16 Quick and Easy Tips to Increase AdSense CPC

Is AdSense working for you? Are you frustrated at your inability to make big money from AdSense regardless of your best efforts? Wonder if you will ever make real money from your blog? Well, read on, for I'm going to show you how to increase AdSense CPC the quick and easy way.

But before that, let's quickly walk you through the basics. CPC means "Cost Per Click". What's that? It means advertisers who use the AdSense program pay Google every time someone clicks on their adverts. When you join the AdSense network, you will be running AdSense ads on your blog or web pages and get paid 68% of the bid price for the advert - the rest goes to Google.

So if Google gets paid $4 for every click made on a specific ad for a certain keyword, you will get paid $2.72 every time a visitor to your website clicks on that ad, the one that is placed by Google on your web page.

Now, if you want to make real money from the AdSense program, you should try to maximize the CPC price. This means having the right kind of adverts on your web pages, the sort that make you the most amount of money per click.

You cannot decide the CPC of the ads that are placed on your blog. All you can do is to build your website or blog in such a way that Google places high value adverts or those with higher CPC on your web pages. Google decides where to place the ads through an automated system.

Why Click Through Rate (CTR) Matters

There is another important thing you need to keep in mind in this context, apart from the CPC. It is called the CTR or the Click Through Rate. The CTR is the percentage of visitors that click on the ads on your web pages.

Ideally you will want more visitors that click on the ads than those who just read your blog posts and ignore the ads completely. You will want a higher CTR in order to increase AdSense CPC. Is that clear enough?

So, if you have a CTR of 4% with a CPC of $1.5 - which indicates that 4 visitors of every 100 click on your ads - that is much better than a CTR of 2% with a CPC of $2.40. With the first, you will make $20.40 a day if you have a daily traffic of 1,000 visitors, and with the second, you will only make $16.32 a day from a daily traffic of 1,000.

So, it's not enough to have a high CPC, you also need a high CTR. That's why, to make big money from your blog, you will need to focus on increasing AdSense CPC as well as the CTR.

Now, before I give you tips on boosting your AdSense CPC, let's try to understand why your current AdSense CPC is so low.

Reasons why your AdSense CPC is Low

1. Niche
   Your website or blog belongs to a less profitable niche, one where your audience doesn't click on the ads. So if you have a blog that covers politics, for example, it's not your fault that you have a low CTR, it may have to do with your niche. Now, real estate blogs on the other hand, they have high CTRs.
2. Geography
   It has to do with where your audience comes from. If much of your audience is located in a country where the clicks don't cost much, then you will have a low CPC as well.
3. Mobile
   Maybe your website isn't mobile friendly as yet. Since the Mobile-Friendly update launched on April 21, 2015, Google penalizes websites that are not mobile friendly, through lower position on the SERPS and lower CPC values.
4. Programmatic media buys
   Programmatic buying by advertisers has resulted in a massive slump in income for many bloggers that depend on Google AdSense for a living. Nothing you could do about that.
5. Blocked advertisers
   You may have blocked a few advertisers for many reasons. You may have blocked your competitors from advertising on your site and you may have blocked a few companies whose policies you don't agree with. Well, the problem with that is that you will get penalized for this by AdSense through lower CPCs.
6. Video
   You may have a successful YouTube channel, but the placement of YouTube ads on your website or blog has meant that the money is going to YouTube and not to AdSense. So you have a lower CPC.
7. Poor targeting
   It's the advertisers' fault! They have no clue on how to target the right blogs for their products or services. So you have a men's fashion blog and for some strange reason you get adverts for women's fashion and accessories. Well, it's poor targeting by the advertisers, not your fault, but that lowers your CTR and CPC.
8. Economy
   There is little you can do when there is a recession in your country or across the world and people are just not buying enough. So advertisers have no choice but to limit their marketing expenditure and your CPC suffers as a consequence.
9. Seasonality
   It could be a seasonal thing. If you have a blog that offers match day predictions for the English Premier League, you won't have too many visitors during the off season when there are no matches played. So you will have a lower CPC at this time. Similarly, if you promote gifts or greeting cards on your website, you will have high CPC ads during the Holiday Season, and lower CPC ads for the rest of the year.
10. Ads sizes
    Not all ads are the same. Some ads convert much more than others. Not having enough converting ads can reduce your CPC. Pay attention to the size of the ads - there are some sizes that convert better.
11. Improper ad placement
    You have violated AdSense ad placement policies in some way without actually realizing it, and have been penalized by Google for it. Google has strict policies on the ads, and they frown upon the practice followed by some publishers where they trick users into clicking on the ads. This has to be avoided at all cost.

