Jack Herrick is the founder ofwikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. wikiHow is a wiki, which means that any visitor to the site can create or edit wikiHow articles. wikiHow is currently ranked as the 100th most popular site on the web by Quantcast, and receives over 16 million unique visitors each month. Today, Jack shares three of his favorite tips to attract visitors. We hope they'll help you come up with new ways to entice visitors to your sites as well.
Tip #1:Produce great content
The first tip is obvious, but it's also the most important. The articles on wikiHow vary widely in quality. We have some of thehighest quality how-toson the net, for exampleHow to Hard Boil an Egg, and we also have some fairly ugly, unfinished drafts we call stubs. Interestingly, the high-quality articles don't get just a little more traffic than the mediocre articles, they get hundreds of times more. When you can produce the single best page on the Internet on any given topic, people will find it and share it with their friends. Don't settle for acceptable content, always strive to produce amazing content that your readers can't resist sharing.
Tip #2:Learn to share
My second tip is more counterintuitive. To attract more readers to your website, consider putting your content under a Creative Commons license soit can be widely distributed. Everything on wikiHow is under a license that allows other websites to publish and even modify or adapt our content for re-use on their sites. In fact, we have a button at the bottom of every article that allows webmasters to copy and paste the HTML right onto their site. Many webmasters are afraid to share their content, because they worry they will only be aiding competition. By sharing, what you are really doing is encouraging your competitors to provide free advertising for you. The more people who see your content on other sites, the more likely they are to eventually come straight to you.
Tip #3:Make your community a team
Finally, I'd encourage you to allow real collaboration on your site. Lots of websites try to create online communities. To use a basketball analogy, most online communities are just groups of individuals shooting freethrows alone. On wiki websites, peopleplay together as a real team. Humans are hard wired to want to work in groups and collaborate. By allowing this to happen, you can create a passionate community of people that will build something bigger than any one person could accomplish on their own. And that will in time attract a large audience.
Hopefully Jack's tips will help you come up with some new techniques to attract visitors to your site. In addition to Jack's tips, here are a few extra resources focused on attracting more visitors.
You can visitour new micrositeto learn more about AdSense for mobile applications, see ourbeta requirements, or sign up. If you're selected to participate in the beta, we'll be in touch with you shortly with next steps for getting started.
You can also learn more about the program by watching the video below, in which Howard Steinberg, Director of Business Development atUrbanspoon, describes how he tested AdSense for mobile applications:
Posted by Alex Kenin - AdSense for Mobile Applications Marketing
Last week, wekicked offa five-week educational series about speeding up your business in a slowdown. This week, you'll hear tips from Ricardo Prada, a user experience researcher at Google, about designing for the user. As we continue to share tips about attracting more visitors, increasing your revenue potential, and attracting more advertiser budget, we invite you to share your own suggestions for growing your business by leaving comments on each post. You can also follow the series atwww.google.com/ads/speedingup.
Hi, I'm Ricardo Prada. As a user experience researcher here at Google, one of the things my colleagues and I are responsible for is making sure that Google websites are efficient and fun to use so that visitors keep coming back to them. I'd like to share three tips we think about daily as we do our jobs. Ultimately, they all fit into our guiding principle: if you focus on the user, everything else will follow.
Tip #1:Design for the tasks that visitors complete on your site.
Think about tasks on your website first and layouts second. It's tempting to want a flashy design that exercises your CSS skills, but remember that vistors come to your site with specific goals in mind, like reading your essays, or checking out your collection of sports photos. Write down the top three tasks your users might want to accomplish on your site, and design to make those tasks quick and efficient.
Tip #2:Use ads as potential exit paths, not interruptions.
Ads should complement your site, not distract from it. The most natural place for a user to evaluate an advertisement is after they've completed their goals on your site. Instead of interrupting your user's main tasks, try to offer ads as potential exit path for users who were probably ready to leave anyway by placing them at the end of completed tasks.
Tip #3:SEO - only if it makes sense.
