I changed the ad layout on my homepage so that an ad looks like a category this morning. It obviously helped because my CTR has already doubled today. I must say that I am happy today. See what I did here. http://www.lightscribecovers.com.
Congratulations. However, putting myself in a casual browsers shoes, I absolutely hate sites like that.
nice site, just better hope the RIAA dont see this thread. I had a similar site once and got served with a seize and desist letter
i'm not sure but couldn't that be considered deceptive. How would google look at this? It is kind of like tricking the user into clicking since they think its a category? It does look really good though. I may have to try it if its ok
It's not against google's TOS as long as he doesn't mess with teh code. By simply blending it into teh site he's not going against any rules.
Well, the higher the CTR, the money you make. Your ECPM goes up. Always better to have a high CTR, than a low CTR.
hmm.. nice job blending the ads in. i'm just a little concerned because there is absolutely nothing separating the ads from the content. it looks like google is displaying 7 text link ads. not sure if this is against TOS, but i wouldn't cut it that close.
The first time I viewed the site I didn't realize you had your actual site navigation mixed in with the ads. That's called dirty, but if it works, and you don't get a notice about it, more power to you.
I changed up the link sectiuon a bit I guess it still blends pretty well. As for the content of the site, well my plan is to host mostly unique works submitted by the users and not the actual covers themselves. I believe there may be a few "real" ones on there and I am debating whether to eliminate those.
More than the left navigation, I am more interested with the ads below the center categories. This is interesting because I've seen this color combination work very well for other people. There is something about the reverse type that increases converstion. It is almost like the "Ads by Gooooooogle" gets lost because it is also white. You have to REALLY look close to realize that you have 2 Google Ads there. And one of them you placed the little folder ICON next to the ad which could be a little questionable if Google were to look at it close. Some people have tried other color schemes to blend the the ads in, but it just doesn't have the same results if it were done on a white background and you tried to make all of the text black to match it up. The "Ads by Goooooooogle" just tends to stand out more on a white background. Asthetically, I'm not wild about white on grey, but several people have said that it does seem to increase revenue. Well done.