11 Top Ways to Increase AdSense CPC

Top 11 Ways to Increase AdSense CPC - Before we discuss the best ways to increase AdSense CPC, let's first define the term CPC or 'Cost Per Click.' If you are using Google AdSense on your web page, then you will know that this is an ad from the Google AdWords advertising program. Advertisers using the AdWords program pay Google for every click made on their ad.

When you place AdSense blocks on your web pages and blogs, you are paid as a percentage of what advertisers pay to Google. Currently it is 68% of the bid price for the ad.

So, if someone pays Google $ 2 for every click on a particular ad for that particular keyword, then you get $ 1.36 every time a visitor to your site clicks on that ad if Google has placed it on your page.

What you have to do is do your best to maximize your CPC rates, so that the ads on your web pages and blog posts generate the most money every time a visitor clicks on them.

This involves getting Google to place the highest value ads on your page. You can't decide PPC from published ads yourself - Google decides it based on several aspects of your webpage / blog page / blog post.

There are two factors involved here: CPC and CTR (Click-Through Rate) - the latter is the rate of visitors actually clicking on the ad rather than just reading the page content and ignoring the ad. A high CTR is often better than a high CTR.

So, if you get a 2% CTR with an ad with a $ 0.75 CPC (2 visitors for every 100 clicks on the ad), then that's better than a 1% CTR with an ad with a $ 1.20 CPC.

With the former, every 1,000 visits will earn you $ 10.20 (68% of $ 15) whereas with the latter, you only make $ 8.16. So CTR matters, not just earnings per click. How many clicks often generate money, not necessarily the cost of each click.

This is just an example, and your income per 1,000 visitors will depend on the relevance of the AdSense ads to your visitors and the location of the ads on your site.

There are many things you can do to increase your CTR, but first let's focus on how you can attract the best paying ads: the ads with the highest CPCs.

1. Get Quality Traffic

This is the first tip on how to increase AdSense CPC. Many leave it to the end or don't even mention it at all.

In my opinion, if your visitors are not really focused on your niche, then they will not click on the ad associated with it. You have to make sure that your traffic is looking for what you are advertising.

Many people use AdSense on their site with the assumption that Google will provide relevant ads. As you will soon learn, this is true.

However, while you may mistakenly believe that your CPC won't change due to failure to achieve this relevance with your page, your CTR will definitely change.

Some will click on ads that are not related to the keywords or phrases they use to enter your site.

Google uses a lot of metrics when deciding which web pages get the highest paying clicks, and one of them is almost certainly your CTR for the ads they provide.

The higher the CTR for a URL, the higher the CPC you will likely get when your AdSense ads are updated on that page URL.

Google AdSense customers are advertisers, and companies will do whatever it takes to ensure that these paying advertisers get good value for money - or a good conversion rate from clicks.

If you're not attracting visitors to a web page or blog post that has a strong interest in the topic of the page or post, your CTR may be low. Read our publications to increase your blog traffic.

Not only that, some of these visitors may click on the ad just to see what it is - with no intention of buying.

Google's TOS is very strict with AdSense, and you can find your account canceled for life if you get too many clicks on your site that never lead to a sale.

Your web page must be relevant to a specific keyword in order for you to receive ads targeting that keyword, and it is also important that your visitors have a strong enough interest in that topic for them to click on the ad with a serious eye to buy the product.

Otherwise, Google has its own way of analyzing your site's performance, and you may experience a reduction in higher CPC ads on your pages.

So, make sure the traffic coming to your blog or website follows direct links or advertisements promoting your specific niche.

2. Do Your Research

The second tip on how to increase AdSense CPC is just as important. You have to research your niche for the highest paying keywords. The way AdWords operates is for advertisers to bid on keywords.

The more they pay per click for a particular keyword, the higher up in the Google SERPS their ad will appear. Irrelevant niche - relevant is what every advertiser wants to offer to get the # 1 position or even the Page # 1 position for their ad on the Google SERPS for that keyword.

Take What You Get: As previously stated, you can't choose what AdWords ads you want to appear in the AdSense block. Google decides it according to the relevance of your page to the keywords. You may be given an ad that appears on Page # 1 SERPS or on page 20. Ads on Page # 1 obviously cost more per click than on page 20 - so your share is also 68% larger.

Keyword Selection: That means you also have to find out what keywords you should use for the pages that contain AdSense and the semantics you use on the page. Google uses an algorithm very similar to its LSI algorithm to determine the meaning of your page.

The advertisements placed on those pages or blog posts will relate to Google's algorithm display of the content of that page. If you want to target high-value keywords, pick one and design the entire page around it.

AdSense SEO Basics: Your Meta title and description tags must include your targeted keywords, as well as your H1 header and at least one H2 title.

The vocabulary you use in your page content should relate semantically to the target keyword, and your 'alt' image attribute should contain those keywords as well.