Only do search engine optimizations that benefit your users. For example, page titles that are relevant to the page content make it easier for your visitors to understand what your articles are about. On the other hand, there are lots of sneaky strategies out there for improving search engine rank. Most of those don't work anymore, and they might actually harm your site's reputation.
Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing
As a follow-up to last week's launch offont size controls, we'd like to let you know that we've just increased the default font size for AdSense ad units. This change will affect your ad units if you haven't yet customized your font sizes, or if your ad units are set to 'AdSense default font size' -- you'll notice that the text in your ad units is now the equivalent of 'medium' instead of 'small'. We decided to make this change based on publisher feedback and our testing, which showed that this increased font size improved performance.
If you'd like to change the font size in your ad units, you can do so on an account-wide basis or by individual ad unit -- just follow the instructions listed in ourHelp Center. Again, we recommend testing these new font size options with your existing customizations to determine which combinations perform best on your pages.
Posted by Arlene Lee -Inside AdSenseTeam
Today, we're kicking off a five-week educational series about speeding up your business in a slowdown. We'll be revisiting the basics of online publishing to help you grow your business, and we'll share tips about using AdSense and other Google products that you can apply to your business now. In the coming Thursdays, you can look forward to tips for making your site more user-friendly, bringing in more visitors, increasing your revenue potential, and attracting more advertiser budget. Along the way, we invite you to share your own suggestions for growing your business by leaving comments at the end of each post. You can also follow the campaign atwww.google.com/ads/speedingup.
In today's post, you'll hear from Avinash Kaushik, Google's own Analytics Evangelist, about the importance of understanding your traffic, analyzing how your site performs, and using data to make decisions. Here are a few small to mid-sized ideas that -- in Avinash's own words -- can add up to remarkable results for your website. They're all things you can do today with free web analytics tools, like Google Analytics.
Idea #1:Discover what content and traffic sources keep people coming to your site again and again.
How many times does a visitor have to visit your site to be considered valuable? Use the Visitor Loyalty report in the Visitors section of Google Analytics to pinpoint the visitors who come to your site that many times or more. Put that data into anadvanced segmentand apply that segment to your core reports to understand things like where these valuable visitors come from and what content they consume. You can then use this information to optimize how you acquire new visitors and the content on your site for loyal visitors.
Idea #2:Figure out which pages to improve on your site.
Many people ask the question: "How do I know which pages on my site to improve?" Take a look at the Top Landing Pages report in the Content section of Google Analytics. This report tells you the first page people see when they enter your site. Sort this report by bounce rate. Bounce rate measures how many people come to your site, only see one page and leave right away (or as Avinash calls it: "I came, I puked, I left"). Once you identify which of your top landing pages are not able to get a single click from your visitors you know which pages need to be improved.
Idea #3:Find out where AdSense performs best on your site.
If you've linked your AdSense and Analytics accounts, the Top AdSense Content report in the AdSense section of Google Analytics will tell you where on your website AdSense ads get the most clicks. This is a win-win for your business and your customers, as it helps you identify what type of content to produce more of based on what content people are most interested in as well as where people most often click on your AdSense ads.
See great ways to use AdSense and Analytics together by watchingthis video.
Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing
Since February, you've been able to change the font faces of your ad units. We're now happy to announce the launch of a related feature you've been asking for -- the ability to change the font size of the text in your ad units. You can now select from small, medium, and large font sizes for ad units on pages inLatin-character languages. Just like with the current font face options, size options appear in every account but will only be applied to ad units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters for now.
The font size you choose will be applied to the body of the ad, with the title scaled appropriately. In order to fit the ad text correctly, the actual font size will vary for each format size, font face, and user-specific settings such as browsers and operating systems. In addition, some formats sizes currently have very limited room, so the font size application will be most apparent in cases where the number of ads appearing in your ad unitsvaries automaticallyin order to maximize your performance. Here's an example of what the three font sizes could look like in a 336x250 large rectangle:
Your ads are currently set at the default size for AdSense, which is the equivalent of 'small'. You can select a new font size on an account-wide basis in the Ad Display Preference section of yourMy Accounttab, or on an individual ad unit basis for new and existing ad units.
