Tips to Increase Adsense CPC and increase your earnings
Adsense is one of the most widely employed methods for bloggers to add glory to their income report. There are also people who solely depend on Adsense for their bread and butter and some even left their 9 to 5 Jobs for that. I too have been with adsense for about a year now and I have observed the ups and downs in my earning graph. I could understand that though I get good traffic and good number of clicks I would be earning amount to buy peanuts if I don’t understand on how Adsense works. Where as on the other hand few bloggers have earned quite good amount and few have also established startups with just their income from Adsense. So after few successful experiments, reading books on how Adsense works and referring many blog posts I understood that it is CPC which plays a major role in determining a blog or sites earnings. If at all I need to increase my adsense earnings I need to focus on CPC. If we can increase adsense CPC then we have chances of earning more.
Disclaimer: The methods mentioned below are not meant to harm Adsense program or violate any of its programs Policies. These are ethical methods and it is user’s choice on how they would use the following tips to enhance their CPC (Cost per Click) and earn more from their adsense account. I personally don’t guarantee any high earnings or I am not responsible if there is drop in your earnings. You are free to experiment as I did to increase my Adsense revenue.
What is CPC?
CPC refers to cost per click and adsense does an average and gives out an overall cost per click for an ad unit. If you get 0.1$ for one click and 1$ for another click then average CPC would be (0.1$+ 1$ )/2 = 0.55$. So on an average your CPC rate for that particular ad unit will be 0.55 for two clicks and this rate varies every day and every month. So in order to get high CPC there are few tweaks to be applied so as to earn good income from adsense.
1. Focused Niche:
First and foremost factor that plays a major role in determining adsense CPC is a good focused niche. If you have a good niche site like site purely based on hosting you are likely to get a click worth 3 to 4$ and if you have an entertainment related site then your CPC would be 0.01 to 0.20$ which is very low. Surprise findings show that a tech related blog has greater CPC compared to entertainment, fashion or any other niches. This fact could be a probable reason why we see many tech blogs growing out every day. People these days are creating micro niche sites by focusing on a single keyword which has high CPC value. They write 5 to 10 articles on that focused keyword and also choosing a domain containing the same keyword. They make it to top of the search results and earn nearly 1 to 30$ per click. Adsense will show only related ads to that particular niche or the focused keywords used. I haven’t personally experimented with micro niche sites but I have seen the results. Multi niche sites do have a less CPC compared to a single niche site.
2. Using a Single Ad Unit:
I too never believed in this experiment and I used all the 3 ad units for my blog and I also had good news that we can use text links along with three ad units. Voila I am going to earn more as I thought I am using 3 ad units along with text links but that was a pit-fall. Once I read in a blog that a single Ad unit increases the CPC of Adsense Ads. For the sake of experiment purpose I dropped 2 units and text unit as well and left a single unit for which I used to get maximum number of clicks and that day there was no change but next day I have seen a sudden increase in my earnings. Probable reason all ads which had good CPC rate where focused in that single unit as my blog had no other ad units placed.
Note: My friend and blogger Radha Krishna who blogs for 9to5Blogger has shared a nice tip to increase CTR(Click Through Rate) which in turn can increase your adsense earnings. He has done an experiment with A/B testing with Text-only and Image/Text ad units in one of his content-rich blogs and has found that by using Text-only option to the first ad unit has increased his earnings, though there was not much change in CPC. So experiment this tip if you have content-rich site and boost your earnings.
3. Dropping the text link ad units:
As I said earlier in spite of using three ad units you still have the facility to use text links ad unit from adsense. May be any one can think it adds more bucks to the revenue. But fact is if you drop that ad unit you can see a gradual increase in CPC. You can use these text link ad units in news related niche as it performs well with that niche but not with tech related blogs. May be some exception cases would be there where these ad units perform well compared to other ad units. Then I understood why Amit Agarwal has dropped text link ad units in his Labnol. Few years back Amit used to have text link ad units just below his navbar but now he doesn’t use it any more. He uses one ad unit in sidebar and when it comes to a post page he has a 468×60 ad unit at the top and 336×280 ad unit at the bottom of the post.
5. Assigning HTML code for better performing AD Unit:
I have read about this in Google support page on how to lift CPC. If you are not happy with the second point mentioned above on using a single ad unit as even your second ad too performs well. So If you want to retain good CPC for the Ad unit which performs well in other terms you want high paying ads to be shown on a particular ad unit which get maximum number of clicks and also keep the second ad unit which gets few clicks which do add some amount to your revenue then you have an option to add div tags. I have read about this tweak in Google support articles called First ad unit counts. They say ad which is on the top counts first or in other terms all high paying ads are assigned to the first ad unit of your page. If header ad is on the top then that ad unit has high number of advertiser requests. So if you want the preference to be given to an ad unit which is lower to header ad and which is performing good in terms of clicks than ad that particular ad units adsense code in between div tags as follows
<div id=”ad1″>
Insert your ad code here
</div>
Read: First ad unit counts
6. Dropping other network ads:
Are you using infolinks or clicksor ads along with adsense ads then you have dropped your Adsense CPC all by yourself. Try to remove other ad units especially those which link to text of your page and notice the change, there will be a slight increase in the CPC of your Adsense ads. My suggestion is if you want to use infolink ads use it on education related niche, entertainment and daily news related niche which performs well for infolinks. If you are using both adsense and infolinks then test once by dropping infolinks and see the change in the CPC all for yourself.
