We've had a lot of questions recently from AdSense publishers about viewability and the new Active View metrics in AdSense accounts. Active View can really help you improve your AdSense earnings, so let's take a closer look.

What are Active View and viewability?

Active View is Google’s ad viewability measurement solution. It tracks the viewability of ads served by AdSense: that is, the percentage of ads that are considered viewable out of the total number of ads measured. We use the online ad industry standard: a display ad is counted as viewable when at least 50% of the ad is within the viewable space on the user’s screen for one second or more.

So an ad that is (for instance) placed below the first screen on a given page won't be counted as viewable if the viewer never scrolls down. This is why viewability a good way of determining whether your AdSense ads are actually being seen by your website visitors or simply loading without a chance of catching the viewer's eye.

Why is viewability important?

The industry shift towards viewability is good for both publishers and advertisers for many reasons.

• Benefits for advertisers and the advertising industry

Without viewability metrics, advertisers could be paying for ads that loaded on a page but were never seen. If you're an advertiser paying per click you might not care, but if you're paying by the impression it could be a much bigger deal.

Active View metrics help because they show advertisers what percentage of their ads are actually being seen by users and which publishers provide the highest level of viewability. This helps advertisers make smarter decisions about where they should buy ad impressions. That makes display ads both more measurable and more effective.

• Benefits for publishers

Viewability metrics also help publishers understand the true performance of the AdSense ads they display. Whether the ad is being paid for by click or by impression, ads that aren't seen by the user can’t have an impact. In the long run, they won’t generate reliable ad revenue.

If publishers notice that the Active View percentage for certain ad units is lower than others, that ad position is probably underperforming and ought to be optimized. Active View can help publishers increase their AdSense earnings as they take corrective action and improve the performance of these ads.

How to improve your ad viewability

Once you become familiar with viewability statistics, there are two changes you can make to improve your results.

• Change ad sizes

Vertical ad units such as 160x600 and 120x600 tend to have higher Active View percentages. This makes sense: vertical ad units are in view for longer as the user scrolls up or down the page. Other ad sizes with high viewability rates include the 120x240 and 240x400 ad units.

• Change ad positions

Rethinking the position of your AdSense ad units can also help improve your viewability rates. It's not always just a matter of putting more ads at the top of the page: for example, ads positioned just above the fold tend to have higher viewability rates since they remain within view for longer as the user scrolls down. Experiment with what works best on your site.

Paying close attention to your Active View numbers will help you bring your visitors the targeted ads you want them to see and remove the uncertainty around unviewable ads. In the end, that should mean fewer underperforming ad units and a potentially a new way to achieve better revenues overall.

We think that in the long term viewability will change the way that advertisers allocate their budgets to online display. And if you're a publisher, it's a good idea to start paying attention to these new numbers and make adjustments to your ad sizes, ad units, and ad positions to improve viewability and potentially achieve better results.

To learn more about viewability and Active View, see the AdSense Help Center.

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Posted by Paul Healy

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Sometimes it's a good thing to step back and look at the basics.

With that in mind (and with the new AdSense interface now in place), we'd like to recap the big five AdSense reports you should start with to analyze your overall account performance.

Let's take a look at these reports.

1. The reporting dashboard: Get an overall summary of your performance

As the name suggests, the reporting dashboard gives you a quick summary of three main reporting metrics: estimated earnings, page views, and revenue per thousand impressions (RPM). 

This report is a great way to get a quick check of your recent AdSense performance. You can switch to a wider date range, too, like the past month or year. If you see a sudden change in your results for any area, you can see a more detailed report with a click on the View report button.

2. The entire account by day report: Monitor your daily performance

To see this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel and then select Entire account by day.

Use the Entire account by day report to analyze your daily performance. Try selecting estimated earnings, impressions, CTR, and impression RPM to view them all at the same time and get a better idea of why your earnings change over time. 

For example, if the drop in estimated revenue is mainly due to a drop in CTR, take a closer look at ad units and ad placement to understand what caused that CTR drop.


3. Ad units + Platforms: Check ad performance by device

To use this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel, select Ad units and then add Platforms from the top as a secondary dimension.

This combination offers a good look at how your ad units are doing on different device types. Maybe every ad is doing great across the board, or maybe some ad units are doing well on desktop but not on mobile (or vice versa). 

