low ctr

Hello,

I am trying to find out if I can place better ads. I own image hosting site, http://www.imagehosting.gr . I am playing with colors trying to make them fit pages color or the opposite give them colors. Can you check it and tell me if I could place them better? Most ads are displayed on image view for example http://www.imagehosting.gr/show.php/2104_bridge.night.xx.bg.jpg.html


I would appreciate any comments. Thanks

 

better to place it here :

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72

 

1.
u have some really beautiful pics

2.
you have a major SEO problem
almost any page always shows basically the same title - and if then only a small part is changing
example the URL you gave below
has title
<title>Image Hosting Free - ImageHosting.gr</title>

and NO caption on that page/photo nor any comment on photo

3.
you have limited your adsense to
google_ad_type = "text";
that may cost you reduced revenue
best always is to leave full competition OPEN - i.e. text and image ads
there are some high paying and nice image ads out there - including video ads - you will miss them all

4.
the background of your gallery is perfect for good adsense ctr
however read and use about the 3 ( THREE ) successful formats of adsense Google recommends
different formats will bring totally different advertisers AND better eCPM as well

5.
your vertical ad unit right or your a.m. URL-picture

right or left - thats the key
my experience has clearly shown that verticals shown on LEFT TOP - above navigation if navigation bar is used - has better CTR than right side

the MOST important however is the ATF placement
- i.e. Above The Fold - top center of page

hence you most likely will have much better success if you use as published the successful formats at the best places.
btw.
I have a small serious of articles on these topics with more details in my blog ( see sig link below )

with my own gallery as an example - may be you get better CTR and if you add captions and change SEO of your templates and also have your members adding a caption to EACH picture that will be used as your page titles on every photo-URL

all in all - it appears to me that your gallery software is less ideal from SEO / adsense point of view than the one i use ( i use gallery2 photo gallery ) - may be you may even consider changing SW to have
1. FAR less HTML errors than u get currently
2. much better SEO/ adsense friendliness of photos/captions

 

Could someone move it please? Mods will get angry to double post

 

Thank you very useful information. I have also visited and read your blog. I will try different placements and formats, changing them all the time to see how it goes.

 

when testing a placement and ad unit format - make sure you run one combination for at least a few thousand page impressions before changing again

to have exact facts / feedback configure a complete set of channels first in your adsense account

 

wow hans pretty much gave you all the advice you need.

yea I would recomend you change the script.

 

Tried some changes with top center (728x90) and left side(160x600) banner ads but it's even worse after thousands of views (much over 9k).

 

(728x90) is NONE of the 3 published successful formats
to put ATF a wrong format makes no change in success
the right format at the right placement only makes the difference

look at G help pages (or my blog ) what format G recommends - 3 ( THREE ) formats always are published by G as being successful

and of course the full page/ads color scheme also plays a major role
grey or black colors NEVER will be successful - only friendly bright colors

and to see any difference a full 24 hrs period PLUS at least a few thousand pageviews should be the minimum before making a decision

 

good post hans, you are explaining it very well +