There are many tweaks and factors you can use to increase your Google Adsense click through rate or CTR. Some of these factors include color, placement, and ad size. I once purchased an e-book called Triple Your Adsense CTR in Three Easy Steps. The writer of the e-book had tested out various colors and ad sizes and tracked them to determine which ones performed the best. Although I cannot reveal the results of his testing, I can say that the conclusion was to make your ads look less like ads and blend them into your website. This makes perfect sense when you think about it. Blending ads into your sites help prevent banner blindness and also gives your site a cleaner balanced look. Although sometimes making your Adsense ads stand out just a bit while still making them look like part of your site can increase CTR as well.

As you glance around this site you will see where and how I have placed my Adsense ads. I don’t use borders and I blend them into the site as much as I can, matching the colors to my site. Since Adsense does not allow its publishers to change the font size of the ads I just change my website’s fonts to match them. This makes the ads blend into my site almost seamlessly. The font sizes vary slightly depending on the size of ad you use, so you will want to place your ads on your site first before choosing your site’s font size and style.

On this site I don’t use the Adsense text links because I don’t feel for my target visitor they are as effective as the standard Adsense ads. My guess is that over time text link ads will get less and less responsive as more people realize they are ads. Just as most people choose not to watch only commercials when they watch T.V., people will rarely click on a link just to see ads. Since this site targets savvy Internet marketers, many of the visitors already recognize Adsense text link ads and will choose not to click on them. I personally never click on text links because I know I am just going to see a page of ads, whereas when I spot a regular Adsense ad, if I read it and I am curious I usually still click on it. I actually find myself clicking on standard Adsense ads quite a bit even though I know they are ads. Not on my own websites of course.

As for other sites, I use text link ads all the time. Although their earnings potential isn’t as great as standard Adsense ads since the visitor has to click twice (once on the link, then once on the ad), they still add to my potential income from Adsense and help my overall earnings. I also find that in less marketing savvy niches they seem to fair much better.

Overall the best way to increase your CTR is by testing. Google allows you to individually track different ad sizes and placements using “channels”. If you haven’t already started using them then I suggest you start immediately. You can easily increase your CTR once you begin to learn what works and what doesn’t for your specific site.

Personally, I use a combination on most sites of different sizes of ads and use the maximum amount that Google will allow. My testing has shown that I make more money when the visitor has more choices of ads to click on.

However, you shouldn’t do something just because I say it works for me. Your Adsense CTR will always be different depending on your website, your market, and how the visitors are arriving at your page. But if you track, test, and try new things you should be able to increase your CTR.

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One Comment on “Increase Your Google Adsense CTR”

1. 
   Comment by egon - May 1, 2007 @ 10:44 am

   You’re right about testing, be sure to use A/B testing, the best testing tool for Adsense there is.

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