Health Sites- Low CTR

[That Guy]

So I created two health sites (acne and sickness), but I can get decent amounts of traffic but I also get low CTR. My other sites target more specific types of products and my CTR is around the 2-3% region so I'm under the impression that health sites are bad for adsense.

What are your opinions on this? For the warriors with adsense health sites, are you actually making good money with them as well as good CTR? I'm thinking about just forgetting about the acne site since it's been close to four months since I've created it and the sites that I created in August have already surpassed it in total income gained...

Also, my five main sites are all using the same theme, just different colours. My health sites have a more blueish colour to it with my higher CTR sites having either a red or brown coloured theme. I'm think red is better for CTR, but blue makes my health sites look better.

[Talen]

health sites are great for adsense but they will take more time as you will have a lot of competition. I have one health site that I am growing into an authority site and it has taken it a bit to really start moving it up but as it moves the ctr also moves.

[outwest]

when you say bad CTR, how bad?
what is the average payout per click not sure of the terminology they use

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by outwest

when you say bad CTR, how bad?
what is the average payout per click not sure of the terminology they use

By bad CTR I mean ~0.5% CTR. But the awesome thing about the health niche is that when I get a click most of the time it will be for ~$2.00. I was actually planning on making it an authority site on acne but the CTR made me feel that it's not even worth the effort.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by That Guy

By bad CTR I mean ~0.5% CTR. But the awesome thing about the health niche is that when I get a click most of the time it will be for ~$2.00. I was actually planning on making it an authority site on acne but the CTR made me feel that it's not even worth the effort.

that might be bad I guess so what you are saying is if you get 1000 visitors,
you get 5 clicks at 2 dollars each hmm thats 10 dollars per 1000 visitors to the site is
1 cents per visitor to the site,
I guess if you could get the site up to 500 visitors per day thats hmmm 5 bucks per day,
Its not an amount that bowls you over but, money is money

Now if it were me?
I would write an ebook for about 15 bucks price and try to sell that

are you collecting email addys? or does adsense allow that

[noah.whitmore]

That's the interesting thing about the health niche - it works so differently for different tactics. Advertisers are paying so much for clicks because clicks are sparse (well, there's also tons of competition). I think that grabbing e-mails would be a great direction to go with a site in your situation.

-Noah

[NovaPagina]

Also if your bounce rate isn't bad and your content quality is good you could also try mixing it up with some affiliate marketing but in my opinion grabbing emails like above posters suggested is a good solution.

[Fraggler]

If you plan on just using Adsense to monetize your site then you need to make sure the ads being shown are going to be clicked by the reader. The niche is irrelevant. All that matters are the ads being shown and whether they provide a solution to the searcher's problem.

If your content is providing the solution already then why would they click elsewhere? If you don't and the ads on the page don't then why would they click them?

The first scenario always leads to a lower than average CTR on my health niche sites. The second scenario can be solved by using an affiliate or optin form to take advantage of the fact that no one else is proving that solution. Give them what they want and they will often act on it.

If you want to stick to a purely Adsense business model then you will need to get a feel for which subjects in that niche keep the user click happy. One example is "health product coupons" or discount codes etc... Advertisers really make use of these opportunities and the searcher will keep looking and clicking until they found what they are after.

[Lakbay]

I think those two areas or niches has a high competition.