CTR vs. Article Length

Has anyone noticed trends in their CTR that relate to page/article length?

Anyone willing to share suggestions as to how long they think is too short or too long for content per page? When do you split an article into two pages to provide better results?



p.s. The site I'm working on/asking for is NOT in my signature.

 

Good question.

Based on my experience, it is true that longer articles with 2-5 pages will attract more clicks. The reason is simple, the visitors stay longer at the page, they are more interested in clicking the ad related the topic.

 

with that kind of article on the site, i have seen beter result putting ad code within the article itself. either on the top right or top left of the article, put the ad code. you can use tables to devide the content and ad. and if it is long article, then doesnt hurt splitting the article into multiple parts. more page views means more impression served which in turn might give you better CTR (given that people will find the article valuable and read the whole one)

 

I'm wondering if a longer article would be able to generate more clicks with ads mid-way down. The short attention span of many surfers looking for something else before the article's done coming into play.

The other thought was that if the article is too long, the entire page could easily become a blur of words and the person simply closes the window or hits the back button.

The idea of splitting the article seems attractive because it would provide more pages for Google to index as well as simply not looking too long. But, I wonder if a very long article, say 5+ screens, if broken down to 2-3 pages would simply become so un-user friendly as to encourage a visitor to leave without reading or clicking.

With a longish article, on a page that normally uses a skyscraper in the left-hand navigation area, do you think it would be more effective to drop the skyscraper and place another spot within the article?

 

The shorter the article the higher the ctr. If you give them the answer they were surfing for, your ctr will be lower.

The ideal situation would be a 1 word page that got a million visitors (with no links to more pages). Your ctr would be in the 50% range. lololol

 

It's true, if your article is so good, so complete, and answers every question your visitor came looking for, there is no need for him to click on ads for more information. CTR will be low. However, if your article leaves your visitor with a desire for more information, he will click ads to get that information. CTR will be high. I have articles that have CTR as high as 50% for this reason.

 

My articles cover the history of something with information not readily available elsewhere and the ads (hopefully/mostly) are for actually buying the item.

I do keep hearing that the weaker the article, the higher the CTR but I am hoping to find more of a middle ground. My thought is to create something where the site is actually useful but also generates clicks. 50% CTR would be awesome, but I'd rather have 10-20 with people bookmarking, returning and even linking to me to provide a more sustained traffic pattern and long-term income.

 

YMC-- the original question dealt with ctr and article length. The answer to that is that short articles that don't give any answers have the highest ctr.

Now you are talking about traffic. If you want se traffic, or repeat visitors, you have to have some content. For both search engines and repeats, longer is usually better.

 

it actually depends upon the type of adsense unit.
banners work best if placed above or below short article.
if you place within content on left or right then the article length should be long and atleast double of what is displayed in the browser at any time.
Also for extremely long articles place a horizontal banner in between the content.

These are from my personal experience any opinions or comments would be appreciated.

 

I know with time, that quality content will bring in organic traffic and from what I seem to be hearing here and elsewhere, marginal content yields better CTR. I guess I'm trying to figure out where the middle of those two lies.

 

You have to write for traffic. Ctr doesn't matter when you only get 10 visitors a day. I will take a 3% ctr on a 100k uniques per day site any day over a 50% ctr 10 uniques per day site.

But I will tell you that most articles are longer than they need to be. A lot of that can be cut down upon by creating separate pages for each kw. Here's an example: Say your article is about hammers. You want to describe hammers and tell people where to buy them. Instead of creating a 1k word article that does both, create 2 500 word articles that discuss each on its own, and link the two between each other. Does that make sense?

You can also cut down the length by getting rid of all the filler words. here's an example in 1 sentence:

a) I like to fish by the red dock in San Fransisco, California because the fish there are great and I catch so many so that we can go home and have the biggest dinner in the world.

b) Fishing in San Fransisco is great because of the quantity of fish.

Sentence (b) quickly makes the point. Sentence (a) drags it out and it's obvious that the author is trying to get his word count up. Going straight to the point can help a lot for the ctr (by keeping your page short) and the search engines (they like compact data without a lot of fillers/ noise).

Does that make sense?

 

Sure, your example makes perfect sense. And I agree, a smaller CTR with more traffic will win out in the long run every time.

For the most part my articles do have some natural breaking places; though they are more a chronological walk through history rather than a discussion of features.

Your example mentioned using 500 words. Is that the typical length of most of your articles on sites with Adsense?

 

500 is a good number. If I can say the same thing with 200, that's even better. Compact data with no crap in the middle is prime bot bait. The se's eat that up.