Tips to get better CTR for AdSense Ads

share your tips so we can improve the CTR for our AdSense Ads

[freedata]

Based on comments by members on various threads, I have compiled the following list of things one could do to improve the AdSense CTR.

Please share your tips in this thread.

* Better content attracts better targeted ads and hence better CTR.
* Leader
Board format gives the best CTR for many sites.
* No background color is better than any background color.
* You get better CTR if the page showing AdSense ads has no external links, hence no leakage.

Any More Tips?
What about the colors of the link, text copy? Does one color perform better than other (asuming your content has black text and blue links)?

[Sally Stitts]

"No background color is preferred to any background color."

Are you saying that white is always preferred as a background color? No matter what?
In some cases, I find it rather "stark" and "contrasty".

[blue_eagle]

There are many people had bad results with white background for me the colors match my site makes it much better than white background..

[freedata]

I guess I meant 'matching' background. My sites have white background so I like to have white background for my ads. But if your site is say pink background, then having pink background for AdSense makes sense.

[EVOrange]

I find that background and borders to match my site colors has had a better result.

Without doubt, emphasis on "exit" pages, meaning the last page a person is likely to be looking at in logical progress through my site.

I find the home page on my site to be virtually a wash. Very high traffic, but extremely low CTR. Because of the numbers, ads do make some money, but probably be better selling the spots differently considering PR 7.

EVO

[ned911]

How are you tracking all your pages, a different channel for each page?

Ned

[freedata]

Welcome to the Webmaster World Ned.
Yes I use channels, but not one per page. I use different channel per topic. A topic can span upto 10 pages for us.

[Teshka]

I have good results putting the ads after the title and before the first line of the article. Basically, just put your ads where the visitor will actually notice them. Far right tower was by far the worst performer for me.

PS I feel that providing no other links on the page falls into the realm of tricking users to click ads.:\ Those kind of visitors don't convert for the advertisers, and for Adsense to continue to be a viable tool for them (and therefore profitable for us), we should be worrying about things working out for them, too.

[lorenzinho2]

Moving sky scraper ads from the right border of my page to the left border of my page doubled my CTR.

[globay]

When I switched my skyscraper ads from the right to where you would expect a menu on the left side, CTR more than doubled.

[ownerrim]

doubled? are you serious? that's amazing. why do you think this happened. because people expect a menu on that side?

[Porkchop]

Maybe more people are right handed. Right Hand/Left Brain
:-)

[freedata]

globay,
Is your CTR on the left side sky scraper (where the menu would be) better than what it would be with a leaderboard? Currently I use leaderboard and get less than mid single digits.

[ownerrim]

Porkchop---you might really be on to something. Think about it. People who are right handed are left brain dominant. I did a study in college which dealt with conjugate lateral eye movement which means that right handers are also usually left eye dominant.

The reverse is true as well. Left handers are right hemisphere dominant and usually have the right eye as the dominant one.

But...left handers are only 10 percent of the population whereas right handers are 90%. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that more people would be more likely to notice skyscrapers placed on the left hand side of the page simply because right handers have the left eye as dominant.

Could have some strong implications for CTR

[Teshka]

I think it has less to do with left/right brain than the fact that we read from left to right. We expect things to begin on the left, so that's where we naturally look.

[jomaxx]

Plus the far right-hand column is a frequent placement for ads that can readily be ignored.

[HarryM]

Not so much a tip, more of a request for one. :)

I have noticed my page impressions are considerably less than my page views as reported by stats. I assume this is because my content loads before the AdSense javascript thereby giving the user a chance to click through before the link to googlesyndication is made. As my traffic is international, a slow link in the chain would make this happen more frequently.

I may be able to alleviate this to a small extent by displaying the Adsense javascript before the page content. But I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. If the number of impressions increases but the number of clicks doesn't, then the CTR decreases and possibly so does the EPC. On the other hand at the moment some people aren't even seeing the ads.

Are there any tips about this? Or speeding up ad display in general?

Currently my ads are a skyscraper in the right-hand column of a three column layout (index on left and content in the centre). I was under the impression that top-right was the hot spot for ads (dunno where I got that from). Could the fact that some people are experiencing better results on the left be due to the javascript loading quicker? This would certainly be the case in a traditional table layout. And of course a top banner will always load first.

[rubenski]

Concerning the dominance of left/right brain parts. I really don't believe this. Reading information from (top)left to (bottom)right is something deeply embedded in our culture. Further, web desingers nearly always put their logo and important navigation at the left side of the page. These two factors combined makes cause the higher CTR for ads placed on the left. In my studies we have examined view patterns for web sites. People ALWAYS start top-left en then they pick something that looks important closest to the top left side of the page. Following this theory, I think a leader board at the top of the page and a skyscraper at the left will both do fine. Perhaps the left-skyscraper will be a bit better, because people will be fooled, thinking it is site navigation (--> recognizability factor).

Still, the brain theory is quite interesting and fun to think of. Here's a way to find out if your right or left eye dominates:

1. Pick a not too large object about 5 meters away, a door handle foor example.
2. Put your finger in front of your eyes, stretching your arm.
3. Put your finger straight on the door handle with both your eyes opened. This can be a bit difficult,if you focus less, it will be easier to put your finger on the door handle.
4. Close your left eye. If, looking through only your right eye, your finger covers the handle, your right eye is dominant. Now close your right eye. If, looking only through your left eye, your finger covers the handle, then your left eye is the dominant one. If your finger doesn't cover the handle in either way, then you have a dangerous disease called bifocusionalityfus and need to see a doctor soon and cancel your Adsense account asap.

[sailorjwd]

EVOrange,

I have the exact opposite experience with my Home Page.
It has a medium number of visitors compared to other pages. It has the highest CTR and by far the highest EPC. Some of the ads that appear on the home page appear on a few other pages - these other pages don't have even 1/2 the EPC compared to home page.

I wonder if Adsense values clicks more from a home page than a subordinate page?

[Sally Stitts]

bifocusionalityfus . . . doctor . . . cancel asap

You are too funny. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Kinda like Euromysitisis in the "Parking Garage" episode of Seinfeld.