Where Have ALL the Clickers Gone?

That's a Peter, Paul and Mary song from the old days, right?

Is there any way I can be assured that my ad blocks deliver at least three ads per block ...

Unfortunately, no.

I have tweak my pages time and time again to no avail... is there anything I can do to improve my situation... I'm all ears...

Stop teaking old pages and start building new ones. Far more bang for the buck in my book.

My site has over 350 pages... very little else I can write about on the topic ... only to get the same old adsense ads on every page...

Sometimes we just have to accept that AdSense is what it is. It works better on some sites and with some topics than it does with others. And even if it worked really well years ago, it might no longer do so. The program has changed a lot since it started.

Frustrates me too sometimes.

Might be time to start a new site in another topic area.

My site has over 350 pages... very little else I can write about on the topic

Make a new site :) CTR is pretty weak this month for me too. Pretty bad august.

Where Have ALL the Clickers Gone?

That's a Peter, Paul and Mary song from the old days, right?

I thought it was a Van Halen cover of a Kinks song?

pete seeger

Where Have ALL the Clickers Gone?

I heard they are all at a convention ... somewhere.

Hurry home clickers!

FarmBoy

Do you ever that the popularity of Elvis might be waning?

Much less advertisers interested in that audience.

Let's face it most of your audience is boomers and they just took a major shellacing in the housing market debacle. What was once the most sold to affluent audience is simply not that any more. They are jamming what they have left into their retirement accounts so they can live a marginal live, not the extravagant one they fantasized. So less advertiser interest and $$$.

Well, Elvis will never die in Vegas but I can't vouch for the rest of the world.

I hear you all loud and clear...

Yes, I have been think that the bottom would drop out one day...but I never thought it would happen in my best earning month... down by half so far... too depressing to think it could get worse.

But with a niche site that is in google's top ten for 50 keywords and 25 thousand subscribers to my monthly newsletter I had hoped for just one more good year.

Adsense fiddling with block ads and delivering whatever ... and advertisers waning ... I do believe it is time to move on... but then what do I do ... sell all three sites... keep my fingers crossed... hope and prayer... it seems a hunka, hunka burnin' love is just not cutting it any more...

So for the 64 thousand dollar question? What are highest paying keywords? Just kidding...

Michael Jackson?

Ooops he's dead now too.

I am sure the webmasters with his fan sites hope to milk them for 30 years.

But with a niche site that is in google's top ten for 50 keywords...

According to Google's Keyword Tool [adwords.google.com], there may be an additional hundred more keywords for you to work on. ;) With 350 pages and only 50 top ten, there may be some underperforming pages that can be fixed to bring in more traffic. Something as small as CAPITALIZING important keywords in the title tag can help squeeze in more visitors, especially in conjunction with a call to action in the meta description.

Visitor stats are good for identifying top ten ranking queries that can be improved with a better title tag and possible on page optimization. Identifying keywords you should be ranking for then matching them with the best pages on your site for those queries is another excercise for improving traffic and income.

I can see some improvement with that site in the profile. MB mentioned one; title tags.

Having been to Graceland the Elvis auto museum could amount to a few new dozen pages. Just one example.

Thanks for all you suggestions... working my fingers to the bone... and updating my mega tags after a long hard look into the google keyword tool-box...

As I will not be making the pilgrimage to Graceland this year... what better way to wallow away the hours but sitting in front of the puter and getting massive eye strain... but then again I do have Elvis in the background to keep me company...

Something as small as CAPITALIZING important keywords in the title tag can help squeeze in more visitors, especially in conjunction with a call to action in the meta description.

martinibuster, I have been capitalizing my titles for years, what is the reason for your suggestion?

Is it because capitalizing stands out from the sites that do not capitalize OR is there some favor given by Google or other search engines for capitalization? Just curious as to your reasons. My reason has always been to make my sites stand out in the search results, but I did not know if there might be other great reasons?

>>>to make my sites stand out in the search results...

Yes. The difference in traffic between ranking #1 and ranking #5 can be substantial. It's useful to capitalize a keyword phrase to help your SERP listing pop out and attract more clicks/visitors.