When it comes to AdSense, classic SEO techniques will definitely help ensure you get the highest CPC ads included on the page.

Do your research, and come up with keywords targeted by the higher paying adverts - the highest AdSense CPCs.

Optimize your webpage or blog post for these keywords if you want to be given the highest CPC ads for them. However, the content of your entire domain is also important.

3. All Domains Are Important

Google is not stupid, and will consider the theme of your entire domain. You cannot publish pages on various topics and expect to receive relevant advertisements on every topic.

Google will look at the authority of your entire site and its relevance to the highest paying keywords. Authority sites can be rewarded with higher priced keywords because Google looks after its advertisers.

If your site is not thought to be focused on a particular keyword, you may be assigned a lower priced keyword - based on the content of the page rather than the overall authority of your website or blog in relation to the main target keyword.

So be realistic about your expectations of AdSense revenue, because Google will not give you the highest CPC ads unless you are sure that your blog will offer a good service to its customers who attract high quality clicks from visitors who are genuinely interested in the product or service they are advertising.

One of the ways to persuade Google to increase your average CPC is by convincing its algorithm that your domain is the authority on the specific keywords that you are targeting.

4. Balance Ad Block Numbers with Content Length

You are allowed three AdSense blocks on your page. However, don't use all three unless your content or blog post is long enough to warrant it. Remember what you have read above: Google shares ads according to your content!

If your content is not sufficient to provide enough information to Google's algorithms for your three ad blocks, then you may find your page contains irrelevant Ads and even some public ads! These are generic ads that aren't relevant to your niche, and they'll drastically reduce your average CPC.

Many people get better results with just one ad block on a short content page, as all ads will be more focused on their topic and a higher average CPC if 2 or more blocks are published.

5. Analyze Your Ad Placement

You can place the ad right at the top of your page, in the middle, at the bottom as a footer on any page or anywhere you want.

Google usually offers you the highest paying ads that are set up to give you the first slot loaded. Do you know the order in which each element loads on your blog page or website? If not, check your source code (Ctrl + U) or problems with your theme developer.

The first AdSense blocks that appear in the source file are the first ones Google discovered. The block will usually be assigned the highest CPC ad, with the lower CPC ad provided in the block that loads later.

Separate AdSense Ad Testing

It is helpful to do separate tests to determine the best approach to increase your AdSense CPC.

Run multiple days with only one ad block and some days with two. Theoretically, your CPC will be better off with just one CPC because it has to be filled with higher paying ads. Other split tests:

Single header vs. block 4
Video ads vs. text ads
One ad at the end of the post vs. one ad at the beginning
Compare different placement locations
Use channels (see Next tip)

If you find the house ad is performing well even though you are using header ads, then it is telling you that readers are going deeper into your blog before clicking on the ad.

Many people will avoid clicking on header ads as this takes them away from the information they are looking for. After they read your blog post, they may be open to clicking on an ad.

In this case, one or two AdSense ads at the bottom of the page, or the end of the post, may perform better than the first one. Keep in mind that Google will likely provide the highest AdSense CPC for the first ad published on your page, then you can earn more by using only one ad block in positions where testing has shown that you are likely to get the most clicks.

So how do you determine which ad block is performing the best?

6. Use AdSense Channels to Increase AdSense CPC

You can set up your test using the AdSense channel. You can create a custom channel to set the CPC and CTR for each ad block. Measure the performance of each channel for 2-4 weeks, then design your AdSense strategy on the results. Channels can be created for individual advertisements or ad blocks.

This allows you to remove low-performing blocks, or to change their position on your page. Google can provide the highest paying AdSense ads for the best performing ads.

It is because these advertisers are paying for maximum exposure. Top bids for a specific keyword not only get you top of Google SERPS Page # 1 for that keyword, but also exposure to the best performing ad blocks on the top performing web pages.

Custom channels allow you to set the CTR and CPC of each of your ad blocks or even individual ads.

You can determine whether a single banner ad pays more than the combined revenue from each ad in a block of 4 ads in the same position on your page. You can also set up channels to compare ad sizes to.

7. AdSense Text, Image and Video Ads

During our custom channel testing and analysis, note that some people prefer text ads to image ads, and some prefer video ads. Many expect AdSense ads to be text links, and deliberately avoid them.

However, they may click on the image and even more may click to watch an interesting video. Google classifies videos as image ads - you get a click recorded when the video is clicked to 'Play'.

The entire video doesn't need to be played - just the first click of the play button.

Always remember that you don't have to think about what your visitors do after they click, because that's all you pay for.

Pull that click! It doesn't matter if the video is of poor quality - or even fails to run! You get paid for clicks! With AdSense, your job is to persuade visitors to click. When looking for ways to increase your AdSense CPC, it's your job to increase the price for those clicks.

