AdSense Keyword Search Techniques

AdSense keyword research is essential for those planning to seriously use AdSense to generate some long term income. The following guidelines are merely tips compiled from a number of successful SEO experts (these include... David Viney, Jeol Comm, Harold Davis, Ken Evoy to name a few).

AdSense keyword research case study

To better follow how to refine your ideas into a good niche AdSense topic we will use an example:

... Let us imagine that you are fitness fanatic. You love keeping fit and enjoy exercising. You eat, sleep and drink everything about exercising and keeping fit. You have a gym at home and also go to your local gym whenever the fancy takes you.

It's crazy, you know, but you just can't help it. Anyway, to distract you a little and stop you from completely breaking down from over-exhaustion you’ve decided to share your passion for exercising with the rest of the world and you want to create a health and fitness site.You know about AdSense and you’ve even heard of keyword research but how should you proceed? Should you build a health and fitness site or should you focus it and create a specialist site?

The basics of keyword research

AdSense keyword research is not as complicated as some people would like you to believe. However, it does take a bit of time and can be a bit tedious. The best way to find your ideal keywords requires that large parts of it be done manually. 

The three key areas

During the preliminary brain storming session you isolated the themes that you liked best and you have done some basic investigations into the ones that are likely to be the most profitable. From this initial list you decided to pursue the general theme of health and fitness (it is your burning passion after all).
With our general idea based around the extremely large health and fitness theme we will attempt to find popular niche topics that we can use to create a good AdSense website. Overall the process involves researching the:

• Demand for the niche areas of your general theme
• Supply for the niche areas of your theme
• Expansion of the keywords of your chosen theme

In the demand section you are asking the question; how many people are actually searching for fitness related topics? Is there a demand for your chosen general theme and if so what areas are the most popular?
In the supply section you are investigating your competition. You are asking that if there is a demand for a certain theme, is there a supply? Is there too much competition for our AdSense keywords? Is the niche over-saturated? What areas have low supply if any?
Expansion occurs when you’ve chosen your niche and you have to create general and specific keywords for your website.

• General keywords are the ones that you use all through your website. In essence they describe the overall theme of your site.
• Specific keywords are used for specific pages within your site. They are used for different topics within a theme and are more focused and exact.

When researching AdSense keywords you will need to use a keyword search tool. In this exercise we will be using two keyword tools. Googles keyword search tool and WordTrackers free keyword tool to do our investigation. To access both tools just use the following links:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Research Best AdSense Topics

 Conducting keyword research:

Best AdSense topics can change from week to week. They can vary depending on new fads, what’s on the news and what new technologies have been released. Good topics ebbs and flows and ‘what’s hot’ one minute could be ‘what’s not’ the next. Of course old news and old facts can make good niche topics but truly popular ones that haven’t already been done are rare.

Also the best AdSense topics is different for each individual:

What is best for you might not be what’s best for the next Webmaster. This is because for a good AdSense topic to work for you, it has to at least interest you.
So an ideal list of good topics is unrealistic and untrue.
A good AdSense topic is therefore an idea that is delicately balanced between what’s new or different that is also in demand and one that is of interest to you. A good AdSense site is something that needs to be discovered and this is one way it can be done...

Brainstorming for AdSense Topics:

Finding the right topics requires conducting keyword research to determine the popularity of certain themes.

• The first step is the process of brainstorming. This involves just putting down 15-20 ideas for possible website topics. The topics can be as diverse as possible it doesn’t matter as long as they are all based around themes that think you can work on till completion..

The next step requires that you perform a three step disqualification process using Google’s Adwords Search-Based keyword tool. This tool is used to narrow down the 15-20 potential ideas into ones that are more likely to work as website themes.
The three step disqualification process is as follows:

• The relevant keywords regarding each theme must get at least 20,000 or more specific searches per month to ensure that it can generate enough traffic for your site (you should only accept less if the topic is very niche). Also research deeper keywords and phrases that surround each topic idea. This part is labour intensive but it is well worth the effort. (Use Google’s Adwords Search-Based keyword tool for this part).
• Make sure that there are not too many competing websites based on similar themes. If there are too many good sites already covering the topic, you are too late the competition got there first.

