I'm new, please comment on my adsense placement in my blog

Hi,

I'm new here and am hoping to learn about optimal adsense usage from this forum.

From what I've read members like to place images above ads. And from the few sites that I've browsed, it appears that they're attempting to make the ads look like they're part of the page they're hosted on - rather than just banner ads.

Anyway, I've taken a somewhat opposite approach. I have a dark page with my content in small but clear text. My adsense box is white and bang in the middle of the page. My thinking is that it's whiteness will contrast with the black and that user's eyes will be immediately drawn to it.

http://theedge.freesuperhost.com/blog/

I don't really have enough stats yet to say whether or not this is good, and have yet to use channels and thus can't quote any CTR figures for my site anyway.

Could the kind people on this forum look at my blog and give me some feedback/advice regarding its adsense usage?

Thanks,

fcmisc

 

Well personally i favour having ads blended with the website content. Your ads really look like ads. People might turn there eyes off it again cause they see it are ads. Here you can read some more about adsense optimization.

 

I'm with crazyhorse on this. Not only do they look like ads, they just make your site look bad.

Blending your ads is great because, not only do they not look like ads, they go with the feel of your site.

 

I think it's possibley fine to stick out the ad. However, your site users may get annoyed at it.

 

Try to use more fancy colors for the background and the link-text, so that they are outstanding and still fit with you website colors. As for now the colors are not harmonious enough.

 

I have 2 ads on left side and a small banner between each post.


CTR on blog/site in my sig avgs around 15%

 

15%..the pretty good for a blog since the averge is about 2 percent.

 

15% for the website/blog ( they are interconnected).

I think it has to do alot with the niche. People who come to my website are already searching for related products/adivce, they read my free stuff and head over to ads.

It was at steady 8% without ads on blog, since i added blogs ads it went to 15%.

Thats been the average for this and past month anyways.

 

You may want to be careful posting your CTR, Its against Google's TOS.

 

well instead of quoting him, how about editing it to XX%... everyone

 

Too late now ) I think breathing is against Google TOS... Meh.

 

Those ads definitly need to blend better in your blog. They stick out like a sore thumb and make the page look crappy.

 

Thanks for all the tips guys. This forum is great!

From your responses, it appears that you all think that I need to blend my ads in more. I'll give that a go and see if it gets me more clicks!

Good luck!

fcmisc.

 

I may be wrong, but I would try and use the colors:

#112233: Background
#AABBCC: Text
#77BBCC: Topbar

 

(http://dimensionet.com/tmpblog.htm)

 

Thanks for taking the time to redo a template for my blog Soapbath. I noticed that in the example you've used a transparent background for Adsense. However, I can't work out how to get a transparent paletter in Adsense. Do I need to fiddle the code manually?

Thanks again,

fcmisc.

 

Here's how I position ads in our blog

http://www.pcdoctorsgroup.com/blog/

Notice one occurrence on the 'home' page in the header.

Click on an article link and you will notice another ad below the article.

BTW, I prefer to read sites with black letters on white background. My old eyes don't respond as well to colored or patterned backgrounds.

Just my .02

 

Take a look at lingeriediva 's Blog:

It is a good example of elegant webdesign and effective AdSense placement in a Blog.

I have been studying it for days




edit: sorry about the bad link in the original post; let's try this one

 

fcmisc, Its not trasparant, its just using the background color of 112233, which is your backgrounds main color.

 

Days? Tradefor, careful, going blind is against the Google TOS...