CTR and Active View Viewable are two key metrics to check first. Active View Viewable shows how many of your total measurable impressions were truly viewable. Google considers an ad viewable if 50% of the ad is visible for at least one second*. With some impressions, for instance, the visitor may not scroll down your page to see an ad. 

If an ad unit has an active view percentage below 50%, check the ad's placement and try to improve this.

Hungry to learn even more? Take it one step further by filtering the report for any individual ad unit that you would like to analyze.


4. The Platforms report: Compare platforms

The Platforms report enables you to see which devices your ad units were viewed on, for example, on desktop or mobile. You can see and compare the traffic and estimated revenue coming from any platform. If there’s a big discrepancy between these two, you might want to check the desktop ad placement and find ways to optimize it to close the revenue gap as much as you can.

5. The Sites report: Compare different domains

Manage multiple domains in your AdSense account? The Sites report can compare the overall performance of those domains.

If you have different versions of one site (like one for desktop and one for mobile), you'll see them separately. If you have a responsive site you can add Platforms as a secondary report dimension to analyze your mobile and desktop performance separately.

Start with these big five and you'll be getting a good basic view of how your site is running. Most of these reports can be found in the Common reports section under your Performance reports tab. You can also create your own reports and save them to run later.

Have a favorite report? Share it with us in the comments!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Cansu Özaras

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Want to freshen up the AdSense performance on your site? Google Analytics can help. Here are some simple and effective places to start.

1. Find out where to focus

Content Groups let you bundle your offerings to analyze them more clearly. Instead of analyzing all shoes at once, for instance, a shoe company might divide content into shoes for adults and kids, for men and women, or by tennis shoes and high heels. You can view and compare aggregated metrics by group, or drill down to any individual URL or page title.

Suppose you want to know: What topics have the best AdSense CTRs?

• Group content by topic (such as food, politics and sport)
• Use the AdSense Pages report to view metrics

Once you learn which topics have the best clickthrough rates, you could then focus on creating more content for those topics.

Suppose you want to know: Which product groups have slow-loading pages?

• Group products by type (such as shirts and shoes)
• Use Page Speed reports to look at page load performance

Are some pages very slow? You might focus on fixing uncompressed images to improve the user experience (and your AdSense revenue).

Content Groups are easy to set up. Learn how to create them and then follow these best practices from Google Analytics evangelist Justin Cutroni.

2. Understand where your users arrive and leave

A Landing Pages report can show you how engaged visitors are with your content. You can analyze individual pages or the Content Groups we just talked about.

Suppose you want to know: What pages cause visitors to leave?

• Look for pages with high bounce rates, this usually indicates content that isn't appealing to visitors or is irrelevant to their needs
• Try changing the headline of your article or finding better images
• You may also want to analyze the page speed for pages with high bounce rates; visitors may be giving up on a very slow-loading page 

Both Content Groups and Landing Page reports can help you find underperforming pages on your site and take action to fix them.

3. Get to know your users 

Demographics and Interests data helps you understand the age and gender of your users, as well as their interests based on their online browsing and buying.

Suppose you want to know: How old are my visitors?

• Try Demographics Report > Age  
• Check the bounce rate: if it’s high, consider changing the headline or the visuals to make your pages more relevant and engaging for your target audience

Suppose you want to know: What are my users interested in?

• Try an Interests report
• Then shape your content based on the user interests you see; if viewers of you tech blog are interested in photography, try publishing more articles on that theme

To get started with the Demographics and Interests reports, enable them in your Analytics account.

The key to making your site better is to jump into the data, have fun, and experiment. Find out what works and do more of it. Have any ideas to share about using these reports? Add them in the comments below!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Stephen Dunleavy

AdSense Analytics Expert

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year, with shoppers out in full force to gather their holiday gifts, round up their decorations, and treat themselves to something special. 2014 was a record-breaker in terms of ad spend, which goes to show just how important it is that your advertising is as targeted as possible, and that you’re fully prepared for the final, and most lively, quarter of the year.

Check out these stats and tips below which can help you be in tip-top form for the season:
(viewing from mobile? Download it here.)

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Yigit Yucel

Marketing Communications Specialist

5 tips to grow site visitors

If you're like most publishers, you think a lot about how to grow your site audience. It should be no surprise that for this topic, content is key. Great content attracts and engages new users and keeps your wonderful old users coming back again and again.