If you're creating new ad units, you can choose between the AdSense default font size, your new account-wide font size (if you've selected one using the instructions above), or a separate size. To update existing ad units you've created using the Manage Ads feature, visit the 'Manage Ads' page under yourAdSense Setuptab. Any font size changes you make on an individual ad unit basis will be maintained even if you change your account-wide default in the future.
Also, a bit of advance notice: soon, we'll also be changing the default font size across AdSense in ad units from 'small' to 'medium'. We've heard from some of you that the current font size can be too small, and our testing also showed that slightly larger font sizes improved performance. Any ad units set to the default font size will automatically be updated to display the larger setting. If you'd prefer to stick with today's font size, you can set your desired font size as 'small' across your account.
We encourage you to combine these new font size options with the other customization options in your account to test the optimal layout for your pages. We're excited about this launch, and we'll be sure to follow up with another post to let you know once the default font size has been changed.
Updated to include an example of each of the three font sizes
If you're located in one of these countries, you can now update your account to display earnings in your local currency. After you've updated your account, any earnings generated from advertisers paying in currencies other than your local currency will be converted daily. If you receive payments in your local currency, this means that there also won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month. However, you can still choose to receive payments in U.S. Dollars or change your payment method at any time.
Before enabling local currency reports in your account, we recommenddownloadingand saving copies of your past reports in U.S. Dollars for your records. You can then update your account by signing in to AdSense and clicking the link in the green prompt on your Reports Overview page. You'll be asked to review and agree to anew set of Terms and Conditions. Unfortunately, we're not able to interpret the meaning of changes in our legal documents for publishers -- if you have questions or need legal advice on interpreting the new Terms, please don't hesitate to contact your attorney.
We'll be requiring this change in the future, so we recommend updating your account to report earnings in your local currency soon. You can find answers to common FAQs associated with these new local currency reports in arecent Inside AdSense blog post-- all references to 'Euros' in the post now also apply to your local currency. In addition, detailed information about these new reports can be found in ourHelp Center.
You'll need to present a government-issued ID that matches your AdSense payee name when picking up your payment. If you need to update or correct the payee name listed in your account, please follow the instructions in ourHelp Center.
Right now, only individual payee names can receive payments by Western Union, not businesses.
Payments must be picked up within 60 days of issue or they'll expire and be credited back to your account.
Payments will be made in US dollars, but depending on your local Western Union agent, they may be picked up in your local currency.
These instructionswill help you to sign up, and ourHelp Centerhas more info aboutpicking up your paymentsandother countrieswhere Western Union payments are currently available. We're working towards making this payment option available to publishers in additional countries, and we'll be sure to announce any updates here on the blog.
Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments Team
A few weeks back, we announced that all publishers can nowintegrate their AdSense accountswith Google Analytics. If you're not very familiar with Analytics yet, you might be interested in reading a recent post on the Analytics blog that addresses ten common myths about the product. For example, did you know that you can use Analytics to segment visitor data in real time, or that you can use the new Analytics API to tie your website data to your financials?Check out the postto learn more about these features and other ways you can use Analytics to better understand your site stats.
If you haven't yet linked your AdSense account with Analytics, follow these steps:
Click the link that says "Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics" on your Reports Overview page.
Follow the onscreen instructions, andwatch our videofor additional guidance.
Even if you use AdSense in a language that's not supported by Analytics, you can stilllink your accountsand view your Analytics reports in a different language.
Posted by Sebastian Tonkin - Analytics Product Marketing
With Friend Connect, your visitors can join your site using credentials they've already created with Google, Yahoo, AOL, and others, and link in the people they know on services like Google Talk, Plaxo, Twitter, and more. There's also a gallery of gadgets where you can choose from features like commenting, ratings and reviews, andthe social barto add to your site. Just like AdSense, you can simply copy and paste a few snippets of code to add these features to your site. Or, if you want to do some deeper integrations, you can use theFriend Connect APIs.
