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? (Don’t laugh. It happens. I usually try the direct URL method of searching
before I go to a search engine.)
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
possible. That means putting visitors first, always.