So, these are the 11 reasons why your AdSense CPC is low. Now, how can you increase AdSense CPC?

Here are 16 Quick and Easy Tips to Increase AdSense CPC

1. Optimize your content for high value keywords - Do your keyword research and identify the best paying keywords within your niche. The way AdSense works is that advertisers bid for keywords. There are some keywords that get the best bids and have a much higher value. Those are the keywords that you should focus on and optimize your content for.
   
   There are some keywords that could be worth $100 or more per click. Do your research on them and include them as naturally as possible in your content. In the US, the best paying keywords are available in categories such as business services, bail bonds, casino, lawyer and asset management. Create content relevant to such popular niches and optimize your articles and blog posts with the best paying keywords.





2. Focus on long tail keywords - It's not enough just to have the best paying keywords. You should do your research on SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMRush and identify the best paying long tail keyword phrases which are relevant to your readers. Include these keywords in your content. Make sure to use the best SEO practices to optimize your content with these keywords - but keep it natural, don't stuff keywords without considering the grammatical correctness and the flow of the writing.
3. Create engaging, high quality and profitable content - The quality of the content is the most important thing to be considered. You should have a clear idea of what your readers are looking for and provide them with the right kind of solutions to their problems. You should write content that creates value to a highly targeted audience, who are looking for information within a niche. The content should be SEO friendly and placed prominently on Google's SERPs. The higher the traffic, the more people that read your content, the higher will be your AdSense CPC. As simple as that!
4. Make good use of the AdSense Ad Review Center - The AdSense Ad Review Center is a tool that allows you to review individual ads so that you can decide whether to block them or to display them on your web pages. This gives you a much higher level of control and transparency over the ads that appear on your website or blog. It gives you complete control over what sort of products, services or brands are promoted on your website or blog. You should make use of this tool to display adverts from high paying advertisers only. Remember - not all AdSense adverts are supported by this tool. Ad Review Center only allows you to block ads at the product level and not at the website level.





5. Figure out the best ad sizes - The right kind of ad sizes and placements bring you the best paying CPCs. There are some ad sizes that are very effective for certain platforms, such as mobiles and tablets, but not so successful on other platforms, such as laptops. Choose the best ad sizes for various platforms and experiment with them till you get a CPC that you are comfortable with.
6. Use Smart Pricing to your advantage - Advertisers of today want higher ROI and want real clients. Google understands this and makes an accurate projection on the conversion rate of the ads before deciding which ads to serve and where to place them. This is based on a "Smart Pricing" model which Google uses these days. You can use Smart Pricing to your advantage by displaying relevant ads, attracting high quality traffic to your blog and creating amazing content.
7. Make use of the Competitive Ad Filter - the Competitive Ad Filter is similar in a lot of ways to Ad Review Center discussed earlier. The purpose of this tool is to filter out any unwanted ads and to prevent them from appearing on your site. You can use this tool to block ads from your competitors. You can block entire AdSense accounts or specific domains. Now, this doesn't do much for your CPC, but it ensures that your competitors don't display their ads on your site. The last thing you want is for your customers to be led to your competitors' websites.
8. Follow Google's Mobile-Friendly guidelines - Since April 21, 2015, Google has made the mobile-friendliness of a website as one of the premier rankings factors for its algorithm. You have to optimize your website for the mobile; if you don't you will get penalized by Google in a big way. You must have a responsive web design.
   
