lot of sense to it, not for being ethical or some such nonsense, but simply because it is Google. Some day they are going to find out if your post is useful and give it a Search engine ranking which it actually deserves.

SEO Softwares and Services

There are various paid SEO softwares and services available on the internet. Pretty much a lot of them typically will cost you hundreds of dollars on a monthly basis. The question is are SEO softwares and services really worth the money they charge? The answer depends on the service or software in question of course, but my advice to you is that don't spend money immediately on SEO Softwares and Search Engine Marketing services about which you do not know much. First try the simple 3 SEO tips mentioned above and see if it makes sense.

If you have already tried your hands on some Search Engine Optimization techniques, then don't forget to share your own valuable thoughts and experience in a comment.

How to Pay Income Tax on your Adsense Income in India?

2009-07-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

When you receive your first check from Google Inc. prepare your heart to give away a hefty percentage of it in Income Tax. Yes, I know it hurts. I recently got a check of $3222 (Rs. 1.55 lac) and given the tax situation that I am in, I have to pay over $1000 (Rs. 50K) of it in taxes. Thats life ! In this post I will outline what I have found regarding paying your Income tax on Adsense Income, especially in India.

No matter where you are located, I think there are no clear tax rules specially meant for blogging income. You can either show it as an income from a profession or small business (in United States) or show it as a personal income from other sources. All I will say about paying taxes on Adsense income in United States is that making your blogging a 'small business' has tax advantages.

Ok, now back to the point. Income Tax on Adsense Income in India. Here is what you need to know.

Income from Profession or Income from Other sources? You can either declare your Adsense income as an income from a profession (fill ITR-4 in this case) or income from other sources (fill ITR-2, unless you have to fill ITR-3 or ITR-4 for other reasons). I do not think of my blogging activities as a profession, so I am going to stick to ITR-2, although I have been told it is better to declare it as a profession. Better in what sense? I have no idea.
Pay Advance taxes: Adsense income is not exactly predictable. However you will have to pay Advance taxes. You can pay them online. The deadlines for non-corporates to file advance taxes are as follows :
On or before the 15th September Not less than 30% of your income tax.

On or before the 15th December Not less than 60% of such advance tax, as reduced by the amount, if any, paid in the earlier installment.

On or before the 15th March The whole amount of such advance tax as reduced by the amount or amounts, if any, paid in the earlier installment or installments:
Depending on your preference, you may want to pay a little bit of more advance tax in order to avoid fines and interest or you may want to avoid paying excess tax and if required pay interest/fines on it.
Auditing of Adsense Income : If you are earn over Rs. 10 lac in a year in Adsense and are showing it as a profession, you will have get an Audit done by a Charted Accountant. If you are showing it as income from other sources, I have no idea if Auditing is required. I am in the process of finding out and will update this post as soon as reliable information is available.

Good Luck with your Taxes !

Adsense CTR, CPC, eCPM and their Average values

2009-07-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Adsense Earnings reporting variables

If you do not know about any of the following Adsense reporting variables or want to have more information click on it. Otherwise simply proceed to read about their average values.

Many visitors come here from Google to find average values of CTR, CPC, eCPM.

Average values of CTR, CPC, eCPM?

there are two reasons why average values of CTR, CPC and eCPM are difficult to find. The main reason is that Adsense Terms and Conditions prohibits publishers from disclosing details of their Adsense revenue like CTR, CPC, eCPM. Thus, if I disclose mine, then I may get penalized by Google. Another reason is that these variables vary a lot and it is either difficult to find a global average. In any case let me point you to some of the resources on the Internet which can help you find the average values.

Average CPC : The average Cost Per Click for a Google Adsense Ad varies a lot from keyword to keyword and it does not make much sense to take average over all the keywords. For example, the average CPC for a keyword like Web hosting or Credit Cards is around $10 but for a keyword like 'Adsense CTR' is only around $2. The average values of CPC can be found on the Google Adwords Traffic Estimate. You can also find average values for keywords for clicks from a particular country. What i find best is that you can also get an estimate for a total number of clicks that take place for a particular keyword. However I would like to mention one Warning : New Adsense publishers or those who'se website's or blog's niche does not match well with the keyword may see a significantly lower average CPC than what will be found on the above mentioned Adwords Tool mainly due to Adsense smart pricing.
Average CTR : This is bit more tricky because the answer varies a lot. Remember that visitors coming from Search engines are much more likely to click on Ads than your regular visitors. Thus the average CTR may be significantly higher if a lot of visitors come directly from Google or Yahoo. Problogger believes that the average value of Adsense CTR lies somewhere between 2% to 5%.
Average eCPM of CPM: eCPM is directly related to average CTR and average CPC by the simple formula
Average eCPM = Avg. CTR x Average CPC x 10
For example if Average CPC is $1, Average CTR is 2%, then Average eCPM will be $20.

