Which Adsense colors?
Finishing my recent guide on google adsense I would like to get a little more specific and give you instructions what you should do with the ad-blocks to make more money.
The real money in Adsense can only be made if you use rectangle blocks. Banners are now longer paying out well. This is a consequence of mass advertisements on the internet. People often refer to this as the so called “banner-blindness”. Therefore you will want to use rectangles. Google offers two of them, a 338*280 one and a 300*250 pixel one. Make sure you position the ads as well as possible. It has to do with psychology. The human always first watches at specific parts of a website, so called “hot-zones” – that is where you want to place the advertisements.
That are the basics, a good placement is essential for a good income. Due to the fact that people tend to click ads with specific colors more often than others I wrote this guide to let you know what the best URL colors are. The adsense team gave some tips, but as always, those tips are crap. How are they capable of writing so completely messed up posts? With the colors they suggest you will not even get a single click…
Some people say you should make the URLs look exactly like the other links on your website. Whereas I made another experience. Making the links the same color as your blog’s links is good, but not as good as using a blue color for the link. Now the question is, which blue color? I read a post about URL colors by Vinay Kumar, he made best experience with the 000080 URL color. Owing to the fact that he, other bloggers and me made best results with that color I can only recommend you to try that color as well. I am listing the colors which perform best for me. Note, my websites all have a white backgroud, I have not tested dark layouts.
#0000FF. Many websites use this color. That is also a problem, people got used to this color and nowadays click less on it. Still, this a pretty good color to start with. I recommend you to test it.
#000080. This is the color I made best experiences with. It is relatively uncommon and seems to attract most clicks right now. This could change in the future, but right now, this is definitely my favorite.
#21588E. Some webmasters already noticed a banner blindness on other blue colors as well. This color is pretty unique and might be good if the others do not work for you. Test this one out as last.
Test those three colors for 1 week. Testing one day won’t help you – it should be a week. The most important factor you need to compare is the CTR. If it greatly increases when using adsense with that color, then it works good for you.
- Week 1: #0000FF – good CTR
- Week 2: #000080 – extremely good CTR (Best CTR for me)
- Week 3: #21588E – if none is good then this color might boost your CTR.
The last part which you need to change on your Adsense unit is the link color. The link is the link to the advertisers below the advertisements. There are two possibilites here: either you make it the same as the URL color to attract attention to the whole ad unit or (my choice) make it the text you used in the Ad-unit, or just grey (#CCCCCC). When people read the link it could be that they decide not to click on the ad because they realise it is an advertisement. I think that the advertisements that get clicked most are looking very similar to the surrounding content. I do not want the readers to look on the link, I want them to look on the URL and click it. That’s why you should make it the same color as your text, or simply grey to make sure your Adsense URL has full attention. Track your changes with your adsense channels. Make a channel for every ad-unit so that you can see if a color performs well, or not.
Best Adsense setup
It might be difficult to compare all those numbers. Humans need something visual, so try using an addon for firefox named GraphSense. It allows you to upload your .csv files to instantly get graphs showing CTR, eCPM, Clicks and earnings. It makes tracking changes a lot easier :-).
To conclude – try to make your advertisements look as content. URL color = 000080, border color = your background color, background color = your background color, text color = your blog’s text color, link color = your text color or grey. That is what works best for me and also does for several other people. Testing is the way for you to get most earnings. Google provides a powerful tool – the channels.
Use the channels and you will be able to maximize your earnings.
Check out the picture, it pretty much sums it up. Default advertisements should be made by you too. You can advertise for your other websites when there is no ad to display. That way you get absoluetly everything out of Adsense. If you do not understand anything at all then you can read my step by step guide to increase your CTR. Good luck and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Nice post on AdSense. And as always keep in mind that testing those things take time, not just 1 week.
Nice post! I will try the middle colour there and report back if it works!
Nice post, I was already using blue link colours to make the links look like links. However, using the #000080 colour to make the links stand out even more has definitely worked for me.
One thing I have noticed, though… I get lots of return visitors and as a month progresses I get lower CTRs overall as those used with the site succumb to ‘ad blindness’. However, if I continue rotating the colours and changing them every six weeks or so I can maintain my CTRs.
Hey Gwydion,
that’s interesting and as far as I can say definately a brilliant idea. Ad “blindness” is definately what you do not want. Using different Ad-colours just for your returning visitor is a good way of attracint attention. Which colors are you using?
