$28.23 in Adsense revenue for over 53,000 pageviews... How to improve CTR?

[kevstorrs]

Hi guys,

Just a quick question on Adsense. My main company website is currently using Adsense for monetization. In the last 2 weeks we have had 53,000 views, but only $28 in revenue... Meaning very low CTR, less than 0.2%.

There is a top banner and a 300x250 advertising box that integrate nicely and unobtrusively into the site, which is a niche entertainment news site.

Luckily, our income comes from offline activities and the website is merely a means to maintain authority and market leading position, but still a little monetization would be nice from these adverts.

Basically, I wanted to ask if there are any techniques of improving CTR without garish positioning of ads? Or is this CTR common with adsense these days?

Thanks guys!

Kev

[GeorgR.]

Well and i though i had the worst CTR

Seriously, this is an incredible bad CTR. CTR depends on

*) Your site layout
*) Your traffic (who visits the site)
*) The kind/quality of your traffic.

"entertainment news" doesnt sound like it would ever yield a high CTR to me....but it should definitely be possible to get it up somewhat.

Look at distracting elements on your site. If its a "busy" site with other banners, videos, pics etc....needless to say people will LESS click on your banners.

Some types of sites simply wont work too well with Adsense, yours could be one of them.

Otherwise, as a first rule...big 300 or 338 block on top of content, above fold, to the left or right wrapped with content.

If pages are longer, add another one. Same thing, but under fold.

And you could add an additional skyscraper to the left or right.

Furthermore:

Test colors / blending of ads with content. Ads should not "stand out", but rather go conform with the rest of your site's layout...WITHOUT making it looks like a MFA site. (Not always easy).

Eg...if your clickable links are blue, make ads headlines blue also. Main text on site could be a few shades lighter, with the ads TEXT "slightly" darker so.. Eg dark gray main text on site, black ad text on ads etc.

[kevstorrs]

Thanks George, great info!

The website is: rapireland . com

As I had said, advertising is somewhat of an afterthought on the site, as the main purpose is building traffic and regular visitors, which translates into further success in our events and concerts side.

Most visitors to the site come specifically for the news we provide, and therein may lie the problem; if they are getting what they need maybe they don't bother clicking through on ads.

I am going to play around with some of the suggestions you mentioned. Feel free to have a look at the site yourself and see if there are any glaring items overlooked!

Thanks again!

[MrWonton]

Very nice site man. The adsense banner is beautifully integrated, but almost too tucked away. I'd be getting a unit embedded in the content, as GeorgR says.

[scruffy77]

just posting to say nice site, its really smooth :0

[yukon]

OP, your not going to like this answer, but I'll tell you how to boost your Adsense CTR on that site (rapireland).

1) Remove everything in the header & put all those Nav. links in the sidebar or footer.

2) Remove the animated video slideshow at the top.

3) Use plain text as your site name in the header.

4) Add a line break under the header.

5) Add a single 728x15_4 Adsense text block below the line break in the header.

You have a nice looking site, but I'll tell you straight up, the page has way to much distractions going on. The animated video slideshow is a huge distraction from Adsense.

Backup your site, test this out for at least a week or two, I bet your CTR will go up, assumes you get the same traffic (53K).

Also, change that image Ad (top right sidebar) to text only, blend the Adsense to look the same as the page colors.

[EUA]

How much unique visitor count?

[Oranges]

Do whatever yukon said! That's how adsense works.

[omurphy22]

Adsense always has a ****ty CTR, switch to relevant affiliate ads instead.

[PooFinger]

Originally Posted by Oranges

Do whatever yukon said! That's how adsense works.

Sorry would have to disagree to some degree. Don't change the layout of your site to make adsense work, your site works now, changing the layout can be risky with visitor satisfaction. My click through rate is roughly 5%, sometimes better sometimes worse.

There are two obvious issues that i can see.

1. I spent less than a second at the top of the page, as I had to scroll down to view the articles. So your adsense on the home page is in a shi&&y position. I see that on inner pages you have two other adsense blocks which I comes to point number 2.

As an after thought, checkout affiliate marketing for more relevant ads places such as clickbank and cj.com

2. The ads being displayed have nothing to do with why I am on your site (Though being in Australia could be a problem). Are there image ads that are relevant to your site? I'm getting a travel ad, a mobile phone ad, and googles $75 for a trial ad. Could be that there just aren't image ads out there that are relevant.