   Advertisers like websites that are mobile friendly. Some pay more for mobile clicks than for desktop clicks and other prefer to advertise exclusively on the mobile. This is especially true of local businesses within a certain geographical area. So, to increase your CPC, make your website more mobile friendly.
9. Experiment, mix and match, try out new things with your ads - Google AdSense has a special called "Experiments" which allows you to try out different things with your ads. You can do split testing on different ad formats, try different advertisers, make changes to the font type and background color, change ad sizes, change color schemes, block certain ad categories, etc. and find out what works and what doesn't. When you feel comfortable about something, stick to it for the long haul.
10. Make use of the Google Ecosystem - Google likes publishers who are loyal to its platform. So join the Google Ecosystem, be a part of it. This means being on Google+, making use of Google Webmaster Tools, creating a Google Business account, having a YouTube channel of your own, using Google Docs, and so on. Spend more time on the Google platform, use more Google resources to earn Google's trust. Earning Google's trust is a surefire route to a higher CPC.
11. Focus on certain high paying geographical areas - You should always focus on high CPC regions where advertisers pay more for clicks. So if your content is aimed at audiences within the United States, Sweden, Japan, Norway or Netherlands, you will most certainly have a much higher CPC compared to targeting countries such as India, South Africa, Bangladesh and Indonesia. You might want to purchase local domain addresses and created content specific to the high CPC region. You may even want to narrow down your geographical region to just cities - for example, any content focused on New York City, Dallas or London gets high paying ads.
12. Make use of information from both Google Analytics and Google AdSense and link them for a better insight into your web traffic - Both Analytics and AdSense provide you with excellent information on your web traffic, revenue earned and deliver useful reports. Connect your Google Analytics and AdSense accounts for a better insight into your traffic, and get a sense of the audience behavior on your site - what they click more, where your highest CPC traffic is located and so on.
13. Show only relevant ads - You should make sure that Google serves only the most relevant ads on your web pages. The way to do that is to make your content SEO friendly and easy to crawl for the search engine bots. You can start by focusing on the basics such as headings, meta tags and formatting your content. Also, turn off the remarketing ads in favor of contextual ads. All of these things could increase your CPC over time.
14. Reduce the number of ad units on your blog - Try something different such as reducing the number of ad units on your blog. By reducing the supply, you can have the advertisers bid more for the limited space, which can lead to an increase in your CPC. It is about making the supply/demand mismatch work to your advantage.
15. Use the Matched Content feature on AdSense - Google has a content recommendation service called as Matched Content for AdSense. So it this is available only to major publishers, but you can try and find out if you qualify for it or not. This involves replacing your local article recommendation engine with that of Google. The idea is to promote only the most relevant and most profitable content on your site to your visitors.
16. Allow Placement Targeting - Advertisers are always willing to pay more for quality placement. Google has made it possible for advertisers to target specific sections within your website or specific formats. This is called as Placement Targeting. For this you will have to group the ads into Custom Channels - as many as 500 URLs - and give advertisers easy access to relevant content on your website.

Final Thoughts

I have discussed why your AdSense CPC is low and given you 16 quick and easy tips on increasing it. However, there are no hard and fast rules here. If none of the steps given above work, try something else to increase AdSense CPC. Just keep experimenting till something sticks. Hope you enjoyed reading this. As usual, I look forward to your questions and suggestions. Just send them in the comments below.

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How To Get High Quality Links In 2017

Why Are Links So Important?

Gaining links has always been a factor to determine the success of a website. Google algorithms recognise the value of an organic link, especially if the link is earned from an authoritative website.

Even in 2017, link building remains a priority for SEO professionals who are trying to rank their website well. There is a slight change, however.

Due to more recent updates in Google algorithms, like Google Penguin, Google now focuses a whole lot more on link quality, over link quantity.

Nowadays, only the highest quality links, which have good quality content and natural looking anchor texts, will be approved by Google's algorithm. The better the quality, the more chance you have of ranking your website above competitors.

But what does it take to get high quality links?


The Cost Of Building Links For SEO:

Building high quality links, which are 'natural looking', can cost you a lot of time and money - whilst building low quality links can cost you, well… with being penalized.

Creating a great backlink profile for your website not only takes up a lot of your time and effort in prospecting and outreach-approaching to journalists and websites, but also costs a lot of money through a person's time, as well as the price it might cost to submit a guest post on a site.

Authoritative websites such as Forbes, Huffington Post and Entrepreneur even accept guest post contributions. However, their high standard entry requirements mean that only few websites manage to receive the high quality backlink from these sites. This leaves the majority of websites on the internet with low to medium quality backlinks.

By considering the following, you'll be on your way to bagging yourself some high quality links in 2017:

Finding Relevant Sites To Outreach To:

The first stage of the link building process consists of browsing the internet to find relevant websites to pitch content ideas to. There are several pieces of software that you could use to help you along the way. I tend to use Buzzstream, the CRM for content marketing and link building. This allows you to search for relevant websites, and store them all in one place ready to reach out to.

