Making Adsense link slightly brighter/darker than regular links

Blending in, but differentiating slightly

[bouncybunny]

I generally have my adsense ads blend in with the rest of my site - black text, blue links, all pretty standard stuff.

I was wondering whether anyone has had any success, or otherwise, with making the adsense link colors a slightly different shade from the regular site links.

For example, if sitewide links are #0033FF, then making adsense links #0000FF, or visa versa.

This way the ads can stand out slightly, whilst still fitting in with the design of the site.

Any thoughts?

[bouncybunny]

And if any moderator feels like fixing my sloppy spelling mistake in the title, please feel free. ;)

[swa66]

I found out that making all adsense purely black and white seems to work best CTR wise and it strikes a nice balance between ads not being "in your face" while getting a healthy CTR.

So I don't style the links at all, I leave them like the regular ad copy.

[annej]

I use the text colors used on the page but I always make the title of the ads darker than the rest of the ad. We know people skim online and this is certainly true of ads. So I make it easy to notice the topic of the ad this way.

PS I feel you pain on the misspelled title to this thread. I have done it now and then and hate that there is no way to go back and correct it. I guess people know I'm a bad speller by now. ;)

Lordy, I just spell checked and had mispelled misspelled.

[bouncybunny]

Thanks Annej

So, just to confirm, do you mean that you make the title of the ad slightly darker than your regular links, or just darker than the test of the ad?

(looks like someone has fixed the spelling mistake also).

[annej]

Just darker that the rest of the ad. If the rest of the ad is slightly lighter the darker title stands out and it really isn't necessary to make them darker than anything else on the page.

[jomaxx]

Every site is different. Just test out a few color schemes that you find acceptable and see what happens.

The difference you're talking about in your specific example is so slight that I doubt it would cause a measurable effect.

[adamsaka]

It has worked for me.

I generally have dark blue headings thoroughout my site (on white background). I make my adsense headers a slightly brighter blue. (but only slightly brighter).

I find it slightly eye-grabbing, and I'm quite happy with my click through. My ads are almost never within the content, so I like the eye-grabbing effect. However, I prefer using matching colours, if my ads are within the content.

(I know mid content ads work better (in the short-term), but I prefer my visitors to be happy people, so I try hard to minimise the impact of the ads, so they are out-of-the-way but still get attention.)

[potentialgeek]

I was wondering whether anyone has had any success, or otherwise, with making the adsense link colors a slightly different shade from the regular site links.

My link colors are usually different from the rest of my site and I'm finding some success. I think ad placement is much more significant than color on the whole.

But ask yourself, when you visit other sites you don't make, are you drawn to links which are slightly different in color?

For some reason Amazon found a shade of blue is most effective for links on their site, although ads are another issue. You've just got to keep testing in your environment.

Ad links the same color as your navigation links can be deceptive, so at least slightly different color can be a plus.

I think as Adsense gets more ubiquitous, understated ads will gradually become more successful.

p/g

[farmboy]

Regardless of the color scheme(s) I use, I have found that using the AdSense feature to rotate different colors almost always produces better results than a static color display.

I have a site that is visited almost exclusively by professionals in a particular field and it even works well on that site. Colors can be discreet/professional in appearance yet still attract attention.

FarmBoy