Here's a tip you probably haven't thought about, but if you plan on creating a new site, consider this: Black on white. Yup, it's that simple. White fonts against a black background page. I know what you're thinking: "But that kinda looks like crap." Well, yes, it does, kinda. But you can fix the site up so that it doesn't look SO crappy. I've done this, and the site looks quite good, with a black middle surrounded by light turquoise green borders. The text goes in the black middle, but the turquoise is there to lessen the dark intensity of the site. I'm making this suggestion because I've noticed that a couple of my sites with dark backgrounds and white fonts (and of course, the Adsense ads have dark background and white fonts to blend in) converts quite well. CTR ranges from 8% (the usual) to 10-12% on a good day. This is, bar none, the best CTR I have on all of my sites, and there's really nothing about this site that should get any better CTR than the others, so I'm making the leap that it's the white-on-black design. I think the novelty factor has something to do with it, plus the ads are really well-blended. I put a simple 336 at the bottom of my pages, and that's it. Because almost every site out there goes for the light/white stuff, having a dark page is bound to throw the surfer off for a while, and I don't think they notice the ads so readily as they would if your site's color is like everyone else's. In the future I plan on launching a big site with this design. I'm expecting big things. Give it a shot if you plan on doing a new site, or maybe you might want to try converting an old site to this. No idea if it'll work for you, but it's worked wonders for me.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=77855 Yep I was experimenting with this too. And it is totally true !
Do these sites have much content on them? I tried this with a blog once, but I had several complaints from readers saying that it hurt their eyes too much.
on my site with white ads on a black background the CTR averages around 20% most of the traffic does come from msn tho
One is all articles, so yes, definitely content. I haven't any complaints yet, but as I said, I balance the dark background with a lighter green outer background.
Thanks for the tips... however personally, I will ALWAYS hit the back button when I land on a site with a black background- I can't stand reading on those pages!
You can also choose to have the ad itself having a black background and white fonts and a nice border color. Instead of the whole background of the page being black. Never know what kind of results will develop plus you get to maintain your own background of choice. Black background just looks so horrible in my opinion. It really does frustrate the eyes.
Well sure, you can do that, but that would sort of defeat the purpose of the whole idea, which is based on the premise that a darker background makes it easier to blend in your ads. Duh.
To Jackburton, I redid my new site yet again. All white text (was a crappy blue on a crappy blue background, then black on the crappy blue). Plus now, the adsense block is integrated well into the whole scheme, as all text is now white and the background the same color as the site. Will see how good this converts over the next month or so. Added....so how come I have 4 green squares and I am only a jewlel in the rough, while jackburton has a very nice person?
Ok I heard somewhere your a millionare but I dont know your sites. What are they and whats your biggest?
Millionaire? I want to know so I can be best buds! Tried Bill Gates, but he ignores my emails. Warren Buffet just tells me to read about him in the WSJ.
seriously i heard jack makes about 10k a day from a reliable person. Just want to know your main site.
It's true black backgrounds are hard on the eyes. Most of the black backgrounds I see these days are either porn sites, gamer sites, band sites, or really sophistocated photography sites. I would say that if there's lots of text content that you expect your visitors to read, black backgrounds are a poor choice. If it's primarily graphical (i.e. porn or gamer or photographic), and not much text, go for it.
I had such a bad experience (CTR) with some websites that had black backgrounds.. But after all, it's up to each publisher to experiment for itself, and each website is unique, so you might have had different results.
I don't know why that site uses gray fonts. It's so hard to read. If he made the fonts white, it would actually look quite good, not to mention being easier to read. And I sort of enjoy reading darker colored backgrounds. I think it's actually easier on the eyes. Softer, if you will. After so many white-based backgrounds, the darkness is sort of a nice change of pace, I think.