To Blend Or Not To Blend?

I've read conflicting things here and elseware about how some feel you should blend your ads in with the surrounding text color, link color, etc so that the ads do not appear to look like "ads".

There are also those who feel that the ads need to draw attention to them in order to be noticed and recieve clicks. This is what I have been told about my site. People have told me that the reason I am not recieving many clicks per day is because my ads blend in too much with my page colors (link colors, text color and background color).

So which is it? Make them noticeable or make them blend in for best CTR?

URL is motivation4life.com

another page from my site

 

Motivator

You get conflicting "things" here because it is far from an exact science and no one KNOWS the answers. There is no substitute for trial and error over a reasonable length of time.

"General" concensus is in favour of blending but I have sites where ads that "stand out" work better. This can even vary from page to page let alone site to site.

Don't "assume" blending is better! For example look no further than the top of the page you are reading on DP. Shawn at DP is no fool and he uses "stand out" ads at the top of each page.

As I said there is no "right or wrong" answer - every page and site and topic will be different - you just have to put in the legwork. Use chanels to run trials and give each option a week or so. Keep accurate records.

Its a grind but worth it.

 

I think on your site, since your ads are in a sidebar, it's easy for the user to ignore that whole section. I would either blend some ads into the main content area or make the left nav ads stand out more. You could also try placing small images next to the ads for better CT.

 

Change the colors of your website ...

 

Thanks for the replies so far people. Keep 'em coming! I'm trying to get a consensus of what most people think about it upon first glance.