How well an AdSense unit performs on a site depends on several different factors…

1) The page the unit is on
2) Ad relevancy
3) Amount and quality of traffic to the site/page
4) Placement of unit

So I am by no means about to suggest that one size fits all in regards to the units. However, I would like to open up a discussion on what you’ve learned about placement.

I recently tweeted that I am having great success using the 300×250 Medium Rectangle unit alongside my YouTube videos. On certain pages, my click-thru rate has quadrupled.

I actually got this idea from Google. One of their optimization experts suggested this on my site over a year ago.  Not sure what took me so long, but I am now implementing this on more pages and the results have been fab.

Let’s talk about what you’ve learned about placement and/or color experimentation.  Done anything different to give your earnings a boost?  Please share!

If you’ve been involved in affiliate marketing or AdSense for at least a year, you’ve probably received at least one free Google AdWords credit.

For those who don’t know, Google AdWords is a pay per click program (PPC) that allows you to bid on keywords, and you only pay when your site gets a visit from the phrases you bid on.

The more popular the keyword is (volume of searches), the more it will cost per click.

You can view the AdWords ads by doing a Google search for almost any keyword phrase. The “Sponsored ads” are the ones that show up on the right side of the page or directly above the natural/free results.

(See example for a query on “web hosting”.)

Many hosting companies offer free AdWords credits from time to time and Google has been known to send them out directly.  In fact, this past December, they sent $100 credits to many AdSense members.

I don’t talk a lot about PPC and that is mainly because I’ve never taken the time to learn and master it.

So when Lisa of Christian-Single-Woman.com asked me to do a blog post about this, I was somewhat hesitant.

Then I decided to talk about what I’ve learned from my experience, and hopefully keep others from making the mistakes I made years ago.

Not to mention, others can chime in and discuss their experiences as well.

You Have the Free AdWords Credit.   Now What?

When you get one of those free credits, it may be tempting to sign up with AdWords and use it right away.

Many people make the mistake of bidding on their most important keyword phrases and use up the credit without even tracking their return on investment (ROI). That’s what I did years ago.

Remember, the point of using AdWords is to make a profit.  If you spend $200 on keywords then your goal is to make more than that on your traffic. So before you go and exhaust your credits, you need a strategy.

The Squeeze Page Strategy

Many people who’ve mastered PPC have done so with the squeeze page strategy.

Let’s say you promote a book on ClickBank where you earn $65 per sale.  You would bid on specific keywords related to that book, and create a benefit-rich landing page that has a goal.

That goal could be to offer a related, free download (teaser) in exchange for an e-mail address.  Now that you have e-mail addresses you can send them follow-up e-mails to help PREsell the ClickBank product.

Usually it takes multiple exposures before someone buys a product, so that’s why having an e-mail list can be so valuable. This is especially true if you learn how to use it to your advantage.

So if it costs you $35 worth of AdWords clicks/visits to get one sale for this book, your ROI is $25 ($60 commission – $35 spent on AdWords).

Congrats, you would be making a profit with this campaign!

Note: Google is big on quality and gives each page a score. So the days where you could submit a small page with nothing but a form to collect e-mail addresses are over.

If you are going to create a “squeeze page”, it should have substance and useful content. If your page is too pitchy, it may not receive a good quality score, which could hurt your ranking potential.

Why AdWords is Tricky

Google knows what they’re doing by sending out so many free credits.  They realize the average person has to spend way more than $100 to return a profit with AdWords.

So that free credit is just to get you started.  They know most people don’t figure out AdWords right away.  After all, it takes a lot of campaign testing (headlines, copy, keyword selection, bid price etc.) before you develop the right ad to return a profit.

I met a lot of people at the Affiliate Summit who do PPC full time.   Many of them earn 6 and 7 figures per year (Yes, seriously.) But they all told me they shelled out at least $1,000 before they began to return a profit.

They also spend hours per day monitoring every single detail about their campaigns. One extra word in their ad title may increase their profit by hundreds of dollars.

So if you want to master PPC, you have to be prepared to track everything and lose some money.  And if you are fortunate enough to turn Google’s free gift into a profit, that’s great!  You are definitely in the minority.

Is Using AdWords for Additional Traffic a Waste?

Many people use AdWords just to draw traffic to their site.  They scope out long-tail (very targeted, low-cost) keywords to bid on and set a small, daily budget to minimize their costs.

If you can afford to do this, fine.  Just remember, if you aren’t tracking what those visitors are doing then you could be wasting money.

