6 Tips to Improve Your UX and RPM at the Same Time

We’ve made it to mid August, we can see the RPM trends of Q4 up ahead! If you’re unfamiliar with RPMs, it’s similar to CPMs, but it measures how much the publisher makes for every 1,000 times the page is viewed. Many factors go into the RPM that we can’t control (content niche, advertiser, time of year, traffic type, page format, device, and more!) but did you know there are changes you can make to your site that will improve the user experience, while also increasing that RPM?

Let’s take a look at these 6 changes you can implement today!

Exceptional Content

Creating high quality content for your audience should be your #1 focus as a blogger. This will help your SEO performance Google’s main goal for the search results is matching a user with the best possible result. This happens through quality content. Quality content also improves your user engagement metrics like time on page, session duration, pages per session and bounce rate. Each of these are positive algorithm signals to Google that indicate your readers like what they see.

By consistently producing quality content on your blog, you will gain the trust of your casual reader, turning them into a loyal follower.

And because your blog publishes high quality content, your reader will keep reading! The more time spent on your site and the more content they view, the more ad impressions they will see. This will increase your RPM.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Would your audience find this interesting?
• Do I thoroughly cover this topic?
• Is this content useful and useable?
• Is this content unique and accurate?

Create a Long Scroll Experience

The better the content, the richer the on-page experience, the longer the reader will scroll. The longer the reader scrolls down the page, the more ads they see.

When it comes to word count, spending the time to make your post longer can pay off big time in organic search traffic. Google has long favored in-depth articles since the more information a page gives, the likelier the reader has a good experience on your website. This can also lead to increased engagement.

When you publish a post that thoroughly covers a topics, the reader will stay on the page longer, and this is the key to what makes this tip so valuable. Go right now, check out your friend’t blog — the one that claims she’s making twice the RPM you are — and get to a blog post. If she’s telling you the truth, I’m guessing it takes the reader a decent amount of time to scroll through all that well written, value-adding content.

So how long is long-form content?

Quality is a better KPI than quantity, but if we had to pick a range, 800-1,000 words is a good target to adequately cover a topic. If you’re struggling to find sub-topics within your main post topic, use brainstorming tools like Answer The Public for writing inspiration. Another idea is to search online for the topic you’re writing about and see what questions Google populates the ‘People Also Ask’ section of the search results. Work those topics into your content.

Never write just for the sake of adding words, but here are some ideas of additional (and valuable( sections to add to your posts that would increase the scroll.

• Vertical images (pin-friendly, perfect for mobile)
• Content to explain why you’re writing about the topic
  • Why did you choose that recipe, these products, this paint color — what do you love about them
• Add an FAQ section, incorporating questions that either you receive from readers or this would be a great place to add the common questions listed in search results mentioned before
• Custom video
• Related content links or module
• Step by step instructions for DIY, recipes or how-tos
• Recipe cards for recipes
• Tips, incorporate what you’ve personally learned about this topic/experience
• Newsletter signup
• List of ingredients or materials needed

Heading Tags in Posts

Insert heading tags into your blog posts to break out different sections or sub-topics. Your post headline typically is also the H1, so the headings inside your blog post can either be an H2 or H3, Google doesn’t distinguish between the two these days.

Heading tags should be placed throughout your content to keep the content organized, not for formatting purposes. Because people use their phones more often than full screen computers, Google relies more heavily or those user experience signals. Google knows people on mobile devices are more likely to want to scan through content vs. read each line. They skim through articles while waiting at the airport, they consume News content and research things they want to do. Breaking your content into chunks by sub-topics makes for easier readability.

Add Video

There are ways to add video on your website without spending the cash for huge custom video shoots. You can create simple and inexpensive videos using content from your website and DIY video makers like Animoto or Biteable.

To best optimize your video strategy for the highest earnings, we recommend cleaning up anything you can live without on your mobile layout. Things can get distracting for a user, video completion rates are higher on less busy sites. Also, delay your newsletter pop-up until later in the session. Having it pop up right as the video is popping up isn’t the best experience and can cause a higher bounce rate. And lastly, videos that sit at the bottom of the screen tend to have better performance for video.

And beyond that, you don’t even need to have your own video content to generate video revenue. If you’re a SHE Media Partner and interested in video monetization, reach out to our Support Team and ask for our Outstream Video product.

Page Formatting

Grab your phone and go to one of your blog posts, try to use an unbiased eye! Is the font too small? Are paragraphs long and chunky, creating an intensity that backs the user right off the page. Or look at the sites you absolutely love. What is it about their page layout that attracts you?

Here are several formatting tweaks that can instantly improve your user engagement metrics and increase that RPM as well:

• Make sure the font across your site is at least 14-16 pt size. Small font is a no-go!
• Paragraphs should be shorter, 3-4 sentences max. After that, make a line break. This helps users not feed as overwhelmed at a solid block of text.
• Pad the lines a little more than your default settings would be, easier on the eyes on mobile.
• Make sure your hyperlinks stand out on the page, both color and/or underlined is most common.

High-quality Images

Feature images are common, but adding other images to your blog posts make them even more interesting and visual for your reader. Image quality has become increasingly important to Google, which can be inferred by their added attention around Image Search Results and their mention in Google Search Console. We’re happy to report that the obnoxiously stockish looking photos assaulting web pages have passed in many cases. Even free image databases like UnSplash are good quality.

Image Best Practices:

• Images must be responsive
• Should be relevant to the page
• Clear
• Have alt text & an optimized file name
• Should not be blocking content
• Consider using next-gen image formats like JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP

So while there are many factors of the RPM we can’t control, it’s just as important (if not more!) to understand the changes you can make on your site to boost your revenue.

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article originally published on Nov 20, 2019