"Accidentally" discovered Adsense idea / layout ??

In the last few months, I've been branching out with my Adsense sites, experimenting a little bit with layouts, colors, etc., and I think I stumbled onto something.

(FWIW, I've not been able to get anywhere near the CTR's using Adsense on Wordpress than I have with static sites, and I think that's because of doing 'extreme' static layouts, vs. Adsense themes.)

The layout that had been most successful for me was: header graphic, left nav menu, main panel showing page/article title, then adsense rectangle on top left, next to the article beginning, and a second rectangle mid-way through, right-justified with text flowing around it.

I had been setting up sites by creating this basic layout (using Xsitepro). Once I had my domain name, I would write or outsource an initial 10 or 20 articles, take my layout "template", paste in the articles, and upload it along with a sitemap.

The idea was, get the site up and being indexed sooner rather than later, while I had a header graphic and more articles outsourced.

Here's the thing - One of these sites was 'forgotten', and stayed as-is, meaning I never got to having a header created, and I never 'placed' the Adsense blocks. What the 'default template' consisted of was simply a solid rectangle for the header, with the niche or domain name in large block letters on the rectangle. Also, the two Adsense blocks were at the top of the page (right under the header & page title), with the article text pasted below it.

So somebody going to the site saw a page with just a solid block header showing the site name in large plain text. Below that was the page title as H1 text. Then, just Adsense blocks above the fold. You didn't even see the article unless you scrolled.

Amazingly, my CTR hovered around 40%, sometimes as high as 75%!

Here's my 'theory', and why I think I 'stumbled' onto something.

First, of course, you would only get to the site by either searching on a keyword phrase or clicking an article. In other words, you would have to have been looking for specific information.

Then, when you got to the site, you saw the keyword phrase you were interested in, followed by Adsense links.

I think the lack of a 'real' header, along with the ads being the only thing you saw - except a very plain nav menu on the left, significantly increased the liklihood of a click. There was no distraction at all from a header graphic, and no text unless you scrolled. In effect, you followed your query and were presented with these ad links showing exactly what you were looking for. And there was no other obvious action to take, except click once more to get to your info.

It may not sound like a big deal, but I think the combination of an ultra-plain "utilitarian" header, plus ads directly under the keyword phrase with nothing else, boosted my CTR by almost 50%.

I'd be very interested in hearing what you all think, especially anyone who has experimented with 'minimal distraction' layouts.

Mark