There are certain types of sites that are guaranteed no-no’s. Money making sites saturate the internet and you will not get a top ten ranking for a site based on this theme. Another popular no-go topic is health related websites. There are millions of sites associated with the the topic of health on the internet and again you will get intense competition for a decent search engine ranking for a health related website.

• Make sure there isn’t too many Adwords campaigns running on the same phrases related to the topic. That is another indicator that the competition has got there before you.

At the end of this process you will have produced a table that looks somewhat like this:

Ideas	Searches    (per month)	Competition	Ad Campaigns
Computer games	450,000
Fashion	5,000,000
Comics	6,120,000
Green issues	5,400
Vintage cars	110,000
Parenting	165,000
Science Facts	6,600

Googles Adwords keywords tool can give you figures that are specific for country and language. But change it so that it gives you both global and exact demand values.

After you’ve completed this preliminary process you should have a small list of possible themes for your site. You can decide on which one takes your fancy and start putting a site together, developing pages and focusing on the few keywords that you have isolated so far. 
However, your theme is far from fine tuned. You’ll probably need to focus on a specific aspect of the theme that you've chosen in order to develop a true niche website. You’ll need to find more keyword phrases and even delve into their possible profitability.

Best And Top AdSense Topics

The key to AdSense success is topic choice

If you are building a site with the idea of signing up with AdSense and making some money, topic choice is crucial. Topic choice has to be researched and planned. Without the necessary initial planning your whole AdSense endeavour could turn sour very quickly. And you won’t realize it until it’s too late.
The fact is that as soon as you decided that you wanted to make money making sites you are declaring that you want to start an internet business. And for any business to be successful a number of core elements need to be in place, these are:

• A good niche product (in this case a well researched website topic).
• Passion and knowledge for the product (if you don’t like it and know it you won’t be able to sell it).
• And good presentation (if the topic isn’t presented well, it will be harder to sell).

If the above simple criteria’s are met it won’t be difficult to sell your topic through the use of AdSense. Of course there’s still the difficult task of marketing your site and generating some AdSense traffic but you first need a good product and that means you need a good website topic.

Why does the topic have to be niche?

Your topic doesn’t have to be niche. There is no written law that stops you developing a AdSense topic that has already been done lots of times before. But in keeping with the theme above, if you view your topic as a product, you are going to find it immeasurable harder to sell if the market is saturated with other vendors selling the same thing. All the traffic looking for material related to your topic will have to be shared with your competitors. To succeed, you have to ‘sell’ your topic better than everyone else, presenting it in an original unique way to draw all their traffic towards you. This path is difficult though not impossible to do.
Finding a niche but in demand topic is a good way to gain a foothold on a theme. Been one of the first gives you an opportunity to become an authority on it and ensures that you control a large chunk of its associated traffic.

Passion and AdSense topics:

Passion is not necessary. But without it, it could be extremely difficult to keep the business going. Good AdSense sites are long term projects that require a lot of work to make a success. 

There are going to be low times. There will be times when you will have little to no traffic and you will not be generating any money at all. If you are not passionate about the topic (and can’t keep developing ideas, making the site bigger and better) you will quickly become dispirited and you will inevitably throw in the towel.
Only the most determined people can continue working on a project continuously for long term gains without any emotional connection to the topic.

Passion is the fuel that keeps you motivated and driven

If you are properly motivated you wil continue researching your chosen topic because you enjoy reading about it. And you will write more material because you simply enjoy writing about it and want to share your knowledge with the world at large.

 

How important is presentation?

Presentation is very important. A well presented quality topic is easy to sell. Traffic will be drawn to a website that looks good, is functional and filled with lots of rich well written material.

Creating such a site takes time and requires a lot of patience. If you don’t like your AdSense topic it will be very difficult to produce a quality website. And if, as a consequence you put together a sub-standard site, it will be much harder to sell and make into a success.

