Quadrupled my CTR thanks to DP members.

Woooo page 50

No, I did not say my CTR was 25% (telling peopleyour CTR is against the TOS) I was saying that my CTR was changing by around 25% +-

So if my CTR was 4% and went up to 5% that would be + 25%

seeeeeeeee?

The point I was making is that my CTR was not changing much, so the +400% was not something that was happening before I made the change.

 

is RTFM like "Read The Fucking Manual" or Realtime Traffic Flow Measurement

 

ahhh... this is more reasonable. I was beginning to be really envious...

 

Let's say "Read The Fine/Fascinating Manual".

 

This is quite interesting. Great idea

 

Thanks
i will try it

 

Well... everything look fine and starting to give me more traffic and click thru ratio for my humble website. Hope that this flows will always be on my side...

 

I see that your site now has an ad border around it with your pictures over it. Did google tell you to put in a border?

 

The border should be visible eventhough using a very light border design. Google has been revised their TOS to make sure that everyone use border if the Ads is very near with any picture or graphics.

Whilst you can place graphics or picture near the Ads, you should make your Ads visible as an Ads and not part of the graphics or picture.

 

Where can I find free pics? Is there a good site that provides them free of copyright?

Thanks for any help.

Cencurut - thanks for pointing that out, I've been designing a new layout optimized for adsense and was going to add pictures above the adsense until you pointed that out as i've seen so many sites do this without the border. It's going to be tricky adding a border to the adsense though as it's already in a column with a border but i'll see what I can do.

 

Finally finished reading all 50 pages.
/prepares to start working

Thx for the good info everyone .


edit: Jboo you can find those kind of pictures on stock picture websites .

 

look at www.istockphoto.com

it's like $1 per pic

 

Think I've implemented this right, but my CTR has gone down

http://www.techie-blogs.com/wordpress/index.php

Appreciate any tips.

 

How long has it been since the change?

 

Hi Critters, only a week! Am I being premature Thanks, Marcus

 

marcusP... no, assuming your site does get some traffic, you should have seen some change within a week or even a day or so (obviously if there's no visitors though, any change will have no effect)... looking at your page, I'd suggest you implement the technique in a different way. In my opinion, you've gone to the other extreme and have "too many" borders. Also, you're highlighting the "Ads by Gooooogle" in bright blue, which draws the eye to it, instead of the links you want the visitor looking at haha

Anyhow, my advice.... first, remove or relocate that "Link to us" box. It's taking up valuable space there, and also makes you "seem" like a small site. If someone likes your site and finds it valuable, they may link to it... good sites don't need to beg for links. At the very least, move the Link to us box down near the bottom, or to a dedicated page.

Next, use a Leaderboard size ad instead of the 3 half banners. Leave the text and link color as they are, but make the borders and background white.

Remove the individual borders from around the images. Now use CSS to separate the block of images and the AdSense into 2 divs, and add a border to the top of the div that holds the adsense (or the bottom of the images div). It can be a solid, dashed, or dotted border... I suggest making it a light to medium gray. Also add enough space between the adsense and the images with a bit of padding. A border between the adsense ads and the images, plus sufficient space, should be good enough to make Google happy.....

If you feel the need to be extra cautious, you can add your own border all the way around either the images or the adsense, but don't use the border colors of the adsense ad to do this - use CSS.

You can get some html code (tables) from:
http://www.increasectr.com/images.html
(add borders though)

Or some CSS (better) from:
http://www.supriyadisw.net/2006/07/adsense-beautifier
(this is a plugin for wordpress, but you can still use the CSS file as normal)

Edit:: Lastly, I also suggest you change your site's font to more closely match the AdSense ads (well, unless you have a particular love for Times New Roman hehehe). And also, make sure you use higher resolution images (your's are pixelated)... grab some good ones for free from www.sxc.hu

As always, send a preview of your adsense layout to Google for approval just in case.

Hope this helps, and good luck

 

My income decreased this month since i changed my theme. I changed back to the dark layout as it is better.

 

@pentium9: the product images could get you in trouble with google.
Images that suggest that a link is about a product are not allowed as far as I know.
Generic images would be a better choice.

I would ask google if it is ok just to make sure

 

Yup .. that's right... you should use generic image..

 

I changed back to my old layout/theme as i had a big decrease in CTR.