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Increase CTR for my programming articles site

by pons_saravanan
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Increase CTR for my programming articles site
I would like to increase my sites CTR. I tried few tips but the improvement is very little.

1) WebSite is [see links in signature]
2) Daily visits are around 150-200 in weekdays (~100 on weekends)
3) CTR is roughly less than 1%(some days i am not getting a single click)

I have three ad sense ads in my site
1) Inline,
2) Horizontal bar at top,
3) Vertical bar at left

What I have tried to improve CTR
1) Placed an image next to inline ad
2) Tried blending with the content
3) Changed the anchors color to synchronize with other internal links of my site
4) Tried the various font size for the advertisements
5) i have changed the font color to dark red but no clicks at all few days i have monitored and reverted back today.

I feel i am doing something wrong. Please review and advise. Thanks in advance
#articles #ctr #increase #programming #site
  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Programmers are tech savvy and are unlikely to click ads. Most run ad blockers and strongly dislike online advertising. Along with other online marketers they're one of the toughest audiences.

    Secondly, they're searching out your site for the information they hope it provides, not for buying a particular good or service. This means you're bringing in poorly targeted traffic.

    The best thing for you to do is to find a different niche if you want to make money. Do this by finding a less tech savvy audience that isn't online advertising adverse and by targeting buyers, not information seekers.
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    • Profile picture of the author pons_saravanan
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

      Programmers are tech savvy and are unlikely to click ads. Most run ad blockers and strongly dislike online advertising. Along with other online marketers they're one of the toughest audiences.

      Secondly, they're searching out your site for the information they hope it provides, not for buying a particular good or service. This means you're bringing in poorly targeted traffic.

      The best thing for you to do is to find a different niche if you want to make money. Do this by finding a less tech savvy audience that isn't online advertising adverse and by targeting buyers, not information seekers.
      excellent advice, and is there any way can i get some income based on page views or any other alternatives than adsense.

      BTW, my niche is very competetive and there are lots of websites with thousands of articles. I wonder how they are earning from these sites.
      thank you
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      • Profile picture of the author ripsnorta2
        Originally Posted by pons_saravanan View Post

        excellent advice, and is there any way can i get some income based on page views or any other alternatives than adsense.

        BTW, my niche is very competetive and there are lots of websites with thousands of articles. I wonder how they are earning from these sites.
        thank you
        I'm not sure that programmers hate advertising. I think it's that they would prefer a much tighter targeting of the ads. It's annoying to go to a programming site and see a completely unrelated set of adverts.

        Your best bet is to have highly targeted adverts on your site that meet the needs of the programmers who visit. Adsense unfortunately doesn't really let you get that targeted but allows anyone targeting a particular keyword to get an ad on your site.

        The best way that to find suitable products to promote is by having a look at some of the big long-established sites that match what your website is doing. (ie. your competitors.)

        For instance codeproject.com is a very Windows C/C++/C# development oriented site. They always seem to advertise highly respected tools and libraries that match that style of development. You won't see too much in the way of Linux (for example) development tools advertised there.

        I advise:
        1. Making a list of products with affiliate programs from sites that match your demographic.
        2. Create or find a plugin for your blog that allows you to create and manage these ads from your control panel. The plugin must absolutely not use Javascript or Flash to present the ad. It should create the ad dynamically as part of the page content. (This will thwart the adblocker software.)
        3. Once you have your ads up, try and get a heatmap working and see what draws your visitors attention. Use that to refine your product choices.
        4. Put up a poll asking marketing questions that are designed as technical questions. Use that info to figure out what your readers want.
        5. Consider writing your own software library or development tool that you can market from your website.
        You are also right in that it is a highly competitive area. But programmers (like me) are always searching for solutions for hard to fix or obscure problems. The biggest hurdle I find is doing a search and finding 20 sites on the main page that are all the same ten year old Usenet thread.

        If you can provide unique updated content on some of the issues discussed on these threads, you might find they rank pretty well. Search volume is another matter though.
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        Codeboss -- Useful Software Tailored For Your Business

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        • Profile picture of the author pons_saravanan
          Originally Posted by ripsnorta2 View Post

          I'm not sure that programmers hate advertising. I think it's that they would prefer a much tighter targeting of the ads. It's annoying to go to a programming site and see a completely unrelated set of adverts.

          Your best bet is to have highly targeted adverts on your site that meet the needs of the programmers who visit. Adsense unfortunately doesn't really let you get that targeted but allows anyone targeting a particular keyword to get an ad on your site.

          The best way that to find suitable products to promote is by having a look at some of the big long-established sites that match what your website is doing. (ie. your competitors.)

          For instance codeproject.com is a very Windows C/C++/C# development oriented site. They always seem to advertise highly respected tools and libraries that match that style of development. You won't see too much in the way of Linux (for example) development tools advertised there.



          I advise:
          1. Making a list of products with affiliate programs from sites that match your demographic.
          2. Create or find a plugin for your blog that allows you to create and manage these ads from your control panel. The plugin must absolutely not use Javascript or Flash to present the ad. It should create the ad dynamically as part of the page content. (This will thwart the adblocker software.)
          3. Once you have your ads up, try and get a heatmap working and see what draws your visitors attention. Use that to refine your product choices.
          4. Put up a poll asking marketing questions that are designed as technical questions. Use that info to figure out what your readers want.
          5. Consider writing your own software library or development tool that you can market from your website.
          You are also right in that it is a highly competitive area. But programmers (like me) are always searching for solutions for hard to fix or obscure problems. The biggest hurdle I find is doing a search and finding 20 sites on the main page that are all the same ten year old Usenet thread.

          If you can provide unique updated content on some of the issues discussed on these threads, you might find they rank pretty well. Search volume is another matter though.
          Thank you very much,
          This is the reply I was expecting.

          I too thought that adsense is not capable of giving attractive advertisements by texts. Mostly it is irrelevant. If it is relevant then it(adsense advertisement text) may not be attractive enough to entice the users to go through the advertisements

          My website is fully customized based on my requirement. So I can do what ever changes regarding advertisements if it is going to bring me something. Your advice regarding the JavaScript and flash is excellent, now I need to look for some advertising companies.

          Actually the advertisements location, font family, font size are, font color. Currently experimented up to my level and getting optimized results.

          But what I have not experimented is changing the entire design of the site to attract the user to target. if you have some time, can you please find the theme selector at the end of the page and review them. I have three separate themes that can be changed to current session only.

          I strongly believe I need to improve the current theme.
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          • Profile picture of the author pons_saravanan
            Hi experts

            It got improved after i moved my inline advertisement near to the source code in the articles.

            But suddenly after yesterday i have not even get a single click for 250 visits.

            Besides the above discussed in the current thread, can there be any improvement possible for my site?

            [my site is in the signature]

            i have changed few changes in the page as well. Any comments regarding adsense, page format are welcome.

            thanks in advance.
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            • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
              Originally Posted by pons_saravanan View Post

              But suddenly after yesterday i have not even get a single click for 250 visits.
              I have a programming site, one of my oldest ones, that gets between 800-1200 unique visitors a day. What you're seeing is typical. To make more and consistent Adsense money you'll have to greatly increase your traffic to somewhere in the 10K uniques a day. You'll need this level of traffic to begin to qualify for higher paying banner advertising offers like you see on the larger programming sites as well.

              Or, you can do what I did, build other niche sites that are targeted toward buyers, not information seekers.
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              • Profile picture of the author pons_saravanan
                That means i may not be able to fetch some decent money from adsense for programming articles related pages even if it goes 1K daily visits.

                so no other choice than going to other niches or i need to find a way like ripsnorta2 said.
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