Don’t Build Your Web Site for AdSense

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times in this book: Don’t build your Web site for AdSense. AdSense is about getting advertisements in front of users. Google has to get those ads out there because the advertisers that are using AdWords — the advertising arm of Google, where advertisers can place their ads to be shown on Web sites like yours — are paying the company to do so. If you build your Web site exclusively for AdSense, the only thing that sees the ads is the crawler that periodically takes stock of your pages. Build your site for actual, real, live visitors instead. You know, those people sitting on the other side of the computer screen? They play with the keyboard and mouse, and they’re looking for something that they hope to find on your Web site. They’re visitors, and they’re your site’s target. The more specific the type of visitor, the better. When you build your site for visitors, you have to put serious thought into how the visitor will use the site. Think about what draws him to your site first. If he’s searching for information or products, what keywords will he use to search? If he’s randomly typing in a Web address, what address will he use? After you get the user to your site, the next consideration is what he’ll do while he’s there. This is where your AdSense considerations come into play, because when the user’s on the site, you want AdSense to be a natural part of the site for him. Only when you build a site this way — for the visitor first and foremost — will you find that you have success with AdSense. When you build the site exclusively for AdSense, you’re also in the position of being banned from the AdSense program. Google wants visitors to click ads. Your job, as someone who publishes AdSense ads, is to ensure that AdSense ads are displayed to as many potential clicks — that would be visitors — as ossible. That means putting visitors first, always.