by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: September 28, 2009

Not only is online advertising revenue not directly proportional to website traffic, all too often the very connection between the two is all but tenuous. That statement may seem strange and confusing to many who are somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of online advertising revenue and how it works but the link - or lack thereof - is one learned through often bitter experience.

The link between online advertising revenue and website traffic is best explored in the first instance by defining how online advertising revenue is actually generated. The revenue can be earned in several different forms but most commonly via programmes such as Google Adsense and Adwords. The Google Adwords programme is where an advertiser will essentially employ Google to deploy their advert on sites of Google Adsense subscribers which Google determines to be relevant through various aspects of the site's make-up. These aspects will include the site's URL, title, keywords and phrases and the deployment of these keywords and phrases throughout the textual content of the site. When a site visitor clicks on an ad, the Google Adwords account holder will be liable for a payment to be made to Google, a percentage of which will be shared with the Google Adsense account holder upon whose site the ad appeared.

The above paragraph may very well lead some to believe that online advertising revenue is indeed therefore proportional to website traffic. After all, it would seem to stand to reason that the more visitors the site has, the more ads will be clicked and the more revenue generated. This is excellent theory but unfortunately that is all that it is.

In reality, there are a great many ways to drive traffic to a website but it is targeted traffic which is important. Targeted traffic takes the form of visitors to a site who have a genuine interest in its subject and are keen to find out more. Any Internet user knows that if they do happen to land upon a site, either via a Google search or through a link from another site, and it is not what they expected or not something which interests them, they are not going to stop to click on ads which bear them no relevance. They will do one of two things: they will either click the back button, or move on to a new search or manually entered URL.

There are some sites which pay of course based on simple page views and traffic will therefore determine the amount of money which the writer earns. This is not strictly advertising revenue, however; rather it is a payment made on a projection of same by the hosting company.

Even where targeted, organic traffic is accrued in large quantities, there are no guarantees that the visitors shall click on ads, merely a far greater chance. This means that online advertising revenue is not directly proportional to website traffic at any time and that Internet writers can merely seek to maximise their targeted traffic in the hope of generating advertising revenue.

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