But how do you produce content that is high in quality, value, and unique? For the answer, look back to why you became an AdSense publisher in the first place. Do what you love and your content will naturally be at the heart of all you do.

As you build your new content, use these five tips to make what you create as engaging as it can possibly be.

Be targeted, be consistent, be frequent
Take time to figure out who is reading your content and what topics they find most interesting. Does your blog about dogs get 20 comments about Chihuahuas for every one comment about Great Danes? Maybe you should focus on the little guys!

Update your content as often as you can. With regular updates you’ll build trust and engagement with your users, and they’ll be more likely to share your content with their friends and family.

Create engaging videos
People crave video. In fact, the average mobile viewing session on YouTube is now around 40 minutes. You could boost the amount of time your visitors spend on your site by using video and photos.

Create your own videos; it gives your site personality and unique content. Try adding a separate video section, or integrate video within your articles. Use A/B testing to find the best spot for your video: for instance, see how a video performs in the middle of article versus at the end. Remember, if you use videos that aren't yours, make sure that you have the rights to distribute them.

Be mobile-friendly
The number of smartphone users is estimated to grow by 16% to two billion users in 2015. In all, web access from mobile phones will represent 69% of all traffic by 2017, according to emarketer.com. The average user now spends almost three hours per day on mobile devices.*

To win more visitors, optimize your site for all screens. Your site needs to be accessible anywhere and anytime, on smartphones and every other device. (Hungry to learn more? See more tips on going mobile.)

Go social
The way users find and share content has changed. Along with direct and search traffic, social sharing is key for your site visitor strategy. Remember, your article or video could be the perfect fit for someone’s micro-moment, so make sure you have the most important message in the first few moments.

Use social plugins and sharing buttons to help users share your content on the spot. Use large icons to highlight those sharing options. Try to A/B test where those buttons get the best engagement: at the top, at the bottom or embedded right in the article. For the best user experience, keep those buttons separated from your AdSense ads.

Look at what the numbers are telling you
If great content is job #1, great measurement is job #2. Google Analytics can bring you a deeper understanding of your audience and their demographics, time on site, which pages people leave fast, and which they visit most.

Use these insights to provide your users with the right content that works across devices. For instance, try the long-term revenue framework.

Have some top tips of your own? Share them with us in the comments below.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by

Jason Le

Account Strategist 

and

Draven Leong

AdSense Onboarding Agent

What is human-centered design, and why should you care?

Suppose you want to come up with a new way to engage your site visitors and attract more of them. You could lie on the couch and hope to dream up a genius idea... or you could try human-centered design.

Human-centered design is a creative approach to problem solving. It's taught by innovative institutions such as IDEO and the Stanford Design School and is often used to design new products.

But it's not just for designers. Publishers like you can use human-centered design to understand what audiences want and create new content to match. Why not give it a try?

The steps go like this:

1. Empathize: Observe, engage, and immerse

To get started, look at your users’ behavior and think about why they behave that way.

• Meet some of your users and watch what they do with your content.
• Engage with them. Ask them why they read or watch your content. Try to uncover their needs. 
• Immerse yourself in their experience however you can. Try to discover the emotions that guide their behaviors. Which specific users do you want to create new content for?

Let's say we have a blog focused on the millennial generation and their interests. By meeting and talking with our audience, we learn that a small but growing group of young professional women find our blog really valuable. We decide to focus on this audience.

2. Define: Focus and paraphrase

What is the main user need? Based on what you've heard and learned, create a problem statement. It should look something like this:

"Young professional women need to know more about how to advance their careers, because they aspire to move into management roles."

This is a good problem statement because it:

• Targets a clear cohort of users.
• Addresses a specific need.
• Is something you can take action on.

3. Ideate: Explore

Now it's time to explore as many possible ideas as you can think of. Here are some key ideas for brainstorming:

• Be prolific. Go for a high quantity and wide variety of ideas.
• Be positive. Use the mantra "Yes, and" to build ideas on top of each other.
• Be patient. Don't interrupt yourself or critique ideas as you think of them. You can judge them later.

Use guiding questions. For instance, "How might we…"

1. Connect relatable role models with our young professional women readers?
2. Give them useful strategies for managing up?
3. Address the biases women may face in the workplace? 

