Hi there, thank you in advance for reading: I've been running My website (http://www.tensecondscoop.com) for three years now and have never really managed to make any good money from Google Adsense. My CTR is usually around 0.5%. I had a leaderboard ad inbetween the navigation bar and first post for most of that time, and have recently switched to placing ads just underneath each post titles. However, doing this has still hardly improved my CTR. Could anyone please recommend me any sort of placement or method to use with my adsense to get my CTR to 3% upwards? Thank you
Hi Gh0sts, I get about 800-1000 page views a month. So about 30 impressions a day on analytics. Ad requests seem to be about 10-20 per day. Thanks
If we could see your website I may be able to help. I have worked with adsense since 2005 and there are many tricks that nobody ever seems to bring up. Number one is, more ads very rarely mean more clicks. I reduced my pages from 3 ads to just one well placed ad and my clicks tripled on one site. Also it depends on the type of site and what kind of consumer visits your site. Techie sites and sites that are usually visited by people that are very will versed in what the internet is about generally get very low clicks. It also depends on what deomographic you target. People above 40 tend to click more and that goes up even more one you hit the 50's. Image ads vs text ads can make a huge difference. I have one site that text ads never get clicked on but they will click the hell out of image ads.
Oh shit sorry I thought I linked it. http://www.tensecondscoop.com Interesting points you have. Nice read, thanks.
What I would do if that was my site? 1. I'd put a link unit under the menu. Don't just put it out there to float in the white either. I would make a solid grey bar or what ever color you want and put the link unit in there. It then will look like part of your website.. 2. I'd get rid of that built in search and use a google custom search. If people are going to search your site you may as well get paid for it. You can set google custom search to only include results from the sites you define. 3.The add on the right I would change so the link colors match. orange title,green url and black text. If you want to make it stand out a bit I would use a background of #f0f0f0 which is a really light grey. The ads will still blend but it will give it more of a highlight then anything.. I probably would not do a border but that is up to you. If I did it would be a slightly darker grey. 4.If you know css at all I would move the right side bar to the left. The upper left corner is usually the first place someone looks when scanning the page before they begin to read. Menus are traditionally on the left as well so people are more apt to be click happy there. 5.A standard 728X90 banner will not fit in the posts panel. I would add a 468X60 banner at the end of the first post. I would do the same coloring as above. Center it and wrap it in a div of the same f0f0f0 color with 10px padding so it looks like a separator and it gives it some highlight. 6. I would put a 728X90 at the footer of the page just under the next and more links. People (if they don't find what they want) are more apt to click on the bottom of the page then you would think. 7. I would also put another link unit across the bottom of the page above the copyrights. Again putting in the same background as the one on the top of the page. Making the div stretch across the page so it looks like it belongs there. 8. I would do all of the above on your posts pages too but instead of the 468X60 banner I would put a 336X300 banner at the end of your post between the post and the comments section but I would make this ad a text only add.. General rule is you can add as many banners as you want to a page as long as only 1 banner is in view at a time. Remember, people scan a page in a Z formation so you want to put the ads in that line for greater visibility. Do no add too many ads to ruin the user experience. I would rather have a user come back 100 times and click on a banner once but maybe tell a friend then bounce right away and never come back at all. You can pick apart what I said above. It is only what I personally would do. You can always change it later. I have changed my ad layout a few dozen times before I found something that worked on some sites. These are only suggestions and I could possibly be completely wrong too. Every site is different. Don't be afraid to use every ad tool that adsense has too offer. Like I said it can always be removed. You will know when you did too much to the site. Banners if done right can also add value and interest to the pages too. Nice site btw.
Wow, really appreciate your time mate. Read your post a few times. I've got the leaderboard banner in the footer now (can you still get a good CPC from having an ad way down there?). Will change all the ad units to the colours you mentioned over the next day or two. I like the idea of putting a banner just before the comments section so will try find something to go there. Do you mean a Large rectangle (336 x 280) banner? I couldn't find a 336 x 300. Also I read that the more time the user spends on the advertisers site, the more money you get. This doesn't seem fair. Why should we be punished if the user didn't like someone elses site? Thanks, Alex
Will the CTR be as high as on the rest of the page? I don't know. Some sites yes some no. User may not click on them at all. My main site it varies from day to day. The reason why I would put it there on your site is because a user (at least I do ) scans all the posts on a page and then pics a post I want to read. People will be scrolling to the bottom. Keep in mind that the cpc will be lower. cpc usually goes lower as you go from pad placement 1 to 2 to 3. It also gives you one more change to have an click. If the ad doesn't perform you can always remove it. Sorry I did mean the 336 X 280. I think what you are talking about is googles Quality Click Priceing. From everything that I have gathered is they track how well your traffic converts for the advertiser. If you traffic doesn't convert for the advertiser you get less per click. While this doesn't sound fair think about the advertiser. They are not going to want to pay top dollar for low quality traffic. I don't think quality click priceing is a as common as people think. I think they see dips in their niches bid and they have to assume it google being a jerk. I have a dating site where my CPC varies from 30 cents per day to 60 cents. But I also have another general blog and I am lucky if I get 10 cents. The site does make a huge difference as well as the traffic quality. I think google uses the time spent on an advertisers site as a factor if the click is a valid click or not. If a user clicks on an ad and closes it right away google assumes it was either a bot, an acccidental click etc. and you don't get credit for it. Other then that I have never heard of time on a users site giving you more money but I may be wrong.