When searching for relevant sites, there are two things you need to consider. You need to first check the domain authority of the site you are looking to reach out to. I always recommend focusing on websites with a domain authority of 50+ if you want to generate the highest quality links. You also need to check that the website is actually accepting content in the first place. You don’t want to waste the person's time pitching them a content idea if it says clearly on their site that they aren’t accepting posts.


Outreaching To Gain High Quality Links:

Once you have finished prospecting and have created a list of websites that you’d potentially like to write for, outreach is your next step. Outreach is the stage which you should invest most of your time into. Otherwise, how else are you going to build relationships with the persons who handle the editorial on the site?

It is best that you begin with writing out a great initial email to send. Instead of sending out a generic email which looks like it has been copied and pasted from many outreach templates, you must tailor the email so that is personalised and specific to the person or company that you are addressing. You need to make your email pitch stand out amongst hundreds of others.

Though don’t be put off if it takes multiple attempts at outreach before the site actually considers that your idea is a good fit for them, it happens.

Writing Good Quality Content:

It’s all well and good outreaching to websites asking for a link, but what actually is it that you are offering to them in return? No one enjoys being approached solely for a favour, unless it is worth it. So think to yourself, is the content and the link worth being on the stranger's site?

When outreaching, you need to connect with the addressee. How do you do this? By finding out a bit about them, and speaking like-minded to them. You could do this by checking out their LinkedIn or their personal Twitter account. You must clarify exactly what it is that you will be providing them and how this relates to them individually. You need to consider the quality and uniqueness of the content which you are going to write for this site in exchange for a link.

First make it clear from your email pitch the quality of the content you will provide. And second, make it clear in the content itself. Show them that your piece adds value to the readership of their high authoritative site, and that you haven’t just wasted their time.

Content is extremely competitive these days. The best pieces of content are of long form, comprehensive, optimized with images and provide users with value.

Provide content which people will actually want published on their site for their audience to read and engage with.

You might also like reading: How To Write A Powerful Blog Post ?


But how do you know what content to produce?

You should look out for the content which is generating the most interaction and engagement on the net. There are several ways of doing this. First you could look at content which your competitors are producing and see if that topic is receiving much engagement such as social engagement and shares. Similarly, there are several pieces of software which you could use to show you high engaged content on the internet, such as Ahrefs.

When writing content, you should write something which is unique and not something that users would have read before. If you come up with a unique piece of content, then a website is most likely going to want you to publish it on their site and give a link in exchange.

Building Engagement With Great Content:

High quality content doesn’t only provide you with a link in exchange, but will also build engagement from users. The better the quality of content, the more chances there are that people will enjoy reading the content and will want to share it for others to read too. In return, this will help to increase the awareness of yourself as an author or your company, as well as promote your knowledge in the industry (as shown in the content).


In 2017, it isn’t about getting hundreds of low quality links which are blatant blackhat SEO techniques, it is about putting in the time and effort to reach out to the most relevant and high authoritative websites, despite how challenging it may be. You might face frustrations and people turning you down along the way, but it will be worth it in the end. Outreaching to build high quality links in 2017 is a process of refining and personalising your pitch, providing relevance, and stating what added value your content will offer to the authoritative site!

• Libby Teager
• Site URL: http://speechlesswebdesign.com/
• Libby enjoys socialising. Which means that she likes to go out with her friends, drink, then hit the gym to work it off. She’s a social media addict, who turned it into her profession. She loves her role as an account manager and researcher at Speechless Web Design. Almost as much as Big Macs. She once ate 3 in 24 hours.
• View Author's Profile

Search keywords: link building sites list, how to get quality backlinks, how to create backlinks manually, Quality Links In 2017, backlinks seo, how to create backlinks for my website 101helper.

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7 Legit Ways To Make Money Online Blogging in 2017

We've all heard those stories of someone that started a little blog one day and ten years later they've given up their day job because their blog is drawing in so much money for them they don't even need to get out of bed in the morning. The funny thing is, with a lot of hard work and time spent on getting your blog up and running, you can actually make a pretty penny out it. So, if you're interested in learning how to make money blogging then read on, I'll warn you now though, you're going to have to be seriously dedicated to get this running!

