Site Quality Vs Adsense Revenue

Is It Possible For A Quality Site Produce High CTR?

[careerskk]

Hi All,

I am one of those guys who want to make good revenue from adsense. At the same time, I would want have the site professional and should really help readers. In this regard I have few doubts. Please someone clarify.

a)Does placing ads below title (I actually had raised another forum topic earlier) reduces the usability of the site and impact its quality ?
b) Does too many ad units (3 units) can affect quality ?
c) How one can strike a perfect balance between ads and quality ?

[farmboy]

In the end, I think you'll have to decide this for yourself. All three of your questions presume anyone who answers has the same definition of "quality" in mind that you have. I can tell you that presumption is wrong.

As with other things related to AdSense, the most accurate answer to each of your questions is "it depends."

This is probably not what you want to read, but it's the bottom line.


FarmBoy

[alika]

How do you define "quality"?

My main site has ugly site design. It was done in Frontpage in the 1990s and has remained as such -- no pretty CSS, etc.

My blog uses Wordpress. Beautifully designed. Nice template. Easy to manage.

The articles in both the blog and main site are almost the same, with many about 2500+ words per page. Placement of the ads is almost identical, except the blog has a more streamline and elegant presentation

But the main site gets 250% CTR more than my beautiful blog. Maybe because the articles in the main site, ugly the design may be, are older and ranks well in the SERPs. Or maybe people are repulsed by the design, hence they leave.

But whatever the reason -- and people can call it ugly (I don't care) -- the ugly site earns so good with Adsense.

So how do you define "quality." Both have quality content, gets lots of links, but the big difference in income in my opinion depends on the quality of the site design.

Pretty is not always the way to go with Adsense. Hence, we've hold off redesigning our main site. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it O:)

[netmeg]

Bots can only go so far in determining quality. They look for particular signals(both good and bad) but unless you get a manual review, it's quality as determined by a spider. Relevance is less subjective than quality, so the bots can do marginally better with that.

There's a good post tacked to the top of this forum about making adsense work better for you.

But mostly what it boils down to is traffic traffic traffic. You also have to look at the focus of your site vis a vis the intent of users who come to it. My oldest sites are hobby sites, and were never focused towards users in a buying cycle. They do quite well, but they'd do better if they were (and I am unwilling to make that change)

When I'm putting together a new site, after I get the content in and the layout nailed down, then I place the ads and ad links in a way that I think make sense.

Once I get THAT finished, I remove one ad unit.

I figure one less than what I first come up with is a pretty good formula for me.

[Webwork]

Do YOU want to feature the content or feature the ads?

Many of those who approach publishing+Adsense from the feature the ads perspective probably belong to the make easy money online crowd.

What's the success rate of the make easy money online crowd?

I suggest that YOU determine HOW YOU will compete for attention - for TRAFFIC - on the information highway. Why would anyone care to VISIT YOUR SITE? REFER others to your site? LINK to your site? Why would they?

For the ads or for something else of value?

I suggest that once you feature what YOU value - ads or content - people will catch on rather quickly.

[nickreynolds]

If i have two sites in the same niche - one looks good, easy navigation etc and the other is abit cluttered, poor layout etc invariably the better site earns me less.
That's my experience. I dont like it but that's the way it is. Just hope that I get more return visitors on the nice sites.

[dbcooper]

>a)Does placing ads below title (I actually had raised another forum topic earlier) reduces the usability of the site and impact its quality ?

Yes.

>b) Does too many ad units (3 units) can affect quality ?

Yes

>c) How one can strike a perfect balance between ads and quality ?

That tipping point is entirely personal. Trouble is, it's personal for the publisher and it's personal for the user. The users will invariably want the fewest ads but will accept, with little protest, ads that are "unobtrusive" --or easy to ignore.

The sad fact is that ugly sells.