Watch this video to learn more about Friend Connect:
Posted by Mendel Chuang - Google Friend Connect Team
If you uselink units, you may have noticed a small addition to the page users see after clicking a link unit topic. We recently added an image ad to the bottom of each of these pages, after our testing showed revenue improvements for many publishers.
These image ads are contextually targeted, based on the link unit topic users clicked to reach the ads. If no image ads are available for the given topic, we'll only show the original text ads -- in other words, we won't show a PSA or insert a blank space in place of the image ad in this case. Advertisers can bid on these image ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis, so you'll generate earnings for valid clicks and impressions. You can review the performance of image ads on your link unit pages by generating alink unit reporton your Advanced Reports page.
If you aren't using link units on your pages, we encourage you togive them a try. They don't take up much space and can help add to your AdSense revenue -- learn more in ourHelp Center, or visit yourAdSense Setuptab and select 'AdSense for content' to get started.
Posted by Arlene Lee -Inside AdSenseTeam
Since introducingreports in Eurosfor publishers located in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, we've received a number of questions about this launch. For publishers in these regions, we've addressed some of your concerns below.
How will my earnings be converted to Euros? Once you switch to the new reports, earnings generated from advertisers paying in currencies other than the Euro will be converted. This will happen on a daily basis using the prevailing market rate from the previous day. If you generate earnings from an advertiser paying in Euros, they won't be converted.
When I'm issued a payment, will my earnings be converted again? If you've switched to Euro reports and are receiving payments in Euros, there will be no additional conversions when your payments are issued. However, if you're receiving payments in U.S. Dollars, your payment will be converted from Euros to U.S. Dollars at the end of the month.
When I switch to Euro reports, will that automatically change the currency of my payments? No, your selected payment currency and method won't change after you switch to Euro reports -- unless, of course, you want them to change. (You can update them by visiting the 'Payments Details' section under yourMy Accounttab.)
Will there be a delay in receiving my unpaid earnings once I make this change? No, making this change will not affect the timing of your payments. After you switch to Euro reports, your unpaid earnings in U.S. Dollars will beconverted to Eurosbefore the next upcoming payment selection deadline (typically the 15th of each month). For instance, if you make this switch on June 3rd, your unpaid earnings will be converted by June 15th; if you make this switch on June 20th, your unpaid earnings will be converted by July 15th.
How will this change influence VAT and any taxes I have to pay? While you may receive your payments in your local currency, all payments are being made by Google Ireland, a company incorporated under the laws of Ireland, in accordance with the terms of your agreement with Google. Unless your business is in Ireland, you shouldn't have an obligation to charge Google VAT or treat any of our payments to you as VAT that needs to be paid to any VAT authorities. If your billing addressislocated in Ireland, you may have an obligation to charge Google Irish VAT. For more specific answers, we suggest you head for your local tax adviser.
I'm not located in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, or Spain. When will you include other countries? We're working to offer Euro reports to publishers located in additional countries. When we do, we'll be sure to post any updates here onInside AdSense.
Do I need to update my account if I'm eligible? Although this change is currently optional, in the future we will require that publishers located in eligible countries make this switch. Eligible publishers who haven't yet updated their accounts will currently see an interstitial page with additional information after signing in. We understand that some eligible publishers would like to continue receiving payments in U.S. Dollars; while you can still choose to be paid in U.S. Dollars, it will be mandatory to view your reports in Euros.
If you're eligible to make the switch to Euro reporting, we encourage you to review theupdated Terms and Conditionsand update your account soon. To get started, sign in to your account and look for the prompt, "See your daily earnings reported in Euro amounts!" on your ReportsOverviewpage. You can also find more information in ourHelp Center.
Fundamentals of optimization Learn about account and ad layout changes that can boost your revenue. (Recommended for new publishers or those who haven't optimized AdSense previously.) Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Time: 6:30pm GMT (PDT +07:00) Register at:https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=573202418
As always, you can find dates, times, and details for our webinars in ourHelp Center.
