Improving website=Lower CTR => Don't improve?

[vivalasvegas]

I have an information type website. This summer I launched a helpful feature needed by many of my visitors. Average CTR before this: over 2%. Average CTR after: around 1%. First I thought it was the increased number of pageviews (by around 30%), but the numbers don't sustain this explanation. So my conclusion is that the new feature is responsible for the loss of clicks. While it is true that since then my traffic and also the EPC have gone up, I believe there should be a balance between how useful a website is and CTR.

What do you think? Do you ever consider this issue when trying to improve your website? Do you agree that sometimes we simply must refrain from improving our websites for the sake of getting more clicks? Or is increasing traffic what we should value the most?

[zett]

Couple of thoughts, and one question.

Question first - did you see the CTR drop of steeply, i.e. next day after introducing the new feature?

Thoughts -

1. I'd be very cautious to compare any pre-financial-crash data to post-financial-crash data, unless you have a genuine B&M business to compare your data against. The financial crash has to affected (or better: seems to have affected, as we do not have any proof for the clicks) our CTR big time, in an unprecedented way, leaving long-time corridors for the values.

2. I think it is very much possible that a new feature that your users find attractive may severely damage CTR. Imagine a useless site with relevant ads. CTR is (probably) high because users did not find what they have been looking for. Hence they click the ads in the hope to find what they are looking for. Then you introduce your new feature, and suddenly people are more attracted to your site (pageviews up 30%) and less attracted to the ads. Sounds very reasonable to me. Sad but true, Google Adsense puts out incentives to create mediocre content.

3. Despite this, we try to make our site as useful as possible, because this is the only way towards long-term revenue opportunities. You build stellar content, and the people (continue to) come. You're basically building a brand name. If you consider short-term revenue opportunities, you're quickly on the way to becoming an MFA, and will be unable to build a brand name (and thus attract traffic regardless of organic search results and online ads).

[vivalasvegas]

Question first - did you see the CTR drop of steeply, i.e. next day after introducing the new feature?

Thanks for your reply. Yes, CTR dropped the next day, although from 2% to 1.5%. The following months I continued to improve content and now CTR is at 1%.

I generally agree with you that "we try to make our site as useful as possible". My websites are all clean and useful, but maybe we shouldn't give visitors everything they can possibly be looking for. Maybe we should let those Google ads provide sort of an expected bridge between what our websites provide and what Adwords advertisers do (provide).

[signor_john]

Why obsess over the AdSense clickthrough rate? ECPM and total earnings are the metrics that really matter.

[sonjay]

signor_john has it right.

Suppose you have one AdSense block on every page. Before your improvement, visitors averaged 3 pages per visit, then clicked an ad. After your improvement, they average 6 pages per visit, then click an ad. Your CTR just dropped by half -- but, assuming same traffic levels, you're getting the same number of clicks as before. CTR by itself is pretty meaningless.

[Gian04]

If the only purpose why your site exist is because of Adsense, then dont improve it.

But if the real reason of your site existance is to provide helpful information and better user experience then keep on improving it.