How to Increase your Adsense CTR

In my last post I talked about how to optimize your blog for better paying Adsense ads. If you are just joining us you can read that post here; Optimization Tips for Adsense. Today I want to discuss how you can increase your CTR (Click Through Rate) regarding those same Adsense ads. Keep in mind that I will only be discussing white hat methods as I don't want my readers getting into trouble using various black hat techniques that can be found elsewhere.

First we have to step back and take a look at the platform you are using. If you are a fan of wordpress then my tips may or may not be appropriate in some instances. I am not an expert on wordpress by any means. However I am aware that there are plug ins available to block Adsense ads from appearing on blogs when traffic is obtained through social channels as opposed to search engines. This is important as it will allow you to use Adsense on a blog not necessarily built as an Adsense site. This points back to my last post in which I explained the pitfalls of using Adsense on a site that has mostly social traffic. Ideally you should build a blog specifically for Adsense but as most of you are trying to use it on a blog designed for gaining readership I will try to accommodate you as well. If you are using Wordpress and have a social blog then it would be a good idea to use the plug in for blocking the ads from your readership. If I wasn't so lazy I would look up the name but I'm sure you Wordpress users can find it without too much trouble.

The whole idea when using Adsense is to get people to click your ads. The thing is you are not allowed to encourage people to click on them - doing so can result in you losing your account with Google. So how do you achieve this safely?

The first thing you want to do is eliminate all exit points. By this I mean you want to restrict the options your visitors have of leaving your site. Ideally there should only be two. They can back out (or close the tab) or they can click the ad. In reality you will have to ad a few more bells and whistles just for appearances.

The second thing you want to do is give them a reason to click the ad. This can be done using your content or it can be done by being so ugly that they don't even bother reading your content. Neither case involves using spammy content - doing so can also result in having your account banned.

Note: You are not allowed to create a site JUST for the purpose of making money with Adsense. This can also get your account banned. This is the reason you may have to add a few bells and whistles to your site in order to make it appear as something other than an Adsense site.

Here's the catch 22 - the more you disguise the fact that your site is built for Adsense the less effective it becomes. The more it looks like a "just for Adsense" site the more effective it becomes. The trick is finding a middle ground that doesn't get you banned but still gets you lots of clicks.

The safest way to use Adsense is to just slap it on your real blog - you know the one I mean - that pretty Wordpress blog you started in order to become the next A-Lister. The problem, as I'm sure you are all aware by now, is that while this is safe you don't make any money. You have all the wrong traffic, all the wrong ads and you have Adsense tucked away in a corner somewhere because it's kinda ugly and you don't want to scare away your readers. Every time I read a comment that bemoans the fact that "Adsense sucks" and "I only make $5 a month" I can follow the commenter back to his or her pretty little social blog and see exactly why they aren't making money with it.

If you want to make money with Adsense then you have to build your blog around it and only it. In essence you slap a blog on it rather than slap it on a blog.

Let's talk about Blogger. It's Ugly - It's simple to use - It's Free - and it ranks well in the serp's because it is perfectly optimized for SEO right out of the box. The best thing about Wordpress is that it creates Wordpress snobs and this in turn makes it even easier to make money with Blogger. I have always stated that you can't make money from social traffic. Well that is not entirely true. This blog is an anomaly - it was built for Adsense and affiliate sales but has kind of morphed into a social blog. The thing is I haven't added all the niceties of a social blog. It is still ugly as hell and because of that and the prevalence of Wordpress snobs I make the most money on days when my readers link to me and send their readers this way. Guess what - a lot of your readers get here - take a quick look - mutter to themselves "what the hell is this - a crappy Blogger blog - what could I learn here? Hey what's this ad about?" Click. I shit you not. Since I have become better known I have been getting more and more links (thank you all btw.) and my earnings have increased because of the prevailing snobbery. I have been fortunate that most of you use the term "make money" in your links and as such your readers appear to Google as targeted traffic because they leave the proper trail when finding my site. (see last post). Now obviously this wasn't something I had planned and couldn't duplicate it again but thought it was worth mentioning - just when you think you know everything you get a surprise every now and then.