To fix I would get rid of the header adsense. Distracts from your site and clutters the header, plus as I said the first thing you do is scroll down.

Trial only one adsense with images and text or just text to see if you get more relevant ads. Also with 53000 pageviews, put a banner up offering to sell the ad space. No idea about market value, but you could do month by month, per view or per click. Someone here would surely have a good idea on market value.

[icwtommy]

Bit out of the box, but you could drop in a script to put an adsense block in your content 'blocks' on the homepage. Say every 5 story blocks, you could have an adsense block?

[yukon]

Believe what you want, but that screenshot above will boost OPs Adsense CTR.

Sorry, but I have to laugh at CB, that place is a breeding ground for vendor fraud. The only thing that OPs traffic would convert into with CB is boosting some CB vendors optin rate for their email list (not OPs email list).

Last I checked this was an Adsense thread, why people always suggest another option outside of the subject is beyond me.

Like the old Chevy vrs Ford:

Joe) I drive a chevy, I need help on how to fix my Chevy.

John) You should drive a Ford it's better.

Joe)

Don't get me wrong options are always good, but C'mon, really CB?

Originally Posted by PooFinger

Sorry would have to disagree to some degree. Don't change the layout of your site to make adsense work, your site works now, changing the layout can be risky with visitor satisfaction. My click through rate is roughly 5%, sometimes better sometimes worse.

There are two obvious issues that i can see.

1. I spent less than a second at the top of the page, as I had to scroll down to view the articles. So your adsense on the home page is in a shi&&y position. I see that on inner pages you have two other adsense blocks which I comes to point number 2.

As an after thought, checkout affiliate marketing for more relevant ads places such as clickbank and cj.com

2. The ads being displayed have nothing to do with why I am on your site (Though being in Australia could be a problem). Are there image ads that are relevant to your site? I'm getting a travel ad, a mobile phone ad, and googles $75 for a trial ad. Could be that there just aren't image ads out there that are relevant.

To fix I would get rid of the header adsense. Distracts from your site and clutters the header, plus as I said the first thing you do is scroll down.

Trial only one adsense with images and text or just text to see if you get more relevant ads. Also with 53000 pageviews, put a banner up offering to sell the ad space. No idea about market value, but you could do month by month, per view or per click. Someone here would surely have a good idea on market value.

[scruffy77]

i switched from text to images and been doing decent

[PooFinger]

It maybe a Adsense question, but clearly some sites won't work with Adsense. What ads display for you? Are they on topic? I bet they aren't. If they aren't on topic no matter how he changes the layout of the site he won't improve his click through.

And seriously change your layout of the site to suit Adsense? If your site is successful why in the world would you want to risk User satisfaction by doing that, even if he does get some minor boost in CTR?

I offered some options on different forms of monetizing the site that he may not have thought of. While CB isn't ideal, if you can find something relevant on there it's worth a trial?

Funny how you latched only on to CB and didn't critique CJ.com or selling the adspace on a per view, per click or per month.

Also the OP stated that the main objectives of the site is to build traffic and regular visitors, and you suggest redesigning the site to suit adsense. That sounds like more of a Chevy versus Ford argument to me.

Originally Posted by yukon

Believe what you want, but that screenshot above will boost OPs Adsense CTR.

Sorry, but I have to laugh at CB, that place is a breeding ground for vendor fraud. The only thing that OPs traffic would convert into with CB is boosting some CB vendors optin rate for their email list (not OPs email list).

Last I checked this was an Adsense thread, why people always suggest another option outside of the subject is beyond me.

Like the old Chevy vrs Ford:

Joe) I drive a chevy, I need help on how to fix my Chevy.

John) You should drive a Ford it's better.

Joe)

Don't get me wrong options are always good, but C'mon, really CB?

[SilentSilence]

Wow. OPs site is pretty sexy.

I have to agree though, that the flashy elements of the homepage definitely distract from your ads. However, I don't think I'd change the layout of my site if adsense isn't your primary source of income.

[owenlee]

i would suggest you to improve on the keyword and also the content..take note not to use too much of the keyword in your content too...

[gman0156]

try CPA is better I think.

[Daniel Meyer]

I like your ad placement a lot but I think your black "RAP Ireland" logo at the top blends too much with your black navigation bar.

Maybe try inverting your logo so it is cutout against a white background - i think this will give your ads more punch.