These days there are many ways of making money on the Internet. One such way is the Google AdSense contextual advertising service. This service posts graphic and text ad blocks that match a site’s context. Site owner who posts these ads on their sites earns income for visitor clicks (when a visitor clicks an ad link) and for ad views.
As we know, how much income Google AdSense generates depends largely on the CTR (Click Through Rate). This factor is the ratio of the number of times an ad banner is clicked to the number of times that banner is viewed, and is usually measured as a percentage. For example, if your ad block is viewed 100 times, and one person clicks it, that ad block’s CTR is 1%.
To make Google AdSense more effective, you need to increase either your trafic or your CTR. Traffic is a hard thing to alter, but the CTR factor may indeed be increased by placing ad blocks more advantageously on the page, and by changing their appearance and content.
Try to see through the eyes of your site’s visitors. Think: are there things about your ad that might scare people off? What part of the page is the best location for the ad block?
- Under no circumstances should an ad block be framed by a border.
- Try to make your advertisement “blend in” as organically as possible into the page’s primary content. Don’t overdo it, though – otherwise the advertisement text could completely disappear into the primary content. Experiment with text colors and backgrounds.
- Try to place your ad block so that visitors will not need to scroll down to see it once the page has loaded.
- The advertisement text should be easy to read. Here, wide-format blocks have the advantage; these should be placed at the beginning of the content.
- On pages where visitors are drawn into reading a text, statistics show that the advertisements placed within that text achieve the greatest CTR.
- If the site content is not of particular interest to visitors, ad blocks should be placed at the top of the page.
- A good place for ad blocks is near navigation elements (menus, site maps, etc.).
- Constantly experiment with the location of your ad blocks: you never know which locations are best for your ads on which sites.
- Try using ad blocks of different sizes. Statistics show that advertisements measuring 336×280, 300×250, 160×600, and 728×90 enjoy the greatest CTR.
Finally, remember that you cannot achieve higher CTRs without experimenting. Don’t be afraid that this could have an occasional negative effect on your advertising income. In the end you’ll win every time.
Good luck, and happy sales!