Even if you could draw people to your site your Click-Through-Rate would be very low. People in general are not interested in inferior products.
A good looking site is like an attractive shop window. If it is well presented, people will take a look and if what they see captures their attention they will be in the right state of mind to receive whatever it is you have to offer. Which in your case should be quality AdSense ads.

AdSense Reports

To keep many Webmasters happy, especially those that like to keep close track of how their sites are performing, there is Google’s AdSense reports. This is available to all Webmasters that have been accepted into the AdSense scheme.
Basically AdSense reports is used by Webmasters to optimize the various ads on their sites. The level of detail of AdSense reports is very good and it gives you enough information to be able to tweak your site to its optimal money making best.

But don't over-use AdSense reports

AdSense fever is quite real. AdSense publishers have been known to over-analyze their statistics to the point of breakdown. By all means tweak your site, but remember the key to real AdSense success comes from good content and good levels of traffic. Focus on these two factors first, tweak and perfect later.

AdSense reports in detail
Included in AdSense reports is an overview section. This gives you an at-a-glance look at your best performing AdSense channels for the day. It also gives you the option to view all the AdSense activity on your site for the previous seven days, the current month and the month before.

The advanced reports section goes into a bit more detail. It enables you to choose how you decide to view the information that has been collated so far. For example you can decide to view how much you have earned for a particular period of time. This is done by selecting the aggregate data option of the advanced report section. A ‘total’ for a selected period of time will then be displayed which is also displayed as an averages column. The information shows succinctly how well your ads are performing for the chosen period of time. It also gives you enough information to be able to extrapolate and work out how much will earn over the same period of time in the future.

 

Other options available in AdSense reports include:

• Channel reporting. This enables you to focus specifically on the performance of single ads or groups of ads. The system is so flexible that the ads can be given specific designations to differentiate them. This is often used to fine tune the performance of specific ads so that they are optimized on every page of the website for maximum performance.
• CTR and page impressions reports. This part of AdSense reports gives you an idea of how effective your pages are as a whole by giving you a click-through-rate (CTR) value. This value is calculated by dividing the number of clicks per page by the number of impressions and multiplying the result by 100.*
• Page CPM (Cost per 1000 impressions). This is how much money you’re making per 1000 impressions. Basically its another way for you to view your statistics and it is a useful standard.
• Earnings report. This gives you information on how much your site is earning. Like the other options this can be tweaked in a variety of ways to enable to better grasp how well the ads are doing on your site.
• Custom reports. Due to the multitude of options available, Google created a section that enables its users to customize how the information is displayed. Any information that is compiled can be saved as a custom report and subsequent reports can be viewed in the same format. This is a useful way to keep track of certain channels or earnings over specific periods of time.

*In online marketing an average click-thru-rate of about 2% is normally seen as been average. But dedicated and focused content rich AdSense sites have been known to record click-through-rates of 10% (however this is extremely rare).

 

Watch out for invalid clicks

• Be vigilant of invalid clicks. This can be seen when there is a disproportionate relationship between the amount of impressions and the number of clicks.
• Keep an eye on your CTR. A good AdSense optimized site will get a high CTR (~5%). But anything over 10% is highly suspicious.
• Impressions are always more than clicks to a ratio of least 50 to 1.
• If you get values where there are 20 clicks to only 6 impressions, something is wrong.
• Google will also get suspicious if this happens and they will only credit you with the amount of actual clicks on the ads on your site. 
• You will be warned by Google about the suspicious activity taking place on your site and if it persists you will be kicked off the AdSense program... so be warned.

AdSense Optimization Tips

Google AdSense scheme has been around for years now. And over time hundreds of thousands of Webmasters have experimented with various aspects of AdSense in order to maximise Click-Through-Rate's (CTR’s).

Optimization has subsequently become an art:

But even though there are no hard and fast rules relating to how best to place, size and present your ads there are some general design tips that every Webmaster should be aware of before placing AdSense ads.

