Small case study... how changing the theme itself catapulted my CTR

In one of my sites (kid niche), I've been running a free Magazine theme with a single 468px leaderboard ad under the title of each post. It was doing OK, but nothing to write home about, about 5-8 clicks a day from 500 uniques or so...

After a while, out of boredom, I switched to another free theme called Morise (Magpress) and retained the same 468 ad unit and added a 336 on the side since it offered the space.

Naturally, I can't compare the clicks for the 336 as my old template didn't have one, but the 468 ad unit clicks almost instantly tripled...

The theme switch occurred on Jan 12th.



I can't say for certain that this will apply to any niche or blog, but I was just surprised because the theme wasn't optimized for clicks like, let's say CTR or Socrates, for example.

Note: I'm not promoting the theme, I just found out the theme last month as well.

My point is, don't be afraid to experiment and when you do try out something new on Adsense, give it a couple of weeks so you can track whether the change is coincidental or fact-based.

 

well done, keep it up...

u are right . some times we should try such a new ideas like u.. u are encouraging others..
and thanks for the tip i will try it..

 

I didn't really believe that a theme could influence CTR that much but it turned out to be the case.... Too bad this site's niche CPC dropped tremendously after the holiday season hehe.

 

Absolutely: themes, colors, an easy navigation - everything can make your visitors' curiosity to rise up. Good job!

 

It's hard to find the balance between aesthetics and CTR, and even more confusing when dissecting the details in the Reports window, but constant experimentation is really essential for Adsense, and what works for one site may not work for another due to content/layout/ad type.

 

Too bad they do not have a "like" button here. Great reply.

 

I did the opposite, I changed an now my members are complaining, I'll have to change again but can't be bothered to work to put it back as it was before, so I'll work to change it again to something totally random and we'll see.

 

Yup, we just have to test... in my case, it was a site with a lot of organic visitors so they probably aren't even aware of the theme change for the most part... Trickier for content sites with active readers and such....

Some new tweaks for my photography site for Feb, the first-week changes have been pretty positive, still far from my goals but it's moving towards the right direction.

 

For that site in the original post, minor tweaks (changed to image-only) increased clicks even more, broke the 40-click/day barrier twice in Feb already... and about a 20% increase average over the past 10days.

 

Congrats bro.
You got right theme at right time.