> Eric: Stef, are you still making money?
> Stef: Yes, though not a lot more than before.
> Claude: Well, I'm still not making any money and I don't think
Anita is, either. It's disappointing.
> Eric: It's also pretty normal, Claude. You need to get traffic
for your site. Remember, it's a numbers gamemore traf-
fic means more clicks.
> Claude: All right, then, what do I dosorry, what do we doto
get more traffic?
> Eric: There's no magic bullet, but there are three basic
approaches: Make it easy to find your site, spread the
word about your site, andthis one will surprise you
advertise your site.
We met again a couple of weeks later, this time back at my house. Claude and Anita were publishing ads on their sites now, and Stef had done some tweaking of her AdSense code.
"I replaced the four-ad tower with a two-ad tower and an ad links unit," Stef was telling me as we sat down, "so now the ads take up a bit less space. Sometimes my blog entries are pretty short, and I didn't like the way the taller ads looked in that case."
"Are you still making money?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said, "though not a lot more than before."
"Well, I'm still not making any money," Claude said, "and I don't think Anita is, either." Anita shook her head. "It's disappointing."
"It's also pretty normal, Claude," I said. "How many page impressions per day are you seeing in the AdSense console?"
"I don't remember exactly, maybe 50 on average," Claude answered.
"Less than that for me," Anita said.
"And I bet some, if not all, of those impressions are from you visiting your own sites," I said. "That's the problemyou need to get traffic for your site. Remember, it's a numbers gamemore traffic means more clicks. If your clickthrough rate is going to average 2 percent, for example, that means that you need at least 50 impressions to get one click."
"But I have 50 impressions a day," Claude protested.
"He means 50 impressions from other people, Dad," Stef explained.
"Stef's right, Claude," I continued, "you can't click ads on your own site, so your impressions are effectively meaningless. There's no way to distinguish your impressions from anyone else's in the AdSense console, but you need to account for them when viewing the reports. Anyhow, if you get enough traffic this isn't a problemyour own impressions won't make a big difference in the clickthrough rate."
"All right, then," he said, "what do I dosorry, what do we doto get more traffic?"
"There's no magic bullet," I said, "but there are three basic approaches: Make it easy to find your site, spread the word about your site, andthis one will surprise youadvertise your site."
"Advertise?" Anita asked. "You mean buying ads? I thought we were showing ads."
"You are," I said, "but sometimes it pays to advertise, so to speak. We'll get to that later, but let's start with the most important approach: making it easy to find your site."
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