Adsense CTR

CTR stands for Click Through Rate. This is a number which will tell you how many visitors who view your pages actually click on ads. To be precise, it is the average number of clicks received per 100 page impressions. Note that CTR of a page is the sum total of CTR of all the Adsense Ad units on that page. For example if on a page you have one skyscraper with CTR 0.5%, two medium rectangles with CTR 1.5% each and one link unit with CTR 0.5%, then the total CTR of that page is the sum total of the CTR of all the ad units, i.e. 0.5% + 1.5% + 1.5% + 0.5% = 4%. Adsense CTR is perhaps the best quick measure to see how your Google ads are performing.

Adsense CPC

CPC stands for Cost Per Click. It is the cost which the advertisers are willing to pay (through Google Adwords) for one click. From the publishers point of view, CPC is the Cost that a Google pays the publisher for a click. Note that Google keeps about 25% of the money that they get from advertisers. So the CPC that publishers see is about 25% less than the CPC which Google sees. Cost per click can vary a lot depending on several factors. Some keywords have a very high CPC. You can use Google Adwords tool to find the average CPC for a particular keyword. This Google Adwords tool is quite useful, but in my experience, new publishers see CPC which is significantly less than the average that is seen on the above Adwords tool.

Adsense eCPM (or CPM)

Adsense eCPM of a page (or an ad unit) is the average money you make per 1000 per impressions. Thus if a particular page receives 2000 views and you earn $25 from the clicks and impressions you receive on Google Ads, then the Adsense eCPM of that page is $25/2500x1000 = $12.5.
Further Reading: Adsense eCPM : What is it exactly?

Adsense Terms and Conditions TOC - Avoid getting banned

2009-07-20T02:38:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense has a list of Adsense Terms and Conditions, referred to as Adsense TOC for short, which every publisher must be aware of. Remember that Google is very strict when it finds out violations of its TOC or unethical practices, it will ban the user forever. Not only your account will be banned but you will not be able to reapply to the Adsense program ever, in your lifetime !. Since Adsense is perhaps the best revenue option for small publishers, pay attention to the following Adsense TOC and avoid getting banned. Below are only some of the key points of Adsense Terms and Conditions as I understand them. Refer to Adsense Terms and Conditions for a complete list.

Never Click on your own Adsense Ads for any reason - period. A couple of accidental clicks may be excused by adsense, but it is better to use Firefox add ons like Adblock Plus to avoid accidental clicks completely and try to maintain your Adsense account in good standing.
Never encourage your visitors to click on Ads in any direct or indirect way. This includes writing messages like 'Please Click' or indirectly deceiving your visitors by trying to project ads as the content or other useful links OR trying to draw visitor's attention to Adsense Ads by using images and gimmicks.
Source of Traffic: Your Adsense account may get banned if Ads are displayed on pages which receive traffic of certain type like paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, click-exchange programs, etc. You have to be careful if you are using some advertising network to drive traffic to your website which contains Adsense code. This is allowed only if your webpage complies with Google's landing page quality guidelines. More about this in a later post.
Website Content. Never place Adsense code on sites which contain illegal or adult content or content related to casinos, gambling etc.
No Adsense ads in Popups/Emails. Never place Adsense code in a popup or an email. If you have popups on your site, then it is better not to use Adsense on it at all if possible.
Do not tamper with Adsense code or the manner in which it is displayed on a webpage. Never ever tamper with Adsense javascript code for any reason whatsoever. This includes not placing adsense code in other javascript codes, or not overwriting or tampering with the display or Adsense ads. However, parsing Adsense code for placing it in the XML template of your blog is allowed. You can use Adsense parser for this purpose.
Adsense with Other Ads like Adbrite, Bidvertiser, etc. : You have to be careful while using Adsense Ads together with other advertising networks like Adbrite Bidvertiser. This is still lot of confusion about this especially because earlier Adsense did not allow placing its code on pages which contained other contextual ads. However, it nowadays Adsense does allow placement of its code with other Ads as long as the other ads look significantly different. For example if you are using an Adsense Skyscraper and an Adbrite Skyscraper with same color codes, then it is not allowed. Read problogger's post regarding adsense with other contextual ads. In my opinion, if there is need to place adsense with other ads, it is best to opt for Chitika. Chitika is definitely allowed with Adsense and moreover is perhaps the highest paying advertising network for small publishers other than Adsense.
Never disclose your Adsense Revenue Statistics: As an adsense publisher you may disclose your exact Adsense income. However you are not allowed to make other details like CTR, CPC, eCPM public. Be careful while writing blog posts on your Adsense income.

How much money can you earn using Adsense? Can you make a living?

2009-07-09T22:50:00.001-07:00

This is perhaps the most common questions that a new blogger or webmaster asks. There is no one answer which will fit all, but if you promise to take out 10 to 15 minutes and read this post carefully, I will try to give you a good idea of how much exactly can you earn using Google Adsense.

A quick answer

The top full time bloggers make over $10,000- $15,000 per month from their blogs. Of course, I don't want to say that their income is purely from Adsense, but I bet they certainly make over $10K using Adsense alone. But they are working full time. Most of us, like you and me would only like to blog as an extremely part time hobby.

