CTR Just Not Moving Up!

[anand84]

Hello all

I'm just tired. My website is in a niche that you can say does not have the most hungry customers..as in, this is not the 'find cheap tickets' niche where people click on ads like crazy..It is a content site which has small tidbits of info which people search for on Google, find them here and take it. So, I can understand CTR is low.

But point is, I have been trying to increase it over the past 2-3 months and nothing seems to be working. Have tried in-the-face ads, uncluttered ads, with background, without background, border, no-border, you name it..But the CTR simply does not move up and has been stuck at 0.30%. Any suggestions?

PS: I know there have been several threads on this topic earlier, but I am just hoping for a magic bullet this time around..

[edited by: anand84 at 4:20 pm (utc) on Mar 8, 2010]

[maximillianos]

Sorry there is no magic bullet. Every site is different. Sounds like you are doing what you need to do, testing various placements and display options.

You might also consider what type of visitors you have. Are they mostly return visitors or mostly new (from search engines?). This can make a big difference. If the majority of your traffic is repeat visitors, they may grow a case of ad-blindness and stop clicking. In which case you may want to try rotating different color schemes, etc.

Targeting can also be the issue. Do your ads look targeted?

[phranque]

"Want to Earn More with AdSense?" [webmasterworld.com]
(The Answer May Lie Outside of the AdSense Forum)

[anand84]

@maximillianos
Well, a huge chunk of the population is from Google search. So, I would tend to think that it is just a matter of getting it visible enough. The ads are contextually targeted, yes.But not always relevant. Because of the kind of niche I am in, there are instances when you have the classic case of showing "Fly cheap to New York" ads for a visitor who has come to study the history of the Statue of Liberty..

But it is not way off target..So, I would atleast assume that the CTR is better than the 0.30% I am stuck at..

@Phranque
Thanks, checking it out.

[Lipstick37]

Promote, promote, promote your site all the time. It is alot of work but eventually you will generate enough traffic and in return see results.