The better the website, the worse the CTR.

Stephen Root

11 years ago

Ugly sells

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allegandro 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Stephen Root

Ugly sells

Then why do we always see beautiful models at a car show?
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- Stephen Root 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by allegandro
  
  Then why do we always see beautiful models at a car show?
  
  That falls under "sex sells"
  
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  Curtis2011 11 years ago
  
  The same thing happened to me. I had a horrendously ugly website with Adsense on it that was getting around a 6-7% CTR consistently.
  
  Then I bought a custom template that looked very professional, and my CTR dropped down to like 1%.
  
  That was years ago and it took me a long time to realize why it happened.
  
  With Adsense, it seems like finding a professional-looking site that also has a high CTR is one of the biggest challenges there is. And you can't just completely ignore having a professional-looking site, since it really helps when you are trying to get other people to link to you.
  
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SEOtraveler

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Stephen Root

Ugly sells

So true! I believe the same works for banners. There's one ugly adwords banner I see everywhere for months. I assume it sells because the site owners don't bother changing it.

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by SEOtraveler

So true! I believe the same works for banners. There's one ugly adwords banner I see everywhere for months. I assume it sells because the site owners don't bother changing it.

That one is a very interesting thought.

Why would it work and a great looking one not?

When think about it, when a banner looks great and makes all clear what it is all about, I not have to click it, because I understand what they sell. But if it looks bad and I have no idea about what it is, then I have to click it, because I want to know.

Or is that not what you mean?

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SEOtraveler

11 years ago

Originally Posted by allegandro

That one is a very interesting thought.

Why would it work and a great looking one not?

When think about it, when a banner looks great and makes all clear what it is all about, I not have to click it, because I understand what they sell. But if it looks bad and I have no idea about what it is, then I have to click it, because I want to know.

Or is that not what you mean?

I dunno really. I think it's beyond clear and unclear. It just grabs your attention and you click - and you don't know why. But if you evaluate it from the design standpoint, it's a disaster: blinking read and green, ugly font and stuff.

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by SEOtraveler

I dunno really. I think it's beyond clear and unclear. It just grabs your attention and you click - and you don't know why. But if you evaluate it from the design standpoint, it's a disaster: blinking read and green, ugly font and stuff.

So in fact you feel if it's misplaced, and you don't understand what it is doing there, you feel the need to know what it is. Could be true.

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elperuanito

11 years ago

Yeah, that's pretty much the case with all of my Adsense sites. At first I was using decent looking templates. The minute I switched to Intellitheme by the Adsense Flippers I instantly saw a multiplier of x5 on those sites, some even more. It's a little annoying that the sites can't look good to bring in the cash but hey... I monetise my other sites with Amazon and other things.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by allegandro

Some years ago, I had a terrible looking automotive website, just some pages, well indexed and Google Adsense on the right place. Soon I had around 500 visitors and made 50-100$ a day without doing anything. All clicks from Adsense.

Then I made the mistake, I used the money to improve the website and attract more visitors and let them stay longer. Result 1.500 visitors a day who watched 6 pages in average instead of 1,6. But my Adsense income dropped down like crazy to les as 5$ a day.
At first I didn’t understand what went wrong, but later I did get it. My visitors found what they were looking for, and that is why they stopped clicking the Adsense ads.
So my advice if you have a MFA website, don’t make it to nice, make it very clickable.

On the other hand I've proven that an email list will (would) click Ads on multiple visits, while I was monetizing my Feedburner email list with Adsense directly inside the emails.

I'll take long term earnings over one hit wonders any day.

BTW, simple site layouts tend to have a better CTR because there's no distractions for traffic to deal with, focus on call to actions.

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

I'll take long term earnings over one hit wonders any day.

.

Absolutely true, but when you just start with Adsense the one day wonders are gold and make you smile every morning when you see the Adsense earnings before you go to work.

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jasonbrien

11 years ago

Originally Posted by allegandro

Absolutely true, but when you just start with Adsense the one day wonders are gold and make you smile every morning when you see the Adsense earnings before you go to work.

Yes, this is really true man. It makes me happy every morning.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by allegandro

Absolutely true, but when you just start with Adsense the one day wonders are gold and make you smile every morning when you see the Adsense earnings before you go to work.

Thing is, long term, If you focused on retaining that same MFA traffic at least have a Feedburner email list, you could generate more money than the one hit wonder Adsense clicks over the years.

Get the traffic on an email list, give them the content they want which automatically sends them a new email each time you create new content. Now you have that same traffic looking/clicking at your Adsense Ads for years instead of 10 seconds on a single MFA visit to your site.

If you don't deliver the content traffic wants, traffic will never return & you start at zero traffic every single day forever trying to keep new traffic flowing into your site, that's just spinning your wheels, when you could keep that same existing traffic returning to your site for years (more clicks).

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

If you don't deliver the content traffic wants, traffic will never return & you start at zero traffic every single day forever trying to keep new traffic flowing into your site, that's just spinning your wheels, when you could keep that same existing traffic returning to your site for years (more clicks).

That is absolutely true, that is why I prefer content websites over MFA websites. Let people come back, again and again.

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littlepandaman

11 years ago

Yep... very true... ugly sites work.

My sites are pretty ugly. Simple, but effective. Very FEW distractions, so the ads stand out -- they have to look at them, instead of them being stuck up in a corner.

I've never seen a CTR of 5% tho on an avg day. I'm happy with 2%...

I can't explain the psychology behind it.

Sometimes I think people click on the ads because they HAVE found what they wanted to find, in the case of my sites, when they click on my site they get the "answer" to their query very quick. Maybe that's the problem. I just figured quick answer should = click on something else, like an ad. Maybe not.

Very interesting thread, tho.

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by littlepandaman

I've never seen a CTR of 5% tho on an avg day. I'm happy with 2%...

In my Top times of MFA website my CTR was.... (Checking now and making a shot)

As you can see up to almost 78%, what you can also see, the website that I changed the most, dropped down to just 0,11%

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Klemen Znidar

11 years ago

It dosn't really have to be ugly. It can be simple yet modern looking. Just don't give people too much options to click on website except ads (:

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smith33122

11 years ago

I saw this on the forum (really ugly) http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...s-testing.html

Claims a click through rate of 21% much better than any of my sites - please note it is a wso and I am not an affiliate

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by smith33122

Claims a click through rate of 21% much better than any of my sites - please note it is a wso and I am not an affiliate

Some times you can be just lucky, I had 240.000 page views and a CTR of 28%, and with smaller views even more. It was the right website, at the right time, for the right visitors...

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smith33122

11 years ago

Originally Posted by allegandro

Some times you can be just lucky, I had 240.000 page views and a CTR of 28%, and with smaller views even more. It was the right website, at the right time, for the right visitors...

That is very cool - I really must be doing something wrong

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allegandro 11 years ago

Originally Posted by smith33122

That is very cool - I really must be doing something wrong

I don't believe in doing wrong, I believe in doing different. If you want send me your URL and I can have a quick look at it.
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The better the website, the worse the CTR.

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