How To Make Money With Contextual Advertising
By: Danny Wirken
Introduction to Contextual Advertising
Recently, advertisers have come to realize the large potential of the Internet as a media when it comes to advertisements. Advertisers are especially interested in using contextual advertising since it delivers targeted ads to a more receptive target audience.
Contextual advertising is a type of online advertising used mostly for content-based websites. With contextual advertising a program or system automatically scans a webpage’s content for specific keywords or search strings and based on the results then returns targeted ads based on the page’s content.
Types of Contextual Advertising
There are three types of contextual advertising: the pop-up or pop-under ads, in-text contextual advertising, and inline contextual advertising. Many are familiar with pop-up ads because they have been around for quite sometime. Gator actually uses this kind of contextual advertising wherein a window with relevant a relevant ad for some product or service pops up while a user is reading a webpage. Pop-up ads are however considered to be not that effective for advertising since most users find them very irritating and so make use of pop-up blockers to disable the ads. The ads therefore don’t get seen by people and in cases where they get through pop-up blockers they are usually simply closed without really being noticed. In-text contextual advertising, offered by companies like VibrantMedia, is considered to be less irritating. They are ads that appear as special hyperlinks linking to actual contextual ads and are found throughout the entire article being read. They are not ostentatious at all since they are completely user activated and leaves to the users the choice of whether to click on the links to view the entire ads or not. The third kind of contextual advertising is called inline advertising. This type of advertising is the one used by Google’s AdSense and Overture’s ContentMatch. With inline advertising targeted ads are placed on the right side of the page under the label “Sponsored Links”. This type of advertising isn’t intrusive and webpage owners get paid on a per click basis. Advertisers who want to be top of the list need only to pay at a higher per click rate to be on top.
Contextual Advertising in its Early Days
Although it was only recently made popular by Google’s AdSense, contextual advertising has been around for a longer time. It has actually been around since 2001 when eZula released its TopText product. Gator also had a king of contextual advertising going on for a long time. Publishers and other website owners, however, were not happy with eZula and Gator’s model for contextual advertising since eZula and Gator reaped the profits without the publishers earning anything from the ads. The release of Google AdSense, however, changed all that when they offered webpage owners a percentage of what the advertiser’s paid them. Advertisers on the other were happy as well since they only had to pay Google depending on the number of clicks made on their ads. This is very beneficial for advertisers since they only have to pay for the actual traffic routed to their site by the advertisements.
Another issue surrounding contextual advertising that sparked the ire of web surfers this time is the software that came with the contextual ads. The software used to be able to search for specific search strings were actually installed locally on the surfers' computers without their consent or even their knowledge. Such software, called spyware, not only violated the surfers’ sense of privacy but caused their computers to behave erratically as well or at least slowed down the computers’ performance since the programs ran on the background without the surfers’ knowledge.
Although there were contextual advertisers that drew the ire of both publishers and surfers alike there were also some like Industry Brains, http://About.com, and Applied Semantics who had their own models of contextual ads, which were viable and sparked no controversy. They have actually been around for sometime now their model seems to be working for them. Google, although relatively new compared to these companies who deal with contextual advertising, actually gained popularity faster and was able to spread the concept of contextual advertising to the world due to its stature as the number one search engine in web search at the moment. Because of Google’s AdSense contextual advertising boomed and more and more people are getting into it and are reaping the benefits.
Who Can Benefit from Contextual Advertising
As mentioned earlier, publishers and web page owners who were once unhappy with eZula’s model for contextual advertising became more receptive towards contextual advertising when Google’s AdSense came out. Google’s Adsense, Overture’s Content Match, and other second tier search engines like FindWhat and Kanoodle offer pay per click contextual advertising that benefit both webpage owners and advertisers alike.
Contextual advertising is very beneficial for all kinds of content-based sites like news and publisher sites as well as sites of small businesses and even personal blogs. However for your website to maximize your profit from the contextual ads on your site your site’s content should be of good quality, meaning that it should be rich, relevant, and updated on a regular basis. A site with poor content and that uses contextual ads would most likely point its target audience to another site that is of better quality. If this happens then your visitors will most likely return to your competitor’s site rather than your own site causing you to lose profit. News sites and publishers would most probably have no problem in delivering relevant and updated content but this can be a challenge to small businesses and personal websites. The use of content management systems (CMS) could help such cases, but even with a good CMS extra effort is required to ensure that the content is of good quality.
