AdSense Case Study: Stage 3 Begins

Stage 2 of my AdSense case study focused on content optimization using standard search engine optimization techniques to make sure that the ads that will be displayed by the Invisible Fence Guide are on target and that the pages rank highly in search engine listings.

Now we begin Stage 3, the image stage. If you look at the pages of the Guide as it stands today, you'll see that it's full of content, but that the pages look… well, plain. Very early 90's, in fact, for those of you reading this who are old enough to remember what the Web was like back in those days. But today that kind of site is too old-fashioned. So we're going to start spiffing it up, and our first step is to add some images.

Images are much easier to obtain and to fix these days with the popularity of digital cameras, digital camcorders and image editing software. There are some basic things to think about that we'll discuss next time. For now, though, you have to think about what kind of images you want displayed on your site. What pages need images? How big? Are you talking about pictures or simple graphics? Don't worry about where to place the images at this point, we'll worry about that later.

Think also about search engine optimization techniques for images. This means using the “alt” attribute of the “img” tag to describe what the image is about. It also means locating the image near the right keywords in your content, so that image search engines — like Google — can associate the images with the right keywords. More on this next time.

Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book.

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