That’s personalization which is different from interactivity (search is just a normal tool that everyone has)

To me interactivity means making your site sticky.

Google uses Smart Pricing to determine how much a website gets per click. Those with many loyal visitors will ultimately enjoy favorable Smart Pricing.

Why? Because loyal visitors convert easier than one off visitors which only click but don’t usually convert.

Eventually the cost to advertiser is reduced in order to provide a strong ROI. This leads to higher payouts for AdSense publishers as more advertisers are competing for a spot to advertise on that website.

If one off visitors converts, why does the one off digg traffic doesn’t? Of course we can argue that digg users are not the average users. We both agree though tech savvy audience doesn’t usually click ads.

But the main question whether one should not put an effort in building loyal readers so that to increase his/her AdSense income - I’ll have to disagree with that unfortunately. You can actually make more money from AdSense by putting the effort to build up loyal readers for reasons described in the post and smart pricing thing. You have to look at it from both sides.

However, given a tech related website, and just by looking at it from the publisher’s point of view, I agree with you that you can get quite a number of click from your one off visitors.

I really, really appreciate you analysing my post. Nevertheless, I think that you’ve misconstrued my fifth (and undeniably most controversial) point.

You’ve stated that adding interactivity and putting in effort to build a loyal readership could not be mutually exclusive. Let me try to convince you that it actually can.

To me, interactivity means providing ways and tools for visitors to discover what they’re looking for easily. It can be as simple as a search form and list of related links, it can something more “engineered” like highly customised landing pages that’s made interactive depending on the referring web site, search terms (if they’re from a search result) as well as the visitor’s geographical location.

I’ll be honest, I don’t expect my regular visitors to be a source of ad clicks. And I’m 100% OK with that! Should I neglect them then? Absolutely NOT!

These people are indirectly my agents. They’re the one who’ll be providing me with my revenue stream; ad-clicking traffic

I’m sure that you’ve seen the example I used to illustrate this point. I specifically used the scenario where a visitor referred to by search engines is converted to an ad-clicker.

The same scenario can be used for traffic referred to by my regular readers, including the 50 or so subscribers of my feed.

Do I expect to make some AdSense earnings from them? Honestly, no. But if what I write entice them enough to actually link due to them agreeing to my points or even disagreeing to it, chances are, I’ll have a stream of new visitors who would have otherwise not known about HTNet.

This segment is my target.

Your post here is a perfect example. Would I expect Gaman, someone who I definitely know is way more experienced about making money online to be one of my ad-clickers? I don’t. But I know that you’ll be able to supply me with a bit of traffic that will.

And for that, I thank you