7. Enabling text and image options:
Once I got a mail from adsense itself to enable both text and image option for better performance. I did not find any difference but yet I did it as suggested in case I would earn more.
Read: Choose to display both text and image ads
8. Country Specific traffic:
Personally I have seen lot of difference in the CPC rates from various countries. CPC for countries like US, UK, South Africa, Australia are more compared to CPC from Indian users though I receive maximum number of clicks from Indian. Now I don’t say hunt for US or UK traffic but if you are adwords user then target traffic from these countries but don’t use any unfair means of buying traffic it may get your account disabled.
9. Subscribe to Adsense Newsletter:
Last but not least all you need to do is simply subscribe to Adsense Newsletter and also add them in your G+ as any modification or tweaks to increase your income would be shared very clearly in their newsletter and blogs. I got to know about the change in privacy policy through their post in Adsense official blog which was shared in their G+ account. So I was able to inform that Modifying Adsense Code for Responsive Design is no longer a Violation in one of my previous posts. So now if you want to increase your earnings you can use a modified code for responsive design. See what Servando Silva had said in a comment on how his income increased by 30% after implementing the responsive adsense ad code.
Now that you have understood on how to increase adsense CPC by following some simple tips just follow them and experiment. Be careful that you won’t violate any of Google adsense policies and harm your account. Still if you know any other tips that work then simply share your tip or experience in the comments below. Want to get more insight about how adsense works then you can also buy Google AdSense Secrets by Joel Conn. This book has some outdated stuff but still it gives good knowledge on custom channels, ad placement etc related information.
Absolutely worthy tips. I’d like to add one more tip. To get good CTR, make the first ad unit (which is served first) text-only. I did an A/B testing with Text-only and Image/Text ad units on one of my blog and found that the first one is getting more CTR than the second one. However, didn’t find much difference in the CPC’s of both the units.. Anyhow earnings increased after I implemented it.. This mostly works on content-rich sites than ET blogs..
Hi Radha,
Thanks for the tip Bro… I have mentioned your tip in the article hope it helps users who want to experiment and increase their earnings. I will also test this feature and see the results.
once again thanks for the tip…
Planning to sign up for Adsense Vijesh.
I have used adsense on the last year and if I get 10 clicks for a ad, i will earn only 1$. I’m not aware about CPC those days.
And I have a doubt: What will be the CPC for the blogs having multiple topics? (tech and fashion)
Yes, the click from countries from USA, UK has high CPC.
Thanks for interesting and useful post 😀
Hi Sriram,
If you have a tech and fashion related blog the ads mainly depend on two things placement and keywords. If you have ads on your sidebar then keywords from the home page play a main role and if you have ads inside a post then keywords from the post play a major role in determining the nature of the ad. But overall if your site gets more traffic to tech related than you have the chances of showing ads related to those topics.
But it is not advisable to write both tech and fashion in a single niche as sometimes due to conflict the robots display low paying ads to your site and that is the reason why your CPC drops.
Good that you are planning to signup for adsense but it requires 18 years of age to participate so if your 18 then do plan for applying…
All the best…
The higher is CPC the higher is competition. Thanks for sharing man!
Best regards from I. C. Daniel
Hey Daniel, thanks for your comment…
Ample of good tips,Article like these are very rare and shallow written.Thanks for this amazing piece Vijesh.
Hey Vivek, thanks for your encouraging comment.
Hello Vijesh,
For a niche like mine do you suggest adsense. Like yours my main traffic is also from India and that is my focus too. The other traffic which I get is bonus.
I haven’t monetized my site so far and what are your suggestions to monetize my site.
Sincerely,
Rafi
Hi Rafi,
You have some nice motivational posts so I prefer you can opt for amazon affiliate and promote some cool books but Indian Traffic is least responsive when it comes to buying. So when it comes to monetization US traffic only plays major role because they buy products as 15 to 20$ is affordable for them but for Indians it is not affordable.
If at all you have the idea of monetizing then adsense too will be a better go though you get traffic from India or any region it helps you a bit.
