Things to keep in mind when looking to increase traffic
Site optimization to increase traffic is usually grouped into two parts - Web enhancements and new traffic acquisition.- Discussed Topics in Article
- Web enhancements
- New traffic acquisition
Web enhancements
Web enhancements, such as optimizing ad placement and navigation, can help increase traffic. We offer some tips to help you improve your website. Check out these tips to learn how fast-loading pages, relevant, fresh content, and effective mobile sites can help increase traffic to your website.Publishers should be aware of the AdSense program policies and the Google Webmaster Guidelines and optimize their sites without violating any of the policies or quality guidelines. For example, Google ads, search boxes, and search results may not be:
- Integrated into a software application (does not apply to AdMob) of any kind, including toolbars
- Displayed in pop-ups or pop-unders
- Placed in emails, email programs, or chat programs
- Obscured by elements on a page
- Placed on any non-content-based page (Does not apply to AdSense for search or mobile AdSense for search)
- Placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads
- Placed on pages whose content or URL could confuse users into thinking it is associated with Google due to the misuse of logos, trademarks or other brand features
- Placed on, within, or alongside other Google products or services in a manner that violates the policies of that product or service
New traffic acquisition
Acquiring new traffic to your website is another common way to generate increased traffic. Common ways to do this include search engine optimization, advertising, and partnering with traffic providers.Search engine optimization
We understand that you may look to search engine optimization to increase traffic. In order to help you ensure that the implemented search engine optimization is clean and adheres to Google policy, please read our Webmaster Guidelines (also referenced in the above “Web enhancements” section), which are best practices to follow when creating a site that Google can find, crawl, index, and understand. For a more in-depth guide to search engine optimization, we offer the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide In addition, as mentioned in the Understanding traffic on your site article, Google Webmaster Tools enables you to submit all of your pages to the Google index, which can increase your visibility by optimizing your website for Google search.Before you decide to work with any search engine optimizers we suggest the following:
- It’s best to ask for recommendations from webmasters that you personally know and trust or search for well-known optimizers with good reputations on the web. If possible, read what others have written about them on forums before proceeding to work with them.
- If you decide to go with an optimizer based on their reputation on the web, ask for examples of sites they have optimized. The sites should be as similar to yours as possible based on your content vertical, demographics, number of visits/month, etc.
- Make sure that the SEO won't make your site violate the Webmaster Guidelines, for example, by purchasing links to your site in order to increase its PageRank.
Advertising
AdSense publishers are also welcome to use online advertising as a way to direct new users to their sites. However, in order to ensure a positive experience for users and advertisers, publishers that use any form of online advertising to pages with Google ads are required to comply with the spirit of our landing page quality guidelines. The three main components of a high quality landing page are: relevant and original content, transparency, and site navigability. Please read the use of online advertising Help Center article to learn more about each of these components.We also prohibit the promotion of your site using the following techniques:
- spam emails
- comment spamming
- creation of fake forum profiles
- posting links on link farms and "private blog networks", link exchanges and social network spamming.
Partnering with traffic providers
Ultimately, you’re welcome to promote your site in any manner that complies with our program policies. However, AdSense publishers are ultimately responsible for the traffic to their ads, so if you choose to partner with a third-party service to increase traffic to your site, it’s critical that you monitor your reports closely to gauge the impact that each source has on your ad traffic.There are many services out there that can increase traffic to your site, including pay-per-click solutions to connect advertisers and publishers, as well as search engines and directory sites. However, we’ve found that some of these services actually send artificial traffic to websites, despite their appearance. To deliver the traffic levels that their customers expect, these services often generate clicks and impressions using click bots, or by providing users incentives to visit sites or click on ads. For this reason, we strongly urge you to use caution when partnering with third-party traffic services. If you find that one of your traffic sources has suspicious activity, we recommend stopping or pausing your relationship with that traffic source to stop any traffic that may be invalid. We also encourage publishers to report any suspicious activity which they’ve detected on their site via the Invalid Clicks Contact Form.
Refer to the Proactive steps to prevent invalid activity article for more information about how to avoid partnering with low-quality traffic providers. Specifically, the traffic provider checklist can help guide your discussions with any potential traffic provider. This checklist provides a list of suggested questions to ask when you start to explore how you and a traffic provider can work together. Once you've spoken with a traffic provider and want to move forward, it’s also critical that you have the ability to monitor the traffic they are sending to your site.
