CTR Percentage

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I own a video game news/review site which gets daily around 500~1K UV.
I tried many ad formats with color blending but none improved my CTR.

Theme used: Premium Wordpress Theme | Ares
The only reason I bought the theme was for the slidebar and mobile compatibility.
In post adsense units and wrapping adsense units with text don't work/appear on this theme.

I tried 3 Ad formats (Using Text or Image or both):
Right Sidebar 300 * 250 Ad (Text/Image) + In Post 300 * 250 Ad (Text/Image) under featured image.
Right Sidebar 300 * 250 Ad (Text/Image) + In Post 480 * 60 Ad (Text/Image) under featured image.
Header 480*60 Ad (Text/Image) + Right Sidebar 300 * 250 Ad (Text/Image)

Do you think my niche has bad CTR? Or should I buy another premium theme?
If any reputated member wants to check URL and give advice please let me know.
#search engine optimization #ctr #percentage
  • Try do take the focus of the rest of the content to make to ads more visible.
    Make sure the ads are really relevant to the topic
    Split test, ad titles, colors and buttons etc, with 500 UV a day in 2 days you can test 3-4 ads easily
    • [1] reply
    • I did color blending, with same background and text colors.
      The only 2 In Post Ads I tried were:
      - 300*250 which will leave blank space since text wrapping doesn't work.
      - 480 * 60

      Skyscraper ads won't look good in post. I will try Square (250 x 250), or Half Banner (234x60) for 3 days.
  • I personally have found one format to work across all my sites which receives a combined CTR of 8-15%.

    I place a large rectangle (336x280) below the first paragraph of content - aligned to the left, a horizontal banner ad (468x60) at the bottom of my content (centered) and lastly I place a link unit in the sidebar - top right or below first menu!

    I also enable text/image ads on all ads across my sites as it increases CPC.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi liovvoil,

      I recommend that you edit your post to remove your CTR. Posting your CTR on a public forum is a major violation of AdSense's Terms of service and will likely result in your account being suspended and you personally being banned from the AdSense program.

      (See section 7. clause (b.) https://www.google.com/adsense/terms?hl=en_US )

      As far as getting text to wrap your ads, that is basic CSS, and you should easily be able to get that effect by adding a line or two in your style.css file. Get someone you know and trust, who knows a little about CSS to help you make that change.
  • Banned
    For me the sweet spot on the page is top/center or top/left.

    You also have to consider the page as a whole, are you loading the page up with distractions, colored images, etc... that draw attention away from the Ads?

    Keep in mind call to actions, what do you want the traffic to do? Traffic isn't good at guessing what you want them to do, you have to coach traffic down the path you want them to follow without saying click my Ad. As an example of coaching traffic, I run a 728 x 90 Ad top/center of my pages nothing on either side of the Ad, it's basically a road block as soon as the page loads, that Ad does very well in both CTR/CPC.

    Personally I only run text Ads because image Ads have always proven to be low performers, text Ads have always outperformed image Ads on my sites & these are sites/pages that only include a single content image per page (no competition between Image Ad or content image).
    • [1] reply
    • Do you wrap the rectangle with content?
      Also, what theme do you use?

      So little editing in CSS will allow the Ad Injection Plugin or any adsense plugin to work?

      Does any one know a good theme for news with slidebar (for featured images) and mobile compatibility?
      • [1] reply
  • Sweet spots for adsense (or any other) ads are in places like the capital letter E. 468x60 ad format sucks. The best ad formats are 300x250 and 336x280, placed in E shape.
  • You also have to look at your niche.

    I've tested HUNDREDS of layouts, sizes and found that the niche is 90% of Adsense CTR.

    If you have a buyer niche then you can get a decent CTR. But freebie seekers tend not to click on ads.
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    CTR Percentage

    I own a video game news/review site which gets daily around 500~1K UV. I tried many ad formats with color blending but none improved my CTR.