A good way you to increase the can of earning money from contextual advertising is by having a search engine in your site. Google’s Adsense and Overture both list contextual ads on their search results page. With a search engine in your site the chance of visitors clicking on an ad will increase and so will your profit.
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Copyright 2005 MHG Consulting
So you want to increase your Adsense income? Log into your Adsense account, and look at your last month's stats. There are three key areas that contribute to your earnings: Impressions, Clickthroughs and Effective CPM. Improving your stats in any, or preferably, all of these three key areas will increase your Adsense earnings.
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times your webpages with Adsense ads have been viewed. You can increase Impressions by increasing traffic (preferably targeted traffic) to your webpages. Some of the best ways to increase targeted traffic to your webpages include:
-create more webpages, with relevant, focused content
-create more links to your webpages
-list your website/s under relevant categories in more directories
-set up a directory of relevant sites on your website and accept relevant
reciprocal links
-write relevant articles, with your site information in the 'resource box' at the end of each article, and submit them to article directories
-advertise with pay per click search engines like Google's Adwords. www.Miva.com (formerly www.FindWhat.com, www.YahooMarketing.com (formerly Overture) and 100's of others. When of the best places for pay per click info is www.payperclicksearchengines.com with a descriptive list of 659 search engines.
Clickthroughs
Clickthroughs are the percentage of viewers who click on your Adsense ads. You can increase Clickthroughs by increasing the relevance of Adsense ads on your site, and by tweaking the format and placing of your ads.
Although you can't dictate which Adsense ads show on your site, you can
influence the relevance of the ads by maintaining a tightly focused website. If every page on your site focuses tightly on the site topic, its more likely that the Adsense ads will too. For example, if every page of your site is about fishing, and the word 'fishing' appears several times on every page, its likely that your Adsense ads will relate to fishing.
The best way to tweak your ad format and placement is to invest in an Adsense Tracker, and test, test, test! People who have done this tend to suggest that the best format is the large rectangle, with background and border the same color as the page behind it, so that the ad blends into the page. The best placement is towards the center or top left of the first screen of the page. Try these suggestions first, and then track and test, to be sure of what works best for your pages.
Effective CPM
Effective CPM is a measure of your average earnings, per thousand clicks. You can increase your Effective CPM by selecting topics that attract high bids from Adsense advertisers, and building pages and whole websites on higher paying topics.
Although Google doesn't release information on Adsense bids, you can get a good idea of the top paying topics by looking at information on Adwords bids, or, for that matter, bids on pay-per-click search engines like Overture. There are a number of keyword research tools available, both free and paid, that can help you find high paying topics.
The Formula
So now you have the basics of increasing your Adsense income. Its a deceptively simple formula:
-Build pages and websites on high paying topics for the best Effective CPM.
-Format and place your Adsense ads for maximum Clickthroughs.
-Promote your sites to drive targeted traffic to your Adsense webpages for maximum impressions.
About the author:
For a step by step detailed approach to creating 'residual income' with Adsense, go to: http://www.ad-alyzer.com/727/autoincomesecrets You can also subscribe for free to an e-course, "Hands Off Passive Income" and get 2 special bonuses. http://www.ad-alyzer.com/727/ezwebbiz
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Lately there has been a lot of discussion on how to make tons of money with Google Adsense. In fact, many people are making the claim that Adsense sites can earn a higher revenue then an affiliate-marketing site.
So that brings us to an important question: Which is a better online business - Affiliate-Marketing sites or Google Adsense sites?
Let's explore each one and then find out which online business is better option:
Google Adsense
How do you like the idea of earning m*ney without dealing with customers or answering emails. This is possible when you run a Google Adsense site. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining. But is this the best option for an online business?
Here are the positives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product
· You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.
· Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.
Here are the negatives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth.
· These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.
Affiliate Marketing
Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come.
But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?
Here are the positives of affiliate marketing:
· A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.
· With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits..
· Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.
Here are the negatives of affiliate marketing:
· You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.
· Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.
So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense?
The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.
Here is how you can do this:
1) Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.
2) Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.
3) Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.
4) Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.
5) Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of m*ney from your subscribers while giving them good content.
By focusing on both affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be building both short-term and long-term profits.
About the author:
Scott J. Patterson is a self-proclaimed Dunce, yet last month he earned $12,124 from one of his online businesses. To find out how YOU can do the same, download his fr*e ebook- The Secret-Guide to Home Businesses: http://www.duncemoney.com/affiliate-adsense.html
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If web surfers behaved all alike, if there were strict patterns in users' behaviour, wouldn't all publishers be on a sunny beach right now, with a fancy-colored cocktail, worring not about AdSense™ optimization matters?
