I've found the most effective way to increase your AdSense CPM and CTR, without being “Smart Priced”, is by having AdSense show ads relevant to the page.
For this, Google has to know what the page is about and it does this by looking at a number of things such as the URL and the domain names general topic trend.
However, the most important part is the page content itself, and while you may have written a great article, other page elements may be causing AdSense some confusion and end up influencing the ad shown in a detrimental way.
To combat this you can use ‘section targeting’ to filter out any unnecessary page content. Some areas of the page you might want to consider 'filtering out' are:
- Headers
- Footers
- Navigation
- Comments (Possibly)
Implementing Section Targeting
Implementing Section Targeting is relatively simple if you’re comfortable editing your HTML.
You simply need to wrap the content you want AdSense to take the most notice of in the following.
<!– google_ad_section_start –>
<!– google_ad_section_end –>
To tell AdSense to IGNORE content, you should wrap it within:
<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>
<!– google_ad_section_end –>
As you can see, it's implementation is pretty simple, but it can make huge differences to ad relevancy and therefore your AdSense CPM and CTR - which are both things you should be aiming to improve, at all times.
So, if you haven't already, implement section targeting as soon as possible!
For more information on section targeting, visit the AdSense Help Center.