@martinibuster
I actually thought capitalising titles might lead to Penalties sometime, might try it some where, unless you where joking

Not kidding. Capitalization within the title tag makes your keywords stand out, resulting in more clickthroughs. Meta description is a good place to convince a searcher why they should click through. Hence, something to validate your site (online since 1999 etc.) and a call to action (Read more,click here, etc.), in addition to the standard description of what a searcher may expect to find once they click through.

Title Tag catches the searchers eye, meta description convinces them to click through.

Another technique is to rely less on drive-by visitors. This will have the added benefit of generating more revenue from affiliate links.

What you want to do is capture readers at every stage of the research and buying cycle--from the point where they're first thinking "Do I want a widget" through "Which widget do I want?" to "I'm looking to buy a widget." At least one major study has shown that, in the leading e-commerce categories, the typical purchaser conducts research several times over a period of five weeks or longer before buying. If you target only the people who are actively looking to buy something right now, you're competing directly with AdWords ads on Google's SERPs, and you're also leaving money on the table.

Ok

I give you one on the house since I know you personally EF.

Create a forum where people can talk about: in person Elvis experiences, trips to Graceland, even Elvis impersonators. la la la etc

Maybe you can get some help from others if you don't have the programing skills.

Do believe that since adsense has deemed to have fewer ads in the ad blocks even the 300x250 size at times only delivers one BIG ad which looks terrible.

The most common reason we would serve a single text ad in a larger ad block is that the advertiser has bid on a CPM [google.com] basis. That means the publisher is getting paid whether a user clicks or not. For that reason, many publishers like seeing CPM ads on their sites. (Keep in mind, though, that we'll always serve the ad that we think will earn you the most money, whether it's CPC or CPM.)

ASA

To bad you couldn't set up a particular adblock for CPM acceptance.

I have 3 - 250x300 per page I would be willing to make one CPM sensitive but not all 3. ( people in my niche tend to lowball). Currently I am opted-out for just that reason.

Let's say the Big M comes in a throws a low cost brand ad in there. Well, all the clickity little clickers want to know about Big M's offer. Bang, zoom profit in the toilet. Ok filter them, now the filter is eaten up at double the pace.

Can't say that about Big G, you guys at least pay fair.

To bad you couldn't set up a particular adblock for CPM acceptance.

Or--better yet from an advertiser's point of view--place CPM ads only in the highest ad block on the page, where they'd have a greater chance of being seen by visitors.

I have just been doing some layout adjustments to see if I can overcome ad blindness but a closer look at the results suggested that lack of suitable inventory is a major issue.

@ASA - "Keep in mind, though, that we'll always serve the ad that we **think** will earn you the most money, whether it's CPC or CPM."

How accurate is your thinking wrt. reality? In other words what is the error percentage?

**think**

"A catch, always a catch!"
- Hellboy

Oh yeah, (sorry to quasi hijack your thread EF) Speaking of the one ad per adblock action. I would like the ability to lock each text adblock at one, two, three, or 4 ads per.

Khensu... I agree with you ... why offer an option of size of add block only to have adsense decide how many ads in the block...

How accurate is your thinking wrt. reality? In other words what is the error percentage?

AdSense has been around for six years, and I'd imagine that Google has acquired a tremendous amount of data on user behavior, ad performance, and CTR patterns for individual accounts during that time. So maybe ASA's use of the word "think" needs to be taken for what it probably was meant it to be: a less formal way of saying "We'll always serve the ad that our computers project will earn you the most money, based on statistical analysis and your account's history."

Thanks EF

Really, I think a forum would work for you, like WW.

We are talking about balancing white space, user readability and ad prices.

For example on my religion page I would probably set it for one per, on my travel page 3 per and on my business page I would probably let the algo handle it.

Khensu... a niche forum... I don't think so... several fans have already tried and failed...

Having to close when the "he is alive" theorist come on board and ruin it for everyone...

I will stick to what I know and try to improve on it... with working on my mega tags, improve my ranking and keywords...