There are times Google's heralded ad affiliate program isn't
in your long term business interest. Oh no I said it!
AdSense isn't the unstoppable revenue engine for every eBusiness.
Before I am taken out and flogged by the eCommerce pundits
- please let me explain what I mean in my defense.
I make revenues from AdSense at a very high click-through
rate. I experience high click-through rates with AdSense without
resorting to questionable tactics like tricking site users
with photos (the AdSense trick and tip dujour).
So my perspective is from one who has made decent income from
AdSense to fund aspects of his business like advertising seminars
- and outsourcing to his virtual assistants. Yes, AdSense
is a legitimate and significant revenue source. However evaluate
AdSense with some type of balance.
By now you may have heard about people like Joel Comm's six
figure income with AdSense, or Jason Calacanis of Weblogs
being on his way to generating 1 million dollars in AdSense
revenue. Google's Ad revenue sharing affiliate program for
publishers certainly seems to be an eSales Nirvana for many
webmasters.
But there are obvious and not so obvious times not to use
AdSense ads on your sites. Let's list - examine - and explain
them below.
On Sales or Mini-sites
This is a no-brainer. If you are trying to sell a particular
product that is important to your bottomline, you don't
want AdSense ads distracting your customers from either
joining your email list, or hindering your site's online
sales process.
However I do see hybrid sites that are mini-sites or full
scale eCommerce sites, with AdSense at the bottom of their
pages. This might not be so bad since only 1% - 15% of your
site visitors will either buy from you or fill out a form.
The thinking with this approach is you might as well make
money from disinterested parties using up your server's
bandwidth.
SEO Business Sites
If your livelihood depends on search engine optimization
or marketing for a living you might want to think twice
about displaying AdSense Ads on your site. I can tell you
this from personal experience. I once was on top of MSN
for search engine marketing in my local area. I concentrated
on my local area because I found people felt more comfortable
hiring an eCommerce consultant locally.
One day my site fails totally out of the MSN index. After
intense study I noticed that I obviously had a filter on
my site from MSN.
I analyzed all the top ranking sites in MSN and noticed
the only difference between me and the other top ranking
sites was I had Google AdSense ads on my site. Someone at
MSN felt that my AdSense ads, and perhaps to a less extent,
my book on SEO, was getting a free ride in the MSN search
engine database.
In fact I noticed that there were no sites with AdSense
ads for at least the first 3 pages. Plus the sites with
AdSense were only using 1 ad unit at the bottom of the home
page (there were very few of them in the top 5 pages).
I knew it was strange to not have AdSense ads on the top
Internet marketing sites. This prompted me to scan other
industries where I noticed the same trend.
Many of the leading SEO gurus have sites that have been
banned from the top listings by the search engines. It seems
the more visible you become, the more of a target your sites
are to the search engine auditors.
Some of my sites are still on the top of MSN with AdSense
ads but that doesn't mean they won't also be targets in
the future.
Let's face the facts. MSN and Yahoo! have competing ad networks
to Google's, and this competitive situation is rife for
a potential backlash against SEO sites with AdSense ads.
Many SEOs will point to exceptions to this position. However
you have been warned!
Think about it, how long will MSN and Yahoo! sit back and
watch SEO driven websites use their search indexes to fund
Google? Did you know SEO in MSN and Yahoo(!) - is much easier
to obtain.
Therefore optimized sites are creating an ad sales wealth
transfer from MSN and Yahoo into the pockets of Google!
It won't be long before Yahoo! and MSN begin to devalue
ranking on AdSense sites in their databases - if not outright
ban them.
If you are in the search engine business stay search engine
neutral, or create multiple sites for different search engines.
When AdSense Becomes Your Only Business Model
When you become so myopic in your thinking that you build
a business solely on AdSense revenue - think again my friend.
Why build a business solely on the largess of Google?
I don't know if your realize it or not, but the sites making
the real big AdSense money usually have a following that
doesn't depend on the search engines. Internet mavens like
Chris Pirillo or Joel Comm have been on the Internet a while
and have followings for their websites. Therefore they can
consistently make six figures with AdSense.
These content powerhouses are an asset to Google and not
the other way around. But do you think Google is going to
sit back and watch just anybody make big bucks off of their
top rankings?
If you do a search on most keywords you will notice many
of the top ranking sites are news sites, .gov sites, or
.org sites these days. The only exception is in industries
where these sites don't really exist like eCommerce industries
(clothing, shopping, etc.).
No doubt in most industries you will notice a conspicuous
scarity of AdSense sites in the top rankings. In other words
don't bet your future fortunes on AdSense.
An IPO based on projections of AdSense revenue isn't in
the future for the average eBusiness. Think of Google AdSense
as supplemental income. Building a business solely on AdSense
revenue isn't just silly - it's just plain stupid.
