Incredibly low CTR...please help

10 replies
  • SEO
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I have this small blog that provides hint words and solutions for online and mobile games, and it gets a good amount of visitors (about 900 unique visitors per day).

In my opinion the ads are perfectly placed:

- there is one 300x250 right on top of the page
- a 300x600 skyscraper on the middle of the page
- a 468x60 horizontal banner right below the articles
- and another 300x250 at the bottom of the page

So there is practically an ad anywhere on the page, no matter if the visitor scrolls all the way down or not. Yet I have an incredibly small overall CTR of just 0.12% . The best converting ad is the 468x60 banner below the articles, which has a CTR of around 0,30%

Do you guys have any suggestions on how can I improve my CTR? I'm sure that with this amount of visitors I can make much more than i'm making right now...

P.S: I've tried to change the 468x60 with a 300x250, yet the CTR was pretty much the same (slightly lower)
#adsense #ctr #incredibly #low
  • Profile picture of the author squadron
    Originally Posted by Rhadoo7 View Post

    I have this small blog ...
    Do you guys have any suggestions on how can I improve my CTR?
    Run it for a week or so with less posts Try 1 or 2), on the home page. You have a lot of blank space there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rhadoo7
      Originally Posted by squadron View Post

      Run it for a week or so with less posts Try 1 or 2), on the home page. You have a lot of blank space there.
      I forgot to mention that all visitors come from Google searches, and they land straight on articles, not on the home page.

      But thanks for the suggestion...any other ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author Rehmat
    You're running two ads in sidebar that's the worst placement according to my experiments. The positions, which have been performing best for me, are an ad within post content near top (float it either right or left), an ad just below article (you already have this) and another one above post title or in header section.
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    • Profile picture of the author AdamJ85
      Two of your ads are in the sidebar, which as Rehmat says, is not usually a strong position.

      Another ad is in the footer, which is very unlikely to perform well as most people won't scroll down that far (or if they do, they probably won't look much below the end of the article).

      You need your ads to be higher up the page and be in and around the content.

      Also, have you tested colours? You're currently using the standard Adsense colours, which screams Google ad to any visitors... Try different colour combinations to blend the ads more with the rest of your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author MattBrighton
    Try putting an ad unit actually in your content. Put a square unit that is either left or right aligned right at the top of your content, also try putting it half way through the posts.

    Like where the red box is
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    • Profile picture of the author Rhadoo7
      Thanks for the tips, guys! I will definitely add an ad unit right above the article title, and I will change the colors.

      Originally Posted by MattBrighton View Post

      Try putting an ad unit actually in your content. Put a square unit that is either left or right aligned right at the top of your content, also try putting it half way through the posts.

      Like where the red box is
      Do you know how can I implement ads in the content, considering that I work on Blogger?

      Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    Did you try with In-Content ads? Try to make them look REAL. Also, does your website get visitors from GOOD keywords?
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  • Profile picture of the author ONE SEO
    You do know that 95% of the net traffic is now bots, so take your 900 uniques, it's 45 humans, and humans are not hitting ads anymore, banners are done with.

    We had banners that pulled 33% CTR on top of busy sites in 1997, then by 2005 they were 10%, now they're 1% and these are IN YOUR FACE ADS that anyone should be interested in.

    Just think you can buy a term on G via PPC, and if you hit 3% CTR for a top of page ad, it's a big deal to google and the advertiser, since most top of page ppc is now less than .5% CTR.

    So there's an ad right on top of the top SE and if you get 3% you're a genius.

    .5% is normal and once you hit sites like LI or FB CTR drops to .05% rates

    So .12% you're doing better than FB or LI

    In fact you should be working for FB or LI showing them how to get double their normal CTR rates
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    • Profile picture of the author Rehmat
      Originally Posted by ONE SEO View Post

      You do know that 95% of the net traffic is now bots, so take your 900 uniques, it's 45 humans,
      45 humans :p , nice joke. Your stats are horribly distracting. If you have worthy content with quality links, the stats will be pretty cool
      and humans are not hitting ads anymore,
      They do.

      We had banners that pulled 33% CTR on top of busy sites in 1997, then by 2005 they were 10%, now they're 1% and these are IN YOUR FACE ADS that anyone should be interested in.
      Some of my sites still bring around 10% CTR. All you need to do is a perfect placement of ads on a well established site under an AdSense friendly niche.
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      • Profile picture of the author AdamJ85
        Yes, please ignore everything "ONE SEO" just said. It's all nonsense.
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