Tips and Tricks for AdSense

Hello,

I'm running AdSense on a top ranked and highlty visited site of mine. The problem is my CTR is very low, 0.8%

When I setup the AdSense code, I've also refaced the site as I read in this forum, matched the colors etc. and I followed many documents, I'm not quite a newbie.

Maybe there's something I'm missing, so if anyone is willing to give me a hand please take a look at http://www.osdcom.info.

Thank you!

I'm no expert but my ctr has been as high as 24%, average is 2.4%. Here is the page for those figures: http://www.honda-kawasaki-suzuki-yamaha.com/motorcycle_parts_accessories/

I would probably do something like using contrasting colors. I would also try using the 768 leaderboard across the top below your header (if its possible).

I remember reading an email from a company that studied where users look in the few second they survey a page. Tends to be top left, across the middle, then down the right side if theres a column there. That would put your ads in the page's 'blind' spot, ...according to them.

Indeed, the ads are integrated smartly there and I got your point with the colors. My "mistake" is that when I last redesigned the site, I tried to make it less colorfull, as it is a tech site. Making a contrast now, would hurt I guess, so the gap between colors shouldn't be that deep I think.

Thanks for the tip!

crxvfr...what is your traffic like. I think your site has high CTR because the traffic may be low. That's how one of my site is.

You are correct. May=98000 hits, 69000 files, 9200 pages, 2300 visits, 131 hits per hour. This site is a few months old and barely visible in the search engines. I opened it awhile back on a terrible server. They wouldn't even transfer the domain when I wanted out. I had to get internic involved. Been on a new server for a few months, thats when I began working on it but not real picky about things. Theres a decent amount of content, er, um resources, not just google ads. ...but things are getting better as time goes by. I really just made this site so I, and my co-workers (salesman) could reference stuff while not at work. Good place to pick up some pocket change.

Well im' getting about 4% on avg. The majority of my clicks come bia my forum. I've made the ads appear as if they belong on the page, no neon pink or anything, but still slightly contrasted. The biggest icnrease in clicks I've experienced is when i move the adsense ads to the left hand side of the page. Check out my site if u want to see what I'm saying.

You should probably take a look at http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html where Google gives some tips regarding the placement of their adsense blocks for better visibility and CTR.

I checked out your motorcycle site, and I have noticed that sites that use a black backround and use ads to blend in do well..> I dunno why, but I'm optimized a site with black background and white text and did borderless ads and his ctr is about 3% on 20,000 visits a month.

How is your CTR now, a few days later?

Steve, since I started the thread I assume you asked me (let me know if not ;))

I made some colour changes (not the background, just made the title a bit screamy), and CTR went from 0.8 to 1.4. I found somewhere in this forum a very interesting idea that it may as well apply in my case, about a guy running a webmaster dedicated site.

Someone suggested that webmasters are not just any kind of visitors and they might not be that intersted in clicking the ads. The same can go for my site, since it also deals with IT&C saavy people.

Oh yeah, if you're going to run adsense, better target the "average" internet user ;)

Evoleto, That is good to know. I never thought of that.

Also, there was a suggestion I was going to make to you about the color choice you made. You picked orange which is good. It stands out a bit, but you picked a soft orange or a pastel shade. Maybe if you tried to harden it a bit. A shade that stands out a bit more.

Just a thought.

Steve

Steve,

Since experimenting seems to be a rule of thumb when dealing with AdSense I went ahead and made the color a bit darker and I think this stands out better. I'm curious how it will influence the CTR, will report it here.

Thanks for the tip!

I hope it works better. I was thinking more like #FF9900. Hope I'm not being too pushy.

I'm just getting started in adsense myself and am seeing some income as the traffic increases. Takes time, but I've managed to average a 14.9 percent CTR for this month. Last month was a little less. I'm not as shy about sticking my adsense ads right in the middle of a page or article. Seems to work okay.

I put wrong color in there... I edited the post