Improve Adsense CTR
Today I was contacted by Kiraly Zoltan – he asked for some tips to improve the Click-Through Rate of his Adsense ads on his website. I opened the website and noticed 2 major mistakes in the layout of his adsense units.
Bad Adsense layout
Do you notice what he is doing wrong? If not then make sure to read my post about the best Adsense colors and the hot-spot ad positons.
The first problem is that he is using a 728*90 banner. Banners are Web 1.0 – nobody clicks them anymore. They suffer from the problem known as “banner-blindness”. We got used to normal horizontal banners and do not click them anymore. Leaderboard and banner ads are out! Don’t even think about using them if you have alternatives.
If you want to get a decent CTR and not one click per year then you must work with the large rectangles. They attract a lot more attention and look less like banners as long as they are not showing an image. Replace them on your website and I am almost 100 percent certain that your CTR will improve by 1-2 percent. I have been using the banners before as well and no, they did not work for me neither!
So how do you place two large rectangles next to each other? The answer is simple, use html to create a table for your Adsense units. The code to do so is:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Code 1</td>
<td>Code 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
That will place your Ads next to each other drawing more of the visitors attention and as a result improve your CTR. Really, whenever you make a website – this code will get you a decent amount of clicks!
The next problem with his Ads is the color. He is using #FEA20F as the link and URL color. What kind of color is that? Have you ever seen someone using it before? Don’t invent new Adsense improvement strategies! Use that what works! Blending Ads with bright URL color has never worked for me and won’t do for you as well. Choose a dark blue as link color. #000080 is definately my favorite and most successful one. The reason for choosing the blue is simple: people are used to blue hyperlinks and will consequently click them more often. #0000FF is the color almost all websites use for ad-links – that’s also a problem, people got used to it and do not click ad-units in that color that often anymore! Take a darker blue as link color!
You also don’t want the readers to have a look at the URL – you want them to look on the link and click that one right away. If they look too long on the URL they will notice that it is an advertisement and probably not click which means that you do not get any money at all. Make the link color a grey like #cccccc or the same color as the text in your advertisements. So if your text is black, then make the URL black, or grey.
2 Large Rectangles
That’s what gets you the highest CTR with Adsense in my opinion. Let’s have a look what Kiraly changed. He implemented my suggestions and is now using a #021588 as link color which is almost the same as the navy-blue #000080. But what the heck? Why is he using a #21588E as URL color? That’s not the best solution if you ask me. You should make it the same color as the text-color of your Adsense unit. In his case the text-color of his Adsense unit is #424242 which means that he should make the URL look the same. That way the people tend to look and click the Link of your ad more often.
One last thing which I would suggest in case of his website is to place the Adsense units not in the middle, but more to the left. People look at the top-left corner of a website when loading the website. That is in fact the best position for advertisements. Try to allocate your Ads more to the left by adding a <div align=”left”>(your table with the adsense ads)</div> around your table. That will move them right into the so called “hot-zone” and result in a higher CTR, too.
Embed all those changes and I am more than sure that you will experience a CTR-boom. I did the same on all of my websites and believe me – my click through rate is way better now. It is like in your local shopping-center. The people arrange their products psychologically to make you buy products more often. Same applies to the Adsense ads – you want to magically make users click them! Let me know if you need assistance with the placement and look of your ads.
Good tips — I’ve noticed in the past month that my clickthroughs have dramatically dropped, so I’ll try a couple of these tips to re-tool what I’m doing.
Thank you for the tips!I already made +5$ yesterday,it remains to be seen if it will stay that way :) also my CTR gained +0,20% it isn’t much but better than nothing :)
Hey Kiraly,
you got a good ad-placement now. By placing those two large rectangles there you probably get a CTR around 100-150 percent higher. Let me know if you are making more :-).
Some really good tips i should say. I never look AdSense this way. Thanks for guiding.
No problem and yes, all of that is pure psychology. I am thinking of studying computer science and psychology at university.
Well I’m disappointed with the CTR on one of my sites so I’ve give your advice a go.
I’ve changed the colours slightly. I’m going to see if this makes any difference.
But I’m also baffled as to why my CTR has gone down? I’m wondering if its an external factor and not related to the colours or placement. Maybe Google is not sending relevant ads any more to my site (in other countries – I cant see what ads are being shown in other countries)?
I have this cynical thought that advertisers are not wanting ads on my site anymore, so I get rubbish ads that no-one click on? Is this possible?
Sorry for going on about my own CTR, but I wondering if a drop in CTR is more than just placement and colours. :-)
@Me Debt Free:
Yes, the best relevance of Ads is usually achieved with US-visitors. To see what other users are seeing as advertisement I can recommend you to use a proxy. With the proxy you will be seen as a visitor from wherever the proxy site is hosted.
No, visitors have no influence on the ads. Your content is the main-influence. Make sure to make your content as relevant as possible, you can also try to use “section targeting” to make the ads more relevant.
How do the new colors perform?
One of my concerns about running such obtrusive ads is that it would potentially discourage people from joining the site.
In terms of advertising, it might offer up a little higher CTR, but in terms of attracting people to your site is there any concern it has a negative impact?
Of course, it can be negative. I suggest that you add something next to your ads, that registered users won’t see any advertisements at all. That’s how I did it.
I am busy adding ads into my site. The problem is that if I add 2 big rectangles then I might have a problem with the ads taking up all of the space. What about adding smaller squares?
Yep. Of course, 300*250 rectangles are okay as well.
Looked at that site now and he’s showing a leaderboard again.
Google ads no longer are displayed. Guessing he was banned by AdSense because of the content of his site.
When are you people going to learn you’re not going to make money with AdSense if you don’t put your visitors first? You need to put your content above the fold. If you don’t you’re never going to get enough traffic to make money with AdSense consistently.
Your homepage has a PR of 0 which is odd for a site that has been around as many months as yours has. Usually indicates some sort of penalty from Google.
Yes, he was banned for his content. I don’t agree with the content above the fold. You want to put your Ads above the fold if you really want to get a decent CTR.
Our website is relatively young and we have not done any link-building.
Yes I was banned by adsense.But my visitor rate is growing,so it ain’t a problem for me.For me pagerank isn’t much,my overall visitor rate wich return is about 60%.The only problem is that I don’t know now,how can I monetize my website,but this won’t stop me to continue my work on this website!
I have made few changes as suggested by you, can you please have a look at my website and let me know if its fine. I haven’t monetized the homepage, but the individual pages alone
Hey Raju,
I wrote a little review of techapp.com on our forum. Hope to have helped you a little.
Hendrik
Well its very interesting tips for ads placements .
I was using 728 x 90 ads but now i shifted to
regtangle ads.
My CTR is slowy slowy increasing
Casper
► http://studies-abroad.com
Sorry, but tables are archaic. Go for flaoted divs instead; it’s semantically stronger and lighter in code.
Got a link for us? No real coder but always interested in learning something new.