4. Prototype: Create

Now you're ready to start building. Choose your best idea and build as many prototype solutions as you can. Prototypes can be things like:

• Post-it notes
• Role playing
• Storyboards
• Objects

Use any prototype you like, as long as it's something you can show to test users to judge their reactions.  For our blog, we might:

Create a video interview with female executives and transcribe it for the blog.

Go to a conference on women in leadership and post notes on conversations we have there.

Present data that shows how progressive companies have tried to address the problem and what can be implemented at smaller companies. 

Hold a Google Hangout and invite readers to join in and talk with a guest speaker.

5. Test: Experiment, refine

Now you're ready to take things back to your target users again. Show them your prototypes and once again observe, empathize, and immerse yourself in their experience. Ask for feedback. Listen. Then use what you hear to refine the prototype. Refine and repeat as necessary.

You'll need patience for this creative problem-solving approach. But when you're done, your ideas will be stronger because they grow from the needs of your users. The more you get to know your audience, the better you can anticipate their needs and adjust your content strategy to engage them in the future.

We hope you find this new thinking useful whenever you design something new. Let us know what you think about the human-centered design in the comments below.

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Posted by Michael Le

Strategic Partnership Manager

We live in an exciting time, where the number and variety of connected devices are growing at a rapid pace. People are coming online for the first time, and they’re accessing the Web through a mobile device.

Having a solid multi-screen strategy will help you prepare for the next wave of mobile web users. By following the simple steps below, we can help set you up for success on mobile web and answer questions like: How will my users react?, how do I keep my brand identity?, and what will happen to my earnings?

1. Test your site 
Start by understanding how your site currently runs on mobile devices. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to see how your site is performing on mobile and identify your site’s most crucial needs and what to take care of first.

2. Pick your strategy
Next, it’s time to make a choice on which multi-screen strategy to move forward with. The most common solutions are:

• Separate mobile/tablet site
• Responsive web design
• Dynamic serving

The choice is yours and all strategies have both pros and cons. When making the decision, you should consider the following:

• Do I want to serve the same content to all platforms? If so, a responsive design should do the trick.

• What’s more important; speed or flexibility? A separate mobile site or dynamic serving allows for better optimization.

• Do I have the resources to maintain more than one site? Responsive design can help you save valuable time and resources.

• What kind of technical capabilities do I have? Pick a strategy that best suits your skill set.

3. Follow best practices
We’ve finally made it to the fun part – building the site. No matter what solution you choose, every multi-screen developer should follow these general rules of thumb.

• Focus on the main action that you want the user to take: While you had plenty of space on desktop, you’ll have to be resourceful on mobile.

• Make your navigation easy to understand: Users want quick access to key actions, so make things easy to find.

• Use existing design paradigms: Do you already have a brand identity on your desktop site? Reuse the same design elements when possible. Try adapting to the user’s device, for example using Material Design for Android: users like familiarity.

• Make sure videos work: Design your look and feel and page animations using modern web technologies. Read more about Look and Feel for video in our Web Fundamentals guide.

• Limit image-based text: Make use of web fonts when possible. Mobile means lower bandwidth.

• Simplify payment processes: Auto-populate shipping addresses and contact details. Use existing payment solutions such as Google Wallet.

4. Avoid common mistakes
Learn from other developers by checking out some of the most common mistakes on mobile sites. This can save you time as you plan and launch your multi-screen strategy.

We hope these guidelines are useful when thinking about your multi-screen strategy. Let us know if you have any other tips that have worked well for you in the comments below.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Felix Nermark

Marketing Communication Specialist

74% of people say that when a site is mobile-friendly, they're more likely to return to that site in the future, according to a Think With Google study.

If that's not enough to encourage you to build up your mobile audience, consider this: 52% of users in the same study said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company.

Designing a mobile-friendly site is important, and so is creating the best mobile user experience. That includes ads: if you want to make the most of every opportunity to earn, your ads should be designed for mobile, too.

Download The AdSense Guide to Mobile Web Success to learn practical ways to engage and delight your mobile audience. Get tips on how to:

• Potentially boost mobile ad revenue with the best ad placements
• Choose the right mobile ad formats for your site
• Send push notifications to your audience just like an installed native app
• Help your audience jump back into your content with just a single tap

What’s your favorite way to engage your mobile audience?  We’d love to hear from you in the comments or on Twitter.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up today!

