Google Adsense is one of the most popular advertising networks for website publishers. With over 2 million third-party partners, the platform has a huge inventory of text, image, video or interactive media advertisements that can generate earnings on either a per-click or per-impression basis.
However, many publishers are struggling to earn a satisfactory amount of income for their pageviews. For this reason, today we will see some of the best ways to increase Google Adsense Revenue in no time.
Before we dive right into our strategies, there is one important thing to keep in mind:
Competition matters in Google Adsense
The amount of competition matters, and the amount of income that you can earn may vary greatly from one country to another.
You see, there are countries in which more companies are competing for the attention of a certain audience, and they are willing to pay a higher price for it.
However, you will find significantly less competition in other countries, which also means that clicks and impressions may be cheaper.
Let’s take a look at this map from Wordstream:
Increase Google Adsense Revenue: Average CPCs by Country
From this map, we can see the United States is practically the most competitive country for advertisers, second only to the United Arab Emirates. But what does this mean for you as a publisher?
While higher competition is something that advertisers don’t typically wish on themselves, this is great news for you.
If you are a blogger or other type of content publisher with most of your traffic coming from the United States, you can expect a significantly higher revenue than if your traffic is coming from a small Eastern European country like my homeland Bulgaria.
On top of that, countries are not the only thing that will have an impact on your revenue.
There are other factors as well, such as the language of your content and the sector that you are operating in. But all of them can be broken down to competition.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. There are niches that are really small and exclusive but highly profitable (don’t ask me which ones, if I knew I would have already made another blog for them 🙂 ), and they may earn huge revenues in any country.
But in most cases, the competition rule remains true.
13 Ways to Increase Google Adsense Revenue
The reason why I am telling you all of this is to manage expectations. Our strategies to increase Google Adsense revenue are proven (including on my own blog), but you can only increase it to the amount that your sector, country and competition allows it.
And now that I have said all of this, let’s jump right into them:
1. Find high-paying keywords
The first and most important strategy to increase Google Adsense revenue is to find the keywords that advertisers are willing to pay more money for.
And these are usually transactional keywords – those keywords that show that the person who is typing them on Google has the intention to make a purchase. For example, “buy new samsung galaxy” or “canva pro review“.
If you have a Google Ads account (it is free to create!), you can use their Keyword Planner to see the amount of money that advertisers are willing to pay for a particular keyword within your country:
As you can see, advertisers are paying higher prices – up to €2.68 for the keyword “buy samsung galaxy” compared to other keywords such as “samsung galaxy s10 price“, which goes up to €1.70, even though it has significantly less searches.
The reason? The first keyword clearly shows that the person is looking to buy the phone. The second one shows that the person is interested in it and is still researching important details such as the price, but might not necessarily mean that he is ready to purchase.
(And no, I am not sponsored by Samsung…but @Samsung, if you are reading this, hit me up! 🙂 ).
The prices are approximate, but they can give you a good idea on what keywords may increase Adsense revenue for your website.
So, now that we have a good keyword – “buy samsung galaxy“, you can write an article that looks something like this:
- Where to buy a Samsung Galaxy for cheaper
- 7 things to know before you buy a Samsung Galaxy
- Looking to buy a Samsung Galaxy? Read this review first
You get the idea! Looking for transactional keywords that show an intention to purchase are a great way to increase Google Adsense revenue. You can read more about them (and other types) in my article Keyword Research Methodology: 7 Key Steps for Great SEO.
2. Write longer content
Next from my bag of tips to increase Google Adsense revenue is to make your content longer. The longer your article is, the more ads you can include. But of course, always keeping in mind that you shouldn’t spam your audience with hundreds of ads that are all around the place.
So, don’t use this technique as a way to oversaturate your content with ads, because this is not the point. Here is exactly what I mean:
Number of words
Articles that are at least 2,000 words are great for positioning on search engines. However, they are also great for including more ads with enough space between each one to make sure that you don’t ruin user experience, and you still provide value for the audience.
Number of paragraphs
You can see it even in this article, but I try to keep my articles short and sweet – and that is, no longer than 3-4 lines. The main reason why I started doing this was to improve user experience on mobile, since longer paragraphs are difficult to read on mobile.
However, it is also another great way to leave enough space between ads. Because my paragraphs are short and the amount is higher than if I would put the same text in longer paragraphs, I can include more ads that are not so close to each other, and thus not so intrusive.
To give you an idea, I put an ad every 25 paragraphs, and because I have many paragraphs, I can include at least 4-5 ads per article, or even more on longer articles. However, because my paragraphs are short and distant from each other, it doesn’t feel intrusive to the user.
3. Focus on Search Engine Optimization
Next on our list of ways to increase Google Adsense revenue is to drive more website traffic through SEO.
Since a good part of your revenue comes from impressions, and more impressions also mean more clicks, the higher your traffic is, the more impressions and clicks you get. And thus, more earnings.