Final verdict adsense would be little bit better, but to get its approval you should not have amazon links. If you are full time blogger and you depend on blogging for bread and butter then Affiliate marketing via amazon and click bank products works. As you are busy with your MNC 9 to 5 job it would be better if you go with Adsense. Affiliate marketing needs bit expertise and if you seriously want to make money with Adsense then micro-niche website will help you a lot, that’s what Amit Bhawani and Pat Flynn do to earn so huge bucks.
But inspiring citizen will not earn you good amount as it has less traffic and also its niche.
Hi Vijesh,
Thank you so much for your detailed response. Indian traffic can be probably converted to sell my training programs in different Indian cities which I am planning to do in another 3 – 6 months. And once Google adsense gets approved I can at least get some passive income to maintain my website running.
As you said, Indian traffic won’t work for AMAZON AFFILIATES. Can you give a couple of examples of micro niche which is used by Amit Bhawani and Pat Flynn. Are you using any micro niche sites..
Thanks once again for your help :), Vijesh.
Hi Vijesh,
I am new to blogging and online business.I went through your share and find it useful for me.Hope to see same kind of useful share from you ahead.
I persoanlly thank you for sharing such useful information which i hope will work for me.
Regards,
Hello Vijesh,
Very helpful article fo adsense users. You right – most of bloggers goal is to earn from Adsense. But most of them failed as they don’t know the exact process.
You described all the key points of Adsense & how to increase earning. I already subscribed in Adsense Newsletter. So I regular get mail from them & learn new information about Adsense.
Anyway thanks again for valuable post
Hi Ahsan,
Glad that you have already subscribed to Adsense newsletter as they keep informing with important updates.
Thanks for your valuable comment…
Good tips Vijesh.
The key to get good number of clicks is a lot of experimenting. While the quality of the post, keywords, site traffic, PR, etc all do play a role – at the end of the day all that matters is how many people are clicking on the ads.
The best way to find how to place your ads and what kind works best is by moving ads around from time to time. Heat maps from sites like crazyegg or kissmetrics are also very helpful in understanding what area of the page users are clicking most.
Some marketers do suggest to go text ads and use a color combination so that they gel well with the overall theme. However, I have seen bloggers misusing this tip and making users click on the ad link without their knowledge. Where this is absolutely unethical from the users perspective, it is also wrong for the advertiser as they are losing money when the user clicks on the ad.
Never used Link Units but have seen that some Bloggers advise to use it…However i used to have three ad units till last month but now i have only two and seen a little change in my earnings.
These are some great in depth tips that I have not seen on a lot of other websites. Thank you for some of the ideas and I will be sure to use them as I monetize my site.
Thank you for the article!
hi Vijesh,
i am Samir i have a website of education and i am useing adsense on in my daily traffic is 4-5k but my adsense income is 8-10$ maximum please can you help me to increase my income on adsense please help me upload daily 5-6 post related to education Results admission and etc. I will be Happy if you can help me Please Visit my Website & share some tips to me thanks.
i just search for how to increse cpc and found your post in 1st place and found this very usefull post.
hi, vijesh thanks for the nice article..,
25% of my traffic comes from mobile users and i dont how know to implement mobile ads on responsive themes.., please help me in this regard.., it will be great if you could suggest plugin for the same (not jetpack adsense, it’s not working for me..)
thanks in advance.. 🙂
Hi Rohit,
Even me also looking for it my 75% Visitors are from mobile so how to configure mobile friendly website is there any plugin available ?
Vijesh Sir please help us.
I’ve seen many blogs asking to edit ad unit so that ads appear according to the resolution of the device, they assures it is a google approved method. but when it comes to google adsense I prevent myself of taking risks.
Samir, if you are interested to implement this method I could help you with that.. 🙂
Hi Rohit and Samir you can visit one of my previous post I wrote everything about modifying Adsense code according to responsive design. Visit Here: Modifying Adsense Code for Responsive Design is no longer a Violation
Hi Vijesh, The post was commendable . I would say it will really gonna help. I preferred this post just because i was curious to know how to increase the adsense earning. Thanks once again for the post.
Regards
really nice post yaar keep it up and keep sharing
I must say awesome tips to increase AdSense CPC Rate. I have tried all the above tips. Let us see what happens. Thank You Vijnesh for such nice post. 🙂
I have a blog but new. My blog running 4 months. My site daily visitor come 1000 up. But click 3 to 5.
thanks for this helpful information but vijesh sir i have a question about CTR that how much CTR should be maintain for not getting ban fron google adsense ?
Please suggest me some good ideas.. I have started a new education blog but getting only CPC – 0.06 USD. please suggest me some ideas to improve it : http://www.educareguide.com
Nice Tips, We can also use DFP to increase the CPC. We are earning good Mammon of earning though adsense only. You covered a very nice point : its true that when you insert too many ads, the ads delivered to user end has less cpc and less contextual.
Nice post, currently in india adsense cpc is only 0.05 to .08. We need to improve us and uk traffic for getting high cpc in adsense. And thanks for the useful post