Web user's behaviour depends on two main groups of variables: the user-related one and the website-related one.
A) User-related Behavior Variables
Though people react very differently at various stimuli, we can identify some peculiarities specific to web surfers. The behaviour is much like yours. Have you considered watching your own actions while surfing on the web? This might help if you want to improve your site's appeal to readers, especially if you sell something or if you want your visitors to click on your ads.
Several groups of variables that influence users' behaviour can be identified:
* Components of the mental processes involved while searching and browsing on the Internet: attention, awareness, language, mental imagery etc.
* The behavior of websurfers is influenced also by their subjective approach to matters, determined by temperamental characteristics, such as mood, patience and their purpose and degree of interest.
* Also, users act differently varying with how used they are to web surfing.
Let's see how we can tweak our websites to turn these to our advantage (and turn visitors into “clickers”):
1. Mental processes
Attention - The web designer keeps the tools to direct readers' attention. A simple design, without unnecessary loading will prevent the reader from being distracted by unimportant elements. The ads placement must be done strategically, in a place impossible to overlook (recommended in the first paragraph, usually in the upper-left area). Pictures and graphics are considered attention-grabbers and will also be considered when choosing your ads' placement.
Awareness - This is a very debated topic. Opinions differ on readers' ads awareness. Some sustain that the more blended into content, the better, others say that this formatting will induce the readers the feeling of being “tricked” into clicking on ads, which they resent. I incline to say that blend-in ads work only for very well targeted ads, coming naturally as if belonging to the content. Positioning ads outside the content area would be effective mostly with advertising that builds brand awareness, based on image impressions.
Mental Imagery - Again, a pleasant, uncluttered design, a balanced look of the page contribute to a positive perception of the page from the part of the reader and to a more open state of mind. A professional layout is important. It inspires confidence, people don't want to purchase from a just any backyard business.
2. Subjectiveness
Patience - A golden rule: don't abuse your readers' patience (for they usually don't have one)! Web pages must load quickly, ads must not be placed in readers' way and should be kept to a reasonable number.
Purpose and Mood - Are more related to the topic of your site and the type of content you publish. The idea is that users' purpose and mood can be influenced by copy.
Degree of Interest - Besides relevant, good content, that answers questions, the reader's interest is influenced by involvement and interaction. Keep your reader involved, integrate your ads into an interaction environment: these will work wonders on your CTR.
3. User's Degree of Acquaintace with Web Surfing
Net savvy users have developed certain immunities, such as ad-blindness. These are less likely to click on any ads. Customizing ads for this type of readers means harder work; the result must be ads of high relevance (and remarkable ad texts!), with an aspect as close to the rest of the page as possible, as if they were a natural continuation of your ideas. Important! avoid default formats.
B) Site-related Variables
The type of the site and the topic attract visitors with different interests with different behavioral patterns.
1. Site Type — Readers vs Browsers
Whether the visitor is a “reader” or a “scanner/browser” depends also on the site type — content and topic. Generally, readers are regular visitors while “scanners” are the ones who look for information and will not spend too much time on the same site. Site topic and content are most times factors in bringing more “uniques” or more regular visitors. Though not as a rule, these apply to many sites:
Sites Attracting Unique Visitors - These are mostly commercial sites, content sites. Statistics say that unique visitors are more likely to be your clickers, for regular readers are more used to your pages' look and your ads. Contextual advertising works well with these sites. If you're headed for unique visitors, make your site “SE-friendly”. They come mostly from search engines and are said to be “pre-qualified” clickers. So, your efforts should be directed towards keywords and keyword phrases optimization. The ideal would be to go beyond the technicalities, that is finding out what are the most searched for keywords in your area of preoccupations and try to find out why these are popular, try to find a behavioral pattern. This can be achieved by statistics and analysis. Find out some niches in your area and the users' behaviour within them — that is, lists of searches and then see what is it customers want. This will solve your puzzle and give you exact hints towards what works best for your site. Keep in mind: unique visitors are mostly "browsers". Use ad placement and ad customization techniques that apply best for this type of users.
Sites with Regular Visitors - These are mostly forums, blogs and news sections (though news are somewhere in between). If you own sites with many bookmarks, that attract especially repeat visitors, then either you will be very imaginative in customizing your ads and finding new ways to interest your readers into clicking or if not the case, better use CPM based advertising. Brand bulding/reinforcement advertising works better in this case.
