Your Adsense Earnings Have Reduced? Here Are Four Things To Explore

I stumbled on a post on Adsense blog and I've decided to share with you. The post gives some insights about why AdSense earnings sometimes go down -- and how you can respond to optimize your earnings.

According to the blog post, there are many factors that affect revenue, but the key ones include:

• Page Views
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Cost Per Click (CPC)
• Search Rank

The first three metrics listed above can be viewed on the Performance reports tab in your AdSense account.

So, let's look at how they affect earnings and how to troubleshoot........

1. My page views have decreased

A drop in page views could simply be seasonal; retailers, for instance, tend to see a traffic drop after the holiday season. But a decrease can also be due to a change in your content.

If your traffic has dropped, here are some ways you might increase it:

• Promote your site with other major sites that cover the same topics.
• Promote your site through social media, and create a group of interested people who regularly visit your site.
• Use Google Search Console to make sure your site is being correctly crawled and indexed.
• Update your site regularly to encourage repeat visitors. You might also want to send out an email or a newsletter about your updates.

When troubleshooting changes in page views, it's a good idea to extend the date range of your reports out to 30 days or more to help identify trends or specific issues. 

2. My cost per click has decreased

CPC is market-driven and depends on factors like advertiser bids on keywords and the CPC values they're willing to pay. For example, CPC can fall at the beginning of each quarter when marketers are shifting budget. 

When looking at changes in CPC, it's a good practice to extend the date range of your reports out to a year. Then:

• See if you're using the best-performing ad sizes. Generally, the most successful sizes for CPC and CTR are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner
• Make sure you're not blocking ads you don't need to. Blocks on too many advertisers, ad networks, general or sensitive categories will often decrease CPC because there are fewer advertisers in the auction bidding on your inventory. The more inventory your site has access to, the greater the chance that auction pressure will drive up your CPC. 
• Look at how seasonality can affect your advertisers' bids. For instance, swimsuit advertisers often increase their bids in the early weeks of summer. But if your site caters only to students, you should expect traffic to fall in the summer.  

3.  My CTR or page RPM has decreased

A drop in CTR or page RPM can be caused by confusing site design or poor targeting. Visitors who see your ads might not click on them because they find them irrelevant, or perhaps they don't see your ads at all. And that leads to lower earnings.

Here are some best practices to help drive up your CTR and page RPM:

• Blend, complement, and contrast: use these techniques to design ad styles that will be successful for your site.
• Maximize ad space with multiple ad units: be sure to see if three ad units is right for your site.
• Use the best-performing ad sizes: As noted in the CPC section above, the most successful ad sizes are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner.

4.  My search rank has dropped

Deeper investigation may show you that your page is not ranked as highly in search results as it once was. The Webmaster Troubleshooter is designed to help you resolve common issues with your site in Google Search and the Google Search Console.

I hope these tips will help you understand exactly what's happening on your blog ― and send your earnings back in the right direction.