How To Increase Your Adsense Click Through Rate (CTR) In Three Easy Steps
74First off I'd like to thank you taking the time to visit my hub and I do hope you enjoy and learn from it. I am NOT trying to sell you anything nor recommend any ‘unbelievable' miracle product. This hub merely explains how simple, often underestimated and extremely powerful tweaks and readjustments could triple your Adsense Clickthrough Rate (CTR) and maximise your earnings. This Hub will take you through the step by step process of choosing the best tried and tested Ad Format, selecting only the best colours and schemes for your ad units and last but not least location, location, location for your Ad Units to maximise your adsense CTR.
I hope you find this useful - I am pretty sure you will
Learn how to optimise your site to even further maximise your earnings.
How to Optimise Sites To Rank In Search Engines In Four Easy Steps
Make Your Ads Look Less Like Ads
The 336 x 280 Ad Format
Always Go For The 336 x 280 UNLESS Your Stuck For Space
Google's 'Open Air' Palette is statistically proven to be the best for a very high CTR
The basic goal that you have to instil in your head is that YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR ADS LOOK LESS LIKE ADS. “Well what do you mean by that?” I hear you ask.
Well, the sad truth and an adsense publishers nightmare is a phenomenon that I call “banner phobia”. These days surfers tend to automatically overlook anything that even remotely resembles an advertisement because surfers are too used to seeing and being bombarded with adverts. It’s a reflex action, its not that your visitors are not interested in what the ads have to offer, its just a case of “banner phobia”.
This hub will focus on putting ads on your website in such a way so that they are not overlooked by your visitors.
Remember : Get more visitors to notice your ads by placing them in the right place and making them look less like traditional banner advertising and hence get more clicks.
Step 1 Using the best Ad Format
I have experimented with Ad formats in over a hundred websites and what usually works best for me are the 336 x 280 large rectangular blocks and the 300 x 250 smaller rectangular blocks. These two Ad formats have got me the best click through rates (CTR). The worst Ad format you could choose is the 468 x 60 or the 728 x 90, which look just like banners, and as mentioned above, causes "banner phobia" and get the least click through rates. You should also stay well clear of the tall vertical units such as the 120 x 240, 160 x 600 and the 120 x 600 because the only places that these would fit would be the left or right hand sides of the webpage. This positioning will give them a very low CTR.
Remember : Use 336 x 280 units or 300 x 250 if your really stuck for space.
Step 2 Using the best colours for your Ad Units
As a general rule of thumb, always make your Ad Unit background and border colour the same as your website background colour. Why? I hear you ask. Well the reason for this is that the ad unit can easily blend with your website and content and does not set off any alarm bells or "banner phobia". This may result in your visitors actually taking the time to look at your advertisements and perhaps click.
Always go with the default blue link colour for your ad unit or slightly darker blue or even dark green. Try to always make the advertiser url as invisible as possible by making this a light grey. One last tweak, if you have any links in your main content portion of your webpage, change the colour of these to something other than your adsense link colour. However, keep your navigation the same colour as your Adsense links to make your adsense links look like they are part of your navigation.
Remember : The border and background colours of your Ad Unit must match your website background colour and the link should be the standard blue with the advertisers url a light grey. All other links in the content of your webpage should not be the same colour as your Adsense links.
Step 3 Positioning the Ad Units
Just like the property business, its all about location, location, location. Its sad to see that most new Adsense publishers these days tend to put their Ad units on the left and right hand sides of the webpage. This will drastically reduce your CTR. The objective is to get position these Adsense units as close to the top and middle of your webpage as possible.
Visitors are conditioned to look for content in the middle of the webpage and will always overlook the sides because surfers who have come to your website in search of an answer want only the answer which will be in the middle or the content portion of your website and will often always overlook the sides.
What works best for me is a large rectangular block just BELOW the Title and just above the content text. This is powerful at maximising your CTR because the visitor reads your title, is interested and what is the next thing they see? Advertisements.
