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AdSense newbie, low CTR help

what am I doing wrong?

         

tcoop25

8:08 pm on Jun 3, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My site is fairly new, and am also pretty new to AdSense. I have been quietly watching these boards and picking up a ton of great information. I believe I have a decent layout of ads on my site, but no matter what I do, or how I change my ad layout, I still have a horrible CTR.

this was last months numbers

12,714 19 0.1% $0.27 $3.41

I am not looking for huge numbers or anything, I just want to know if that .1% is normal? Any suggestions?

incrediBILL

2:51 am on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



tcoop,

You aren't done yet as your adsense targeting is WAY off on some pages...

I know we aren't supposed to review sites here but this info is good for EVERYONE and helps the spider properly target the page. To fix AdSense targeting you basically have to fix your spider food for the search engine starting from the top down.

TITLES - your domain name is irrelevant and should be the LAST thing on the title if present at all.

You have a title like "domain > home > widget" and widget is the most important thing to the page yet it's at the end, and HOME nobody will ever search for so ditch that, and the domain name should be last of all. Maybe something along the lines "Widget at Domain Name" or more along my titles "Widget and Widgets at Domain Name" as you want to get the plurals too, they rank separately :)

HEADINGS - Putting an H1, H2, H3 etc in your page to accurately identify your topics for the search engine.

Usually I repeat the title or something close to it as an <H1> toward the top of the page as it reinforces the topic and then mark the rest of my subtopics down the page, your gadgets, as <h2>s.

Some people say headings are ignored, but I know for a fact when I first joined AdSense and was working with Google support this was one of the suggested changes that boosted my targeting and almost everyone that's followed my advice has had their ads get more on target as well.

Try it and see if your ads don't get more on topic instead of being 90% about SQL servers as it is today!

[edited by: incrediBILL at 3:05 am (utc) on June 6, 2005]

GreenTea

3:02 am on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hey Mikey85,

Implemented your suggestions for blending and an added ad unit near the top of the home page in the body of the content (in addition to the skyscraper on the left with adlinks just on top of the skyscraper -- which I already had).

skyscraper CTR 2%
adlinks CTR 3.4%
homepage CTR 9.1%

Without destroying the look of the site, I'm now going to consider putting a banner across the top of the rest of the site, just above the navigation links.

Thanks!

roadhazard

1:47 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Mikey85: Thanks a million! My homepage looks TONS BETTER thanks to you. I will get the other pages done asap. Let you know about income in a few days. THANKS AGAIN. I would never have thought of what you suggested to me to change. YOU NEED TO WRITE THE ADSENSE TUTORIAL BOOK! I hope you are because I will buy it. Thanks, and I will keep you all posted about what happens. I am expecting VERY GOOD THINGS from Mikey85 ideas!

thehittmann

2:55 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I would be much appreciative if somebody would be able to review my site for me and share some tips and their knowledge with me also. I'm very new to adsense im not even sure what all of this means at the moment but I've managed to earn $10.15 in 1 week...... no idea how good this is or how long this will last.

nanotopia

3:22 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I would be much appreciative if somebody would be able to review my site for me and share some tips and their knowledge with me also. I'm very new to adsense im not even sure what all of this means at the moment but I've managed to earn $10.15 in 1 week...... no idea how good this is or how long this will last.

thehitmann: I checked out your site, and here's my advice.

1. Your Google Adsense layout is not optimized at all. You need to put it higher up in your page. I realize that you probably reserved this space for your main content, but that's where people see and click on ads.

2. You need more ads than the one you show at the bottom of your web pages. I would put a vertical skyscraper on the left or right side, and a large rectangler box below your header, and above your content in the middle of your page.

3. Your text color and background color need more contrast. They are both dark, which makes the text hard to read. Once you get a better color scheme, make sure your ad colors match the navigation and color scheme of your website.

You can get an idea of what I'm talking about by visiting the website in my profile. Although I'm not supposed to give out the exact stats, I will say that my CTR is well over 10% solely because of my ad layout.

thehittmann

3:42 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have only recently started hosting this site myself so before I never even bothered with advertising because I wasnt able to use adsense at all. Basically as you can see my ads are just stuck on the bottom of the page at the moment. I will be totally redesigning my site soon and I think now that it will also have a total colour change. All of tips seem to be useful and the way you have yours on your site looks great. Thanks for helping me out with this.

bbcarter

5:06 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have one question tho for those of you who aren't newbies, relevant to CTR

My main AdSense site has been geared to maximize CTR for some time now, but what with advertisers being allow to choose their ads more specifically now-

Do you think there's a line where you're getting too many clicks... from people who aren't likely really to buy from the advertiser? If so, you may be shooting yourself in the foot in the long run, right?

I don't have the solution, but my vague thinking on this so far is:

Even though above the fold, eye-catching ads get clicks, and even though the other good CTR maximizing techniques are all just writing good content and webpage SEO, do you suppose you'd get more serious clickers if you only put ads below the fold?