The point however is that the prevalence of Wordpress blogs has set a standard of what is expected online these days. Not just what other bloggers expect but the general civilian traffic that is searching for shoes and digital cameras and whatever else strikes their fancy. Everyone is accustomed to seeing nice looking layouts. This means even a civilian can spot an ugly blog from a mile away. Guess what - they do the same thing your readers do - take one look and think to themselves that this crappy looking site can't have what I want and leave. The thing is that if they were looking for info on a digital camera and happen to see a big ad for the camera right in front of their face as they decide to leave then they will click the ad.

There is a reason for that big ugly ad sitting up top right under my blog Title. Anyone who doesn't want to read my content has only two choices - back out or click the ad. The majority back out - 7% click the ad. If I want more money then I just increase my traffic. I can increase traffic by targeting more keywords and ranking well for them. I'm currently on page 1 on Google for more than 50 keywords. In another year I should have page 1 ranking for another 50 and my Adsense earnings will double. In ten years I'll be ranking for hundreds of keywords and my Adsense earnings will be silly...

If I had a nice looking blog I guarantee I would have a much higher RSS subscriber count and much lower Adsense earnings.

The best part of using Blogger is that it does the dirty work for you. You don't have to use any black hat tricks to get people to click your ads. It causes people to click out by it's sheer ugliness and Google can not penalize you for encouraging people to click the ads - they own Blogger. It's ugly and it's Google's fault - not mine.

Ad Placement

If you set up a new blog then by all means try out every type of ad and location. When you are done playing just put the big ad block like you see on top of this blog in the same spot on yours. This is the best performing ad and placement. Don't try and meld it into your text. Don't put the post title above it. Don't try to hide it in any way. Just have it sitting there getting in your visitors face. You are trying to make money with Adsense. You are not trying to get repeat customers or long term readers. Make the ad as obvious as you can so that there is no way a visitor can miss it. They will either leave or click it. That's all you care about. If you only get a 1% CTR then get more traffic. Don't over think this or try and get too clever.

I blend the ad in with my color scheme. This is a good idea because it will still be ugly but it will look less like an amateur put the blog together. This may sound funny but there is a fine line between looking ugly and looking like you don't know what you are doing. Ugly is fine but if your site looks like it is abandoned or half built or poorly designed you won't get any clicks at all. I know this doesn't seem to make sense but you can design an ugly site that still looks professional. This blog is plain but it is designed well for it's purpose. If I had orange text in the ads with a bright red border around the ad block it would certainly stand out but it would drive everyone to close the tab and move on. I can't explain this any better - there are just certain triggers we all have that motivates us and color and appropriateness are two such triggers. An orange text with red border ad wouldn't be appropriate and everyone would know that and leave.

A favorite black hat trick is to use a black background with neon colors in the text. This makes a post very hard to read and drives people to click out or hit an ad by mistake. Yes it works but aside from getting banned you will find that you need a lot of traffic because the CTR is very low.

I have found that you get better results by using the most reader friendly colors. Black text on a white background. This is what everyone is used too. This is what we see when reading a book. It doesn't repel anyone. The color blue is the most effective color for highlighting Titles and Headers and anything else you want to stand out. This may be because Google trained everybody to accept this or because some study long ago showed that it is the most appealing color to most people. I can't remember the study but it would be from the same people who received gobs of grant money to find out that the number 7 is the most liked number. Hence the price you see for every product sold online $7, $27, $47, $127 etc. Whether all this is true or not I can't say. I do know that the color scheme you see on this page has been the most effective for me.

Content

Content is very important. You need real original content for a number of reasons. First of all you don't want to get banned for having a spammy Adsense blog. If you don't provide useful information then you will run this risk.