Of course, this is easier said than done, and many people don’t know where to start with. There are also many channels that you can work with to do so, but honestly, there is no better way to increase your traffic long-term than SEO.
Traffic coming from social media, paid ads and email marketing is great, but the moment you stop posting, launching campaigns or sending emails, you will stop receiving this traffic. With SEO, the results remain for a long period of time, in many cases years.
I am not going to explain how to do effective SEO in this article since I’ve written a lot on this topic, but I definitely recommend that you check my following articles:
- Keyword Research Methodology: 7 Key Steps for Great SEO
- The Simple Introduction to SEO for Beginners
- 10 Ways to do Free Keyword Research (Without Tools!)
I have explained everything about SEO from a beginners’ perspective so you can do a great keywords research for your articles.
Another reason why you should focus most of your traffic efforts on Search Engine Optimization is because Adsense ads perform better if traffic is coming from search engines.
4. Optimize your ad units
Another strategy to increase Google Adsense revenue is to optimize your ad units. Going back to competition, not all sizes pay the same amount of money, and you will have to test them by yourself to figure out which ads are driving the highest earnings for your website.
According to the WPBeginner, the highest performing Adsense banner size formats are the following:
- Medium rectangle (300×250)
- Large rectangle (336×280)
- Leaderboard (728×90)
- Large Skyscraper (300×600)
The reason why some banner sizes drive more revenue than others is because more companies are competing for these particular sizes – aka, competition.
However, despite the statistics, the best way to increase Adsense revenue is to test them out by yourself because the suggested sizes above might not be the highest earning for your website in particular.
For example, let’s take a look at this screenshot from my own Google Adsense account:
Increase Google Adsense revenue: Optimize ad sizes
From this screenshot, we can see that the size that is earning me the most revenue is 300×250, followed by responsive and then 480×60 – which is not among the WPBeginners’ list of highest earners. So, it was a surprise for me.
I also had a lot of 300×600 banners at this time, but they don’t even show up on the list!
5. Understand your metrics
Following up on the previous section, another thing to keep in mind if you want to increase Google Adsense revenue is that you have to have a good understanding of your metrics. Let’s take a look at our previous screenshot, but from another perspective:
Increase Google Adsense revenue: Understanding metrics
From this screenshot, we can see that although the size 300×250 drove me the highest total revenue for the selected period of time, it wasn’t the best paying.
In terms of Impression RPM, which is the revenue you earn per thousand impressions of your ad (number of impressions = the amount of times your ad was seen), the best paying was the 468×60 size. Responsive is at the bottom of the list.
This means that the size 468×60 may have a good potential to drive me more revenue if I increase the amount of ads I have with this size, because they are a lot less in number than 300×250 – and this may be one of the reasons why they didn’t earn me so much money overall.
The point is, the total amount of revenue is not the only metric that you should be looking at. Things are not so straightforward. Understanding your metrics is key for identifying ad sizes that have a good potential, and those that are occupying too much space for the amount of money they earn.
Pay attention to metrics such as:
- Impression RPM – how much you earn per thousand impressions; so you can identify high-potential and low-potential sizes.
- Action View Viewable – the highest the percentage is, the better, because it means that people saw a bigger chunk of your ad.
- Clicks – if an ad has a low RPM, but it gets a lot of clicks, the amount you earn with clicks may compensate for lower RPMs.
6. Block low-paying categories
Blocking advertisers may sound counterintuitive, but it is one of the best strategies that I have found to work for my own blog and increase Google Adsense revenue overall.
Because Google has a huge portfolio of ads and advertisers, they always find someone to fill out your ad space. However, filling ad spaces with low-paying advertisers means that you are preventing the higher-paying ones from showing up on your websites.
For this reason, what I want you to do is to go to Blocking controls – All Sites, and then click on Manage General categories:
Increase Google Adsense Revenue: Block low-paying categories
In the Section All Categories, click on the column that says % Earnings (last 30 days). This will order the categories by the ones that are driving you the biggest amount of revenue:
The exercise consists in revising all categories and subcategories, and comparing your % Earnings column to your % Ad impressions. You want the percentage in your Earnings column to be higher than the % Ad Impressions column for the same category.
This means that ads from these categories earn a lot of money without taking too much ad space. And you want to block those categories that occupy a lot of ad space (% in Ad Impressions column is higher than the Earnings column) but don’t drive much revenue.
By doing so, you will boost higher-paying categories so that they can occupy more ad space, thus driving more revenue for your business. You can block up to 200 subcategories.
For example, this is a category that I am highly interested in:
It only gets 15% of ad impressions but drives 30% of my revenue! On another hand, this is a category that I have blocked because it occupies too much ad space and drivers lower earnings:
If you want to increase Google Adsense revenue, make sure to follow these tips:
- Optimize frequently – the data you see will be from the last 30 days of your traffic, so make sure to look at it often and optimize accordingly. It is not a set and forget thing.
