LESS IS MORE WITH ADSENSE

I made a (for me) surprising discovery about Adsense recently - less really is more:

a) I'd been advised by a respected SEO mentor that the presence of Adsense deprecates your page quality ranking with Google (irony or what?), so to go easy.

Usually, I take SEO advice with a healthy pinch of salt until I can test it empirically, there is just so much reported wisdom that is not substantiated by scientific observation.

Unfortunately, I couldn't test this hypothesis statistically right now - there's just too much else going on. In particular, the addition of many new inbound links - which tend to swamp the effect of on-page factors.

So instead, I tracked and analyzed my individual ads' contributions - and found such a skew in their performance that it was a no-brainer to cull the weaker brethren.

b) There is a psychological phenomenon called "ad blindness".
Apparently the more ads we are exposed to, the more likely we are to ignore ALL of them. This understanding motivated me to cull the weaker ads ruthlessly, and sure enough the total clicks and revenue improved.

c) Following the "minimalist" concept a little further, I also experimented with substituting link ads for text ads. To my surprise, I scored more clicks and revenue from a links banner at the top of the page than I did from an ad banner in the same position (whether text only or text/image mixed).

d) On the back of that discovery, I eliminated an eBay shop window which was earning pennies - and the Adsense clicks went up yet again!

e) Most significantly of all, my affiliate ad clicks also increased when I cut down the Adsense - and that means real money. I earn $25 to $100 commissions on those, AND the possibility of repeat orders, which puts the Adsense pennies firmly into perspective.

Maybe I should eliminate the content next, so there are NO distractions at all!
Sadly, many a true word spoken in jest there - it's a devious but effective black hat tactic....

Bottom line:

1) Track and test for yourself - even very simple tests can reveal valuable insights.

2) Treasure your credibility like gold (which it is).
Nobody listens to folks forever pitching - you gotta give before you get.
So cut back on what you sell and stick to offers that you KNOW are good 'uns.

3) Adsense is a last resort best used to monetize a failed site until you can sell it.
If the traffic is good, then you will do better with the following options:
a) selling your own products
b) selling good affiliate products via Clickbank, Commission Juncrion etc.
c) selling the traffic for higher returns (CPA offers, link sales, private PPC deals)

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