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Does A Website Template Have to Be Ugly to Have a High ClickThrough?

by BettyM
13 replies
How do you all balance beauty with CTR? Some in the forum have 10% CTR . . . some have .3%

I am testing various template designs. When I add a beautiful template with great graphics to a site the CTR goes down by as much as a third. However, my subscriber loyalty and traffic goes up. The traffic doesn't compensate for the loss of CTR.

I have often seen high click through templates while browsing but I would never subscribe or follow the author. Any suggestions for maintaining the fine balance of beauty vs CTR?
#clickthrough #high #template #ugly #website
  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    I would much rather have a loyal base, and a great list than to gain a couple bucks from a click. With a list you can be king!
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  • Profile picture of the author zaco
    Depends what you are looking for? there is a theory that says adsense sites shouldn't look so pretty because you want the user to find something related and leave by clicking.. when it comes to Amazon products I guess people will click if they like the review .. no matter what since they are looking for a specific product
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  • Profile picture of the author Ti
    Does A Website Template Have to Be Ugly to Have a High ClickThrough?
    Nope!

    Just make sure you understand the common "laws" that are well regarded and proven to contribute towards high conversions, versus things that will bleed your conversions.

    For example, do not include links to external resources. Limit the links to internal pages of your website. Both of those things introduce conversion bleeding.
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Evans
      You only need to find that rough "sweet spot" between useability and aesthetics.

      Many can fall shoort of the latter, but that's not to say your or anyone elses website needs to reflect it. It sometimes pays to break the mould.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dominis Marketing
    I appreciate the fact that you're asking your question after testing.
    Most people would just fire away without seeing what and what doesn't work.

    You said that when you enhanced the site, you retained loyalty while when you set it back the CTR returned, however, you didn't mention actual conversion. Did you earn more when it was ugly or when it was beautiful?

    The bottom line is more sales. It's the only thing worth quantifying. It's what directly affects the bottom line.
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  • Profile picture of the author yaheem
    No it doesn't have to be ugly, just reduce the distraction.

    Usually the beautiful themes have:
    1. too much graphics that distract the reader from your main purpose of building the site; conversion, and
    2. credit links and some other links that drain your PR.

    So it doesn't have to be ugly, but it has to be simple with no distractions.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    When I add a beautiful template with great graphics to a site the CTR goes down by as much as a third. However, my subscriber loyalty and traffic goes up.
    You will have to explain this "traffic" thing: before people come to your site they have NO idea what template is in use. How can the 'beauty' of an unknown page influence your traffic numbers? :confused:
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    • Profile picture of the author BettyM
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      You will have to explain this "traffic" thing: before people come to your site they have NO idea what template is in use. How can the 'beauty' of an unknown page influence your traffic numbers? :confused:
      Very true about traffic before arrival. After arrival is where I notice the difference.

      I had several blogs with minimal photos. I tweaked two to be more visually appealing with thumbnails next to menu items and left the other sites the same. Added photos on new posts going forward but the photos were not big on the summaries. Visitors and subscribers increased more on the beautiful sites but CTR declined.

      I took one of the under performing CTR beautiful sites. Did another version. Pictures for summariy listings on the homepage and categories are bigger (300 pixels wide) which looks even better. CTR is down further but more people return, click on more pages and stay on the site longer.

      It is interesting to test different looks. The results are not what I expected. Seems I will have to sacrifice a little of the beauty to get my CTR back. Hard to let go of the more beautiful look to do my next tests.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Terry
    Are you doing anything to capture the exit traffic from the version of your site that looks the best?

    They might not be clicking on as many links on your site but they do eventually leave.

    That gives you an opportunity to boost your CTR's by making a very clear offer to them when they go to leave your nice looking site.

    I hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author Guru_Marketing
    Originally Posted by BettyM View Post

    How do you all balance beauty with CTR? Some in the forum have 10% CTR . . . some have .3%

    I am testing various template designs. When I add a beautiful template with great graphics to a site the CTR goes down by as much as a third. However, my subscriber loyalty and traffic goes up. The traffic doesn't compensate for the loss of CTR.

    I have often seen high click through templates while browsing but I would never subscribe or follow the author. Any suggestions for maintaining the fine balance of beauty vs CTR?
    The "best" design is simple that does not distract the visitor from your message. All additional elements should be considered as "facilitators" to the message, not a distraction.
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  • Profile picture of the author yoangov
    I have noticed that lots of the new templates are quite too fashionable to have a high click trough rate. There are tons of templates optimized for high click trough rate and look decent. Just pick one of them and go ahead

    Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author DylanC
    Some ugly sites do well. But there are of course certain factors involved. Check out one of my post.

    3 Ugly But Incredibly Successful Sites | CashJournals of DylanC
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  • Profile picture of the author eugenedm
    Plain and simple sites that have been optimized would get the most traffic and if you're copywriting is compelling then the more CTR's you're likely to get.
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