I have content but poor CTR

Hi guys, thanks for taking a look at this thread.

I have a site (HappyHorror.com) where we blog about horror movies, books, games, etc. We've been up since 2006 with big patches of downtime in there and as of April 20th, relaunched and are posting daily. Google Analytics finally put our traffic from crummy 30/day to around 80/day now. Not much and I suspect some traffic's going uncounted, but I'm pleased it's at least at the level that it's at now.

I'm using WordPress with a plugin to insert the AdSense. We're making in the single digits per MONTH now, but I think we can do better. I've gotten good e-mail feedback on the articles and some have been reposted on blogs of people who MAKE the movies or write the books! I really feel Happy Horror can do better, but I don't know how to really get those click throughs.

I'd be wildly appreciative of any tips, as detailed as possible, please. I'm basically running mostly context-based ads for now for lack of knowing what to do. Let me know what you think we could do better!

 

First let me say I am not a professional at this. That being said, I have experimented with and SOME of the suggestions that I have received in this forum. Most have worked and some have not. For some reason the large rectangular ads do well I think 380 x 260. The square ads also do well 200x200. You have to use what works for your site or try to tweak your site around those sizes. People have said that WHITE is a huge plus for the background of ads. Your ads blend nicely with the blue that accents the rest of your site but try them in white with blue text. Keep us posted on your results.
all the best!!

tony;~)

 

Hi !

Try giving the Linkunit 728-15 at the top of page (below header image) also give Ad unit on rite side (160 x 600) but keep the background of Adunit/Link white, if it was my site i would Ad 160x600 Ad unit just below "Categories" on rite side by keep unit back white but i do Add "Round border" so it will not look like apart of my site so i will not go agianst Google TOS

 

I suggest you consider optimizing your ads. The color combination do not look good.

 

Mostly, I agree with the above, better colors, or a seperate integration of the ads would yeild better results, the colors they are now fail to please the eye, and don't entirely relate to the rest of the site around them.

 

OK! Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'm going to initiate the suggested changes tonight (and I'll be reporting the effects here just like kalta1 did in his thread).

For anyone who might know.. do you guys have any idea where I could get a plugin that would put the ads at the top of articles in WordPress (default template)? I'm not sure if I can do that or not.. I am going to try..

Off to institute these changes and will report back once they're in effect!

Thanks again

 

Hi GlowStormLion, I'm not saying that I'm an adsense expert, but based from my experience and other people's experience that I have heard of, 80 UVs a day doesn't really give you huge $$. 3% is already a high CTR, and with a maximum of 80 that would equate to no more than 3 clicks. And unless you are targeting a real high paying keyword, 3 clicks are just a few cents.

 

I don't see any ads showing, you must have just create a new one?

Under where it says 'google thinks' ? I'm not sure if that's accepted, I think only 'sponsored links' or 'advertisement' in text is allowed above the ads.

 

Okay, I got that link unit put into the header which worked like a charm (not sure WHY I didn't think to do that) and I changed the colors on the mid-page ad and added in the 160x600 skyscraper along the right hand side. I've not changed the size of the mid-way add.. Kalta do you think a 200x200 would be more appropriate there? I did make everything have a white background now, tho!

Let's see how she does!

 

Oh.. I thought I could say that 'Google Thinks' bit as a way of saying they were google links.. I can change that, though.. is really a bad idea? I thought we were NOT supposed to say "Sponsored links" or anything other than directly referencing google itself?

 

Like I said, I'm not totally sure. Have someone else on the forum or contact google to clarify. Or read over the TOS again haha.

 

You need to get more traffic. And the whole thing about sponsored links, I see a lot of good performing sites with "Sponsor" written with header tags over the adsense ads

 

I agree, we definitely do need more traffic! lol

I will change it to read "sponsor" however No sense causing a problem

 

Well, despite some changes no shift in CTR or improvement in earnings.. however, weekends are lower traffic for the site, so there's that. I'll try to keep this thread updated, though, maybe that way it'll benefit others.

 

Remember, if your content is truly good, then nobody will be clicking ads. They'll stay on your site...

 

That's a good point that I actually hadn't taken into serious consideration. According to Google Analytics the average surfer spends several minutes and looks through several pages. With all the strong incoming links hopefully it'll start to raise in the search engines eventually. We do put a good deal into the content to not just have cut/paste reviews or try to emulate IMDB or something.

Thanks for the compliment tho even if that might not've been how you meant it

 

An update... so far I've not had a day of no earnings via AdSense, but I must say it's still in the below a dollar range.. :/ The problem might be that my traffic's far too untargeted. That wouldn't surprise me because the site gets visits for the strangest keywords.. I'll keep working on things and if I make a break through, I'll post about it

Of course, the second I post this I go check AdSense and I've already made 5 times what I made in the last 2 days. lol Talk about hit or miss, eh?

 

Not sure if you can do this with Wordpress (I have never used it), But I would put a table under your header, the same width and about 20 pixels high and make it a black background, and maybe separate the table and header with a 1 pixel white line the same width.
Then place your link ad in the table, center it, and make the ad, white (or yellow) text on black background, black border.

Must point out that I am no AdSense expert either
I just think the link ad would look better blended with the header. and well, it may be worth a try.

As for the "Sponsored:" above the ad unit. Personally I think there is no need for it, Google already has "ads by Google" there anyway. but up to you.

80 visits a day? doesn't seem right. there looks like heaps of text on there, is it all unique? if it is, then I thought a site with that much content would be in the thousands of visitors per day..

Anyway, I hope it picks up for you.

Cheers
James

 

James,

Thanks for the great advice! I'm going to let this test run for a little while since I saw some results yesterday (nothing magical but a sharp increase, percentage-wise). But I will try yours because that makes good sense to me.

And yep, 80 visitors is the MOST Analytics has EVER admitted to us having which is totally confusing. There are something like 170 posts, most quite long with pictures in them, all 100% unique hand-written (non-SEO'd content). The WordPress plugin I use said yesterday we got 2,400 uniques on a variety of relevant search terms (granted some of that from non-English speaking countries in case that matters, but we translate as best we can) and Analytics? They say we got 63 uniques.... how bizarre, right?

Oh, and in case it helps we've been up solid since 2006 (with long lapses in posting, but still a ton of backlinks and a PR 3)... my only guess is that we're not very well SEO'd and we don't target a niche within horror, we hit the whole thing because the site was built on what we care about, not purely for traffic.

Hope that helps explain it better Still confuses the hell outta me!

 

Replace the Link ad units from the top with content ads and see the difference. Also, one of your square blocks has too many colors. That puts off people to click against it. keep it simple and use homegenous and blending colors.

Thanks