Posted by Jay Castro

Audience Development Specialist
@jayciro

You might have heard about Contributor through recent posts from the Google team, publishers, and the press. Today we want to share more about the product and provide you an easy way to promote this new revenue source to your site visitors.

Think about your own experience surfing the web. Are there publishers whose content you particularly love and keep going back to? Do you wish you could support these publishers, but see fewer ads? We’ve learned that users want an option to directly support the open web and the people who make it hum with great content, while also seeing fewer ads.

We understand that as a publisher your most pressing concerns are keeping your users happy and generating revenue to support your business. Contributor presents a new option to meet both of these goals.

Here’s how it works
With Contributor, users pick a monthly contribution level (of $2, $5, or $10) and those funds are used to pay for the sites they visit.

By choosing to contribute to publishers, users essentially participate in the ad auction. If the user’s bid wins, no ad is shown, but you’ll get paid by Google as you normally do when ads are served.

Help spread the word
Let your visitors know about Contributor by putting a customized Contributor badge on your site.

Find out how and learn about more ways you can help spread the word here. And if you’re interested in seeing how it works, try Contributor for yourself.

Posted by David Stanke

Contributor Product Manager

Late last year we announced Hindi as the first Indic language supported by AdSense. It means you can earn money by displaying Google AdSense ads on Hindi webpages.

But why does Hindi matter? If you have a large user base in India; or you’re looking to grow in this strategic emerging market; catering your content to Hindi speakers is key. Check out this infographic to learn more:

Keen to start creating? Here are our top five tips for publishing Hindi content online:

1. Create Hindi content that is unique and provides value to your users.

Check out Google Trends in Search and YouTube to see what’s popular in India right now. You can also see a selection of high quality Hindi content from fellow publishers at hindiweb.com.

2. Get a professional translation, or have a native speaker review content.

If you plan to translate your site for Hindi speakers, ensure you provide good quality translations. Avoid auto-translation as it risks a low quality user experience. Read the Webmaster Quality Guidelines to learn more.

3. Be multi-screen and fast-loading.

Delight users with a mobile-friendly site that works well even on low-bandwidth connections. Explore these multi-screen guidelines to get your site ready.

4. Use Devanagari script. 

Access up to 40 free, beautiful fonts for publishing your Hindi content and benefit from better indexing of your site. Select Devanagari script at Google Fonts to add fonts to your collection.

5. Monetize with Google AdSense.

You can use your existing Google AdSense account and create a new ad unit to get started. If you’re new to AdSense, sign up now. 

We look forward to seeing the content you create in Hindi.

Subscribe to AdSense blog posts 

Posted by Amelia Walkley

Marketing Communications Specialist

When it was created in 2011, French company digiSchool was a pioneer by offering free teaching content for which users would otherwise have had to pay. They were growing rapidly. However, they had to make an important decision to grow even further: mobile site or mobile app?

After extensive user testing, digiSchool noticed that mobile apps were best for delivering content like quizzes, lessons, and videos, but a mobile site was better for reading the news. “Depending on the device, a user needs very specific interfaces. We had to figure out whether content worked best on a mobile site or an app.”,  Thierry, co-founder of digiSchool, explains.

They decided to build a mobile site with Responsive Web Design (RWD) to meet their visitors’ needs. This has been key to the success of digiSchool’s mobile site. It has proven to be a scalable, complete solution that doesn't require changes across multiple sites, and has enabled digiSchool’s mobile site to evolve rapidly.

Discover how digiSchool decided to go mobile and how they became a market leader for digital education in France. To learn how you too can provide a great site experience for all of your users, don’t forget to check out our Multi-Screen Starter Guide.

Posted by Anne Goldmann
AdSense Account Manager

"Mobile to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014"* was a memorable headline a few years ago. We're passing the mobile tipping point and seeing a 70% year over year increase from AdSense impressions on mobile devices. This is just one reason why it’s more important now than ever before for your website to be multi-screen friendly. Here are a few more reasons why you should take an action now.

