Best way to use Adsense

Wondering how to raise CTR

[markis00]

Hello all.

I know I'm not allowed to post my CTR for Adsense, but I was wondering if anyone could give me pointers on how to raise my CTR rate.

For example, what option is best when doing Adsense (leaderboard, skyscraper, etc) to get best CTR results.

Am I allowed to say that I was using scyscraper but found the CTR low, so started using leaderboard at the fold of my pages...?

I hope so...anyways, any advice from any of you succesful Adsense publishers would be greatly appreciated.

Also, what kind of traffic does a site need to really see results with Adsense? I just started my web site and get between 50-100 hits a day according to adsense.

I am building content every day but I am in a very competitive field and find I am only getting SE traffic for smaller keywords.

[Jesse_Smith]

Test, test, test... Place the code at the top, and don't use the original tiny ad box. My earnings more than doubled when I went from the small to bigger sized ad box.

[ogletree]

The skyscrapers seem to work best for me.

[JollyK]

Yes, it totally depends on the layout of your site, and your visitors. Some people do better with skyscrapers, and some do better with the large horizontal banners. Some people have tried the skyscraper on the left side, and others on the right. Some people have put the horizontal banner at the very top of the page, and others have put it 3 - 4 inches down the page. Some people have tried violently clashing colors that didn't go with their site at all, while others have tried colors that exactly blend into their site.

Each of these methods has worked for someone, but not for others, so it's really just a matter of experimenting and seeing what happens. :-)

Have fun with it!

JK

[cpals]

Heh... my ctr is doing just great... actually rising sometimes, but the amount I get for each click has dropped substantially. It's a very sad month for me. :(

:)

[ByronM]

I would suspect christmas was a good month for alot of people.

With tax time and an election year coming up it may be difficult to get some of the earnings you had before!

[richmondsteve]

Unfortunately your daily impressions are so low it'll take you a long time to do any testing that has any sort of statistical significance. Test with different ad placements (above the fold usually is preferable), ad block types (skyscraper and leaderboard tend to perform best) and color schemes.

You may also want to tweak your page elements (text body, page title, headings) so that AdSense is more likely to show relevant ads.

There are other strategies that can increase your CTR, but since your CTR is probably not just concerned with CTR use them with caution. For example, you can remove AdSense from pages with low CTRs, but unless you have a better revenue source, that might not be wise from a business standpoint. And when I say "better" I mean by taking into account effective CPM, time/difficulty in aquiring and managing the ads and how the ads affect the image of the site.

You can also remove links to external pages, links to internal pages and do other things to make it more likely a visitor will click an AdSense ad on the page. I recommend against that though. I say that because I'd rather have my average visitor view numerous pages, increasing the likelihood revenue will be earned on that visit, that the visitor will return and that the visitor will consider the site/page one worthy of recommending to others and linking to.

Another important point to consider is that Google's CTR calculation is: paid clicks divided by all ad blocks shown, including PSA/AAs. That might not seem like a big deal if you think your site shows very few PSA/AAs, but for some sites, including one of mine, the percentages are or have been in the double digits. I strongly recommend implementing the alternate ad parameter so you can show your own paying alternate ads or self promotion copy instead of PSAs and so you can log which pages aren't showing paid ads and the related number of impressions.

[markis00]

Okay, thanks for the advice