Low CTR, can you help?

Hi Folks,

I'm having trouble increasing the CTR rate on one of my sites. Majority of my sites are receiving low traffic, but with a good CTR.

The site I'm having a problem has half decent traffic, but I can't get the CTR to improve. I know it's partly due to the fact that the site is a collection of items that people only visit to grab a copy and run. It's not a site that people would be just passing through.

I've tested various placement of ads, but if you have any suggestions I could try those as well.

Currently I'm getting less than 1% CTR.

Site: UShibby - Facebook Fun

Thanks!

~Shannon

 

Hi Shannon, try putting the ads on the left side, instead of the right side, also make the links all the same color, (blue) Including your navigation links. Doing these things helped get my site up to about 40% CTR. $$$

 

Thanks, I'll give it a try. So put the navigation on the right and the ads on the left and modify the ad colors.

 

I just changed my advertiser so the site is going to alternate between two ad networks.

If you visit the site to give me tips on ad placement for adsense take into account the other adnetwork as well as their ads will also be text ads just like adsense.

Thanks,
~Shannon

 

Visitors are conditioned to take action by clicking blue underlined links - so that's what you need to give them. My first reaction on viewing your page was 'where are the ads? Oh yes, there they are' - ie I had to make an effort to find them. It's only a tiny momentary mental readjustment - but in that split second, you may have lost the click! Trouble is, your colored navbar backgrounds make it hard to implement this strategy. Why not try serving an adblock against white inside the top post?

 

I've been playing around with colors and different types of ads. I tested with ads on the post itself with it above the post, with it after the post. Right now I have the google ad on the left based on a suggestion I received a while back to have it next to the navigation in the same colors.

I understand that people are conditioned to know that blue underlined means a link. I tested with this for a while as well and didn't see any noticeable improvement in click through and it just looked awful on the design.

I'll have to rearrange the ads so they are more in your face, but not intrusive. I'll probably try putting them back in the center and play around with it for a bit. I'm going to switch my navigation and ads as well so the ads on the left and the navigation is on the right as ronmojohny suggested.

Thanks for the suggestions.

~Shannon

 

add an ads unit between your blog posts.

i hope you will get a good ctr from that one

 

Obviously you get low CTR because you concentrated on putting 2 adsense ads on the right, instead of spreading one to the left, and another to the right.
Also, if you haven't noticed - you have an extra ad space that you can use, which you don't use. I'd say putting a large box ad above your posts would do you good.
Don't forget blending it with the background aswell as same link colors!

 

I moved the ad unit to the left and swapped it out based on a suggestion. I had an ad unit in the center but didn't receive any noticeable increase. I'll add it again and see what happens.

I've tested various things, but nothing seemed to produce any noticeable difference which is strange. I've had ads on both side, in the middle (above/below post), on the top (letterhead), etc. I'll keep playing around with it and see what works out.

~Shannon

p.s. I even tried porn on it for a bit and didn't get any clicks on that either! lol