1. Mobile Google Search algorithm has been changed 

Recently, we announced that Google Search uses a website’s multi-screen friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that websites that are mobile friendly are now easier to find than those that aren’t, for users searching on their mobile devices.  If your website is not mobile friendly, this change will affect its discoverability, which may impact your traffic and AdSense long-term revenue.

2. More publishers are seeing success from going multi-screen

Shifting your website strategy to multi-screen takes time. The good news is that more publishers are starting to see a positive impact including: increased traffic, longer user engagement, and higher AdSense performance. Check out these stories from publishers who have successfully shifted to multi-screen: digiSchool, Famous Birthdays, ThriftyFun.com, and more.

3. More resources are available to ease your policy concerns 

Policy concerns, such as ensuring proper ad placement on a small screen, might be one of the reasons stopping you from going multi-screen, so we’ve created some new resources for you. Check out our Policy FAQs for mobile optimized (multi-screen) websites to help you understand what you should consider when placing ads on your mobile site.

4. Additional resources are available to help you go multi-screen

Do you lack the time or the expertise needed to build your multi-screen friendly website? We’ve identified some vendors** who can help you transition to a multi-screen friendly site easily. You can search these vendors by location, type of website, and services provided.

New vendors added in the past 6 months:

Keep your mobile strategy going with our Multi-Screen Guidelines. This guide will give you everything you need to know about multi-screen strategy from the basics to beyond. If you’re starting out, the Starter Guide will walk you through how to build a multi-screen friendly website. If you’ve already got a multi-screen friendly website, the Implementation Guide can give you more tips around monetization, user experience and SEO.

*Mary Meeker, 2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update
**Note that recommended vendors are independent companies and not affiliated with Google in any way. Google assumes no liability for any vendor's actions.

Posted by Maiko Fujita - Multi-Screen Strategist
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

As a business owner, content creator, or webmaster, you can have many questions, e.g., when you will be paid, how you can earn more or how you can build a multi-screen website. We've improved our resources and support options to help you find the answers to your questions.

Most of the answers to your questions are available in the AdSense Help Center and in the Troubleshooting section. In addition, you can find answers and exchange ideas with other publishers in the AdSense Help Forum.

To provide a more simplified and personalized support experience, we’ve launched a new Contact us flow in the AdSense Help Center. Publishers consistently earning more than $25 per week (or local equivalent) are eligible to sign up for email consultations with AdSense support (available in 36 languages). If you can't see the “Contact Us” button, you can still reach us via the issue-based troubleshooters in the AdSense Help Center.

For all questions about your AdSense account, don’t forget to explore the AdSense help resources below:

• AdSense Help Center
• AdSense Troubleshooting
• AdSense Help Forum
• AdSense Academy
• Optimizing AdSense
• AdSense YouTube Channel

To hear more about new features and opportunities, subscribe to the Inside AdSense blog, follow our Google+ and Twitter channels, and opt in to receiving emails from us.

Posted by Saurav Roy - AdSense Support Team
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

Today we're introducing Matched content, a free content recommendation tool for AdSense publishers that promotes your content to your site visitors. Matched content generates contextually relevant and personalized article recommendations from the pages on your website.

With Matched content, your visitors can:

• Discover relevant articles on your site
• Spend more time on your pages
• Engage more with your content

This new feature can help you increase your site's page views and ad impressions, and could increase your ad revenue by making it easy for your visitors to find your content. To provide a great experience for you and your site visitors, Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your AdSense account to see if your sites are eligible to run Matched content.

Adding Matched content units to your site now could help you to grow the number of page views on your site and increase user engagement. You can get the most out of this new tool by checking the best practices in the AdSense Help Center.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below this post.

Posted by Tobias Maurer, Matched Content Product Manager
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

Recently, we announced that Google Search will be using mobile-friendliness as a search ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Make sure your website is ready for this search change. Here are some frequently asked questions that can help you.

How can I check if my site is mobile-friendly? 

You can check your site by testing your pages with the Mobile-Friendly Test tool. This tool shows how Google Search sees your pages. To get a list of mobile usability issues across your sites, log in to your Webmaster Tools account and use the Mobile Usability Report.

How can I make my site mobile-friendly?

Get started with the guide to mobile-friendly sites to build your mobile-friendly site. If you need more customized advice for publishers, you can check out the AdSense Multi-Screen Starter Guide.  

