{"id":8811,"date":"2014-03-31T16:25:10","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T15:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/okodigital.wpengine.com\/?p=208"},"modified":"2014-03-31T16:25:10","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T15:25:10","slug":"anatomy-successful-adsense-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cool.co\/supply-side-platform-home\/anatomy-successful-adsense-website\/","title":{"rendered":"The anatomy of a successful AdSense website"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the AdSense 10th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations, Google published 16 AdSense success stories<\/a> on their website.\u00a0 Each of these stories represented one website that has succeeded with the benefit of AdSense.<\/p>\n

Whilst these may not be the world\u2019s top earning AdSense sites, they are all sites that have done well. Most are also run by the sort of individuals and small teams who we most frequently encounter, meaning that there is the opportunity of other publishers to learn from their success.<\/p>\n

To see if there were any patterns to be learned from, we analysed ad position, ad unit choice, ad implementation and number of ads. We\u2019ve presented some of the findings in this handy infographic.<\/p>\n

\"successful
\nClick above to open the full-size infographic in a new window<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the findings were surprising; here are a few key take-aways<\/p>\n

Recommended ad unit sizes<\/h2>\n

The success story publishers mostly stuck with Google\u2019s advice to use the recommended ad unit sizes.\u00a0 728*90 leaderboards were the most popular overall, but this is partly because they lend themselves well to having multiple units of the same size on a page.<\/p>\n

The recommended ad units don\u2019t just work well because they attract good CTRs. Advertisers also use them more heavily, which means that there is more ads to choose from \u2013 which can lead to higher CPC.<\/p>\n

Ads Following \u201cF Patterns\u201d<\/h2>\n

Users tend to scan web pages in an F pattern. Placing ads within that pattern can improve their visibility and therefore increase click through rates.\u00a0 The heatmaps show that the AdSense success story publishers are following that pattern without being slaves to it.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t always need to show ads!<\/h2>\n

25% of the featured websites had no AdSense on their home page at all and only 6 out of 16 showed three or more ad units.\u00a0 That might seem counterproductive to some, but there are multiple scenarios where reducing or removing ads from the home page can make sense.<\/p>\n