The most important thing about content is this is how you get optimized for the keywords you are targeting. Your post titles and headers play the biggest role in getting the ads you want and your posts play the biggest role in getting ranked in the serp's for those keywords.

Use your main keyword in the URL, Blog Title, Post Titles and Headers. Use as many related long tail keywords as you can in your posts. If you write extremely large posts then you will give Google a lot more text to draw keyword phrases from. The more phrases you give them the more chances you have at ranking highly for obscure terms and less competitive keywords. This will be how you first get search engine traffic. In time as you build backlinks for your main keywords you will see your traffic increase.

I have joked in the past that I write really long posts in hopes of driving the reader away out of frustration or boredom - hopefully clicking an ad on the way out. This doesn't really work of course - at least not in any discernible way. I write long posts for the serp's and to increase traffic. My main goal is to have people leave or click out before they ever get to the content.

Should this fail then your content becomes your second wave of attack. Aside from using it to increase your rankings you should structure it in such a way as too provide the reader with just enough information but not too much. If your niche is about "Toilets" then write your posts about the toilets that show up in your ads. Which toilet is sturdier, looks better, has the best warranty, is the most eco-friendly etc. Give them lots of info regarding toilets and maybe suggest the best brand in your opinion is the one that happens to pay the best CPC. Don't give details on where to buy one or the price for example. Leave the reader wanting to know these details. Presell your ads and the reader will likely click on the toilet ad for the brand you mentioned in order to find those remaining details.

How you write your content will differ depending on the niche you pick. I can't give you a step by step system that will work for everything. What I am telling you is how I optimize for Adsense in a very general way. Once you have decided on a niche then you will have to tweak it to suit the niche. Some topics are impossible to write long rambling posts about. I might be able to squeeze out a few epics about toilets but I would be hard pressed to write an opus on the subject of "Carp Recipes". I wouldn't have to though - I could find a hundred short recipes and use each one for a post - optimizing "Carp" and "Recipe" in each post. If I was doing recipes I would be sure to mention that the best recipe book I have seen for cooking Carp is the one that just happens to be showing up in my top ad block. Of course mentioning the book would also cause G to present the ad if I knew it existed and it wasn't being shown. The Chicken or the Egg?

No two niches will be the same but this is where you have to get creative. The better you are at thinking outside the box the more successful you will be. Experiment all the time. You may think you have the best ads. Try different post titles and see what other ads get displayed. You may find that a different ad doesn't pay as much but gets clicked 10 times more than the high paying one. If given a choice always take the more popular ad - it will make you more in the long run.

Pay close attention to your keyword stats - the section in your stat counter that tells you what keywords someone used to find your site. You may find that no one is looking for "Carp Recipes" but several people found your site looking for "How to Clean a Carp". You just happened to use the term in one of your posts. You have now found a keyword phrase that gets traffic that you hadn't optimized for. Create a post on this topic and check the ads you get for it. Instead of recipe ads you suddenly get ads on how to clean fish. Maybe they pay better. Maybe you suggest to your readers that the best method for cleaning a carp is found on so and so's book "Ten Ways to Skin a Big Ugly Carp". My point is - don't look for a set of steps that you follow on every niche. Use a broad outline to set up a blog and then be ready to modify it as you make progress.

This is getting epic once again so I will leave you with one last point. You need keyword anchored backlinks to get top ranking. You can play with your blog all you like but without backlinks you will never get the traffic needed to make a decent income. Getting backlinks are hard and time consuming but it has to be done so plan on spending most of your time working on them and not your blog. I need you to realize this because many of you will set up a perfectly optimized blog and then get frustrated when the traffic doesn't show up. If you are starting out pick a niche with little competition - set the blog up and you will find that you can get top ranking without a lot of backlinks. You won't get much traffic or make much money but it will show you that the system works. This will give you the confidence and more importantly the patience to tackle a better niche the next time.


Cheers,

Griz

see also; How to Make Money with Adsense and Optimization Tips for Adsense and Adsense for Feeds

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