Adsense Tips: 10 Ways to Improve Click Through Rates
So you've started a new website. Put up some ads and now your just waiting for everyone who visits your site to click your ads like crazy and make you a lot of money. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Most people ignore ads entirely, but there are things you can do to increase click through rates. These tips are not only great for those who are new to the world of PPC ads but also people with established sites just looking to make more money.
Before you start, Make Sure Your using Google Adsense
These tips will work for all pay per click ad providers. But, Google Adsense is the best and will make you the most money. Google ads are much more relevant than most PPC ad providers. This means that people will see ads for what they are actively pursuing at your site and will be much more likely to click them. Also people generally trust Google not to send them to irrelevant pages. If you do not have Google Adsense, get it. If you have previously applied for Adsense and have been denied you should really consider changing what they found objectionable and re-applying, its worth it. You can sign up for Adsense from my site at the bottom of this article.
1.) Text Ads Only!
Way back when the internet first started image ads were an effective marketing technique. Since then almost everyone has figured out that they usually aren't worth clicking, and thus click through rates on image ads have dropped drastically. For some reason people prefer text ads. When setting up your Adsense codes make sure to select "Text ads Only".
2.) Diversify Your Content
One of the best ways to improve your click through rates is to diversify your content. Adsense works best on sites with many different pages covering many different keywords. So that when a visitor comes to your site there is a whole spectrum of ads that may catch their interest.
3.) Remove Visual Borders
You should make your ad background color, and border color the same as the background color for your content. There should be no lines, borders, or change of color between the background of your ads and the background of your content. That just screams "THESE ARE ADS, DON'T BOTHER LOOKING HERE!" Sure, when your visitors read them they will know they are ads, but at least they will be reading them and more likely to find one of interest.
Now that we've covered type and setup of your ads lets move on to placement. Remember with Adsense you only get 3 ad units per page, so use them wisely.
4.) Frame Your Content
What this means is that you should use your ads as a border for your content. Use a leaderboard for the top and a wide skyscraper for the side. That way anytime a visitor goes to read your content they will have to look over your ads. When it comes to ads bigger is better, always pick the wide skyscraper and the longest leader board over more compact units. You should only use two ad units to frame your content because with Adsense you are only allowed three ad units on each page and your third ad unit can be better spent.
5.) Left Side Ads, Right Side Site-Map
A lot of times people will have their site-map on the left, their ads on the right, and their content in the middle. This is a bad idea when trying to improve click through rates because the left side is the first thing visitors see when they visit your site. If you make your left table your ads you will likely get more clicks because thats what people will see first, and your site will still be equally navigable.
6.) Focal Point Placement
Ad placement is critical. Aside from the obvious choices of the skyscraper on the left and the leaderboard on the top. You should choose your third ad unit wisely. Each site is different, and has different focal points. Only you know where your focal point is, that's where you place your ads.
For example: right next to a login box.
7.) Disguise Your Ads
Now this doesn't mean that you should try to remove or hide the "Ads by Google" logo. What this means is that you should place your ad unit within your content. The square ads work best for this. Put the ads directly above your content and try to format your content to resemble the ads as closely as possible. You should not try to substitute ads for content, because a it's a really dumb thing to do. You need a decent amount of content and ads are no substitute. Your visitors aren't stupid and if they realize that you are trying to substitute ads for content they will leave and not come back.
8.) Link Unit at the Top of Your Site-Map
For some sites its a good idea to place a link unit at the top of your site-map. Like all ad units you want the to resemble your content as much as possible. Remember, don't format your ads to resemble your site, format your site to resemble your ads.
9.) Test Different Setups
If you're smart you're using Adsense custom channels to track the performance of your ad units. If you see that an ad unit isn't getting a lot of clicks, its time to move it. Shuffle your ads around until you find the combination that yields the highest click through rates.
10.) Check out the Free Web-Master Tools Section of the Freebie Archive
Sign up for Google Adsense. Also, There you will find tons of tools designed to help your sites PageRank and traffic. Tools like free back link builders, free robots.txt generators, free meta tag generators, free XML site-map generators, free e-book downloads, and much more! You will also find sections for free JavaScripts, free PHP scripts, free graphics and more!
Freebie Archive - Freebies include no hassle daily giveaways
available to everyone, free downloads, fun freebies, webmaster freebies, free java and php scripts,
free money making sites, free cell phone downloads, free PDA downloads, and more!
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