The best design schemes are often finely balanced between familiarity and originality. Original, clever designs can work but it is a risk. It may be too clever and loose a large section of the traffic that visits the site or it may inadvertently break Google’s strict AdSense rules. On the other hand, it might just work.
What a Webmasters decides is their choice but more often than not simplicity and familiarity works. People come on to the net to obtain quick, relevant results. They don’t want to have to work around a dazzling, intricate navigation system or wait too long for video or music web elements to download.

 Reasons for poor AdSense results:

The reasons why people get poor AdSense results could be simple. It is possible that their AdSense ads are not visible enough. This could be due to number of reasons:

• Poor presentation of ads (bad color choice, wrong fonts etc...)
• Poor positioning of ads
• Too much clutter on your websites pages (poor page layout)
• Too many ads
• Not enough ads

Proper optimization of AdSense websites for maximum CTR is sometimes overlooked by Webmasters. The fact is that there are lot of elements that can be tweaked on a webpage to maximise CTR without breaking any Google AdSense rules.

Optimum color choice for Google AdSense Ads:
Without doubt the optimum color for the text in AdSense ads is blue. All over the Web there are numerous articles that have discussed the benefits of using blue to display AdSense ads.
The reasons for this universal agreement is mainly historical. Links on websites have traditionally always been blue, so visitors always expect them to be that color no matter where they see them. Familiarity always trumps originality on the Web, so if possible keep your AdSense text blue.

Optimizing AdSense Ads for visibility:
Ideal optimization for AdSense ads is about attaining balance. You don’t want your ads to be too visible because they’ll be seen as blatant advertising, which often just gets ignored. But you don’t want your ads to be too invisible either because they won’t be seen.

Good placement of AdSense ads is crucial:

So location is important in attaining high CTR’s. Ads has to be placed in areas where the content is most engaging, areas of the web page that visitors are most likely to view and areas they are likely to interact with.
These areas can be emphasized through the clever use if graphics, multimedia elements and layout techniques.
Google released a heat map showing the most clicked areas of an average site. As you can see from the, certain areas are more effective than others where it comes to displaying ads.

 

The heat map gives us general idea of the highest performing areas of a typical web page.

The strongest performance regions (deep orange) are the locations around the navigation bar and content area.

The heat map tell us that users are primarily focused on the content material of the site. Therefore good content is necessary to draw a users attention to your carefully placed AdSense ads.

So considertaion of user behaviour is important when deciding how best to optimize your AdSense ads.

Make sure you give your users the option of AdSense ads after they have read your satisfying content material by placing them where they're most likely to look. 

 

Users focus around the region that contains the content:

Just above or either side of the primary content areas are usually good spots to experiment with AdSense ad positioning. Also regions around the navigational elements of a page are good spots to place ads.
But remember when placing ads, no site is average. You have to play around with ad positioning to see which locations work best for you.
Don’t put borders around AdSense ads. Borderless ads are regarded with the same kind of attention as the content. If the content material is informative and relevant there is every likelihood that your ads will be seen in the same light.

 

Don’t over-use AdSense ads:

Too many links on a page is very unattractive any distract the user from the quality of your content. Google’s rules limits the amount of Ads you can place on any one page anyway but using a combination of different ad types and poor ad placement there’s still a lot of room to clutter an average web page. In addition, if you include all the natural links of your own the potential exists to create a site with nothing but pages filled with links.
Remember less can be more. Optimization is about balancing the looks and feel of a site with its maximum earning configuration. Only through experimentation can the right balance be struck.

Other general AdSense tips

• The best color schemes for AdSense websites are those that use blue color links, white backgrounds and black text for their design.
• Place your ads above the fold (the part of the page that first appears when it downloads). Relevant content material can be placed below the fold because a user will always scroll down to view content whereas they are unlikely to scroll down to specifically view AdSense ads.
• Leaderboards work extremely well near the top of web pages.
• Borderless skyscraper columns perform well if arranged around the content areas of web pages.
• Rectangle ad units perform very well within the content areas of web pages. They are known to be the best performing types of ads when used correctly