My website is already mobile-friendly. Do I need to take any action?

If you already have a mobile-friendly site:

• Double-check your site’s pages using the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and see how Google Search sees your pages.
• Check out the AdSense Multi-screen Implementation Guide to learn about growing audience and revenue from your site.
• Use the Mobile Search Engine Optimization guide to help your site show up in search results.

Go mobile today to provide your visitors a good user experience and to make most of your mobile traffic.

Posted by Inside AdSense Team
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

We hear from publishers around the world that they are looking to grow their site traffic and increase revenue. To help you accomplish these goals, we'd like to share the Long-term Revenue Framework—a tool often used by our AdSense optimization experts.

The Long-term Revenue Framework below is a simple, but powerful framework to help you understand the four levers that can help you to grow your site. With this framework, consider your site optimization efforts in terms of the four levers outlined below.

At the highest level, to help grow your site's revenue, try focusing on attracting more unique users and/or increasing the value of the users already visiting your site. To earn more from your existing users, you can maximize the value of each page view, get visitors to look at more pages and visit your site more often. Let’s look at each of these levers in more detail.

1. Number of users

Growing the number of unique users starts with understanding your site’s traffic. Check your Google Analytics reports to see where your visitors are coming from and what content on your site drives the most traffic. You can use these insights to create compelling content that users can find and share.

2. Revenue per page view (RPM)

To help maximize the value of each page view, try focusing on two areas.  First, make sure your ads get seen by placing them near the content users are paying attention to. Next, increase competition for the ads on your website by following these best practices:

• Allow both text and image ads.
• Implement the top performing ad sizes on your site.
• Allow as many ad categories as possible.
• Enable AdSense to compete against other ad networks if you're also using DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP)

3. Page views per visit (Depth of visit)

To encourage visitors to look at more pages and spend more time on your site, clearly demonstrate the value of your content. Create a great first impression by making sure the information your visitors are looking for is the first thing they see.

You can further increase your site’s page views per visit by showing your visitors that you have more great content they’d be interested in. You can achieve this by showcasing related or popular content near the end of the main content of the page.

4. Visits per user (Loyalty)

Creating a loyal user base is all about conveying to users that your site is regularly updated with new and interesting content. You can build loyalty by asking your visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter or social media channels.

We hope this framework is useful when thinking about how to grow your website’s traffic and revenue. Let us know what you plan to do using the Long-term Revenue Framework in the comments section below.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Adam Coelho - User Experience Strategist
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(Originally posted on the Webmaster Central Blog)

As more people use mobile devices to access the Internet, Google Search has adapted its algorithms to help users find mobile-friendly web pages and apps. Recently, Google Search has made it even easier for users to discover multi-screen content with two important changes:

1. More mobile-friendly websites in search results

Starting April 21, Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results optimized for their devices.

To make sure your website is ready for this change, check out the guide to mobile-friendly sites and start building your multi-screen website today. You can test out how your site is performing with the following tools:

• To test a few pages of your site, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Test.
• To get a full list of mobile usability issues across your sites, log in to your Webmaster Tools account and use the Mobile Usability Report.

If you already have a multi-screen website, check out our Multi-Screen Implementation Guide to optimize your website for the best user experience and monetization. You can use the Mobile Search Engine Optimization guide to help your site show up in search results.

2. More relevant app content in search results

Recently, Google Search began to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking search results displayed to signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, Google Search may now show content from indexed apps more prominently in search. If you have a mobile app, learn more about App Indexing, and allow Google Search to show this information in search results.

Posted by Inside AdSense Team

(Original post by Takaki Makino, Chaesang Jung, and Doantam Phan)

Welcome to the last part of our Valentine’s Day blog series. Today, we’ll explore what eight of the most loved romantic movies of the last few years can teach us about content strategy.

Romantic movies are always a popular choice for Valentine's Day. In the spirit of this special day, we watched some classic romantic movies (for research, of course) to see what they can teach us about content strategy.

Here’s the top tips we found:

1. P.S. I Love You - Have a single common goal

Gerry and his series of letters were designed to encourage Holly to move forward to a new life. Similarly, when you’re creating a series of content pieces, ensure that they have a single common goal or call to action such as email sign-up. All pieces of content should link together and guide your visitors toward a desired goal or call to action.

