Here's a bg color tip that instantly improved my CTR

Discussion in 'AdSense' started by rotren, Jul 22, 2008.

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  1. #1
    I have been using a background image for my body tag on the page. The image is of a maroon color. The problem I noticed was that on IE6 and Firefox, the background image would not load until the Adsense ads were finished loading.

    The problem with this was the ads, with a maroon background color, would show on a plain white background for 1-3 seconds (the time it seems to take to load Adsense units). Needless to say, the ads stood out like a sore thumb.

    I changed the background to be just a solid color instead of an image, and now the ad's background and the page background are the same even when the ads aren't finished loading. The ads aren't as in your face now. They kind of "sneak in" after a few seconds, in a much more disguised way than before.

    This has so far doubled my CTR. Can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier. :cool:

    I also changed the ads to text-only after a tip from Glenn. This improved the CTR as well, but not as much as the bg image/bg color change has done.

    Thought this might be useful info for someone. :)
     
    rotren, Jul 22, 2008 IP
  2. Echo@CyberDude

    Echo@CyberDude Banned

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    #2
    Its great! Congrats...

    The first thing I want to say... Not many websites are built with HTML... Almost all of them use the Readymade scripts like WordPress, if its a blog .. Joomla or Mambo, if its a Site... or PHPLD, if its a Directory and so on.

    So.. these scripts load the template first and the content comes later along with the Ads.. The tip you gave is only for the sites which are on HTML..

    The second this is... I agree without any Question that we should place ONLY text ads and this results in Higher CTR and you know the reason.. 'Why?' :)
     
    Echo@CyberDude, Jul 23, 2008 IP
  3. loupe

    loupe Banned

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    #3
    good post, i have noticed that also. static pages really load ads a little faster.
     
    loupe, Jul 23, 2008 IP
  4. silveraden

    silveraden Banned

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    #4
    You have a theme of your site in your sig but I can't see adsense..
     
    silveraden, Jul 23, 2008 IP
  5. charter

    charter Guest

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    #5
    I white background ads on white background so it is easy to avoid this problem. I think the simple approach with google is better
     
    charter, Jul 23, 2008 IP
  6. devandra

    devandra Banned

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    #6
    yes this will work only for HTML site..
     
    devandra, Jul 23, 2008 IP
  7. rotren

    rotren Peon

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    #7
    This has to do with CSS styling of the body HTML tag in relation to the javascript-loaded Adsense units. I don't think it has much to do with if it's built with Joomla, WordPress, etc. They all produce HTML in the end.

    The website in question is actually called Dolphinstreet - I just added it to my signature now.

    I guess my point is that it can be valuable to study how the Adsense units appear in all major browsers, just to make sure these types of problems are not happening without you being aware of them. The more they blend into the site, the better.
     
    rotren, Jul 23, 2008 IP