Sell digital products

A really simple way to make money online is to sell things online. Whether you're looking at selling digital goods or physical ones, you need to think closely about where your skills and strengths lie. Setting up a blog that is geared towards selling your goods might seem like a great idea but it's better to set up a blog and add the odd link to other work that you're doing. People read blogs for the stories and information, not to be sold goods left, right and centre, so keep this in mind when you're starting out on the blogging journey.

Some commonly sold digital goods include: 

• eBooks 
• Audiobooks
• Pictures & Videos
• Digital music
• Software programs
• Website themes

Sell physical products

The other great thing to remember is that knowing your audience will make all the difference when you're selling goods online. Running a blog about cars and motorsport and trying to sell homemade paper flowers just won't mix. If paper bouquets are your passion and you know they're good enough to sell, then the best thing for it is to set up a secondary blog that focuses on something more in keeping with what you're selling. Remember though, don't push the sales from the get go. If people feel like they're being sold to, they won't be interested. If your goods are just supporting what you're saying in your blog then you'll find a lot more enquiries fly your way!

Some of the physical goods that you can sell:

• Clothing
• Jewelry
• Handmade goods
• Household Items
• Electronics

Sell Advertising space

A really common way to make money from a blog is to sell advertising. The more traffic you have flowing through your page, the more likely you are to draw advertising agencies in and this can be a really quick way to make a little bit of extra money. If you're finding other ways of making money through your blog then you might want to think about using advertising space to your own benefit by advertising your own products! Taking people from your blog to your selling page will only generate a little bit of extra business for your sales. Sure, advertising someone else's websites might bring in the cash at the point of sale but would you make extra money from sales of your own goods? Just something to consider!

Sell online courses and eBooks

If you're really feeling confident in the topic of your blog then you might want to consider doing some form of educational documentation. Whether you do a few online courses or write an ebook, if your followers really respect your expertise in the field you're talking about then they will flock to what you have to offer. Obviously, the best products to sell will vary massively depending on the type of blog you run. Factual blogs will work well with eBooks, lifestyle blogs might offer some one to one coaching sessions and online courses might be best for those that are thinking about a change of scenery in the workplace. If in doubt, ask your readers what they'd like and whether they'd be interested! There's no better feedback than the people you're already writing for.

Freelancing

If you're reading all of these tips and thinking 'that doesn't apply to me' then worry not, you're not alone! We've all got our own areas of expertise and very often, the job you do for your career can make you some extra money at home. Whether you're coming from a financial background, web design or bookkeeping, they're all skills that are highly sought after for a lot of people. The great thing about advertising these skills on your blog is you're more likely to pick up a job that directly corresponds with your interests. Sick of making up advertisements for big businesses and fancy helping out a local dealer? Well your blog could be the perfect place to get business like that running. Before you know it, you could be a freelancer running your own business!

Here are some ideas:

• Freelance writing
• Data Entry
• Virtual assistant work
• Web Development
• Marketing

Affiliate marketing

If all else fails then there's always the opportunity to sell other people's good through your blog. This doesn't necessarily include actively selling their goods in that you don't have to deal with the postage and packaging though! Affiliate marketing is an amazing way to make money from blogging if you're smart about how you go about it. Picking your affiliates sensibly and going for products that will actually hold the interest of your readers, a simple plug about the product at the end of the post might be all it takes. You might choose to go a little more in depth and focus an entire post on one product although this does depend on the sort of blog you run! Make-up and fashion blogs do exceedingly well at this sort of sales (and they often get free gifts out of it as an added bonus!)

Membership sites

Finally, offering a membership to your blog will allow people to check out extra content on your blog. This is a great way of making money when you're a well established blog as you're basically offering a bonus to people that pay for it while still keeping up with the basic info for people that have followed you from the start.

If you're thinking about starting a membership site but don't know what to do, here are some ideas:

• Offer exclusive downloads each month via email (i.e. apps, graphics, recipes etc.)
• Exclusive educational videos, blog posts, webinars, or courses
• Downloadable guides or books 
• Offer Expert advice

Making money through your blog is a great little bonus at the end of the month, however if you're really serious about it then you need to work hard and be dedicated to the cause. A sporadic blog that has no focus is much less likely to bring you any extra pennies in compared to someone who does weekly blogs and has specific themes on different nights. If you intend to make money out of your blog then your best bet is to sit down, give a good hard think as to the type of blog you're running and what goods you can offer in tandem with this. After you settle in, keep in mind that making seriously big bucks out of your blog means you have to be in it for the long run.

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