Traffic or CTR?

where should i focus now

[akhater]

Dear all:

I've been an adsense publisher for 1 year and never really worried about my gains and I average about $4 per day no more.

I was looking at my statistics and I noticed that I am averaging (over the 1 year) a 1.8% ctr and 52,724 page impressions per month.

so where should I focus now? more traffic or better CTR, i "heard" that a typical ctr is in the 5% range some sites are averaging 15% up to 30% are these numbers actually possible?

[wyweb]

I'd go for traffic. Traffic is king.... Without traffic, CTR becomes moot anyway.

[akhater]

but I mean i should be doing better with these stats?

[wyweb]

My CTR is around 2%. Most of my sites were built long before adsense came along and I didn't build them with ad placement in mind. I could do major overhauls and probably increase my CTR considerably but I've decided not to do that. I sold out but I'm not going to sell out all the way, if that makes any sense.

I can see a point in the future where I remove all advertising period. I don't have the courage to do it right now, but I can see it coming.

[wyweb]

I can't answer the question of whether you should be doing better or not. No one can. Your CTR is low. So is mine. I know how I can improve it. I can redesign my sites so that ad placement is a top priority, but as I've said, I don't want to do that. I like my sites just the way they are.

Low CTR can be caused by any number of things. Your visitors intentions once they arrive, ad placement on the page, etc... Without looking at your site, and more importantly, the way people find your site, it's impossible to make any legitimate evaluations about your CTR. Quite impossible...

[frakilk]

I'd concentrate on traffic next. Once you have that you can optimize CTR and possibly receive a huge boost to your income for a little extra work. That's much more pleasing than first optimizing CTR and watching your income slowly edge up as your traffic increases (which is what I did).

Of course there is very little reason why you couldn't do both optimizations at the same time. One thing I would point out is not to overload your page with ads in order to increase CTR. This may cause people not to link to your site which in turn will affect your traffic levels.

[wyweb]

My main site was well positioned for some major keywords in my niche long before adsense ever came along. I wasn't trying to monetize my traffic at all. I was getting 10,000 unique a day and didn't care whether I made any money or not. I just didn't care. I had a message and I was getting it out and that was what mattered. Or at least that's what mattered at the time.

I got approached by numerous companies. Everybody wanted to put ads on my site. I guess they were using Alexa rankings. To be quite honest I don't know how they found me but they came in droves. I turned them down flat. No advertising. It pollutes the site, compromises the purity. I'd take the site offline before I went that route. That was what I thought back then. That was where my head was.

I heard about adsense from another webmaster that I'm friendly with. She was gung-ho about it, totally over the top. I ran some ads on a few pages just to test it out and was completely blown away by the earnings. I couldn't believe it. 3 figures daily. Wow. Situational ethics. I guess I'm not so against this after all. I learned a lot about myself too. Basically I've just become a web piimp. Sold out for the almighty dollar bill....

[Forest Dweller]

Basically I've just become a web piimp. Sold out for the almighty dollar bill....

Wyweb - I think you're too hard on yourself, but I feel the same way. I'd rather distribute my information for free, too, but we live in a world that puts a value on everything. We have the right, both financially and ethically, to want to earn something for our time and hard work. Authors and artists make money from their work because it is of value. The work we publish on our sites is no different.

To the original poster, Akhater, I suspect that small and medium sized sites have a different statistical outcomes to the changes they make than large sites do. I suggest that you create lots of content and work on your traffic. Experiment with Adsense logically and slowly. Change one thing as a time. More or fewer ads. Blended or not blended. Placement and sizes. Collect data over several weeks, because Adsense fluctuates wildly, and compare. What will work for you won't work for others, and vice-versa.

I think the Adsense help files mention that a normal CTR is about 3%. But that's an average.

Edit - I looked for that 3% CTR average in the help files but can't find it. I'm sure they mentioned it several months ago, but now they just say:

AdSense publishers and advertisers serve a very dynamic, diverse market. What may be a high clickthrough rate (CTR) in one industry or vertical may be considered low in another. So, it's difficult to determine an 'average' CTR for everyone.

[edited by: Forest_Dweller at 2:08 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2007]

[wyweb]

Wyweb - I think you're too hard on yourself, but I feel the same way.

Well, thanks for that FD but I'll stand on what I said. If this was about 10 bucks a day I could nix it in the butt and be done with it. It's a little more than that though. it's gotten too big to casually dismiss, much as I'd like to. I'll accept the fact that I've become a whoore, an internet prostitute chasing dollar bills. I sure as hell don't like it but I have to accept it.

[ftwb05]

Obviously building more content or promoting your website through various other means will drive more visitors to your site, but there should be nothing stopping you conducting a quick experiment to see if you can improve your ctr. (Which might not lead to more earnings - smartpricing).

Look at your stats and pick out your ten best performing pages. Create custom channels to track the performance of extra ads / different colours / borders / formats / placements on those pages. Put the changes on those top ten pages for a month and track their performance. If you see significant gains, roll out the changes across your site and or start a new experiment.

You may be surprised by what you find, sometimes the most subtle changes can have big effects on CTR, but always bear in mind user experience.

[buckworks]

an internet prostitute chasing dollar bills

You have to reframe that thinking. If you're providing quality content that other people find genuinely useful or interesting, there's nothing dishonorable about earning money along the way.

If Adsense is showing ads for things you're not comfortable with, block those ads, or be more selective about what pages you put Adsense on, but don't feel guilty simply for earning money.

Just think, if your income grows you'll be able to give more to charity. (That comment is meant seriously, not as a joke, BTW.)

[akhater]

Thanks a bunch everyone

I see that most of you are saying traffic :) but I think with a low ctr of 1.8% if i can double that that means i am doubling my gains with no additional traffic. and since my ctr is low to start with so that shouldn't be very hard right?

anyway if anyone is ready to take a look at my site for better advice please send me a message

more info: all of my content is original and slowly growing 85% of my visits are new visitors

[Forest Dweller]

but I think with a low ctr of 1.8% if i can double that that means i am doubling my gains with no additional traffic

That sounds very logical but, sadly, your Adsense earnings probably won't increase in direct proportion to anything you do. In the Google World, 1+1 doesn't equal 2.