Video ads can get clicks even just for the value of interest - many people will watch videos that wouldn't dream of clicking on text ads. This is why it is so important to test the different advertising formats that AdSense offers.

Channels may be the method that works best for you, although some have their own way of doing this - usually by publishing optional advertisements for a short period of time each and comparing the results.

8. Why Google Recommends Image and Video Ads?

You can only show one image or video ad at a time - you can't display a line of image ads the way you can display a text ad.

It focuses your visitor's attention on a single ad. More popular advertisers, manufacturers and service providers like to promote their brands. This means a logo or other image that they include in their AdSense ad.

It also means that they are more likely to make videos to promote their business. Such ads tend to pay more per click than simple text ads - but only if the video content matches the content of your page.

9. Increase Your AdSense CTR for Higher Online Income

We've explained that your AdSense Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of visitors to your page who clicked on an AdSense ad.

So, if you have 20,000 visitors every month, and you get 40 clicks on AdSense ads, your CTR is 0.2% if you get 500 clicks on ads, your CTR is 2.5%. Regardless of the CPC, you want your CTR to be as high as possible.

We gave some examples of income at the start of this blog post, and here are a few others.

If the average CPC that Google pays you is 40c, then the example above will give you a monthly income of $ 16 and $ 200.

If you can increase your CPC to 80c, then you are making $ 32 to $ 400 every month. The bigger your CTR, the better it is for you - you have more control over ad placement than you have the CPC!

Some people make thousands every month using AdSense on multiple sites.

However, even with a single blog, you have no excuse for not maximizing your revenue using some basic common sense: place your AdSense ads in areas of your website or blog that people tend to use the most.

10. Using Heat Maps

This information is available in what is known as a 'heat map' - a representation of a web page that shows where most people tend to spend the most of their time and also click the most.

By placing your individual AdSense ads or ad blocks in the most popular areas of your site, you will get the most clicks - a higher CTR, and therefore more revenue!

Check out our Heat Map Post for more information on how to use it to increase AdSense CPC and CTR on any website or blog.

To be honest, positioning will only affect your CPC if the Google crawler believes that ad position is important (eg as a header or close to the top of the page as 'seen by Google'). This may affect the CTR, even if it refers to Paragraph 5 above).

Heatmaps give you an indication of where people hovered over your page the most, and more advanced versions can show you where they clicked too.

In the example shown by the link above, you'll see that most of the activity is in navigation links, newsletters, and content titles.

Whether this same visitor has clicked on an ad - you don't know, but you can find out using your own heatmap software. A great version is ClickTale - you can try it out for free.

11. Top Ways to Increase AdSense CPC: General Tips

We'll end with some general tips about Google AdSense:

Try to avoid Link Unit ads: These are ads where there is a single link that displays a number of other ads (usually 5) when clicked.

Visitors object to double-clicking and then getting an ad. They either leave your site or have learned to never click on such links.

Use the 'Competitive Ad Filter' to block ads from specific competitors - or even ads related to your own niche.

Why offer your visitors the opportunity to visit other sites that offer what you do! You can block AdSense ads from specific URLs or even block entire categories.

Ad Review Center: Another option you have is to block categories of ads that don't usually pay much per click.

You can use this to block ads for categories that are irrelevant to your site - or that you would rather advertise yourself than allow AdSense to do.

Ad Platform: Usually it makes no difference whether your blog is displayed on a desktop PC, laptop, tablet or mobile.

However, there are cases where cell phone ads can offer higher CPCs, so if you have this option, go for it. Make sure your site is available for cell phone searches.

Improve the Quality of Your Site: The higher the quality of your site or blog in the eyes of Google's algorithms or crawlers, the higher the AdSense CPC of ads that Google is likely to provide to you.

Work for quality backlinks, take advantage of keywords and SEO on other pages, and take advantage of Google+ and other social networking sites. You will then be more likely to be given higher CPC ads for your niche. The extra work can make you a lot of money!

Top Ways to Increase AdSense CPC: Overview

Basically, the top ways to allow you to increase the AdSense CPC on your website or blog fall into one of three main categories:

Get good traffic figures - Google places higher CPC ads on high traffic sites,
Focus your page on the keywords that are the most expensive for AdWords users,
Use Channels to increase your AdSense CPC,
Place your ads carefully so that Google provides the top CPC placements your visitors are likely to click, and
Work hard to maximize your CTR - the proportion of visitors to your site who click on your ads can influence Google to provide you with the highest paying AdSense ads.

Do all of that, and you will succeed in increasing the AdSense CPC on your site to the maximum level. It may not be all in your hands, but if you work and understand what Google is looking for when placing its AdSense ads, then you should do well in achieving the highest possible CPC.

Remember: the increase is accumulated into cash through your AdSense revenue.