My own Adsense Income
I myself make about ~~$1000 to $1500~~ $3000 per month from Adsense and remember that I am just an extremely part time blogger and my main income blog (not this one) is only ~~8 months~~ 9 months old !

So yes, certainly. People do make a living using Google Adsense revenue. In my opinion if you have a taste for blogging, it is realistically possible to make a couple of hundred dollars per month by spending about one hour every alternate day.

Caution... There is a big disclaimer to the above attractive claim. You have to remember the fact that hardly 1% of the people who want to make money online actually succeed in doing so. The reason ? they don't pay attention to traffic generation and adsense optimization, etc. Also new websites and blogs always tend to struggle for income perhaps because of various algorithms of google which also pay attention to the age of your website or blog. So do not expect an overnight income stream from adsense or otherwise. It takes times. If you work consistently, you should allows at least 6 months to see the results.

Now comes an even more interesting question. What does it take to actually make say a thousand dollars a month from Adsense? How big does your blog or website has to be?

The answer to this needs to be explained in detail. First note that there are two types of readers or visitors of your blog or website. The first type which are regular visitors, who know about your site or blog and who visit it frequently by directly arriving on your front page. And there is a second type of visitors who just bump into your site because they searched for something on Google or other search engine and they thought your page looked interesting. The first type of visitors click very less on Adsense Ads. The second type, the search engine visitors are those who actually are hungry for some information and are the most likely to click on Ads. These are the visitors who are most important for your adsense income. However, keep in mind that the first type of visitors are also important, maybe not so much for adsense, but perhaps affiliate marketing or getting direct advertisers etc. To get an even better idea of how much can you earn from your blog or website visit this post of problogger.

What is Google Adsense? (for beginners)

2009-07-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense is an Ad service owned by Google. If you own a website or have a blog, you can apply for the Adsense program. If approved, the Adsense program can be used to display Advertisements on your site or blog (for example the Ads on the left corner). Adsense helps you to make revenue from your website or blog. I myself make well over $1000 per month with Google Adsense program (at the time of writing this post). This introduction to Adsense will give a brief idea of how Adsense works and how you can use it to earn money from your blog or website.

The ads served by Google Adsense are either text, image or sometimes video ads. All ads fall in one of the following two categories.

CPC Ads - CPC stands for Cost Per Click. i.e. Webmasters get money whenever users click on the Ads. If visitors don't click, then you do not make any money.
CPM Ads - CPM stands for Cost per Impressions. These are ads where you can earn money whenever the webpage where the ad is displayed is viewed, irrespective of whether the visitors click it or not. The CPM is usually calculated as Cost per 1000 impressions.

Whether to show CPC or CPM Ads is a decision entirely made by Google Adsense. However, you as a webmaster have the option of choosing to show either only Text Ads or Image Ads or both. The Video Ads of Adsense technically fall in the category of Image Ads and there is no way to force Google to show only video ads. Interested in learning more about Adsense? Continue reading.

The best way to get a quick overview of Adsense is to take this Adsense tour designed by Google Adsense itself. Or you may watch the following Video (i think the tour better explains the ideas though). or continue reading.

Types of Ads

You can use Adsense to display the following types of Ads.

Adsense for Content: These are Google Ads which are displayed based on the content of the page on which they appear.
Adsense for Search: You can put a Google Custom Search button on your webpage which will allow your visitors to search for topics and articles. Once a search is carried out, Adsense Ads are shown on the top of search results. If the visitor clicks on those ads, you earn money.
Adsense for Feed: Ads which appear and help you monetize your site feed.
Adsense for domains: If you have a domain on which you have no content, but people visit it directly by typing the name of the domain name, then you can use Adsense for Domains which will display ads on this domain based on the name of that domain.

Adsense Revenue Share

Advertisers pay Google for displaying their Ads. Google keeps a share of the revenue and gives the remaining majority to the publishers. Although Google does not disclose how much revenue it shares with publishers, it is widely believed that Google keep about 22% and gives 78% to publishers.

About this Google Adsense Blog

2009-07-05T21:04:00.001-07:00

Google Adsense is by far the BEST way for small publishers to make Money. Google Ads are so useful that sometimes I have found they are even more relevant than the content of that page. I have myself discovered some very useful affiliate programs by clicking on Google Ads which I did not find in the content that easily. This is one reason why you should take Google Adsense very seriously.

Fortunately in the past 8 months I have seen a lot of success with Google Adsense on one of my Investment Blog. My daily income has jumped from less than a dollar to over $40 in just about 4 months time. This increase in revenue is not random luck but a series of systematic efforts and ethical tactics to not only get more traffic but to get more revenue from your existing traffic.

Currently I use only two ad networks on my Investment Blog. Google Adsense and Chitika. This blog is my attempt to share all what I have learned about making money using these ad networks. Remember that fine tuning your ads (adsense and/or otherwise) requires systematic experimenting. Thus a whole new blog is required to share all the experience I have gathered or is available on the net.