Posted by Julie Beckmann -Inside AdSenseTeam
Are you a developer, or are you interested in learning about developer tools and technologies like Android and OpenSocial? If so, we'd like to let you know about theGoogle I/O Developer Conferenceon May 27th and 28th in San Francisco.
As an AdSense publisher, you may be interested in learning how to spice up your site with our APIs, or how tools like App Engine and the Google Web Toolkit can help you focus on your content and code rather than maintenance or scaling issues. At Google I/O, you'll have the opportunity to learn about these topics from Googlers and also meet other developers.
Over 2,000 are expected to be in attendance, and if you'd like to be one of them, we hope you'll register for the event. For more information, check out theofficial siteor follow uson Twitter.
Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Developer Programs
Our engineers will be performingregularly scheduled maintenancethis Saturday, May 16th. You'll be unable to access your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts between 10am and 2pm PDT, but your ad targeting and serving won't be affected. In addition, we'll continue to record your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual.
Here's the maintenance start time, converted for a few cities around the world:
Since its launch, the Display Ad Builder has been extended to advertisers in over 100 countries and 40 languages. With over 90 customizable templates and thousands of active users of all sizes, the Display Ad Builder has quickly become what we believe is the largest platform for self-serve display ad creation on the web. Its usage varies from the largest digital agency, likeRazorfish, to smaller advertisers like theWilshire Grand Los Angeles. We'd like to take a few minutes to tell you more about the impact of this tool and how it can benefit you as a publisher:
More advertisers creating display ads:In just six months, the Display Ad Builder has significantly increased the number of AdWords advertisers using image-based ads. Many of these advertisers were already advertising with text ads on Google.com and AdSense sites, but have now found the visual elements, interactivity, and animations of display ads to be effective at increasing clicks, conversions, and overall ROI.
Higher quality, more relevant display ads for your site:With simplified display ad creation now available to advertisers of all sizes and industries, the display ads that show on your site are likely to be even more relevant to your content and audience. For sites with niche content or with an advertiser base that would be less likely to have the budgets to invest in display ad creation, this is especially true. The templates that we offer also vary well beyond simple static banners, including interactive rich media templates that allow users to scroll between or roll over multiple product images, in addition to multiple templates with animated text and images.
Higher potential earnings:As the reach of ads created with Display Ad Builder grows, we've seen encouraging results -- ads created with the Display Ad Builder have average click-through rates that outperform industry averages. We believe that this is due to the combination of advanced contextual targeting on AdSense, combined with templates that encourage best practices in effective display ad creation. We've also heard from many advertisers that they're finding improved cost per conversion efficiencies with the tool, meaning that more of their marketing budgets can be effectively deployed online, on your sites.
So what can you do to take advantage of the many newly created display ads? First, make sure that your ad units are opted intoimage ads. And, since many publishers are advertisers too, you may be interested in getting started with the Display Ad Builder yourself. To learn more, you can also view our series ofhow-to videosor read our feed ofDisplay Ad Builder announcements.
Posted by Ryan Hayward - Display Ad Builder Product Marketing
As a reminder, you'll be asked to enter your publisher ID number when registering. For more information on this, and all upcoming webinars, please visit ourHelp Center.
Posted by Ashutosh Satpute - AdSense Publisher Support
In addition, you can share your Google Analytics data with Ad Planner to provide advertisers with additional details about your site, such as the number of unique visitors and page views. By replacing Ad Planner traffic estimates with data measured directly by Google Analytics, you'll be able to provide advertisers with more accurate site traffic information.
Based on this information, agencies and advertisers using Ad Planner will be able to identify appropriate sites to include in their placement-targeted campaigns. As more advertisers become aware of your sites and bid to show ads on them, the competition among your ads will increase and so should your earnings potential.