The next best position to place an Ad Unit is right AFTER the main content. Combine these two and you have a webpage that is geared to have a high CTR because visitors who want products or services NOW will click the ads below the title and visitors who have been educated by your article and are interested in products or services related to your article will click the Ad units at the bottom of your webpage.
If your feeling a bit more adventurous and also if you have a long article, why not place an ad unit INSIDE your content, that's right place it about halfway through your article and make your text wrap around it. These Ad Units will gain the interest of visitors who were initially interested in the article and are now bored. So this is their ‘out' and you stand to make some money when they click away.
Last but not least, you've got Google Adsense Ad Link Units that are Google Adsense Ads that are grouped into links. Choose an appropriate size for your Ad Links Units and place them ABOVE your website navigation. This makes these Ad Link units look just like your navigation. So imagine the scenario when your visitors have finished reading your content and haven't already clicked away on one of your rectangular blocks that you have carefully positioned, they now look for more information so they look at your navigation, Lo and behold, they click.
Remember : Position a large rectangular block below the title, one at the bottom and one in the center if your content is long enough. Place Adlinks block on top of your navigation so that it looks like part of the navigation of your website.
Closing
Was this fascinating to you? Just think about, who would have thought that just a few tweaks and tricks could massively increase your CTR and earnings?. Remember, there is no such thing as a quick buck. Making money online is more time consuming than it is complicated. Once you have the knowledge and follow a successful blueprint like this Hub, you should have no trouble in setting up and cashing in on multiple articles and websites. Remember my friends, patience and perseverance is key in this business.
Please let me know if this Hub has helped you and please feel free to send me any questions, comments, complaints, grievances or shameless praise:)
All Success
Afthab
Learn how to optimise your site to even further maximise your earnings.
How to Optimise Sites To Rank In Search Engines In Four Easy Steps
CommentsLoading...
Ideally, to increase your CTR you should think wisely and place your advertisement where the visitor is most interested in. In general people are fed up with lots of ads on site (just like people are fed up with TV commercials).
Changing merchant's url color is not good as you are kind of cheating. Still its a choice you should make. Overall, very well written article. Keep it up.
Thanks for the great comment Jen, I am glad I could help.
Katie, thanks a lot for your insightful comments, I appreciate that. BTW, great site
Thanks for liking my site. Do you mind stumbling few of my site pages?
It is very interesting your point of view about banner ads, that term “banner phobia” is totally new for me. It contradict the gurus in the affiliate marketing world, even masters like Shawn Casey utilize a lot of banner for their ads. Could you be more specific and maybe show us some figures that back up you affirmation about banner?
hello gaming-guru - i have found that i get the best CTRs on sites that sell stuff like polo shirts. and, I've had the best CTR with large rectangles placed at the very top of my page. Thanks for writing this hub about making money with adsense. I'll bookmark your hub as a reference. Cheers! -dawei888 :-)
Wonderful effective content. Thanks for the hub.
Warren Little
Internet Network Marketing Consultant,Trainer & Coach
Hi,
I enjoy very much reading true stories about people learning how to earn with Google Adsense. I also enjoy sharing my experience with Google Adsense so other Hubbers can benefit from it. Take the time to visit my most recent Hub. I'm sure you will find it to be beneficial. The topic is about "finding the most popular target keywords to increase traffic to your Hub. Enjoy everyone and thanks for the tips.
Thanks for providing such useful information, and explaining it so clearly.
I just want to add something. It's better to place your adsense beside (seamlessly) a keyword. This generates high paying ads and your reader will likely click it because it's related to the article.
You can read more tips on my blog http://www.bigdealsonweb.com
Interesting comments and well presented. Another thing to keep in mind is to repeat keywords frequently so that Adsense has enough to work with to produce appropriate context-sensitive ads. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for posting there are many different things to learn on this subject, im happy to have come across your information
Great info, but how do we move our ads to where we want them??
Good Tips Thank You ..!
This was some great information, but how about here on HP? You can't really do a lot of tinkering here, can you?
Very informative. Thank you. I will use your suggestions on my web site.
