You’re the kind of person who doesn’t settle for “good enough.” In fact, your ears twitch, just a little, if someone within a 10-mile radius mentions the word “optimized.” We know, it’s fine. You are in a safe place with like-minded people. Now if you are also aware of the Google AdSense dashboard then this is the post for you.
1. Fix invalid traffic
Since 2015, Google started to include a line in your monthly income report. The “Invalid Traffic – AdSense for Content” line that reduces your earnings. Sometimes it is an insignificant sum. And sometimes it can be an important part of your income stream.
If you keep getting invalid traffic, you’ll keep losing money. And if there is too much, your account could be suspended. Even if you don’t know where the heck these invalid clicks are coming from.
So what can you do?
- Happier! Google will penalize you if your page has more ads than content. Be sure to balance the two, as this can also affect your audience of returning users.
- Keep an eye out for social media traffic – AdSense just doesn’t like it. Google prefers viewers that come from its search engine (wow, I wonder why) or the pages they landed on through it. They especially dislike paid traffic that isn’t paid for through the platform it’s coming from (such as paid posts in bulk Facebook groups or paid retweets by bots).
- Last but not least, Google contact. If you’re not doing anything wrong and the traffic you’re getting is real, legitimate and actually clicking? You may be the victim of click-bombing by your competitors.
2.Block categories
Blocking or unblocking categories in AdSense can affect earnings. How much effect and how? that’s a bit more complicated.
Some categories have higher CPCs, while others have higher CTRs. The main question is: how do you maximize RPM with category lock/unlock?
Look at the reports under “Allow and block ads” to check which categories are performing poorly. Categories with high impressions but low revenue are the ones you should try to block, at least temporarily.
Sure, it will reduce competition over your ad placements, but it will allow you to find the right ads and advertisers.
3. Hacking Smart Pricing for higher CPCs
Many publishers seemed to be petrified by Google AdSense’s smart pricing algorithm. This algorithm tries to ensure that advertisers get their money’s worth when they advertise on the publisher network.
So make Google Smart Pricing work for you, not against you. Block unprofitable categories. Place ads where they can’t be accidentally clicked and do your best to drive converting traffic. Not just cheap views that don’t convert into customers.
But how do I know which traffic will convert?
You need to “reverse engineer” the classic customer journey and provide content that can be used as part of that journey.
Think about how your websites can fit into the customer journey and tailor your content to match.
4. Custom channels
To attract savvy advertisers and track ad unit performance granularly, you want to use custom channels, if you haven’t already.
Custom channels allow you to create unique ad groups or placements that advertisers can target directly. By giving advertisers this ability, you increase competition for your ad space.
If you have yet to set up custom channels in your AdSense account, we have a guide to guide you through. If you’re not sure it’s worth the investment of time, you still want to read this guide. It will probably convince you to create those custom channels in your AdSense account.
5. Sticky and streaming ads
Every newbie to website monetization knows this: At the top of the fold is gold. But it’s fool’s gold. This is why.
The mid-page ad is often one of the first things a visitor sees when they land on your page. Ads are made to be attractive. But the viewer didn’t visit your page to see the ads and can’t afford to forget about it.
How do you solve this?
Sticky ads (also known as floating, sticky, and floating) and inbound ads. The right mix of ads that follow users as they scroll and inbound ads that give them “exit points” in the content is the path to higher RPMs. You can learn more about that in our post on ways to apply that extra pressure to AdSense for more revenue.
6. Optimize for size
What if you got a dollar for every time someone told you it’s crucial that you optimize for mobile? You probably don’t even need to monetize your content anymore. Or work. Ever. But that’s not exactly what we’re saying here.
Depending on your website theme or settings, you can create different layouts for different devices. Responsive pages will always place ads in the wrong places, so you want to be aware of that to maximize mobile revenue.
So what you can do instead is hide ads that perform less well on mobile when the device is a tablet or smartphone. Next, add a mobile-only ad unit that displays only on mobile devices and is optimized for mobile layout.
7. Advanced geo-targeting
Some countries and places have higher CPCs than others. For example, the UK, US, Canada, and Australia get much higher CPCs than Africa or India.
If you have an Italian or German blog, you may want to consider adding an English section for higher CPC views. And you will have to look for high-priced niches in your area.
Assuming your content site is in English, you want to do everything you can to attract traffic from the highest paying countries. This means that your audience acquisition efforts should be focused there and attract the interests of people in the region.
How do you check which countries pay more? See the countries in your AdSense performance reports. And drive more traffic from the highest CPC placements you can see.
8. Use AdSense async code
In 2015, Google introduced asynchronous ad code to help publishers reduce the load time of their pages with ad units on them.
9. Optimization
Our last advice is to always be testing. Based on our experience monetizing various niches, if there’s one optimization to go, it’s always testing. In fact, we took this a step further and created a testing ecosystem to make the entire AdSense CTR optimization process easy and fast.