I’ll have to check these out. I have found that this works best for me:
Link Color #425BC4 (blue)
Description & URL #000000 (black)
Anyway, ha dude I found this post on Google. I think I am going to have to do a post about this and take your spot. ;)
I’ll have to check these out. I have found that this works best for me:
Link Color #425BC4 (blue)
Description & URL #000000 (black)
Anyway, ha dude I found this post on Google. I think I am going to have to do a post about this and take your spot. ;)
Hey Taylor,
thanks for the feedback. That is definitely a good color. I tested it myself but made the experience that 000080 works best for me. Make the description color the same as the text on your blog. That will get you a decent amount of clicks :). Trying to make your ads look like your content is always a good idea.
Hendrik
Would you recommend the title of the post to be changed to the same colour say as 000080. I intend using your tip for my site providing Free Indian Shares Tip. I will appreciate your quick response. regards
Hey Analyst,
yes, that is always a good solution because it will make the ads look more like content. Ads looking like content attract more clicks.
Hendrik
Great post. Make them click on ads using psychology because of the colors, not because they want the product. Perfect. This almost guarantees making it easier to sell Natural SEO services to people who were worried about losing money with PPC before this was figured out. I love it. Thanks! Actually though, when I’m in a hurry and see the ads right on top of a page where I expect either content or links directly to the content I’m searching for, I have inadvertently clicked on the ads before – and sometimes when I get to the landing page, I don’t even realize it for a few seconds thinking it was what I was actually looking for. Sneaky, but I have to admit – very clever and I have to laugh when it happens. Not too many people are good enough to get me like that.
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Yes, Adsense has a lot to do with psychology. I keep thinking, changing and tweaking. Since the start I pretty much upped my CTR by at least 80 percent.
One problem tough are missclicks. Missclicks usually lead the clicker in not buying the product. If he will not buy the product then the Return of Investment for the advertiser sinks because he does not get any conversions. Google will adjust the pricing of the Ads to make sure that the advertiser continues advertising. The result is smart pricing.
Everything has to be considered, it’s a very complex system :-). I will let you know what I discover, make sure to subscribe to our RSS feed :).
Great article… I was just searching for most perfect color for adsense link and got your post :) i am impressed by your concept about link color.
My good luck, i have already used one of your suggested link color [ #21588E ] which is blending with the theme color of my blog.
Hendrik, can you please help me with ad placements i have and also suggest me best ad format. i have just used single line link ad unit, will it give me decent income ?
please refer : http://www.webvideohostingprovider.com
#000080 is better i think. Try also 002490. :)
Nice article…..and its very true that we have to keep experimenting and have to find which one is best for us :)
Thanks for the post. Interesting.
The color could be changed in the already existing adsense ad code or do I have to go to my adsense account and recreate the ad? Don’t want to violate any adsense rule. Thanks again.
You can change it in your ad-code if you are using the old code. If you are using the new ads stored on the Google servers, then you’ll need to edit the ad in your ad-management center.
just tried 000080.
It didn’t work at all for me.
so far, standard 0000ff
is still the best.
ill keep you updated.
First, your post is well written and clear. I have tried every color. Contrast, blending, but I found on each site I have a different color works. One site works with bright contrasting red for the text, for example, but is a site about romance I have. One site that I can not get working is an insurance, economic site I have. No matter what colors I try nothing works. I think maybe business people reading my articles are immune to colors, so it does not matter. However, I am going to give your #000080 idea with the url the same color as a text a try. I use WordPress almost spring theme so it looks fine. Sincere thanks for the post. Thank you.
Thanks u for sharing this great infos. I tried ur adsense tip and then went to bed- wehen i awake next morning i look at my adsense account and i was millinaire!!
lol
I’m not surprised that blue is a good colour for adsense. They say that blue pens are to be used in exams because they calm you, more than black ink does. Blue tends to be quite a stand out colour as well. Who would have thought that colours can be so influencial on the internet?
Blue didn’t work for me. Black, the same color as the text, has brought the click through for me. Depends on the skin too I guess. I just keep testing.
I’m not surprised that blue is a good colour for adsense. They say that blue pens are to be used in exams because they calm you,
The key is keeping the test. Black was working for me fine 6 days ago. I then tried a darker blue and my click through increased significantly. Soon it’ll be bright orange LOL! Who knows what works best. I’ll keep testing.
You would think google would make the best color the default color.
A light color blue #83A7BA is getting me a 1.3 CTR
Thx for this color tips, i was so wondering for this tip. Thx, now i changed the color to 000080. I hope i will see some CTR increase
Thanks very much men ! But I have some black blogs and.. I test it deep and no blue color is good for black websites, I try wight and it’s better but ctr is under low
Any recommendation please !
thanks for your tips and suggestion after a long time i read this type of article. thanks again.
Thanks for sharing this informative post , actually am making new health site ,i have searched for best adsense color accordint to that i will change color of theme. I am using mystique theme.
Can you or anyone suggest me which ad color and back groud color to use. whealthfitness.com . at present it has nothing no articles ,just confused between ad and back ground color.