Hiya, thanks for the info, but as habee said above, how can you do it on hubpages? if you can show us you will probably be the most popular hubber on here!! ha ha thanks again nell
I'd be interested in hearing your response to Habee's question as well.
Bookmarked, and stumbled
Thank you guys for your great comments. I agree Habee's question is a great one. Unfortunately, Hubpages does not allow you to position the ads where you would want them. I have found that by experimenting with different modules and sizes of modules, you can influence positioning of google ads to a certain degree. For example, your first capsule should be a text capsule that is small enough so that Hubpages will not be able to incorporate a rectangular block of ads. The next capsule should be a text capsule that is long enough to include a photo on the right hand side and should allow HP to add a rectangular block of ads. I find that this works best with regards to clicks. Try experimenting with different sizes of capsules and you will find a formula that works for you. I know that is not ideal but i hope it helps as it makes the best out of the situation.
good tips.
Cheers Duchess, hope you found it useful
Very educational, however, I don't have a website at this time, but when I do this will surely come in handy. I'm going to bookmark it for later. Very good hub.
Thanks for stopping by fastfreta. Good luck in your endeavors, and hope to hear from you soon.
Hi, again, just to say thanks for that, and I will try it. cheers nell
Thanks for the tips. I live in hope!
Very helpful and explisit hub. thanks for sharing that it should help us all even with our hubs
Sounds like you know what works for you. I will have to take your advice and fix some of my hubs. Thanks tons!
Thanks for stopping by Nell, hope my comment served to answer your question.
Thank you Gypsy Willow, Eileen Hughes and elayne001 for stopping by. I am glad that you enjoyed reading the hub and I hope that you have learned something from it. I have spent a few years learning these through trial and error.
coooool..thanks dear ..!
Glad you liked it manijee
Interesting stuff gaming-guru. I agree that many people have banner phobia/advertising phobia and when they smell it they tend stray away. So it is best to be subtle as possible when playing the advertising game, especially with Adsense. Correct balance is key!
That is spot on multimastery! you really hit the nail on the head
This is an awesome article with great tips and advice, one's I should definitely follow. Thank you very much!!
Thank you so much for your amazing comment Madison22. Glad you liked it.
Great information, I'm bookmarking this. I'm off to read some of your other hubs!
Thank you Lamme, glad you liked it
Very well detailed writing and thanks for sharing this; great hub.
Thanks for stopping by hubpageswriter. Appreciate it.
How did I pass this by? Thanks so much for the information on how to maximize your click throughs.:)
Thank you AEvans, glad you liked it
Valuable information on the placement of ads. Thank you gaming-guru.
Thank you drbj. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
good advice, nice tips for bloggers too
Thank you Research Analyst, glad you found it useful
This hub is quite informative and timely. I've come to understand recently that one can actually make good money with Google adsense if properly informed with the right information.
My enterprenuership journey on rightfully maximizing my adsense revenue is worth taking at all times. Lots to learn and put into work. Hub bookmarked! Thanks Man.
Thank you Andrew0208, love the comment. Good luck in your journey and all the best
Great information, I do think that the ad right below the title works well. I had a 1.00 ctr, but last month it fell for some reason. Hopefully this does not occur again. Its never going to be exactly the same. I just want to have at least 1.00 and if possible 1.5 to 2.00 ctr.
Great hub about increasing adsense.. Thumbs up..
Nice article, thanks.
Thanks for stopping by, really appreciate it
This stuff is great and agree on most of the topics. But I am not sure if it is good to add multiple 336*280 (best) units, because the CTR will probably be better yes, but the click won't be worth so much, because the most paid clicks are shown first. If you have more units, there are more cheaper clicks and greater chances the visitors clicks on the cheaper one. Perhaps it is better to get fewer clicks, but the ones you get to be best paid..
Great Post...For me 728x90 works best,Actually it depends on the layout of the website/blog too.
Thanks for stopping by
Jen's Solitude Level 3 Commenter 2 years ago
Hmmm, very interesting Afthab. It's amazing what a difference it makes to think about color and positioning and making sure ads are set up in non-traditional, run of the mill ways. I learned a lot, thanks for the hub!
~Jen