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I need your opinions and expert advice... badly.

Discussion in 'Placement / Reviews / Examples' started by itsme, Jul 2, 2007.

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  1. #1
    Recently I’ve implemented a new theme to my wordpress blog.

    www.modernflat.com

    I was most concerned about addressing concerns of readability and usability of my website. The most important thing to me is that my website is clear and easy to read (and navigate).

    That being said, I’d like to add that AdSense revenue is a concern to me. While I am not willing to totally compromise readability/usability I do want to improve my CTR and am ready to try new placement/colors.

    Before the redesign my site had a large header graphic, more intense color and generally was much more “cluttered”, making it harder to read and probably was contributing to people clicking the ads (to go away). The ads were also colorful and randomly changed colors (selection of 4 designs).

    Since the new design, traffic is up noticeably and people are spending more time on the site, reading more pages... the design is a success, almost.

    CTR is down from 5% to 0.5% (maybe 1% at best). Even 5% was crap but I wasn't expecting it to go down! I thought maybe it was a bad day but it's not... over 1k pages served and only a couple of clicks... it's bad.

    That’s a major drop, I’m not happy. I wasn’t making a whole lot from AdSense but I was hoping this would HELP and not HURT my AdSense income!

    Please take a look and share your suggestions.
     
    itsme, Jul 2, 2007 IP
  2. trichnosis

    trichnosis Prominent Member

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    #2
    adsense placement looks good but you must use grey background for the adsense between blog posts
     
    trichnosis, Jul 2, 2007 IP
    itsme likes this.
  3. itsme

    itsme Well-Known Member

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    #3
    Thanks, I was wondering about the contrast between ads and content.

    It seems that by following the "blend the ads" school of thought I've reduced the CTR.

    What do you think about the ad units themselves?

    Should I keep the Large Rectangle or swap it for a combination of 2 smaller units? Has anyone tried this with successful results? If so, what ad blocks work best together?

    I'm sorry to be asking so many questions but I've already done some experimentation before posting but my changes don't have a lot of impact on the CTR... that's why I'd like to see what others suggest.

    Thanks again.
    Pete.
     
    itsme, Jul 3, 2007 IP