I have like most of you probably have, done testing by placing ads in different areas on my web pages and in different ad sizes. Now on my sites, it seems when I use an adsense color and scheme that blends in or makes my adsense ads appear almost like my sites content etc, I get more clicks. For awhile I tried making the ads in bright or bold colors and standing out, but it appears, folks see them more as that, ADS!!! and dont like em, maybe like banners ads.... but when they appear to blend in with my sites colors and text, I do better. Any thoughts on color schemes etc ? Cheerio...
you just discovered what many others have discovered before (and wrote articles about it). for most sites out there the ads that blend in work better as they appear less "Ad-ish" and more a part of the content
Hmmm, Well the jury is still out for me. I didn´t know that blending the Adsense ads was supposed to help CTR until I read about it on DP only recently. I made changes to a few pages yesterday and it looked quite positive last night. err.. had to edit... what can I say ... it´s bombing today.
e10, i don't think blending in is a rule across the board (that's why i said it worked better for most sites). like here in DP, the ads blend in after the first post (viewable by non-members) but stand out at the top of each page. noone expects content at the top of the site, neither do webmasters expect to see nav bar at the top of default forum skin. so the ads at the top stand out to catch your eye rather than in hope that your eye will wonder onto them while reading content/looking at nav bar. as far as your pages: a) i'd wait for a couple of days and see and b) i'd remove the ctr % from your post as google can come after you and lower your ctr to 0
I'm not sure how to track my testing, but on a site I put red ones at the top and ones that blended in at the bottom. Not sure if one set is doing better than the other.
I would also suggest switching them at some point too (blend at top, not at bottom) to get a good idea. top placed ads can sometimes get better click through rates then bottom ones.
I just set up a test for this. I have set up two differennt ads, one with borders and text color that is different than the regular text, and one with no borders and text that blends better. I have set up two different channels for them and are serving them up randomly. I'll report back if I find anything interesting.
Blending with the site does work. What also can work is rotating the colors of the ads each time the page loads. That way people won't get "ad blind" as quickly. Depending on the type of site you may or may not want people to see them as ads. If you have a site that you have a large percentage of return visitors and trust is very important, you might not want your ads to appear to be content.
The less googled it looks. The more I would click... This is just my opinion, and Im sure being an seo fanatic that influences too.. Now I dont know the stats, but im sure it has to have some factor in ctr. Which would you choose, a shabby out of place looking link, or a nice incorporated link?
There are sites where the adsense words are inserted in the middle of a paragraph. Rather than screaming GOOGLE AD, they just look like regular links in the content. It seems like a smart tactic - I will definately try it on my next site.
I´ve never seen that Jlerner. I don´t see embedded text links as an option within Ad Settings either. Do you know how it is done or can you share an url that has this form of ad? Cheers