Limiting the number of posts per page

[Nelle]

I've just started working with adsense on my blog and have limited the number of posts to 3 on a page.

At first I did that because I thought I would include adense with each post and I didn't want to go over the limit. But quite frankly, I didn't like the way that it looked.

So I now have a large ad block in the Upper Right of my blog at the beginning the right column. A narrower one in the middle, and a small square in my footer with more info.

My posts are fairly long, but by limiting the number of posts, the reader is never very far from an adsense block. All of the adsense blocks are of different designs but fit together harmoniusly.

I have even toyed with limiting posts to one per page and inserting 2 blocks of ads per post.

Any thoughts or observations?

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Nelle,

It's easier if we can see it but you can't show us your site/blog until you have 10 quality posts, then you can request a site review (in the site review forum) and ask us about this again.

For now, maybe someone can answer the question just in general, but again, it's just hard without seeing what you are doing.

[Nelle]

Thanks Linda,

I was just hoping to have a general conversation about the value of limiting the number of posts per page in a blog. It's something that I had never even considered until I started working with adsense.

But I can see that it might work in SEO as well if I think of my posts as ultimate groups of three and the keywords that I'm targeting.



Nelle

[minstrel]

I don't like to see ads plastered all over the page on a blog. To me, it makes the site look spammy or "Made For Adsense" and distracts from the content.

I think perhaps a header banner and if you wish one in the sidebar is probably plenty. If you think it's absolutely necessary, you could perhaps add another banner in the footer. But I'd stay away from inserting them between posts. Any additional revenues you think you might earn will likely be offset by visitors leaving your blog in droves.

Note that you can also use AdSense for feeds now, so that people subscribing to your blog in feed readers will be reading the feeds with an AdSense ad.

By the way, I also use 3 posts per page for other reasons... I think that gives the page sufficient content (both for SEO and for the AdSense spider) without making it overly long.

[Linda Buquet]

Well just to lay devils advocate on the 5 Star Blog I have 30 posts per page. LOL. So totally opposite end of the spectrum. I don't use Adsense so that's not a consideration.

However I purposely do it for the search engines and for traffic. Your index page will always have a chance of higher rankings, well almost always. So I figure the more content the better. I shorten the posts with the more tag once a week so the page does not get too long and unwieldy.

It works for me for both ranking and traffic. For ranking, I'm #1 in all the engines for affiliate blogs and affiliate marketing blogs. *#1 out of 10.8 million on Google). For traffic, well lets just say my blog gets more traffic with me writing 5 posts a week than the forum does with lots of people writing 150 posts a week.

So it depends what you're after. BUT you won't make more than pennies with Adsense unless you are getting significant traffic. So I'd minimize the Adsense like minstrel suggested and do what you can to maximize the traffic. You can always add more ad units after you build some traction.

My 2 cents.

[Nelle]

I get what you're saying Linda. I've actually increased the number of posts to 5 already. And given what you just said I might stop playing around with it and go back to the way it was.

For the past 3 years I've been adding orginal content to this blog 2 to 3 times a day on a very specific topic. I'm a wordtracker keyword junkie, and I've used those to target my posts, so I'm getting pretty decent traffic. I don't want to throw so much adsense on it that I screw up the rankings and traffic.

I'm hoping that if I keep adding useful orginal content and a sprinkling of adsense it'll work.

BTW, it's really nice to have folks to bounce ideas off of. My husband tries to get into it, but he just doesn't get it.

[Linda Buquet]

Well it sure sounds like you are on the right track. Specific niche, frequent updates, lots of KW research plus a good dose of commitment. You GO girl!

Oh and ya, we're happy to brainstorm any time and we "get" it.

[Nelle]

Thanks again Linda.

I reset the post number per page back to 15. I like the way the blog looks with more content. And as an added bonus - the google adsense ads have more relevance to the site!

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by Nelle

I reset the post number per page back to 15. I like the way the blog looks with more content. And as an added bonus - the google adsense ads have more relevance to the site!

That is at least partly a function of the length of your articles, I think...

Originally Posted by Nelle

My husband tries to get into it, but he just doesn't get it.

Speaking as someone who has been a husband, as far as I can tell we never get it.

[Linda Buquet]

Originally Posted by Nelle

I reset the post number per page back to 15. I like the way the blog looks with more content.

Your main keywords and plenty of additional content should be in the title and they 1st paragraph or so. So you may want to use the "more" feature to cut off the posts after 1-2 paragraphs, if they are pretty long, to make it easier for visitors to scan and shorten up the page.

Originally Posted by minstrel

Speaking as someone who has been a husband, as far as I can tell we never get it.

LOL, David. Almost spewed my coffee all over the monitor!