AdSense on Low Converting Sites
I’ve got a site that gets about 150 hits a day but hardly any of those convert to sales. That site is probably my busiest site but unfortunately the very targeted traffic (pretty much all of it comes from one main keyword) just does not lead to sales.
So I have decided to try out some AdSense on the site and see if anyone clicks on it. I’m going to leave it on the home page for a month and see how the revenue compares to last month and if it is worth it.
I’ll post the results next month.
Hi,
I’ve been lurking for a while, interesting to read about your progress..
My take on it is that I think you’d be making a mistake putting AdSense on the site. If you are getting 150 hits a day then that makes some 4500 hits a month! You must be able to get some sales at least from that. Even a 0.5 percent conversion rate would mean at least 20 odd sales.
AdSense is just going to detract from your sales chances, the best you’ll be doing then is to send your traffic to AdSense merchants and not to your own affiliate merchant.
Instead I think you ought to try and look into what’s wrong with the site, why isnt it converting… Maybe spend – invest- more time and effort in this first. I get the impression that you set up lots of sites very quickly, breadth rather than depth, and this may be where you need to fine tune a bit..I dont know any of your sites, its just my impression from reading your blog.
Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide to do!
Kevin
Another thing.
If it’s your busiest site with the most traffic, then I’d say it deserves a bit more analysis and attention.
If you take the AdSense route, then you’re basically either admitting the affiliate program you’re running isn’t any good, or that the site doesn’t convert, for whatever reason – but you’re not trying to find out why. It’s not tackling the real issue.
Also, AdSense on an affiliate site makes a site look cheap and nasty to my mind. It detracts from the affiliate offers and makes it look like the site operator doesnt take his affiliate market and promotion seriously.
In that case you might as well chuck out the affiliate program and just run content about the product, with AdSense Ads in the sidebar.
OK, I know you’re only talking about a one month test here – but one month test or not – I think all the above points still apply.
Kevin, I agree with you about the AdSense detracting from sales but in this case the site ins’t making the sales so I’ve not got much to lose. The 20 odd sales you mention is a nice idea but not a reality for this site.
Again, Kev, I do agree with the above, but this is more of a test to see if AdSense can bring in any money. This site was hastily thrown up and has not had much time spent on it so its not like I’m ruining days of work by putting AdSense on it. I think the main problem is the product the site is converting is something people don’t want to buy online.
Surely the fact that a merchant is selling it online contradicts that? Unless it’s a totally new product that they’re testing…
I would go with Kevin on this one. Spend the time tweaking your page(s) to see if you can get some sales out of it. If all else fails chuck out the affiliate links and run the site as adsense only as said above.
Good Luck
Is it the kind of product that might sell better in the run up to Christmas? How did it do last November/December – if it was live.
I think you’ve hit on the reason yourself when you wrote the following:
… “This site was hastily thrown up and has not had much time spent on it”…
perhaps that’s the reason, rather than the affiliate program not being something people buy online.
how is it with the USPs you are focussing on? The hooks you are using in your content? Maybe you can fine tune here.
What about checking out competitor sites and trying out some of their ideas.
eg: How are your competitors selling the product? eg Do they use opt-ins or freebies or any kind? What about your article marketing for it? Any potential for using video of some kind??
If you find some good ideas, do some testing with them on your site. By the way, I think Id go for 2 month tests though rather than just 1.
@Kevin: some good points there. Its the same as nearly all my sites. It displays all the products from its niche from the different merchants in one central place allowing the user to see what is available to buy online without visiting each site individually. That is the main thing the user sees when they land on the site: just the images of the products. On this particular site there is no real product reviews or descriptions or anything to persuade them to buy. But they are clicking through to the merchant so shouldn’t it be the job of the merchant once they are on their site to sell the item?
You are right though, my sites are definitely lacking the pre-sales patter that could turn a browser into a shopper.
It’s a new site so not sure how it will do. Fingers crossed.
It’s the merchant’s job to close the sale, in the case here with your site, from how you’ve described it.
The affiliate’s job is to attract leads and send them on to the merchant’s site.
But you can send a lead on to the merchant with a weak desire to buy, or with a strong desire to buy.
Obviously you want your leads to convert. So you want your leads to go to the merchant with a strong desire to buy.
So it’s also your job to sell (or “pre-sell” if you like – since it’s the merchant who actually closes the sale, in this case at least).
And you have the opportunity here when your visitors arrive at your site. Why not use it!
The merchant for his part also has to have a strong converting site. If this is weak then your efforts will go to waste.
Thus, its the job of both affiliate AND merchant to sell.
@admin
I’ve just taken Adsense off one of my websites. I always had a small link unit on the sidebar, but tempted by Googles talk of more cash, I made it a targetable skyscraper instead. Since then, almost to the day, my sales through normal retailers have been very poor. (Amazon stayed okay though?) I think this was because at least two of the retailers had those very clever ads that show you products you’ve looked at on their websites before. I’m going to blog about my findings when I’ve discovered if it makes a difference. Let’s how so.