Once you link your accounts, you'll find an AdSense-specific menu under the 'Content' section of the left-hand navigation bar on your Analytics homepage, containing these reports:
TheTop AdSense Contentreport allows you to see more details about specific pages on your site and analyze ad performance. For instance, if you find that some of your pages generate a high number of pageviews but aren't monetizing as well as other pages, you can focus your optimization efforts on improving these pages.
TheTop AdSense Referrersreport can help you see how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue.
Last, theAdSense Trendingreport lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day and different days of the week.
You'll also notice that other sections of your Analytics account will show a new 'AdSense Revenue' tab. You'll be able to compare how much of your AdSense revenue is coming from new visitors versus existing ones, and view revenue based on user language.
To take advantage of these new reports, sign in to AdSense and click the 'Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics' link on your Reports Overview page. You'll be taken to a step-by-step wizard that will guide you through the rest of the process. If you use AdSense in a language that's not supported by Analytics, you can stilllink your accountsand view your Analytics reports in a different language.
We also recommend watching the video below, which will help explain the linking process:
Enjoy your new data, and don't forget to visit ourHelp Centerif you have other questions about linking your accounts or reviewing your reports.
The first thing you might notice when you visit the program policies page is that we've revamped the look. Based on your feedback, we've reorganized the content and updated the layout to make it easier to read and navigate. We've highlighted some key information for each policy, and added expandable 'Learn more' sections that you can click for more detailed information. Also, we've grouped together policies that are specific to only AdSense for content or AdSense for search.
There are also a few updates to the content of the program policies, which we've outlined below:
Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we've now brought it directly to the 'Ad Placement' section of the program policies page so that it's easier to find. According to this policy, we don't allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.
Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.
Other Google products' policies: With this new policy, publishers aren't permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the policies of that other product or service. For instance, this would include placing ads on sites which allow users to download YouTube videos, which isn't permitted by theYouTube Terms of Service.
Finally, we've added more information to the 'Webmaster Guidelines' section and created a new 'Traffic Sources' section. Whether you regularly review the program policies or haven't reviewed them since you signed up for AdSense, we encourage you tovisit the program policies pageand check out the updates.
(Post has been updated to provide additional clarification.)
Posted by Winnie Creason - AdSense Publisher Support
Although we're not able to expand the limited beta to additional publishers at this point, we wanted to give you a glimpse into one of the ways we're working to give you more control over your ads so you can ensure a positive experience for your users. We'll continue to refine this feature, and hope to be able to roll it out more widely in coming months. Please stay tuned to the blog for any updates, and feel free to leave us a comment in the meantime.
We're only able to accommodate a maximum of 500 people, so we encourage you to register early if you're interested in this session.
Finally, we've updated ourHelp Centerwith details about the schedule of upcoming webinars. We'll add sign-up links for each webinar as we finalize the dates and times, so feel free to check back often. In addition, remember to update youremail notification preferencesso we can keep you posted about any additional sessions.
Posted by Ashutosh Satpute - AdSense Publisher Support
We'd also like to remind you that your checks will arrive faster if your address is up-to-date, so please take a moment to review the information listed in your account andmake any necessary updates. We wish you a productive and profitable year ahead!
Posted by Sayed Meera - AdSense India Payments Specialist
Last week, wekicked offa five-week educational series about speeding up your business in a slowdown. This week, you'll hear tips from Ricardo Prada, a user experience researcher at Google, about designing for the user. As we continue to share tips about attracting more visitors, increasing your revenue potential, and attracting more advertiser budget, we invite you to share your own suggestions for growing your business by leaving comments on each post. You can also follow the series atwww.google.com/ads/speedingup.
Today, we're kicking off a five-week educational series about speeding up your business in a slowdown. We'll be revisiting the basics of online publishing to help you grow your business, and we'll share tips about using AdSense and other Google products that you can apply to your business now. In the coming Thursdays, you can look forward to tips for making your site more user-friendly, bringing in more visitors, increasing your revenue potential, and attracting more advertiser budget. Along the way, we invite you to share your own suggestions for growing your business by leaving comments at the end of each post. You can also follow the campaign atwww.google.com/ads/speedingup.
