I found this interesting article on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4616700.stm I totally agree with the fact that good design influences the way viewers also percieve content on a website. I mean lets face it if your site looks like it was made in the stone age your perception of the content will be affected, which could ultimately effect your adsense profits. Just my 2 cents
Which way? Up or down? Sounds like a dumb question (well, two) but if you think about it, are users more likely to click on an Adsense ad just to get away from your site or would they just close the browser?
It may have a negative effect on your repeat visitors. If your site looks like crap the user may think your content is worthless and wont come back to your site again. Although this isn't always the case as ive seen many really bad looking sites that still do well. I would still recommend some thought be put into designing a nice/professional site.
A couple of points: first repeat visitors tend not to click on adsense...they like your content and that's why they are back. Second, the most lucrative page I have in adsense is an ugly, horrible page which is pretty much a dead end. I did not mean to make it that way...It really was an accident that I was planning on fixing - until I realized it was making 75% of the revenue on one of my sites. Third, good design and strong content may get you a few links and return visitors; but Google could not care less because the only thing Google sends is a bot and the bot wants text, alt tags, H1, bold, "relevant" content and so on. We can tell this by the fact the SERPS are often dominated by terribly design, written in robot English sites. If Google actually cared it would hire several thousand humans to review its top million sites and toss out the rubbish. However, there is method in Google's madness - whether wittingly or not - their search results top page has one really attractive way out....yup, that lovely, clean, crisp row of adsense results down the right hand side of the page.
Yeah I actually posted the link this morning under site design section thinking it was the right section: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=51181 I guess I was wrong with not 1 reply
lingeriediva: I'm not sure I agree! first repeat visitors tend not to click on adsense...they like your content and that's why they are back. That is definitely not my experience. The more return visitors I get to a site, the higher the CTR gets. I get more visitors when I make more content, and when I make more content Google gets better at providing ads that are relevant to my articles. Google also sends many users to my older articles, and those articles tend to have the best relevancy. Second, the most lucrative page I have in adsense is an ugly, horrible page which is pretty much a dead end. I did not mean to make it that way...It really was an accident that I was planning on fixing - until I realized it was making 75% of the revenue on one of my sites. That's odd for me. All my sites have crosslinks to one another (as long as the links are relevant that is), and the contextual ads are spot on almost always. I make 75% of my revenue from one site, and on that site I have about 50 pages that earn the top income. They're linked to other pages within my sites, too. Third, good design and strong content may get you a few links and return visitors; but Google could not care less because the only thing Google sends is a bot and the bot wants text, alt tags, H1, bold, "relevant" content and so on. We can tell this by the fact the SERPS are often dominated by terribly design, written in robot English sites. This will change this year. If Google actually cared it would hire several thousand humans to review its top million sites and toss out the rubbish. I'm glad they don't. Google is in a beta mode and will continue to be. The fewer people they need checking sites, the more they can pay out. Over time their bots will become smarter and smarter. I believe 2006 will be the big year that Google differentiates between lame cheat sites and real ones. SEO will change forever. If you've been providing AdSense less than a year, stick with it. Those who stick around the longest and offer Google's aggregating bot machines the most consistent updates will win out.
SEO is contantly changing as the algo's get smarter and smarter, we see this day in day out. If the algos learn to differentiate between cheat sites and real ones, then the cheat sites will simply change. They won't go away - they simply pay too well (in terms of income compared to the effort required to generate it). I'd rather it was those that stick around and offer the most relevant content that win out - unfortunately that is unlikely to happen.