All traffic is not necessarily good traffic and you really have to take the time to learn what keywords give you the best return on your investment.

Be Cautious of AdWords Gurus

There are a lot of people making a ton of money with AdWords.  As I mentioned, some are earning up to 7 figures annually.

So this kind of success breeds many self-proclaimed AdWords gurus who want to sell you the “secrets to AdWords”.

Think about it.

Why would they sell the secret if it means creating more competition for them?

I’m not saying there aren’t good resources for mastering AdWords. Just remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it often is.  You may get some general guidelines, but no real AdWords master is going to tell you everything.

The bottom line is, AdWords can be a fantastic program to help improve your traffic and sales.  Just understand it’s going to take time, patience and probably more than that free Google credit to master it.

Don’t Be Scared

I am not trying to scare you away from using AdWords. It can really help your business if you use it right. Just understand you will probably have to spend more than what Google gave you before you make a profit.

Make sure to map out a strategy before you haphazardly bid on any ole’ keywords. Also, monitor your campaigns closely (see the Google Analytics Installation Guide) and set a daily spending limit.

So what about you? Have you ever used AdWords? What was your experience like?

I always say… You know you’ve made it when people begin copying your work.

And thanks to services like www.copyscape.com it’s much easier to spot offenders these days.

Plagiarizing used to really bother me, especially when the search engines weren’t as smart as they are today. It used to be much easier for thieves to steal your rankings.

However, since the engines value quality inbound links more these days, it’s a little harder for thieves to benefit from stealing your work.

Of course, that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to try.

I normally don’t let copycatters bother me too much. They usually get what’s coming to them in the form of search engine penalties or simply lack of success. (I do believe in Karma!)

Besides, if I spent my time chasing these spineless people, it would be counterproductive for my business. So I usually ignore them.

But once and a while I’ll find a person who has gone too far.

The most recent offender not only stole my content word for word, but he stole my pictures (even the photos of me.)

And what angered me even more is the fact he’s an AdSense member and was attempting to make money off the content he stole from me.

Since he is an AdSense publisher, I figured Google would be more proactive about taking action. So I submitted a copyright infringement claim (under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

After only 3 days of faxing the claim, his AdSense ads were disabled and the copyrighted content was deleted from the Web server.

Because I didn’t press charges, the offender was allowed back into AdSense after 7 days. But at least he knows I’m watching and was forced to remove the copyrighted content.

So I was somewhat pleased with the overall results. I have to admit, though, I was a little shocked Google didn’t remove him from AdSense completely. I’m pretty sure that was a violation of the AdSense T&C’s.

What Should You Do?

If you find an AdSense Publisher (or any site that appears in Google) copying your content, here’s what you do…

1. Immediately print out all pages from the offender’s site that contain plagiarized content.

2. Print out the pages on your site that contain the copyrighted content.

3. Try contacting the offender first and ask them to remove the content. In my case, there was no contact information on the site (imagine that?) so I wasn’t able to do this.

4. Complete the claim and mail (or fax) the claim to Google. (Faxing is much faster.)

You may have noticed I didn’t mention looking up their domain name records and contacting them and/or their web host.

In my experience, if the person does not have a contact form on their site, they usually have a bogus email in their domain records or never reply to my emails.

I’ve also had horrible luck with contacting Web hosts. After all, these are their customers so they are often reluctant to do anything. So I decided to go straight to Google.

It only took Google a few days to contact the offender and the AdSense ads were disabled immediately.

This procedure will probably work even if the person doesn’t belong to AdSense, but you better believe Google is especially interested in AdSense Publishers who steal content.

Their AdWords advertisers are their primary concern, so they want to make sure the AdSense program is as “clean” as possible.

A Note to Thieves…

It may be quick and easy to steal someone’s content, but I believe you’ll always get what’s coming to you in the end. So is it really worth it?

Copyright infringement is illegal, even if it’s online. And if you steal from the wrong person, you could end up in a world of trouble should they decide to take legal action against you.

Try publishing your own work for a change. Yes, I know… that requires you to do real work and use your brain. Life’s tough, huh?

Great Resource

Jessica Hupp wrote a very useful and comprehensive article on various ways to combat plagiarism. I’d highly recommend you bookmark this blog post.

They’re everywhere…

Blog posts, forum questions, emails, website articles, etc… all about improving your PageRank.

Google is clearly the front runner in driving free, targeted website traffic, so everyone wants their site to rank well in any measuring tool Google produces.

First of all, I’ve seen no indication that your PageRank affects the amount of traffic Google sends you.

