The AskTheBuilder.com web site gets the Google case study focus, as the AdSense team trumpets the site’s jump from $10,000 to $30,000 in monthly revenue.
The online home of syndicated columnist Tim Carter started out with contextual advertising in 1996, done on his own. Carter selected and screened advertisers, and achieved a high CTR running between 20 and 40 percent.
As the post on Google’s AdSense site noted, Carter was spending a lot of time on ads when he wanted to be working on content instead.
He switched to AdSense in April 2004, and began to see more money roll in to the site. Then he began to practice what many SEO professional preach: he tweaked and experimented with color, size, font, and placement of his ads:
One winning strategy Carter discovered is a rectangular format: the inline rectangle worked well with his content layout. He saw a 20 percent jump in revenue from placing the rectangle in the upper left corner inside his articles. He has also been able to match AdSense ads with the color scheme on his website to deliver visual continuity that’s appealing to readers. With his recent implementation of the link units format in the upper left corner under the site search bar, Tim was astonished to see an 18 percent jump in his revenues.
Carter also tested placement of ads and ad unit sizes to gauge performance. “I now put ad units above the fold and to the left before I place them anywhere else,” he says.
He also saw that AdSense units perform well when they are within the body of his articles.
While not everyone can be a syndicated columnist, every site can work on providing quality content. Becoming a trusted resource takes time, but as can be seen in Carter’s example, the rewards can be lucrative.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.