It may not even be time for this- until more advertisers figure out how to choose and block the AdSense publishers that get them the best prospects.

Am I way off here, or what?

tcoop25

7:58 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think you can still get high quality clicks through eye catching ads. No one is going to search out an ad on your page.

Thanks for the help incrediBILL. This is the kind of help that I would have never thought about. I think there should be a forum just to post your site, and get help. I think it helps to just see peoples sites, and see examples of what is good and bad design. I would be very interested in seeing some of the "senior members" of this forum's websites.

tcoop25

9:11 pm on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have another question, what is the best way to gain eCPM? Does this come with pagerank?

thehittmann

4:02 am on Jun 12, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It would come with site traffic i would say. The more people that visit your site the more chance that your ads will be clicked on.

But they all go hand in hand though PR because a good PR will help your traffic increase.

bbcarter

5:58 am on Jun 12, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



CPM is a calculation from your earnings per thousand impressions (pageviews)

How much you earn depends on your CTR and the value of the keywords relevant to your pages.

You can control CTR somewhat, but if you're in the wrong sector (one with low cost ads or low CTR), your CPM will always be low.

B

flyfisher812

3:00 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hello. I am new to Google Adsense and have a quick question regarding the Google crawl and incorrect ads. Our site (<snip>) was crawled by Google...only once and has never been back. I did notice in my website traffic reports that the Googlebot visited yesterday and the day before, but the cached page has not been updated. Any help?

Also, we have been getting soem ads not targeted to our site. Is this because our PR is low?

Appreciate any help (especially on the crawl part).

[edited by: Jenstar at 3:01 pm (utc) on June 13, 2005]
[edit reason] No URLs / site reviews, as per TOS, thanks! [/edit]

MadMax101

3:07 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



But since he is a New User, his URL won't be displayed to others. You have to hit a certain level

oh, interesting thing to note, any1 know specificaly what that level is? :)

thehittmann

3:32 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



the reason that some ads are not on taget could be becasue you do not have enough content on your pages or they could be off target due to having a few more prodominant keywords. You should be able to filter the off target urls out using the adsense filter.

bbcarter

5:34 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Our site (<snip>) was crawled by Google...only once and has never been back. I did notice in my website traffic reports that the Googlebot visited yesterday and the day before

Been a while since I've checked, but used to be (Aprilish 2005) that AdSense would do an initial crawl, then come back later- they have it set to re-crawl every 2 weeks or so- I think you can find this out on their FAQ or by emailing them-

If ads aren't targeted enough, check to see if your content, links, alt text, keywords, etc. are appropriate- if ads don't match them, and all that is fine, then just wait.

I'm pretty sure AdSense now uses partial matching to some degree (to match ads to the keyword focus of your page), so ads are not as pinpoint as they used to be.

But link text (in and out) seems to be able to help Google know what your page is about

roadhazard

9:01 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Very high CTR 17% today. Very LOW number of visitors. I followed Mikey85's advice. I put Adsense in the heat spot and blended it. Also on each page, I have the search box at the bottom. Maybe this is helping my stats also. Thanks again, Mikey85!

GreenTea

11:16 pm on Jun 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



That's interesting. I was just wondering about how well the search box does and if anybody uses it. Does the 17% CTR relate to the search box or just a specific ad?

thehittmann

3:14 am on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My adsense search CTR is 15% but earnings and impressions are very, very minimal. I have a search at the bottom of every page.

adsense ads are at 6.2% with around 160 x the earnings and 56 x the amount of impressions.

GreenTea

3:26 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Wow, no wonder I don't hear a lot of people talking about the search box. Your ads sounds like they're doing well though. Thanks very much!

ann

4:05 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Some posters on this topic may be in for a rude "account closed" email if they keep breaking adsense TOS by posting "classified" Info...LOL

Ann

thehittmann

4:31 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



they also state that you are not allowed to participate in other advertising programs if you use adsense..... I would think that would be easier for them to figure out when they spider pages.

bbcarter

6:53 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Some posters on this topic may be in for a rude "account closed" email if they keep breaking adsense TOS by posting "classified" Info...LOL

I do remember reading that they didn't want people discussing CTR- can't find where tho- can you tell me what section of terms and conditions it's in?

Thx
B

thehittmann

7:07 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



#7

bbcarter

7:57 pm on Jun 14, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Terms and Condiitons #7, (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to You by Google;

Thanks for the #, H.

I understand they'd want that kept private from other competing programs... but any other company that does the same thing who wants intelligence could get it by just doing AdSense themselves...

Has anyone emailed G to see if the spirit of that T&C is to prevent people like us from doing a better job?

There's a big difference between talking about how to increase ad efficiency (CTR) and publishing the detailed kind of stats a competitor would need.

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