My site, 2 Create a Website, has gone from a PR5 to a PR4 in the last year, yet the traffic I receive from Google has doubled.

PageRank merely reflects the number of quality backlinks to your site (in Google’s eyes). Of course it would be great to have a site with a PR8, but if you don’t, it’s not a reason to stress.

It’s reasonable to believe PageRank is one of the factors Google uses to determine rank and relevance, but that’s just one piece of the gigantic ranking puzzle.

Continue to build useful content, market the heck out of your site, stay away from linking schemes, find ways to reinvent your site and you’ll be fine.

Keep an eye on measuring tools like PageRank and Alexa for informational purposes, but it’s not the end of the world if those numbers aren’t as high as you’d like them to be.

If I stressed or panicked every time my PageRank or Alexa numbers dropped, I’d be in a loony bin by now.

Focus on things you can control, and let the PageRank numbers fall where they may.

If Google suddenly dropped your site for good what would happen to your online income?

For many Webmasters, it would be a total disaster.

If you’ve been around long enough to remember the infamous “Florida Update” of November 2003 then you heard the cry around the Net when thousands of Webmasters lost their Google rankings.

Some rankings returned after a few days. Others never did.

If something like that happened again, would you be prepared?

No Google Guarantees!

Just as wonderful as the free traffic from Google can be, there have never been any guarantees of a permanent listing so don’t get too comfortable.

And if Google (or any search engine) makes up a large percentage of your traffic, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to develop other traffic streams.

Google Knol (a project many believe is Google’s answer to Wikipedia) is already evidence that Google is getting more into the content business.

And while no one knows for sure how much of an impact Knol will have on the natural (free) results, we shouldn’t be shocked if Google starts using more of its own content down the line.

So it’s time to prepare yourself if you haven’t already.

Diversify your traffic portfolio and generate better revenue streams now! Here are some tips…

Seek Residual Income

The great thing about residual income affiliate programs is you get paid a commission for the lifetime of the customer you referred. Say you refer someone to an online dating site and their affiliate program pays you a 15% recurring commission.

Dating sites usually have recurring fees. So as an affiliate, that means you earn a commission each time that person renews their membership (monthly, yearly, etc.).

Domain names, web hosting, and weight loss membership programs are a handful of more topics that often have affiliate programs that pay recurring commissions.

But of course you can find them in several different categories. One way to quickly locate them is to go to your favorite search engine and type “[your topic] + residual affiliate programs” or something similar.

Yes, a traffic drop would obviously hurt when it comes to generating new sales, but the existing customer base you’ve developed through the recurring affiliate program, would continue to earn you commissions.

Collect E-mail Addresses

E-mail is a great way to keep in touch with your visitors. And these days when e-mail addresses are guarded more than ever by the owners, the people that do decide to give you their address really like and trust you.

In other words, your e-mail list is worth gold.

So even with a traffic drop, at least you’ll have a list of people you can continue to market to.

But be careful. Sending e-mail is a very delicate act. If you aren’t delivering relevant, useful content then your audience is only a quick unsubscribe away.

It may take some time to get it right, so be sure to ask for feedback regularly and check your unsubscribe rates often.

If you you have a blog, Feedburner will collect e-mail addresses for you and allows you to export the addresses into an Excel file for free! So if you aren’t using this feature on your blog, get on it!

Work The Social Media/Bookmarking Sites

I have to admit, I am just starting to get into social media a little more.

StumbleUpon and Digg have been bringing me some decent traffic lately so I’ve been spending time studying ways to make the most of these sites to gain a better presence.

Digg’s categories are very broad and best for sites with mass appeal (iPods, current events, etc.) but you can still generate some good traffic if you learn to write good headlines and content.

A little luck never hurts too (i.e. a popular Digg user decides to recommend your article.)

StumbleUpon has many more specific categories so I’ve found it easier to generate more targeted traffic from this site. Be sure to install the their toolbar and stumble upon sites other than your own.

ProBlogger.net has a great article about getting the most from StumbleUpon.

Build Up More Bookmark Traffic

Bookmark traffic is the best. These are loyal visitors who love your site and keep coming back for more.

Of course, building up this is kind of traffic is not something you can do overnight. It takes time and there are a variety of ways to do this. But of course it starts with creating a useful site that people will want to come back to.

Unfortunately too many people fail at this first step.

Think of information/tools you can add on your site that would entice people to come back. Quizzes, contests, “topics of the day”, etc. are ways to keep your site on the minds of your audience.