- Block subcategories – instead of blocking entire sections, get more precise and block only subcategories that are not working.
7. Block sensitive categories
Apart from blocking general categories, I highly suggest that you block sensitive categories as well. They are typically very low quality, and chances are that they will prevent you from getting high-quality advertisers that pay better.
Go to Blocking Controls – All Sites, and click on Manage sensitive categories to block the ones that don’t make sense to you:
Increase Google Adsense revenue by blocking categories that don’t fit
8. Write high-quality content
We already discussed the numbers surrounding a good piece of content, but it is important to highlight the quality always beats quantity.
Writing quality content that delivers value and makes people leaving like they have actually learned something from you is absolutely essential. Don’t write basic content that is not original and doesn’t say anything practical or of value.
Do you research, include practical tips, cite relevant sources, and create content with the goal of helping your audience solve a problem or learn something. And of course, don’t forget to include your keywords!
9. Test ad placements
Another thing that matters for publishers that want to increase Google Adsense revenue is the location of your ad. Test different placement for your ads to see which ones perform the best.
Unfortunately, you can’t look at particular metrics with Google Adsense on ad placement, but you can move your ads around to see what combinations result in higher revenue for your business.
In this example, I have a 300×250 ad within my article, and a 300×600 on the right sidebar.
Increase Google Adsense revenue: test different ad placements
Usually, ads that are around the content and above-the-fold (the content that is visible above the border when the page first loads) perform well for most businesses.
Blending the ads with your website design, putting them in non-intrusive places, and being careful with responsive ads (they may stretch out in weird ways, which may be annoying) are some good practices to start with.
10. Leverage ads for search
Another way to increase Google Adsense revenue is to configure Adsense for search. It is a monetization tool that lets you offer your users Google web search directly from your pages.
You can configure Adsense for search by clicking on Ads – Overview. Then, click on “By ad unit”, and select the Search Engine option from the carousel:
Increase Adsense revenue: Adsense for search
11. Leverage your existing data
When it comes to getting a better understanding of your metrics and the way your audience behaves on your website, do not limit yourself only to Adsense data.
You can use heatmaps, Google Analytics and Google Search Console to determine how far your users scroll on your page, how much time they spend on it, and where on the page they click the most.
These tools are also a great way to see what type of content gets you the most traffic from search engines, giving you ideas on what article you can write next. Leverage your existing data across multiple channels to get valuable insights and increase Adsense revenue long-term.
12. Check Google’s optimization suggestions
Every once in a while, Google will send you suggestions for optimizations based on your current results. Make sure to check on them to get ideas and find new ways to increase Google Adsense revenue.
You can check these suggestions in the section Optimization:
Increase Google Adsense revenue: leverage Google’s suggestions
Of course, just because Google Adsense is suggesting them doesn’t mean that you should follow them blindly.
You already know some things about your website, and you probably have enough data to work with and make a well-informed decision based on these suggestions.
13. Match your ads with your website design
The last strategy to increase Google Adsense revenue is simple but powerful. Make sure to match the colours of your ad boxes to your website design and brand colours.
This way, you will make them more visually appealing and less intrusive, ensuring a much better user experience.
And now, let’s answer some more direct questions on how to increase Google Adsense revenue:
How can I increase my Adsense revenue?
You can increase your Adsense revenue by creating quality content that targets high-paying keywords, testing different ad places, optimizing the delivery of your ads in terms of format and size, leveraging your existing data, and matching your ads with your website design. To increase Adsense revenue, it’s important that you are constantly testing your ads to find out what works the best for you.
Is Adsense still profitable in 2022?
Yes, Adsense is still profitable in 2022. Depending on your specific niche, quality of website, traffic source, and the amount of competitors within your industry, you can expect to earn anywhere between $2 on the lower end to $20 on the higher end per 1,000 views. Some of the highest-paying niches include insurance, online education, Marketing and advertising, and finance.
How much does Adsense pay per 1000 views?
The exact amount of money that Adsense pays per 1000 views will depend on a variety of factors, including niche, website quality, traffic source, country and competition. The CPM can vary between $2 to $20 or more. For example, a website within the Finance industry with most of the traffic coming from North America can expect to earn $2.59 per 1,000 views.
You can estimate the expected revenue according to your country and industry using Google’s revenue calculator.
Why is my Adsense revenue so low?
There are multiple reasons why your Adsense revenue is so low. Factors such as poor website quality, traffic coming from spammy sources, low-paying keywords, or niches that don’t pay well can all contribute to low revenue. Decreased revenue can also result from invalid activity or seasonal fluctuations.
And these were all my strategies to increase Google Adsense revenue! If you have any questions, make sure to leave me a comment down below! As always, thank you for taking the time to read my article, and I hope to see you in the next one!
