Tips
to Improve Contextual Targeting on your Site
Tips to Improve Contextual Targeting on your Site
As an Adsense publisher, I am often annoyed to find my web pages
filled with public service announcements (PSA) and ads unrelated
to the content of my site. Fewer relevant ads means fewer click-throughs
and ultimately lower Adsense revenues. However advanced Google’s
contextual ad serving algorithm may be, it is still a computer program
(as opposed to a human being) trying to figure out what a web page
is about.
Below are some tips to help you optimize your pages to make them
more Adsense-friendly. Note that these tips deal with ad delivery
rather than ad formatting or placement. While ad formatting and
placement may affect ad click-through rates, they have nothing to
do with the delivery of relevant ads to your site. Your site must
display relevant ads before they have any chance of being clicked
on.
1. Avoid too much content on a page
If Adsense does not understand what is your page is about, it cannot
deliver ads targeted to its content. Although a human being can
easily tell what a web page is about by taking a glance at it, computer
algorithms are no so intelligent. If your page contains too much
content, chances are that it also contains too many seemingly unrelated
keywords. Adsense becomes confused and displays PSAs or ads unrelated
to the topic of your page. Try dividing the page into smaller ones,
each focusing on just a few related keywords.
2. Avoid too little content on a page
If your page contains lots of graphics and very little text, Adsense
may have a hard time figuring out what it is about. This is especially
true when the bulk of your content is derived from graphics and
scripts. When possible, use text rather than graphics to display
website names, page titles, and headline texts. Make certain to
include your keywords in the title of your page and repeat them
throughout the page. Avoid hiding your text through sneaky tactics,
such as using tiny fonts or making your text the same color as the
background. This may be construed by search engines as spam.
3. Repeat keywords that you are targeting
Keyword repetition makes it easier for Adsense to decipher what
your page is about. Do this in moderation as excessive repetition
may be considered spam by the search engines. Excessive repetition
may also make your writing sound awkward to the human reader. Instead
of repeating the same keyword more than 5 or 6 times on a page,
use synonyms and related keywords. For example, instead of repeating
“Adsense optimization” 20 times, you might try alternative
phrases like “increase Adsense revenues” or “earn
more from Adsense”.
4. Avoid acronyms
I once wrote an article on pay-per-click advertising for one of
my sites. When I uploaded the article to my site, I was surprised
to find that all of the ads showing on the page were for Apple computer
products and had nothing to do with pay-per-click. It later occurred
to me that instead of repeating “pay-per-click” over
and over in the article, I used the acronym “PPC” numerous
times. As it turned out, “PPC” also stands for “PowerPC”,
Apple’s line of Power Macintosh computers, which explained
why I was getting all the Apple related ads. When I replaced all
the “PPCs” with “pay-per-click” and “pay
per click”, the problem went away.
5. Choose keywords with commercial value
You may get public service announcements rather than paid ads if
your page deals with a subject matter whose keywords no one bids
on. A remedy for this is to incorporate keywords with commercial
value into your manuscript. For instance, if your page is on some
obscure medical condition, you might try sprinkling a few drug names
into your document to make it display paid ads rather than PSAs.
About the Author Oudam Em is the publisher
of http://www.seotoday.net,
a free resource for search engine optimization and website promotion.
Visit his site for more SEO articles and tools.
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