Sorry if this tip has been shared here before, but I haven't seen it. People seem very concerned with optimizing their pages to get the most out of Adsense by using placement, colors etc; we've all heard this. Something that seems to get overlooked is focusing on demographics who aren't Ad blind like most of us. These demographics can be people of all ages and many areas of interest. For example, senior citizens or children would be more likely to click ads to explore a site than an SEO blog reader. You don't even need to go through the trouble of perfectly blending the ads in; if you're targeting the right demographic, you'll get click-happy people wandering all over your site. Where there's a link, they'll find it. I've stumbled on to this tip from the experience of having a site targeted toward senior citizens and thought I'd share with you guys.
very good point... you might start proper research topic about how different groups of people acting with these ads.
Yup, all it would mean is even HIGHER CTR rates if you tap into such a demographic and continue to blend in and optimize ad placement.
On the other hand, say you DO blend them in to the point where people are accidently clicking on the ads. Your CTR is going to go up, but when advertisers don't get the follow-through, your ePC will likely start going down.
I have written a report/theory a few years back on various types of users and content and how to best match these two. I did not quite have time to finish this report off because it got into detailed psychology... For example you will have "determined seekers", users that need to find something for example a free sms service. They will not stop until they find this service. They will end up on your website by searching for something like "free sms". If your website offers free sms these users will stay and use your service. If you simply talk about the service and don't provide it your Adsense ads will display related ads and these "determined seekers" will most definitely click and most likely never come back... etc It was quite a detailed report with various sub categories and optimisation strategies.
Not always true. I almost tripled my CTR by un-blending my ads. I made them stand out to the out-of-the-know demographic, and saw great results.
Thats right! There no standard formula for better CTR etc. Every website is different and the only way to improve is by experimenting. Every now and then the strangest combination of formats, positioning and colours would work wonders. Its just on average certain setups work better than others.
A site that is say on "elderly health care" most likely will have good CTR no matter the blending and such as like you said they are looking for links...
Well you are right. However I believe that blending ad is also an important aspect. For me a properly blended Horizontal link bar works like a charm
Good tip and if you look at my site you will notice that I don't try to blend the Adsense ads in at all. I actually keep them a different colour as most users that visit my site are not web experts. Most visitors are interested in the topic but click on ads when something interests them.
I'm with you on the senior citizen thing. You have a growing market plus they aren't as internet savvy. I already started 2 sites catering to them.
As senior citizen and childrens dont know about ads they tend to click where they find it attractive ads
I'm not sure there is one key demographic here. There are plenty of people I know, of all ages, that are not very Internet savvy and flip out from those banner ads saying "you may have a virus." So would this be something more along the lines of what kind of content would an Internet newbie be looking for and how can you present it so they click your ads?