2. 10 Things I Hate About You - Use list-based articles

This one comes directly from the title of the movie. List-based articles (listicles) provide a great way to deliver your message in a structured and engaging way. Keep them short and easy to read to grab the attention of your visitors.

3. When Harry Met Sally… - Make your content memorable 

When you ask someone what they remember about this movie, it’s highly likely that they will respond with one of several key scenes. Why? Because the film masterfully creates scenes that are both embarrassing and hilarious, making them very easy to recall. When you’re creating your content, ask yourself “Does this content have at least one memorable moment? Is there something that will stick with the my visitor?"

4. Love Actually - Link content pieces to each other

Love Actually tells nine intertwined stories with a common emotion, “love”. Consider all of the content on your site pages in a similar way. Each piece of your content may target one particular theme or audience but in the end, they should serve the same purpose.

5. You’ve Got Mail - Use email marketing

When you’re selecting your distribution channels for your content, make sure to use email. It can be an effective, easy, and inexpensive way to keep your visitors up to date. It also offers a great way to reach your mobile audience.

6. The Princess Bride - Know your audience

For a particular audience, the Princess Bride is the most romantic movie of all time. For others, it doesn’t even rate. This is because the film resonates with a certain audience. In the same way, if you know your audience, you can craft successful content. Get to know your audience more by using experimentation, market research, and other tools.

7. Pretty Woman - Bring unique value to your content

Pretty Woman is a modern retelling of the classic Cinderella story. Similarly, the subject of your content doesn’t have to be a completely original thought or subject matter. Your visitors want to see your personal opinion or a unique value in your content. Start by asking yourself “What is the unique value I’m adding to the subject matter?” or “What am I providing that no one else is providing?”

8. Forrest Gump - Provide a good user experience

To refer to Tom Hanks’ iconic line in Forrest Gump in a modern content strategy way: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what screen you’re gonna get.” Thanks to the rapid growth of mobile traffic, your content is now viewed on multiple devices. If your site is still not multi-screen optimized, check out our Multi-Screen Starter Guide, and if you already have a multi-screen website, ensure you’re giving your audience the best visitor experience by using the Multi-Screen Implementation Guide.

To wrap up, try thinking about these eight tips and how they can be applied to your content strategy. Are you giving your content the love it deserves? Much like Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca will “always have Paris” together, remember that you and your visitors will always have your content, if you get your strategy right. 

Posted by Chris Jones, Audience Development Specialist
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Welcome to the third part of our Valentine’s Day blog series. Today, we’ll focus on how Google Analytics can help improve the performance and user experience on your site.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you analyze the behavior of your site visitors. With Google Analytics, you can gain valuable insights into improving your site.

The very first step is to link your Google Analytics and AdSense accounts in a few easy steps. After your accounts are linked, you can start viewing AdSense reports in Google Analytics.

Here are five ways to improve the performance of your site by analyzing your Analytics reports:

1. Optimize your revenue by identifying top visited pages

Do you know which of your pages receive the most traffic? Check out the “Top Visited Pages” report to identify the pages that are visited the most and where your users spend the majority of their time. You can optimize these pages for higher conversion and engagement. To make the most of these popular pages, check out our best practices for ad placement.

2. Increase traffic by prioritizing top traffic sources

Which sites are driving traffic to your site? The AdSense Referrers Report allows you to identify the key traffic sources visiting your site. By knowing these sources, you can better tailor your content to make your visitors come back to your site.

3. Identify and optimize the last pages viewed on your site

Where do your site visitors leave your site? You can analyze the top exit pages of your site with the Exit Pages report (found under Behavior reports). Optimizing or fixing these pages could help increase the traffic to your site. 

4. Improve user experience by increasing page speed 

How long do your visitors wait to see your content? By using the Site Speed reports, you can view detailed information about the load speed of your pages. Faster pages lead to better user experience. With these reports, identify pages that have a longer load time and start improving them.

5. Get quick insights with In-Page Analytics

Are your users finding what they're looking for on your pages? The Page Analytics Chrome Extension will help you visualize how your users interact with your site. With this tool, you can see where your visitors are focused and optimize your pages for a better experience.

Learn more about how to gain insights from Google Analytics reports with Analytics Academy today.  

Posted by Cansu Ozaras - Publisher Monetization Specialist
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