2. Site Theme Relates to Visitor's Mood and Purpose
Commercial Sites - Sites selling and promoting products are more suitable for CPC advertising. By their specific, this type of site will attract visitors looking for a specific product/service/business opportunity. Thus, users are more in a buying mood, are looking for a way to spend their money profitably. These are clickers.
Content Sites, Blogs, Forums - Unless you market specific products, your readers will land on your page without the express purpose of buying something. However, you can influence your reader's mood and needs thru witty, sales-directed copywriting. You just need to know some basic things that sell. One is that people are more likely to buy from persons they know, like and trust.
So, what will help you build these? Good content and structure. Especially with content sites, these are fundamental issues to focus on (unlike commercial sites that focus more on products). Good content, profesionally written and formatted for the web, containing information that is of high interest and relevance for the reader, within an easily manageable structure and good targeting on a specific theme are imperatives. On one hand these mean bulding confidence, the first step in selling. On the other hand they will attract well-targeted ads, more likely to interest your reader.
Great content will give you credit to your reader. Once you've gained trust, it's easy to direct your readers: you just give recommendations and the results will appear. (Avoid being too explicit in recommendations, though — for example, directing readers towards clicking on ads is against AdSense™ Program Policies.)
With blogs and forums, it is a different story. Not all forums and blogs are accepted for AdSense™ (or even if accepted, they must be also profitable). Only genuine, specifically-themed blogs and forums, with highly interesting content are suitable. These conditions being fulfilled, forums and blogs are perfect as a source of advertising money — they have what is very difficult for others to achieve: reader's trust, liking and involvement.
About the author:
Laura Ciocan writes for http://www.adsensehowtos.com where you can find how to guides and practical advice on Google Adsense.
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Adsense And Yahoo: Their Fight For Advertising Supremacy Is Going On!
By: Larry Evans
Two of the biggest names in the Internet are Yahoo and Google. Its no longer surprising that competition will exist between these two giants. When Google has launched its adsense campaign it started dominating the Internet but of course Yahoo will not just let this pass without creating one of their own. If Google has Adsense, Yahoo on its part has created the Yahoo Publisher. But comparing the overall design of the two programs we will see that they are somewhat similar in some respects.
To better understand the two programs it would be best that we discuss them separately.
Google’s Adsense
Let us start with the infamous Adsense Program. This program is an automated ad service that allows small web owners to display advertisements on their own web pages in return they will receive a portion or a share of the pay-per-click revenue that Google will generate out from the Adsense. This is an additional income for web owners.
Google’s adsense in one view may seem to be a simple concept but behind it is a complicated technology that only the smartest and the brightest team of Google can effectively accomplished. The adsense program is wholly automated and makes use of a crawler that assesses the contents found on a publisher’s site. After the evaluation is complete Google will then provide the publisher with some Javascript code to embed in their pages.
If ever the Javascript is activated a call is made back to Google to pull some ads out from the adsense program. The ads generated will be in accordance to the content found on the page. For example if the content of the page deals on wheelchairs then all ads regarding wheelchairs will appear. If you want to gain more from adsense it would be best to customize the colors as well as the formats to match the theme of your site.
This will make the adsense appear as if it is an original part of the page. This will lead your site visitors to think that it is a link to one of your site’s pages and would therefore click on it for additional information that they may require.
Yahoo’s Publisher
There are several features that set Yahoo’s Publisher distinct from Google adsense and these are as follows:
1. You will not see the Google’s famous tagline—“Ads by Google”
2. The ad blocks used by Yahoo do not touch each other
3. Another obvious distinction is the text inside a block is cut off and ends in an ellipsis.
These are just some of the prominent features that differentiate Yahoo’s Publisher from Google’s Adsense. But unlike Yahoo, Google requires its advertisers to refrain from using incomplete phrases and to limit the phrases to a certain number of characters per line.
In using Yahoo’s Publisher when you click on the ads you are transmitted to the advertiser’s page but you have to pass through first an Overture server. This Overture Server by the way is Yahoo subsidiary or soon to become Yahoo Search. The main function of this server is to do ad serving.
Now that you know the features and benefits of both programs you may now decide which of these two would be more advantageous for your sites.
About the Author:
Finally.... An All-In-One System That Runs ALL Your Joint Ventures On Autopilot! Active hyperlink must remain with article.
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