Set goals. If your bookmark traffic is currently 10%, set a goal to triple that in the next 3 months.

And if you’re wondering how to determine how much of your traffic is from bookmarked users, Google Analytics has a statistic called “Direct Traffic”.

These people arrived at your site without a referring link or search engine, and it’s a safe bet that the majority is bookmark traffic or people who typed in your URL (which is virtually the same thing).

Keep it Honest

I’m not saying that if you never do anything wrong, Google will never drop you. There are many reasons you could lose your rankings.

Some people believe that the only reason people drop from Google is due to some kind of penalty. While that may be true in most cases, there could still be other reasons (competition, technical glitches, etc.).

No one is exempt from losing a Google ranking so please don’t be that naive.

However, if you remain a responsible Webmaster who does not engage in any black hat techniques to try and trick Google, keep updating your site with useful information and continue to get good backlinks from other sites, you’ll probably be OK…

…for now at least.

But don’t be surprised should you wake up one day and find that the party is over… or at least halted temporarily. Google has to continue to do what’s best for its bottom line and shareholders.

So enjoy the traffic while the getting is good, but remember to diversify and always have a back-up plan.

Just like you would never put all your eggs in one basket with an offline business…

Online should be no different.

Getting ranked #1 in Google for those heavily searched, relevant keywords is the dream of every Webmaster.

And if you’ve been around for a while, you know that task is not as easy as it once was.

Years ago you could stuff keywords, hide content in your background and perform all kinds of tricks to get you ranked at or near the top.

Nowadays you have to work much harder to get that Google love.

And who could blame Google for making it more difficult to rank high? They are successful because they deliver useful, relevant results.

So why wouldn’t they protect their brand from tricksters and spammers out to make a quick buck?

While you probably know about the basic ways of getting a good ranking in Google (high-quality inbound links, relevant content, etc.) many people believe Google is using other tools to see how you measure up and help determine your rank.

And if you ask me, it makes perfect sense.

Your Feed Activity

In case you didn’t know, Google owns FeedBurner (an RSS feed distribution & reporting service.)

So if you have a blog that uses Feedburner to promote, track and manage your feed, wouldn’t it make sense that Google monitors those subscription numbers and feed activity?

This is why I think it’s so important that your blog lives on the same domain as your site. Make it easy for Google to make the connection.

Google is a Registrar

In 2005, Google outwardly admitted they use their Registrar status to help improve the quality of their search results.

So if two of your sites got banned from spamming and they were both registered under the same name, what do you think will happen when you try to promote a 3rd site in Google that has the same registration data?

On the flip side, say someone has 3 heavily trafficked sites that rank well in Google. Wouldn’t it make sense that additional sites registered by that same person could have an added advantage in the long-run since the other 3 sites have some Google love?

Hmmmm……

Google Owns YouTube

Say you’ve got a YouTube channel with 794 subscribers, 300,000 video views and your channel homepage links to your main site. A pretty active channel, I’d say.

Why wouldn’t Google take this into consideration in determining your site’s credibility?

I’ve been using YouTube since August 2007 and while I have no proof using it has affected my rankings, it only makes sense that having a heavily trafficked YouTube channel linked to my website helps show Google that I am a credible source in my niche.

Google Analytics

What better way to prove to Google you are worthy by letting them see your traffic data. If you have a Google Analytics account then Google now has access to your visitor information.

Now, if you’re site is new and your traffic is low don’t panic and feel you should remove the code until you get more traffic. I don’t think using it will hurt you.

But when your site does start to generate traffic from other sources, wouldn’t you want Google to see that?

Now, we all know you don’t need Google Analytics installed on your site for Google to see who’s linking to you, but what if 75% of your traffic is bookmark traffic?

That kind of traffic data is not taken into consideration with backlinks and PageRank. Wouldn’t you want Google to know that these loyal people are visiting your site regularly?

There’s No Concrete Proof

While there is no way to know how Google uses the above information, let’s be realistic here…

If there are two sites with relatively the same content but one site has an RSS feed tracked by FeedBurner with 2,000 subscribers, a YouTube channel with 30 videos and 130,000 views, and 10,000 visits per day tracked by Google Analytics, while the other site has no blog, no videos and fewer visitors…

Which one do you think Google will respect more?

Granted, the above items may not have a very large influence on a site’s rank (yet), but you better believe they play a role…. especially when it comes down to determining the value of competing sites with similar content.

Why wouldn’t Google put all these pieces together?

These days you’ve got to work harder than ever to prove your worth to Google, so why not make use of the tools they own and monitor?